Masato Yoshino vs. Shingo Takagi, DG Dangerous Gate 2015 (8/16/2015)

This was for Yoshino’s Open the Dream Gate title.

The match maybe goes on too long. It maybe gets a little repetitive. However, given the strengths of the story, the match as a whole, and the individual performances, it’s the sort of weakness that holds the match from being even greater, instead of ruining all the good that they’ve done. What they do is something real special in this company and for this title especially.

If not at the very top of the list with your Yoshino/YAMATOs, Yoshino/T-Hawks, and Mochizuki/Kzys, it’s one of the better Dream Gate matches of the decade. As always, that means a potent mix of some incredibly cool shit with a great story, and no major mistakes that impede the success of either.

The story does at lot of heavy lifting for them before the bell even rings.

When Monster Express formed in 2013, it was a super group. Shingo Takagi, Masato Yoshino, and Akira Tozawa. Ricochet and Uhaa Nation followed. Specifically, it formed out of the ashes of what was supposed to be Shingo Takagi’s big Dream Gate run, only for it to be ruined in a month by YAMATO at Dangerous Gate 2013. In the time since, Monster Express has seen Masato Yoshino do what Shingo couldn’t, repeatedly. It’s also seen the departure of Ricochet and Uhaa Nation, with their strength and skill replaced only by Yoshino’s little buddy Shachihoko BOY. Shingo Takagi has spent most of the year getting madder and madder about Monster Express, sent over the edge by being the odd man out a few times too many, and then the upset success of Amigo Tag in the spring. He’s bullied Shachihoko BOY for everything possible, and when Yoshino responded to T-Hawk’s performance at Kobe World and the split of the Millennials by inviting him to join them, Shingo finally also tore into Yoshino, leaving poor Akira Tozawa stuck in the middle when Yoshino retaliated to try and fix Shingo’s rotten attitude through violence, since placating him for months hasn’t worked. It’s a wonderful story that they’ve taken the time to tell here, with what was more of an equal partnership in 2013 having slowly shifted into Masato Yoshino being the clear leader due to winning the Dream Gate twice in that time, while Shingo hasn’t done so well. It’s a slow building heel turn, but one that also feels like the natural way the character would respond when success stopped coming as easily and he was surrounded by wrestlers who don’t wrestle like he likes, save for little buddy Tozawa.

The match itself does a tremendous job, both of allowing all of this to play out over half an hour, but also at just being a simple and great main event title match.

A major problem in Dream Gate matches can be time killed or things that don’t matter, and there’s relatively little of that here. Shingo jumps Yoshino at the start. Yoshino works the arm as soon as he can. Takagi’s selling is not GREAT, but seeing as he is who he is and they’re in the company that they’re in, it’s completely acceptable. Part of is that he really does try. He flexes the arm funny after certain moves, holds it a certain way, and never seems to forget that his arm is supposed to be operating at something beneath 100%. The other part of it is that the story totally accounts for this relative weakness in his game and they build a match that doesn’t require more than that.

In general, the story of the match is Shingo’s increasing aggression compared to Yoshino. He has a habit of catching Yoshino’s fancier stuff early on, and forcing Yoshino into more of a striking battle as a result. He’s more immediately willing to do horrible things to Yoshino than Yoshino is to him, such as a Tombstone Piledriver on the apron within the first third of the match, and REALLY going after the neck. Yoshino is aggressive, but it all seems in the service of the win and proving a point, whereas Takagi’s attacks all feel much meaner. Takagi always has something ready and it’s always gross and extra sharp, like he’s actually spent the entirety of his Monster Express run simply scouting Masato Yoshino.

It’s the difference between someone who’s been ready for this and who knows something is over compared with someone who still believes there’s something left to save.

Shingo picks apart Masato Yoshino for most of the match, deconstructing him in slow motion. Yoshino isn’t as ready for Shingo as Shingo was for him and he’s not as mean spirited either. He goes with the usual, and the usual doesn’t work. Definitionally, Dragon Gate can never do Vader vs. Sting, but this is the closest they’ve ever come. If not to the concrete realities of that match up, then certainly to the feeling. Shock and awe at the brute force and the hostility with which it’s applied, followed by pockets of hope, each being shut down more and more brutally. Like that first Sting/Vader match, there’s a little luck involved too, as Shingo falls down in the Sol Naciente just barely by the ropes, and allows him the escape. There was one chance, and as unfair as it was that it didn’t work, it’s now not only a door closed, but one padlocked shut.

The match reverts to what it was at the start, with Yoshino having no choice but to just try and hang. He has the one god damner of a Lariat that’s been able to stun lesser men in key moments, but here it happens once the arsenal has already been exhausted. With nowhere else to go but repetition, Shingo eventually catches him again like he has been all match. Yoshino dies on his feet, having enough to survive the Pumping Bomber that Shingo’s started to use more and more as a finish, before Takagi finally regains the title with the Last Falconry.

As a bell to bell piece of work, it’s exceptional. A bombastic show that satisfies the dumb monkey part of the brain that shrieks in delight at loud noises and bright lights, with all the emotional staying power of all the best wrestling booking.

Where this goes a step further is after the match, as Shingo Takagi attacks Shachihoko BOY when he tries to tend to an unconscious Yoshino, before shit talking a storm. Akira Tozawa finally stands up for himself, once by stopping the assault, and later by denying Takagi when he tries to break up Monster Express for good by splitting it in two, with Tozawa coming with him. Tozawa especially puts a lot into it, bordering on tears with what seems like a doomed plea to stop what he’s doing. There’s no subtitles, I have no idea what they’re saying, but Tozawa’s acting alone puts it over the top and becomes just a little bit heartbreaking.

It’s a perfect set up for the Shingo Dream Gate match that we never get. There’s time to bemoan that later. Dragon Gate’s sort of like WWE in this regard though. They love to eat their young, and so you should never really expect anything. You should never assume anything will last outside of the immediate moment. You’ll go insane otherwise, and God knows that I have. It’s all about individual moments, which is fine here because they don’t make too many better ones than this.

Top to bottom, including post-match, it’s one of the best pieces of pro wrestling of the year, and in the history of the company.

***1/2