[UNKNOWN]: This podcast is a member of the Voices of Wrestling Podcasting Network.
[UNKNOWN]: Visit Voicesof Wrestling.com to hear the rest of our great podcast as well as show reviews, columns, opinions, and updates across the world of wrestling.
[UNKNOWN]: Look at that one so high!
[UNKNOWN]: Welcome back to Open the Voice Gate for August 11th, 2026.
[UNKNOWN]: We are members of the Voices of Wrestling Podcast Network.
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[UNKNOWN]: And this is going to be an interesting episode for this week on Open The Voice Gate.
[UNKNOWN]: We're going to be spending the entire time more or less talking about the Dragon Gate career of Shinskai Walker.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm one of your hosts.
[UNKNOWN]: It's Real Pal.
[UNKNOWN]: My experience is also by your other co-host case low in case it's one of the most important weeks of my year right now.
[UNKNOWN]: Why is that?
[UNKNOWN]: That is because H.E.B.
[UNKNOWN]: in the Central Market, groceries have started hatched green chili month.
[UNKNOWN]: And it is all throughout there.
[UNKNOWN]: They're roasting chilies in the parking lot.
[UNKNOWN]: You can get hatched green chili on everything.
[UNKNOWN]: If you're someone like my wife who does not like spicy food, she hates going to the grocery right now.
[UNKNOWN]: I am, it's just over the moon because I can get lemon and hatched chili cookies.
[UNKNOWN]: And I think they are the best things on it.
[UNKNOWN]: You know, Mike, I just was never expecting that to be something that was thrown at me.
[UNKNOWN]: I talk for a living and I do feel like I'm at a bit of a loss for words on that one.
[UNKNOWN]: It's, it's,
[UNKNOWN]: chili or chilies, what's happening?
[UNKNOWN]: It hatch is a green chili that is native to more new Mexico, but it's also a big thing in Texas and the big deal is that it's a, it's a chili that gets roasted and it provides like a certain kind of heat and flavor to it that it is not dissemilar to like being like a completely jacked up Toronto pepper, but it is one of the things
[UNKNOWN]: Because that's because fresh tortillas are some of the best things on earth.
[UNKNOWN]: And now they start putting hatched chilies in it just at the at the grocery store They've had hatched chilies and virtually everything it discuss my wife.
[UNKNOWN]: I love it I'm very happy for you.
[UNKNOWN]: I think is where I want to land on that I'm a little I'm a little thrown off by that still.
[UNKNOWN]: I don't understand the Texas culture that's at play here, but You know, I've stopped my job.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm holding it down here in the Midwest
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, no, that the tornadoes have been hitting y'all pretty hard and fierce over the last few days, but we waited a little bit to kind of do this episode tonight, and unless you have a wrestling curveball that you're about to throw at me, but to delete off, it's going to be a time where we're going to finally kind of unpack and put a bow actually unpack, repack and then put a bow on the career of
[UNKNOWN]: The guy who's kind of dominated, uh, Dragon Gate for at least the last eight years in Schuenskawa.
[UNKNOWN]: It's a pretty monumental episode.
[UNKNOWN]: And I think we've talked about this since he announced his departure in June that
[UNKNOWN]: I think the idea of Schoen Skywalker exiting Dragon Gate, even at this time last year, even if you want to go back 12 months ago to danger skate when it was cocoa versus Skywalker, and we had just gotten past a Yamanov versus Schoen Skywalker with the Dream Gate title match with the stipulation that if Schoen was, he would leave the promotion.
[UNKNOWN]: The idea then 13 months ago, where 12 months ago as we got into Skywalker versus cocoa, this guy would be leaving the promotion
[UNKNOWN]: It just felt like such an abstract thought in even with his flirtations with New Japan and his desires to run produce shows and sort of, you know, the oddities that we knew about shoot as a person and as a wrestler, he still felt like he was the guy that tied everything great and dragon gate together.
[UNKNOWN]: And throughout the 2020s, he's been the main character of this promotion throughout the 2020s.
[UNKNOWN]: He's been one of the very best wrestlers in the entire
[UNKNOWN]: for the better part of a decade now.
[UNKNOWN]: He's been one of the most exciting wrestlers on this roster.
[UNKNOWN]: And I would say since 2019 he's been the guy that I've turned to more than anybody for entertainment out of dragon gate on a personal level.
[UNKNOWN]: He's my favorite wrestler and he's one of my favorite wrestlers of all time.
[UNKNOWN]: You know, he's up there with Kobashi and with Mochizuki and with
[UNKNOWN]: That list of guys that I mentioned just on a personal level.
[UNKNOWN]: So the idea of him leaving this promotion even if it was expected.
[UNKNOWN]: Even if it was almost an open secret by the time that it was announced is still something that I've had a really a hard time wrapping my head around.
[UNKNOWN]: I found his farewell tour to be bizarre.
[UNKNOWN]: I found his last match with Humare to be really strange.
[UNKNOWN]: And then I got to the point we're on Sunday afternoon.
[UNKNOWN]: I was writing about Humariah versus Shun Skywalker from the opening right night of Rayday, Parayhosh 2026.
[UNKNOWN]: And that's what it hit me.
[UNKNOWN]: And that's when I was able to finally start to contextualize and review and analyze this guys 10 years in Dragon Gate.
[UNKNOWN]: And I am somber about this.
[UNKNOWN]: This is sort of a devastating podcast for me, because I think maybe just because he was around, I was avoiding the realities of this, but now that he has gone, now that he's no longer a member of the active drain gate, Roshtorne is a freelance wrestler and as we reported in June from two separate sources close to the matter, we feel very confident that he has headed to New Japan.
[UNKNOWN]: Many would assume
[UNKNOWN]: During the finals of the G1, I do, I have not heard anything from anybody on the Newspan side about that.
[UNKNOWN]: I know you have that, but yeah, it's, it's an open kind of thing.
[UNKNOWN]: And at least I could say, like, nothing has really kind of changed from June.
[UNKNOWN]: What was announced at least on my side.
[UNKNOWN]: I can't speak for you.
[UNKNOWN]: No, we have the same information.
[UNKNOWN]: So.
[UNKNOWN]: Now that he has gone, it is sort of a tough thing to grapple with.
[UNKNOWN]: And before I throw back to you, I will say the opposite of what I said, say in 2022 and K to a sheetle up the promotion, you know, as we were dealing with.
[UNKNOWN]: exits of Kento and Takuma and Kazuma Sakamoto on Kaito Ashita in 2022.
[UNKNOWN]: I talked specifically about Kaito Ashita and I said this is this is way more of a short-term loss than it is a long-term loss.
[UNKNOWN]: Dregate will suffer in the interim until they find a guy that can fill the void that Ashita filled that Ashita had on the roster and I have no doubt that they'll be able to do that.
[UNKNOWN]: The Shun Skywalker departure of Draingate is one of those things that will be fine in the short term.
[UNKNOWN]: I don't really think we'll feel the absence of Skywalker's wrath arrest of this calendar year.
[UNKNOWN]: I think the absence of Skywalker is going to be felt.
[UNKNOWN]: much more in the long term.
[UNKNOWN]: The big show's next year, Kobe World next year, as guys like Ukiyoshiyoka and Luis Monte and Jackie Kame and Shrum machine J and Madoka Kakuta continue their careers.
[UNKNOWN]: That is when we will feel the absence of Shune Skywalker when they are ready for their next chapter.
[UNKNOWN]: And many of their stories up to this point have been told in some relation to Shune Skywalker and his involvement in their careers.
[UNKNOWN]: And now that Shune is gone, I think in this current unit landscape, it doesn't really matter.
[UNKNOWN]: It's what comes next.
[UNKNOWN]: It's the unknown beyond now.
[UNKNOWN]: We're dragging it is going to really suffer without Shune Skywalker as an asset they can use on this roster.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, and the nickname I gave for him for a while during the Zebra at stays was that he was the Reti Jackson at the promotion.
[UNKNOWN]: He was the straw that stirred the drink.
[UNKNOWN]: And it is one of those things that like I have.
[UNKNOWN]: several different emotions and feelings about the Skywalker departmentor that's finally kind of synthesized and to kind of tonight like the first thing that that is just like worth stating this is probably at least to me this feels like more on like a profound level of a departure like.
[UNKNOWN]: In a different way, it feels more profound than even like Akira Tazawa in a way because he is the guy that essentially as open the voice gate existed, Shun Skywalker was a part of this promotion as from Shun Wat Nobe through to August 4th, 2026.
[UNKNOWN]: It is in a way that this e-pop or this era of drag and gate more so than talking about the Rewa 6 and like the Amado title run and things like this, but pulling the camera back even further and looking at it like as in like true kind of era's this era's over and there's no revisiting it there's no real kind of
[UNKNOWN]: Next step and it's done at a very kind of interesting time where like Skywalker crosses ten years in the promotion and then he's quickly kind of on his way out here and it really the the departure that I kind of like liking it to in the way that you described it towards the end about like what what is like Louis Monta loses that link that he has.
[UNKNOWN]: Yukio Shioka loses that link that he has and we can keep on going down the list there.
[UNKNOWN]: It reminds me when SBK left how like personal of a connection at least within the roster as how at least where he was and where Jackie Kame was on the roster and losing that temper.
[UNKNOWN]: Like like taking a scissors and cutting that off and laying the string completely
[UNKNOWN]: And yeah, no, I do think that a short term, maybe business wise will see how things kind of do.
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, we saw how big the number was last week in Quirk and Hall for his final show.
[UNKNOWN]: But as we've been through these departures and over the last really eight years, I'd say, case, we've seen how the company rubber bands back after an individual's departure and people that as we will get into how to really consider Shinskai Walker and where we kind of put him on our mantle as we close the door on this stage of his career.
[UNKNOWN]: It's interesting because you have people that we've had leave like Shima, Masadio Shino's retirement, Shingo Takagi, the four-man to the Kirito Zawa, and then Kaito Ashita, OWA kids, we keep on going down the line with it.
[UNKNOWN]: And in a lot of ways, you had Shima leave in 2018 when he was already well-cycled down the car.
[UNKNOWN]: You had Shingo,
[UNKNOWN]: wanting to leave for years and literally doing everything you could do with him before he leaves.
[UNKNOWN]: And then you look at Shoon where like that you have just those 10 years and my god, as like I went back through this, I pulled out all of my notebooks that I've really ever used for a Dragon Gate coverage and they're sitting right next to me and reading through them and reading through kind of progression of Shoon Wat Nobby's career and Dragon Gate.
[UNKNOWN]: it left me with like kind of an aching feeling towards the end of it.
[UNKNOWN]: Oh god, yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: I, there's no other.
[UNKNOWN]: I, I think you hit the nail on the head with it's probably the closest thing to the tozzawa departure.
[UNKNOWN]: And this might be a hard thing for maybe the lapse to drag and gate fan to comprehend.
[UNKNOWN]: Maybe somebody that was super super emotionally invested in monster express and maybe the mixture of Tozawa leaving in 2016 with some of the booking fall off with some of the changes and then the pandemic and then where we are now even though that was 10 years ago.
[UNKNOWN]: You know, we interact with a lot of people with on our community that
[UNKNOWN]: They're now sort of at a 10-year crossroads with Draingate where they're looking at this promotion and and are for whatever reason or not are not adapting or evolving or are just not interested in the modern day product, but Skywalker had a much more accomplished Draingate career from 2016 to 2026 than Tozawa did from 2016 to 2016 when he left.
[UNKNOWN]: I do feel though that they are
[UNKNOWN]: the most similar in their exits.
[UNKNOWN]: You know, again, shingo by the time that he laughed, it was a bigger deal as I headline than it was an actuality because we all felt like shingo had done everything he could do in this promotion.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, and yet shingo leave after the OWE split and after kind of running a self-angle at that Kobe world show that kind of was staging us for what would happen that fall.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, and so, you know, the sheema thing is is often it's own little universe and you can put a little bit into kuma in with that, but Otherwise, you know, this is a far bigger deal than can't go into kuma even if that felt catastrophic at the time.
[UNKNOWN]: This is a bigger deal than a sheet of this is a bigger deal than dire.
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, the dire one.
[UNKNOWN]: It's done more in the moment than I think this one did, but again, as we project six months, 12 months, 24 months for now, I think the soon stuff is going to hurt way more, and that's because, and I don't want to step on any of the questions that we got him by the way, thank you to everybody who dropped a question on the open the voice gate channel of the voices of wrestling discord, I'm really excited to get into those, but.
