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[SPEAKER_01]: Look at that one so hard!
[UNKNOWN]: Hope you fall!
[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome back to Open The Voice Gate Terminate Edition.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's November 30th, 2025.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm one of your hosts.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's your all-power Mike Spear's join alongside your other host case.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hello and we are coming with a kind of special addition of voice gate this week that we are just getting dipping back into Dragon Gate and talking about King Gate 2025 as we are on the
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so we just have a lot of kind of issues around the tournament that just makes sense for us to just do this whole entire kind of bundle the episode talking about Dragon Gate and the King of Gate tournament that we haven't really touched on since we got through that first round.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think you have the big news hits, so I guess I should just pitch it to you and the voice gate news desk about what all is going on and Dragon Gate this month.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it's been such an incredibly newsworthy tournament because of when we did those days last week, which by the way greatly appreciate the feedback on that episode, and in particular the list of the best years in junior heavyweight history that we discussed.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm hoping that that gets clipped out into a YouTube upload here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Shortly, I have sent the audio to the people to make that happen, but I'd like to continue that discussion.
[SPEAKER_00]: I really enjoy that sort of stuff, and I enjoyed the feedback on that last episode quite a bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: But,
[SPEAKER_00]: As we've gone on throughout the month of November, it seems like almost every day there's been a new king of gate match and almost every day there's been a new dragon gate news item.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really been an incredibly busy month, which is an interesting situation for the company to be in because as we talk about last year, we talked about this year.
[SPEAKER_00]: The November schedule leans very much in favor of an early start in cork and
[SPEAKER_00]: and in Kobe, but then for the rest of the month, you know, they aren't visiting Kyoto, they aren't visiting Osaka, they aren't in their usual hubs, gate of destiny look different this year.
[SPEAKER_00]: So even though we're only four weeks removed from that cork and haul show, it does feel like a lifetime's worth of news has happened since then.
[SPEAKER_00]: So for anybody,
[SPEAKER_00]: That is not entirely caught up on King of Gate for anybody that feels a little bit out of the loop.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to go through all of the tournament matches from 11 16 through 11 26, which gets us to the semi finals that are going to take place in Corquant Hall later this week, we're recording this episode now as a preview for that Corquant Hall show and be
[SPEAKER_00]: I am out of commission scheduling wise for the rest of this week and for next week.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you won't hear my voice for two weeks.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to be sure that I get some king of gate thoughts and before we get to the semi finals and the finals here coming up in cork and on December 3rd.
[SPEAKER_00]: But for anybody this missing news item so far, November 9th.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're going back a few weeks now.
[SPEAKER_00]: November 9th.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was announced at Humare, who was going to be off shows for the foreseeable future due to a shoulder injury, and that Coach Bendora and Strong Machine J would be off the upcoming shows due to illness.
[SPEAKER_00]: On November 12th, it was announced at Rio Yotanaca.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's see, one his first round match, he beat Omar.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, he beat Omar, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, and they're in the market show that feels like it took place seven years ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: Royce and Oca had to pull out of King of Gate due to a shoulder injury.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thus, his 11, 22 match with Yamato was canceled Yamato automatically advanced to the next round.
[SPEAKER_00]: On November 13th, it was announced that Coach manure had suffered a mild concussion, and that he would no longer be able to participate in his King of Gate match in Nagoya with Masaki Bochizuki.
[SPEAKER_00]: That show took place on November 15th, and it was announced during the show that Ganky Horguchi would replace Coach manure and King of Gate.
[SPEAKER_00]: He subsequently did, and then he defeated Masaki Mochizuki in that opening round matchup.
[SPEAKER_00]: On November 23rd, Cagator was injured.
[SPEAKER_00]: This caught him to miss the 1124, 1125 and 1126 shows on 1125.
[SPEAKER_00]: The triangle gate belts were vacated due to Homari, shoulder injury, and then Shun was also pulled from the 1125 and 1126 shows.
[SPEAKER_00]: On 1126, Dragon Dio was pulled from that show to do it to a neck injury.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Yamato also suffered a neck injury forcing a referee
[SPEAKER_00]: So over the course of the month, we saw Pomari, Coachamonora, Shune Skywalker, Dragon Daya, and Yamato all pulled from shows due to injury, in the case of Shune and Kagotora and Yamato, we have time table set for the return.
[SPEAKER_00]: The rest of them, I am unsure as of when we're recording when we'll see especially Pomari and Tanaka again, but my goodness, what a month it's been in
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I think it's kind of worth noting that I right now, okay, it's kind of the giant master chart of Dragon Gate events per month and excluding May of 2023.
[SPEAKER_01]: November 2025 is the most events that Dragon Gate has run in any month since March of 2024 or 2018.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're talking pre-COVID,
[SPEAKER_01]: different era they were in almost 200 shows that year.
[SPEAKER_01]: But November has really kind of become this, I don't want to call it like a death march of a touring schedule, but they end up having essentially only 10 off days during that month.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that as we've looked at how the schedule has changed over the year's case,
[SPEAKER_01]: it goes without saying that the more times you're in the ring, the more opportunity that there is for just a potential of to use the Dungeons & Dragons term to roll a natural one in critical fail.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like you have that opportunity to time you get in the ring, but when you have a schedule where essentially the starting of this week, they have two days that
[SPEAKER_01]: they will be in Corican, and then they have three-knit days in Sapporo at the end of this week.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they're in the midst of the worst part of their schedule since Shima was around, essentially.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think it's natural to have some sort of injury accumulation I do think when you look at like, Humari, that guy has had his shoulder taped up basically since he debuted.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's an injury that's been building.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And with like the history of of shoulder injuries in this company and the trickiness about it, like it, you know, I mean, at a certain point, it makes sense at least for how the term it was booked in that first night, that how Mari takes the loss.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then,
[SPEAKER_01]: is able to rest up for it, but then when you accumulate more and more and when you have things like just concussions pop up and not to mention the fact that it seems like Japan has had a many like epidemic happen over November with people being sick and being pulled from cards, not just in Dragon Gate but throughout the wrestling world.
[SPEAKER_01]: Taitishi Mori does that
[SPEAKER_01]: shows in New Japan because he's sick.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is somebody doing DDT got hit really bad by the flu this year?
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it so I feel like that we have some micro things when we just look at the dragon gate roster and just like this glut of injuries and just card manipulations and frankly, turn it manipulation that they've had to kind of go under.
[SPEAKER_01]: But there's also some macro issues worth doing as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: I the the the one that I feel like.
