BxB Hulk Vs. MAD BLANKEY (Naruki Doi/Cyber Kong/Kzy/Mondai Ryu), DG Scandal Gate 2014 (8/5/2014)

This was a commissioned review from Kale. You can be like them and pay me to write about anything you would like also, be it a match, a series of matches, a show, or whatever. The going price is $5/match (or if you want a TV show or movie, $5 per half hour), obviously make sure I haven’t covered it before (and ideally come with a link). If that sounds like a thing you’d like to do, head on over to www.ko-fi.com/elhijodelsimon and do that. If you have an idea more complex than just listing matches and multiplying a number by five, feel free to hit the DMs and we can work something out. 

This was for Hulk’s Open the Dream Gate Title.

Unlike many other unreviewed matches from 2014 and 2015, where there is (or was, certain accounts on certain sites are being Very Kind), this was never a hard match to get a hold of. The reason I had never written about it up until this point — and why in the present moment, it took nearly a day of looking at the review page and putting it off again, only to be trapped inside for days at a time by a blizzard to finally get to work here — is because it was simply not a match I ever wanted to write about.

Not to say it is bad.

The match is totally okay.

Doi is the only real great wrestler in this match, as Kzy hasn’t totally come into himself yet (that’ll come within the next year and a half), it’s not overly long or anything, but it is just a sort of very ordinary thing. You know when a DG main event turns it on, and from the first five or so minutes with the classic kind of meandering version of the K-Hall Brawl, with nothing of any real note and very little intensity or energy on display, that this is not going to be a match of much interest. It’s pure booking, and the problem is that the booking isn’t exactly all that inspiring either, as a heroic babyface fights the odds until he can’t anymore. Like the match itself, there’s nothing all that wrong with it, it’s just that it has little to offer besides being average and average is not all that impressive in a company like 2010-2016 Dragon Gate with a ceiling as high as the one they look up at.

The major problem mostly is that it is done in the service of BxB Hulk as the match’s  beleaguered babyface hero.

In this role, he does not have it.

BxB Hulk was Dream Gate Champion for ten or eleven months, and it is the least interested I was in Dragon Gate in the years in between like 2006 and 2017. Given what he’s gone on to do since and given the way everyone else I’ve ever talked about this promotion with also talks about it, I don’t think is is one of my spicier DG takes either. He was a dud as champion, simply not having the stuff to deliver in the ways I want my title matches to deliver, on top of having the Dragon Gate Brain Sickness as bad as anyone ever. Not a likeable babyface at this point really (good underdog in the mid to late 2000s when positioned more to his strengths though!), bad at striking, worse at selling, not really offering up anything in the way of cool moves or innovation or a sensational snap on his offense, and really offering up very little despite being the champion of a promotion with maybe more enjoyable acts per capita than any other in the country, if not all of wrestling, at this point.

I used to be a pretty big BxB Hulk fan way back when (will die to protect New Hazard), but whatever magic there was is gone, and matches based around making him sympathetic, wanting to see him overcome things, etc., are flawed in their very conception.

These things are not usually possible, and this is not a cast capable of pulling off a miracle.

Abstract of the talent involved though, I respect the idea of the thing a whole lot.

New champion against insurmountable odds, succeeding just enough for it to be impressive but without the booking entering unbelievable superman babyface territory, losing to bullshit but given a second chance on a bigger show in a one on one title match, leading to a match that I liked a lot more than this, as it is the best part of this match (runs in which Doi can lead BxB by the hand), expanded out to a full match.

It’s good, fine enough, and every thought I have about it instinctively ends with ”enough”, which is to say, it is less good or interesting on its own than it is directly NOT these things, or else my initial reaction would simply be to call it interesting or remarkable or good (or great), or some other phrase of actual praise. It’s a little basic and routine, a slight difference in that it is 1 on 4, but largely the same thing once the bell rings from a company capable of more than a thing like this, even during its lesser moments, and I don’t hate it. It’s just that ”I don’t hate it” isn’t the sort of feeling that sticks around for more than a minute after the match ends.

A decent piece of bullshit on paper, albeit from one of my least favorite times in Dragon Gate in the 2010s. There are many stellar examples of Dragon Gate Magic, but this isn’t one of them, and maybe shows off the exact limits of that magic to begin with.

