This was for MX’s Open the Triangle Gate Titles.
Not every match like this is always going to deliver. You get matches like this that don’t have great line ups. Lesser guys on a Dragon Gate roster, be them younger and less experienced wrestlers who just aren’t great yet or be it guys who simply are not that good. A lot of matches like these have focused on guys like a Cyber Kong in the past or an underachieving Shimizu in the future. A lot of them spend too long on one section or another, meaning some things either get too long to develop without having the stuff to develop or they have to rush through things at the end.
In this match, none of those issues were present, and so this is Dragon Gate’s best multi-trio in some time. Certainly its best that didn’t have the time and allowances of a main event slot in a real long time.
Mostly, that’s for the most plain and obvious reasons.
Firstly, the construction is perfect.
The elimination of the first team comes at what feels like a point around the middle, or at least in between the middle and final thirds, so that each section gets the chance to totally breathe. The frantic sort of mostly-action fireworks show allows that first team out (Tribe Vanguard) to show off, and then there’s a more narrative driven back section, where everyone has just enough time to have The Fear put into them with a series of CIMA nearfalls against eternal booking enemy Akira Tozawa, before everyone gets to unload. It all escalates pretty perfectly, and in ways you might not always expect, with some different combinations we don’t always get a whole lot of.
Another strength of this match is the way it makes use of the best things everyone can do. You go to work with the tools you have, and for once, I mean that in a way that is highly complimentary of everything in a match’s work bag.
Virtually every match has a weak link when you go by the pure definition of the term (one aspect of the thing will always be the worst aspect, this is sort of the deal with ranking things, “worst” doesn’t always mean bad, words are fun), but those weaker links are either not asked to do much of anything (BxB Hulk) or only asked to do a series of hyperathletic and ultra-impressive power and/or flying spots (Kaasa), in effect not allowing anyone to ever know that weaknesses exist in this particular crop of talent. Everyone else is given free reign to do all the best stuff that they do, and they all get it as right as ever, from inciting brief fear that they would go over all the younger and more likeable talents (CIMA) to inspiring the hope that they can fight back despite being murdered for minutes in a row (Kzy) to doing all of the coolest offense in the world and being the decade’s greatest babyface act (Monster Express). It’s all here.
This is a match that offers up every reason to watch Dragon Gate, impossibly cool, fun, and frantic wrestling, with the benefit of also being the sort of thing you always hope for but don’t always get out of the company too, which is all or most of the most interesting and endearing wrestlers getting to succeed. It’s especially fantastical given the very end, in which Tozawa gets Dragon Kid with the Package German to win, after fighting through CIMA trying to help his little buddy out.
It’s hardly the title match victory Akira Tozawa should have had on this show, but it’s also maybe the last moment of real triumph he’ll ever get to have in this company (can’t imagine why this is the end of Dragon Gate’s peak???), and it’s still something that just feels really good.
The exact sort of fireworks show you turn on a Dragon Gate show in the hopes of seeing. You get maybe one of these perfect DG samplers a year, and this is 2016’s.
***1/4
HANDWERK 