Recorded at Korakuen Hall, Tokyo on June 5th 2013, aired June 16th
Lee here with another Dragon Gate Infinity review. If you’re extremely observant, you will have noticed that I’ve totally bypassed reviews of the Sapporo double shot (Infinity 298 and 299) and jumped straight into the latest Korakuen. The Sapporo reviews will be packed together in one article and posted at a later date because REASONS. Anyway, M2K are reuniting on this show and it’s going to be awesome.
1) Genki Horiguchi H.A.Gee.Mee, Ryo “Jimmy” Saito & Mr Quu Quu Naoki Tanizaki Toyonaka Dolphin of the Jimmyz defeated Don Fujii, Gamma & Stalker Ichikawa of Team Veteran Returns (11:02, pinfall after cradle exchange)
Fun match, typical Jimmyz opener. Honestly, I was pretty distracted since big news from Hakata Star Lanes was breaking while I was watching this.
2) Kenichiro Arai of Windows & Cyber Kong defeated Chihiro Tominaga & Super Shenlong of -akatsuki- (5:26, Double Impact)
My unjustified fandom of Chihiro Tominaga ensured that I enjoyed this more than most probably would have. Kong continues to be much better in his 2013 not-so-serious-happy-to-be-lost-in-the-shuffle role than his 2012 failed monster thing. I’m kind of disappointed Araken has dropped back off the radar since the end of Windows vs Akatsuki, but K-ness and Kotoka have done well since so I can’t really complain. Speaking of Kotoka…
3) Kotoka of Windows, Jimmy Kanda & Jimmy Kagetora of the Jimmyz defeated Akira Tozawa, Kzy & Mondai Ryu of Mad Blankey (10:55, Momo Latch)
Kotoka wins. Again. You can keep your Eitas and your Tomahawks, Kotoka is Dragon Gate’s finest rookie and it’s awesome seeing him and his new finisher finally getting somewhere. Good match but again, breaking news from Hakata was distracting.
4) Ricochet & Masato Yoshino of World-1 International defeated CIMA & Dragon Kid of Team Veteran Returns (10:51, Lightning Spiral)
Fun tag skirmish which did a good job of hyping Ricochet vs CIMA while also playing off the recent Yoshino/DK Brave Gate match.
5) BxB Hulk of Mad Blankey defeated YAMATO of -akatsuki- (17:43, H Thunder)
The world seems to hate watching Hulk and YAMATO fight each other in singles. I’m in the apparent minority that usually enjoys it, lacklustre no rope matches aside. Maybe the affinity stems from their match that opened the first DGUSA show basically getting me into Dragon Gate. Anyway, YAMATO lost then Metal Warrior and Dr Muscle (the go-to disguises for Dragon Gate wrestlers) turned up, put him in a bin bag and kidnapped him. It was amazing. Match was pretty good, but five stars for the aftermath.
6) Shingo Takagi of -akatsuki- defeated Uhaa Nation of Mad Blankey (16:46, Last Falconry)
This battle of the powerhouses totally delivered. I was pleased that Uhaa rose to the occasion as I really wasn’t sure how it was going to turn out. Yeah, they were opposite each other in the awesome Twin Gate match at Dead Or Alive, but the flawless YAMATO was the glue in that one. Uhaa’s german suplexes have fleshed out his repetoire nicely, a necessary addition to his five moves of doom that have been ending his tag matches on previous episodes. That isn’t a criticism by the way, using him as the beast who just devoured his opponents in the finishing stretch was perfect, but a bit more was needed for an upper card singles match. It was cool seeing a big match so different from the usual Dragon Gate style, the likes of which we haven’t really seen since that time Takagi fought Brodie Lee (now WWE’s Luke Harper).
Since this episode, Shingo has became number one contender for CIMA’s Dream Gate title at World (the biggest Dragon Gate show of the year), so this win was an important one for him, rebuilding his momentum after he’d put over so many people this year.
