Puroresu Show Reviews

We kick off the PPV with Do-Fixer coming out to welcome the crowd and wishing everyone a happy new year. They get done, but Blood Generation come out and both sides start yapping it up about “captains”, and the main event is decided as a “Captain’s Fall” match. Magnitude says a few words which brings out a serious Anthony W. Mori to the ring and asking for a shot at Kishiwada, and they decided it to be a 10-man tag, but then Ryo says it’ll only be 8-man, with Mori replacing Genki! Naoki isn’t happy about this but Genki tells him to listen to Ryo, who is the group leader. Magnitude is then named the team captain for the Blood Generation team, and Mori the captain of the Do-Fixer team in the main event tonight.

Super Shisa & King Shisa VS Susumu Yokosuka & Kenichiro Arai
Solid opener with a good mix of comedy and fast speed action. I like the opening bit where they did a bunch of comedy spots around Susumu & Araken slapping Shisa on the back hard. REALLY hard. And it still surprises me how quick on his feet King Shisa is for his size. Araken & Susumu showed some good team work, and it was fun watching Susumu do some comedy like he did here, but I can’t wait to watch him get serious again later down the line and chase Ryo and the Dream Gate title.
Match Rating: *1/2

The Florida Brothers come out for their match and they wonder who their opponent will be since Anthony is now in the main event spot and was originally supposed to face them in a handicap match. Well, it’s non other than the man Anthony is replacing in the match, Genki Horiguchi!

Handicap Match: Florida Brothers VS Genki Horiguchi
I haven’t seen a Florida Brothers match in a long while, and the last time I saw Genki VS the Floridas, it was a screaming match. This time the best way I could describe it was that they were having a HERNIA match as all 3 of them took low blows and continued the match while having difficulty moving thanks to the pain in their lower extremities! This was also one of those rare times where the Floridas won by pinfall instead of DQ, as they pinned Genki with a rather innovative roll-up.
Fun match, only it was a little short.
Match Rating: *
Entertainment Rating: ***

BxB Hulk & Katsuo VS Vengallys & Tozawa
Tozawa comes out in his Vengallys gear and his personality and entertainment value immediately jump up a few points! He did Vengallys’ gigolo dance intro, but had a little trouble getting his pants off, but it was fun to watch and the crowd loved it too. I think the only thing wrong was Tozawa was wearing his black tights instead of matching white tights with Vengallys, which Katsuo was wearing.
And when match kicked off, Tozawa was rather entertaining with his imitation of Vengallys’ mannerisms, which the crowd again loved, and he gave a solid showing for himself in the ring against both Katsuo and Hulk. I thought Vengallys himself was rather ok, but he did seem out of place and had a few odd spots when it looked like he wasn’t selling his opponent’s offense.
Katsuo was ok looking himself, and it was fun watching him play up his confusion on Tozawa’s gimmick. Hulk had a good showing too and it was interesting to see him get out cheered by Tozawa!
Fun match overall, but I didn’t like what happened after when Araken came out and ridiculed Tozawa for his choice of a mentor and gimmick. What? The old fart would rather he become a boring run of the mill rookie instead of someone with a PERSONALITY?!?
Match Rating: *

Magnum TOKYO & Masaaki Mochizuki VS Shingo Takagi & Don Fuji
Now this one was really good as you the ace team of Magnum & Mochi against the BG team of veteran Fuji and rookie monster Shingo. Shingo hasn’t been given the rookie treatment in a long time, so it was interesting to see him get slapped around by Mochi & Magnum during the opening moments of the match. But the veterans did a good job of making him look like the rookie monster he was at they had a heck of a time just trying to get him off his feet and he was able to counter almost every suplex or slam attempt on him. He even muscled up Mochi and gave him a Twister! I also liked seeing Fuji in a position where he couldn’t no sell his opponents offense and had his fair share of trouble with the ace team throughout the match.
Magnum seems to be slacking a bit during his dance intro, but it’s still one of the best entrances in the business today. He worked a solid match and started off with a great slap exchange with Fuji, and the rest of it was solid as well even if he didn’t break out his full arsenal. The same could be said for Mochi who’s arsenal was mostly down to his stiff kicking ability.
I also noticed how this match had more heat than any of the previous ones, probably cause they were given more time to work, but I have noticed that Mochi & Magnum still get bigger pops than most of the young studs on the roster.
Match Rating: **1/2

Post match Don Fuji isn’t happy about losing the match and takes his frustrations out on referee Yasushi Kanda. This of course begins sowing the seeds of the original M2K reunion later. Ever notice the only way Fuji can get any heat is by abusing rookies and referees? If he didn’t stick with CIMA all the time, he’d probably be the biggest jobber in the company.

Captain’s Fall Elimination Match: Ryo Saito, Anthony W. Mori (C), Dragon Kid & Naoki Tanisaki VS CIMA, Magnitude Kishiwada (C), Masato Yoshino & Naruki Doi
Now this was a great fast paced main event with more than a few surprises. First they teased Naoki walking out on Do-Fixer after Ryo accidentally hit him, only for Naoki to run in out of nowhere and eliminate Doi with the Backslide from Heaven! Tanisaki himself put on a strong showing against CIMA before CIMA spiked him with the Schwein twice to eliminate him. They continued to build the feud between Yoshino & Dragon Kid when Yoshino eliminated Kid with his cool Lightning Spiral finisher, showing once again that Kid couldn’t kick out of the move and Yoshino seemingly has the Brave Gate champion’s number for the eventual showdown. And the big surprise of course being Anthony W. Mori beating Magnitude Kishiwada with a triangle-choke to beat the team captain and win the match. The strong finish by Mori more than makes up for the fact that Magnitude was beating him left and right all over the place throughout the match, but showed that Mori could indeed withstand a beating and had a legitimate move that could beat the Dream Gate champion.
A great match overall and good way to close out the PPV after a mostly lackluster show.
Match Rating: ***1/2

Overall: The beginning matches were ok, and the opening segment did go kind of long, but the payoff at the end of the show was worth it to see them build up Mori into someone that did indeed have a slim chance instead of no chance of beating the champion.

Labels: Dragon Gate