[SPEAKER_01]: I kind of wonder how much this one was like a set set entry is menorah, just because how at least for me before we get into the matches itself, how brilliant the Ginki Horakuchi Miracle run booking felt like during this tournament.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, it felt like something that they kind of were like, all right, we're going to need to kind of do we have this coming up at the end of the month, Manora is not going to do this.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to have Binky Cohen here.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's going to be Mocha Zuki as Mocha Zuki has gone bar a pro date.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he's not making open out of it again, what?
[SPEAKER_01]: So we got to get him out of this tournament.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you end up having just a really fun level of entry and a tournament that I think, at least for me,
[SPEAKER_01]: this tournament since February case and it's kind of playing out the way I expected.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's nice to have those at least using like the minority to provide a little bit of intrigue or some of these are just, you know, just bummers of situations.
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said I said the same thing in 2022 when Jason Lee pulled out of the tournament after a match with BB Hulk and that paved the way for Coatmanora to then get to the finals of King of Gate that year where
[SPEAKER_00]: Not that I ever want to question anybody's head injury because I believe Jason was pulled off of those shows due to a concussion, but I also I remember Hulk kicking him in the head with that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I buy that.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's definitely a spot in the Osaka match with I mean, this is funny, you know, the amount of
[SPEAKER_00]: wrestling.
[SPEAKER_00]: We consume and she's told me about Jason Lee vs. B.D.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hulkino soccer from 2022.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a head kick in that match that I vividly remember, but it also worked out to a point where Yoshioka and manure ended up in the finals and King of Gate that year and I did flag that as like, oh man, that they either really made the most of that situation or that was the plan from the start.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the coachman Nora thing, this year had a very similar vibe where
[SPEAKER_00]: I do, I do believe that Coach Manor is probably heard and pulled off the show for precautionary reasons, but it's one of those things that it's just, I don't, I don't know of another promotion.
[SPEAKER_00]: in the world that constantly makes the best out of bad situations.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I guess that's the interesting thing with the tournament this year and all the changes that happen and all the injuries and all the news to come out of it is I think somehow Genki being inserted into the tournament was probably the most drastic change that we saw.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's a disappointing thing to not get Yamato versus Tanaka that matches interesting on multiple levels.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the inclusion of Ganky Horguchi is the thing that really shook things up the most.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm with you, you know, I think the three match run, the Mochazuki match, the Skywalker match and the Oshioca match, they were all interesting in their own way.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as I look at those tournament on paper, even in 2025, long after you and I have both agreed that Ganky's best days are very far behind him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't imagine this tournament without Ganky Horguchi.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's one of the MVP's for me this year.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I think also when you have Ginkie in there, you get to do the Ginkie kind of situation where Shun Skywalker gets to be very believably and earned lose in two minutes to a backslide from heaven out of an SSW and like an outright two minute sprint.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Ginkie is the person on this roster for 20 years that you point to for when if you need to have
[SPEAKER_01]: an upset in a knockout style tournament you look towards and he just kind of becomes like the Swiss army knife that when you insert him in the tournament you get chewed out looking as strong as he always does but like maybe protecting that back a little bit and ending up having maybe not like one of those matches that at the end of the year when we're going through a
[SPEAKER_01]: Having a solid quarter of final performance against Yuki Oshioca at a time where it's kind of important to stack those up and he instantly becomes one of the most like key people in this tournament and outside of perhaps Jackie Comey I think he because he is one of the more interesting figures coming out of this tournament just because of how important that quarter final miracle run ended up being for him.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just the thing that I'll always appreciate it about this promotion as we exist in a wrestling timeline where the concept of lore and the concept of storytelling is
[SPEAKER_00]: And as soon as he got put in the tournament, I said it two weeks ago when we were doing the last bit of King of Gate coverage, I at that point he had beaten Mochazuki and hadn't had the Skywalker match yet and I was like, I think he's going to beat Skywalker because we all know at that point once he enters the tournament.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a built-in story there, and even in Jay West talking about this on his blue sky account where all of a sudden, it seemed like there was a real possibility that he could even beat Yoshiyoka, and if he would have beat Yoshiyoka, I don't think it would have surprised to be of us.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think dinky horror Gucci vs. Eshen would have been a fascinating cavegate semi-finals match and for as much as I want, new one I want, youth that I want fresh,
[SPEAKER_00]: I would have been okay with that because there is just a built-in story there that once you know it, it's an ingrained in your system, you know exactly what's going to happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's a welcome thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's a logical thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it makes sense that they've protected this move for 22 years now and come turn them at time.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's still a thing that can beat former three-time open-the-dream gate champions and we could all be okay with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's great.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think when you have a tournament that is 32 people deep and you end up have and it's a single elimination tournament on top of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: You need to do sort.
[SPEAKER_01]: You need to do something kind of interesting to at least shake up one of the quadrants one of the regions.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's a situation you don't have when you remember the year that there was the eight
[SPEAKER_01]: When you have formats like that, like the super rate and essentially one night tournaments, you don't have to think about, like, okay, I need to have some interesting things happening in these first and second round matches and have like a little bit of a storyline to go through, because you're not booking for a full month.
[SPEAKER_01]: you're able to have it nice and encapsulated in clothes and whatever story you want to tell about the tournament, you're able to do it across the the show.
[SPEAKER_01]: But having Horguchi, especially I remember us like talking when the initial bracket came out and we looked at that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Quadrant with Kakuya Yoshio Katakashi U.T.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mocha Zuki and Minora and Skywalker and Doi.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like that eight person Quadrant, we knew how much weight was coming in and out of it and at least going into the tournament, I always kind of had the idea that this is going to be the
[SPEAKER_01]: But the final Yukiyoshioka, as the ace kind of tournament run, but you still need to something to keep the region interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Ginkihore Guchi is the magical kind of wrestler that you insert him out of nowhere into a tournament.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when you have those 22 years of
[SPEAKER_01]: of history you you instantly get a card in a to play that you do not have the opportunity to and no one else in the wrestling world has an opportunity to play a card like that and it to provided like a necessary level of spice was case imagine how we would be feeling this Sunday morning if we did not have the kinky horde Gucci miracle run as a storyline through the early parts of
[SPEAKER_01]: This would have been a, not a bad tournament, but it would have been like a lot of us kind of tapping our toes waiting for something special to happen and ginky kind of encapsulate specialness in of himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would agree with that real quick, bowl of 2011, Willie Mac versus Chris Hero, Kevinstein versus Dave Finley, Elginarico versus Claudio Castic, Nolan, Eddie Edwards versus Roderick Strong and your first round, semi-finals, Kevinstein versus Eddie Edwards, Elginarico versus Willie Mac, your final's Elginarico over Kevinstein.
[SPEAKER_00]: What happened, Indie?
