DRAGONGATE PRO WRESTLING
KOBE WORLD PRO-WRESTLING FESTIVAL 2026
JULY 20, 2026
KOBE WORLD HALL, KOBE, JAPAN
Watch: Dragongate Network
ADVANCED BOUT SIX-MAN TAG TEAM MATCH
HO HO LUN, REACH TOMINAGA, & TRISTAN MOODY DEF. PROBLEM DRAGON, SHACHIHOKO BOY, & TAKASHI
This was the first big show in Tristan Moody’s young Dragongate career. In the spring, he flew himself from North Carolina to Las Vegas for a Dragongate trial and ended up impressing the powers that be enough for him to get his first Dragongate tour. He quit his job and debuted on July 12 in Shizuoka. In the brief glimpses we have of him in this pre-show bout, I was more than intrigued by what I saw from the American import. I wish Moody the best and I hope we see much more of him going forward.
Ho Ho Lun picked up the win with the Ho Roll on Problem Dragon. **1/4
KAZUMA KIMURA & MOCHIZUKI JUNIOR DEF. AKEY & RYU FUDA
Ah, yes, the match featuring four wrestlers that I wish they’d do way more with. There was a point in time in this promotion in which Mochizuki Junior, the son of the Iron Man of Dragongate, was always doing something. It might not have been a massive program, but Junior was always figured into the company’s plans in some way, shape, or form. The promotion was better when that was the case. Junior has largely been stagnant for the last year despite still delivering at a high rate in the best unit in the company. In just four minutes in the Kobe World 2026 opener, Junior reminded us just how good he can be.
Some of his most memorable work over the years has come against Ryu Fuda, the lowly Class of 2021 roster member who has been passed over by people far less experienced than him. Fuda never wins. He’s never been in a real unit. He’s never gotten a real push. The only time Fuda is doing anything is when he’s in the ring across from Junior. For whatever reason, they bring out the best in one another.
While he’s largely been relegated to openers like this all year, Kazuma Kimura continues to be an absolute delight whenever he appears. Kimura debuted 11 months ago and already possesses the footwork of someone who has been wrestling for 11 years. He’s yet to score a pinfall, but given that he’s now a member of Ryoya Tanaka’s unnamed unit, I expect to see Kimura winning notable matches sooner rather than later. I love him. I thought he was superb in this.
Junior put away Natural Vibes member Akey with a Jumping Knee, a Rail Gun, and a Bridging German Suplex just before the 5 minute mark. ***1/4
MASAKATSU FUNAKI DEF. JIRO SHIMBASHI
It’s weird that Masakatsu Funaki is as good of a comedy wrestler as he is.
A decade ago, Funaki showed up in a Dragongate ring for the first time to tussle with Stalker Ichikawa in one of my favorite Ichikawa matches ever. Against this generation’s Ichikawa, Funaki was once again brilliant, playing along with every beat that you’d want him to. He tapped Shimbashi out immediately with a front sleeper. Then, after dawning proper MMA gear, Shimbashi challenged Funaki to a rematch, which he lost after fielding a phone call mid-match and then getting choked out. Excellent stuff. NR
OPEN THE TRIANGLE GATE CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH
HYO, JACKY KAMEI, & RIIITA DEF. GUC, STRONG MACHINE J, & U-T
With this win, Love & Peace have become the 100th Open the Triangle Gate Champions in history. For Hyo, it’s his fifth reign, while Kamei is now on his third reign and Riiita is now on his second.
There’s still nobody on the planet that can do this still of match the way that Dragongate can.
What happened to the Triangle Gate belts earlier this year was an atrocity. We came into the year with Love & Peace (Ben-K, Hyo, Mochizuki Junior) as champions. They dropped the belts in shocking fashion to the Natural Vibes trio of Akey, GuC, and Kzy in February at Uno, Dos, Tres. It seemed like Dragongate was going to run with a sneaky-great midcard program between GuC and YAMATO, who demonstrate their stellar chemistry whenever they share the ring with one another, but instead Natural VIbes dropped the belts unexpectedly to Churaumi Saver, Gurukun Mask, & Teelan Shisa unexpectedly on a non-televised show in Okinawa this year. That trio then defended the belts once in Shisa’s retirement match before vacating the titles, which led us to this point. 0 televised defense of this title since April, and even that one was in a match full of outsiders. You’d have to go back to the Vibes title win in February to find the last proper Triangle Gate match.
