“He’s a great professional. I have so much respect for him…He embodies the spirit of pro wrestling. He cares so much about it.” -Tony Khan, 2025
I don’t even want to think about the amount of hours that I’ve spent talking about PAC on podcasts. As a part of the Dragon Gate USA Rewind & Rewatch series, we broke down every match of his in DGUSA. In 2019 on the heels of his return to Dragongate, we analyzed every move he made en route to Kobe World 2019 and his subsequent epic against Ben-K. Myself and Pro Wrestling Torch columnist Alan Counihan, the only person on Earth who I feel confident has watched more PAC matches than I have, broke down PAC’s career at length for the Greatest Wrestler Ever Project and then honed in on his singular performance in his 2024 epic against Will Ospreay.
We all have our guys.
PAC, from the moment I saw him under the Adrian Neville moniker in the earliest days of Full Sail-era NXT, has been one of my guys.
Soon after discovering his talents, I dove back into his archive, scrounging up PWG DVDs from yesteryear and digging through offbeat video-hosting sites to find readily available Dragongate footage. The deeper I dove, the more I came to appreciate The Man That Gravity Forgot.
PAC blended a wild aerial approach that was inspired by the likes of Jack Evans and Jody Fleisch with a commitment to polish and perfection that followed in the footsteps of Bret Hart and Nick Bockwinkel. He was a once-in-a-lifetime wrestler who constantly defied expectations and rose to the top of the card in every promotion that he worked in. He is one of the most important junior heavyweight of the 21st century, following in the footsteps of AJ Styles and Matt Sydal and paving the way for Ricochet and Will Ospreay.
There was nothing that he couldn’t do. The term “five-tool player” seems like a disservice to the wide array of talents that PAC possessed. He somehow was more than that. His body of work earned him respect from all of his contemporaries, notably Kevin Steen and the Young Bucks, who sang his praises for two decades. I can’t think of another wrestler that could’ve possibly made an impact on both Sting and former Dragongate wrestler Taku Iwasa. PAC was just that good.
During its seven-year run, PAC has easily been my favorite part of AEW. I will never forget my visceral reaction to seeing him tap out Kenny Omega in-person in his AEW debut. After being forced into the wilderness by WWE and their mismanagement of PAC a handful of years earlier, it was so refreshing to see an American promotion understand what they had with him. The rivalry with Omega in the earliest days of AEW would pave the way for PAC’s brilliant run with the Death Triangle, his career-making match against Orange Cassidy, and a litany of unforgettable moments with the Death Riders. PAC worked so well in AEW because he embodied the same “challenger brand” spirit that the promotion was founded on. With every name that came and went from the promotion, PAC was there, sometimes sporadically, always making the most of every opportunity that came his way.
For the purposes of this article, PAC’s time in AEW will be excluded, as I feel most people reading this are intimately familiar with that body of work.
At age 40, he showed no signs of slowing down. If anything, it seemed like a new avenue for greatness had only just begun to open as through their partnership with AEW, PAC had begun taking bookings for CMLL, another place that he immediately acclimated to.
This is by no means a definitive list of PAC’s greatest matches. It is merely an exercise in showcasing the amount of places PAC wrestled throughout his entire career and the heights he rose to in each setting. For a man who spoke in-depth about the insecurities that he faced with Colt Cabana in 2012, few wrestlers ever presented themselves with such grace and displayed such a natural ability at this artform.
As we go forward, let us always remember The Man That Gravity Forgot.
PAC vs. Roderick Strong
March 3, 2007 | Ring of Honor
2006 is the first year that PAC began to make a name for himself. With plain white tights and a frame that was comically small compared to the body that he would later develop, PAC started to garner international attention when he became the designated “special attraction” opponent for international stars making their way to the UK. Under the IPW:UK and wXw banners in England and Germany, respectively, PAC turned heads with performances against the likes of AJ Styles, El Generico, and Teddy Hart. Still unrefined and in search of who exactly “PAC” was, his freakish athleticism was enough for him to secure a spot at PWG’s All Star Weekend IV at the end of the year, once again doing battle with Styles and Generico over the course of the weekend. This put PAC in front of some of the most influential voices in independent wrestling at the time, many of whom had then-ROH booker Gabe Sapolsky’s ear and began lobbying for PAC to wrestle in the premier destination for unsigned talent at the time.
