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You don’t always know when you’re there for history.
Hundreds of pieces by now have been written on this, and dozens more on the influence. One match led to a hyperbolic rating after likely not having watched these guys too often despite a status as an arbiter of taste with a predilection for this sort of wrestling. This led to repetition for the next to WrestleMania weekends, U.S. indie guys going to Dragon Gate more and more often, jokes about CIMA’s ethnic preferences, and eventually, an entire U.S. independent offshoot adjacent to Dragon Gate, which eventually morphed into one of the better promotions of the next decade. Beyond things like the Spiked Mohicans or the Nightmare Violence Connection, there’s a line that, no matter how indirect, goes from this match to Timothy Thatcher shouting at a room full of degenerates in New York City that, to use his words, he’s fucking winning.
So, it’s fairly noteworthy.
Going to this show, I had no idea. I wanted to go because ROH put on great shows for the Chicago area. I wanted to see the main event, I wanted to see the AJ Styles and Generation Next tag, and I wanted to see Samoa Joe. This was something else that was also there, because in my fandom, I frankly wasn’t all the way there yet.
To be totally honest, if you came to this for my historical analysis on what it meant to me in the way that you can find for a lot of other 2000s Ring of Honor matches to take place in Chicago Ridge, you are not going to get it. While in the moment, obviously this was a deeply impressive match, it wasn’t what I left the show raving about. Not only was it an obscenely long show, but with the Danielson/Strong main event — although far too long — playing more to my sensibilities, as well as the Styles/Sydal vs. Aries/Evans tag hitting a similar zone, this didn’t leave some insane mark on me immediately, beyond a general feeling (one capitalized on later when I found Totally Legal access to such things in the fall of 2006) that I would like to see more of these guys.
In retrospect, it is very very cool to say I was here for this. `
Fuck historical relevance though, because the greatness of this match, while persevering in legend because of that and its influence, has very little do with that, and way more to do with the fact that it’s just a really really god damned great. It’s not my favorite, I’ve always thought it was overrated by people who never actually watched Dragon Gate beyond these guest spots and on some days I also might say that Generation Next vs. Blood Generation the night before was even better, but it is inarguably great.
The first thing that comes to mind is that while this is always talked about purely as some great fireworks show, much like the Michinoku Pro match at ECW Barely Legal that it is so often compared to, for good reason, it isn’t totally.
Yes, in the last third of the match, the fireworks come and they are so impressive. Yes, this is a match that is full from start to finish with tons of cool shit. Yes, absolutely, you can see the influence of a match of a match like this (or as haters would tell you not totally unfairly, many such Dragon Gate tags from the time, like the even better Kobe World 2005 BG vs. Do FIXER six man) on so much modern wrestling that tries and fails to emulate it, but the devil continues to reside in the details, and that’s where this match still excels nearly twenty years later.
Because truthfully, while there are so many sights and sounds, blindingly bright and startlingly loud in equal measure and although they can legally vote at this point, that still pack a punch, to behold and fall in love with, what this never has going for it and what so many to try and walk in its footsteps only to get lost in how big they are do not is that, at its core, this is just formula tag team wrestling.
While so many would-be successors, many from the company itself in attempts to live up to this overseas (really, the 2008 ROH version of this is the only one to come close), skip past and go right to the fireworks at the expense of everything else, skipping through or entirely past foundational work and periods of control, this never does. It’s very clearly segmented into thirds, and on top of displaying a simple sort of functional awareness of the construction of a thing like this, also seems to get that many people here are seeing all of them for the first time. They go through pains to, although never labored and obvious, slowly introduce themselves as well as the style, with a gradual increase not only in pace, but in the big double and triple teams and the trademark ten thousand balls juggling in the air sequences in the back half. The good guys control after a feeling out process, the bad guys have to really work to take over in a way that makes it feel like a victory, which then has the effect of the comeback feeling like its own victory in equal measure, putting together a clear foundation for the big finishing run stuff everyone remembers.
The trick is not only in laying a foundation on a basic narrative level, the struggle for control eventually breaking loose leading to the good guys winning when they can exploit match up weaknesses, but also on a mechanical one. Everything in this match builds, and it does so steadily. It is so easy to forget, I likely will a week or two after writing and publishing this, but so much of the reason the last third of this hits with the force it does is because it takes the baseline established so far and goes insane in the process of smashing through it, while also maintaining such a perfect structure as well — one major kick out for each side to enhance the drama, big saves, every single move in the final minutes — that you get the best of all worlds.
In short, the masters (although in Doi and Yoshino’s cases, the younger ones) are at work, and deliver a show of just why they have that status to begin with.
When it’s time, all six fire off what they have, and although in retrospect it’s probably only like 50% of what they have at their disposal, it is exactly the right amount for this moment. The match is somewhat held back, and yes absolutely, if you watch more from the promotion they came from, you likely have at least five to ten big tags you like as much as this if not more. It is not 8/30/2003 or anything in terms of lunacy. But it works, it works so well, it’s one of the all-time great meetings between knowing what you have to do for a specific audience while leaving a lot in the tank but also just absolutely killing it at the same time.
Dragon Kid beats Doi with the Dragon Rana, and the true beauty of the match lies in the fact that while I still don’t love it, I also cannot seem to praise it quite enough. Not one of one exactly, an advertisement for a product that I badly wish more who saw it bought into, and that I myself wish I didn’t take another six months to begin watching myself, but a special special thing.
One of the great spectacles in wrestling history.
***1/2
HANDWERK 