Luckily, this was worth the wait. We went five months without a match like this and as a result, the output displayed here was a stiff slap in the face. Everyone did exactly what they were supposed to do to help make this a standout match of the night.
On the Love & Peace side, I continue to feel that this is one of the single strongest units Dragongate has ever put together on-paper. I wish they were pushed in the same way that 2014 Monster Express was. They should be this generation’s answer to everything that made Monster Express so great. Hyo, coming off of his Super Juniors run in New Japan, is now somehow more over than ever before. He drips charisma in a Dragongate ring. On a night where big names like Kzy, Ryoya Tanaka, and Madoka Kikuta all looked like stars, it’s hard to deny the fact that Hyo looked just as powerful as anyone else. It also helps that he’s continuing to do the best in-ring work of his career, now a decade deep as an active wrestler. I greatly enjoyed the two extended periods of Hyo vs. U-T action, especially the second stretch towards the end of the match.
It’s hard to continue to come up with words about Jacky Kamei. He’s been just about the best thing on every Kobe World for five years running now, going back to his all-time Twin Gate epic in 2022. It’s become painfully obvious that you either accept Kamei’s name listed among the best current wrestlers not only in Japan, but the world, or you have your finger woefully off the pulse. His big match resume is starting to look like a CVS receipt. In the big spot, Kamei comes through time after time. In the blink of an eye, Kamei has the ability to turn a good match into a great one, a skill that so many current Japanese wrestlers lack. They do not have the motor nor the ability to intensify a situation in the same way that Kamei does. In that regard, he’s utterly brilliant. Every Jacky Knife attempt is a swing for the fences, every double-team combo with Riiita is done with maximum impact, and every move registered against Kamei forces a look out of Kamei that makes it seem like he could be broken in half at any moment. He might have the most heart on the roster out of anyone not named Kzy, and this match wouldn’t have been as great as it was without him.
The shining pupils, however, were GuC (pronounced “Gucci” and Riiita. The former, a wrestler formerly known as Daiki Yanagiuchi who spent the first three years of his career doing an undercard comedy gimmick, should lap the field when it comes to Most Improved at the end of the year. There is no other wrestler that needs to be in the conversation. I was always very high on GuC, but I never could’ve imagined the drastic transformation that would take place with him in just the span of a few short months. GuC is now vital to the day-to-day efforts of the organization. I don’t want to see shows without him. I want him to be factored into meaningful moments, whether they be title matches or midcard angles. He’s been great all year, but the fact that he was able to deliver this kind of performance under the brightest lights of all absolutely blew me away. His affinity for running double-knee strikes is something that should be celebrated throughout the wrestling world. He wrestles with a certain fervor that is aiding him in 2026 Dragongate, but also would’ve made him a star in 2003 Toryumon. He does everything right. For as good as Strong Machine J and U-T were, their efforts are merely a distant memory for me, while everything that GuC did lives in the forefront of my mind.
Earlier this week, I sent someone an email saying that Riiita reminds me of “Rey [Mysterio] Jr, circa 1993-1994”. While I initially hesitated to make the comparison, I am now at a point where nothing else feels applicable. What Riiita is doing at his size (156 cm, 5’1”) is only comparable to when Rey Jr started tearing up AAA undercards in the early part of the 1990s. I know the comparison feels right given that if Kamei and Riiita showed up on Dynamite next week and wrestled this kind of match, they would break people’s brains, just like Rey Jr did when he showed up on Nitro.
All of wrestling has adopted a Diet Dragongate house style that just looks like a watered down version of what this promotion was doing a decade ago. No one – and I mean no one – is doing what Riiita is doing right now.
What is striking to me about Riiita is the explosiveness of his offense. He’s approaching wrestling like he’s a golden-era NOAH heavyweight, but he’s doing it in the smallest frame imaginable. His double stomps look like Looney Tunes-inspired offense in the most complimentary way possible. The Crucifix Bomb that he hit down the stretch on GuC legitimately got me to jump off of my couch. Riiita, for all of Dragongate’s faults this year, has become legitimately one of the best wrestlers in the world. I don’t think it’s debatable if you’re watching the product and not haphazardly watching his matches as a way to “check a box”.
While I have spent years being frustrated at the overall presentation of the Triangle Gate belts and the lack of focus that is sometimes put on them, I cannot deny that they nailed every part of crowning their 100th champions. This was a special match in Triangle Gate canon and one that I’ll remember for a long time.
