Dragongate
Kobe Pro-Wrestling Festival 2024
Kobe World Memorial Hall, Kobe, Japan
July 21, 2024
Watch: Dragongate Network
Meet Our Previewers
Mike Spears: Co-Host of Open The Voice Gate and proprietor of Spearsovations. He recorded a three hour preview episode of Voice Gate with Case Lowe and guest Jae Church this week that further preview this weekend’s biggest show!
Liam Byrne: Usually found writing about old school wrestling, Dragongate is a rare foray into the modern wrestling world for Liam. Wrote the past two Kobe World previews and looking forward to what should be a good show.
Special Singles Match
Kota Minoura vs Madoka Kikuta
Mike Spears: As Liam said, I don’t have any expectation that Kota Minoura will win this. I wouldn’t be surprised if he scrapped his way to a Time Limit Draw (which does feel kinda weird at Kobe World), but there’s no way his hand is being raised. Madoka Kikuta is in the midst of his cycling down after the Dream Gate run and calling out Minoura is the only thing of consequence he has done since dropping that title last December. Minoura’s future will be tied to that August 1st Korakuen Hall match against Minorita, what we will get is more of how Minoura’s looked since losing his hair: the ghost on the roster trying to figure out who he is and one of the most prodigious members of the roster coming to terms with his greatest defeat. I hope Kikuta takes his head off and that provides more fuel onto what’s coming next.
Liam Byrne: Minoura has been on a downward spiral that, whilst it has naturally not seen him winning matches, has made him one of the more interesting wrestlers on the roster right now. Everything points to an eventual heel turn, though it is his upcoming match at Korakuen against stablemate Minorita that feels an obvious point for the big angle. I’m glad that this match exists as much because it gives Kikuta something of note to do. Largely downcycled at times since his Dream Gate title reign, Kikuta may not be as important to the card as he was over the past two years, but he is still very entertaining bell to bell. This feels like it is one of the more obvious results on the card – there is no way that Minoura is winning so expect Kikuta to go over clean. This will all add fuel to the Minoura fire for the match against Minorita.
Takashi Yoshida, Problem Dragon, Ho Ho Lun & Punch Tominaga vs Shachihoko BOY, Ryoya Tanaka, Ryu Fuda & Daiki Yanagiuchi
Mike Spears: Given the weight of the opener, I don’t expect this one to have much to it. It gets all the regulars onto the show and provides the first Kobe World main card experience for the youngsters. Although Tanaka is the most elevated out of the three, I can’t see him (or really anyone on this side) getting the fall, which means we have to give the win to the veteran side and likely Takashi Yoshida getting the fall.
Liam Byrne: Whilst this does feel like a ‘get everyone on the card’ type of match, I think this could be booked in a way to give one of the younger guys a notable win. No-one on the Yoshida team really needs to win, nor really is impacted by taking a loss, so I’m hoping that one of Fuda, Yanaguichi or Tanaka picks up the pinfall. I’d prefer it to go to Fuda or Daiki, but I feel that the relative positioning on the roster of Tanaka as a member of D’Courage makes him much more likely to grab the win. To stick my neck out a little, I’m going to call Tanaka pinning Problem Dragon as the youth movement (and Shachi) gathers some momentum on the big stage.
Z-Brats (KAI & ISHIN) vs Yosuke Santa Maria & La Estrella
Mike Spears: KAI and ISHIN have been a constant pairing in recent months and one based around ISHIN getting falls with distraction cookie sheet shots. It’s good that Maria (coming back from a bad ankle injury) and Estrella (back to do paperwork for the parent company) get to make the show, but like match two, I think this will be where the card gets back time spent on Minoura and Kikuta. 50/50 on this ending with a DQ or a quick Cookie Sheet attack roll-up.
Liam Byrne: Considering the number of injuries and retirements Dragongate has seen in recent years, Santa Maria’s involvement at another Kobe World is a pleasing one. However, ISHIN is one of the most engaging wrestlers in the promotion at the moment, so it feels a bit of a shame that he isn’t being involved in something more prominent. His recent booking has felt like the company are looking to move him into the position to be more of a gamechanger at the top of the card by the end of the year and I feel like this match will be no different. With Estrella likely to return to the US post-Kobe World, I’d expect him to take the fall and put in a reasonable performance in the process – the best use of the enigmatic masked man in 2024.