In 2007, ROH made their second foray across the pond for a pair of shows to conclude ROH’s Fifth Year Festival. Sapolsky decided to pull the trigger on PAC, saddling him alongside Roderick Strong on the first night and Matt Sydal on the second night with the former being the stronger of the two.
Strong ragdolled PAC with reckless abandon throughout the 18-minute contest, which was hilariously contested for the FIP World Heavyweight Championship that Strong possessed at the time. The PAC in this match is unrecognizable compared to the one that would later be known around the world as The Bastard. It is not as if PAC, in reality, was all that much shorter than Strong, yet Strong carried himself in a way that dwarfed PAC throughout the match. The insecurities that PAC would later share on Colt Cabana’s podcast were eating PAC alive throughout the contest. Despite successful outings in PWG and wXw, two premier independent destinations at the time, ROH under Sapolsky was a different animal. PAC shared a locker room with the likes of Bryan Danielson, Nigel McGuinness, and Samoa Joe that night. Despite a stellar performance in this match, you can’t help but feel like he felt like he was unable to step out of their shadows.
For PAC, this match was all about survival. His offensive outbursts were done out of necessity. He was forced into a position where he’d have to scrape and claw for every maneuver from the opening bell. On the off-chance that he did get a chance to showcase his aerial abilities, he came crashing down to the mat like an anvil. His dives weren’t “showy” like Jack Evans or “pretty” like Sydal. PAC’s moves from the top looked like they were doing serious damage to Roderick Strong.
Following the bout against Sydal the next night, PAC would be brought back to the United States for a pair of ROH shows in August where he faced off against Bryan Danielson and Davey Richards, neither of whom were as natural of opponents as Strong and Sydal were. Those matches failed to impress Sapolsky, with Dave Meltzer noting in his report of Manhattan Mayhem II (the show with PAC vs. Richards), that that match was “the one match of the weekend that didn’t work”. Sapolsky, hyper-particular at the time about who he used in ROH, lost faith in PAC that weekend and never used him again during his tenure as ROH booker.
PAC & Roderick Strong vs. El Generico & Kevin Steen
July 29, 2007 | Pro Wrestling Guerrilla
PAC and Roderick Strong made for good opponents in England, but they made for better partners in Southern California. The duo only teamed together five times but they put together an absurd resume against the following teams: Davey Richards & Super Dragon, The Briscoe Brothers, Masato Yoshino & Naruki Doi, Ricky Reyes & Rocky Romero, and Kevin Steen & El Generico. Their final act as a team was the aforementioned contest against Steen & Generico, who by this point had become PAC’s biggest advocates behind the scenes. Steen has since talked at length about how much he adored PAC and how he pushed for PAC to get into Dragongate, despite the office reaching out to him at the time about Ricochet.
This was PAC’s first match removed from Japan following his first Dragongate tour where he was promoted as the heir to the throne that Matt Sydal had helped craft. While he was still light-years from what he would become, there’s a noticeable difference between the way PAC works in this match compared to his singles match against Strong in March. PAC had breezed through what could be considered to be the undergrad portion of his career. Dragongate would provide him with a master’s degree, however, and he would soon begin showcasing his skills at an exemplary level.
PWG was the first promotion that felt like “home” for PAC. As mentioned when discussing his ROH debut, he immediately found success in Southern California during a time in which the promotion did not have the cache that it would grow to have a decade later. In the mid-2000’s when PAC first came aboard, the roster was largely a collection of misfit toys with names like Steen, Generico, and Chris Hero who all weren’t deemed ready for ROH stardom just yet and SoCal indie lifers like Human Tornado and Super Dragon who would’ve had drastically different careers had they lived on the opposite coast. PAC blended in immediately.
PAC & Strong put together a performance that should’ve led to them becoming the western world’s answer to SpeedMuscle. On the biggest PWG show to-date (the company’s fourth anniversary show), PAC and Generico dazzled the Burbank crowd with a level of polish that they did not possess during their PWG bout a year prior, whereas while in the ring with Steen, PAC demonstrated his innate ability to fight with an absurd amount of heart and hunger. PAC getting launched over the head of Strong into a Flipping Hurricanrana on Generico is a spot that I have not seen duplicated since, and I don’t anticipate that changing any time soon.
