2006 was an odd year for Dragon Gate. The Blood Generation empire had fallen and the new dastardly heel unit, Muscle Outlawz (yes, with a "z") were slowly taking over. Dragon Gate opened its door to the States at the end of 2005 as Jack Evans and Roderick Strong of ROH fame were brought over. Matt Sydal was quickly added to the mix and thus, Blood Generation had three foreigners on its side. Susumu Yokosuka dethroned Ryo Saito for the Open the Dream Gate Championship earlier in the year and was set to defend against the ultimate babyface, Dragon Kid, on this show. Yokosuka's Dream Gate reign is looked back on as a failure, as despite his talent, he's never been considered a true main eventer after his reign. Adding to that case is the fact that CIMA, the leader of the now weak Blood Generation was once again positioned in the main event, this time against the muscle in Muscle Outlawz, Magnitude Kishiwada, in Dragon Gate's unique No Rope Match. The Yokosuka defense is also the only title match on this show, which I find very odd. Not even the added star power of Minoru Suzuki or Genichiro Tenryu puts this on the same level as the two previous installments...
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Dragon Gate Presents:
Kobe World Pro-Wrestling Festival, July 2, 2006
Genki Horiguchi, Ryo Saito, & The Turboman vs. King Shisa, Super Shisa, & Shisa BOY
The Turboman is a wacky luchador that I've never seen before. He's short, he's plucky, and he makes this match a lot of fun. Super Shisa and his protege (now known as Shachihoko BOY) weren't much of a factor in this, as were Horiguchi and Saito. This was all about The Turboman battling the bigger, stronger, King Shisa. Their spat has an exciting payoff with Turboman landing a great dive to the outside before Ryo Saito put down Shisa BOY. The weakest opener thus far, but still a mildly entertaining match. That said, I'm good without seeing The Turboman or King Shisa again during this project.
Rating: ***1/4
K-Ness & Kenichiro Arai vs. Akira Tozawa & Takayuki Mori
Tozawa-juku is a thing that happened, that's for sure. One thing is certain - I like 2015 Akira Tozawa much more than I like 2006 Akira Tozawa. K-Ness and Arai came out with their sweet M2K jackets and looked like they were about to kick some serious ass and luckily, they did. Weird comedy, not enough grime from Arai or K-Ness, and not the Tozawa I enjoy. It's crazy to think that Dragon Gate had almost given up on this guy. He's arguably the best wrestler in the world right now and it took them so long to give him the ball and let him run with it. The M2K jackets were the best part about this.
Rating: **1/2
BxB Hulk vs. Dos Caras
If Bill Thompson is reading this I'm sure he's laughing maniacally laughing in his evil chamber that's covered with Joe Gacy posters at the fact that some old lucha geek popped up on my Dragon Gate show. ANYWAYS ---- BxB Hulk looked really good here. His offense looked sharp, he took some of Caras' stiff offense, and his dancing was quite good. A ****1/4 for the BxB Dance (more on dancing later). I have no clue why Caras went over here or why this match even happened, but it was fun while it lasted. The boycott on lucha has begun once again. Suck on that one, Bill.
Rating: ***
Shingo Takagi vs. Yutaka Yoshie
Ugh, this match. This is not the first time I've seen this. It's on an IVP Videos compilation of Takagi, which is otherwise excellent, but this match is pretty horrible. Yoshie has worked everywhere and I've never seen a match of his that I've liked. Shingo was getting ready to head to the States to have a run in FIP and ROH and he left on this match, which sucks (well, the situation and the match). Yoshie's strikes couldn't hurt a fly and when he does actually make contact with Shingo, it's with his ass. Clearly Taguchi has been watching his tapes~! They do a nice spot where Takagi is finally able to get the big man off of his feet, but that's about it. I can see why Yoshie would go over, but with someone like Shingo, I'd rather see him go over strong, have confidence leaving Dragon Gate, and then comeback and take the company over. Nope - he went out on a stinker. At least he uses good form on those push ups.