[UNKNOWN]: I think that brave gate run in the fallout we got from that brave gate run with die on 2024 and 2025, I think we saw what we could presumably think will be the peak of this guy's career.
[UNKNOWN]: Now, maybe his next step and whatever company he's in, maybe he all blows us away and he takes a step up from that and he becomes the best junior heavy wrestler on the roll.
[UNKNOWN]: And by the way, if that happens, awesome, I am here for it.
[UNKNOWN]: But in terms of what Dragon Diet could do in Dragon Gate,
[UNKNOWN]: I think we felt like we saw the best version of him.
[UNKNOWN]: And I think this thing that stings with Skywalker is the same thing that stung with Tozawa, which is that for as great as they were at times the best wrestler on the roster with the roster that has one of the highest working standards in all of wrestling.
[UNKNOWN]: At times one of the best characters in all of wrestling.
[UNKNOWN]: At times one of the most charismatic guides in all of wrestling.
[UNKNOWN]: A guy that tied things together was the heartbeat of the promotion throughout various points in their career.
[UNKNOWN]: Is that with Tozawa?
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, that main event run was only five years long.
[UNKNOWN]: It was 2011 to 2016.
[UNKNOWN]: They never won the Dreamgate title.
[UNKNOWN]: He only had the blood wars and mad blanky stuff into that one face turn with Modster Express and then he was gone.
[UNKNOWN]: It was Skywalker.
[UNKNOWN]: you know, it just feels like there was so much there to explore.
[UNKNOWN]: And I think it was John Carroll last the question of, you know, it will get to it, but you know, something about feeling robbed about not getting skywalkers, maybe face turn after the Z-brats and in Saipatra era, and that's the thing that's going to eat at me.
[UNKNOWN]: is I don't think we saw the period that's guys career for as great as he was in 2021 for as great as he was.
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, we'll go through it here.
[UNKNOWN]: I've got some numbers here.
[UNKNOWN]: I want to hit off in just a second about where I voted for him in the SF-50 over the last five years.
[UNKNOWN]: But you know, we're talking about a guy who from 2021 to now.
[UNKNOWN]: I guess 2021 to 2025 because I certainly would not say this this year, but for the last five years, he was a top five wrestler in the world of my opinion, like what have I said time and time again on this podcast.
[UNKNOWN]: He's the best wrestler of the 2020s not name will last for your Brian Daniel said.
[UNKNOWN]: we are losing a guy who I don't think hit his peak yet because I think we saw a flash of what it could look like in 2021 in mass-grade with clap crowds before he fully found his charisma defending the title and granted I love these guys as wrestlers but defending the title against Kaito Ashita and Cosmos Sakamoto among others.
[UNKNOWN]: I think there is a version of Skywalker as a baby face that could have been dreamgate champion that legitimately could have been the best dreamgate champion we've ever seen and we're not going to get that now and that eats away at me.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, like not to get completely into it.
[UNKNOWN]: It hurts the fact that, like, as I have called myself kind of a drag and system, a traditionalist or conservative, like in my mindset on like booking and how things have gone for like the last 12 months and really how things have gone for the last 13 months about this, but that is going to be a whole that can't be filled.
[UNKNOWN]: just in the same way that Tazawa run on top is a whole that can't be filled.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm trying to think of other like more devastating or possible ones.
[UNKNOWN]: I guess Milano Collection AT never becoming like dream gate champion and getting his full run.
[UNKNOWN]: Like these are the kind of things that we're talking about.
[UNKNOWN]: And when you were talking about that and adding shoe and skywalkers face turn into the mix.
[UNKNOWN]: Well, we're including in the added way that this guy was a three time open the dream gate champion before the age of 30.
[UNKNOWN]: All of this, all of that he has accomplished, has been things that he has done in his 20s.
[UNKNOWN]: As long as he was viable in the voices of wrestling 30 under 30 pull, and when I was voting in it, soon Skywalker was my number one wrestler in the world and her baby.
[UNKNOWN]: 30 and it is something where I think wrestlers in it and I think that this promotion and the family of promotions that the dragon system in habits has like shown that even though it's a young person's promotions and you see like and it's been marketed with like she in mind his 20s like up to the modern day with Zina Salnova being the next kind of
[UNKNOWN]: version of that in wrestling, you really, if your body is holding up and that's like a question that the Dragon Gate guys to be fair, your thirties are when like your brain really kind of kicks in and it's not just physical ability and we're not going to have that aspect of Shinskai Walker.
[UNKNOWN]: Okay.
[UNKNOWN]: I am going.
[UNKNOWN]: And by the way, his brain might end up being a detriment.
[UNKNOWN]: He might be the only wrestler that ages where his body does him more favors than his mind.
[UNKNOWN]: He could end up being a Jericho.
[UNKNOWN]: He could be very, very easily end up being a Jericho.
[UNKNOWN]: Well, like, what a, what a terrifying, impossibly accurate comparison that you're so right.
[UNKNOWN]: But we've talked about like three of my favorite wrestlers within the first 20 minutes of this career.
[UNKNOWN]: Like I still have a place in my heart for Chris Jericho.
[UNKNOWN]: I was cackling with the pain maker.
[UNKNOWN]: Woo, woo, when Tass said that this pain maker is freaking nuts.
[UNKNOWN]: I was like, yes, he's your absolutely right.
[UNKNOWN]: He is freaking nuts, but it is like that inability to have that filter that Jericho has now proceeded to show into his 50s that, you know, if that might be the issue with Skywalker in his 30s and 40s,
[UNKNOWN]: and that might have been his issue in year nine of his drag and system career to be fair.
[UNKNOWN]: So let me read you this.
[UNKNOWN]: This is from my review of Skywalker versus Humara, the first time of Ray Day Paray House August 4th.
[UNKNOWN]: We talked about this show in audio last week.
[UNKNOWN]: My written reviews up at voicesofrestling.com.
[UNKNOWN]: And I, you know, I wrote way more about Skywalker than I did in the of the tag league matches.
[UNKNOWN]: And we'll cover everything Ray Day Paray House related that's made tape next week.
[UNKNOWN]: And then we'll get to those days at the end of the month.
[UNKNOWN]: pause on the tag link, pause on the Mitch Doku pro stuff, which fear not is returning at the end of August.
[UNKNOWN]: And yeah, they're skywalker pod.
[UNKNOWN]: And again, this is, you know, I was very stream of conscious as I was writing this review for skywalkers tomorrow.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm not necessarily talking about the match, really hardly talking about the match, but just finally getting my ducks on a row on what it means that students skywalker is left to hang out.
[UNKNOWN]: And I wrote this, this paragraph in which I said, since December 2018, Skywalker has consistently been the promotion's most entertaining wrestler.
[UNKNOWN]: His rise to the main event scene in 2019 helped usher in a fresh air of the promotion that was only improved upon once he came back from an excursion in Mexico in 2020.
[UNKNOWN]: From 2021 to 2025, I ranked Skywalker third, second, third,
[UNKNOWN]: fourth in third in the SFM 50 with the exception of 2020 a year, which you only worked 58 matches the bulk of them taking place in a pandemic stricken Mexico.
[UNKNOWN]: Skywalker finished with at least one match in my voices of wrestling match the year ballot from 2019 to 2025 and 2019 2021, 2023 and 2025
[UNKNOWN]: Skywalker finished with two matches in my top 10.
[UNKNOWN]: In 2022, he wrestled my match of the year.
[UNKNOWN]: That match, a tag with Diamante, against Jackie, Funky, Kame, and Jason Lee is one of the greatest Dragonate matches I've ever seen.
[UNKNOWN]: The most recent five star match from the promotion, and finished 16th overall, and that year's match to the year pole, making it the third highest ranked match in Dragonate history,
[UNKNOWN]: behind the 2020 Unit Dispans match which in already in the Torimon generation, which placed ninth and the world around epic between Masaki Mochizuki and Shingo Jakagi in 2015, which finished 11th.
[UNKNOWN]: That to me is his Hall of Fame plaque.
[UNKNOWN]: That is the argument for Schoon being a Mount Rushmore guy.
[UNKNOWN]: That is, as best I can summarize, this guy's importance to the promotion.
[UNKNOWN]: He debuted around this time 10 years ago.
[UNKNOWN]: I think at April 22nd, 2016, I hate that I know that off the top my head, but that was his official debut date.
[UNKNOWN]: We started getting footage from right around Kobe, world that year.
[UNKNOWN]: He exists on the roster as a guy
[UNKNOWN]: It's 2017.
[UNKNOWN]: I remember with extreme detail, despite the fact that he wasn't really involved in anything great, and then by the time we got to him versus UT on December 4th, 2018.
[UNKNOWN]: I felt like this guy was leading the charge into something different and something exciting and Alan Forel and I have that podcast on his pro wrestling torch feed from January of 2019 in which we were talking about how there was something different happening with his house style.
[UNKNOWN]: It was by way of shune skywalker and I don't think from there as long as he was in Japan.
[UNKNOWN]: He ever let us left his foot off the gas.
[UNKNOWN]: Mike, do you think that is a fair way of summarizing his career if we were to put his career
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I mean, it is like remarkable.
[UNKNOWN]: We took some time that we will get into the matches that we've selected in a minute.
[UNKNOWN]: But the thing, one of the big things like struck me as we were doing this is that this is someone that essentially, as Mochizuki Dojo starts up in 2018, other than his COVID year,
[UNKNOWN]: He is one of, if not the most interesting person in the promotion, and he's always been treated like with a level, even in the Mochizuki Dojo days when he's getting the shit kicked out of him by Yamohawk, he is eating all of the finishers and getting so many kickouts, like he gets a kick out of Galleria at a point where someone who wasn't shooting Skywalker and maybe Ben Kay in the point of the career
[UNKNOWN]: Like for eight years that this guy has been a concentrated force in this promotion and even, I mean, 2016, 2017, we're talking about a guy that still mattered at a way that I would argue with the exception of the glimpse that we got of SB Kento at that time period.
[UNKNOWN]: No one as a young wrestler has mattered as much during their time period as she and Skywalker has.
[UNKNOWN]: maybe a motto because of how strongly he was pushed from the start.
[UNKNOWN]: But the list after that is essentially a shoe and skywalker and that's it.
[UNKNOWN]: So you want to make the argument, we want to have the conversation and we had this, it must have been December of last year.
[UNKNOWN]: We had a pretty lengthy Draingate Mount Rushmore conversation because I was at a point where I was feeling very comfortable putting skywalker, not only in that conversation, but quite frankly as the fourth head on that
[UNKNOWN]: And what we want to do tonight is we both picked three shun skywalker matches from the archives that are on the Draingate network.
[UNKNOWN]: We'll have links in the discord channel and maybe in the show description because Lord knows I know none of you will be able to find them on the Draingate network.
[UNKNOWN]: That's not a you thing that's a network thing.
[UNKNOWN]: It's impossible to use.
[UNKNOWN]: It was really frustrating to find these matches.
[UNKNOWN]: But.
[UNKNOWN]: We did the right for you all.
[UNKNOWN]: It's okay.
[UNKNOWN]: Yes, we got links.
[UNKNOWN]: It's going to be okay.
[UNKNOWN]: And you know what the footage is crystal clear HD and it looks great as long as you can find it.
[UNKNOWN]: So we've got links.
[UNKNOWN]: We've got matches.
[UNKNOWN]: We want to talk about we've got questions to answer
[UNKNOWN]: But Mike, I'm going to throw it to you for just a second, because I don't know entirely how you want to get into this.
[UNKNOWN]: But I think you and I both agree that if we were chiseling a dragon gate Mount Rushmore, and Mike and I would not do it on stolen land, we are not like the US government.
[UNKNOWN]: We would do it on our own private property.
[UNKNOWN]: Nobody is getting harmed in the making of this Mount Rushmore.
[UNKNOWN]: No, no, no, no, no, we're going to do it completely by the books and it will be done in a way that you could gladly take your grandchildren to in 75 years.
[UNKNOWN]: You know, I, I was, I was at a bison farm yesterday at Northwest Indiana, which is okay, which is a real thing.
[UNKNOWN]: Well, why did I talk about hatched chilies to start off the show?
[UNKNOWN]: I want to, I want to now know much more about this bison farm man.
[UNKNOWN]: Well, well, for the, did you see the video about three weeks ago of the old guy getting flipped by the bison at Yellowstone?
