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Dragongate Rey de Parejas Night One (August 4) Results & Review

After a decade of dominance, Dragongate says goodbye to Shun Skywalker in the midst of kicking off their annual tag league.
Case Loweby Case Lowe•

DRAGONGATE
REY DE PAREJAS NIGHT ONE
AUGUST 4, 2026
KORAKUEN HALL
TOKYO, JAPAN

Watch: Dragongate Network

Before the opening match, Ryoya Tanaka led Homare and Kazuma Kimura down to the ring to officially announce his new unit. Tanaka will be using powder blue as the unit’s primary color. He announced that the name of the unit is Xenostal Nova. Not only is the AI-generated name bad, but so is the AI-generated logo and AI-generated theme song. It’s also the second unit formed in the last month to begin with an “X”, as Kota Minoura and Yuki Yoshioka are now going under the XennisS banner. Dragongate is doing these guys no favors by giving them awful, AI-generated unit names that look ugly on paper and are hard to pronounce. The good news is that Tanaka, now 13 months into a record-setting Open the Brave Gate run, is ready to lead a unit and being flanked by Homare and Kimura is of great interest to me. 

KAZUMA KIMURA, TRISTAN MOODY, & RYOYA TANAKA DEF. JACKY KAMEI, MOCHIZUKI JUNIOR, & RIIITA AND JASON LEE, KAI, & MADOKA KIKUTA 

My eyes were glued to Tristan Moody, the AJ Styles-inspired American import who made his Dragongate debut a little less than a month ago. Moody is the most interesting foreigner Dragongate has brought in since Bandido, long before he was a television wrestling superstar. Moody is a great unknown, but it’s clear, after a handful of appearances on the Dragongate Network, that he’s dripping with potential. Moody was thrown into the fire in this bout, not only being asked to work Dragongate’s signature match type, but doing it alongside super-workers like Kamei, Riiita, and Lee. This wasn’t a great match because of the work Moody did, but more importantly, Moody didn’t hold this match up in any way. His night was highlighted by a gorgeous Shooting Star Press to the floor. 

There was a brief moment early on in this match in which Kamei, Lee, and Tanaka were all trading offense with one another and I got sad because I can’t help but think that in another era, their careers would’ve been far more intertwined than they currently are. I wanted that to feel much bigger than it actually did. As expected, however, their interactions with one another were rather flawless. 

Kimura, even with a fresh haircut and new gear to celebrate the launch of Xenostal Nova, is still winless in his career, which I think is a massive mistake. He and the dreadfully underpushed Mochizuki Junior closed out the bout, swinging for the fences with one another and captivating a hot Korakuen crowd with an intricate strike battle. Right when it looked like Junior had the upperhand thanks to an Ankle Lock on Kimura, Tanaka broke up the submission with a handspring enziguri. With no one from Love & Peace there to save Junior, he ate a vicious buzzsaw kick and then a Cross Sabre to give Xenostal Nova (and Moody) a win in their first-ever official match. ***3/4 

YASUSHI KANDA DEF. JIRO SHIMBASHI 

Yasushi Kanda was a mystery opponent as a part of Jiro’s ongoing challenge series. This was mercifully short and ultimately just a roundabout way to announce that at Dragongate’s upcoming Tokyo show (the former Dangerous Gate, now called Tokyo Infinity Hectopascal), Jiro would be wrestling Minoru Suzuki. Fine. Whatever. I’m burnt out on Jiro. 

KOTA MINOURA, PUNCH TOMINAGA, RYU FUDA, ULTIMO DRAGON, & YUKI YOSHIOKA DEF. DON FUJII, GENKI HORIGUCHI, MASAAKI MOCHIZUKI, PROBLEM DRAGON, & TAKASHI 

The story here is that Dragongate, in the year of our Lord 2026, managed to execute an undercard angle. That means that something that happened pre-intermission actually mattered. I remember things like this occurring, deep in the recesses of my brain, say in early 2025 or in 2024, but the thought of it happening in 2026 is something that I can hardly process. Fuda, who is coming up on his fifth anniversary and has largely been a loser for all five of those years, has been showing a decent amount of spark lately. He is desperate to move up the card and jumpstart his career. Ryoya Tanaka debuted 18 months after him and he’s already set a record for the most Brave Gate defenses in history, for example. 