Rating: **
Don Fujii, Matt Sydal, Roderick Strong, Jack Evans & Yasushi Kanda vs. Gamma, Masato Yoshino, Naruki Doi, Naoki Tanizaki, & Dr. Muscle
Business has picked up! Kanda has been preparing for this match by working dark matches, but seeing as how this is only his second high profile match since 2002. Jack Evans is the real star here. Even for Jack standards, he does some crazy stuff in this match. No double moonsaults or jumps off of cages, but still stuff that no one else can do. This match turns into a match that everyone thinks of when they think of Dragon Gate. Move, move, move - crazy spot, big move, huge finish. The only difference here is that the Muscle Outlawz have their heel referee refereeing the match. Before the finish, I planned on burying this. It didn't add to the match or take away, it was rather a useless distraction. Then, Kanda landed his big elbow drop and the heel referee refused to count! This was the smartest use of a heel referee that I've ever seen. He counted when the MO'z weren't in danger, but as soon as Kanda had them in serious danger, the equality stopped! This worked. Great match.
Rating: ****
Genichiro Tenryu & Magnum TOKYO vs. Masaaki Mochizuki & Minoru Suzuki
During the first installment of the Countdown to Kobe series, I buried Magnum TOKYO 10 feet under. I take all of that back because his pre-match dance was the best thing I've ever seen in a professional wrestling environment. It's like yer da just hopped into the nightclub with Nitro Girls behind him and busted a move or two. This match is weird. It starts off really slow and I hated the finish, but the interaction between Tenryu and Mochizuki and Tenryu and Suzuki are excellent. Mochizuki and Suzuki BRING IT to Tenryu. There's a spot towards the finish where Suzuki is slapping Tenryu which leads to Magnum slapping Suzuki which leads to Mochizuki slapping Magnum which somehow leads to Suzuki slapping Mochizuki! Then, if that wasn't enough, Yagi (the referee) gets in on the slapping! What started off as a really intense and interesting strike-battle led to a pure comedy spot, which I found really disappointing. Come for the Magnum TOKYO dance, stay for a quality match.
Rating: ***1/2
Susumu Yokosuka vs. Dragon Kid
Much like how the Blood Generation/MO'z was the blueprint for Dragon Gate multi-man matches, this is the blueprint for big, main event-style Dragon Gate matches. They start slow, they work a body part (Susumu's arm, Dragon Kid's leg), and then they build to a hot finish. The story going into this match is that Kid has always had the edge on Yokosuka, but recently, Yokosuka was able to counter the Ultra Hurricanrana - something he had never been able to do. These two throw bombs for 30 minutes and for the most part, it ends up working. Neither guy shined brighter than the other. They both put in a solid effort and the match turned out to be pretty good. Yokosuka gets the win with a crazy World Liner.
Rating: ****
CIMA vs. Magnitude Kishiwada: No Rope Match
This is Dragon Gate's big gimmick match and they're busting it out for the main event of their biggest show of the year. Last year, Magnitude went over in a squash and was built up as the killer for Blood Generation. In November 2005, Kishiwada upset Masaaki Mochizuki for the Dream Gate Title before losing it to Ryo Saito in an epic match in February of 2006. Now, a year later, BLOOD GENERATION EXPLODES (Kishiwada was already a member of MO'z by this point)! But still, EXPLOSIONS! I've seen better No Rope Matches, but this was alright. CIMA worked as a tremendous babyface in this match. He gets the most out of the crowd with his facials. He's able to pause, get the crowd behind him, and then do whatever he was planning on doing. Kishiwada was fine here. It was clearly worked to put him over as a giant and CIMA over as the giant killer and they did a very good job of it. The run-ins between Blood Generation and Muscle Outlawz turned out great and I highly enjoyed the finish. A fun way to close out the biggest show of the year. CIMA going over, in hindsight, was for the best.
Rating: ***3/4
Closing the Gate: So far, this has been the weakest Kobe World. The undercard had no spark to it. I'm probably even being generous with my rating on the opener. The eight-man in the middle of the card added a much needed spark to the show, but nothing reached ****+ on this show, which, seeing as how 2004 had a ****3/4 match and 2005 had a ***** match to go along with multiple matches in the ***3/4+ range, this show is clearly the weakest. Next time on Countdown to Kobe, Jushin Liger battles CIMA, Koji Kanemoto clashes with Masaaki Mochizuki, and Stalker Ichikawa returns to Kobe to battle none other than Yuji Nagata!
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