Dragon Gate Glorious Gate 2005 - Day 3 - 08/04/2005
Open The Dream Gate Title #1 Contendership Match: Don Fujii vs. Kenichiro Arai
What a gem this was! Great story, terrific selling, great arm work, a hot crowd. Glorious wrestling in general. My only experiences with Arai is him either as a young boy or very later in his career so I have never really got a good image of him during his prime, and I don't know whether this is the norm or not, but I thought that he was outstanding in his role. Arai was so compelling as a babyface working against an aggressive Don Fujii, who was not above using weapons in order to win. He caught Fujii trying to blind side him early on, used Fujii's tactics against him by slamming the chair against his head and got some great hope spots in. Don Fujii won out in the end though with his arm work and big bombs. There was no funny busy with an Open The Dream Gate Title Match on the line. Great match. ****
Open The Triangle Gate Title Match: Do FIXER (Dragon Kid, Genki Horiguchi & Ryo Saito) (c) vs. Final M2K (K-ness & Susumu Yokosuka) & Katsuhiko Nakajima
This had a great sense of build and progression. The table setting was done in a clean, methodical way with neither team being able to get a firm advantage over the other before it slowly gets more frantic and action heavy. The closing stretch was genuinely amazing in how it was able to manifest all the drama the match leading upto the moment into edge of the seat nearfalls with smooth double-triple team sequences to compliment and link it all together in a masterful way. The nearfall for the Backside from Heaven had me jumping as did Susumu's roll through on the Dragonrana. Korakuen Hall was rocking with each false finish. At first, I thought Nakajima didn't really gel well into the match but he grew into the pacing and style as the match progressed. Ryo Saito was terrific as the leading man for his team. Excellent team work with Genki Horiguchi and brilliant single exchanges against Susumu and Nakajima. He was immense as was K-ness and Susumu on the other side. Brilliant performance all over the place. ****1/2
Dragon Gate Aggressive Gate 2005 - Day 3 - 11/05/2005
Makoto Oishi & Shiori Asahi vs. Blood Generation (Masato Yoshino & Naruki Doi)
Makoto Oishi was certainly a surprise name that I didn't expect to see but I'm not complaining. I love his proto-theme song that's basically the same as the one he has now, just more funky. I enjoy watching Yoshino and Doi together even at this point. Their chemistry is there although Doi stands out as the singles star in the match with his charisma and character work. The match was a solid tag team match with Blood Generation selling for the K-Dojo team in order to put them over, falling for the tricky stylings of Oishi and Asahi numerous times, including a Banana Split knee bar. Blood Generation won out easily enough though to solidify their skill level. Fun semi main event that served as a nice hint of the angle at the end of the show. ***1/4
Open The Dream Gate Title Match: Masaaki Mochizuki (c) vs. Don Fujii
While this had too much sloppiness at the end for a climatic finish, this was a worthy main event accompanied by a great Mochizuki selling performance, blood and hard hitting action. Mochzuki opens the match by blasting Fujii with a kick to the stomach but got a his head thrown into the ring spot and then hit with a weight for his trouble, which busted him open (Mochy came in with a bandage on his head so I assume Fujii cut him open on a house show). Fujii did the best thing and began working the cut with punches and headbutts. Mochizuki was great at working from beneath, throwing his kicks in a more desperate way than usual while being unable to follow them up on any momentum he had gained. Fujii cut him off well with his Tenryu-inspired offence and was able to draw enough heat to contrast Mochizuki’s popularity. The aforementioned closing stretch had too many hesitations and stops in action because someone was out of place but the wrestling was still solid enough to end the match on. While it wasn’t the smoothest rolling pin ever, Mochizuki pulled it off in a way that made sense despite it’s clunky execution. Then comes the celebrations; Mochizuki cuts a promo then out comes TAKA MICHINOKU!! And it looks like they are about to have a match scheduled until Susumu takes the key mid-air (Mochi threw it towards Taka) and puts himself in the picture to a massive pop. A #1 Contender's match is set instead between Susumu and Taka Michinoku for the next Korakuen Hall show and the winner will face Mochizuki for the Dream Gate Championship. ***3/4
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