Shingo Takagi and BxB Hulk have once again run afoul of each other.
With Tozawa and Yoshino busy defending Dragon Gate’s two major singles titles though, Shingo Takagi has zero faith in anyone else in Monster Express at this point, namely Shachihoko BOY. Instead, Takagi has opted for an outside guest in Tanaka, following their meeting earlier in the year, seeing him as someone actually on his level (the unspoken thing: unlike Shachihoko BOY).
It’s another delightful Dragon Gate undercard tag.
Shingo and Tanaka obviously bring a certain stylistic difference to the usual proceedings. Big R has always been kind of a fraud at this kind of style, only ever having the size but rarely the intensity and force to his strikes unless pushed, but the match smartly puts him on the backburner. Given the bad title reign of BxB Hulk and less than stellar run leading his own stable in 2014-2015, one might consider this a mistake if one only recently began watching, but the real trick is that BxB Hulk’s calling has ALWAYS been as a babyface tag team worker, especially in matches featuring Shingo Takagi.
Although the optimum pairing is them together, this still hits all the same buttons, and one of Dragon Gate’s all time great pairings does it again. It’s Kobe World, these two once had one of the great matches in the history of the show and the promotion half a decade prior, and they manage to pretty much turn back the clock entirely in this match.
That isn’t to entirely discredit the other two. Big R can occasionally be pressured into living up to his name, and Tanaka does great as a guest star. All of his stuff looks and sounds wonderful, he still has just enough in him to come in and hit his marks and look fantastic. The table splash spot is beyond shoehorned in at this point, but at the same time, it’s a cool splash through a table and in a match based around a lot of cool stuff, it’s a fine mid match spot. So, it’s not as if the other people in this match don’t contribute.
It’s the Shingo vs. BxB show though, and it’s a god damned BLAST. BxB looks more motivated than he’s been since turning face again over a year ago, and Shingo continues to lean further and further into a more aggressive side that he’s started to show since the spring. In this iteration, they’re perfect for each other, and after years of trying to do it with the roles flipped (the ideal version is both men working face as in their 2010 apuestas), it’s just awesome to see it work again.
The key part of it working again, of course, is that Shingo runs through BxB Hulk, and there is nothing he can do about it. No force of nature and no act of God stands in the way of the same thing happening again, especially when Shingo has a much much better partner. Big R is a puppy with medium paws, he’s no match for Tanaka, and Shingo is free to gun down BxB. Pretty boy never gets going with the bombs like he has to, and Shingo is especially insistent on making a show of it like he used to, leading to the umpteenth Pumping Bomber taking Hulk’s head off for the win.
Another ideal DG undercard match here, delivering a lovable bombfest and at the same time, furthering some real interesting character stuff. All while shutting up and playing the hits with as much verve and speed as always.
A real hoot.
HANDWERK 