Dragon Gate 1/12/2021

 Dragon Gate 1/12/2021

Gamma, Masaaki Mochizuki, Ultimo Dragon & Yasushi Kanda vs. R.E.D. (Eita, H.Y.O, HipHop Kikuta & Kaito Ishida)

RED group attacks their opponents early. Everyone runs in the corner with a lariat or elbow on Kanda, then they do a double kick, a hiptoss and a legdrop on him. Kikuta misses a kick that Mochi sells anyway. Mochi then kicks the rest of RED. Gamma gets beaten up for a bit and gets thrown into the RED box in the corner. Kikuta does some hip attacks to Gamma. Gamma mounts a comeback with some chops and a lariat and tags out to UD. UD hits an elbow and Eita sells for it before he even hits it. UD hits a spinning reverse figure four and the faces all hit submissions.

Kikuta hip attacks Gamma and Kanda. Gamma hits a schwein on HYO and then Kanda hit a spinning lifting pedigree. HYO hits a low blow kick on Kanda and wins it. This was nothing special and with the limited amount of time it had, it wasn't going to be much more.

Keisuke Okuda vs. Punch Tominaga

Punch jumps Okuda at the bell and throws him outside. Punch is in front of the post and Okuda goes for the high kick but hits the post instead. Punch stands on Okuda in the corner and stomps him. He starts slapping him on the head and Okuda has enough. He backdrops him for 2. Punch goes for some pin attempts and Okuda high kicks him. Okuda hits another high kick as Punch tries to get up and the ref stops it as Punch is out of it on the ropes at 3 minutes or so.

Kagetora, Shuji Kondo & YAMATO vs. MASQUERADE (La Estrella & Shun Skywalker) & Dragon Kid

Estrella does a nice flip on the ropes and hurricanrana's Kondo out. Shun hits a nice dropkick on Yamato. Kid comes in and hits a handstand knee on Kagetora and Yamato gets in and takes full control over him. DK 619's through the ropes into a stomach kick on Yamato and tags out. Shun gets the edge 1v2 on Kagetora and Kondo. Kid does a hurricanrana from the inside to the outside to Kondo then Estrella moonsaults to the floor. Estrella does a top rope 619 and then a headstand into a rope assisted moonsault on Yamato. Shun hits a sitout double underhook bomb.

Kondo hits a bulltdog and a lariat at the same time on two opponents. Kondo does a big spear and Kagetora hits a big elbow from the top. Yamato hits a great single leg dropkick to the head of DK and an Ikkitousen. Kid then hooks him with a headscissors over the top rope. Estrella does a run the top rope into a dropkick but the camera's miss it then shun does a spinning blue thunder for the win. It got good after the Yamato section when the faces got to hit all of their flying moves.

R.E.D. (KAZMA SAKAMOTO, SB KENTo & Takashi Yoshida) vs. Natural Vibes (Genki Horiguchi, Kzy & Susumu Yokosuka)

 

 

 

 

 Things get started right at the bell. Kazma gets lariated off the apron and takes a nice rolling bump. SBK clubs Kzy and his teammates chant with each club. SBK is still wearing his hat and throws it at Kzy to get out of an attack, but Kzy throws it back at him and SBK gets lariated. Susumu does a cobra clutch backbreaker and Kzy does a nice flip senton over the top rope. Vibes hits a triple team combination on SBK.

Yoshida rams Genki's back into the post on the outside and then stands on Genki's back. Genki then gets triple teamed in the corner. RED removes the turnbuckle pad and Genki is supposed to go in, but SBK gets the steel instead. Genki then tags out. 2 from each team go in and counter each others corner attacks. Susumu then hits an exploder and takes a cyber cutter. RED hits a combo on Kzy Kzy gets whipped into a nice corner spear on SBK. Susumu hits a top rope exploder, then Genki follows with a tornado DDT and Kzy hits a sitout piledriver.

Kazma palm strikes everyone and SBK hits a nice german on Genki. Yoshida hits a big lariat which Genki flip sells for. Genki gets tied up by Yoshida, but SBK hits his partner on accident and Genki wins with the backslide from heaven.

As I said a lot of times, I'm not a huge fan of RED. They are fine at being heels, but they slow down every match they are in and the heel work isn't particularly interesting to follow. This is exactly what happened here and this match would have been a lot more interesting with anyone else in their spot.

 

Open The Twin Gate Title Match - R.E.D. (BxB Hulk & KAI) (c) vs. MASQUERADE (Jason Lee & Kota Minoura)

 

 

 

 

 Lee cartwheels over Hulk and gets an Axe kick for it. Lee hits a great dropkick to Hulk's face. Kota does an abdominal stretch on Hulk and Lee comes in to dropkick Hulk. Hulk and Lee trade some forearms. Lee ends up on the apron and he does a wild flip bump on the apron for a Kai lariat. Lee then takes a powerbomb on the apron's edge and is going to be out of this for a while.

Kota gets beat up on by RED but no one is there for the tag. Hulk hits a captured leg spinning slam. Kota gets tripped into a legdrop, into a camel clutch into an axe kick by Hulk and Kai. Kota starts to make a comeback with the waterwheel drop on Kai and Lee finally comes up on the apron. Hulk hits a knee and sends him right back down. Lee then suddenly gets this burst of energy and taks out two members of RED then flips to the outside, rendering the last 5-10 minutes of selling completely pointless.

Lee is almost fully recovered and gets german'd from the wheelbarrow position. Hulk cartwheels out of an irish whip then does a bad kick combo on Kota before doing a standing twisting moonsault on him. Masquerade does a double team spinning backbreaker and a cutter for 2. Kota does a release german which Hulk flips for and Lee hits a kick to the head of Hulk for 2. Kai comes in and makes Lee flip sell for a lariat for 2.

Kota and Kai trade forearms with Kai hitting a great one at the end. Lee hits a missile dropkick from the top and Kota hits kai with triple germans. Kota has Kai up for the powerslam but Lee comes off the top with a DDT on Kai. Lee gets a big powerbomb from Kai and then Hulk does a running EVO onto Kai, who lands on top of Lee. Hulk hits the FTX but Lee kicks out at 2. Hulk hits a superkick to Lee's face and RED wins it.

Lee oversold then stopped selling early and that really hurt the rest of the match. He had no energy or will to move at all for minutes then just popped up after and was mostly fine. That really hurt the match for me. Had Lee just sold less, the rest of the match was fine. 

 

Overall thoughts: I did skip the Boku match, but this show had too much R.E.D for me and just wasn't that great.