[UNKNOWN]: Yes, yeah, okay.
[UNKNOWN]: First of all, the happiest moment of my life was learning that that video was not AI that made me so happy to learn that that video and the air time that that man received was real and he's okay, so it's okay to laugh at you.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure
[UNKNOWN]: Yes, exactly.
[UNKNOWN]: So, you know, at you, you know what I do for a living video, like that comes out.
[UNKNOWN]: Mike, you clear the schedule the next day.
[UNKNOWN]: That is, that is morning show fodder if there ever was one.
[UNKNOWN]: I was in a quarter hours that you get out of that.
[UNKNOWN]: Well, it was it was two quarter hours in real time and then revisiting it.
[UNKNOWN]: I think twice after that, which normally like our best stuff will will revisit once, but I think this one we got two times out of because.
[UNKNOWN]: one of the people that I do the show with had not seen the video before we went on air and so we had her do a live reaction to it and her reaction to it was so funny that that was just like all right great like we're sure we could just play music the rest of the day shows over like it's not gonna get funnier than this but we were breaking down that bison video
[UNKNOWN]: and it turns out that I grew up in Indiana, but I didn't know this, that there's a 158-Kerbison farm in Hobart, Indiana, and they listened to the show that I work on, and they reached out, and we're like, hey, we'd love to have you come down.
[UNKNOWN]: We'll give you guys a private tour of the bison farm a few guys want, so we had to get through Lala Palusa last week, but once we got through that, I was like, all right, hop in the car, we're going to go to Northwest Indiana,
[UNKNOWN]: I spent a lot of time around bikes in the yesterday, it made me even more sensitive to the plight of the Native Americans that I usually am, which I've already very sensitive to, what it's very sad to think about.
[UNKNOWN]: After hearing some stuff yesterday, I'm about the relationship with the bikes and how they were both viciously slaughtered in the 1800s.
[UNKNOWN]: I just want to make it clear, our drag gate mount Rushmore is not on stolen land.
[UNKNOWN]: Good.
[UNKNOWN]: Anyways, I think you and I would agree, and I think it's undeniable that you've got Schema, you've got Masaki mochizuki and you've got Schingo Takagi as the guys that you can start chiseling in right now.
[UNKNOWN]: I would really be a hard pressed.
[UNKNOWN]: to hear an argument that didn't involve those three.
[UNKNOWN]: And I think if you're a specific sliver of Draingate fan on the Draingate pie chart, you might want to fade shingo just a little bit.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm really not interested in hearing that.
[UNKNOWN]: I think that's absurd.
[UNKNOWN]: I don't want to hear it for us, it's those three guys.
[UNKNOWN]: And then from there, that fourth spot, you know, I wouldn't agree, but you could certainly make a case for a magnum.
[UNKNOWN]: If you wanted to just go off of historical importance,
[UNKNOWN]: Doi for longevity and the list of great matches he's had.
[UNKNOWN]: You could go for Yoshino.
[UNKNOWN]: You could go for Yamato, but by the end of last year, I felt pretty confident in the idea that I would take the 10 years of Skywalker's career at that point 9, 2016 to 2025 over Masato Yoshino's 2001 to 2021
[UNKNOWN]: Not solely from an entering standpoint.
[UNKNOWN]: I think historically Yoshino still laughs most of those guys that I just mentioned, but From an all-encompassing what they mean to this promotion, what they've done in every aspect of dragon gate.
[UNKNOWN]: I think Skywalker's right there with them, and I think that I would have him ahead of Yamada, where Yoshino at this point.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, and I think that's an entirely kind of fair argument because it is those three, and then you're trying to figure out who the last one is, and to me, there are only three real viable candidates to be that fourth person in the in it is Yoshino Yamato announced you and skywalker, I think magnum in the same way that dragon kid wouldn't be up there, it's just.
[UNKNOWN]: they just don't necessarily fill the full criteria.
[UNKNOWN]: I feel like for that.
[UNKNOWN]: So I did a little kind of mini thought exercise that I shared case on here that I kind of wanted to take us to through for a second.
[UNKNOWN]: One of the neat things about maybe
[UNKNOWN]: morbidly neat things about Shinskaya Walker leaving the promotion when he did is that he gave us a nice clean 10-year chunk of his first 10 years in Dragon Gate where his first 10 years is a pro wrestler and I thought it would be interesting in these kind of conversations that yeah for Shingo You got essentially 14 years for Yoshino.
[UNKNOWN]: You got 21 you mod out so going on and it's still going on in for Shima You have 21 years with that
[UNKNOWN]: But with your model, you only have 10.
[UNKNOWN]: So what I did was I found for the six kind of candidates, and I, for Mocha Zuki, because he started in WAR, his timer starts when he started in Tory months, or be going 1999 to 2009, not 1995 to 2005.
[UNKNOWN]: I counted up all of their title wins and turning victories, just as like a pure kind of counting stat kind of thing.
[UNKNOWN]: And as kind of a thought exercise, I think about where Shima, Mocha Zuki, Shingo, Yamato, and Yoshino were when, in their careers when the Shun Skywalker made their exit.
[UNKNOWN]: Just because I feel like at this point like that's as much as you were going to be able to evaluate Shun, so like let's normalize the sample.
[UNKNOWN]: This is all make kind of sense so far.
[UNKNOWN]: Yes, so the interesting thing through this and I'm not going to go through and go down each cell and read off like with this is that I was when we had this conversation before I was very firm that Yamato was number four on my Mount Rushmore and after doing this I still kind of am.
[UNKNOWN]: a little bit of that opinion, but it is a lot more close.
[UNKNOWN]: So, Shune and Yamato are the two along with Shima, who had the most top title victories in their first 10 years of their career.
[UNKNOWN]: That includes the UDG title, as well as the Dream Gate title.
[UNKNOWN]: Yamato had four Dream Gate runs, Shune had three, and Shima had three combined ones there.
[UNKNOWN]: And then you go, and you look like further down the list at like trios and twin titles.
[UNKNOWN]: And the interesting thing is, is that Yamato was really a built collector in his first in years of his career.
[UNKNOWN]: He has four triangle-gate runs.
[UNKNOWN]: He has seven twin gate runs.
[UNKNOWN]: He has one other title, Victor, which is the Freedom Gate title.
[UNKNOWN]: He wins King of Gate.
[UNKNOWN]: He wins a summer venture tag.
[UNKNOWN]: He wins two other kind of tournaments.
[UNKNOWN]: Shune has four triositals, one twin gate title, he was the MLW World Middleweight title.
[UNKNOWN]: The only tag team, the only big, tiny victory that he has was last year's Ray Day Paray House, but then he has the rookie ranking league, and I think there was another triangle gate league that he won for that there.
[UNKNOWN]: And when you compare that to Yoshino, Yoshino did not win a dream gate title in the first 10 years of his career.
[UNKNOWN]: Mocha Zuki only wins the dream gate title once in the first 10 years of his dragging system career.
[UNKNOWN]: And I think for Yoshino, we have to put him to the side because at least, and when you're talking about the first 10 years of the career, because of that,
[UNKNOWN]: even though he has four Ray-Dapere hosts or some of enter tag league victories during that time period the top line stuff just isn't there even if he has five brave gate title runs there but I thought it was kind of an interesting kind of exercise it has made me think that I think Yamato and Shune might be an interchangeable
[UNKNOWN]: kind of what is your personal taste of the day kind of scenario for that fourth uh uh Mount Rushmore Spot and it kind of puts Yoshino down with Magnum and Dragon Kid in my mind but I thought it was just kind of an interesting thing to kind of think about in a way to kind of contextualize at least what Shun had to accomplish and comparison to what we consider as the most important people in Dragon System history.
[UNKNOWN]: Let me ask you this and this doesn't
[UNKNOWN]: And this shouldn't swing anybody's vote one way or another.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm just going to ask you off the top of your head.
[UNKNOWN]: What comes to mind first because I'm really curious to see what your answer is because I think with soon, I have a really definitive answer for this.
[UNKNOWN]: What is the most memorable angle centered around your motto?
[UNKNOWN]: His face turned in 2016.
[UNKNOWN]: Okay.
[UNKNOWN]: So it's you would say end of the cage match,
[UNKNOWN]: I would say that.
[UNKNOWN]: I'll give you three.
[UNKNOWN]: I would say that.
[UNKNOWN]: I would say before under that the Kobe World promo, I think that the 2024, I think that that would be number two there.
[UNKNOWN]: And then it's kind of tough after that.
[UNKNOWN]: And if you go like further back into his career, I think the fact that he won the drinkate title in his first challenge, as young as he did, was a kind
[UNKNOWN]: So those would be the three moments that I would think.
[UNKNOWN]: So what would be like the, if you would have to decide them, but if I was gonna go number one, it would be the face turn and the formation of Tri-Vangard in 2016.
[UNKNOWN]: And then leading to his true Ace Dream Gate run.
[UNKNOWN]: What which actually falls into the time period of which we're talking about in that 10 year continuity.
[UNKNOWN]: great answer because I didn't I didn't prep you for that at all.
[UNKNOWN]: I was just kind of curious to see what you say because I think I've been thinking about this stuff a lot over the last week Yeah, I think, you know, I mean the only other one that I would throw in there with Yamada when I don't remember the specifics of it, but I have a very specific image of The real hazard formation in my head that was what I was thinking about was the real hazard formation and I just I haven't seen it in so long that I'd have to go back and rewatch it before I included in this conversation, but
[UNKNOWN]: Okay, that makes that conversation a little bit more interesting, I think, you know, shoot is of the benefit of some of this stuff as recent, but he's also, you know, he's existed in most of his career through what I always refer to as this continent or this over consumption era where I think part of the reason we have to do this podcast is because
[UNKNOWN]: There are people that have probably watched almost all of Shunes career, like the way that we've watched all of it, and yet we're going to hit on so much stuff that people have forgotten about, because they're beat over the head with new, new, new, the entire time.
[UNKNOWN]: And some of Shunes best work not only happened in this era, but it also happened during the pandemic, where there's a bit of a memory suck there as well.
[UNKNOWN]: But he has a few really iconic angles that will likely touch on throughout this podcast.
[UNKNOWN]: I was just curious as to what you would say with your motto.
[UNKNOWN]: But I think, yeah, I think him and the Cage Mansion 2016, I forgot about that Kobe world promo, but that's a great call there.
[UNKNOWN]: That's sort of a standalone angle that didn't really lead anything, but it was, you know, very much so a defining moment for him and something that we talked about in depth on this podcast at the time we spent a ton of time talking about that.
[UNKNOWN]: And then, yeah, some, some 2008 to 2010 sort of real hazard into him winning the belt for Comic-Causey, something in there, I would say would be his top three.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, and I do think that personally, I'm still recommending to be a Yamato Mount Rush more person, but I think that the conversations a lot closer than I thought it was back in December.
[UNKNOWN]: But are you ready in that case, Mike, to talk about Shun Skywalkers career and as I sort of go through some of the timeline stuff here, we'll hit on the matches we selected and go in chronological order there.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, let's do it.
[UNKNOWN]: Let's do it.
[UNKNOWN]: You know, this is, uh,
[UNKNOWN]: This is a guy who I remember watching his debut.
[UNKNOWN]: I mentioned before, Elendeman, Yuga Hayashi.
[UNKNOWN]: He was the first guy that I watched debut in real time in 2014.
[UNKNOWN]: And that's why I've always held a sort of special connection with Hayashi, Elendeman ever since then.
[UNKNOWN]: I saw a sheet of debut.
[UNKNOWN]: I saw Yamamura debut.
[UNKNOWN]: I remember Futo Nakamura, who we now know, was Ben Kay coming into this world and being completely blown away by him.
[UNKNOWN]: As for Shune Skywalker, his official debut is April 22nd, 2016 on a dragon gate next show where he debuted under the name
[UNKNOWN]: The first, the earliest footage we have them, the first match we have of Shunwats and Abe on tape, is not the August 21st, 2016 show from Hakata Star Lane.
[UNKNOWN]: That is what we all saw first, but with the benefit of the Dragon Network, we have a match earlier than that at our disposal, which I would highly recommend everybody go back and watch.
[UNKNOWN]: It is Yamato versus Shunwats and Abe
[UNKNOWN]: You can search that on the network.
