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Dragongate Tokyo Infinity Hectopascal (September 12) Results & Review

Uhaa Nation’s triumphant return is overshadowed by a booking decision that rattled my confidence in Dragongate going forward.
Case Loweby Case Lowe•

DRAGONGATE
TOKYO INFINITY HECTOPASCAL
SEPTEMBER 12, 2026
EBARA WAVE ARENA OTA
TOKYO, JAPAN

Watch: Dragongate Network

The inaugural Tokyo Infinity Hectopascal replaces what used to be Dangerous Gate on the Dragongate calendar. You can find an explanation of why what was once such a simply named event received such a complicated name change here.  

HOMARE & KAZUMA KIMURA DEF. MASAAKI MOCHIZUKI & MOCHIZUKI JUNIOR 

The most interesting part of this match was the English commentary. Throughout the bout, commentator Jae Church relayed tweets from Mochizuki Junior, who had been complaining about the opportunities that his father had been given recently in All Japan Pro Wrestling, and how the elder Mochizuki responded in kind by saying that if his son were more talented, he would have been the one receiving those opportunities. Unfortunately, that seemed to set the table for the entire evening. 

Early in what turned into an exciting opening contest, Homare flew through the air and connected with a massive no touch tope that wiped out everyone. He then ran into the crowd and celebrated with the fans. This would be the first of multiple times throughout the night that a Dragongate wrestler went into the crowd to interact with them, something that noticeably stood out from the usual Dragongate way of doing business. I can’t help but wonder if the promotion has decided to take a page from pandering TV executives who insisted that Jay Leno shake the hands of his audience members before launching into his monologue or that Ellen danced with her fanbase before hosting her show…that featured a lot more dancing. These decisions were made to “humanize” the hosts in the same way that American political candidates put on their nicest denim shirt before shaking hands with undecided voters at a Waffle House that they are disgusted to be at. Homare shaking hands with the Dragongate fans after a big dive to the floor might ultimately be nothing, but it reminded me of Jay Leno pandering to the lowest common denominator. 

Simply from an action standpoint, this match was everything that I wanted from an opening match between these four. Everything was humming along until the end when Junior started peppering Homare with strikes, which is typically the point in time in which a Junior match goes up a level. Whether it be the timing or the spacing between the two, something was off, and Junior’s strikes that usually look absolutely deadly instead came across as painfully awkward. That took this match down a quarter star. 

In the end, Homare rolled up Junior with the Momo Latch for the win. ***1/4 

BXB HULK, DON FUJII, KAGETORA, NARUKI DOI, & SUSUMU YOKOSUKA DEF. AKEY, GUC, STRONG MACHINE J, U-T, & ULTIMO DRAGON 

Natural Vibes also slapped hands with the fans, Leno-style. Again, this might be nothing, but it felt forced and out-of-character for this promotion. I’ll be very curious to see if this trend continues next week in Sendai. 

If I was in charge of booking a wrestling promotion that had access to Naruki Doi, whether it be one time a year, five times a year, or, say, 44 times a year (like Dragongate has had in 2026), I would go out of my way to make sure that Naruki Doi was doing important things on important shows. I would consider it a moral failing if Doi was doing unimportant things on important shows. On this important show, Doi was doing nothing of note, and I still felt that he worked circles around everyone else involved in this contest. He seemed so annoyed by the general existence of Natural Vibes and it was an utter delight to watch. It’s a shame nothing will come of it. 

GuC fell victim to the Genkai double-team maneuver from Kagetora and Susumu Yokosuka, because of course he did. **1/2 

MINORU SUZUKI DEF. JIRO SHINBASHI 

We’ve seen this before. Jiro connected with a flurry of offense and was somehow lucky enough to get Suzuki in position for a Gotch-Style Piledriver. Suddenly, his phone rang, he went to answer it, and that paved the way for Suzuki to choke him out and then hit him with a piledriver of his own. I can’t help but think about how viral Suzuki’s facial expressions would’ve been had this match taken place a decade ago. ** 

OPEN THE TRIANGLE GATE CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH
HYO, JACKY KAMEI, & RIIITA (c) DEF. GENKI HORIGUCHI, KENICHIRO ARAI, & YASUSHI KANDA  

This marked the first successful defense for the trio of Hyo, Jacky Kamei, & Riiita as Open the Triangle Gate Champions. 