[SPEAKER_00]: We're asked, like, I don't even think, by the way, I don't think that shows sold out recita that year.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, it didn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I remember, it was like a notable anecdote of histories that that show did not sell out recita.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, any year that a character's Alice turned the territory on fire.
[SPEAKER_00]: They ran effort to his hour left because his last show was what had been made.
[SPEAKER_00]: This was an August right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, I did.
[SPEAKER_01]: There was a part of me that thought that he was going to come back for that bowl.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'd win it by the way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's a.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hear over his Mac is something I'd like to go back and watch that sounds absolutely delightful.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you're talking about ganky being sort of the spice of this tournament needed.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I get the sense having not talked to you about any of the individual matches, but I get the sense that maybe just a tad higher on this tournament than you are, but it's also...
[SPEAKER_00]: One of those Draingate things where when the blocks were released and I came on here and said the same thing I was like I have no idea where they're going with this you know Yoshioka is by far the chalk favorite, but when somebody is that much of a favorite in Draingate I tend to try to look for anything else because that's typically what this company does and we talked about is it going to be homarise tournament will know he loses in the first round is it going to be so smooth tournament will he ended up challenging for the dreamgate belt right before this tournament.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so now you end up in a situation where, you know, again, for those that maybe haven't kept up, this will come as a surprise to you, but your, your final four are Ukiyoshioka, which was expected, Eishina, Gianni Valeta, and Rita, and Mike, this feels like it might be the weirdest final four we've had in the King of Gate.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I would say without, uh,
[SPEAKER_01]: two out of the four are the ones that I kind of thought that Rita's just Cinderella run.
[SPEAKER_01]: It feels like that this is one of those things that in 10 years.
[SPEAKER_01]: Remember when Rita made the final four of King of Gate and all of that leads up to, because just in this kind of format, I think this is one of the situations that you have with a knockout versus the purely format,
[SPEAKER_01]: You would expect Rita to be like a final night.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's see if he gets out of the blocks kind of guy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's said now, we get Rita versus Johnny, the match that Rita wanted so badly last year and you got destroyed.
[SPEAKER_01]: And now we get that for a tournament semifinals.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not surprised with Johnny being this far.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think kind of when you have a tournament like this,
[SPEAKER_01]: a Johnny Vallada makes a lot more sense in the booking versus the block play, where you're going to have to figure out how this guy's going to take ex-many losses or how you're going to decreatively book out of this, and said you have Johnny now in a situation, it's like, oh yeah, no, he loses in the finals to the guy who is going to win the tournament the whole entire time.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a healthy loss for him, and that feels kind of earned,
[SPEAKER_01]: being the workhorse is kind of the fun surprise that we saw last year.
[SPEAKER_01]: They have the opportunity to really put on the working shoes and dial back the sticky.
[SPEAKER_01]: It has some real and crippled matches against Yamato and junior and cork and in.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think like he has like war course kind of tendencies throughout the term, and especially the match with Kamei.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is a little bit of a surprise for me, but I feel like that in some ways it's kind of the...
[SPEAKER_01]: since Minora is out now we need to have like that guy that's always going to be in this semi-finals in the finals and maybe Eshen kind of inherits that role.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well that okay so that that's what I like about this final four is for his random and side questie as the horror Gucci stuff all felt this final four makes sense to me and when you've covered the promotion for the entire year you start looking at these matchups and this this
[SPEAKER_00]: has been built around the idea of the Yukiyoshioka comeback story.
[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't rushed by any means.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've been doing this since the end of February.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think on a performance level, I think it took Yoshiyoka quite a while and understandably so to find his footing and where he was at.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he's still a little hit in this, but we've seen far more Yoshiyoka hits
[SPEAKER_00]: recently, then we have misses.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just think at this point, you know, he and Kukuta might not have good chemistry with one another, which is a very odd thing given how talented those two are.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think we're looking at that situation there.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're exactly right, and I think this is necessary about is that he has.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think replaced coach manure in the pecking order.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think they have switched bots and that's something that's fair.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I agree.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that's a five year conversation of you and I trying to figure out what tier coach manure belongs to and what tier he should be at versus what tier they're pushing him at and
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: I, I breathe these.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your my head hits the pillow at night a little lighter knowing that Asians and the semi finals compared to coach manure this year because for as much as I like manure and I do like him as a wrestler, especially as a tag team wrestler.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ision's better than him in every way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ision to me has been the most impressive wrestler in this tournament.
[SPEAKER_00]: Connie might have the better output.
[SPEAKER_00]: Rita is probably on the same level as Ision.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there's on an individual level.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ision's been the most impressive guy in this tournament.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm looking forward to going through his matches because I have a lot to say about all of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: But.
[SPEAKER_00]: That makes sense that Asians there.
[SPEAKER_00]: You and I have been wanting to see more out of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: I talk about the fact that he's got that Kurt Engel syndrome where he's so good at being goofy sometimes.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think it detracts from him being a serious pushed wrestler and throughout this tournament, we've got serious pushed Asians.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's wonderful.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you have this long-term story
[SPEAKER_00]: with Rita and Valetta that they've really stuck the landing on it and I have to say, while I'm almost positive that Valetta is going to win that semi-final smash.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think there's a real legitimate chance that Gianni Valetta is your King of Gate 2025 winner.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do think it's worth pausing for just a second and talking about the fact that
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, Valetta's first tour, which is January of 2024 through May of 2024, is built around establishing him and getting used to this bruiser Brody type figure and Dragon Gate.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then right when he's about to leave, that's when Rita comes back and Rita wants the singles match with him, which they set up for whenever Valetta returns.
[SPEAKER_00]: If he ever comes back, Rita, you're going to get your singles match with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they do that at Gate of Origin 2024, very fun match, which then bleeds into
[SPEAKER_00]: the losing unit member elimination match with Zebratz and Goldclass that October 2024 cork and which has a ton of great Valetta in Rita stuff and you go to the early part of this year you know they've had two on televised singles matches this year one in March one in April and now you have the latest chapter in what has become again it it all was speaks to the larger point that I try to make about Valetta a lot of the time is
[SPEAKER_00]: he's just been masterfully booked in this semi-finals match with Rita is not just a semi-finals tournament match where Valeta comes in as the heavy odds on favorite, but it plays into something that he's been doing since his first tour in Dragon Gate 18 months ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: I really like for as odd as this tournament has been with the injuries, with the unpredictable booking,
[SPEAKER_00]: The final four all feels right.
[SPEAKER_00]: This feels very representative of 2025 Dragon Gate, which for me is a positive.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a promotion that I've greatly enjoyed this year, where you have Yoshioca, you have Ishen, you have Valeta, and you have Rita, and as somebody that always wants Rita doing more Rita being pushed more, I look at this line up, but I go, yeah, this is this feels right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I really like what they've done here.