Hyo tapped U-T with the Manjigatame for the win. ****1/2
Man pic.twitter.com/mcrLglBfmK
— Mister JW (@GrapsCentral) July 20, 2026
RIIITA YOU'RE INSANE CRUCIFIXED HIM OUT OF THE RING#dragongate pic.twitter.com/nP4ohCn7rB
— Pink (@pinklightsticc) July 20, 2026
EL CIELO, GIANNI VALLETTA, & SHUN SKYWALKER DEF. ALPHA WOLF, JASON LEE, & KAI AND DRAGON BANE, FLAMITA, & LUIS MANTE
Want to see the worst version of this match possible?
Most of Shun Skywalker’s last 11 months, dating back to his awkward Dream Gate encounter with Madoka Kikuta in August, have not hit the mark. It’s been deeply upsetting watching the man that I feel is one of the 5 best wrestlers of the 2020’s Psypatra, the longer they went (an absurd start to a sentence given that they only lasted six months), began to feel less and less like a part of Dragongate and more like this weird, extended universe unit that didn’t actually matter in the grand scheme of things. Skywalker’s farewell tour has felt that way, as well. In a sense, it’s nice to see Skywalker, but he’s not the Skywalker that had me gripped to his every move from 2021-2025.
Valletta, who I love deeply, has served his purpose in Dragongate. His run climaxed with his King of Gate 2025 win and subsequent Dream Gate challenge against Madoka Kikuta. Anything else that he’s involved with will be diminishing returns. I wish they’d also wish him well when Skywalker waves goodbye for the last time. That has nothing to do with him as a talent and everything to do with the fact that his character was maximized in such a brilliant way and now they’ve told all of the interesting stories with him that they can.
As a result of Skywalker feeling so distant, Valletta feeling used up, and the rest of this match being so inconsequential, this was the first blemish on what had otherwise been a very fun show. I should not leave a Dragongate match thinking that Alpha Wolf was the best guy involved; that just can’t happen. The heel tandem of Wolf and Jason Lee seemed to work harder than anyone else with Wolf, in particular, shining bright.
Skywalker pinned Lee with the SSW for the win. I think the idea was that given their history (fresh faces in 2018-2019, Masquerade in 2021, the subsequent feud over what unit Lee would be a part of in 2022, and then Lee’s turn in 2024), that this will be an emotional end to a long-running rivalry. It did not feel that way. It felt like just a move and nothing more. ***
YAMATO 20TH ANNIVERSARY MATCH
BXB HULK, DRAGON KID, KAGETORA, NARUKI DOI, SUSUMU YOKOSUKA, & YAMATO DEF. DON FUJII, GENKI HORIGUCHI, KENICHIRO ARAI, MASAAKI MOCHIZUKI, ULTIMO DRAGON, & YASUSHI KANDA
I still don’t believe that this was the original plan for YAMATO’s first match in his 20th anniversary celebration series. Shingo Takagi will join the fun on September 6 in Iwate during YAMATO’s homecoming show, which explains his absence here. Surely they could’ve come up with something better, though. If they were dead set on having Yasushi Kanda, YAMATO’s trainer and the man that he debuted against, they should’ve done YAMADoi vs. Susumu & Kanda in a battle between Dragongate’s top tag team and Dragongate’s first-ever tag team. That would’ve been far more interesting than what we got here.
It’s depressing to think that YAMATO lost the Dream Gate belt on this show one year ago after one of the greatest Dram Gate reigns in history and how little he’s done since. He’s been sidelined in a way that makes no sense to me whatsoever. As mentioned earlier, he had a great start to a program with GuC and the Triangle Gate belts, but that was abandoned entirely.
YAMATO can still very clearly go. His best moments in this match came against his longtime rival, the man who has tortured him more than anyone, Don Fujii.
In the end, YAMATO planted Horiguchi down with a Galleria. **3/4
OPEN THE TWIN GATE CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH
ISHIN & YOSHIKI KATO (c) DEF. KOTA MINOURA & YUKI YOSHIOKA
This win marks the first successful defense that ISHIN & Yoshiki Kato have made of the Open the Twin Gate Championships.
How does Dragongate manage to screw up the finish on the best built match of the night?
The newly-babyface Kota Minoura and his newfound friend Yuki Yoshioka made their official debut as XenisS. Despite Minoura coming dangerously close to aping Kaito Kiyomiya’s entire look, the green and silver color scheme of the new unit is a massive win. Dragongate had set the table for this new unit to debut, win Twin Gate gold, and put ISHIN & Kato in their rearview. I cannot believe they didn’t succeed in doing the obvious.