GAORA presents Dragongate 25th Anniversary Special Match
Ultimo Dragon, Don Fujii, Susumu Yokosuka, Yasushi Kanda & Kagetora vs Masaaki Mochizuki, Genki Horiguchi, Super Shisa & Konomama Ichikawa with Chocoflake K-ICHI
Mike Spears: The delight for me in this match is the return of Super Shisa to Dragongate after a two year absence (that we discussed pretty in depth with Jae Church on this week’s Voice Gate). I feel like the Dragon System is best whenever SAITO or his student Super Shisa have been around so I’m delighted that this karmic wrong was righted in time for the Anniversary. Chocoflake K-ICHI making an appearance is a nice added sprinkle. One side has the founder of the company and more full-timers, the other has Konomama Ichikawa.
Liam Byrne: As a Dragongate fan of relatively few years, this match means less to me than it might do to the long timers. However, there is something incredibly wholesome about a promotion who is able to put on a 25th Anniversary Match with so many people who have been with the company for that long and the entity that was Toyumon into Dragongate even longer. There are quite literally hundreds of years and memories tied into this selection of ten workers and it will be a real celebration of what Dragongate has been over the past twenty-five years. I’m looking forward to it even without the history that some people will have and it doesn’t really matter who wins. With Ultimo Dragon on one side and Ichikawa on the other, I feel a La Majistral finish is the most likely outcome.
Open The Triangle Gate
Natural Vibes (Strong Machine J, Big Boss Shimizu & U-T (c) vs Gold Class (BXB Hulk, Minorita & Mochizuki Junior)
Mike Spears: I just can’t get beyond the starting blocks with Gold Class right now. Mochizuki Junior joining was a nice moment, but the fate of this unit is pinned to Kota Minoura and we are all standing looking at the calendar waiting for Minoura vs Minorita. I feel like Minorita and Mochizuki Jr probably have a great future together in a future Ben-K unit, but success will not find this Gold Class team. Natural Vibes feels like the most obvious title defense on the show, but I don’t know if they are necessarily my favorite champions right now in the company. The 4 Ever chapter of Natural Vibes feels awkward with the power switch between Strong Machine J and Kzy. Frankly, it’s impossible to figure out where Kzy’s Natural Vibes ended and J’s new Vibes began. So I hope two things come from this Triangle Gate match. One, I hope that we see something new from Natural Vibes. If this unit is going to be led by Strong Machine J, then how is it going to be his unit and not Kzy’s? Two, How will new Gold Class jive in a match like this? Hulk and Rita were often the Second and Thirds of Gold Class teams, how is it going to be when they will be supporting Junior, who feels like the highlight of their team.
Liam Byrne: I’m one of the fans of the company who is very pleased to see Mochizuki Junior as part of a unit outside of his affiliation with M3K and his father. It speaks to an elevation in his position in the roster and with that comes a chance to earn another run with the Triangle Gate. Gold Class might be a unit in flux, but the addition of Mochizuki Junior does suggest that there is life in it yet. My listening to the Open the Voice Gate podcast with Jae did sway my ultimate prediction – I had initially thought that it was unlikely they’d have Mochizuki Junior lose, but as Jae suggested, as long as he doesn’t lose the fall, he doesn’t lose much in a losing effort to the better established team. Being a big fan of the J, Shimizu, U-T team, I wouldn’t mind if they went on a longer run, especially for a title that has bounced around a fair bit in my time as a fan of the promotion.
Open The Brave Gate
HYO (c) vs Dragon Dia
Mike Spears: Who ever had “Top Three Dragongate stars going into Kobe World will include HYO and Dragon Dia” as a July 2023 prediction for July 2024 probably got pretty good odds on their bet. However that’s our reality after one of the most successful face turns in recent company history (HYO) and a fill-in 1-9 Best of the Super Junior performance boosted an adrift roster member’s stock (Dia). I frankly don’t want this HYO Brave Gate run to ever end. He’s a captivating presence from the entrance, and after eight years the in-ring abilities of the Black Panther finally have reached the level of his charisma and character-work. After his victory over Flamita at June’s Korakuen, HYO announced he was pursuing greatness. That was his sixth defense, good for a four-way tie for fourth all-time in a reign. After years of promised revitalization, or to use the kid’s phrase, trying to “restore the feeling” of the Brave Gate, HYO has done just that. Dragon Dia’s immediate future is connected to the impending Z-Brats vs D’Courage feud and the return of Yuki Yoshioka and the Brave Gate would deserve a better fate than being an afterthought with all of HYO’s good work.