[UNKNOWN]: It is a 10-minute match between Watanabe and his first ever televised match in Yamato, who Mike this is August 13th, 2016, is only weeks removed from beating Schingo for the open-the-dream gate title at Kobe World 2016.
[UNKNOWN]: Have you ever seen this match?
[UNKNOWN]: I saw it probably at the time.
[UNKNOWN]: I have not revisited this match in many years.
[UNKNOWN]: I think I rewatched it when we were young series.
[UNKNOWN]: When that was up and they were doing that in 2019, I think that had me go and look for this match here.
[UNKNOWN]: But it's a really interesting match.
[UNKNOWN]: Like it is for just for the sake of the fact that it's Yamato, the current dreamgate champion in someone's debut match.
[UNKNOWN]: But also the fact that it was almost like 12 minute match.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, and it's fascinating.
[UNKNOWN]: It's super stiff.
[UNKNOWN]: If I remember correctly, Watsonabe gets his face busted open by Yamato.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, he just knows.
[UNKNOWN]: It's a great concept of your brand new baby face, you know, generation defining dream gate champion against the lowest rank guy on the roster.
[UNKNOWN]: And so I would recommend everybody if you haven't seen this match go back and wash it because it's the earliest footage we have of shown.
[UNKNOWN]: But the first time that everybody else saw him was on August 21, 2016, it was Kaito Shida talking here, Yamamura, Big Arshimazu, and Shun Watsonabe, versus Don Fuji, Ellen, and Hio Watsonabe in KZ.
[UNKNOWN]: Mike, I'm sure you remember this super confusing in the early days of these guys career because we got a Hio Watsonabe and a Shun Watsonabe at the same exact time and there was definitely some confusion in the early goings as to which guy was which.
[UNKNOWN]: Right.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: And like you had three of them in at this time, they were just doing black short tights with the guys.
[UNKNOWN]: And it was like a thing, especially at the time that like the way that you kind of told me, you were able to tell him part was that Yo was Yo, Hyatt and Shun was tall.
[UNKNOWN]: And that was kind of the only way.
[UNKNOWN]: But then the confusing thing you also had was the same guy that was essentially Shun Wan Nobe is Hyatt was food a knock a knock a mora
[UNKNOWN]: or some are venture directly.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, that's right.
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, that's the thing is, you know, Ben and Schuen have the same start date of April 22nd by the time that Schuen debut is Ben is already in the summer adventure tag.
[UNKNOWN]: Like that's how quickly things were happening for Ben K at that point for Schuen a bit more of a slow roll.
[UNKNOWN]: And it's worth stating that Schuen came into the dojo at the right time for someone graduating high school.
[UNKNOWN]: uh... food to knock a more a bank a was a collegiate wrestler so he came into the promotion uh... older and it was known at that time that essentially uh... food to knock a more i was going to be on an accelerated path that ended up happening where she and skywalker was much more of the traditional kind of debut to that was going to be kind of be brought along
[UNKNOWN]: And so while the network does not have that because why would they have 2016 TV readily available after almost 10 years of the network, the earliest bit of skywalker footage you can see post prime zone is going to be dangerous gate 2016.
[UNKNOWN]: in a eight-man tag with Don Fuji, Elineman Fuji Nakamura and Shumatsunabe gets Gamma Kaito-Shita Takahiri Yamamura and Hio Watanabe.
[UNKNOWN]: He would make his cork in a hall day view very shortly after that in a six-man tag with Kanda Kagatora and Fuji against Ashita Yamamura and Watanabe.
[UNKNOWN]: This is when we really start to see some fun interplay between Ashita and Yamamura.
[UNKNOWN]: Now that they are not the lowest rank guys on the roster and they have
[UNKNOWN]: yo and shune and incoming yo shioka and to some degree been cave beneath them, you start to see those guys develop more of a personality.
[UNKNOWN]: And then you get this great run of cork into the end of 2016.
[UNKNOWN]: These shows are great and the shune stuff is really entertaining.
[UNKNOWN]: We're in October, 12, 2016.
[UNKNOWN]: You get Shima Dragon getting Gamma vs. Food to Nakamura, Heo Watsonabe, and Shunwastonabe, just a 13 minute six man tag.
[UNKNOWN]: That is Max Rocks.
[UNKNOWN]: It's violent and it's disgusting and it kicks off that cork and show.
[UNKNOWN]: And it's mean and it's aggressive and it's everything that's great about Shima wanting to kick somebody's ass.
[UNKNOWN]: and this is really where you know we had already developed our thoughts on on food to knock amore who'd become bin k at this point but this is the match we're for both yo and shoon i think everybody started to raise nye brown go like oh
[UNKNOWN]: Well, okay, all right, you know, the dragon's been pumped with a mat lately with Lindemann and the sheet on Yama moron, and you know what?
[UNKNOWN]: I kind of like these new kids too.
[UNKNOWN]: So they have a magic gate of destiny, which is a young guy's tag, Nakamura Watts, Nabe Watts, Nabevers, the sheet of Tamanaga and Yama mora, where the class of 2016 goes over.
[UNKNOWN]: And then that leads us to the November 2016th Cork at Hall Show, where the young guys meaning heo and shoon and bin, and now you kiyoshiyoka and get sumitaka shima, get a ton of time on this show because they come out with a microphone, they announced that they are rebranding a lot of these guys.
[UNKNOWN]: We're going to have new names.
[UNKNOWN]: And if they weren't getting new names, they were going to debut
[UNKNOWN]: December 1, 2016, we get the setup of the iconic 10-man 12-1-16 tag match, and we also get Cagator and Susumu versus Binkay and Shune Skywalker that date viewing Shune Skywalker on this November 10, 2016 show.
[UNKNOWN]: Mike, you were watching real-time, I was watching in real-time.
[UNKNOWN]: How could you even describe the monstrosity that was the beginning of Shune Skywalker in his
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, like that's the other really magical thing about Shun's Skywalkers careers that he ends up being one of the coolest guys in the company's history and has some of, I think, like what's some of the most like a distinguishable gear outputs the mask, the over mask, all of that.
[UNKNOWN]: In 2016 he is a rookie, so
[UNKNOWN]: The they give on that November cork and you have, okay, he is going to keep on being heo, what knobby, but he's emphasizing the leopard part because his congee is the same as heo.
[UNKNOWN]: Shoon goes by Shoon Skywalker, so he wants to skywalk over the sky, and he comes out in a full body costume that the mask looks a lot more like the lucha libre quote unquote legend, tenobloss.
[UNKNOWN]: And the deal with it with a full body suit, a kind of cape that comes off of it, and the real kind of atrocious thing about it, and the thing that, if you show a photo of him in this costume and his gear in 2026, the thing that's gonna really throw people off is that his color note was green, but because he was a rookie and, you know, you don't have the, like, for you, like, your first rookie costume,
[UNKNOWN]: uh, the mask, the body suit, and most importantly, his gloves were three different tones of green.
[UNKNOWN]: It's exactly right.
[UNKNOWN]: I wrote in my review a real time and I pulled up a lot of my old reviews because I've covered Skywalkers career from the beginning and written word.
[UNKNOWN]: I wrote for this match, very, really does Drain Gates swing and mess, but this soon Skywalker get up as a strong thumbs down.
[UNKNOWN]: It's a complete disaster.
[UNKNOWN]: He's wearing two different shades of green and the attire doesn't fit him properly.
[UNKNOWN]: I hope this was a rough draft because the name of being dorky works with the promotion.
[UNKNOWN]: This outfit, however, works for no one and then I compare this match to the opening of a Smackdown episode, which I met as a compliment before giving it three and three quarter stars.
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, like, like, 20, 20, 16, you know, like, I think you can get away with calling it an opening to a good smack down at that.
[UNKNOWN]: This is the last message of anything good on WWE TV.
[UNKNOWN]: And I feel like even by the fall of 2016, I'm largely out, but this must have been a period where there was something Kevin Owens related or something AJ Styles related that I was into, or maybe I meant like 2002 SmackDown.
[UNKNOWN]: I found that to be very odd that I made that comparison, but nevertheless it's in there, it's permanent.
[UNKNOWN]: Okay, man, I mean, I have a review of the first Joey Janella Spring Break that I wish didn't happen.
[UNKNOWN]: You know, we all have those things.
[UNKNOWN]: Now, very impactful knife for this podcast.
[UNKNOWN]: So.
[UNKNOWN]: you get to that November core control.
[UNKNOWN]: We're again, now we're talking about a guy who's official debut as an April.
[UNKNOWN]: We get TV from him the first time in August.
[UNKNOWN]: And by November, he's in a three and three quarter star tag match with the Sumo and Cagotora and Ben Kay.
[UNKNOWN]: He's got a new gimmick.
[UNKNOWN]: He's got new gear.
[UNKNOWN]: There are clearly some level of investment with him.
[UNKNOWN]: And that takes us to a match that we've talked about extensively.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm sure we'll talk about again in December, but Mike just quickly because we have a bunch of other stuff that
[UNKNOWN]: 12-1-16, Shima Dragon Kid, Gamma Dawn Fuji, Masaki Bochizuki versus Binkay Yo, the debutant Katsumi Takashima, the debutant Yuki Yoshiyoka and Shun Skywalker.
[UNKNOWN]: We're now 10 years removed from this match.
[UNKNOWN]: What was the impact immediately afterwards?
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, this was the match where the class of 2016 got their stripes, like we've done episodes about this match.
[UNKNOWN]: And it is for the way the drag system operates, especially as a rookie, you usually have one of these matches where is it a shoot?
[UNKNOWN]: No, it's not a shoot.
[UNKNOWN]: Is it, are there any pulled punches?
[UNKNOWN]: Asketsumi Takashima.
[UNKNOWN]: It is a vicious, brutal, uncomfortable affair that I think has left kind of such an indelible impact that I think if you go to any hard core dragon system fan, you just say the date, they know what you're talking about.
[UNKNOWN]: But for the five of the, before those five guys, and really for Shun Heo and Ben Kay, this was the match that after this point that they were now.
[UNKNOWN]: fully like out well like they were rookies on the roster, but now they had a little bit of elevation because of because of yoke a yoke a yoke in Takashiima coming in partially, but more so because they went through a match like that and I always had to remind myself that yes, Dragon Kid was a part of this match.
[UNKNOWN]: Yes, Dragon Kid was the one that maybe did not fit in as much as everybody else, but he's still vicious.
[UNKNOWN]: I mean the last time I watched this, I
[UNKNOWN]: It's, you know, it's, it's very similar to a match that we'll talk about here in just a minute of the the other consequential shoe and sky walker match from December 1st the sky walker and dieovers is diamante and die and furno match.
[UNKNOWN]: In which I think.
[UNKNOWN]: I would say up until Skywalker announced his departure, I would call 12-1-16, one of the most consequential and impactful and influential matches in the history of Dragon Gate, within the confines of its own promotion, it's not influential in the same way that blood generation versus due fixture from Ring of Honor is, it's influential in the way that it
[UNKNOWN]: It influenced the booking of this promotion in the same way that five years later, Skywalker and Diav versus Dianne Furno and Diomonte that mass versus mass match, I would say up until the last six months when Diav left and now Skywalker left, that had the same level of impact in the same level of influence and
[UNKNOWN]: you know skywalker was involved up to that point this way i say he's the thread that ties everything together because these were two matches that he was the focal point of and there are there as important as anything that's happened in the modern day history of drag
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, and I feel like that for the Skywalker era epoch, it really starts at that night and it kind of gives you that 10 year stretch of him that I feel like that what we talked about his gear and how bad it was at that like a one junk service career.
[UNKNOWN]: he gets it evened out he ends up as he progresses in this face of his career to he loses the body suit he gets himself in the better shape and he he color coordinates and he becomes kind of the guy that instead of talking about how bad this costume is where like my god this guy has so many different costumes at the stage of his career.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah yeah this is where we start being very concerned about the finances of Shune Skywalker because every single show he has new gear
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I never found out if he had a sponsor, someone who sold all those masks.
[UNKNOWN]: So I had to assume he had to.
[UNKNOWN]: And there were some good looks.
[UNKNOWN]: I liked when he kind of had the sheer you kind of wavy kind of stenciled with neon colors on his gear.
[UNKNOWN]: I thought that was a really good look for him.
[UNKNOWN]: And honestly, other than the initial kind of galling 2016 look with this, that is kind of the young pre-excursion skywalker that is the version of him that's submitted in my mind.