It’s hard to imagine the physical changes that PAC would undergo in the coming years. This match, in many ways, acts as the final chapter for the first stage of PAC’s career.
PAC vs. Ricochet
August 17, 2007 | CHIKARA
PAC’s defining legacy will be his feud with Ricochet, which spanned all of 2011. I wrote about it here and spoke to Ricochet about it in 2024. Ricochet would not have become a BOLA winner, a Best of the Super Juniors winner, or an Open the Dream Gate Champion without the help of PAC in 2011. Will Ospreay even noted the influence those matches had on him.
This is their weakest encounter with one another, but it is still an absolute joy to watch. While PAC’s match with Claudio Castagnoli the following night has a much larger legacy 19 years later, I find more joy in this Ricochet match. Here, you see two men so eager to be great. They have so many ideas and they aren’t afraid to try any of them. It’s incredible to think that in four years time, they would be racing up and down Japan having world-class matches in front of packed houses. This, on the other hand, was an experimental hodgepodge of ideas in front of 75 people in Reading, Pennsylvania.
While no one is confusing him for a Chikara Hall of Famer, PAC’s three bookings in Chikara (the aforementioned Ricochet and Castagnoli matches and a four-way match in April 2007) all display tons of merit. In an impossibly short time, PAC left his mark on a promotion that featured so many wrestlers trying to do the same things that PAC excelled at. As a result, I feel this is a worthwhile inclusion.
BxB Hulk, Masato Yoshino, & PAC vs. Akira Tozawa, Dragon Kid, & Taku Iwasa
July 19, 2009 | Dragongate Pro Wrestling
So much of PAC’s Dragongate career is tied to his feud with Ricochet and his Open the Brave Gate run with his signature Junction III green trunks that it’s easy to forget that that was only a portion of his career in Japan. Yes, that stretch with the title in 2011 is still the best Brave Gate run of all-time (thanks to recent booking malpractice with Ryoya Tanaka), but PAC’s career in Dragongate was so much more than just his 2011.
PAC was a focal point of one of the promotion’s most successful units of all-time, WORLD-1. Formed in 2008 following face turns from both Masato Yoshino and Naruki Doi, the unit would go on to feature BxB Hulk, Naoki Tanizaki, and mcKZ, among others. Prior to the formation of Monster Express in 2013, it was the most loaded unit, on-paper, that the company had ever created. The company liked WORLD-1 so much that following the Blood Warriors vs. Junction III feud in 2011, the unit would be remixed and reborn as WORLD-1 International with a top-notch silver and pink color scheme and would feature Yoshino, Doi, PAC, Ricochet, Rich Swann, and Shachihoko BOY, making it possibly the most beloved short-term unit in the promotion’s history.
Even those most bullish on PAC couldn’t have predicted the way that he took to Dragongate upon his debut in 2007. He would fill Matt Sydal’s role in the all-star babyface unit Typhoon upon entering the company and very quickly found himself putting on jaw-dropping performances when the lights shined brightest. In 2008, he found himself in great matches against El Generico on the NEX (a sub-brand of DG) 2nd Anniversary show, Shingo Takagi on Dragongate’s first-ever show in the United States, and against Ryo Saito & Susumu Yokosuka in an Open the Twin Gate Championship match, which acted as PAC’s first Dragongate title match. As the promotion began to funnel in countless foreigners, PAC’s work began to stand out more and more. By the end of 2008, he was beginning to feel like a core member of the roster, rather than a fun, foreign attraction.
During the first tour of 2009, PAC would link up with WORLD-1 following the dissolution of Typhoon. From there, he was off to the races. PAC aligning with WORLD-1 was no different than Bob Rock aligning with Metallica or Eminem finding Dr. Dre. Enough natural talent was in those vessels that they likely would’ve been successes without their signature pairings, but those combinations ultimately made those forces unstoppable.
The difference between the PAC that teamed with Roderick Strong in July 2007 and the PAC that teamed with BxB Hulk and Masato Yoshino in July 2009 is hard to comprehend. They’re practically different people.