7) Open The Triangle Gate championship M2K reunion match: Masaaki Mochizuki, K-ness/Darkness Dragon & Jimmy Susumu/Susumu Mochizuki of M2K defeated Naruki Doi, Rich Swann and Shachihoko BOY of World-1 International to win the titles (20:16, Hikari No Wa)
Everything about this ruled. From the entrance on the scooters through the crowd, everyone clad in their old school gear (K-ness in full on Darkness Dragon attire, Mocchy and Susumu with their bleached hair, the accompanying Kanda with his mohawk etc), just awesome. The credit doesn’t just go to M2K though, as Team High Tension put in another stellar performance too. Their Triangle Gate victory was forgettable for me, but they proved at Dead Or Alive and again here that they’re pretty much the most exciting trio in Dragon Gate (not counting M2K). They also had a pretty amusing promo earlier in the show with Doi explaining to a confused Swann what M2K was.
The match was killer. The vintage M2K double countout attempt and the Team High Tension stretch comedy spot (with the gravelly voiced Shachi failing to replicate the Flair style “woo”s of his teammates) started things off amusingly, then the actual action was awesome. Shachi seems to be Mochizuki’s new kicking post, most notably taking a couple of wild Asai moonsault-interrupting boots that sent him into oblivion (well, the front row). Shachi eventually got retribution by finally landing the moonsault on Mocchy himself. The finish was great, Doi’s V9 Clutch on K-ness was a hot nearfall (the same move that allowed World-1 to escape with the belts back at Dead Or Alive) before the Hikari No Wa, which has spelled doom for all but CIMA in Korakuen this year. The place exploded when K-ness got the three count.
On a couple of miscellaneous notes, I feel bad for the girl who was wiped out by Doi’s dive…and Rich Swann is kind of awesome now. He’s been a hit in Dragon Gate more due to his charisma than in ring ability, but he’s really stepped up in that respect this year. If Ricochet’s progression since coming to DG has been like Charmeleon to Charizard, then Rich Swann has recently evolved from Charmander to Charmeleon. Like the Ricochet of a couple of years ago, it’s tags and trios matches where Swann shines, he’s yet to really have a great singles match over in Japan, but I imagine that will come in time.
After the match, Kanda got annoyed about M2K winning the belts, despite helping them do so with the blue box attack, confusingly. He was worried about the fate of the Jimmyz since Susumu was now locked into M2K after what was supposed to be a one night reunion. This led to a Kanda/Horiguchi/Saito triangle challenge being booked for Champion Gate in Hakata. After this, Yagi ended up announcing the main event for the next Korakuen, which leads us to…
Dragon Gate Infinity 302 will be broadcast on Ustream as Dragon Gate’s first ever live IPPV! It will air live from Korakuen Hall on July 4th at 18:30 JST, which off the top of my head is 10:30am GMT, 5:30am EST. Go check that rather than taking my word for it though. The show will cost $20, which includes the live stream and the VOD, which will be available until July 12th. Card so far is:
Special 10 man tag match
Partcipants: Masaaki Mochizuki, CIMA, YAMATO, BxB Hulk, Uhaa Nation, Naruki Doi, Masato Yoshino, Ryo “Jimmy” Saito, Jimmy Susumu, Don Fujii – Teams will be decided at bell time
Shingo Takagi vs Akira Tozawa
It’s available for pre order now over at http://www.ustream.tv/DragonGate
Closing thoughts: Another month, another great Korakuen. Solid undercard, fantastic second half with a main event that will make my match of the year list for sure. Can’t wait for next month. Hopefully it’s a success and IPPV will become a regular thing from Dragon Gate.
Match of the night: I think that’s pretty obvious.
Thanks as always to IheartDG for regularly saving me the hassle of translating Google Translate’s translations.
Want to talk about the general greatness of M2K, the glory of their Triangle Gate win or the crushing despair of them losing it in the first defence in Hakata? I would have included a spoiler alert there except it happened on a show between this episode and the next that isn’t set to make tv. Basically, just follow me on Twitter so I feel popular @HellionLee