[SPEAKER_01]: And just to kind of underline Asians and VP performance in this tournament, the one of the big things that I feel like we have, at least since Kobe world, we've had the opportunity to kind of figure out is the tenor and the actions of the new heel unit of Gajito Coro.
[SPEAKER_01]: And
[SPEAKER_01]: As we've seen that like the heel cheating, it's not as comedic, it is a lot more pointed.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think you could see what kind of heel unit God Jadokuro has ended up becoming just from reading Eaton's tournament.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is a he advances in the first round on the eighth against Louis Mante and a serious mode match where
[SPEAKER_01]: he has one cookie sheet shot, but that's it from cheating.
[SPEAKER_01]: He wins by reversal.
[SPEAKER_01]: He has to go to the low blow to eliminate Elkaku.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'd argue that's incredibly earned for the size difference that E-shin was going to have to get underhanded with him in that sort of action.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you have to completely just deserve to in earned.
[SPEAKER_01]: heal performances and then you go into a quarter four a quarter final that is completely clean and in the style of what you've seen in the Madoka Kakuva dream gate.
[SPEAKER_01]: A title defense is that it's just healness through action not by trickery and you kind of get a new appreciation for it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, now we kind of
[SPEAKER_01]: just by watching each and through this tournament as this new one b or the two in Godjadokro, you kind of get to this point where we are going to look at this Asian versus Yukio Shioca match, and it's going to be interesting to see if we're getting the
[SPEAKER_01]: If we're getting the bruiser mode or if it's going to have to dip into chicane or you get it across, but I feel like it that that I've been spending the last few months kind of feeling out this yield unit and just from Asians kind of performance through the sermon.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think arguably you could say the same thing about your shiki kato as well, but I feel like we have a total like a total awareness now of what kind of unit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is there any chance that Ishan BTO Shioca and we're looking at a Valeta Ishan finals or is it pretty much set and stone that Ishan's taking a high fly flow on December 3rd?
[SPEAKER_01]: Man, I, I, I, since YoShoka walked back through the curtain.
[SPEAKER_01]: I, I think we could go back and roll the tape about me saying, I think we are, you know, King of Gate 2025 here.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just don't see it happening for Asian, but you do have the fact now that YoShoka could get screwed out of this and he still has the direct one over Kakuta that they can go back towards.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's not like a 99 to one.
[SPEAKER_01]: uh, uh, uh, uh, just like a win, well, win expectation.
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess, uh, I've been watching too much college football over the last few days, case that the win expectation thing is doing a number on me, but uh, uh, uh, I do think that Yoshioka is still heavily favored with that, but with the caveat that there is the Kakuta card up there sleeve if they want to go in a different route and still
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's far more likely that Rita beats Valeta than Ishen beats Yoshioka.
[SPEAKER_01]: I agree.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think Ishen, and what I think we should do here is let's go through these semi-finalists.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's go through their matches.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's see if there's anything else that we miss.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can we can backtrack to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But Ishen.
[SPEAKER_00]: has done such a valiant job in this tournament.
[SPEAKER_00]: We talked a few weeks ago about Lucha Eshen wrestling Luis Monte.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought the first half of that match was stronger than the second half of that match, but it was one of those eye-opening performances where you go, God if they shipped Eshen off to arena knock-on phone for six months, the guys going to be able to hang with the best Lucha doors there right now, you know, he's just he showed off another skill set
[SPEAKER_00]: on 1122 that you mentioned.
[SPEAKER_00]: Elkaku did take a dive to the floor that were no one caught him and he did splat on the concrete in a way that was disgusting.
[SPEAKER_00]: Somebody in my DM's referenced it too.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the the most recent time we've seen that would be like Jack Evans doing a dive and no one catching him.
[SPEAKER_00]: This was Kaku doing a dive and no one catching her.
[SPEAKER_01]: Kasa.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, Peter constantly, in the other one, just a completely disgusting dive that in it with Kukui eating concrete far more than any other human on a dive that he was supposed to connect with.
[SPEAKER_00]: I did really enjoy that, but it was another match where E should was sort of doing Fakai Lucha, which I really, really appreciated.
[SPEAKER_00]: This was not a great match by any means.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd kind of put on the level of the mod team match, but I thought the individual performance of E should in between the character work, wearing the El Kukui master the ring, having that ripped off,
[SPEAKER_00]: and then being able to hang, doing really far more of a kukui style of mash than an ancient match, I thought was super impressive.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I felt that it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It kind of veered a little bit at a point of, oh, this definitely feels like the kind of matchup that you would see on a bowl of tournament where it's like, okay, these two guys, this is their match up together.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is just a casualty of the book.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the first match on the third night of bowlers.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they've got three matches coming in.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, all right, they're gonna do this for seven minutes to get in and get out, but it worked.
[SPEAKER_00]: It worked exactly for what it was.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I argue that though that Kakuie taking that Nareli bump and then nearly immediately going to for low blow German, it felt deserved and it didn't feel like you were cheated.
[SPEAKER_01]: It just felt like, okay, for Asian to get through this, make sense.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is what he's going to have to do with it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, no, Asian then brings that that performance onto the quarter final.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that
[SPEAKER_01]: when we get to the end of the tournament like it's going to be tough not to say Asians that it is the MVP if it's not him it has to be a match just because of the house strong everything has been with them.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're exactly right.
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's fold these two matches together because I want to talk about both of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: The 1123 Yicosco versus Kame match and the 1125 Kame versus Eshen match.
[SPEAKER_00]: I get the feeling and we have not discussed this.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're probably really high on Yicosco versus Kame.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am four and a quarter on that, and then I am four and three eights on command versus Asian.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like just I had to do the math all that row.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm saying like it was not enough for four and a half, but it was better than four and a quarter.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fascinating.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought I was going to be high on comedy versus Easton, but you liked it more than I did.
[SPEAKER_00]: It let's talk about the Ecoski match first.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a match that I really want to see for a long time.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm very glad they did Ecoski versus comment and that it got as much time as it did.
[SPEAKER_00]: This was a full on Dragon Gate main event.
[SPEAKER_00]: This could have had line champion game No Sokka if had had to for the Brave Gate belt.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it had that level of seriousness and
[SPEAKER_00]: what I will accept as acceptable leg selling in 2025.
[SPEAKER_00]: Comey really pushed me.
[SPEAKER_00]: as a critic to an uncomfortable degree of whether or not I thought he was selling appropriately.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because this I was so intrigued by this match when it started because Kame has the upper hand at first and he's working over the shoulder in the arm of Yicoska and we've all seen that formula a million times.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I was like, oh, Kame on top, this is going to be really interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: I look forward to seeing what they do here.