As a result of that desperation, Fuda was an animal whenever he was tagged in. He made sure that he never faded into the background. When it came time for the finishing stretch, however, Fuda was nowhere to be found. Kota Minoura sent Problem Dragon crashing into the canvas with an R-301, but before he could make the pin, Fuda dumped his own partner out of the ring and pinned Dragon himself. I thought I had dreamt this up. I thought surely, there’s no way that Dragongate did something this interesting in a match 3, but they did. The match itself was nothing special, but the finish filled me with endless excitement. **3/4 

Fuda, fresh off stealing a pin, called out Ryoya Tanaka. This brought out not Tanaka, but Dragon Kid, who shoved Fuda out of the way and made it clear that he was next in line for the Brave Gate title. Tanaka vs. Dragon Kid for the 9/12 Tokyo show was made official. It is worth noting that a week after that show, Dragongate is back in Sendai for Ryu Fuda’s Homecoming Show (he lost to Tanaka in a Brave Gate challenge on that show in 2025). My guess is that they do Fuda vs. Tanaka there, again. All of this was spectacular. 

BXB HULK, DRAGON KID, NARUKI DOI, & YAMATO DEF. AKEY, GUC, KZY, & U-T 

In the same way that Jiro Shimbashi vs. Yasushi Kanda was purely a vehicle to get to the announcement of Shimbashi vs. Minoru Suzuki, this match existed solely to get the official announcement that YAMATO would be challenging Kzy for the Dream Gate belt at Tokyo Infiniti Hectopascal in September. Ever since Kzy won the title at Kobe World, YAMATO has been, for lack of a better term, talking mad shit about Kzy on Twitter. It was notable that when these two locked up in the very beginning, the “Kzy” chants were far louder than any signs of support for the Paradox squad. Thank God for that. 

While the focus was supposed to be on Kzy and YAMATO, I thought their interactions in this bout were slightly underwhelming. I was far more impressed by Akey, who found magic alongside Naruki Doi here. Their interactions, while limited, made me want to see a lot more of them together. Akey’s bumbling, yet high-impact offense works great with someone who has the grace of Naruki Doi. They bounced off of each other in a rather elegant way. 

There was nothing elegant about the way that YAMATO treated GuC, however. They might secretly have the best chemistry of anyone in Dragongate right now, and this promotion can’t figure out what to do about it. These two should’ve been side-by-side for this entire year, beating the piss out of each other whenever applicable. Instead, their interactions have been few and far between, despite being wildly entertaining every time out. YAMATO planted GuC with a Galleria for the win. Bring on Kzy. *** 

REY DE PAREJAS 2026 B BLOCK LEAGUE MATCH
EL CIELO & LUIS MANTE DEF. FLAMITA & SANGRE AZTECA JR 

Sangre Azteca Jr is currently the Michinoku Pro Tohoku Junior Heavyweight Champion. He’ll be linked alongside Flamita for this year’s Rey de Parejas. 

The opening contest of Rey de Parejas 2026 featured three high-flying, exciting wrestlers and one guy off on his own planet. I don’t know why Luis Mante insisted on slowing down this match and grinding things to a halt whenever he got the chance, but Mante’s decisions in this match made it impossible to enjoy. I was hoping that this was going to be the next incarnation of the brilliant Flamita & Mante vs. Alpha Wolf & Dragon Bane match we got on Masaaki Mochizuki’s Buyuden Produce show two years ago. Instead of pushing the boundaries of human flight, however, Mante decided to sit in an endless key lock on Sangre Azteca Jr. That was just one of the many instances of Mante not being as exciting as the other three combatants in this tournament match. 

I thought for his first televised Dragongate match, Azteca Jr held his own. He didn’t do anything overly spectacular, but he held the pace with his fellow high-flyers. Flamita, in what has become maybe his least eventful Dragongate tour ever, thankfully kicked this match into high gear with an early hot tag and otherwise was his usual, pleasant self. To me, the star of this match was undoubtedly El Cielo. Cielo still hasn’t fully figured out how to wrestle reckless singles matches, but in multi-man affairs, he has a knack for throwing his body around at the wildest times and in the most dangerous angles. Cielo made it seem like anything could happen at any moment whenever he was the one dishing out the offense. I can’t get over how reckless (and incredible) his tope to the floor looked in this bout. 

Thanks to the efforts of Flamita and Cielo down the stretch, this match started to turn into something rather enjoyable. Right when I was ready for more, however, Mante caught Flamita in the Super Tigre and rolled the Natural Vibes member up for the win. ***1/4 

Before heading to intermission, it was announced that for the first time in 11 years, Uhaa Nation would be making his return to Dragongate on September 12. 

REY DE PAREJAS 2026 A BLOCK LEAGUE MATCH
LEONA & STRONG MACHINE J DEF. KAGETORA & SUSUMU YOKOSUKA 

Is Strong Machine J ice cold? Yes. Do I think spending a month teaming with LEONA will help heat him up? No. Was this match a total disaster because of the presence of LEONA? Luckily, no! 