[UNKNOWN]: As we progress into 2017, he spends the first half of the year pretty banged up and injured and really, you know, just, other than a Kobe world appearance, that first half of the year, he's not really around much, you see Ben K take off in a real way, you see Yoshioka start to find his footing, this is, you know, the beginning of 2017, the rise in the peak of Takahiro Yamamura before his unfortunate first catastrophic injury.
[UNKNOWN]: but heo in shune sort of start to fall by the wayside.
[UNKNOWN]: It was shune its health with heo its talent or at least what was perceived to be lack of talent.
[UNKNOWN]: And it's not until the back half of 2017 where you start to see what would become a shune skywalker over the next year, which is a guy
[UNKNOWN]: that did a lot of big, high flying moves.
[UNKNOWN]: He did not always connect with them, but he was always very entertaining.
[UNKNOWN]: And this period of late 2017 through about halfway through 2018.
[UNKNOWN]: it became an ongoing joke in my reviews where almost every skywalker match was the same and that he would be in the opening six man eight man 10 man tag to the amount of many guys there were in it.
[UNKNOWN]: He wouldn't do a ton, but they would make sure.
[UNKNOWN]: And this is an era of drag aid that, you know, unfortunately I have to compare to 2026 eyes where things are not as detail oriented people making this show producing these shows, booking
[UNKNOWN]: But in 2017 and 2018, it was not lost on me, that soon might not do a ton.
[UNKNOWN]: He might not be getting pushed to ton, but in all of these matches, they would make sure that at some point everybody would go to the floor in Skywalker would do a giant springboard moon salt to the floor, and that was his
[UNKNOWN]: thing for a while.
[UNKNOWN]: He would do it in Corkin.
[UNKNOWN]: He would do it in Samba Hall.
[UNKNOWN]: He would do it on the big shows.
[UNKNOWN]: And for a while, it was a lot of trial and error with him.
[UNKNOWN]: But as long as he hit that big moon salt, he'd left an impression on people and before joining Mochizuki Dojo, that was sort of the the reputation that he was developing was a little clunky, a little spotty, but he had a great
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, and really, until Mochizuki Dojo, his ceiling felt like that he was going, even though he had the height, he was so lanky that he was going to be kind of the flyer for this generation, and even like watching through the footage that we'll talk about.
[UNKNOWN]: The way that he would move and the way that he would just like always have the command and every one would set up for the Kay brought us to the floor and then also the one that I love is when he would run to one corner and then spread across the ring to the other corner Slingshot himself over the ropes.
[UNKNOWN]: That was one that
[UNKNOWN]: Also had that level of holy crap this guy might die on this thing or crack a skull open, but it was exciting and it is something that maybe now thinking about how much we've been getting into 1990s, Junior Heavyweight's Mitch and Oku Pro, it's a style that like you see like a through line to how shoon was working at that time period.
[UNKNOWN]: It was not, it would not have been
[UNKNOWN]: Well, that's funny you said because I was just about to bring this up where it just speaks to just culturally how things are different.
[UNKNOWN]: Last week we did the podcast and I was recording in the same room as my lovely girlfriend who knows nothing about wrestling, not interested, doesn't care for it, doesn't like it, but likes me and we were hanging out as like I have to the podcast, she's like, that's okay, but I'd like to
[UNKNOWN]: I still want to hang out Wednesday and just be around.
[UNKNOWN]: Can I just hang out and listen to it and listen to you talk?
[UNKNOWN]: I was like, I'm not your self out.
[UNKNOWN]: Like it sounds awful, but go ahead.
[UNKNOWN]: And afterwards, she was asking me all these questions about wrestling culture.
[UNKNOWN]: And I found myself telling this very beautiful woman things like Twitter wars and pro wrestling only.
[UNKNOWN]: And I said the name Dylan Hales.
[UNKNOWN]: And I'm just watching her eyes glaze over.
[UNKNOWN]: As skywalkers now on the cusp of joining Mochizuki Dojo, culturally with an R-bubble within wrestling, it was still very much
[UNKNOWN]: discourse heavy in terms of dragon gate guys and anti new Japan guys and southern indie guys and guys that only liked US indies in a way like outside of ring a honor like cared about a w and a i w and p w g and all these things like it was still it was culturally rich to be consumed with wrestling and have very strong opinions on wrestling and I was trying to explain my girlfriend that like it's not really like that anymore
[UNKNOWN]: the people that talk most about wrestling don't seem to actually like wrestling, but there was a time where what you liked in wrestling really really mattered, and you had to defend your opinions a lot.
[UNKNOWN]: And I say all of this because
[UNKNOWN]: I was largely existing in a contingent of people, Dylan Hales, among others, where I really like talking wrestling with them, but a lot of those people really hated Dragon Gate.
[UNKNOWN]: And Shune Skywalker was the one guy around this time period that had all of their attention.
[UNKNOWN]: And I specifically remember, do you remember
[UNKNOWN]: I'm gonna butcher his, his blog name.
[UNKNOWN]: I can't remember if it was sour grapes or if it was concrete grapes.
[UNKNOWN]: But this, do you remember Sammy?
[UNKNOWN]: Like, I think his Twitter name was Sammy JD.
[UNKNOWN]: faintly.
[UNKNOWN]: Okay, he and I used to do so many.
[UNKNOWN]: We got we did so many podcasts together.
[UNKNOWN]: We broke down Russell Kingdom one on a podcast one.
[UNKNOWN]: So that was supposed to be a series that never gonna come into fruition.
[UNKNOWN]: But anyways, like I used to talk to Sam all the time.
[UNKNOWN]: And he was a very staunch like pro-lucha, pro-tubly thatcher, hated Dragon Gate.
[UNKNOWN]: And that was like an archetype of a guy that you would get in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019.
[UNKNOWN]: That was a type of person that existed.
[UNKNOWN]: But Sam was always like, I like Schuensky Walker.
[UNKNOWN]: He reminds me of a Mitch Doku pro wrestler.
[UNKNOWN]: He feels weird and kind of out of place.
[UNKNOWN]: It is often as a little goofy, but you know what?
[UNKNOWN]: That guy could have fit in, just like you said, in 1996, Mitch Doku pro.
[UNKNOWN]: He just happens to be working 2018 during a real time that was the thought process with him, which is why, before I throw back to you, which is why,
[UNKNOWN]: When he started getting rapidly elevated at the end of 2018 into 2019, it all happened so quickly and it was also shocking that before we knew what he was wrestling, pocketed a dreamgate match and it all seemed to work and to be right and to feel good.
[UNKNOWN]: Because four months before that, it was like maybe this guy will win the Brave Gate Belt one day.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I mean, I have had up his a match history as we've been talking and I had to remind myself that he was actually in a king of gate in 2018 and for him his only victory in that tournament back when this tournament was pre Kobe World was a countout victory over Yuzushi Kanda.
[UNKNOWN]: He loses to Yamato, he loses to Kaze and he loses to Benke.
[UNKNOWN]: And I don't remember the Yamato match or the KZ match.
[UNKNOWN]: And those theoretically would have made tape because they were Hokkaido.
[UNKNOWN]: I know at that point it was like the Hokkaido show is it was still a triple shot, but it was like a three-hour block of TV and you wouldn't get everything, which is why it's my holy grail is the Shingo Super Sheesa singles match from 2016.
[UNKNOWN]: That was taped but never aired because it was all one of those Hokkaido blocks.
[UNKNOWN]: I, you know what, I think I re-watched the KZ-Mash before World 2021.
[UNKNOWN]: I might have re-watch both those.
[UNKNOWN]: It's been a long time since I've seen them, but I remember them both being really, really good the last time I revisited them.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, and I do remember seeing the B&K one because this was a televised Schingo homecoming that if I'm right, I'm going to click on this alert link.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, no, this is the one that had food genami come into his own, ah, it's just did it almost 1500 and not yamanashi that night.
[UNKNOWN]: Not that it's that it's good stuff.
[UNKNOWN]: That is a that was a fun show.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, remember liking that a lot.
[UNKNOWN]: I love the shingo homecoming shows.
[UNKNOWN]: Remember they brought Moodo and they had fire and they had pyro in that little gym.
[UNKNOWN]: Like the station paid for it.
[UNKNOWN]: And it was just like what I'm doing here.
[UNKNOWN]: I just saw your zoo.
[UNKNOWN]: She kind of do a King of Gate match.
[UNKNOWN]: What what's happening?
[UNKNOWN]: This promotion man, I used to use to be south of them.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm getting very emotional thinking about the departure of students skywalker now.
[UNKNOWN]: So in the summer of 2018,
[UNKNOWN]: Again, it feels like Schoen's gonna be something, but again, our projections form at this point.
[UNKNOWN]: You know, Ben K already had a dreamgate challenge against Mochazuki in March of 2018.
[UNKNOWN]: Yoshiyoka starting to find his own, now we've got Jason Leon the roster and he was sort of the adopted son of that class of 2016.
[UNKNOWN]: Shoe at this point is not doing anything of no, but Schoen's there and we like Schoen, we like when Schoen makes table, we like when he's doing interesting stuff.
[UNKNOWN]: And so we get the formation there, that's right.
[UNKNOWN]: Coatman or a debut, that's a huge part of this.
[UNKNOWN]: Minority abuse, he's the first guy to debut after the split with Schema in company.
[UNKNOWN]: And so now you've got Menorah who is pushed heavily and featured heavily out of the gate, you've got Yoshiyoka and you've got Skywalker and often the distance is heel.
[UNKNOWN]: And this gives us the first incarnation of Mochizuki Dojo, which was never an official unit.
[UNKNOWN]: The idea was that they would learn underneath the guide of Masaki Mochizuki, when they wanted to leave, they could.
[UNKNOWN]: And this gave all of these guys, and then later Kisuke Akuda, they're first true purpose within Dragon Gate.
[UNKNOWN]: And so in the summer of 2018 August specifically, Skywalker makes his first venture outside of Dragon Gate, as he and Masaki Mochizuki go to Alchipan for the Junior Tag Battle of Glory 2018.
[UNKNOWN]: And I am not paying a ton of attention to all Japan in 2018, but on August 9th in Shinkiba first ring, they had my undivided attention as we got Kotaro Suzuki and Shugi Kondo against Masaki Mochizuki and Shune Skywalker, and up to this point, one of the only interactions between Kondo
[UNKNOWN]: this is where Skywalker as we know him starts to feel like Skywalker.
[UNKNOWN]: This match is heated, this match is violent, this match is a lot of abuse directed at Skywalker and he handles all of it with grace and he handles all of it excellently.
[UNKNOWN]: I love this match and this I think spiritually begins the run of dominance that Skywalker had from say this point of time through the end of 2025.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, and it's so fascinating this this period of his career because you have this happen.
[UNKNOWN]: This is right as much as you can do Joe forns because they do that three on one match in the August cork and then that kind of the kick off for it and that gets much easier.
[UNKNOWN]: He's saying, yeah, no, okay with this, but if you look back also to what's happening on the shows, Skywalker has gone from basically over a period of a year being
[UNKNOWN]: either injured in dark matches, but not a whole lot about him outside of that, to be getting like 13 minute matches with Takashi Oshita, back when Takashi Oshita mattered in a house show.
[UNKNOWN]: Getting 13 minutes with Ryo Saito.
[UNKNOWN]: He gets a house of hardcore Twitch TV title match and in terms of wrestling from Hollywood Heritage title double match against Willy Mack and the
[UNKNOWN]: in the September cork and and he is now at this point now that Ben Kay has been separated he's been elevated he's turned heel he's already his own thing we're already getting ready and getting him prime for his 2019 soon skywalker is the young guy of focus at this point pretty much until he leaves the the promotion for his excursion.
[UNKNOWN]: That really mac matches a lot of fun.
[UNKNOWN]: And this begins this period where Skywalker is now, now becoming a talking point with you and with me and the people that are watching during it at this time is,
[UNKNOWN]: You know, we're we're in a creative low point.
[UNKNOWN]: I've compared a lot of 2026 to a lot of the things that were happening towards the end of 2017 and the end through most of 2018.
[UNKNOWN]: And in the same way that I think Drangate will eventually get out of their funk now, a lot of the reason they got out of their funk creatively was because of the rise of Skywalker was almost very similar.
[UNKNOWN]: Mochizuki Docha was the most exciting thing on the shows when Pac wasn't on them.
