April 9 & 10, 2010 – Gifu & Hamamatsu, Japan
Championship rundown:
Open the Dream Gate Champion: YAMATO
Open the Twin Gate Champions: CIMA & Gamma
Open the Triangle Gate Champions: Masaaki Mochizuki, Don Fujii & Akebono
Open the Brave Gate Champion: Super Shisa
Open the Freedom Gate Champion: BxB Hulk
Genki Horiguchi {W5} vs. Shingo Takagi {K} [Quarterfinal Match]
These two were fresh off of a reportedly excellent match in DGUSA (review forthcoming). The attendance for this show is looking pretty low, and Horiguchi’s outfit is looking even more neon than usual in the well-lit hall. Horiguchi hits a hurricanrana. Takagi hits a bodyslam and a shoulder tackle. He puts on a chinlock. He hits a side slam for 2. He hits a powerslam for 2. He puts on an abdominal stretch. Horiguchi goes to the leg to escape. Takagi hits a back elbow. Horiguchi dropkicks the knee. He hits a springboard dropkick. He hits a vertical suplex for 1. Takagi blocks a moonsault with his knees. He hits a gutbuster and a DDT. He hits a senton. He hits a suplex for 2. Horiguchi hits a swinging DDT. Takagi pops up but Horiguchi hits an inverted DDT for 2. Takagi blocks the Beach Break and the Backslide from Heaven but Horiguchi hits a hurricanrana. Takagi kills him with a powerbomb for 2. He escapes the Backslide from Heaven and uses the momentum to hit the Pumping Bomber. Horiguchi gets the Backslide from Heaven for 2. Takagi hits the DVD and the Pumping Bomber. He hits MADE IN JAPAN for the win at 8:31. Pretty crappy match, moving at half the speed as most non-Deep Drunkers matches in Dragon Gate and having no compelling story within.
Rating: **
BxB Hulk {W1} vs. K-ness [Quarterfinal Match]
They fight it out on the mat to start. K-ness hits an armdrag. Hulk hits a shoulder tackle. He hits an armdrag and a dropkick. Takagi watches on from the crowd, but there are so few fans he’s easy to spot. Hulk puts on a chinlock. He hits a slam and a legdrop. K-ness stops a kick barrage with a dragon screw. He goes to work on the leg. He puts on a figure 4 leglock. Hulk gets to the ropes. He hits a roundhouse kick. He hits a dropkick. He sweeps the leg and hits a senton for 2. He hits an enziguiri. K-ness returns the favor. He hits a DDT for 2. He puts on the Aoki Hikari. Hulk gets to the ropes. He blocks the Kaishaku and goes for one of his own but K-ness ducks it and gets a roll up for 2. Hulk hits the Mouse. K-ness hits the Shouryuukyaku. Hulk hits the EVO for 2. K-ness meets Hulk up top a la Susumu Yokosuka and hits a superplex. He hits the Jumbo no Kachi for 2. He goes for another but Hulk stays on his feet. Hulk hits an ax kick for 2. He hits the First Flash and the EVOP for the win at 12:32. They put together a nice home stretch there, but I’m disappointed that K-ness’ revival of the Yokosuka run in 2005 came to such an early end in the tournament. Takagi confronts Hulk after the match but there’s no violence to be had.
Rating: ***
Dragon Kid {W5} vs. Gamma {W5} [Quarterfinal Match]
The match is joined in progress. We’ve moved on to Hamamatsu, where the crowd is much bigger. Kid avoids the Sweet Angel’s Kiss and gives it back to Gamma. Gamma hits a back suplex for 2. Kid gets a roll up for 2. He hits a hurricanrana. He hits the Bermuda Triangle. We skip ahead to Kid avoiding the Blitzen but getting nailed with a facebuster. We skip ahead again to Kid and Gamma trading roll ups. Gamma hits a superkick and the Gamma Special for 2. He hits a low blow and spits in Kid’s face. He hits a clothesline. Kid gets a roll up for the win at 3:00 shown of 12:42. From what we could see this was no better than the matches they had in 2007, which I assume is why it was chosen as the clipped match.
Masato Yoshino {W1} vs. Masaaki Mochizuki {Z} [Quarterfinal Match]
This really needs to deliver. Mochizuki forces Yoshino to the ropes to start. Yoshino returns the favor and adds a chop. He gets supercharged but Mochizuki uses the momentum to send him to the floor. Yoshino appears to have hurt his leg. Mochizuki goes after the leg on the floor. He slams Yoshino’s leg on the concrete. He throws it into the post. He kicks it out from under him on the apron. He punts the knee against the bottom rope. He hits an ax kick. Yoshino punts his arm. Limping, Yoshino targets Mochizuki’s newly exposed weakness. He puts on a cross armbreaker but Mochizuki counters to the anklelock. Yoshino gets to the ropes. Mochizuki hits a shinbreaker. He kicks out Yoshino’s leg. He punts it again and reapplies the anklelock. The crowd just doesn’t care about any of this. Yoshino gets to the ropes. He hits the Sling Blade but his leg is too hurt to capitalize. Mochizuki hits a back heel kick. He blocks the Coumori but Yoshino catches him in From Jungle. Mochizuki struggles a while with Yoshino’s awesome attempts to keep him in the center of the ring before getting to the ropes. Yoshino hits a double stomp to the arm. Mochizuki hits a chest kick. Yoshino blocks the Sankakugeri. He hits the avalanche Sling Blade for 2. Mochizuki blocks the Lightning Spiral and hits the Twister. Yoshino hits the Lightning Spiral but can’t cover. He hits the Torbellino. Mochizuki goes to town with his big kicks for 2. He hits the Ikkakugeri for 2. He hits the Illusion but Yoshino comes back with a crazy roll up for the win at 15:19 shown of 18:29. The crowds on these two shows sucked the life out of everything. This match was hurt by the lack of crowd participation, as a lot of it was spent in submission holds. That aside they did some very cool stuff to play off of their knowledge of each other, reminiscent of Yoshino’s opening round match against CIMA. Like Takagi and Hulk before them, Kid and Yoshino have a stare down after the match.
Rating: ***¼
The following night Akebono © {Z}, Masaaki Mochizuki © {z} & Don Fujii © vs. YAMATO {K}, KAGETORA {K} & Akira Tozawa {K} [Open the Triangle Gate Championship Match] ended in a successful defense for the champions when Fujii hit KAGETORA with the Nice German at 15:41. About two minutes of the match were shown. After the match YAMATO appealed for a rematch because he had Fujii tapping out to the sleeper while the referee was down. CIMA comes out to put in a bid for the WARRIORS, while Kzy does the same for the Drunkers. The Zetsurins give the first match to the Drunkers at Dead or Alive in a few weeks, and tell Kamikaze and the WARRIORS to fight it out on April 25th to see who will face the winner of the PPV match.
Next week we get the semifinals and finals of the tournament, and the strife in Kamikaze is finally revealed on Infinity!
