DG:UK “Yokosuka V Shingo 2″
Friday Sepetember 10th
Broxbourne Civic Hall

They were selling DG:UK shirts and there was a small selection of very nice Dragon Gate stuff from Japan, I picked up a very nice white ‘Veterans’ shirt and a towel to get signed the next day. Just as I was getting handed a bag with my stuff, Cima, Dragon Kid and Mochi came to the merch stand to flog the stuff, I was the only one there at the time and Cima wanted to shake my hand, which was pretty cool.

I don’t know if you’ve managed to get hold of the DVD from last year’s show/download it/whatever, but the ring was the same as last time and they had the signature blue and red curtains on the stage. I was sat in exactly the same seat on both nights, right next to the entranceway in the front row.

Read the full write-up after the break.

Dark Match: The All Stars def. The Leaders of the New School
You probably know more about these guys than I do, and you live in Canada! Marty Scurll (part of The Leaders) was on the show last year, you’ve probably at least heard of his partner Zach Sabre Jr., he was on the European NOAH show(s) in 2008.

Anyway, this was a pretty good match, really got the crowd going, lots of good stuff, I can’t remember much of it tbh, there was a pretty good tope which nearly took my head off though! This really got the crowd going, they were ready for the main show. This was also an IPW tag title match and we saw the titles change hands, not sure if anyone cared to be honest with you.

Cyber Kong def. Joey Hayes
No idea who Joey Hayes is, he’s quite a small bloke though. Kong did the whole pineapple thing, which was awesome to witness, I think this was his European debut. (?) Cyber destroyed him, Hayes got in very little offense. Kong picked up the win after a very hard powerbomb (probably the Cyber Bomb, I couldn’t see it properly, he was facing away from me).

Mark Haskins def. The Lion Kid
Again, don’t know if you’ve seen the show from last year, but I think The Lion Kid is a gimmick more suited to family-oriented shows, which this was not. Haskins was great, the crowd was strongly behind our new Dragon Gate hero Mark Haskins. At one point Haskins picked up Lion Kid in a wheelbarrow lift whilst stood on the apron and swung him shoulder first into the ring post! Haskins finally won with his brutal cradle tombstone piledriver variation. Lion got dropped hard on his head, must have legit hurt quite a bit.

SHINGO def. Susumu Yokosuka
Simply amazing. This was a rematch from last year. As you can imagine with these two, lots of VERY stiff elbow shots lariats, Yokosuka did the whole no-sell of elbow shots followed by him walking like a zombie, forcing Shingo into the ropes and then hitting the holy fuck out of him with a variety of elbows/lariats. Kong was out in Shingo’s corner distracting the Welsh ref all the time, their exchanges were hilarious to hear! Shingo picked up the win after what I thought was the 2nd or 3rd Made In Japan of the match, however, someone has pointed out to me that it was actually a Last Falconry. Excellent, excellent match, after the match they both agreed to have one more match, seeing as they are 1-1 in the UK. I can’t wait!

*INTERMISSION*

Naruki Doi def. Yamato (had to look that up, can’t remember this!)
I don’t remember much of this match, both countered each other’s big moves, I was so shocked when Doi went for the Muscular Bomb twice, but we all know he hurt his neck taking it last year, so he only uses it on huge shows. Doi hit Doi 555 twice, once normally and then once off the top rope. I think he won with the second Bakatare sliding kick of the night. It was a very good match, but it was also going to be hard to live up to the match that had preceded it.

Main Event: BxB Hulk, Pac and Yoshino def. Cima, Dragon Kid and Mochizuki
Amazing DG 6-man tag, better than the main event from last year. Yoshino did his fast stuff with Kid and I was so happy to see live the spot where Yoshino puts on that sick octopus-style hold on someone, Kid puts it on someone else and they start slapping each other whilst keeping the holds on! Hulk and Mochi traded disgusting kicks, I was going crazy for this, the kicks to the chest sounded so loud. PAC hit a nice dive to the outside in the middle of the match. World 1 got the win after Pac hit a ‘new move’ that he is supposedly calling the ‘Flaming Star Press’, no idea if this is true or not. It was a standard imploding 450 splash anyway and he stumbled a bit before he hit it, but it didn’t matter, the crowd went crazy for World 1!

Pac gave a speech at the end where he thanked everyone and called all the DG guys ‘real gents’ and said he really believes in the product. He told us to keep supporting Dragon Gate and UK wrestling. Someone threw a hat in the ring, which PAC put on for a bit and Yoshino put it on too, which will explain the picture! It was a really, really good show, it was better than the first show imo.

DG:UK “Invasion 2″
Saturday Sepetember 11th
St Ives, Burgess Hall

On the way to the meet and greet session I saw Cima going for a jog in a residential area with his headphones in, very surreal! He saw my veterans shirt and we waved at each other and shouted hello to each other. He looked very happy, probably pleased that we have the sun in the UK sometimes too!

