Akira Tozawa says his farewell.
Not to relitigate things for the thousandth time, it feels like to some extent, we’ve been talking about Akira Tozawa’s misuse by the company ever since he came back in 2011 after the greatest excursion of the modern era, but Dragon Gate never totally seemed to know what they had, and they eventually lost him. It’s one of the more heartbreaking departures of the era, in no small part because unlike many others, it’s not like he left to really do much of anything. Unlike others who left to go where he did, neither a prominent position on the card nor a chance to continue working at something near a high level awaited Akira Tozawa in America, and it simply seemed like a matter of pure cold math. If you’re going nowhere, why not get paid more to go nowhere, while getting to also hang out with your best friends and live in a much warmer climate? It’s beyond depressing, but Dragon Gate had the last half decade to do something, anything, with one of the most likeable and exciting wrestlers of his generation, and simply opted not to. The older I get, the more sympathetic I am towards the idea of “selling out”, and perhaps in no case is that stronger than with Akira Tozawa.
As a farewell present, Tozawa’s final Dragon Gate match winds up reuniting two of my three favorite units/teams in Dragon System history (Monster Express #1 in my heart and yours forever) in both Speed Muscle and, in what feels like a gift to me personally, New Hazard as well
To those uninitiated or at least less familiar with this era of the company (2010ish through this exact match), I don’t imagine you can love this in the same way that I do. The warning I put on the front of the 10/12/2016 elimination match holds true here, if not quite as strictly. I think you can probably enjoy this still, but if you haven’t been around, if you haven’t done your reading, if you don’t have those ten thousand hours so to speak, I don’t know that you can get the absolute most out of this.
(You certainly would not find yourself, at the end of this match, just shaking your head and laughing at Dragon Gate having YAMATO score the last win over Tozawa, once again referring to that writing on the wall of the office that directs them, before every booking decision, to ask how this benefits YAMATO.)
Mechanically speaking, this is sensational.
It’s the most effort I’ve seen put into a Dragon Gate six man in what feels like close to a decade, largely as a result of the circumstance of the thing. There’s no one big story, or really any one to speak of, having more in common with those Ring of Honor six mans than any Dragon System classics. It is just a collection of a handful of the best wrestlers in the company (and also BxB Hulk) trying as hard as possible for twenty eight minutes, given the main event slot of a pay-per-view, and all of the clearance that comes with that. It is beyond physically impressive, and a marvel of construction as many of the best matches like this are. Every combination is run through, and while certain ones have a way of really standing out (Shingo vs. Tozawa, Shingo vs. Yoshino, YAMATO vs. Yoshino, Doi vs. YAMATO), not a one of them is really lacking. Even the lesser ones get burned through fairly quickly. It’s one of the better examples ever of what this style can offer up at its best, a monument to the best of this company.
This match is not about the mechanical though.
Simply put, it is a match marking a clear end of an era for the company, and if you are not a fan of that era specifically, I don’t know that you can enjoy this match to the extent that many of the rest of us do.
The match is equal parts All Star Game and series finale.
Everything that happens is spectacular, and I feel it all so much. There’s a very special feeling to the entire thing, that one simply does not get all that often. The last time I felt it when watching and writing about a wrestling match was in Kenta Kobashi’s retirement match three and a half years prior, in which it felt as though everyone was trying to stretch it out as long as possible. Not out of any sense of grandeur or lofty ambitions for the quality of the match, but simply because once the match ended, something special would be over. This match is a celebration of a time and of a place that, as soon as the match ended, would no longer exist.
I miss it already.
The end of Dragon Gate’s Big Six era, and to their credit, they went out with a bang.
A fitting retirement match for, arguably, Dragon Gate’s heart and soul.
***1/2
HANDWERK 