[SPEAKER_00]: and then things change and your coast could take control and this becomes a prolonged and intense effort on destroying the knees of Jackie Kameh, which is a very interesting position for him to be at because a lot of his big matches have either been long tags and trio's matches or these modern era brave gate matches that are maybe 7 to 11 minutes and you don't get a ton of drawn
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just kept winsing at would Kobe would make a return, he would, you know, do a springboard or he would do a dropkick and sometimes he would go back to selling immediately and sometimes he would it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think I left this match.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thinking, okay, he did a very good job of having me buy into his leg as hurt, but he's working through it.
[SPEAKER_00]: What did you think about the selling of comment in this match?
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought that it was at the level of I,
[SPEAKER_01]: for me and me selling and like selling.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am of the belief that whereas neck and back selling, like that is something that I feel like has like a level of constant pain.
[SPEAKER_01]: As someone like, like I have, I'm approaching 40, I have like pack pain.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like it's just something that you just kind of always kind of there.
[SPEAKER_01]: and that's how I prefer the song of this.
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like with me and ankle it's more of the things that you kind of work on it and there might be moments where everything feels great but then another time where it's just like nope up that hurt that one hurt and I can forgive a level of
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe not coherence is the term but consistency and always like after each move working or showing the knee I think that if you play enough sport to eat or done enough running in your life You'll have times where everything feels super great on the knee and then you twist it one way or land another way Then it shoots up and then it's totally fine after that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was totally fine
[SPEAKER_01]: with it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It didn't really bother me one way or another.
[SPEAKER_01]: The thing that got me in this match, Susumu's, the work that Susumu did on the knee, and there was a sequence where Susumu had him in a
[SPEAKER_01]: form of a bow and arrow lock that he intentionally makes a puts both a Kamey shoulders on the match, so Yagi does a pen fall count.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Susumu uses Kamey's kick out to use it as the moment to flip him over into the bossing crab that I thought was one of the more brilliant things I've ever seen.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think more, though, like that makes so much sense and why don't more people use the kick out as when you're on top and you're working like a body part and be like, oh, I could use them kicking out to transition and use that force in this.
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought he was just incredible in this match.
[SPEAKER_01]: I, I was much more impressed the Susumu in this match, think I may, just because I thought that the way that Susumu worked that knee and leg was,
[SPEAKER_01]: really the the kind of knee work you don't get to see these days because I thought transition was incredible like like had did had went to the last time you've noticed someone do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't remember seeing that spot before and I'm with you and as we discussed this match, I think I need to bump this up a quarter star from what I originally gave it because really digesting this match and thinking about it, you're right, this was sort of another
[SPEAKER_00]: From Susumu and credit to him, I mean, I didn't think he had any of this left in the tank, but we've had two really, really strong Susumu performances this month.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's very exciting to see, but I particularly liked
[SPEAKER_00]: just the way that Kame would get momentum and then the way that it would be thwarted.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, so soon it was the only guy in wrestling that does that move where he just slams guys knee first into the mat.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if he has a name for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've seen him do it a million times, but the way that he was able to re-center in gain control of this match, just by being bigger and stronger than Kame and taking him, putting him over his shoulders and then sending him down knee first, doing that repeatedly and then being able to follow that up with, you know, a figure four or whatever else it is that he was going to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: I really liked how dominant he looked and again,
[SPEAKER_00]: While being critical of it, I do still think that he held up his own end of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a very funny thing for me watching this match kind of waiting for for comedy to go off the rails and to track from this very specific sort of match that I was looking for, but it never happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was able to
[SPEAKER_00]: to keep me engaged with his selling the entire time, then you end up with this great finishing stretch where you coast good goes for the Yicoski Conner, that gets countered into the Torabelino.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Sumu blocks that with Cruz Fixed Pan and then comics able to come back to the Jackie Knife, just a great 30 seconds of furious, aggressive, intentional wrestling.
[SPEAKER_00]: that gets Kame the win, I originally had this at three and three quarters, but after discussing it with you, I'm going to bump this up to a four-star match.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a memorable match.
[SPEAKER_00]: As we approach the end of the year, this is a match that I'm going to remember six months from now a year from now, because it had such a distinct tone, especially because we don't get a lot of Kame singles matches like this.
[SPEAKER_01]: The king of gates that he's been a part of, he's not been in the position to have like the eight to 2016, where you just get a the block that's kind of care towards you the TV schedule that that's worth so that you are highlighted so well, you don't have that in 2025 that's just not the world we live in and.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that having these kinds of matches and at this time, it's just something that we don't get to see from him.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as combination had their quarter final match on the 25th, you kind of had the two work courses of the tournament.
[SPEAKER_01]: come at each other in Eastern, you walked into this match going like, Eastern has had to go to a couple depths to get out of matches against more physically, more imposing wrestlers, what's going to be it for Eastern when he's actually able to kind of implement his wealth against an opponent like Kameh.
[SPEAKER_01]: And instead, you get
[SPEAKER_01]: an Asian advancing after a JFK cut back in a clean match, and at least for me what might be one of the matches of the tournament, I thought that the way that they've worked in a building that seemed to be very frustrating to be a dragon gate wrestler, and because they basically were in a live house where the pit was completely filled up by the wrestling ring, including
[SPEAKER_01]: on one side and they kind of took advantage of like needing to be more specific and where they wrestled and you ended up having what I thought was a real incredible quarter final match with you shouldn't get into the semifinals out out of that quarter of the group of matches were discussing from the middle of November to just a few days ago this is the best of the bunch.
[SPEAKER_00]: that could have a match this clean.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what jumped out to me more than anything here, was they did a lot of spots.
[SPEAKER_00]: They did a lot of things.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Susumu comic match was far more simple, drawn out a lot of stuff that took a long time to get through a process.