MAD BLANKEY (YAMATO/Naruki Doi/Cyber Kong/K-Ness/Mondai Ryu) vs. Jimmyz (Jimmy Susumu/Ryo Jimmy Saito/Genki Horiguchi/Jimmy Kanda/Naoki Tanisaki), DG Dangerous Gate 2015 (8/16/2015)

This was a Losing Stable Must Disband elimination match.

Dragon Gate’s babyface leaning groups for the last two years have been about the past (Jimmyz), present (Monster Express), and the future (Millenials). With the present in the process of imploding as a result of Shingo Takagi’s recent change in attitude about the toughness of Monster Express, MAD BLANKEY has spent the last month trying to take over by destroying the past and the future. Ten days before this, MAD BLANKEY was in a similar match with our heroes the Millennials, and the bad guys won, forcing a promising young group to go their separate ways when YAMATO got the crushing win over T-Hawk. Given that that was a group that should have lasted for years and that the Jimmyz have lasted for the last three and a half years, it’s now completely believable that in order to bolster a do-nothing heel unit, the Jimmyz will also die. YAMATO pinning T-Hawk to destroy Dragon Gate’s future was a whole lot too on the nose, but this match presents a very interesting conflict. Dragon Gate’s aims for so long now have been to protect the past at all costs, but also that everything must somehow benefit YAMATO. It was never clear which was #1 and which was #2, but everything for the last half decade plus has seemed to come back to one of these two goals.

In this match, one will finally win out over the other, and it makes for an extra fascinating version of a match that’s already a guaranteed hit with the way this company is set up to work.

It’s one of two major pieces of DRAGON GATE MAGIC on this show.

Once things settle down from the always disappointing prerequisite arena walk and brawl, Dragon Gate once knocks it out of the park with a big multi-man once again. There are significant talent weaknesses here with guys like Kong, Ryu, and Kanda, but as usual, the action is fast enough and free flowing enough that no one man ever gets stuck in there for too long. Naoki Tanizaki, Mondai Ryu, and Jimmy Kanda find themselves eliminated first in short order, with Cyber Kong following via a miracle Backslide from Heaven, and the match comes down to its heaviest hitters and those with the ability to pack the greatest emotional punch. Susumu is able to grab his former old friend and partner K-Ness into a cradle to dispatch with him after a slight hesitation on the part of old K-Ness, and YAMATO ends Genki’s miracle run with the Galleria in similarly short order. It’s all very fun. Fast and wild, with great little short term payoffs sprinkled in throughout.

It’s when the match comes down to just YAMADoi vs. RyoSuka that it steps up to another level.

With four of the better Dragon Gate wrestlers in a match like this, it gets to that perfect space for said match like this, in which everything looks great, sounds great, and feels great. Saito is out first as the older one, as YAMATO and Doi have the regular experience that Susumu and Saito haven’t had together in years. Susumu Yokosuka then puts one one of his better performances in recent memory (save the all-time great tag in April) as the only one left. Doi goes out to the Jumbo no Kaichi and then Susumu and YAMATO absolutely kill it. KILL IT. It’s a match up that — like many match ups with both men — can be incredibly grating in longer title match settings. Susumu especially is maybe the all time offender for Bad DG Brain and Dream Gate Style, but in a setting like this that’s all action, he can really shine and do the things he does especially well. For his part, as unbelievably annoying as his push can be and as outright infuriating as it will be in the future, YAMATO rarely fails to rise to the occasion in a big match environment either. It’s all big and dumb bomb trading before a major emotional moment, and it completely rocks.

That old emotional punch comes in the end, and for once in Dragon Gate as it pertains to a big YAMATO match, it doesn’t land in your gut, but lands in that of the opposition. K-Ness avoids a misfire of the heel powder, but then comes right inside and throws it in YAMATO’s face on purpose to turn and save his friend. K-NesSuka run through a few old things, and Susumu puts MAD BLANKEY down with the Jumbo no Kaichi to win.

It’s far from a perfect match. It’s really rushed at points in the middle and I think the Jimmyz line up really missed out on Kagetora in a match like this while he was injured, as the other founding member alongside Susumu. The first section was also not great, and in general, some things should have been stretched longer and other things should have been tightened up. As someone who never cared for the Jimmyz in the way I’ve cared for other DG stables in the past (New Hazard, Monster Express, Millennial) or future (Masquerade) also, I was more satisfied to see a big K-Ness angle than I was to see the continuation of this group. For people of a different opinion, this match likely packs a far greater spiritual punch than it ever could to me.