[UNKNOWN]: It you had most suki dojo you had maximum I want to talk about a little bit when we get to to your first match, but sure you had In the same way when you went to Kuma food war and you got to remember food war was only a drink for six months, but they're starting to become that thing with food warra From January of 2022 through June when he left where is like
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, every show this guy's on, he's making better.
[UNKNOWN]: And it's not just food joy versus de amante.
[UNKNOWN]: It's like, oh, food joy is an a six man tag with natural vibes guys.
[UNKNOWN]: Well, God, that's probably gonna be pretty good and then you watch and you go, oh my God, that was so much better than I expected.
[UNKNOWN]: And this is around the time period where you're getting things
[UNKNOWN]: like really mac versus shune skywalker.
[UNKNOWN]: And you're getting Masaki mochi zuki and shune skywalker versus the bicycle brothers.
[UNKNOWN]: You're getting all these things that like on paper should kind of be whatever, UT Yamada when YoSuke Santa Maria versus mochi skywalker and YoSuke, I like that.
[UNKNOWN]: That in theory is a whatever match.
[UNKNOWN]: But something was happening before our eyes and you and I, you know, even by this point, I had to watch enough of this, no, like, oh my god, something is something is happening here.
[UNKNOWN]: And it was very similar with the Kuma.
[UNKNOWN]: I feel like it has happened to a very elongated and perhaps, you know, frustratingly slow to agree with Kame.
[UNKNOWN]: But with Skywalker,
[UNKNOWN]: It was a thing, and so the first match that I have it again, we'll have a link to this.
[UNKNOWN]: But the first match that I want to mention here, the first truly, truly, truly great Skywalker performance is September 24th, 2018, Dangerous Gate of that year.
[UNKNOWN]: BB Hulkin, Yamato, defending their twin gate belt to get to Mochi and Shun's Skywalker with the reason being that even though Mochi and Skywalker didn't win the All-Japan Junior Tag League, they represented Drain Gate well, they made the company proud, they rewarded
[UNKNOWN]: This match has been burned into my brain.
[UNKNOWN]: I feel like I've re-washed this match probably more than any other match between 2018 and now I feel like I have so many of the spots permanently ingrained in my brain and this is one of my favorite twin gate matches of all time
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, and this was a match for me that that as I rewatched it, the thing that was so remarkable to me was by September of 2018, the company knew what they had in, in Tune Skywalker.
[UNKNOWN]: Maybe I didn't realize it in 2018, but the power of hindsight, especially with the way of how much he ate um, Yamato and BB Hulks often.
[UNKNOWN]: So it was given kickouts and nearfalls and getting huge moments
[UNKNOWN]: Just opportunities to draw in baby face response is real remarkable that they that that it's not a response that they would just cause you brought them up That that putting Jackie Kameh at that point of his career in this kind of match that they would have given him after a first Galorea Jackie Kameh two years in his career is seeing the lights like and he's probably seeing the lights getting carried out at this point not
[UNKNOWN]: And we're rewatching this match and I should grab my notebook for my thoughts on it in 2018, just to provide that as well.
[UNKNOWN]: After I hand this back to you, it's so clearly a shoon match.
[UNKNOWN]: Mocha Zuki's in there.
[UNKNOWN]: He is guiding traffic.
[UNKNOWN]: He is making sure that he is.
[UNKNOWN]: there at the right points in the right times, but this match is about really even more so than Shun's Skywalker versus Yamohawk.
[UNKNOWN]: This is Shun's Skywalker's first kind of exposure to the guy that really would be the other tent pole throughout his time in the promotion in Yamato, and this is like the first time it's like semi-main event getting 20 minutes and you're getting mostly
[UNKNOWN]: It's such a raw showcase for shoon in a way that like, I mean, I can only think of a few other examples throughout history.
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, baby shingo got a few of these chances, yama mora got a few of these chances.
[UNKNOWN]: Kento probably did, but I can't even think of a specific.
[UNKNOWN]: You can't imagine that.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I mean, that's, I think, Kento just sort of assimilated the major booking plan so quickly.
[UNKNOWN]: But this was such a sinker swim match.
[UNKNOWN]: And I wrote in 2018, I'll go to my review where I say,
[UNKNOWN]: Shune Skywalker is not a perfect wrestler.
[UNKNOWN]: Far from it would be an understatement, honestly.
[UNKNOWN]: It has passed three televised matches.
[UNKNOWN]: He's at a relatively major botch in every one of those matches.
[UNKNOWN]: I wish it was on a basic chain grappling or for getting to kick out, but all three of his botches have been on dives and for an aerial-based wrestler, that is no good.
[UNKNOWN]: His sloppiness might have helped create magic, though, as after nearly face planning from the top rope to the outside on a springboard dive gone awry, Skywalker hit another gear.
[UNKNOWN]: From that moment on, this match felt different.
[UNKNOWN]: Mochizuki ramped up and found herself mentally ready for another epic, Skywalker began literally throwing himself at Hulk and Yamada to try to secure the victory and Yamada and Hulk soon realized that they had to be on their A game if they wanted to retain their twin gate belts.
[UNKNOWN]: This is,
[UNKNOWN]: If you've only seen Skywalker, maybe from Zebra, it's on you owe yourself to watch this match, because it's such a far cry from the wrestler that he would turn into, and it's why when he started becoming a main event wrestler, it was so shocking, and even the transition from this to masquerade is pretty jarring, let alone the masquerade to Zebra, it's transition that we would see with him putting on muscle and slowing down and not flying as much, but
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, he's, he's reckless like Jack Evans in this patch, but he's, he's so lanky and so wild and so out of control at times, but it creates
[UNKNOWN]: a very real feeling, this very visceral feeling that this guy might stumble into winning the twin gate belts in a match where he's he's almost exposed for being not ready but the more he exposes himself the more entertaining the match becomes it's just a really unique match in the history of this promotion and like I said it's one of my favorite twin gate matches in history.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, and I'm looking at my notes, and it's all about Yamato versus.
[UNKNOWN]: It's like I love the heat from Yamato against Shune.
[UNKNOWN]: Yamato really leaned into being a prick on this.
[UNKNOWN]: Shune's breakup of the ankle lock was really cool in this.
[UNKNOWN]: That was a thing here.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, no.
[UNKNOWN]: It's really remarkable just the style that Shune was willing to work at this time period.
[UNKNOWN]: I think a lot of it.
[UNKNOWN]: kind of as youthful, exuberance, and as you said, like he evolves past that pretty much african comes back from Mexico.
[UNKNOWN]: But it really, at this point, if 12 once 2016 was the elevation up from just being a plane rookie to earning your stripes here, this is at this point where
[UNKNOWN]: after this match, and in comparison to the remainder of his class, this is where he starts lapping everyone else really because he's proven that he can be the one that you give the title matches to he's going to maybe risk his ass or especially on his dives, but you will know that like you
[UNKNOWN]: and Coach of Menorra is not going to be in that situation two months into his career.
[UNKNOWN]: And he, at this point, and as it feeds into the remainder of 2018 and to 2019, he becomes the highlighted younger wrestler at the starting at this point.
[UNKNOWN]: So you threw a match at me that I did not have a very strong memory of this is from just a month and a half later.
[UNKNOWN]: Right.
[UNKNOWN]: Gate of Destiny 2018, open a triangle gate match.
[UNKNOWN]: Natural vibes, Genki Horguchi, Cazian, Sumiyako's gov versus maximum Jason Lee, Kaito Ashita and the Rukidoi versus Mochizuki Dojo, Masaki Mochizuki, Shun Skywalker, and Yukio Shiyoka.
[UNKNOWN]: Mike, why did this match come to mind for you?
[UNKNOWN]: For me, this was, I mean, talking about earning stripes.
[UNKNOWN]: This is him in the Dragon System trademark.
[UNKNOWN]: And with the way that the match goes, this is not a situation where the young guys get eliminated pretty quickly.
[UNKNOWN]: And then it goes to the...
[UNKNOWN]: the established champion team and then the actual kind of challengers.
[UNKNOWN]: The Mochizuki Dojo only gets eliminated like three months for the match ends.
[UNKNOWN]: So you only get like a quick closing stretch between natural vibes and maximum.
[UNKNOWN]: But for me, I really, this was a match that as I was going through my notebooks.
[UNKNOWN]: And that's kind of how I did my prep for this.
[UNKNOWN]: It was going through the notebooks and I like saw that I had this in 2018 as the best match on the show.
[UNKNOWN]: I like this more than Yoshino versus Benke, which I am looking at the inmates and they disagree with me on this, but I thought Skywalker in this kind of format was kind of special where you watching this match.
[UNKNOWN]: I thought that seeing him in a three-way six-man doing all the trade marks and getting to the certain spots in the way that he would work with his Shita in this match was really, really kind of
[UNKNOWN]: special and i mean it it's nice to see ukiyoshioka at this point being able to deliver on a stage even though he's not the topic of that there that was kind of like an added vote bonus for me and i thought that at least for like where mochizuki dojo was in 2018 this was kind of like the idea of it more put on display rather than
[UNKNOWN]: Mochizuki and students skywalker pretty much teamed all over the the last half of that year when there was the anniversary of Bala's passing when there was that all Japan show at the Sumo Hall It was Mochizuki and students skywalker is the dragon gate guys there for it like that was kind of an established thing But getting a chance to see like a Mochizuki dojo as Mochizuki dojo with more than that I thought was kind of a fun thing to revisit tonight
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, it's the first great Yoshioka performance.
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, he's excellent.
[UNKNOWN]: This is a match that I had completely forgotten about, but it's a match that I loved.
[UNKNOWN]: I actually rated it slightly higher on rewatches than I did in real time.
[UNKNOWN]: I went four and a half and, I'm sorry, I went four and a quarter and real time, four and a half on rewatch.
[UNKNOWN]: In my written review in 2018, I spent this whole review raving about Kaito Machito and how this was the coming out performance for a sheet of it that we had all desperately wanted for so long.
[UNKNOWN]: And that sat in me because washing maximum and I don't want to get too far off the being in path here because we're already going pretty long.
[UNKNOWN]: But everything that maximum did in this match and everything that maximum was should just be what love and pieces and Ashita should be Mochizuki Jr. and they have a doyoshi and commentary to you literally have been k in the
[UNKNOWN]: that love and peace will probably end soon and they got nothing out of it.
[UNKNOWN]: It just, it's devastating because maximum in this match weren't credible, there's some kz and doi stuff down the stress that is so intricate and so well timed and so engaging.
[UNKNOWN]: But the mochizuki dojo stuff, it's an awesome shun match, it's an awesome yo shio, Kamaash.
[UNKNOWN]: Masaki mochizuki plays his role perfectly.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm very glad you wrecked this, because I did not remember this match, and I really loved it on rewatch.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I was, I was four and a quarter in 2018, I was four and a half and 2016.
[UNKNOWN]: I just thought that this was a really kind of great display and you got to see kind of the kind of the hints on paper view for something that we talked about next in his career that we covered in a rewind and rewatch series in total.
[UNKNOWN]: This was kind of the things that kicked us in the gear for the rookie ranking league that
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, so that really all begins on December 4th, 2018, where you get in the middle of this cork and haul show that has Pock versus Yoshino headlining, you get a 20 minute time limit draw between Skywalker and UT.
[UNKNOWN]: And we covered all of this on a podcast, and I think was two years ago.
[UNKNOWN]: I love that show.
[UNKNOWN]: We went super, super deep on this stuff.
[UNKNOWN]: I would highly recommend everybody go back and give that a listen.
[UNKNOWN]: But there's a 20 minute time limit draw
[UNKNOWN]: between Skywalker and UT that is a red flag for a number of reasons.
[UNKNOWN]: But it kicks off this run.
[UNKNOWN]: from an in-ring perspective and from a booking perspective.
[UNKNOWN]: That as a fan and as somebody that's analyzed this promotion now for over a decade, this little self-contained stretch of everything that Skywalker does from UT to KZ at Kobe World is just some of my favorite stuff.
[UNKNOWN]: And I could sync my teeth into this stuff and relive this stuff and kick my feet up and rewatch this stuff all day long.
[UNKNOWN]: So December 4th, 2018, you get the 20 minute time of a drug and UT.
[UNKNOWN]: When shows begin in 2019, you get the rookie ranking tournament where Skywalker beats Diane KBS Hall, Yoshioka and Osaka number two, and then in the finals, he and Kai to Ashita have a stone-cold classic rookie ranking tournament finals match.
