More No Ring Dragon Gate

 

Dragon Kid & Shingo Takagi vs BxB Hulk & Naoki Tanizaki, Dragon Gate 8/9/2008

I loved the tag with Arai, so I decided to watch the rest of that no-ring Dragon Gate. This was definitely a Dragon Gate match – very spotty, little selling and everything is thrown out seemingly too fast – but the no ring factor makes it pretty fun and enjoyble mostly for the curiosity of them pulling off their shit, notably Dragon Kids whacky satelitte headscissor moves. And whether or not Shingo will hit his headspiking moves on that thin mat – and yes, he does. Shingos punches were fun and BxB Hulk took a great looking back body drop at one point, probably the biggest and most painful looking moves on the match. But this was definitely a match for the ‘the more moves per minute you hit the better’ crowd. But, they went really hard. You never see wrestlers going this hard in undercard matches anymore. Maybe for the wiser, but it’s also fun to watch something relentless like this once in a while.

Cyber Kong & Yamato vs Masato Yoshino & Naruki Doi, Dragon Gate 8/9/2008

This was better. It had an understandable story with Kong and Yamato being more of a heel team, they let everything breath a little more, and they made good use of the non-ring. There were some insane sprinting dropkicks that looked fantastic among other things, and some fun chaos with brawling and chairs and a table coming into play. Mostly the match wasn’t super predictable. Cyber Kong is a really fun powerhouse here and he did a great job both basing for people and killing the little dudes with hoss offense. Once again, the no ring bumps looked just brutal with Yoshino getting spiked on his neck by lariats. Yoshino also looked pretty good with his vicious dropkicks and fast movements and the other guys were solid. The clipping probably helped – as they cut it down from 19 minutes to about half that length – but it’s a super enjoyable watch regardless. Dragon Gate really should’ve kept going without a ring.