Dragon Gate 7/21/2013 Kobe Pro Wrestling Festival iPPV Results and Review

Dragon Gate 7/21/2013 Kobe Pro Wrestling Festival iPPV Results and Review

1. Super Shisa, Shachihoko BOY, Rich Swann vs. Kotoka, Super Shenlong III, Chihiro Tominaga

Rich Swann got the win with a jumping 450. Good opener here as they didn't go overboard and kept it fast paced. The camera's missed a ton of stuff though.

2. Hollywood Stalker Ichikawa Bosou 10 Match Series ~Submission Chapter~: Hollywood Stalker
Ichikawa vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara

Fujiwara won in possibly 1 second with a bow and arrow with a facelock as shown above. Stalker then bribed him with alcohol for another shot.

Fujiwara won with the Fujiwara in a long and unfunny squash. This was all Stalker fooling around.

3. Jimmy Susumu, Jimmy Kagetora, Mr. Quu Quu Tanizaki Naoki Toyonaka Dolphin vs. HUB, Cyber Kong, NOSAWA Rongai

Cyber Kon won with a running ligerbomb. The main focus was on Susumu lariating everyone and Kong being strong. This wasn't very interesting or memorable and I have no idea why NOSAWA was here. All I know is a lot of people think he is nice and he knows a lot of people.

4. Open the Triangle Gate Champion 3 Way 6 Man Tag Team Match: Ryo "Jimmy" Saito, Genki Horiguchi H.A.Gee.Mee!!, Jimmy Kanda vs. Don Fujii, Gamma, Dragon Kid vs. Kzy, Mondai Ryu, Uhaa Nation

Dragon Kid pinned Kzy with a springboard hurricanrana to eliminate his team.

Genki Horiguchi got the win with the Backslide from Heaven. I didn't like this one at all. DG matches always have traditional spots to them like the Fuji chop challenge, the various corner lariats and the multi-man suplexes but at this point, it is almost like a parody, since these multi-man matches are becoming more common. Originally, a lot of these spots had some story behind them to make them more interesting, but here they were just throwing them out. Speaking of throwing stuff out, most of this match involved that. They'd hit some cool moves but there would be little context and little heat. There was also too much screwing around in this. I really disappointed here and I'm sad to see the once classic DG 3 vs 3 vs 3 tag become little more than a glorified comedy match. This was also way way way too long and seemed to go on forever.

5. Open the Brave Gate Championship Match: Masato Yoshino vs. K-ness

Masato Yoshino won with a leg hooked version of the Sol Naciente. I didn't like this one. The finish was good but they really rushed here and totally forgot about selling. They did all of their old spots but without half the drama or reasoning behind them.

6. No Disqualification Match: YAMATO vs. Masaaki Mochizuki

I love the idea of a No DQ match in DG where we have already seen tons of interference and weapons shots in non-No DQ matches.

Yamato won with a sleeper. I didn't really like this one. It was okay but the ending was sudden and the whole time it felt like they were building towards something, but never quite got there. This just didn't work for me and seemed like a waste of time.

7. Open the Twin Gate Championship Match: Akira Tozawa, BxB Hulk vs. Naruki Doi, Ricochet

Ricochet beat Tozawa with the double moonsault. Good match. They went all out here and did pretty much every move they knew but it was overkill and really they could have done half the stuff they did and still had as a good of a match. I really liked how Doi and Ric would cross over each other during some of their moves and Ric flew really well. This also went a little longer than it should have, but atleast it was very good. Ric did two 630's here, an SSP, got german suplexed off the top and took a reverse hurricanrana on his head, amongst other things. He definitely was the highlight though. Rating:****

8. Open the Dream Gate Championship Match: CIMA vs. Shingo Takagi

Shingo Takagi beat CIMA with the Last Falconry. The match was fine. It was a perfectly acceptable main event though it was a bit long. They beat the crap out of each other and were nuked after. CIMA tried all of his moves throughout the match but just couldn't put Shingo away. Shingo survived everything then took the win. They didn't do too much here and the pace was refreshing from the go go go style of the rest of the show. Rating:***1/2

Overall thoughts: If you like DG, you will really enjoy this. There was good stuff on the card but there was also lots of long matches and tons of overkill. The tag title match was the best thing on the show and the main was fine. I found the No DQ match to be disappointing as was the 3 way tag. I was looking forward to both but they didn't deliver for me. I'd recommend this one but if you are more of a fan of the WWE and less move heavy style like me, it might not be the most appealing.