[UNKNOWN]: The end of that month.
[UNKNOWN]: They do a six-man tournament in Kobe, Somal Hall, don't skip over this match.
[UNKNOWN]: Ashita Yoshino and Doy vs. Yo Skywalker and Yo Shiyoka, a 14-minute trio's match, it's unbelievably great.
[UNKNOWN]: You go into February.
[UNKNOWN]: And Ben Kay at this point, you gotta remember Ben Kay's five months away from beating Pock for the Dreamgate title.
[UNKNOWN]: He's still a heel, but he's super protected.
[UNKNOWN]: Ben Kay does not lose the people at this point.
[UNKNOWN]: Soon goes from beating Ashita and Kork and Hall
[UNKNOWN]: middle of the ring in Corgan Hall at that February 2019 Corgan in all of a sudden.
[UNKNOWN]: We go from, hey, this shooting thing is pretty fun.
[UNKNOWN]: Maybe he'll get a brave gate match out of this.
[UNKNOWN]: I think the brave gate championship at the time was dragon kid.
[UNKNOWN]: I was like, oh, maybe they do shoot versus dragon kid.
[UNKNOWN]: Wrong.
[UNKNOWN]: We set up Shoot versus Pock for champion gate night two and Osaka, which is the next match that I sent you, Mike.
[UNKNOWN]: And I just wanted to watch this in 2026 size because in real time, this was all happening so quickly.
[UNKNOWN]: In the expectation, I wrote an article previewing this match.
[UNKNOWN]: That's how into all of this I was.
[UNKNOWN]: I knew that shooting was going to lose.
[UNKNOWN]: It was okay that shooting was going to lose.
[UNKNOWN]: It was it was elevating him to say that it's okay for shooting to main event shows like this.
[UNKNOWN]: And to be in dream gate matches, he's going to get his ass kicked, but you know what, they kind of have a main event around their hands.
[UNKNOWN]: And it all happened so quickly.
[UNKNOWN]: This guy going to a 20 minute time limit draw with UT and December, now he's at the dream gate scene in March.
[UNKNOWN]: And before you know it,
[UNKNOWN]: They have a guy in this pop match is nowhere near as great as the KZ match, but god damn this match is great.
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, it is absolutely fantastic.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, and it all really builds up of what Pac was doing in his return run with Dragon Gate where he attacks.
[UNKNOWN]: title matches.
[UNKNOWN]: He attacked him during God save the queen.
[UNKNOWN]: And from that point, he bum rushed him.
[UNKNOWN]: One, the building said, all right, I'm going home.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm not good.
[UNKNOWN]: There's not going to be a title defense at final gate.
[UNKNOWN]: So this was packs for a title defense was against skywalker.
[UNKNOWN]: And he needs Yoshino for the bell.
[UNKNOWN]: And then to Casey's the first title defense.
[UNKNOWN]: So this is a story.
[UNKNOWN]: Daisy was in February, final star lanes match.
[UNKNOWN]: I know that I wrote a
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, no, absolutely.
[UNKNOWN]: I'll just get that kind of twist up ahead there for a second.
[UNKNOWN]: But so second title defense and tune skywalker during the Anthem and maybe it is that he's in the blue corner since he's a challenge or he's able to keep his eyes on pack in the way that Yoshino was able to but his eyes do not go off him during the entire start and then from there it's off to the races and you have pack and skywalker do this opening exchange.
[UNKNOWN]: That's not an uncommon
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, where you're basically able to miss everyone's moves, you're showing your athleticism.
[UNKNOWN]: You do the kip up and face off and then pack immediately, bulldog to or gets right into his face like a bulldog's going like, yeah, you're a flying guy, but guess what, I am, I'm pack.
[UNKNOWN]: I can do everything and it is just really like the workpacked it in this title run is something that
[UNKNOWN]: I think, well, we thought about it at the time, but now seven years later, he really, I mean, the best work of his career was setting up all these guys that he did in these title matches.
[UNKNOWN]: And after this match, not only was shoes skywalker a guy, shoes skywalker has the cleanest match of his career against pack.
[UNKNOWN]: He at the cleanest plancha hits the the best k brought a version of it.
[UNKNOWN]: And it's just,
[UNKNOWN]: Both the guys going for it and Pack is just as precise as he is and honestly as I'm like watching this in 2026 I'm going like all right.
[UNKNOWN]: We have Pack who I did the mini mixtape on a couple months ago He is my favorite current wrestler right now in like at like the point where he was doing the matches He wanted to do and he had
[UNKNOWN]: really a match where it was just a textbook pack match and in the same way it was a textbook 2019 students guy walker match you have this Spanish fly into a skywalker room saw that starts off this masterful closing stretch where
[UNKNOWN]: tune on loads his entire clip.
[UNKNOWN]: He goes for Ashileb, then he goes up, and he goes for the moon salt knees, and then he goes for the second Skywalker moon salt.
[UNKNOWN]: Pack gets his knees up.
[UNKNOWN]: He then does the moon salt double needs to prove a point to young Skywalker out who is here and who is there and then lands a black arrow to retain.
[UNKNOWN]: If we had that first step in 2016, the next step in 2018, he's being promoted up the latter now to this point that honestly, as we turn deeper into 2019, it did feel like that it was very clear that it was going to be packed, it was going to be packed, dropping this head of the bank.
[UNKNOWN]: It felt pre-dust and pretty much starting the spring of that year, but the end of current was,
[UNKNOWN]: where is shoe and sky walker going to be before this year closes and gut coming into that spring and coming on that title match he shakes everything up and I'll take the wheel for a second.
[UNKNOWN]: After this match, he goes and goes into the cage, escapes the cage and kicks himself out of Mochizuki Dojo.
[UNKNOWN]: And now he is a lone wolf.
[UNKNOWN]: He is lightly affiliated with Ben Kay.
[UNKNOWN]: I think I have a shoe and Ben Kay.
[UNKNOWN]: Uh, button somewhere on my desk that need to go look ahead, but you then have Shun Skywalker as his own person and seeing how that last G's really eight months went took him from a place where he was just bursting out from like being A, an established rookie to now being one of the hottest acts on the roster as we get to King Gates season in 2019.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm so glad you went move by move over that finishing stretch with Pock and Skywalker because I was going to do the same because washing Pock Do the double knee moon salt on to shoot and before the black arrow just as like oh my god, this guy's this guy's an awesome great.
[UNKNOWN]: It's so great.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm sorry to tell folks, but Pac is probably like, if we're talking about the last 20 years in ring, and just keeping it in ring, he's probably needs to be reassessing, and said, maybe not to the same level as your Casuchico Cotta's, but boy, I mean, soon as he hits Dragon Gate to present, I think this guy is one of the best wrestlers in the world, pretty consistently every year that he's actually wrestling.
[UNKNOWN]: Best TV wrestler the entire time he
[UNKNOWN]: Just to put a bow on on Skywalkers 2019, you know, it in far, far be it for me to even try to pretend to analyze 2026 WWE, but I'm aware of the Obofemi Brock Lesnar story, and I was aware of the pushback when Lesnar returned to the BWFME that people were, we're giving it the let it play out and, you know, when the skates okay this guy loses and when his losses don't matter, whatever excuse they want to give,
[UNKNOWN]: you see the power of what happens.
[UNKNOWN]: And so the force of this is a lesson in 2026, but soon Skywalker just won a bunch.
[UNKNOWN]: And it was a slide elevation with the UT thing was like, oh 20 minute Tylenoma draw, there's something here.
[UNKNOWN]: And then he beats Yoshioka, die a man, nothing at that point, but he's like, oh, he beats Yoshioka.
[UNKNOWN]: Okay, that's something.
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, he beat Yoshiita, he beat Kaito Yoshida.
[UNKNOWN]: Okay, so he's a buff Kaito Yoshida now.
[UNKNOWN]: And then the only idea to do was beat Bynquet clean,
[UNKNOWN]: It was like, holy shit.
[UNKNOWN]: We're on to something here.
[UNKNOWN]: And then the Pac match happens.
[UNKNOWN]: He leaves Mochizuki Dojo at the end of the cage match.
[UNKNOWN]: You had sent the link to May 9th, 2019.
[UNKNOWN]: Skywalker versus Mochizuki.
[UNKNOWN]: I think this is a sneaky all-time great Draingate match.
[UNKNOWN]: This was my number 10 match.
[UNKNOWN]: It voices of wrestling match the year.
[UNKNOWN]: Paul that year.
[UNKNOWN]: I have talked about this match at length before, but Mike your thoughts with 26 eyes.
[UNKNOWN]: Skywalker versus Mochizuki.
[UNKNOWN]: God, I had it for an quarter in 2019.
[UNKNOWN]: I have it for an half now.
[UNKNOWN]: It is just like something about the 28 match that I didn't mention because it was so much about skywalker versus the stars was much azuki in 2018 is so much meaner than he is now.
[UNKNOWN]: Well, like in a way, you can kind of see how he's age and not saying that he has checked out or is letting his mouth do.
[UNKNOWN]: A lot of the work these days, but boy, 2018, 2019, Mocha Zuki could turn on being pissed like no other wrestler and just doing things like this, like Shun goes for his slingshot top over the top row and goes right into the kick of the, kick in the gut and you're just like, this is just a,
[UNKNOWN]: incredibly mean match and it feels like that this match and this win for Shun's Skywalker, Shun's Skywalker, kick off, can't get with the win, is kind of like if we're doing this and training this like a shoot, this is his high water mark for 2019 after losing the pack match because the rest of his year there's not a whole lot to talk about and that was intentional.
[UNKNOWN]: But the way that he would completely kind of in a way be like a mocha-zuki killer in this match and I think like that at this time in place This was the exact right match for these two to do because you couldn't look like a skywalker in 2021 match versus Mesaki mocha-zuki in 2019 even with how great they are would not have that layer
[UNKNOWN]: of pissed offness that Mochizuki did because he felt like Skywalker kind of pulled a fast one by electing to leave Mochizuki Dojo by Cage.
[UNKNOWN]: But by Cage stipulation rather than telling him to his face that he's out.
[UNKNOWN]: And it just was such a real like testament to Skywalker and Skywalker getting this win here.
[UNKNOWN]: was the win that really for this tournament in 2019.
[UNKNOWN]: It was the BNK tournament.
[UNKNOWN]: He wins the tournament without dropping a fall and he does a clean sleep throughout it, but you don't talk about that.
[UNKNOWN]: What you talk about from King of Gate 2019 is the opening match, opening night match on May 9, 2019 of Masaki Mochizuki versus Shinsuke Walker because it is a brilliant piece of work.
[UNKNOWN]: And then from there, I think the one other thing we need to hit on in 2019, because after this match happens, I would say that Skywalker to some degree purposefully gets lost in the booking, you know, the last half of that year is him and Ben, not in the unit, but as a tag team, Ben is dream gate champion.
[UNKNOWN]: Skywalkers, both a partner and somebody at odds with Ben.
[UNKNOWN]: It's clear that he wants the dream date belt, but it's maybe not on the level of Ben K anymore.
[UNKNOWN]: Now that Ben has turned his back on RED, it was a baby face singles champion, but you have this KZ versus Skywalk or match at Kobe World 2019.
[UNKNOWN]: And by this point, you know, Casey's coming off of the Pac match, Skywalker's got all the momentum.
[UNKNOWN]: He has two of the best wrestlers in the company of this point, who at this point in time had no real history with one another.
[UNKNOWN]: And they're on the undercard of this Kobe World Show first drink, it showed with English commentary.
[UNKNOWN]: A lot of eyeballs on this show.
[UNKNOWN]: pocket in the main of it and it's been k. And the takeaway from this show was that pocket, or I'm sorry, not pocket, k's the insurance guy walker stole the show.
[UNKNOWN]: And I'm not sure that sky walker is pushed as aggressively upon return and as aggressively as he is through the end of 2025.
[UNKNOWN]: If it's not for this match, because
[UNKNOWN]: Up until this point, it was like, okay, he got hot.
[UNKNOWN]: They told a nice story.
[UNKNOWN]: He had a nice run after King of Gate.
[UNKNOWN]: He didn't have an obvious Kobe world match.
[UNKNOWN]: And if this match would have just been good, I think a lot of the focus could have been shifted away from Shun's Skywalker.
[UNKNOWN]: Instead, they have the best match on the show.