Look, all of SMJ’s matches in this tournament are going to have a very low ceiling because of his partner, which is disappointing because a SMJ/U-T tag team was a possibility and that sounds much better than the second-generation tag team that DG put together. That being said, LEONA, while limited, was not an albatross here. He was merely fine. I’ll take that every time. It was impressive to see Susumu Yokosuka get as much out of LEONA as he did. Yokosuka has had a sneaky good year and in a perverse way, he did some of his best work of the entire year here by guiding LEONA to something passable. 

A Machine Suplex on Kagetora just before the 12-minute mark led the second-generation stars to a victory. **3/4 

SSW DRAGONGATE GRAND FINALE
SHUN SKYWALKER DEF. HOMARE 

It was unfathomable a year ago to think about what a Dragongate without Shun Skywalker might look like. It was somehow even more unfathomable a year ago to think that Skywalker’s departure from Dragongate would be a largely emotionless affair that would register as “mostly not a big deal” in my mind by the time he said his final goodbye. 

The best wrestler of the 2020’s not named Bryan Danielson or Will Ospreay, the Nick Bockwinkel of his generation, and the heart and soul of Dragongate over the last decade, has officially departed from the promotion that he spent years running roughshod over. A three-time Dream Gate Champion, four-time Triangle Gate Champion, and the face of Dragongate’s international expansion efforts in the early part of this decade is no longer the stitch that ties the entire promotion together. One could argue that Dragongate’s creative woes over the last 12 months are in part due to Skywalker’s bizarre booking, rumored “that isn’t going to work for me, brother” scenarios, and a failed unit that was aborted in just six months that was meant to usher in a new era of his career. 

Since December 2018, Skywalker has consistently been the promotion’s most entertaining wrestler. His rise to the main event scene in 2019 helped usher in a fresh era of the promotion that was only improved once he came back from an excursion in Mexico in 2020. From 2021-2025, I ranked Skywalker 3rd, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 3rd in the FSM 50. With the exception of 2020, a year in which he only worked 58 matches with a bulk of them taking place in a pandemic-stricken Mexico, Skywalker finished with at least one match in my Voices of Wrestling Match of the Year ballot from 2019-2025. In 2019, 2021, 2023, and 2025, Skywalker finished with two matches in my Top 10. In 2022, he wrestled in my Match of the Year. That match, a tag with Diamante against Jacky “Funky” Kamei and Jason Lee, is one of the greatest Dragongate matches I’ve ever seen, the most recent 5 star match from the promotion, and finished 16th overall in that year’s Match of the Year poll, making it the third highest ranked Dragongate match in history behind the 2020 Unit Disbands Match between R.E.D. and the Toryumon Generation (#9) and the world-renowned epic between Masaaki Mochizuki and Shingo Takagi in 2015 (#11). 

Over the last decade, few wrestlers have been involved in more memorable angles than Skywalker has been in his home promotion. From the beginnings of Mochizuki Dojo in 2018 and his subsequent All Japan Junior Tag League run with Masaaki Mochizuki to his rise up the card in 2019 and his epic performances in that year’s Rookie Ranking Tournament, Skywalker developed a knack for bringing out his best self, and the best version of his opponents, in the biggest moments. His 2020 return to challenge Eita, Dream Gate win, and then the formation of Masquerade all happened so quickly and impacted the promotion for the better, immediately. While he had some zest taken out of his inaugural Dream Gate run thanks to an accidental knockout of Ben-K and a career-altering Madoka Kikuta shoulder injury in two of his defenses, Skywalker’s 2021 Dream Gate run goes down as one of the best in history with his battles against R.E.D. members Kaito Ishida and Kazma Sakamoto acting as incredible highlights. While there is no defining Masquerade vs. R.E.D. match, the constant battles between those two units in 2021 made it one of the most enjoyable years in the history of the promotion. When Skywalker turned his back on Dragon Dia on December 1, 2021, I called it “one of the single most shocking results in the history of Dragongate”. That heel turn paved the way for R.E.D. to transform into Z-Brats and for Skywalker to take his place atop the promotion as the lead heel in Dragongate. In that role, Skywalker tormented Jacky Kamei and Jason Lee, unmasked Diamante, turned Minorita into Mini Skywalker, ushered in the career of Homare, and ended YAMATO’s historically great Open the Dream Gate run at Kobe World 2025 in a title vs. career match. Typically, the best things to happen in the promotion from 2022-2025 were happening because Skywalker was involved in the process. 