Also, I walked passed Mochi within the same minute, I turned round and he looked a bit pissed off, so I decided to leave him alone, he was doing something on his phone. He could have kicked the shit out of me. ;)

The meet and greet was great, although the bloke who took the pictures for me managed to make me look like a dick in nearly all of them! >< Still, got everyone to sign my DG towel, need somewhere to put it now. I told Kong that I love his accent (he has a very strong American accent when he talks English), he didn't know what accent meant, but I think he understood in the end. All the guys looked happy and seemed to be having a great time, which was very nice to see! Alan4l who you have probably at least heard of was there in one of those Doi baseball shirts that are always being flogged at the end of Infinity, Doi was really impressed, he went "OOHHHHH!" and Cima asked "How to get?", wish I had friends in Japan like Alan does!

The set up inside the venue was the same as the night before, only this time there was an entrance walkway thing like in WCW and there were more lights and a smoke machine.

Dark match: Xtreme Dean def. Stixx
The only thing I can really remember from this is that the crowd were coming up with some hilarious Eastenders themed chants to shout at Stixx, who slightly resembles Phil Mitchell. Dean won, I don’t really remember/care how, this was nowhere near as good as the dark match the night before.

Cyber Kong def. Marty Scurll
Scurll brought a banana to the ring. Kong threw a ripped up pineapple at him, Scurll bit into it and drank the juice, grabbed a banana and broke it in half to show his brute strength.

Scurll got in a few more of his moves than Kong’s opponent the night before, but Kong won again, probably with a Pinepple Bomber. (Sorry mate, I can’t remember and I can’t find out on the web).

Yoshino def. Lion Kid
Can’t really remember much of this, Yoshino got the win after trapping Lion in the Sol Naciente, he tapped immediately.

Yokosuka def. Mochizuki
I couldn’t possibly say if I liked this more than Shingo/Yokosuka from the night before. Loads of hard kicks from Mochi, loads of lariats from Yokosuka. It was really brutal. At one point they traded exploder suplexes, must have done about 6 between them, one being an avalanche version by Yokosuka. I was cheering for Yokosuka the night before, but I wanted to see Mochi win this one, Yokosuka won in the end with what I would describe as a Jumbo No Kachi! to a kneeling Mochi, straight into a pin, cannot remember the name of this, I’m pretty sure it has one. This was just a crazy match, I’d like to know how Yokosuka can be in 2 matches of such intensity 2 nights in a row, he’s a machine.

*INTERMISSION*

Joint main event: BxB Hulk & Naruki Doi def. Yamato & Shingo
Like I said before, this is probably the best match I’ve ever seen live, which isn’t saying much (been to 4 Impact tapings in Orlando, 2 TNA house shows over here, the DG show last year and some rubbish All Star show featuring Tatanka), still, it was just incredible. I don’t think I can really describe it and do it any justice at all. Yamato hit the Galleria on Doi for a near-fall, it was crazy seeing that live. I cannot remember what won the match, think it was a sliding kick again.

Joint main event: Mark Haskins & PAC def. CIMA & Dragon Kid
Crazy match, again! Loads of great spots, the best being a springboard frankensteiner on Haskins who was on Cima’s shoulders, who was sat on the turnbuckle, the move threw Haskins onto a laid out Pac in a senton stylee. Very good shit. So many things happened, can’t possibly remember them all, crowd was all for Haskins and Pac though. The finish came when Haskin’s did his sick piledriver on Kid who then got hit by Pac’s 360 Shooting Star Press, Cima was laid out infront of me on the floor but didn’t get up in time to make the save, despite me telling him he was going to lose. *rolls eyes* ;)

Great show, last 3 matches were so strong that I would have to say this is the best show they’ve put on in the UK. Haskins gave a little speech at the end of the match and they brought all the DG guys out from the back for a photo in the ring. There was tension between Pac and Kid, who seemed to be challenging for Pac’s Brave Gate title, which he had with him btw.

You can view some of his photos at his Picasa Web Album.

Thanks again to Charlie for sending over this great write-up. Sounds like it was a fantastic show.

Nevertheless, it has been a very busy time in DG with some surprising results in the Tag League. I won’t post all the results so far as there have been too many, but the current standings are thus:

Yasushi Kanda & Kenichiro Arai [10]
Naruki Doi & Naoki Tanisaki [7]
Masato Yoshino & BxB Hulk [7]
Susumu Yokosuka & KAGETORA [4]
Masaaki Mochizuki & Katsuhiko Nakajima [4]
YAMATO & Shingo Takagi [2]
Akira Tozawa & Dragon Kid [2]
Kzy & Cyber Kong [0]
CIMA & Gamma [0]

Now clearly CIMA and Gamma are out of contention, but in a surprising move they claimed to have stolen the former Twin Gate belts (the blue ones that were retired at World) and have issued a challenge to the Kubota Brothers in Nagoya. They have named the belts the Open the Neho Gate championship. It would appear that Neho has no meaning.

Go figure.