[SPEAKER_00]: You shouldn't come in, just did a lot of things.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what jumped out to me was how clean everything was.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought this was such a high level of progress
[SPEAKER_00]: I was so impressed by it.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's not one specific thing that I thought was better than another spot in this match.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought the whole thing from start to finish was masterfully put together.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and the pace that Eashan had to work at with the level of cleanness, I think is the other side of the kind of performance because this ends up being about like a 16 minute match, but unlike the Susumu match, which kind of in a ways was built like a traditional old school dream gate kind of build this one was I would argue closer to that brave gate kind of standard and
[SPEAKER_01]: It just like the pace that Eshen is able to keep up given like that he is a functional heavyweight at this point.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the little storyline that we had throughout the tournament that the JFK and Jackie Knife people are starting now to either cut back so Kame and his some in a second round match has to he goes for a JFK that
[SPEAKER_01]: gets cut back into a penitent from Susumu that Kamei is able to flip through with the Jackie knife.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Jackie knife this time gets that doesn't do it and when he goes for the JFK crucifix, Eshen just catches him in that clutch and what you kind of end up happening is that Kamei, as we saw in the Twinget build, was basically
[SPEAKER_01]: getting everyone hem in Rita over just clocking falls everywhere with the jiff k jackie knife or the retanic and i thought it was kind of cool like showing in this tournament that people are wiseening up to this being like kmay's big cards to play and eventually
[SPEAKER_01]: And the quarter of finals, the JFK and the Jackie knife aren't enough, and I think that that's a little bit of depth and a tournament that that we let off talking about eight different injuries and I thought that was nice and kind of impressive to have that as a bit of match to match and rounds around storytelling.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think, you know, we talked about the effectiveness of the back slide from heaven and how that's been a 22 year saga with Ganky and kind of knowing exactly what's to come.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the nice thing with Kame is, you see in this assume a match, you see in the Eshen match, and you see in some of his bigger title matches, you know, I hopefully we get more of this
[SPEAKER_00]: in this twin gate reign, I hope it's a very long twin gate reign between he and Rita, but the Kame finishing stretch and the Torbolino into whatever else it is, whatever follows that Torbolino is starting to have just over the the five years of his career now that like
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, what's this going to be?
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, comma is going for the Torablino.
[SPEAKER_00]: What's going to happen next?
[SPEAKER_00]: I know we're about to get a special closing stretch.
[SPEAKER_00]: I really like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I was such a huge fan of this batch.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd go four starts on this as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think,
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're going to watch anything from this tournament, if you're rushed on time, if you want to catch up a little bit before the semi finals, I think you can make it really easy on yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think you can do commay versus Sassumo on 1123, Genki versus Shun Skywalk on 1124, and commay versus E-Shun on 1125.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think you'll understand the tournament.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even if commay or Gucci ensued are no longer in the tournament,
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, because you get a scenario where let's just talk about the other two core finals right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yamato and Rita ends early after the Coca-lero shot from Rita causes a stinger for Yamato.
[SPEAKER_01]: He tries to work through it, but he throws one more punch.
[SPEAKER_01]: It goes like, nope, I'm not able to continue.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Rita gets into the semi-finals base to off of that Yamato does not go to Okinawa.
[SPEAKER_01]: There was a fan who got into his,
[SPEAKER_01]: who got on a mon social media and your motto just snapped and said, listen, yeah, I am not like other wrestlers, you will see.
[SPEAKER_01]: If I was able to be an Okinawa, I would have been an Okinawa, but my doctors will, will said I should say, out until cork and so I'm going to prove you wrong buddy.
[SPEAKER_01]: but so that was the one of the other core finals and the other side you had Johnny of Vlad and Yosheiki Kato where really for Vlad it's a lot of what we expect for him in this kind of tournament.
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like that though
[SPEAKER_01]: work that he had leading up to it was what you should do with Johnny Valet.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, they, they are nothing but smart about how they use it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would say that Casey versus Johnny Valet in the second round was a little bit too long for my taste.
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought that Johnny should have put him into a little bit sooner.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you had a classical big man versus big man match with Valet and Kato in this quarter final.
[SPEAKER_01]: And especially as Kato has really matured into
[SPEAKER_01]: one of the the more powerful wrestlers on the roster, it was kind of fun to see this kind of core final where Johnny has someone with a heat can't immediately throw around and Kato has to kind of try to just survive the multi's madman.
[SPEAKER_00]: I always find that whenever they put Valetta at a singles match, they're playing a very dangerous game because I think the brilliance of the way that he's been booked is that he's never really been exposed.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, the Montage Dreamgate match last year, Deeter Live, was the one time where it felt like the wheels completely fell off for Valetta and it was the one time in which he didn't look.
[SPEAKER_00]: dangerous and in the goal with Gianni Valletta, baby face or heel is that he always looks dangerous.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think the dragon kidmatch in Kobe was a great example of a singles match in which he looked dangerous.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought the KZ match was a little too long.
[SPEAKER_00]: The cotton match even I thought was a little too long.
[SPEAKER_00]: They got their point across big man versus big man match.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you obviously don't get a lot of that with Valletta in this company because there's only somebody big guys around and normally he's teaming with them and not opposed to them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and he has to sell for Kato in this kind of scenario where he doesn't have to elsewhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, and so you know, you have a match that Kato match that I thought was fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: I kind of understood exactly what it was going to be from the time it started.
[SPEAKER_00]: in voletta got through it, which is what matters.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think now you can go to a situation where you get voletta versus Rita, I think voletta would obviously be the favorite of that match, and then you're you're probably looking at the finals of voletta versus Yoshioka, which is an interesting win-win scenario, not to jump ahead here too much, but
[SPEAKER_00]: If it's a lot of versus Yoshioka and Valeta Weds, I think Valeta versus Kukuta is a fascinating cork and dream game matchup, and I would really like to see that because I think it would push Kukuta to really come across like a champion.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think Valeta in that building and cork and specifically is such an interesting wrestler and I would like to see that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then as you mentioned, you also still can go back to Yoshioka versus Kukuta because Yoshioka has the head to head when
[SPEAKER_00]: If it's Yoshioka winning, then he's the guy that slay Gianni Valeta, he's the guy that beat him, and then he has all the momentum going into the Dreamgate match.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that is a rare scenario of a win-win tournament finals, and I, for as much as I love Rita, for as much as I'd like to have some sort of Rita Miracle run based on the idea of him nearly crippling Yamato.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the safe bet in the right bet is Valeta versus Yoshioka, and I think that's a win-win for everybody involved.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I'm totally with you on that.
[SPEAKER_01]: It, it, Johnny, they've been so smart about when he takes the falls and it's very clear to me that, you know, letting the, would be a, finally kind of, slay the dragon that only so many people have gotten at a once and even when you look at someone like Mocha Zuki or, uh,
[SPEAKER_01]: Monte and that dreamgate match was not necessarily like did not it was not like an absolute like oh you've cut the head off the dragon He you've killed it with fire.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's dead dead and I had that there's a part of me that
[SPEAKER_01]: I really want them to go with Johnny Valletta wedding and then do in Kukuta versus Valletta and then you have Yoshio that they're still to afterwards to take care of business and to get the win back.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the other hand of this case.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to go out on a little bit of a trivia game here.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to be talking about this combined.
[SPEAKER_01]: So can you get in Ray Day for a house combined as one?
[SPEAKER_00]: ever.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I have I have either one to Rade for I pray has to king of gates or a combination of both.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't wasn't even on my radar for them to think about.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think Yamato has won a tag league.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, we're just talking single certainments here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just just.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not right.
