This past Saturday I went to the first Dragon Gate USA Pro wrestling show right here in my home town of Philly. I've been looking forward to this show since it was announced a few months ago. I felt I had to attend to this historic event and I'm so glad I did. In short, it was frickin' awesome!!!
I had second row seats, which came with a free gift and early entrance for a meet and greet with the wrestlers. The free gift was a set of Dragon gate inflatable thunder stix, a pretty cool freebie souvenir. I bought a program and got autographs from Shingo, Yokosuka, and CIMA. They were the only ones that came out for the meet and greet. There was a bonus match, a fray match they called it. It was an ok match, there were a lot of wreslters i didnt know, except for Lince Dorado.
After waiting for an hour the show started. It started off with an awesome video montage of Dragon Gate footage to hype the crowd for the PPV taping. The crowd was hype with everybody baning on their thunder stix.
This led into the first match: BxB Hulk versus YAMATO. First match was BxB Hulk versus YAMATO. Great opener, with BxB Hulk coming out with his full entrance with dancers(Daizee Haze and some other sexy blonde girl). In case you dont know heres an example of BxB Hulks entrance:
This was my first time seeing YAMATO and he was a great heel. This match was a fantastic opener, crowd was on their feet and hype for most of it! Whoo, I had goosebumbs.
The next match was: 2 Cold Scorpio versus Ken Dykstra
This was a boring ass match. The crowd got dead during this one. Scorpio missed spots and Dykstra tried to carry the match, but it was sloppy, too long, and very boring. Plus, it was tough to follow hulk/yamato.
Next was the chikara 8 man tag match: Quackenbush/Jigsaw/Soldier Ant/Fire Ant versus Gran Akuma/Icarus/Amasis/Hallowicked.
This match blew the roof off the joint! Ive seen these guys wrestle plenty of times, but man, this was perfect. Quackenbush looked fantastic coming back from injury. Too many insane spots to talk about.
Post match Quack layed out an open challenge to anybody from dragon gate, to which YAMATO came out and said some mean things to Quack and kicked him in the nuts, haha! This brought out Jigsaw to started beating down on YAMATO, Gran Akuma then ran out and made the save for YAMATO. They both then end up beatin on Jigsaw and Quack. Awesome!
Next Match: Dragon Kid versus Yoshino
This was a good solid match, not their best match. It was also shorter than expected but still very good and entertaining. Post match they set up a rematch between the two for the next show.
Intermission time! This time I ended up getting some more autographs, Dragon Kid and BxB Hulk. I also picked up a super cool Hand fan with chibi dragon gate wrestlers.
Next Match was Young Bucks versus CIMA/YOKOSUKA.
Simply put, this match stole the show. Seriously, this was my fave match of the night, insane spots back with so many holy shit moments. I was surprised by the ending.
Next was the main event, Naruki Doi versus Shingo.
The main event was a non title match between Doi and Shingo. Doi is currently holding the Open the Dream Gate title, which looks super cool. This was a very solid and entertaining match to end the show. There were some sick bumps taken during this match and Doi's finisher is probably one of the most dangerous moves in wrestling.
Afterwards, they also announced the next show date in philly, its on 11/28. They will crown the first DGUSA champion with a tourney, the belt is called Open the Freedom gate belt. Cant wait!
So in closing, I had a fantastic time and for a small moment I actually felt I was in Japan watching a Dragon Gate show.
Here are some pics of my swag and autographs:
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