Sunday 30 May 2010

Dragon Gate USA: Open the Untouchable Gate - Best Card of 2009? (Spoiler alert) By Shaun Nichols

Shaun Nichols used to do video/DVD reviews for my old newsletter, here is his first for the sturodgersblog - enjoy.

Dragon Kid vs. Masato Yoshino ****
Quacksaw vs. Yamato & Gran Akuma **3/4
Naruki Doi vs. Bryan Danielson ****3/4
CIMA vs. Brian Kendrick **1/2
SHINGO vs. Davey Richards ****1/2
Genki Horiguchi & Ryo Saito vs. Young Bucks ***1/2

The opener was a re-match from the first PPV, the commentators pushed that this match was especially important for Yoshino as losses meant that it's likely that you wouldn't be booked on the next show. They evidenced this by BxB Hulk losing first time out and missing this event. Although Yoshino lost to Dragon Kid last time out, this match was still pushed as an athletic contest rather than Yoshino trying to avenge his loss. Full of awesome moves and stunning reversals though sadly not the famous Dragonrana this time. It was a great way to kick off the show in front of a hot crowd in Chicago. Dragon Kid finally got the win, Yoshino blew off the handshake offer to set up Dragon Kid & SHINGO vs. Yoshino & Doi at the next show. Not sure what this says about the importance of wins and losses.
Up next next we had the Chikara element with Jigsaw and the ever popular Mike Quackenbush defending the honour of their trainer Jorge Rivera against the great Yamato and Chikara turncoat Akuma. Yamato as a heel as come on leaps and bounds and now should be the seen as one of the main players DGUSA. This match should have rated far higher but just over half way Jigsaw injured his knee. Rather than changing how the match should finish as the match was booked with Jigsaw obviously doing a lot of high flying moves. With little idea on how to think on the move, it did hurt the second part of the match. Quacksaw gets the win.
Jimmy Jacobs made a surprise appearancde with Mustafa Ali and made an attempt to recruit the Young Bucks. Bucks were having none of it, Genki and Ryo take advantage and lay out the Bucks to set up our main event.
Time for Bryan Danielson's only DGUSA appearance, as he already signed with the WWE facing top DG champion Naruki Doi. Both guys were treated as major stars but the fans were clearly seeing Danielson as the star of the show. This was a just an outstanding match with boy guys taking turns to control the match. The selling of the moves was also excellent and was a nice difference from the earlier matches. The big spot was Danielson hitting Cattle Mutaliation only for Doi to escape but finding himself nailed by about 20 elbows from Danielson which most fans thought was the finish. A number of great reversals later it was Doi who emerged victorious after nailing his opponent with the sliding kick and muscle bomb. Danielson then did a promo saying that he thought Davey Richards would be the new 'Best in the World' on the indy scene and that he would be watchin Davey's match later on.
CIMA's win over Kendrick had no chance to match what had gone before, as I have the two disc version of the show which shows the full match rather than 3 minutes of highlights which was shown on the PPV. Kendrick was working noticeably lighter than just about anyone else on the show. Match was pretty standard.
Another MOTY contender then followed with Davey's victory of Shingo, Shingo emerged without his mullet to some fans amusement. Davey used a wide range of moves to try and get the win using a number of submissions and high impact moves to get the win. He did miss a dive which saw him fly into the third row, he was moving so fast if I was Shingo I wouldn't have caught him either. It was after this that the fans really got behind Davey as Shingo is a babyface as well. A fantastic sequence of moves saw Shingo miss a spear then get rocked with a missile dropkick then a shooting star press and moments later tap to the kimura which Davey had been working on throughout the match. Afterwards Danielson came out to put Davey over as the ace of the promotion, Davey initially accepted and then turned and beat up Bryan. Solidifying his position as top heel in the group much to the fans fury.
This left the main event tag team match featuring.the Young Bucks against tag champs Genki & Ryo. Although there was nothing wrong with it and actually a lot to like especially the many double team moves from the Bucks. It was always going to struggle after Davey/Shingo. The champions retained when Genki blew mist into Matt's eyes and Saito then hit the double cross for the win.
Overall it is a brilliant show, there is nothing that could be described as bad, two MOTY contenders both of which rated in Wresting Observers top five pro wrestling matches of 2009. Danielson/Doi scopped 4th and Davey/Shingo was second. The show itself finished 3rd in the Best Major Wrestling Show category behind the first DGUSA show, personally I prefer this one and UFC 100. If you get a chance to see this show then do yourself a favour and check it out it's a great way to spend two and a half hours.

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