[SPEAKER_00]: A pre-hospitalist.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sorry.
[SPEAKER_01]: El Numerano and King of Gate.
[SPEAKER_01]: Come on.
[SPEAKER_01]: So just the single sermon.
[SPEAKER_01]: My apology.
[SPEAKER_01]: I probably misstated that there.
[SPEAKER_01]: But just think about King of Gate.
[SPEAKER_00]: El Numerano.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm King of Gate.
[SPEAKER_00]: El Numerano.
[SPEAKER_01]: Correct.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: OK. Yomato?
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mm.
[SPEAKER_00]: Motu.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think Motu's if he's one of King of Gate.
[SPEAKER_01]: He won $2,000 to six.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so I just want to think.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a Suzuki won 99 or I'm sorry, $2,000 and $2,000.
[SPEAKER_00]: How many total are there?
[SPEAKER_01]: How many total tournaments are there?
[SPEAKER_00]: No, no, no, how many, how many, how many, okay, I don't know, I'm a Suzuki and I'm going to say BB Hawk, but I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Masato Yoshino.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, all right, so only lost in history.
[SPEAKER_00]: Unfortunately, Masato Yoshino, not at the top of anybody's mind anymore.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that is my point here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yukiyoshioka winning this year would put him into that conversation with Mojizuki and Yoshino as the only two-time winners of a Dragon Gate single tournament.
[SPEAKER_00]: Which I think is both a high honor, but also that fits in with the way that they've handled Yoshioca post-excursion.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, that would not surprise me at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: Normally a stat like that would give me hesitation on, okay, well I don't think they're gonna put them on that level, but I think they could put them on that level.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wouldn't shock me at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, though, it does, at a certain point, I think with YoShioca, everyone's so entrenched with where they think about the guy that all this does is just provide ammo to both sides, basically.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because to me, he should win the tournament.
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought he should have won this tournament for the last 10 months.
[SPEAKER_01]: And
[SPEAKER_01]: They've kind of set a him up in that kind of way, but I also know similarly people who just don't see anything in this guy whatsoever that just like why are you pushing the guy that does not seem over at least to people personally.
[SPEAKER_00]: I, you know, I find his 22 dream gate run to be one of the better dream gate runs and company history.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think very highly of it, but.
[SPEAKER_00]: While he's had some bangers, while he's had some really high level matches and says return, I don't think he's the safe bet that he used to be.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's almost like a basketball player who tore the ACL and now you see flashes of what he used to be, but it's not quite the same.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's not a knock-on on your joke.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had a life-altering eye injury that has completely changed the way that he can train now.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if I'm thinking about who I want to, you know, go all in on from a company perspective, Yoshioka's not the bet that he wants was.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I do, I do need to see it with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I do need to see, I would imagine both of those semi-finals matches, just knowing how they typically book tournaments are going to be under or around 10 minutes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think he and E.C.
[SPEAKER_00]: are going to go out there and be given 20 minutes to have a four and a half star class.
[SPEAKER_00]: But my eyes are going to be on Yoshioka more than anybody else on 12, 3 because I kind of need to see that he can come in to a dream gate challenge as a hot challenger and I'm just not sure that he can do that anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: He has the most pressure out of anybody here because we know what he should is and it's not he shins time.
[SPEAKER_00]: We know what Valetta is and I think we're sort of circling around peak Valetta right at this point and Rita,
[SPEAKER_00]: One, I don't, I don't think he has any expectation to do anything, but two.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have no doubt that he'll rise the occasion, if he's forced to, for some reason he's in the finals, he's going to be remarkable in the finals.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought that Yamato match was trending to be a phenomenal phenomenal match.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe the match to the tournament before Yamato got hurt.
[SPEAKER_00]: I really liked the words that they were doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think he's getting by voletta, but if he does, I know he's going to crush him in the finals, and I don't feel that way with Yoshioka right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I could see Yoshioka versus voletta, for as much as I want to like it and for as great
[SPEAKER_00]: I can see that mesh not being any good.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, it's a big kind of open question with what you see or what these guys kind of put out for this as we move to the king of gate finals coming up on the third in cork and hall.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a busy month.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just had this retweeted into my timeline.
[SPEAKER_01]: They will be on the network so that hell took trip I mentioned before.
[SPEAKER_01]: They have the show in Tokyo on the third and then they have one travel day, then it's a three in support, and I know they have a lot on the back end of that tour as well if it's the same kind of way as it is yep, they do not get a day off until December the 10th.
[SPEAKER_01]: after the this cork and so it's a pretty intense run for them and that will continue that they then have the next cork and haul show this traditional two December cork and haul is on the 16th and
[SPEAKER_01]: it's the the TV is set up in an interesting way that makes me that does lend to hey Johnny could win this and you do the return match on the 16th and then move on to the new year with the Yoshioka stuff so it looking the schedule has maybe shifted me a little bit towards Johnny winning I still think it's going to be Yoshioka but boy does it set up kind of nicely to have that Johnny title challenge if they want to go that way
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, last year that can get finals, we're obviously to set up the dream gate challenger for final gate.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't have final gate this year.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we don't know if it's going to be a second cork and a December dream gate challenge or a January dream gate challenge.
[SPEAKER_00]: If it's veleta, I would think you're right because I would think you'd be home for the holiday.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you would do a cococha versus veleta later this month, which I think would be super intriguing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, you know, you get into January, you do some sort of decourage, hodgepodge, cork and main event that takes you to February, Uno does trace where the new Yoshioka versus Kakuta, which has been my thought process all long, because I don't know how they're going to get there.
[SPEAKER_00]: But Yoshioka versus Kakucha feels like the safe bet for that show and for that building.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm intrigued to see how they get there, you know, I think Eshen just because there's a heel champion right now is the least likely to win.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would put reach as odds at very, very slim.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yoshioka's got to be the favorite.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the letter I think could very easily win this tournament.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that would be fascinating if he did so.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I am with you on that.
[SPEAKER_01]: If this was on a college year, Pauli Market, I wonder if by the time we put this episode up, what the percentage change would be for real.
[SPEAKER_01]: If people were betting on Dragon Gate in that kind of way, but buddy, I thought we were going to do 30 to 45 for getting out in under an hour.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anything you want to touch on before you get out of here for a few weeks.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to mention two things real quick, and then I know you got a hard answer, I'll let you go.
[SPEAKER_00]: the ganky stuff again, he's got the mochazuki match, which is not really anything, but it's it's fun just for the finish.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then there's the 1124 ganky versus shoot match, which I my eyes bugged out of my head a minute ago, because I was looking through my notes of all these king of gate matches, and I saw that I gave a match five stars, and I went, wait, what am I forgetting?
