Countdown to Kobe: Kobe World Pro-Wrestling Festival 2011

2011 is my favorite year for Dragon Gate. The last 8 months of the year were focused on the war between Junction Three and Blood Warriors. Those two units were the only two units after Kamikaze and WORLD-1 folded (those two, with the addition of the veterans unit, led to the junction of the three units). Match quality was at an all-time high this year. Mochizuki was back on top and working big main event matches every month, PAC was bringing the Brave Gate Championship back to a prestigious level, and Takagi, Tozawa, and YAMATO all led the charge of great matches. 2011 was an incredible year for Dragon Gate so needless to say, I was super excited about watching this show for the second time. 

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Dragon Gate Presents: 

Kobe World Pro-Wrestling Festival, July 17, 2011

Taku Iwasa & Kenichiro Arai vs. KAGETORA & Super Shisa

Seeing Iwasa mix it up on the mat with KAGETORA and Shisa made watching this worth it. Arai was nothing special here. I find it very odd that Iwasa and Arai, two men that weren’t a part of Blood Warriors or Junction Three, went over here. This seemed like the perfect time to show what the lesser men of J3 could do, but Iwasa scored the clean pinfall here.

Rating: **1/2

Ryo Saito & Genki Horiguchi vs. Susumu Yokosuka & Rich Swann

Boy, Rich Swann is charismatic. He got the crowd fully invested in match #2 on the card with his sweet rap down the stage. Saito, Horiguchi, and Susumu all have wrestled and teamed with each other for what feels like a million times so adding Swann to the mix really helped this match feel different. Saito works really well with guys that can flip around. He and Swann were the real standouts here. This was an excellent sprint.

Rating: ***1/2

Kzy, Naoki Tanizaki, & Tomahawk T.T. vs. Yoshihiro Takayama, Don Fujii, & Stalker Ichikawa

Shame Quack won’t book the Fujii/Takayama/Ichikawa team for King of Trios. I would CONSIDER buying a VOD for that. They drifted in and out of comedy with Tomahawk TT (now T-Hawk) being positioned as a dangerous man. Team Fujii, or in my mind, The Dream Team, went over with a beautiful array of Nice Germans. Folks, this is wrestling. After the match Fujii and Takayama put the boots to Ichikawa because why not? Inoffensive.

Rating: **3/4

Masato Yoshino, Gamma, & YAMATO vs. Naruki Doi, Cyber Kong, & Yasushi Kanda

I’m sure I’ve said it on this blog before but I’d like to reiterate that I’d gladly take Taguchi’s ass-based attacks over Gamma’s spit-based offense any day. That would fall under the “gross” category. When Gamma isn’t spitting on people this is a really good Triangle Gate match. YAMATO, who was an excellent babyface for all of 2011, played a really good face in peril here. Cyber Kong threw some punches here that made Makabe’s look like Matt Hardy’s. Even with that, I really enjoyed this match. Gamma put Kanda away with a Skytwister Press and judging from how badly Gamma missed his chest, this could’ve been a shoot. Probably.

Rating: ***3/4

Akira Tozawa vs. Shingo Takagi

Remember last year when Tozawa was doing NOSAWA cosplay? A year later, he’s Blood Warriors’ secret weapon and a threat to the toughest man in the promotion. This match was great. Not quite as good as their battle from 2015. Here, Tozawa was a new, dangerous man and was doing everything he could to prove himself to Takagi. Four years later, the two are equals battling it out. This match was all about Tozawa. He was crisp in everything he did and it resulted in an excellent match. Takagi is such an interesting wrestler in that he can manhandle someone like BxB Hulk one year and be the baddest heel in the company and the next year do the same thing to Tozawa and get cheered for it. Tozawa went over clean, as he should have, which helped establish him as a legitimate player on the Dragon Gate roster.

Rating: ****1/4

CIMA & Ricochet vs. Dragon Kid & PAC

There are people that are going to read this and think I’m out of my mind, but lads - this is a five star match. Yes, it’s completely a spotfest. One that if JR bothered to watch he’d have a stroke and one that if Parv watched I’m sure he’d have a few “points” to make. The execution here was flawless. Nothing they did looked phony or planned out. Everything here was perfectly timed and perfectly executed. I feel like this is also a very crucial match in Ricochet’s history. Working with PAC for all of 2011 (5 singles matches, numerous tag matches) really helped him as a worker. By this point, PAC was an elite junior that had made a name for himself in Japan and throughout 2011, he helped mold Ricochet into the worker he is today. 

This is a combination of “flips for flips sake” Ricochet and “I can hold a match together” Ricochet. He still clearly had 2011 legs but he wasn’t abusing his ability of flight, he was simply using it. His interactions with both PAC and Dragon Kid were outstanding. The aforementioned Dragon Kid also stood out here as someone who was applying their craft to the best of their ability. The only person that didn’t stick out in any way was CIMA. He was just there for a lot of this, but that doesn’t mean he was bad. This is the second match on the Countdown to Kobe series getting the full five. This is as good as it gets.

Rating: *****

Masaaki Mochizuki vs. BxB Hulk

Hulk was just beginning his run as the wine drinking, strike-heavy, evil persona that I greatly miss at times. Mochizuki was three months into the greatest Dream Gate reign of all-time and was the clear ace of the company. I hate the idea of a Hulk match being based around him kicking people, but this totally worked. His kicks were sharp and they meshed well with Mochizuki's strike-heavy offense. This never felt "shooty" or like they were trying to be tougher than they really were. Instead, it felt like a really good wrestling match. Both men wanted the Dream Gate Championship and because of that, they pushed each other to their limits. I think it's clear that Mochizuki led this match and Hulk was following behind him, which I have no issues with. This was an excellent way to close out Kobe World 2011.

Rating: ****1/2

Closing the Gate: Best Kobe World ever? Best Kobe World ever. A five star match and two that reach 4+ puts this ahead of 2005. The undercard went by super fast and we were left with a tremendous trio of main events. Next time - Tozawa tries to prove himself to CIMA, Kagetora & Susumu battle Takagi & YAMATO, Onita stops by, and PAC says goodbye!