Dragon Gate PPV 28th August 2004

Match 1
Bat vs. Iron Perm: Catcher Fuji vs. Second Doi
This match is a grudge bout following Fuji’s recent jibes at Doi’s character. I’m not 100% sure of the stipulation, but I believe if Doi wins he gets his bat back, but if Fuji wins Doi has to get a iron perm hairstyle. Doi starts this one off quick by diving on Fuji before the bell, but Fuji soon takes advantage of Doi having injured ribs by working on them. Doi made his fightback despite consistent work on the injury, and getting the Doi 555 for a near fall. Doi managed to survive outside interference and a Chokeslam. Doi reversed a second and got the Bakatare Sliding Kick for a nearfall, but Fuji rolled him up for three. Average until a great final few minutes- **

Match 2
Final M2K (Keni’chiro Arai and Masaaki Mochizuki) vs Aagen Iisou (Shogo Takagi and Brother YASSHI)
This match went pretty slow for the first few minutes, for YASSHI made a break for the door with Mochi chasing him down. Arai got the Dragon Suplex, but the ref was pulled out, then the other members of Aagen Iisou interfered, beating down Arai allowing him to be pinned- 1/2*

Match 3
Florida Brothers vs. Magnum TOKYO
The Florida Brother totally mock Magnum by wearing his mask to the ring and doing extremely bad dancing, then Magnum shows up late for his pre-match dance. Essentially your regular Florida Brothers awesome comedy match, with much of the same jokes as you would see in their regular matches: the best bit would be Genki and the ref getting involved, only for the ref to reverse the wristlock spot and hit a Headscissors Takedown. There was a very creative Hip Toss spot too (with the ref giving himself one). Magnum didn’t fall for as many of the comedy spots. Another great spot see’s the ref hit a Hurracarana inadvertently on Tokyo to get three. The finish saw Michael put on Tokyo’s mask, hit the ref with a DDT, and then quickly put the mask on Tokyo to make it seem as if he did it, causing the DQ for Tokyo- *1/2 wrestling, **** comedy

Match 4
Italian Connection (YOSSINO, Anthony W. Mori) vs. Aagen Iisou (Shuji Kondo, Takuya Sugawara)
This is the beginning in Dragon Gate of the Mori/Sugawara feud. Kondo starts the match quick by brawling with YOSSINO into the crowd, while Mori and Sugawara brawl in the ring. Much of this match is a series of heated exchanges between Mori and Sugawara, with the others getting involved and helping their partners when needed. It made for a good dynamic and an entertaining match. Mori can close to victory several times, but Kondo’s involvement stopped this fairly quickly. The ref was eventually thrown out for the DQ- **1/4

Match 5
Crazymax (CIMA, TARU) vs. Do Fixer (Genki Horiguchi, Ryo Saito)
Solid tag match here. It starts fairly even in the early going, with an exchange of submission holds and double team moves, as well as some hard hitting strikes. Genki was the one to be isolated, making the mistake of trying to exchange kicks with TARU. They toy with him, using some nasty cheating tactics (such as a blatant kick to the groin) and submissions. He made the tag after the HAGE chants, and he and Saito made their fightback. Both teams got some near falls following their signature moves, before CIMA pinned Genki with the Schwein. Kind of average tag match overall, it never had all that much heat or anything special- **

Match 6
Open the Dream Gate Next Challenger 4 Way Match: Susumu Yokosuka vs. Milano Collection AT vs. Dragon Kid vs. Touru Owashi
The winner of this match will be the official next challenger for CIMA’s title belt, which he was presented with earlier in the show. All four are in the ring at the same time for this one, and I believe the rules are you have to untie the turnbuckle pads, and if you get the right slip inside you win: yet pinfall and submission seem to count too? And it’s elimination as well. Aagen Iisou interfered during much of this match, trying to help Owashi get the win, but it often proved ineffective. There were some very fun spots in this one: Milano tying up everyone in submissions so they can’t interfere being one of them.
Milano is actually first to go, following a Yokosuka Lariat. Following this, Kid and Yokosuka briefly team up to try and topple the larger man, but this doesn’t last long. Owashi throws Yokosuka into a pile of chairs outside the ring, allowing Owashi to untie some turnbuckle pads, not finding the right ones and thus eliminating himself. He proceeds to him everyone with extremely weak looking chair shots, before Keni’chiro Arai makes the save.
Dragon and Yokosuka have some good ending exchanges, with both men going for turnbuckles and trying to eliminate each other with big high impact moves, but none of them can get the win. Yokosuka pins Kid with the Yokosuka Cutter, then gets the correct pad to win the title shot. Overall a good main event, but the over interference by Aagen Iisou annoyed me, and the rules were a bit confusing- **3/4

This was a disappointing PPV in my view. There were no real standout matches, other than the overbooked (in my opinion) main event and the Florida Brothers match. Everything was solid enough but there were no must see matches, so I can’t highly recommend this show.