In February, I wrote that I hoped the Open the Brave Gate match between Ryoya Tanaka and Genki Horiguchi was the last time Horiguchi was put in a big match. I noted that he didn’t have “a Blue Panther-esque” performance in him anymore. It was sad watching one of my favorite wrestlers of all-time be unable to do the things that he once did at such a high level. 

What I’m about to say is in no way a put down of Ryoya Tanaka, nor is it, unfortunately, a compliment to Genki Horiguchi, it is merely a testament to how good Jacky Kamei is. The work that Kamei has done with Horiguchi over the last two months, first in Rey de Parejas and now here, is unbelievable. I am not exaggerating when I say that there is a 0% chance that any other trio of wrestlers would be able to drag Horiguchi, Araken, and Kanda to the match that they had here. I watched this match with baited breath, waiting for Dragongate’s abysmal 2026 to only get worse, but instead I was treated to an utterly thrilling trios match between three grossly under-appreciated wrestlers and three wrestlers well past their prime. 

It’s impossible to analyze this match without framing it through the meta viewpoint that I’m prone to assuming that Dragongate is going to do the worst things imaginable now. When Arkaen began this match by scoring a piledriver on Kamei, I bit on the nearfall thinking that this promotion was going to completely stomp out Love & Peace. I was ready to resign from my post then and there. Every Backslide From Heaven attempt was horrifying because the nearfalls were so close. Kanda’s late-match counter of Kamei’s Torbellino was one of the scariest things I’ve ever witnessed. This was a match designed to spike my blood pressure. I couldn’t breathe during the closing stretch. I tip my hat to the Love & Peace trio who threw their bodies around the ring in an effort to make their opponents look good. The timing on everything, from Kamei’s unbelievable top rope Hurricanrana to Araken yanking Hyo and Riiita off the apron to thwart a hot tag to the eventual finish with Kamei turning a John Woo into a Jacky Knife was all sublime. Hyo, Kamei, and Riiita all wrestled like guys who are easily three of the 50 best wrestlers in the world. Only they could have a match this good with guys who wouldn’t crack my Top 250 at this point (apologies to the indie sleaze Araken fans). 

As the 100th ever Triangle Gate Champions, I hope that this match kicks off a very long string of defenses for the Love & Peace team. I have no faith that that will happen. It’s a shame because this frantic, all-gas-no-brakes bout was everything that I want from this promotion. They packed 16-minutes of moves into an 8-minute match in a way that I absolutely adored. Outside of the cloud of this year’s terrible booking that hung over this match, this was the type of contest that I expect to see every time I turn on a Dragongate show. I can’t believe how much fun this ended up being. Most importantly, the right team won. ***3/4 

OPEN THE TWIN GATE CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH
ISHIN & YOSHIKI KATO DEF. EL CIELO & LUIS MANTE 

After securing this victory over El Cielo & Luis Mante, ISHIN & Yoshiki Kato have now made two successful defenses of the Open the Twin Gate Championships. 

The clash between the Rey de Parejas winners in El Cielo & Luis Mante and Team 204kg was fine, albeit not spectacular. I do not think these teams bring out the best in one another in the same way that ISHIN & Kato are brought to life by Kota Minoura & Yuki Yoshioka. The big issue here is that I felt that the babyfaces were flat, just as they were for most of the tag tournament. Despite El Cielo’s gear that admittedly makes him look like a star (and reminds me of the early days of El Desperado), Throughout the entire tag tournament, I wanted this team to light the world on fire. I expected so much more out of them. I never got there with them, unfortunately. This match was no different. 

