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The Navigation Log 12.21.08: King of Gate Finals, El Dorado Closes, and Global Gauntlet Night 1!

December 21, 2008 | Posted by Matt Short

What was supposed to be happening in a few days? Oh right, Christmas. That explains why there’s been nothing but holiday music in every single store. I’m not one of those Christmas haters though. I love Christmas a lot because I for one enjoy holidays where I’m off from work to stay at home all day and get free stuff. I’m just not a fan of the music, especially when the same dozen songs get played over and over and over again. It gets repetitive enough to drive anyone into madness. Also the content of some of these songs is highly questionable. For example, Baby, It’s Cold Outside is a song about attempted date rape. That’s hardly in the spirit of the holidays. And Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer? Since when is geriatric vehicular homicide been funny? FOR SHAME.

Onto the Navigation Log!

For the first time in a long time I’m not rushed to finish this week. So due to the slow week had by the Big Three and the major events taking place in the Dragon Gate realm over the past week I can devote some major space to them.

King of Gate Finals
The final round of the 2008 King of Gate tournament was Naruki Doi vs. Masaaki Mochizuki. Since I’ve neglected to keep up with this in the column, let’s look at the paths these two men took to the finals.

Doi’s first round opponent was the hero of 2007’s tournament Dragon Kid. Kid didn’t win the King of Gate last year, but he avenged CIMA’s loss by ref stoppage over Gamma in a post-tournament main event. Next he got past his World-1 stable mate BxB Hulk, who has had an awesome 2008. The semi-final match was against former Open the Dream Gate Champion Don Fuji. You could say that Doi had a pretty tough road to the finals considering he had three very tough opponents all three rounds.

Mochizuki by comparison had an easier trip to the finals. First he knocked out the Fake Champion of 2007, Gamma. This might have been more impressive were it not for the fact that the Gamma of 2008 is in a much weaker position right now than the mega dick heel Gamma of 07. The second round he got past Taku Iwasa, who is currently readjusting himself to single competition after over a year of teaming regularly with Kenichiro Arai. His last match was against one of his Triangle Gate Champion partners, Magnitude Kishiwada in the semi-finals, which also came out to be his biggest test on his road to the finals.

Doi vs. Mochizuki in the finals ended with Doi coming out on top as this year’s King of Gate. He now has earned a chance at Shingo Takagi’s Open the Dream Gate at the year ending show on 12/28. I can’t say that I like Doi’s chances of winning though, as right now Shingo looks all but unbeatable. He’s been extremely dangerous as an unaffiliated champion, plowing through the likes of TAKA Michinoku and Cyber Kong then briefly joining Typhoon before quitting when he wasn’t permitted to expel Susumu Yokosuka. Shingo is now on the verge of forming yet another faction with Taku Iwasa and Akira Tozawa, which could prove to be a wild card in his coming match with Doi. I really want Doi to take the title sometime in 2009, but I don’t think we’re going to see that happening here.

Invasion?
Just this past week, the promotion El Dorado finally closed its doors forever. The company was comprised of former Toryumon students and was seen as a different route for many of Ultimo Dragon’s students to take who were dissatisfied with Dragon Gate. 2008 had been particularly rough for them as they were simply not making enough money. When Shuji Kondo officially signed with All Japan, that was one of the last nails in the coffin for El Dorado and the company folded after a final show on the 15th.

Now interestingly enough, no sooner does El Dorado fold than one of its top stars, KAGETORA appears at Dragon Gate’s finale show for the King of Gate tournament. He intruded on the opening match of the show and has apparently declared war on Dragon Gate. Veteran K-ness came out to stand up for DG, saying that KAGETORA was essentially nobody inside of Dragon Gate, calling him by his dojo name Hashimoto. KAGETORA will soon be facing m.c.KZ at one of Masaaki Mochizuki’s produced Buyuden shows and will take on K-Ness during a 500,000 Yen tournament set to take place in 2008.

This does lead to some room for speculation though. There are a lot of talented guys who now have no place to call home from the now defunct El Dorado. Dragon Gate is the best option for a lot of them due to the size of the company and the history that they have with the current members of the DG roster. I have a feeling that a few may find their way into the Dragon Gate locker room, but I don’t know if there will be enough for one to consider it an “invasion.” Dragon Gate functions today because they don’t have a massive roster. Everyone gets ring time because they have a small roster and rely on multi-man matches for their shows. When they’ve needed to fill out a big card, they have always been able to find outsiders to come in and provide a big match feel.

I’m glad to see KAGETORA is going to be doing full-time Dragon Gate work. He’s a hell of a performer, but invasion angles can only go so far. Unless he were going to lead a group of former El Dorado wrestlers against Dragon Gate mainstays, this type of thing would only last for maybe half a year.

Quick Notes
-Dragon Gate has announced that they will be running a show on March 22nd of next year inside Tokyo’s Sumo Hall. This is a huge venue for Dragon Gate and there will be many interested parties wanting to see how close they can get to filling the place.

-New Japan has apparently turned a profit in the final quarter of 2008. Good news for the company considering that the wrestling industry is all around not doing strongly in Japan right now.

-Yuji Nagata vs. Masato Tanaka II at Wrestle Kingdom III will be for the ZERO1 World Heavyweight Championship.

CHIKARA Global Gauntlet Night 1: A Review
I have finally found time to watch my new DVD copies of CHIKARA’s Global Gauntlet shows from October. And since these shows rely heavily on Japanese wrestlers, I figure here is about as good a place as any to talk about my impressions of the shows. I’m going to focus on the matches that actually had Japanese wrestlers in them as I do only have so many words per column, but trust me when I say these shows were both very good, though Night 2 was especially strong.