While I don’t think it is the greatest booking crime imaginable, it is a complete headscratcher to me. Now, either the XenisS duo will dominate Rey de Parejas into winning a rematch against the heel duo, or they’ll lose the Rey de Parejas tournament and somehow come across like giant dorks. That tournament would’ve been so much more interesting had they built it around the first challengers for a great new, babyface tandem.
I remain very bullish on the idea of Yoshioka and Minoura as a team. Throughout this contest, I found that they brought out the best in one another. Both men have flaws (Minoura more so than Yoshioka, but neither are perfect), but they both, historically, have done excellent work in tag teams. This is very much a two-halves-make-a-whole-type team.
While I’ve spent most of the year complaining about the insistence of referee interference spots and overbearing cheating that has gone on in this promotion, this match actually got better once the car crash-antics started. Yoshioka was first drilled by a box attack from KAI. Minoura then planted ISHIN with a Golden Rose that Kato was forced to break up. Yoshioka went for a High Fly Flow but was dumped to the floor by outsider Jason Lee. Minoura ate a giant tray shot and then was powdered into oblivion by the aforementioned Lee, but kept fighting. Yoshioka would later pop right back up from a huge Kato lariat to connect with one of his own, evening the match one final time. Unfortunately, he’d fall victim moments later to a mist attack from ISHIN and schoolboy pin.
What started off as pretty pedestrian wrestling turned into a super exciting closing stretch full of cheating, hooplah, and a superb mist spot. That being said, I feel strongly that the wrong team won. ***1/4
OPEN THE BRAVE GATE CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH
RYOYA TANAKA (c) DEF. HOMARE
With this win, Ryoya Tanaka has set the record for the most defenses during an Open the Brave Gate Championship reign with 12. Tanaka won the title at this event and at press time, has held the title for 375. He defeated PAC’s record of 11 defenses, which he did in 447 days. Tanaka now sits in second place for the longest Brave Gate reign in history.
When Tanaka won the Brave Gate belt last year at this show, I wrote, “My guess is the next time he wins a title at this event, it will be the one that Shun Skywalker and YAMATO were wrestling for this evening.”, in reference to that year’s Open the Dream Gate main event. 12 months ago, I did not imagine that Tanaka would still have the Brave Gate belt wrapped around his waist come Kobe World 2026, but I couldn’t be happier.
For all of the woes that Dragongate has faced in the last year and particularly in 2026, specifically, they have handled the career of Ryoya Tanaka beautifully. They’ve made a star and they’ve created history with the kid from Amagasaki City. Tanaka’s Brave Gate run, which is now the most successful and the second longest, has also turned into the best Brave Gate run in history, with absolute gems against the likes of Billy Ken Kid, Jacky Kamei, Naruki Doi, and U-T, to name a few. He’s not only wrestled at such a high level over the last year, but he’s had so many different types of defenses. He was forced to out-wrestle his trainer Billy Ken Kid, he was forced to out-hustle Jacky Kamei, he was forced to survive Naruki Doi, and on this night, he was forced to out-pace Homare.
Whereas Tanaka has worked from underneath so often in the last year, he was clearly positioned as the dominant figure in his fight against the younger, less experienced Homare. Tanaka’s offense was sustained, consistent, and flowed from one move to the next. Homare, in his biggest match to date, was forced to throw moves at the wall in hopes that they’d stick. Tanaka began (almost literally) running circles around him at various points throughout the contest, leaving the former Shun Skywalker disciple to rely on his gorgeous, albeit reckless superkick to bail him out of danger. At another point in the match, he slipped out of a Cross Sabre attempt and with nothing else going his way, caught Tanaka with a wild, out-of-control Reverse Frankensteiner. The Momo Latch nearfall that he scored as his last-ditch, desperation attempt at ending Tanaka’s reign was absolutely spectacular.
Tanaka survived all of those attempts, however, just like how he survived Saikyou High Kicks and Jacky Knifes and Bakatare Sliding Kicks and MaxiMuM Drivers and Backslides From Heaven and everything else imaginable over the last year. As far as I’m concerned, Tanaka should never lose the Brave Gate belt. No one else is ready and outside of Dragongate taking GuC really seriously, which I don’t see happening, no one else is going to be ready. He should rip through a few more defenses and then win the Dream Gate belt to become a double-champion before leaving the Brave Gate belt behind.