On Dragongate’s biggest show of the year, PAC owned the room. He brought out the best in his former partner, Dragon Kid, as well as a pre-excursion Akira Tozawa and the forever-underrated Taku Iwasa. I first watched this match in 2014 as a part of a “Countdown to Kobe” series that I did in which I reviewed every Kobe World from 2004-2013 in preparation for the 2014 show. The bump that PAC takes on Iwasa’s Noshigami has played in my head for over a decade now.
As the match transitions into its blistering closing stretch, PAC is in the right place at the right time every step along the way. The idea of “perfection” that is drilled into every Dragongate trainee’s head was now fully on display from PAC. He had become One Of Them. He had become Family.
Given the grueling schedule that Dragongate worked and their overwhelmingly great output in these years, it’s easy for non-singles matches to get lost in the shuffle. This match was trios wrestling at the highest level, and it reached that level thanks to PAC.
BxB Hulk & PAC vs. Shingo Takagi & YAMATO
May 7, 2010 | Dragon Gate USA
Dragon Gate USA was nearly a year into its existence when PAC finally made his way into the promotion during the group’s one foray into Canada. Although the wheels would come off shortly after this contest, at the time, DGUSA, booked by former ROH booker Gabe Sapolsky, had stolen a lot of the thunder that Ring of Honor once possessed as the place for premier talent on the independent level. The first year of DGUSA was simply incredible with names like Bryan Danielson, Davey Richards, and Shingo Takagi all rubbing shoulders, creating a unique blend of the style that Dragongate had made famous in Japan with the highest level of wrestling demonstrated in America during that era.
Whereas Sapolsky wasn’t sold on PAC as a prospect during his time in ROH, he was all-in on PAC by the time that he had the pencil for DGUSA. During his three-year tenure for Dragongate’s American offshoot, PAC was treated like a God. CIMA might’ve done the show-closing “did you enjoy the show?” promos and a lot of time and energy was spent trying to make Chuck Taylor and Johnny Gargano the stars of tomorrow, but no one on that roster mattered as much as PAC did. He wrestled 21 matches for DGUSA from 2010 and 2012 and the output is staggering. Some of the best matches of his career, whether they be singles clashes with Akira Tozawa or tag team epics alongside Masato Yoshino, took place in this promotion.
It’s so jarring to watch this match in comparison to the ROH match against Strong. In DGUSA, PAC was not swallowed whole by anyone’s shadow; he was the shadow. He is the best worker that company ever produced, outpacing Japanese legends like Akira Tozawa and Masato Yoshino and homegrown stars like Brodie Lee and Sami Callihan.
In front of an intimate crowd in Windsor, Ontario, PAC dazzled yet another crowd in yet another environment by doing things that only he could do. You would never know that PAC and Hulk were not a full-time tag team given their chemistry in this match. They bounce off of one another with such ease. They very easily could’ve been a stellar tag team had Hulk not been in the midst of a monstrous singles push, at the time.
While a lot of this match is built around the never-ending feud between Hulk and Takagi, PAC’s involvement is the thing that stands out, both on tape and to the live crowd in the building. He wrestled this match like he was looking to make up for lost time after failing to secure ROH bookings three years prior. He most certainly did that with this outing.
PAC vs. Shingo Takagi
October 21, 2011 | Dragon Gate UK
It’s been over a decade since Dragon Gate UK ran their last show, which means it’s been over a decade since a lot of people thought about Dragon Gate UK. For those that don’t know, DGUK existed from 2009-2014 and ultimately accomplished a lot of the goals that DGUSA initially set out to do. They embodied the spirit of Dragongate Proper far better than DGUSA ever did. They offered a premium product and mixed storylines with dream matches in an incredibly effective way. The promotion is best remembered for the series of matches between Shingo Takagi and Susumu Yokosuka that took place in 2009, 2010, and 2011, respectively. The thrilling conclusion to the feud, known simply as Shingo vs. Yokosuka III, is one of the best matches to ever take place on UK soil and would take place the following night.
Sadly, outside of being available on-demand on the long-forgotten Club WWN site (something that I asked Club WWN directly to add), the shows have been lost to a physical media graveyard.