In theory, El Cielo vs. Yoshiki Kato has been a flagship feud for the promotion this year. If you were to look at the booking of the promotion on paper, you would see that Cielo and Kato have crossed paths a ton of times this year with those two being a focal point in April’s cage match. The problem is that at no point has this feud ever felt like the hottest thing in the promotion. It’s struggled cracking the top 3 for most of this year, and this year has been ice cold. I am bullish on Kato’s future and I think Cielo certainly has a place as a featured act in this promotion, but these two do not have the chemistry needed to have a monstrous feud. 

Even with a bit of heel interference, something I’ve been hyper-critical of this year, the closing moments of the match were by far the best. This match took a turn for the better when Cielo attempted to catch Kato with his missile-like suicide dive. Instead, Kato cracked a chair over the top of Cielo’s head in a truly incredible spot. Back in the ring, ISHIN reversed Mante’s Super Tigre and nearly stole the win. Mante was able to kick out and blast the supernova in the head with a series of kicks, but ISHIN recovered and sent Mante into the referee, allowing Gajadokoru to blast Mante in the back with a box. That’s the opening that Kato needed to plant Mante with the Cadere Luna. 

If this show accomplished one thing, it’s that they made Kato come across like a feral monster in this finishing stretch. Brilliant stuff. ***1/4 

KOTA MINOURA, UHAA NATION, & YUKI YOSHIOKA DEF. JASON LEE, KAI, & MADOKA KIKUTA  

Uhaa Nation last wrestled for Dragongate on March 1, 2015. His graduation ceremony gave us the iconic soundbyte, “I am Don Fujii, goodbye.” That was a lifetime ago. Although I was watching this promotion in real time when Uhaa said his goodbyes (I can’t remember if I was watching live on NicoNico or not), I began covering the promotion for this site in July 2015, so amazingly, this is the first time I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing an Uhaa Nation match. 

I wasn’t sure what the One Man Nation had left in the tank. The last 11 years of his career were largely off my radar. I always hoped that they would pair him and Akira Tozawa together as a main roster and that never happened. That was one of the few things that could happen that would’ve gotten me to watch WWE programming. This is all to say that it had been quite awhile since I had actually seen him wrestle. 

In short, I was blown away by how great Uhaa Nation was in this match. 

There haven’t been a lot of feel-good moments in Dragongate this year. His return alone was a heartwarming endeavor and I’m very glad that it worked out the way that it did. Seeing him wrestle Madoka Kikuta, who has been open about his adoration for Uhaa, was the cherry on top. Kikuta, who has often been stoic to a fault throughout his career, was grinning from ear-to-ear this entire match. You could see how much fun he was having with every second that he shared the ring with Uhaa. It was an awesome thing to see. 

From the moment that Uhaa hit the leap frog-drop down-dropkick combination, it was on. His timing throughout this entire match was perfect. The “Too Easy” taunt with Minoura and Yoshioka that followed the dropkick warmed my heart. His trio of German Suplexes, which were his answer to a devastating Kikuta hip attack, were glorious. Uhaa jumped off the screen in a way that made the last 11 years of his career even more puzzling than they already were. How do you screw up this guy? When he signed, I thought he was the biggest layup imaginable. This match only put a spotlight on how badly he was handled over the last decade. 

Uhaa scored the win with the Uhaa Combination on Lee. This is must-watch. ***1/2 

Afterward, Yoshioka and Minoura invited Uhaa to join their unit if he were to ever come back again. They then noted that they were looking for new members for XenisS and called out El Cielo & Luis Mante. Minoura invited them to join, but noted that it took a long time for him to come around on the idea of teaming with Yoshioka, and thus, they didn’t need to accept at the moment. 

This whole segment from Uhaa’s entrance to the XenisS promo was a blast. 