After surviving numerous huge, offensive moves from Tanaka, Homare finally ran out of gas. Tanaka, for the first time ever, dropped someone with the Avalanche Cross Sabre, then ran back up to the top to score the win with the Stardust Press, the same move that netted him the belt a year ago.
If this was an audition for both of these wrestlers to headline this show within the next five years, I would say that Tanaka passed with flying colors. He can do no wrong. He can thrive in any environment. Homare, while excellent, was more along for the ride in his first huge Kobe World match. Still only 21-years-old, though, it would be completely insane to write him off as a big match wrestler.
Tanaka’s Brave Gate run will be remembered decades from now. While he’s had far better defenses than this one, the final two moves in this match will be etched into my memory permanently. They’ve nailed every beat of this Tanaka reign, and this was no different. ****
THIS SUPERKICK AND SELL#dragongate pic.twitter.com/hACRwVniJs
— Pink (@pinklightsticc) July 20, 2026
After a brief post-match promo from Tanaka, he invited Homare into his unnamed unit, which currently rosters both Tanaka and Kazuma Kimura. Homare accepted and the two embraced.
OPEN THE DREAM GATE CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH
KZY def. MADOKA KIKUTA (c)
Madoka Kikuta failed to make his sixth successful defense of the Open the Dream Gate Championship in this contest. This win marks the first career Open the Dream Gate run for Kzy, who had previously lost six Dream Gate challenges. Kzy, at age 40, is the first Dragongate wrestler to ever win his first Dream Gate belt after turning 40.
It had to be this way.
In order for Kzy to finally win the Dream Gate belt after 20 years as a professional wrestler and six prior failed Dream Gate challenges, there was no way he was coming out on top unless he went through absolute hell. For 27 minutes, he and Madoka Kikuta went to war in one of the most hellacious Dragongate matches of all-time and one of the most physically demanding matches in all of wrestling in 2026. The pace these two worked at, in combination with the intensity that both men brought to the table and the drama that ensued, created one of the best matches of 2026.
Following a Dream Gate loss to Shun Skywalker at this same event in 2021, I wrote about Kzy’s career, saying, “If Susumu Yokosuka is wrestling’s Tim Duncan, then perhaps Kzy is wrestling’s Allen Iverson. Mankind will remain their greatest obstacle until the end of time. The progress Kzy has made in his career is unthinkable. His career should’ve been written off as dead after the back-to-back losses to [Stalker] Ichikawa in the same way that Iverson’s off-court troubles should’ve prevented him from winning an MVP award in 2001. But there lies the issue. Kzy was arguably Dragongate’s 2020 MVP, but he still lost to Naruki Doi when the Dream Gate belt was on the line. In 2001, Iverson ran away with the MVP award, but his team still lost to the Los Angeles Lakers in the finals…Iverson was never able to hoist the Larry O’Brien trophy over his head and the reality of Kzy one day collecting keys and adding them to Dragongate’s top prize feels more and more improbable.”
Coming into this bout, given the turbulent year that Dragongate has had and my extreme issues with the focus that some of the oldest members of the roster had gotten throughout this year, I was gunshy at the idea of Kzy finally winning the big one. I was worried that it might come across like a white flag in wrestling’s constant war with creativity. I was worried that it would come across as a cheap, shallow version of what New Japan did with Hirooki Goto in 2025, in the same way that a decade ago, TNA looked foolish for pushing Eric Young in the wake of Bryan Danielson’s success.
By the time Kzy connected with his final Running Elbow Smash, however, it became clear to me that the only acceptable outcome in this bout was Kzy coming out on top. It had to be this way. It needed to be this way.
The first big blow of the match came when Kikuta, while on the floor, threw Kzy backwards with a Backdrop Driver that sent Kzy crashing into the apron. A simple, yet disgusting spot, it paved the way for the abuse that was coming Kzy’s way. Kikuta would quickly follow that up with shockingly brutal elbows to the back of the head and a piledriver onto the ramp minutes after that. In the first third of this match, Kzy was utterly decimated. Kikuta took big cuts and they all connected. It wasn’t until Kzy’s first heroic comeback when he bounced back from a front headlock giant swing with a brainbuster of his own that he had any glimmer of hope in his eyes. That same brainbuster sent fear into the eyes of the champion, who had the best performance of his life in this match, surpassing his first Dream Gate win against Skywalker in 2023.