Global Gauntlet Night 1

The Osirian Portal vs. Atsushi Ohashi & Shinya Ishikawa
This match wasn’t part of the Best of 5 series that went on through this show. Rather it was an exhibition of Ohashi & Ishikawa and a chance for The Portal to claim their third point and set up a title match for Philly. This match wasn’t what I would call bad, as the fundamentals were all there. It just didn’t feel exciting enough for a show opener, even with that third point hanging in the balance. Ohashi & Ishikawa are just dojo boys at this point in their careers and they still have a long way to go, but this was perhaps not the best introduction for them in the US.

Yuji Okabayashi vs. Ultimo Breakfast
I can’t stress how much I love the Ultimo Breakfast gimmick. That said, this was a squash and a half. Ultimo got some offense in, but once Okabayashi got him in the Torture Rack it was over. Okabayashi is a big guy with some nice throws and this match made him come off as quite dominant. He’s a rookie too, but you can tell from the way he carries himself in the ring he’s far ahead of the two dojo boys from the opening match.

Jaki Numazawa vs. UltraMantis Black
UMB is the fucking truth. And it was some kayfaybe intelligence on the part of CHIKARA Captain Mike Quackenbush to pick Mantis to face the deathmatch specialist Numazawa. Mantis is a fan of Japanese deathmatches and has experience in that style as well. Thus, when Jaki went for the cliché deathmatch-guy-has-some-mat-skills offence, Mantis could adapt and bring him to the outside and lure him back into his ultraviolent ways. Then when Jaki is trying to decide how to wrestle the match, Mantis can confuse him with lucha. It would have worked if Numazawa hadn’t outsmarted UMB with a low blow and a roll up. Jaki did alright with the wrestling for what he had to do, but I definitely prefer him in deathmatches.

Katsumasa Inoue vs. Hallowicked
I laugh as Leonard Chikarason and Louden Noxious mispronounce Inoue’s name through the entire match. That aside, this was much better than the previous two bouts. Inoue is an incredibly stiff worker and he made sure Hallowicked got that message. ‘Wicked didn’t back down though and gave as good as he got. Good stuff here as Hallowicked gets Team CHIKARA their first win of the night.

Daisuke Sekimoto vs. Brodie Lee
Sekimoto is what some in the business might call a “hoss.” Yet for all his muscle mass, he still stands shorter than Lee (as would many guys). This was a pretty crazy match as again, these two stiff the hell out of each other. Sekimoto would not be denied though as he finished off Brodie Lee with a beautiful Avalance-style German suplex bridge.

Ryuji Ito vs. Mike Quackenbush
Jaki was pretty scarred up, but holy fuck Ito is like a walking scab. He also makes a much better showing out of putting on a wrestling match than Jaki did. This was a very competitive bout and both guys looked strong, but it was Ito who got the win after his trademark Dragon Splash. Big Japan beat CHIKARA on Night 1, 4-1.

Outside of the Global Gauntlet matches the rest of the show was very good. Crossbones, Ryan & Madison Eagles vs. Jesse McKay & The Colony was a whole lot of fun. The main event of STIGMA & Colin Delaney vs. Jimmy Olsen & Lince Dorado was an amazing tag team bout. I think that this tag match exists for the sole purpose of reminding people that Delaney has something to offer wrestling besides being a jobber. Great stuff.

Night 2 next week!

Weekly Puro
We talked a lot of Dragon Gate today so… here’s some more. This was an interesting little bout that came out of the Hulk vs. Gamma feud. After a couple shows of taking beatings at the hands of Darkside Hulk, Gamma dug deep into his playbook to unleash Gamma Daiou, a tribute to one of his old friends from Osaka Pro. Gamma looks for all the world like the fucking Boogeyman, but also looks pretty fucking amazing in his costume and I think is enough of a match for Darkside Hulk. You decide.

Dragon Gate: Darkside Hulk vs. Gamma Daiou

At Home
Jeff Hardy is WWE Champion? Wow. I mean really, wow. I’m happy for the guy, but I seriously never thought I’d see the day where this would happen. Most people are happy about this, while others are outright mad that he won the belt. Such is the way of Jeff Hardy. You only ever see people who love him or hate him. Everyone else just… I dunno acts rationally about it. I’m happy he won because it means that we’ve got a new face holding the main title on Smackdown. I have no problem with them trying something and as long as he doesn’t pull a Van Dam, he could have a successful reign. Given the right booking, I think he could be a strong champion and if he proves to be as such then he might get another run when he loses. I’ve always been a proponent of giving things a chance in wrestling before condemning them so I’m going to be doing the same here with WWE Champion Jeff Hardy.

I’ve got to say that I greatly enjoyed the two X-Division Tournament matches this week on Impact. They got some time this week, compared to the two very short and weak bouts from the previous edition of Impact. Sabin vs. Dutt was good stuff, but I was really curious to see how Akira Raijin was going to play his Great Muta tribute character Kiyoshi. I’ve got to say: not bad, but it needs work. His face paint gives him a different kind of look and he’s got some of the mannerisms down pretty well. With a little work he can develop the character so that it’s seen as more of a tribute character, rather than a carbon copy. I’ve said it before, but it bears saying again: Keiji Muto is perhaps the most imitated professional wrestler on the planet today.

Short Takes
-This losing streak is totally leading to a MVP face turn. I will be shocked if it doesn’t happen.

-Watching The Untouchables as I write this. Movie kicks ass and I will never get tired of it.

-The end of the year means look-back episodes of everything on TV. Good for people like me who lack the Tivo.

-I’ve really got nothing for this section this week.

That’s all for now. Next week will be the last Navigation Log of 2008, so that means a year in retrospect. My favorite matches of the year, personal picks for best wrestlers and tag teams, and just generally the kind of fluff you’d expect from someone over the holidays. Peace!

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Matt Short

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