In the final quarter of 2011, PAC rattled off a stellar Brave Gate defense against Genki Horiguchi, two great matches in the UK (Takagi, Dragon Kid), an unforgettable triple-shot in DGUSA highlighted by his only singles match with Brodie Lee and an under appreciated match with Ricochet, and one more match with Ricochet, the blowoff to their epic 2011 feud, in Osaka. He was on another planet in 2011 and due to the scarcity in which this footage has been seen, his match with Takagi has become a forgotten gem.
This match, in so many ways, is the predecessor to what Takagi would do against Will Ospreay during their first meeting in 2019. Despite being beloved by the UK audience, Takagi was never going to be more popular than PAC was on this show. As a result, PAC sacrificed his body and gave himself to Takagi, and over the course of 21-minutes, was launched from corner-to-corner in the most unforgiving ways imaginable. PAC was treated the same in this match as he was his 2007 encounter with Roderick Strong, despite being double the size and having quadruple the pedigree that he did in that match. It was a selfless performance, just one of the dozen that PAC gave throughout the course of his career. They simultaneously accomplished the feat of having a dream match that lived up to the hype while also building Takagi up for his match the following night against Yokosuka.
Unquestionably, this was the most physically demanding match of PAC’s revered 2011. Every Takagi lariat seemed like it was going to rearrange PAC’s spine for good. Every signature Takagi slam bent PAC in the most unfortunate of positions. PAC’s offense, when it landed, still had to contend with the brick wall that was Shingo Takagi. This was not a match as much as it was a war that happened to be fought on PAC’s home turf. The result, undoubtedly, was one of the most most memorable matches of 2011.
El Generico, Masato Yoshino, & PAC vs. Akira Tozawa, Kevin Steen, & Super Dragon
January 29, 2012 | Pro Wrestling Guerrilla
Had this match taken place in Reseda, it would fondly be remembered as one of the best matches in PWG history.
In perhaps the wildest match PWG ever put on paper, PAC closed out his time with the promotion with an absurd, under-the-radar banger in front of PWG’s show in collaboration with that year’s Wrestle Reunion, hence why it took place away from their signature building. PAC was once again saddled with his eternal rivals in PWG, El Generico and Kevin Steen, this time with the insertion of two of Dragongate’s top talents who were in town for that weekend’s DGUSA show, as well as Super Dragon, who had returned from a three year absence in December 2011, only to get hurt in this match and not wrestle again until 2015.
With a proper Reseda crowd, the finishing stretch of this trios match might’ve been received with a loud enough reaction to break the sound barrier. Generico and Steen had become world class wrestlers in their own right by this time, but the strides that PAC had taken from 2007 when he teamed with Roderick Strong against those two compared to now is unfathomable. In a six-man tag featuring six elite talents, it is PAC who is leading the charge in this match. PAC’s interactions with Steen and Tozawa, in particular, demonstrate why PAC was merely months away from signing with WWE at this point. He’s an utter machine programmed to wrestle at the highest level by this point in time. He was operating at the peak of his powers in this one.
PAC hit two of the most devastating Poison Ranas in the closing stretch of this match on Steen and Dragon before a third was countered by Tozawa. He would quickly recover and then get the last laugh on Tozawa to cap off one of the most exhilarating dream matches in PWG history.
Masaaki Mochizuki, PAC, & Ricochet vs. Akira Tozawa, BxB Hulk, & Low Ki
March 31, 2012 | Dragon Gate USA
My pick for the most underrated match in DGUSA history. It also happened to be PAC’s farewell from the promotion.
Having painstakingly watched every second of DGUSA, I can say that the promotion was never truly the same after PAC left. Whether that has direct correlation to him leaving or not is unclear. From his first bout in Canada through this match in front of the hardcore wrestling intelligentsia in Miami, booker Gabe Sapolsky was able to pull his emergency PAC lever while he had access to him. It didn’t matter what wasn’t working in DGUSA, he always knew that he could turn to PAC to have the match of the night when they desperately needed a match worth writing home about.