While this match and the story coming out of the event is all about Kzy, and rightfully so, it must be noted that Kikuta, for all of his warts, was nothing short of marvelous in this bout. He wasn’t just great, he was great in all of the ways that he needed to be. He was a bully who had no regard for the life of Kzy. He dumped him on his head repeatedly. His hip attacks connected with the skull of the challenger at a shocking rate of speed. His lariats looked like they were going to decapitate the former leader of Natural Vibes. Time after time, I couldn’t believe how vicious Kikuta’s offense was. I’m glad that Kzy’s eventual Dream Gate win wasn’t won against a sleek, technical wrestler. He needed to survive the type of offense that Kikuta brought to the table if he was ever going to put the company’s prize around his waist.
Kikuta would connect with a second piledriver in one of the best sequences in the match. Kzy went for a running forearm, but Kikuta ducked and turned it into a backslide. Kzy rolled through the pin and immediately ate a snap piledriver from the champion, but Kzy slowly rose to his feet in a “Zombie Ibushi-like” way and cleaned Kikuta’s clock with a desperation forearm strike. Both men laid there, nearly dead on the canvas. As it turned out, however, they still had plenty of fight left in them.
From there, the match would transition into a bomb fest, with both men attempting and connecting with humungous moves. Kzy would connect with a dive to the floor and then a pair of KZ Time’s in the middle of the ring. He would go for a third, but the champion blocked it with a disgusting boot to the gut. Kikuta followed that up with a hip attack to Kzy in the corner that hit so violently that he ricocheted back into the middle of the ring. Instead of a front headlock giant swing, this time around, Kikuta swung Kzy around the ring with a sleeper hold giant swing. Unphased, the challenger would regain his balance and send Kikuta crashing into the mat with a Backdrop Driver. We were back even at this point.
It was at this moment that I knew we were witnessing something special.
The final third of this match was as violent as anything I’ve ever seen in a Dragongate ring. Kzy and Kikuta connected with strikes that would’ve made Shingo Takagi and Masaaki Mochizuki blush. Kikuta’s first rolling lariat connected in response to a Kzy running forearm. His second attempt was countered by a Skayde Schoolboy attempt that took my breath away. Kikuta responded by kicking out and then scoring another rolling lariat. A third rolling lariat which prompted an audible reaction out of me still wasn’t enough to put away the 20-year pro.
As both guys continued to exhaust one another, Kzy turned his focus to the Spider Twist in an attempt to choke out the champion. Multiple times, Kzy attempted to lock in the hold, and each time Kikuta was able to escape, narrowly.
When Kzy began unloading his final forearms on Kikuta, the ones that would net him the title that has eluded him for far too long, he delivered the strikes with the anguish that has tormented him for the last two decades. Once a fat, out of shape b-boy whose claim to fame was wearing a LaDainian Tomlinson jersey to the ring, Kzy transformed himself into one of the 100 greatest wrestlers I’ve ever seen. He’s become the type of wrestler that every wrestler should dream about becoming. He blends stunning technique with the passion of a tortured soul fighting for acceptance and accolades in a desperate attempt to escape the man that he once was. It was never enough. He was never good enough. Many, myself included, felt like it was never going to happen.
Once the dust settled and Kzy stood in the middle of the ring with his hand raised, it dawned on me that it was foolish to ever doubt Kzy. He’s cleared hurdle after hurdle, even when it has seemed like he wouldn’t have enough spring in his step to clear the marker. He’s spent the last decade of his life transforming his body, pushing himself in the ring, and becoming the beating heart of a promotion that still produces some of the best wrestling imaginable.
It took 20 years to get there and numerous public failures and humiliations along the way, but Kzy is finally your Open the Dream Gate Champion. ****3/4
OH MY FUCKING GOD HE DID IT IT'S KZY AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH pic.twitter.com/wprbFaufEz
— Pink (@pinklightsticc) July 20, 2026
Final Thoughts:
This was not a perfect show, but it was the show that it needed to be. For the first time since January, I am bullish on the direction that Dragongate is headed. This show checked many of the boxes that it needed to check and left us headed in an immensely satisfying direction. Three of the four title matches can be labeled as essential viewing and while the promotion has beaten us over the head this year with “heat” and other heel-related nonsense, they made the right decision to send fans home happy this year. A big thumbs up for Dragongate Kobe World 2026.
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