OPEN THE BRAVE GATE CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH
DRAGON KID DEF. RYOYA TANAKA (c)

For the first time in 426 days and after 12 successful defenses, Ryoya Tanaka is no longer Open the Brave Gate Champion. For Dragon Kid, this reign marks his fifth occasion with the belt and his first since 2019. 

It was always going to come to an end, the only question was how. 

Tanaka’s Brave Gate win at Kobe World 2025 was widely celebrated as the logical step following the title’s intense rehab that it had undergone in the last year. After a hot start to the 2020s, mainly by way of SB KENTo leading the charge, the Brave Gate belt fell into the doldrums until a summer 2024 Dragon Dia reign reinjected some life into Dragongate’s lightweight title. The belt bounced from Dia to YAMATO before being vacated, then scooped up by U-T for a “gold watch reign”. U-T valiantly carried the belt into the summer before he was dethroned by Tanaka. The leader of Xenostal Nova then turned the title into one of Dragongate’s featured attractions, rattling off a record-setting 12 defenses against 12 different opponents. He defended the title three times in September 2025, which sent alarms off in the mind of every longtime Dragongate viewer. It was clear at that point that he was gunning for PAC’s record of 11 defenses. 

Not only did he end up clearing that record, but his reign is the only thing that rivals PAC’s career-defining time with the belt in 2010-2011. 

As a champion, Tanaka was utterly brilliant. He pulled off so many different styles of matches. My two favorites were his defenses against aging veterans Billy Ken Kid and Naruki Doi. The former, his protege, felt like a genuine turning point in the way that Tanaka was perceived by his home audience. The latter, a summer 2026 Korakuen Hall affair, showed just how sickeningly good Tanaka had gotten. The bouts with Jacky Kamei, Riiiita, and Jason Lee, among others, were all absolute gems. 

Tanaka’s title matches have become a stabilizing force in a promotion that desperately needed stability due to their creative tailspin. On shows big and small, the Osaka-native represented all things still good and true about a promotion that had started to lose its way. His defenses this calendar year, in particular, shed a light on just how important this belt had become. Both at Kobe World in July and here, I was startled by just how hot the crowd seemed compared to the title matches that had gone on earlier in the night. 

Throughout this bout with Dragon Kid, the crowd hung on to every move like it was life and death. On this past week’s Open the Voice Gate, I pontificated that this match would be built around Tanaka kicking out of the Ultra Hurricanrana, the move that pinned him at the prior Korakuen Hall show. 12 year ago at Kobe World, that is what Dragon Kid did with then-burgeoning-Brave Gate star Flamita. I expected this match to mirror that one. Kid’s first attempt at the Ultra Hurricanrana was caught and turned into a Celtic Cross-like maneuver. The crowd gasped when Kid leapt through the air as they realized then that Tanaka’s reign could be coming to an end. They roared with excitement when Kid kicked out of Tanaka’s counter, as it meant the match could continue. 

Minutes later, when Kid whipped Tanaka through the air with a successful Ultra Hurricanrana only for Tanaka to kick out, Tokyo became unglued. At that point, Dragongate had done their job. What was needed from that point on was for Tanaka to grab Kid, hit him with the Cross Sabre, and then Stardust Press him into oblivion. Up to that point, they had perfectly executed a match that would’ve been referenced until the end of time as the night that Ryoya Tanaka became the best Brave Gate Champion in history. 

Unable to score the victory with the Ultra Hurricanrana, Kid ascended to the top rope for Dragongate’s equivalent of the Burning Hammer, the Dragonrana. By my recollection, the last time that Kid used this move was at Gate of Destiny 2018 against Bandido. Since that moment, eight years have passed, Kid has turned 50, and in 2024, he suffered a career-altering neck injury. I assumed that there was no way that he would risk disaster. As far as I was concerned, the tease was the most we were going to get, and that tease was intercepted by an insane one-man Spanish Fly from the Brave Gate Champion. 