In this absurd, long-forgotten six-man that happened only two months after PAC’s PWG farewell, another absurd, long-forgotten six-man, PAC is once again the shining star in a match that featured six of the best talents in the world. He counteracts the harsh, heelish energy that Low Ki and Mad Blankey brought to the table with a valiant, fighting effort that only the top 1% of babyfaces could muster up.
The night before, he brought out the best in Low Ki in a stunning singles match between the two. He picked up right where he left off here, this time with the added bonus that he and Tozawa could once again showcase their otherworldly chemistry.
On American soil, the best two Dragongate trios matches are the infamous 2006 Blood Generation vs. Do Fixer match and the equally-as-good 2008 Typhoon vs. Muscle Outlawz match. This, without question, gets the bronze medal. If this match happened on Dynamite next month, it would finish in the Top 10 in the Voices of Wrestling Match of the Year poll. It was extraordinary in 2012 and has aged beautifully ever since.
PAC vs. Prince Devitt
June 6, 2012 | New Japan Pro Wrestling
PAC did one tour of New Japan Pro Wrestling right before he signed with WWE. Representing Dragongate in that year’s Best of the Super Juniors tournament, he pinned Jushin Thunder Liger in Korakuen Hall, beat Gedo, and had a now-iconic bout against Prince Devitt en route to losing to Ryusuke Taguchi in the semi-finals of the tournament. I have no doubt in my mind that had PAC chosen to stay in Japan instead of signing with WWE, he would’ve won a Super Juniors tournament (likely in place of Ricochet winning 2014) and would’ve dominated one of the most stacked junior divisions ever during New Japan’s glory years. How could you not want PAC against the likes of KUSHIDA and Kyle O’Reilly? He would’ve dominated there, just as he dominated everywhere else.
I’m not sure how this match would look with 2026 eyes to someone who had never seen it before. Junior heavyweight wrestling has evolved so much in terms of offensive approach and excess in the decade that has followed. This match is not celebrated for the collection of spots bell-to-bell, it is celebrated over the fact that these two had a bout that blended the athletic approach of an old-school NWA Heavyweight Championship match with the highest level of junior heavyweight wrestling imaginable, at the time.
PAC’s movements during every second of the match are sublime. He simply waltzed into the King of Sports and established himself as a top dog, immediately. He beat Devitt at his own game in his own promotion.
It cannot be overstated the level of respect that PAC was shown throughout his brief time in NJPW with wins over Liger and Devitt in Korakuen Hall, specifically. This was a promotion that was making it clear that as they were ready to ascend to new heights, they wanted PAC to be along for that ride.
Although I feel it’s unfair, this is the match that legitimized PAC in the eyes of many. The perception of Dragongate among anyone who wasn’t “in the know” was poor then and hasn’t improved in the decade that followed. Having a match like this for NJPW, however, meant something more to the larger wrestling world.
To my knowledge, this is the match that officially earned him a WWE offer.
PAC vs. Dragon Kid
May 5, 2019 | Dragongate Pro Wrestling
Exactly one year before this match, it was announced that CIMA would be splitting from Dragongate and taking El Lindaman, T-Hawk, and Takehiro Yamamura with him. That exit fundamentally changed Dragongate forever. Although I feel like the promotion has properly moved on, many cannot emotionally connect to a Dragongate that doesn’t have CIMA.
In the immediate aftermath, Dragongate struggled to find an identity. The roster was plagued with unproven youngsters and veterans struggling to transition into the next phase of their career. They were relying heavily on Masato Yoshino, who in 2017 suffered a life-altering injury, to be the steady hand at the top of the promotion. Yoshino was serviceable as champion and I can’t imagine what would’ve happened to the promotion without him there in 2018, but they desperately needed a shot in the arm.
Whereas Dragongate was in the midst of a very public tailspin, PAC was fighting a very private fight during all of this. Despite being in the midst of a Cruiserweight Championship program with Enzo Amore, PAC defected from WWE in October 2017, sitting on the sidelines for exactly a year without saying a word. His contract was frozen until August when it was announced that he was officially no longer with the promotion.
It cannot be overstated that when PAC decided to leave, there was no AEW, nor were there any rumblings. He was not able to waltz into another televised company. There was no other way to make legitimate money in America at that point in time. He stood up for himself and he bet on himself and after a year of silence, he came crashing back into Dragongate.