After dropping the Dream Gate belt to Kikuta in August 2025 (the second time Skywalker held the Dream Gate belt in a transitional reign to then drop the title to Kikuta), Skywalker formed Psypatra with Homare, Gianni Valletta, and the mysterious El Cielo. Psypatra, thanks to a hot Valletta babyface turn, looked like another stroke of genius with Skywalker at the helm. After capturing the Triangle Gate belts in early November, however, they were forced to vacate them due to a Homare shoulder injury. The unit quickly started to sputter and Skywalker quickly began being deemphasized in the booking. This was only made worse when Big Boss Shimizu went down with a year-long injury, seemingly throwing the plans for April’s Golden Coliseum cage match out of whack. Skywalker limped into that cage match colder than ever and wound up shaving Homare’s hair to officially begin their separation. He missed a month due to injury and then announced his departure in June. He had become so removed from the day-to-day heartbeat of Dragongate by that time that his loss, while ultimately impactful in the long run, was not met with massive shock and disappointment. 

While Dragongate will continue to trudge along in the short term without Skywalker, he leaves years worth of unknown matches and angles against the likes of Ben-K, Hyo, Jacky Kamei, Kazuma Kimura, Kzy, Luis Mante, Madoka Kikuta, Riiita, Strong Machine J, and of course, Homare. 

The decision to have Skywalker pin his protege (with his babyface finisher, the Skywalker Moonsault) was the right one. Since getting his head shaved in April, Homare’s booking has been a disaster. He was beaten on TV consistently from May-July en route to his Brave Gate challenge at World. Had he been hotter, a victory against Skywalker on his way out may have benefited him greatly. In this context, however, it would’ve felt forced. 

Like every Skywalker match over the last few months, this felt awkward and disjointed. It felt like an exhibition contest outside of the usual Dragongate proceedings. It was good, but not great. It was awkward, but still had moments that resembled Skywalker’s brilliance. It was yet another confusing Skywalker match in a period of 12 months that has been nothing but confusing. 

As someone who has covered Skywalker since his very first televised match and who has grown attached to Skywalker more than any other wrestler on the planet, there is a part of me that is utterly devastated that this is the last time that I’ll get to write at length about one of the most interesting wrestlers on the planet. Only the likes of Okada, Danielson, and Ospreay have entertained me more over the last 10 years. Seeing Skywalker grow from an awkward kid in ill-fitting neon green gear to a genuinely brilliant performer has been one of the greatest joys I’ve witnessed as a critic. If he decides to leave for New Japan and head up House of Torture, I’ll be super bummed out. It’ll be a waste of someone who was on the cusp of becoming someone beyond special prior to his fallout with DG last year. 

I give Skywalker’s Dragongate career 5 stars. This match, while good, was not quite that good. ***1/2 

REY DE PAREJAS 2026 A BLOCK LEAGUE MATCH
GIANNI VALLETTA & HYO DEF. ISHIN & YOSHIKI KATO 

Hyos’s partner was announced as “Myan Myan” when the lineups for Rey de Parejas were unveiled. Myan Myan, of course, being Hyo’s signature stuffed animal. It was unclear what the plan was for Hyo in this tournament beyond that, which is why I was shocked to see that this match was headlining the first night when this card was announced. Many assumed that it would be his Love & Peace partner Mochizuki Junior in some sort of humiliation ritual paint and costume. Instead, much to the delight of everyone, it was Gianni Valletta, who has now entered the third act of his Dragongate career. At first he was a monster on a path of destruction. Then, last fall, he became a monster on the path to forgiveness. Now, he’s been saddled alongside Hyo, who remains the hottest wrestler in the company, and together, the two have shocking chemistry. 

This was a car crash main event full of heel antics, weapons, and chaos that spilled throughout Korakuen Hall. I have a low tolerance for these sorts of matches, especially in 2026 Dragongate where they feel really overdone, but this absolutely worked. This was the right time and place for a match like this. Valletta was marvelous against ISHIN, who bumped around like a manic for Dragongate’s resident giant. 

Ever since coming back from the Super Juniors tournament this year, Hyo has taken a liking to an Inoki-esque Octopus Stretch (the only thing Hyo and Inoki have in common). He had Kato tangled in one of those before ISHIN destroyed him with a box attack. Valletta, before he could take back control of the match, was misted by ISHIN. He quickly fought back, however, scoring a gorgeous running crossbody on Kato before no-selling a metal tray attack and planting ISHIN with a King Kong Knee Drop for the win. 

Far from a perfect match, but the final few minutes demonstrated what a special team Hyo and Valletta could become with Hyo’s charisma and Valletta’s monstrous in-ring approach. ***1/4 

Final Thoughts

The first night of Dragongate’s annual tag league was an effective and efficient show, and while that is far from the highest praise possible, it is such a massive improvement over most of their Korakuen outings this year. Highlighted by Shun Skywalker’s departure and a standout performance from Dragongate’s newest American import, the first night of Rey de Parejas 2026 earns a thumbs up. 

Listen to Voices of Wrestling’s Dragongate podcast: Open the Voice Gate!

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Reviewing AAW and Dragongate for Voices of Wrestling. Lucharesu historian. @_InYourCase on Twitter.

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