The Spanish Fly wasn’t enough to end the contest, nor was the Crimson Smash that Tanaka followed it up with. With the crowd at their loudest point throughout the night, Tanaka dropped the challenger on his head with the Cross Sabre. Kid kicked out, but it seemed like he was dead weight. Just as he had done in nearly every other title defense, Tanaka followed that kickout with a trip to the top rope. He twisted his body throughout the air, looking for a Stardust Press, but Kid moved out of the way and sent Tanaka crashing to the canvas. By the time Tanaka was back on his feet, his opponent was back on the top rope, and at 21:41, Dragon Kid ended the best Brave Gate reign in 15 years with the Dragonrana. 

In my 11 years covering Dragongate, this is one of the hardest results I’ve ever had to stomach.

It’s one of the worst booking decisions I’ve ever had to analyze. 

I’m glad that in the ensuing 24 hours, Dragon Kid got his flowers on Twitter from the likes of AJ Styles and Will Ospreay. He deserves them. From the perspective of someone on the outside looking in, Dragon Kid winning the Brave Gate belt at age 50 after a stellar match is the type of thing that should be celebrated at large. As an in-the-weeds Dragongate viewer, however, this result felt catastrophic. 

A long title reign does not always need to end by “making” someone new. Wrestling booking is not a series of baton passes that elevate careers with every title win. Sometimes great reigns end and the following champion should have no expectation of doing half of the things that the prior champion did. While I had been lobbying for GuC to be the one to defeat Tanaka (in Korkauen Hall as a full-circle moment for GuC, who used to work at Korakuen before becoming a wrestler), I would’ve been satisfied with the likes of Hyo or Jacky Kamei eventually ending the great run that Tanaka had been on. I also would’ve been satisfied with Tanaka never losing the title and eventually vacating it en route to a Dream Gate challenge (and subsequent win). 

In 2026, I do not buy the idea that Dragon Kid as champion is going to sell one more ticket than Tanaka as champion. For a promotion that has done so much wrong in 2026, they’ve handled Tanaka perfectly. He feels like a star. He’s leading a unit with a singles title, something that feels far bigger than a half-hearted Triangle Gate reign with his two unit mates. The idea that it’s a good thing that Tanaka can now go win the Triangle Gate belts is asinine. Those titles mean nothing. I wish they meant more. I wish they’d headline “B-level” shows with those titles. That hasn’t been true in years. This company does not care about the Triangle Gate belts and they aren’t going to care about them when Tanaka becomes champion. 

Since the turn of the decade, the Brave Gate belt has been dominated by youth. That has been a risk, as the belt has sometimes been in the hands of talented wrestlers who weren’t quite ready for that responsibility, but the risk has been worth the reward as Hyo, Riiita, and Tanaka have become kingpins for the title, putting their own positive spin on a belt that desperately was in need of a refresh. Dragon Kid is a rehash. His best days are behind him. We’ve seen him at his best with this title and there’s no way that he’s going to be able to match that this time around. He’s not offering any new ideas or new elements to this title reign. He’s a vestige of the past. He’s a reminder of what once was. I think the concept of “passing the torch” has dominated Japanese wrestling discourse for most of this decade, which makes sense given the star crisis that has plagued this region. I do not, however, feel that it is a moral failing for an older wrestler to dethrone a younger wrestler. I thought certain pundits were far too hard on YAMATO taking the Dream Gate belt from Ben-K in 2024. It made sense within the context of the promotion. The promotion had told the story that they needed to tell with a slew of young guys getting their hands on the Dream Gate belt for the first time before YAMATO got the title back in his possession. During that timeframe, it felt like YAMATO had something to prove as champion. My complaints about Dragon Kid winning this title aren’t simply rooted in him being older than Tanaka. My issues are rooted in what this means going forward. 