1. Yuki Sato (9.23 German Suplex Hold) Kotoka Shiiba
2. Tiger Jeet Kiku (3:46 Cobra Claw) Tiger Jeet Ichikawa
3. Gamma & K-ness (10:38 Gamma Special) Gran Hamada & Super Shenlong II
4. Don Fujii & Naoki Tanizaki (14:15 Japanese Leg Roll Clutch Hold) Takashi Okita & Kento Miyahara
5. Minoru Fujita & KAGETORA (16:27 Minoru Special) “Jr.” Hayato & Takeshi Minamino
6. Masaaki Mochizuki vs. Katsuhiko Nakajima – Double KO (21:21 Double High Kick)

Thanks to PuroLove.com

1. YAMATO (16:13 Gallaria) BxB Hulk
2. 2 Cold Scorpio (15:34 Moonsault) Ken Doane
3. Chikara Offer Match: Mike Bush Quack, Jigsaw, Fire Ant & Soldier Ant (18:37 Jig n’ Tonic)Hi Wicked, Amasis, Gran Akuma & Icarus
4. Dragon Kid (12:57 Ultra Huracanrana) Masato Yoshino
5. Nick Jackson & Matt Jackson (17:02 More Bang For Your Buck) CIMA & Susumu Yokosuka
6. Naruki Doi (22:34 Muscular Bomb) Shingo Takagi

Sorry I’m a bit late on posting the results for this. Dragon Gate USA held their first event over the weekend in Philadelphia and from the reports I’ve been hearing, it went down a treat. Sounds like every match save for Scorpio vs Doane was very good, especially the last three. BxB Hulk seemed to be seriously over also.

They announced that there will be a one night tournament to crown the new Dragon Gate USA only Open the Freedom Gate champion. This will be happening on September 6th. Smart money is on CIMA, perhaps over Hulk in the finals.

-UPDATE-
Seems I made a mistake on my timeline here. It looks like the OFG title will be decided at the Philadelphia show on November 28th. The September 6th show will be headlined by Doi vs Danielson and Shingo vs Davey Richards. (Thanks Marty).

No major surprises here. Kzy used the Canadian Destroyer to take out Naoki and it sounds like Arai used a protein attack on YAMATO leading to the loss, so his face turn and move to KAMIKAZE seems 100% confirmed now. That’s kinda depressing. Apparently new Twin Gate belts were also introduced at the end of the match.

Doi beating CIMA makes Doi the 14th Brave Gate champion and the undisputed singles champion in Dragon Gate. With the exception of the Tri-Gate and Twin Gate I think my predictions were pretty much spot on, which is a shame because I felt like they were pretty safe bets. I’ve yet to hear reports as to how the show was but I’m hoping they know what they are doing with this turn of events.

1. Ryo Saito, Cyber Kong & Genki Horiguchi (W) (11:09 Backslide from Hell) Masaaki Mochizuki, Don Fujii & K-ness (L)
2. Shingo Takagi & YAMATO (W) (12:04 CBV) Anthony W. Mori & Super Shisa (L)
3. Susumu Yokosuka & Gamma (10:51 RH intrusion leading to DQ) Yasushi Kanda & Kenichiro Arai
4. Naruki Doi (W) & BxB Hulk (13:47 Crucifix hold) CIMA & KAGETORA (L)
5. Dragon Kid, Taku Iwasa (W) & Akira Tozawa (16:28 Noshigami) Masato Yoshino, Naoki Tanizaki (L) & PAC

Credit: PuroLove.com

1. Anthony W. Mori & Super Shisa (W) (9:06) Masato Yoshino & Keirin Man (L)
2. K-ness (6:59) Jackson Florida
3. Naruki Doi & BxB Hulk (W) (8:34) Taku Iwasa & Akira Tozawa (L)

1. KAGETORA (7:41 Camel Clutch) Kotoka Shiiba
2. Super Shisa (6:34 Shisa Clutch) Sychahiko Machine
3. Super Shenlong II 50 Series 16th Match: Kzy (11:50 knee lock) Super Shenlong II
4. Taku IWASA & PAC(W) (12:42) Akira Tozawa(L) & Shisa BOY

Credit: PuroLove.com

1. Shingo Takagi(W), Dragon Kid & Akira Tozawa (12:49) Yasushi Kanda(L), Genki Horiguchi & Kzy
2. Kenichiro Arai (6:07) Anthony W. Mori
3. Naoki Tanizaki(W) & PAC (11:27) K-ness(L) & Taku IWASA
4. Masaaki Mochizuki(W) & Don Fujii (9:10) Super Shisa & Super Shenlong II
5. Susumu Yokosuka (15:55) Ryo Saito
6. YAMATO (19:14 No Contest due to RH intrusion) Cyber Kong
7. CIMA(W), Gamma & KAGETORA (27:10) Naruki Doi(L), Masato Yoshino & BxB Hulk

Credit: PuroLove.com

It appears that YAMATO formally joined KAMIKAZE today after the intrusion and blue box from RH during his match with Cyber Kong. KAMIKAZE came to the rescue and the match was declared a no contest. It should also be noted that YAMATO has currently given up the black/blue colours of Real Hazard in favour of black/red tights. One has to wonder just where they are taking this as RH is currently left leaderless and YAMATO, one of DG’s hottest stars is left as a number 2 in Kamikaze.

Obviously it is all leading up to something big at World in just over a week’s time, but I just hope they don’t ruin the hot streak of YAMATO here. For now, I’m keeping the faith.