During his year away from wrestling, many speculated that the next place he’d be seen was New Japan. Those people had no idea what Dragongate meant to PAC. While I was surprised that PAC showed up when he did, I had zero doubt in my mind that when PAC resurfaced, it would be under the promotion that he considered to be Family.
He returned as a mystery “X” alongside Eita in a tag match against BxB Hulk and Shingo Takagi as a part of Takagi’s farewell tour on October 2, 2018. Two months later, he did the unthinkable, destroying his former partner Yoshino en route to his first and only reign as Dream Gate Champion. That match is best remembered for PAC attacking Yoshino from behind during “God Save the Queen”, as it was customary at the time for Dragongate to play the national anthems of those involved before Dream Gate matches.
He would defend the belt successfully three times before losing it to Ben-K at Kobe World 2019 in one of the most hyped Dream Gate matches ever. His first defense is arguably his best match ever, as he and Kzy closed out “the Korakuen Hall of the West”, Hakata Star Lanes, with an unforgettable match in that building’s final show. PAC would then help establish Shun Skywalker as a genuine main event player in March before taking on his mentor, Dragon Kid, in Kid’s hometown.
“There has been an undeniable greatness about PAC’s Open the Dream Gate run. Whereas some wrestlers seem to thrive on a week-to-week basis like a great, Sopranos-esque TV show…his work in Dragon Gate, his big matches, feel like feature films. PAC isn’t into delivering week-to-week like he did on 205 Live. He’s become a big picture wrestler, and everything from his disdain of Japan and England’s National Anthems being played before the bell to his calculated, psychotic reactions after the bell are, in the true sense, epic. PAC is creating epics for the first time in his long and impressive career.”
When they squared off at Kobe World 2009 in the Open the Triangle Gate match, PAC was trying to prove that he was on Dragon Kid’s level and was given the opportunity to kick out of the Ultra Hurricanrana. A decade later and with a run in WWE under his belt, PAC, now in his “Bastard-era”, made it clear that no one was on his level.
He was the shot in the arm that Dragongate desperately needed at that point. He promised when he came back in 2018 that he would leave the promotion in a better place than he found it and he accomplished that goal to an overwhelming degree. He reshaped a heel unit that was in desperate need of reshaping, established Ben-K and Shun Skywalker as future stars, and acted as an “adult in the room” when Dragongate needed it most. I don’t want to think about what would’ve happened to Dragongate had PAC not come in when he did.
Dragon Kid, who has had a long, unhearalded career in his own right, was given the best match of his life in front of his adoring fans in his hometown. No longer was PAC soaring gracefully through the sky and then clapping on his way back up to ignite the Dragongate faithful. This time around, he was dropping Dragon Kid on his head and then shooting daggers into anyone who dared to question him in the front row. He was an animal during this run, doubling-down on the character that he took over 205 Live with and would later dominate AEW with.
I’m not sure there’s ever been such a thankless run in wrestling history. PAC could’ve gone to New Japan and reaped the benefits of their global brand at that point in history. He would’ve been pushed hard as a junior during a time in which the division featured Dragon Lee, Hiromu Takahashi, and Will Ospreay. He had enough size at that point to where he could’ve done what Ospreay ended up doing in 2019 as he bulked up from junior heavyweight to heavyweight. He could’ve been in G1s. He could’ve been in featured matches at the Tokyo Dome. Instead, he gave back to the promotion that gave him so much, opting for a grueling touring schedule that had him setting up chairs in Hamamatsu.
This was his finest moment before embarking on his AEW career.
PAC was everything that a wrestler should strive to be and by all accounts a wonderful human being. I am devastated by the news. RIP.
— Case (@_InYourCase) September 28, 2026
I am not good at grieving, and I have no advice to offer. I am usually saddened by “celebrity” deaths, but not overly affected. The untimely death of PAC, however, has affected me. I wish that I were writing about his career and talking about what was to come. I wish that we spent more time reflecting on his absurd body of work while he was alive. I wish that he understood just how adored he was by his peers. I, however, cannot change any of that. I can, however, remember his legacy through the footage of him that we have, and I can continue to do my part in remembering The Man That Gravity Forgot.