5/10

Dragon Gate PPV 1st August 2004

This is Dragon Gate’s first PPV following the split with Toryumon. Note that my copy appears to be a bit jumpy, likely due to the DVD not being in the best condition, so I may end up not seeing all the show due to skipping or problems with the picture. .

Match 1
Do Fixer (Magnum TOKYO, Dragon Kid, Genki Horiguchi) vs. Italian Collection (Anthony W. Mori, Milano Collection AT, YOSSINO)
Genki has a spray come out of his head for his intro: awesome. I have to say this was a really fun, entertaining tag match, which mixed comedy with good wrestling, which is what I like in DG six man tags. After some very entertaining opening exchanges, Genki was worked over as per usual, then everyone pulled out all their big signature moves later on in the match. The Italian Collection pulled off lots of big double team moves here, but could not get three, and soon Mori would fall victim to Tokyo’s Egoist Driver for three. Great opener- ***

Match 2
Naoki Tanisaki Surfing the Way to Do FIXER Trial Finale: Shogo Takagi vs. Naoki Tanisaki w/Brother YASSHI
Tanisaki tries jumping Takagi a the bell to little effect, but the match goes back and forth early on with Tanisaki taking the match to Takagi. Takagi however soon begins to dominate with punches and a bit of cheating. Tanisaki managed to get in some high risk moves: he then had the match won with the Implant but YASSHI distracted the ref. Tokyo then interfered, hitting Tanisaki with the blue box to allow Takagi the win. Solid but nothing memorable- **

Match 3
Don Fujii vs. Ryo Saito
A solid big man (well, big for Dragon Gate) match. They exchanged a lot of hard hitting strikes early, with Fujii generally getting the upper hand. Saito had to change his gameplan somewhat, pulling out some high flying moves, but they rarely seemed to prove effective against Fujii’s powerful, hard hitting style. Fujii managed to sneak in a rollup out of nowhere and got three. A bit short and generally average- *3/4

Match 4
Florida Brothers vs. Crazymax (CIMA, SUWA)
This is quite possibly my favourite Florida Brothers comedy match, possibly because you wouldn’t expect CIMA and SUWA to play along, but they do and it is really fun to watch as a result. The Florida Brothers pull out all of their usual antics, right down to having the ref doing armdrags on everyone and the big wrestling hold sequence. The use of the 2×4 is pure comedy gold, and had me doubled over from laughing so much the first time I saw it. I missed the finish due to my DVD playing up, but I know it was extremely creative from when I saw it on the Best of 2004 DVD I have. I can safely say though that Florida Brothers = Comedy Gods- * for wrestling, ***** comedy

Match 5
Elimination Match : Aagen Iisou (Shuji Kondo, brother YASSHI, Takuya Sugawara, Touru Owashi) vs. Final M2K (Masaaki Mochizuki, Susumu Yokosuka, Second Doi, Keni’chiro Arai)
Elimination rules means a big write-up from me. The match has a jump start with some brawling into the crowd, but it soon goes in the ring, where we get some good back and forth wrestling (and YASSHI having his hair worked over by Final M2K members). After a couple of great minutes of action, Doi would be first to go following a Kondo Lariat assisted by the red box.
The heels had a few minutes of dominance, before Yokosuka bit YASSHI somewhere I rather wouldn’t say. However further use of that red box on Yokosuka knees weakened him, allowing Kondo to lock in the Gorilla Clutch. However the very late Arai arrived and broke the move, turning the match and leading to Kondo’s elimination. This was almost followed with the elimination of Sugawara by Yokosuka, but YASSHI hat Yokosuka in the head with the red box to eliminate him.
Kondo made a creative use of the box again, sliding it in when the ref was counting, causing him to hurt his hand. A Spear by Sugawara saw both him and Mochi eliminated via going over the top rope, leaving Arai 2 on 1.
Arai battled determinedly, eliminating YASSHI with a Dragon Suplex, but the interference on the outside began to prove too much. He got some near falls, and managed to survive the Diving Body Press from Owashi, but could not survive a Powerbomb for three. Good main event- ***1/4

Overall I really enjoyed this PPV. The main event was the best wrestling wise, with quality action that I found incredibly easy to get into and enjoy, despite constant interference. The opener was also a very good match involving six of my favourites. I also had to mention the hilarious tag match involving the Florida Brothers: arguably the comedy MOTY for 2004. Matches 2 and 3 were average, but the rest of the card was great.

7.5/10