In spite of all of that, it’s yet another major Dragon Gate match where everything comes together pretty wonderfully to create a big sensational moment. If not the best Dragon Gate can do or even the best version of this sort of a match in the 2010s, it serves as a stellar representation of everything about the company, and how well the positives of Dragon Gate can overcome the negatives.

***1/4

 

 

Monster Express (Shingo Takagi (c)/Masato Yoshino/Akira Tozawa/Uhaa Nation) vs. MAD BLANKEY (YAMATO (c)/Kzy/Cyber Kong/Mondai Ryu), DG Dangerous Gate 2014 (8/17/2014)

This was a Loser Revival Captains Fall elimination match.

The first part of that if either Takagi or YAMATO (as denoted by the (c) by the name) is pinned, the match would be over. Doesn’t matter if one of them is eliminated first or if it comes down to just the captains one on one at the end. When one of them is beat, the thing’s over. There’s a few different strategies that can be employed and a lot that can be done with this. It’s one of the more interesting versions of the big elimination match that Dragon Gate regularly employs. The second part of that means that when someone wins a fall, they can revive one eliminated member of their team per fall. It makes it a little harder to win, as a team has to really go on a streak. The psychology of it is all about stacking eliminations so that there will always be a man disadvantage no matter what. It’s goofy but like anything else, it’s just a gimmick and it can be made to work with the right booking and talent. It’s the sort of match like a Torneo Cibernetico that has its own sort of rhythm and way of storytelling to it, all about line ups and rotations.

You’d think that combining the two is some real hat-on-a-hat nonsense, that the use of each means that each is less effective and that it’s all sort of a mess.

You would be wrong.

It’s a little long to be a HOOT outright, but it’s an epic with hoot-like tendencies, to be sure.

Instead of creating a mess or folding to the pressures of one less than ideal line up, they utilize all the shortcuts and concepts available, using every tool in the toolbox create one of the most fun matches of the year, even if the Captain’s Fall part of this really only matters in the end.

Beyond just the exceptional pacing and layout of this, they use the rules so unbelievably well. The revival rules are used to create some exceptional long running bits, both comedic and serious. The highlight is Mondai Ryu repeatedly running back in when he’s revived and then getting immediately owned again. It leads to MAD BLANKEY forcing a brawl the third time so that there’s nobody in the ring to immediately destroy him, not that it stops Ryu from being clowned again later on. There’s also the habit of Cyber Kong easily throwing dudes out over the top for easy eliminations (it is Japan, after all), creating a lot more drama later on when those eliminations are teased and countered. The returns from elimination by Yoshino and Tozawa at a few points also double as these big hot tag runs. It’s just a very interesting and different sort of a match, which still hits on all these great hallmarks, but in a super unique sort of a way. They also go long enough going back and forth with it that it both feels like someone’s accomplished something when they finally begin to stack those eliminations and then breaks your heart when it’s MAD BLANKEY that does it. They get Uhaa out over the top, Tozawa with a Cyber Bomb, and then finally Yoshino with Kzy’s Tornado Clutch.

Shingo Takagi is forced to deliver another heroic against all odds babyface performance in an elimination match. He’s been doing it since becoming a good guy in 2008/2009, he’s better than anyone in the company in a match like this because of that, and he’s incredible here too. His rally gets Uhaa and Tozawa back in, they manage to get rid of Mondai and Kzy, but the order of re-entry rules fuck over Monster Express here and where the Captains Fall rules really take over and matter in a big and interesting way. They’re both offensive dynamos, but lack the special sort of thing Yoshino has. They both take Cyber Kong out of there, but it leads a still hurt and tired Shingo in there with a much fresher YAMATO. He’s been able to hang back for the last five minutes or so while everyone rained down on Shingo, leaving Shingo with a break of maybe a minute tops Shingo eventually can’t do it anymore, the toll of having to be a hero and do it all for this team down the stretch is just too much. YAMATO wins with the Galleria.

A heroic Shingo performance ends with a loss, but there’s a reason he had to be a hero in the first place. In a STUNNING turn of events, Monster Express has let down Shingo Takagi. You just hope losses like these don’t pile up and he doesn’t take it to heart. MAD BLANKEY isn’t better, but they were much better prepared for a match like this. YAMATO was never forced into heroism, and like in most sports, a well rested superstar tends to get the best of one who has to do everything for his team, even if the former isn’t always outright better than the latter individually.

One of the most fun matches of the year, and a not insignificant piece of DG storytelling. It’s online, Russian facebook. You’re all smart enough to figure out how to watch it.

***1/4