Liam Byrne: It is debatable whether this will be the best match on the card, but it will certainly be a showcase of the two of the most popular wrestlers in DG today. Dia has returned from BOSJ more over than when he left, a rare point in the last couple of years in which he hadn’t felt like a main character. I’ll also hold my hands up to not really expecting HYO’s face turn to be as successful as it has been, perhaps forgetting the cardinal rule that there is often a thin line between love and hate and HYO used to be detested, so adulation for his aboutface perhaps shouldn’t have been such a surprise. I absolutely loved the title defense against Flamita from Dead or Alive and still feel that there is mileage in the HYO reign, so will be not only picking this to be one of the MOTN contenders but a hard-fought HYO victory. We are at the point where a victory over HYO could really elevate someone if booked correctly, and I think Dia can remain strong even coming out with a loss to his name, especially with a hopefully renewed focus on D’Courage post-Yuki Yoshioka return in the next couple of months.
Listen to Voices of Wrestling’s Dragongate podcast: Open the Voice Gate!
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Open The Twin Gate Four Way Tag Elimination Match
Not Hug (Naruki Doi & Dragon Kid) (c) vs Big Hug (Luis Mante & Jacky Kamei vs Natural Vibes (Kzy & Flamita) vs Z-Brats (Shun Skywalker & Jason Lee)
Mike Spears: There has been no surer bet for a great match for Dragongate in this building than a Twin Gate match. All the participants of perhaps the greatest match that ever happened at Kobe World Memorial Hall will meet in different configurations. The current Twin Gate team consists of two of the greatest tag team wrestlers in Dragon System history. Kzy and Flamita found instant chemistry upon Flamita’s return, and Flamita has rolled the clock back a full decade in his Dragongate return.The expectations here are massive and I fully expect all eight guys to absolutely kill it as they have at Kobe World countless times before. That all being said, I want Z-Brats to win and we can get a branching feud and rematches for the remainder of the year based on who eliminates who. I cannot wait.
Liam Byrne: Expectations are sky-high for the match which looks like the front runner for MOTN. It is perhaps foolish to put such high expectations on a tournament as you can often only be disappointed, but the calibre of all of the men in this match and more importantly their chemistry with each other all points to an absolute barnstormer of a contest. As much as I have enjoyed Not Hug and Naruki Doi in particular, their title victory felt like a happy by-product of Yuki Yoshioka’s injury and the need to get the gold back from NOAH. Therefore, I definitely feel the title will change hands, it just becomes a case of who it goes to.
I’ve never had the pleasure of watching Flamita before and have thoroughly enjoyed what I have seen, but his seemingly imminent return to Mexico would seem to eliminate the team with Kzy as an option. With HYO retaining the Brave Gate, Big Hug don’t necessarily need any additional gold, whilst the best option for the next reign I see continues to be Case Lowe’s suggestion of an epic Shun Skywalker and Jason Lee run. It could be more out of hope than expectation, but that will be my suggestion for the finish. A title victory keeps Skywalker relevant as one of THE guys in Dragongate, yet doesn’t make things odd that he isn’t consistently in the Dream Gate picture. I’m hoping that this is an elimination tag – there is no reason it shouldn’t be – so I see Jason Lee pinning Kamei in order to allow their feud to continue to simmer. The sky’s the limit for this match and it is definitely the match I am looking forward to the most. All things considered, it should also be the match that the wider wrestling community seek out come Monday morning.
Open The Dream Gate
Ben-K (c) vs YAMATO
Mike Spears: It took five years, but I think Ben-K has finally figured himself out. When Ben-K won the Open The Dream Gate against PAC at Kobe World 2019, expectations were massive. I was guilty of this just as much as the Dragongate office. This was the guy who would bring the company forward in their 20th anniversary year. We would finally get beyond The Big Six and the OWE split because Ben-K would be handed the football from PAC, the person who saved the company in 2018 after Stronghearts and Shingo left. Everything would be great and the company would confidently move into the future. Ben-K’s coronation was perfect.
Until Ben-K picked up the microphone and addressed the crowd in Kobe as the new Dream Gate champion.