It mattered far less who beat Tanaka and far more who Tanaka lost to. How can I buy the idea that Tanaka is “losing up” when he lost to a 50-year-old man with a massive neck injury? I’m supposed to believe that the best Brave Gate Champion since Obama’s first-term isn’t better than him? I would’ve accepted any one of Tanaka’s contemporaries beating him. They all, no matter what their eventual reign turned into, would’ve gained something from beating Tanaka. What does Dragon Kid gain other than some international Twitter followers by way of Will Ospreay? If Dragon Kid is factored into your long-term business plans at this point, then you are in desperate need of a pivot. 

The nightmare scenario in all of this is that there’s a possibility that they moved the belt from Tanaka to Kid so that they can move the belt from Kid to Ryu Fuda in some heel-interference-bullshit match. If that happens, that might actually break me. 

Ultimately, I found this loss to be absolutely heartbreaking. Tanaka represented a promotion that was trudging forward. They tried something, they stuck to their guns, and it worked. The pivot to Kid feels like a promotion waving the white flag and retreating to the comfort of what once was. Tanaka is not better off for losing to a legend. He would’ve been better beating that legend. You’ll never get this title reign back. The circumstances surrounding this match and the momentum that Tanaka had coming into it cannot be duplicated in the aggregate. The argument that this is somehow an obstacle in Tanaka’s way and that he’ll eventually overcome this is nonsensical. Breaking PAC’s record was the obstacle. This was supposed to be another hurdle set there for Tanaka to easily clear. 

This loss told me that Tanaka, who is supposed to be operating at the height of his powers, is no match for a man who is long past his prime. 

It represents a much bigger issue.

It represents a promotion with no vision, no guts, and no desire to innovate. 

This is just a painful reminder that the promotion that once represented the future of wrestling is now painfully stuck in the past. ****

 

OPEN THE DREAM GATE CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH
KZY (c) DEF. YAMATO 

It took 20 years to say this, but Kzy has made his first successful defense of the Open the Dream Gate Championship. 

The only Dream Gate match in history that I can compare this to is Ben-K vs. Shun Skywalker from Final Gate 2020. That match had to follow the emotionally exhausting Unit Disbands match between R.E.D. and the Toryumon Generation, which has since stood the test of the time as one of the best matches of the 2020s. It was hard to care about the work going on in the Dream Gate match because of the rollercoaster of emotion that the prior bout had taken us on. Right when the match started to win the crowd, and myself over, Ben-K got knocked out cold and the match limped to an awkward finish. 

This time around, I was still so shocked from the result of the Brave Gate match that I never fully invested in this match. I’m sure if I were to give it another look, I’d like it way more than I did. There’s a chance that this match was truly great. I don’t have it in me, though. It’s hard to give 2026 Dragongate matches a second look. Sometimes it’s hard enough to give them a look at all. 

Kzy hit the best Mission Impossible dive of his life in this match. He also countered the Galleria with a Spider Twist, which I thought was an utterly sublime counter. The strikes that these two peppered each other with from their knees felt like they had 20 years of history behind them. Kzy attempting a spear in the corner and eating nothing but knee from YAMATO was absolutely thrilling. The finish, which was a series of KZ Time’s followed by Impact for the win, all made sense. It all flowed. It all looked good. I just didn’t care about any of this. That’s not fair to Kzy and that’s probably not fair to YAMATO, who had his working boots on in this match. It was put in an impossible position. This could’ve been the best match ever and I just wouldn’t have cared about it. 

The best thing that can be said about all of this is that Kzy undoubtedly carried himself like a Dream Gate Champion in this match. It was very good. Possibly even great. Who knows. ***3/4 

After the match, Yoshiki Kato came out and said that he was looking to level up in his career. He challenged Kzy to an Open the Dream Gate match at the October 2 Korakuen.

Final Thoughts:

Dragongate followed the joyous return of Uhaa Nation with one of their worst booking blunders in history. Every time they take a step forward, they leap backwards. It’s a vicious cycle. The inaugural Tokyo Infinity Hectopascal had its moments, but it was far from the best show to take place in this building this year. I expect more from Dragongate’s big shows.

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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