[SPEAKER_00]: It was like, oh, I
[SPEAKER_00]: Jokeh will be gave Ganky versus shoot five stars at my notebook here because it was so much fun for what it was.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a two minute match.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can make time for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I highly recommend it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then what was interesting to me was, on 1125, you had the Ganky versus Yoshioka match.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I sort of expected it to be short nonsense.
[SPEAKER_00]: and for it to be quick and for Ganky to be put out to pasture or to win, and then the match with longer than I thought.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I sort of had to recalibrate my thoughts on the matches it was going along because Ganky for as much as I love them.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, pink ganky horror Gucci is one of my favorite wrestlers ever.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is so far, I mean, 2019 was the last time that physically he really had anything to give.
[SPEAKER_00]: So as the match was going on, I was going like, all right, you know, washed up, Ganky, here we go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's get this over with.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the match kept going.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a moment where Yoshioka goes for the high fly flow and Ganky not only blocks it, but then he hits a beach break.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't know the beach break out of nowhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a beach break out of nowhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: He can't immediately cover Yoshioca, which is again, this man's mind working in a higher level.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's small, brilliant spot there.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's a deep two-count Yoshioca kicks out.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then from there, they have a really hot closing stretch.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, this is not a great match by any means.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is 2025, Ginkie Huraguchi.
[SPEAKER_00]: It did take a long time to kick into higher gear.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think I have to recommend this match as well, because Ginkie gave more of himself and more of his body than I was expecting him to.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this was a very fun outing from Ginkie Hurag.
[SPEAKER_00]: Gucci are very good outing from Yoshioka and I just didn't think that Genki had this much left to give it this point.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that match was 11 25.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would recommend that one as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the important thing for Genki throughout this tournament, and I think like the real master, the real master class of what this is, is that this bits hall, which again, looks like it's held to wrestling, comes across really cool on camera, but this venue completely buys into the backside, it is a bot near fall, and that's all that you need
[SPEAKER_01]: to accomplish when you have Genki in this kind of scenario, you have to use this guy because you know the crowd will buy into it and when your rational mind goes like there's no way that Genki can win this match.
[SPEAKER_01]: Genki won King of Gate in 2012.
[SPEAKER_01]: We know he had to think out top on for years afterwards.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's not able to do that here, but the ability to have those moments I feel like make basically any Genki match during this tournament worth watching.
[SPEAKER_01]: like I I I I I rate higher on Yoshioka matches begin with case, but I I liked it even though it was kind of hard to do the Yoshioka self as when it's against kinky hork.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that was the issue of the first half of the match was Yoshioka has this formula and you can't do that formula with 50 year-old kinky hork teaching beating you down.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, you're exactly right.
[SPEAKER_00]: So again, super fun.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you can get through all of these tournament matches and probably two hours if you go through them one by one.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the game key stuff, the comics stuff, really, that's the stuff worth your time here.
[SPEAKER_00]: I also quickly wanted to mention, we have vacated triangle gate belts, which is such a bummer, because I was so excited about that team.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we are going to have a triangle gate league throughout the month of December,
[SPEAKER_00]: which will certainly get some them some mileage on that Hokkaido triple shot.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would imagine that we're seeing headlining matches on all three of those shows.
[SPEAKER_00]: That probably works out nice for the booking team.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the teams are natural vibes, drug machine, JKZ and UT, decourage, Yoshioka, Daya, and Tanaka.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Tanaka will be back starting in December, love and peace, yo, bin, k, and mochizuki, junior, paradox, yumato, dragon, kid, and BB Hulk, and Gajadokuro,
[SPEAKER_00]: Any thoughts on any of those teams?
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, I think that guide guide dog grow team immediately moving on for a mission and kato's kind of pointed.
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh,
[SPEAKER_01]: my bigger kind of takeaway about this league is what the hell are you going to do a FLCLO right now the guy only works in Cypatra trios and atomicos and the tournament stuff of which they had it will be eliminated by count out because he got his wrist taped like what do you do with this guy knowing that shune shune's probably back i mean no shune's working shune she's she's uh he was on the uh okay now she was
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, he actually went to Okinawa.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I didn't know if the rampage music video, if they pulled them back also for that as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, let me, let me confirm that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But Okinawa, yeah, today it was show and Rita versus Valeta and Skywalker.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I guess you'll have to do CLO and skywalker when Valeta's not around.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, no, I feel like that you naturally have the thing of is, is D-Curge finally going to get that triangle gate run.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that that's kind of an interesting kind of route there.
[SPEAKER_01]: But there's the comfort of putting it back and God jump to a grow that I kind of expect.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's sort of what I'm afraid of.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't, I mean, he'll been in junior, you know, people know my thoughts on love and peace.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna be pulling for them in this tournament, but I could also see them very easily finishing in last place in this league.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't, I don't love any of this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I really, really liked this type of hatchet trio.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm not sure that I want any of these five teams that are in the triangle gate league to be triangle gate champions right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I'm hearing you that's why I think that why not put the belt back on kai put it on kai I was just put the belts on vibes just hey, you know, give him give him a spin around the block.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why not hey vibes count down Eat your under 50 days until possible shemizu Yeah, and you've got the the Hokkaido stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you'll I mean, you'll have one of the shows headline by strong machine jkz and youtuber Since you motto drank it and Hulk and the and the triangle gait league because you'll have kz and Hulk
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, in their hometown.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm, I, I don't know what I would have done differently, but I'm uninspired by this league.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do not like the look of it on paper.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe if it was your motto, drink, it's a sumu, I would feel differently about it, but also because of the Hokkaido triple shot, I understand why hoax the one in Paradox.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I don't, I don't really like any of this.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I hope you have a good few weeks and I'll talk to you around time of this second corner.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's the next time we'll talk.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I think the reviewing that show.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'll have a written review for the 12-3 show.
[SPEAKER_00]: My guess is it'll be that show takes place on Wednesday.
[SPEAKER_00]: You'll probably have to wait until Monday after the weekend to get my written thoughts on that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Michael have audio coverage of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I'll be MIA the second week of December on assignment for work.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I will return with a review of that second cork in December.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sounds like a plan, buddy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, if you have not caught this episode of those days that is out in your feet in the meantime, kind of ended up being a somewhat Thanksgiving day surprise or travel day surprise, but thanks to everyone for the kind words about it and the time since then, you can follow us on social media at Open Voice Gate.
[SPEAKER_01]: Cases at and are scoring your case.
[SPEAKER_01]: I met Fuji Haya, thanks for listening to Open The Voice by Open The Voice Gate.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll be back with you next time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Take care, everyone.