That Ben-K wasn’t able to rise to the challenge and the expectations. His fall was well documented. YAMATO witnessed it as close up as anyone as partners in first the Dragongate Generation and then HIGH-END. It took bad influences getting fired, and boredom on a long bus ride for Ben-K to figure out how to have fun in wrestling again. It was freestyle rap YouTube videos. Cuban link chains. A Banana. Gold Class. Those brought him back to the dance, but it was taking that joy and protecting it and turning back to Ben-K’s bruising manner that brought him his second Dream Gate win against Luis Mante in June. Then YAMATO emerged from the back and from the backlines.
Often I find myself frustrated by YAMATO. He came into the company and made his mark in 2009-10 as supernova dripping with cool, a young man who delighted in dismantling his opponents, The Battleship himself. I feel like in the last few years, essentially as Dragongate started doing more interpromotional activities, YAMATO has returned to that MMA YAMATO tradition in feuds against Hiromu Takahashi and Fujita Jr Hayato. It’s not the company ace that we saw in 2016 onwards. And it’s not the Almighty Mad Blankey and VerserK YAMATO of 2013.
The one thing YAMATO got out of the Kota Minoura feud wasn’t Minoura’s hair, it was the ability to assess the Reiwa Six. YAMATO finds them lacking. His year plus in the backlines proved to him what Dragongate needs more is More YAMATO.
It’s not exactly the Dream Gate feud I would necessarily clamor to book for my 25th Anniversary Kobe World main event. Comparatively, it’s a lot better than GM Ryo Saito’s previous Dream Gate feuds of the Kota Minoura Debacle of 2022 and Not Booking a Feud for Yoshioka and Kikuta in 2023. I don’t know if YAMATO vs Ben-K is even the biggest match in the promotion right now, it’s probably YAMATO vs Shun Skywalker. It has a lot of ripples to it however, and does feel like Dragongate is putting both the old (YAMATO) and the new (Ben-K) at the forefront for their 25th, which should be celebrated.
I’ve been mostly 50/50 on this title match since it’s been announced and I might be 52/48 Ben-K at this point. He’s going to get some sort of own unit with whatever’s left of Gold Class and I think that you can have defenses against KAI (in Yokohama) and Shimizu (in Osaka) to close out the year. Ben-K’s ready for that microphone this time around.
Liam Byrne: Due to my relatively short time as a DG fan (I’ve watched wrestling for 30+ years, but DG for only about 4), I’ve largely only seen late-era YAMATO, and rarely Main Event YAMATO, considering how purposely downcycled he was in the past year or two. Therefore, I don’t attach some of the more negative elements of his dominant runs of the past to him and have largely enjoyed what I have seen as he has mixed it up with a wider range of people. That being said, I’m looking forward to potentially seeing him with the gold once more as a ‘versus the Reiwa six’-style storyline can begin to more fully form. YAMATO has already dealt with Kota Minoura convincingly; take out Ben-K for the gold and you have a number of potential matches on the table as Madoka Kikuta, Strong Machine J, Shun Skywalker and Yuki Yoshioka could all have a go, maybe setting an eventual path for an avenging Minoura.
There is part of me that thinks it would be a shame to cut Ben-K off at the knees in this manner, but his victory felt like one of necessity as Luis Mante had – through no fault of his own – struggled to be the Dream Gate champion that we wanted him to be. YAMATO versus Mante at World would have been an absolute gimme over who would win; this match at least feels like it could go either way, adding a sense of intrigue to the top of the card. Ben-K’s title win oddly feels like it has come on a bit of a downturn for him compared to the popularity of his rap battle inspired character, but he has seamlessly transitioned into the role of the more serious promotional champion with ease. You can’t knock him for trying, that’s for sure.
This is the match that I think has been hurt most by the promotion’s decision to stop uploading videos on Youtube. Just at the point where a new champion and challenger had been decided, there has really been limited interaction between the two men that people can engage with and enjoy. Ultimately, it means that this match relies on people’s previous expectations of what the two men are capable of over and above any of the actual build. This could just feel a lot hotter than it does to me.
My prediction? YAMATO to win the gold for a sixth time in a good, if not great match. I feel that there are more interesting developments coming out of the event with YAMATO as the champion, whilst the build up to Paradox and the seemingly imminent implosion of Gold Class could also be further developed with a change in Dream Gate champion. If Ben-K were to retain, it wouldn’t be the end of the world, but I also think he could take a loss to YAMATO without too much of a problem. I just hope that post-Twin Gate match that this doesn’t just turn into a damp squib of a main event.