[UNKNOWN]: And it becomes undeniable at this point that Skywalkers now want to lead to your talent.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, no, like that this was I had a list about eight matches case that I tried to cut off this was one of the matches that chose not to do this was like the one of the last cuts my other matches that I was going to do is to five 19.
[UNKNOWN]: I was going to do the title of shea drinkate match, but I didn't know if I wanted to do an empty arena K drinkate match, and I was going to do a speed star final, but it chose not to because I thought that.
[UNKNOWN]: You know, the encapsulation of it was better by the matches we chose for it, but this match, I have my notes up from it from that time.
[UNKNOWN]: I haven't re-watched it in a couple of years.
[UNKNOWN]: I really should probably make some time for it, but it also was like the fact that you had this match after Hongman choice versus Stalker Chikawa and Rio Saito that you needed something really big here.
[UNKNOWN]: on a show that I mean like it was all about crowning Binkay as the star that felt like that he could be the the ace that was promised but then he opened his mouth and we realized no he was not the ace that was promised here and like this Kobe world in 2019 you have ultimose return on it you have incredible
[UNKNOWN]: three way twin gate match, but like this special singles match, I think KZ1, like a, he got like a, a year supply of like bug appellant for winning was just like one of those things from this show that after this point skywalker goes on a losing streak and then leaves at at the end of 2019 to go on excursion, like this is it for him for the year.
[UNKNOWN]: And so I don't want to spend a ton of time on his excursion right now, just because again, I kind of want to hurry this long to get to the question, but Skywalker comes back in 2020 After being in Mexico, essentially getting there in the pandemic happening and, you know, he and Yoshioka.
[UNKNOWN]: are just off in the wilderness for a little bit.
[UNKNOWN]: It was always very exciting to go on the Maslootia YouTube channel and see that, oh, weird.
[UNKNOWN]: We have Shun Skywalker footage to watch, but it was from IWRG.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, or there was some, you know, there was some D.T.
[UNKNOWN]: U stuff that made tape there, or there's like a four's a Guerrera tag on the ID show that I remember, it's just like, oh, okay, this is all so bizarre and so uncomfortable, but
[UNKNOWN]: Skywalker comes back at Gate of Destiny after a Ata, Kazy, Dream Gate match.
[UNKNOWN]: And this was not one of the, we had no idea when Skywalker was going to come back.
[UNKNOWN]: And we had no idea how he was going to be used because he, he actually very successfully pulled off the out-of-sight out-of-mind excursion because not only was so much happening in the world, but 2020, even with the pandemic was such a busy time for Dragon Gate.
[UNKNOWN]: And there were so many new guys in the mix and there was a promotion that, you know,
[UNKNOWN]: The box office for Drangate in January and February of 2020 is much stronger than people realize.
[UNKNOWN]: And this was a promotion that had momentum going into COVID.
[UNKNOWN]: They handled the initial COVID shift to empty arena wrestling better than anybody else.
[UNKNOWN]: And I still think very fondly of 2020 and 2021 Dragon Gate.
[UNKNOWN]: And part because after eight to versus KZ, soon comes back.
[UNKNOWN]: the schedules all screwed up so they do gate of destiny on November 3rd.
[UNKNOWN]: Kobe world that year, November 15th, they two week turn around from 810 KZ to 810 Shoon.
[UNKNOWN]: He wins that belt.
[UNKNOWN]: And then at the beginning of December, two weeks later, Hokkaido triple shot.
[UNKNOWN]: we are introduced to masquerade.
[UNKNOWN]: And to this day for whatever reason, this December 2020 deep in the throes of COVID, Hokkaido triple shot, that featured the beginning of masquerade.
[UNKNOWN]: one of my favorite triple shot strategy has ever done.
[UNKNOWN]: I love these episodes of TV.
[UNKNOWN]: I loved the Daya Jason Menorra Skywalker quartet.
[UNKNOWN]: Australia would get added to that unit on December 15th in Corgan Hall.
[UNKNOWN]: That was the official Masquerade debut and Skywalker's off to the races.
[UNKNOWN]: What are your initial, what were your initial memories of masquerade?
[UNKNOWN]: And we're doing shows weekly at this point.
[UNKNOWN]: We're talking about the real time you go back and listen to the archive.
[UNKNOWN]: But I guess with the benefit of hindsight, masquerade felt like a massive deal and it'll be coming a massive deal.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, like the one thing that I keep on going back to with masquerade was masquerade was a big deal that was much more heavily weighted towards that's entering product and it ever was as a character presence and that's why it kind of ended and ended up being.
[UNKNOWN]: kind of what it was because Skywalker as a baby face and that's something that we'll talk about when we get into questions was a different thing than what we saw after 1221 when he lost his mind.
[UNKNOWN]: And it was not necessarily what I would call, and I know that we might be of divergence appearance here.
[UNKNOWN]: It's not a overwhelming success of a super face unit.
[UNKNOWN]: It was a very stylized unit with guys that I think coming out of it with the exception of Australia.
[UNKNOWN]: They all were a lot better off for being into it, but it was not a world one.
[UNKNOWN]: It was not a monster expression.
[UNKNOWN]: It was a lot closer to kind of millennials.
[UNKNOWN]: And I think that the big testament of that, of the unit was that whenever you got a combination
[UNKNOWN]: For whatever reason, they had the best chemistry with whatever opponents they had versus any other team that you could have in the promotion in 2020 and 2021, like as long as you had Skywalker, Daya, Manora, and Lee and sometimes Australia, you were guaranteed to at least have one match on a show that was probably at the very worst 3.5 stars.
[UNKNOWN]: And it kind of leads me to one of my matches as we get into 2021.
[UNKNOWN]: We didn't choose any of his baby face dream gate title matches in on this.
[UNKNOWN]: So we talked about those a lot in time and you can go back and revisit those.
[UNKNOWN]: I chose a match because
[UNKNOWN]: I wanted to figure out, was there a just landmark R-E-D versus Masquerade match because that was our conversations really back in the day was this, the R-E-D versus Masquerade if they ever come back in the states that got around R-E-D versus Masquerade.
[UNKNOWN]: It's always the best thing on the shows.
[UNKNOWN]: But we didn't really have like one.
[UNKNOWN]: of the, like, trademark.
[UNKNOWN]: They have a definitive match.
[UNKNOWN]: These guys, for those that we're watching in 2021, already a masquerade wrestling almost every show.
[UNKNOWN]: They crush it on almost every show.
[UNKNOWN]: I do not have a multi-man match for you to already in masquerade higher than four in a quarter.
[UNKNOWN]: I have a lot of them at four in a quarter and four and three and three quarters.
[UNKNOWN]: They were all super entertaining, but there was never a definitive,
[UNKNOWN]: This is the one that everybody has to watch.
[UNKNOWN]: This is why this feud is so great, multi-man match.
[UNKNOWN]: There were great singles matches, Skywalker vs. Skido and Skywalker vs. Cosmic Sacramento.
[UNKNOWN]: There was never that defining multi-man match.
[UNKNOWN]: I was surprised that you picked this one.
[UNKNOWN]: this is the one at least according to my notebooks was because skywalker was doing main event things is room gate champion he was not always in the rd versus masquerade match this was the one at least when i was flipping through it seemed like one of the more interesting ones that had people like mantei that would become so much more of a figure for him in the in the zebra's days and i
[UNKNOWN]: I think at the go back completely through all my notes to make sure this was one of the ones that was my highest rated one that I had at least for a moment.
[UNKNOWN]: So I chose from August 8th, 2021.
[UNKNOWN]: This is from Kobe, Sombo Hall, a masquerade, shoes skywalker, dragon diet, and lostrea versus ata Monte and heo.
[UNKNOWN]: And it was maybe not the best choice for mine, maybe, but I really enjoyed it.
[UNKNOWN]: It's good.
[UNKNOWN]: I have it in my notebook at four.
[UNKNOWN]: I would still probably give it that rating, but there's a few, there's a few other ones between these two teams that I like more.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I thought that this was going to be my case for what would be the best one.
[UNKNOWN]: But for me, I, the, the finish is look, like the big thing start thing about is how much better of a heal unit, RED is it in God to talk.
[UNKNOWN]: I had that feeling watching the pox guy walker match when there's no referee interference.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, God, this is so nice and this is so much better.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, well, what does RED do as a heal unit?
[UNKNOWN]: Okay, they isolate and then they distract the referees so they can beat down Daya or Shun Scott.
[UNKNOWN]: Well, Shun Skywalker actually is the baby face and peril in this mattress is kind of interesting here.
[UNKNOWN]: And then the finishing stretch is just, it is just Ishida tripping someone on the side and getting away with it and then he'll getting a crucifix.
[UNKNOWN]: Just a clean heal unit that feels right.
[UNKNOWN]: It's a fun match to watch because it only happens six years ago, but it's a lifetime between skywalkers look, between heows look, between dias look, between diamantes look and the fact that Australia and Ata are in this match, this match might as well take a place a hundred years ago.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, especially like twenty twenty one heo.
[UNKNOWN]: I know I have a big soft spot for heo and I think that watching this I'm like maybe he's a little bit closer to where he is today in twenty twenty one here, but it's I would have been intrigued to see what would have happened if they reran masquerade again, or if you give them a chance to redraft and maybe put it into twenty twenty twenty three, like some way where it's not a COVID unit
[UNKNOWN]: on a COVID show, quiet crowds in 1222, that entrance felt like it always took forever.
[UNKNOWN]: And I wonder if you had a crowd that could respond to it, that they could actually play to in the crowd and interact with, would have made it feel a little bit more if a hot unit than it was, which is really to me, like you said 11 piece, I think that's the greatest opinion for them, because it was like the work rate, the baby face work rate unit, and not more than that to me.
[UNKNOWN]: The two points I want to make before we get to our final match, and then I think from there, we get pivot to questions because my final match ties into Skywalkers heel turn in zebra, that gets into more modern history.
[UNKNOWN]: We've written and discussed that stuff at length.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm happy to answer any further questions that's guy Walker from there, but I want to get to these questions because you know, I'm going to have to wrap up here at some point.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, let's do it.
[UNKNOWN]: But the two points I want to make a masquerade.
[UNKNOWN]: Mike banged this drum much harder than I did.
[UNKNOWN]: I was never fully in alignment with him, but I always understood where he was coming from.
[UNKNOWN]: And this is important to note as we get into my final match and the legacy of Skywalker, and especially the stuff that he was zebraats, is that the prevailing thought at the time.
[UNKNOWN]: was that masquerade, like you said, is a great baby face work rate unit, but that Skywalker lacks the definitive main of it charisma and promo skills to be the one a guy of this promotion.
[UNKNOWN]: And that was not a hot take that was not hyperbolic.
[UNKNOWN]: I had my disagreements with it, but in real time before Skywalkers heel turn, that was the way masquerade was thought of and that has to be noted once again.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, and it just was not, it was just not easy for him also because when you like contrast that world one, you had other people that can pick up the microphone there, you can trust that with the gymnasium, so Sumo is not known as this supercarus Mac talker, but he had real site to a geeky or Gucci there that could always bring everyone home for that.
[UNKNOWN]: You just didn't have that in, and I think that on that aspect of, and I so believe this full chest out, kind of set the unit ceiling what it was when you had a two guys who didn't talk and die in Australia, Coach of Menorah who's still not a great promo to be quite honest, and Jason Lee who Japanese might be his third language.
[UNKNOWN]: So like, or might not be, but by
[UNKNOWN]: with that and I think that it put that seal on it pretty firmly.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, the other thing I got to know is that when the history books are written and it will be you and I writing these history books, but it has to be noted we did this dream yet exercise like six months ago where you and I tiered all of the dream gate range in history and the Skywalker one from 2021 came out as one of the best dream gate runs in history.
[UNKNOWN]: that Skywalkers 2021 Dreamgate reign was not an all-time great run.
[UNKNOWN]: And that is because during his first defense, finally, 2020, it's been K1.
[UNKNOWN]: It came after it came directly after the Tori Mod Generation versus RED Unit Dispans match.
[UNKNOWN]: And even in front of a clap crowd,
[UNKNOWN]: you could tell that that crowd was exhausted in a good way by what they had just seen, but completely exhausted from the match before.
[UNKNOWN]: And two, Ben K got legitimately knocked out towards the finish.
[UNKNOWN]: Skywalker hit an offensive maneuver on him after he got knocked out.
[UNKNOWN]: And then the referee botched the pinfall account.
[UNKNOWN]: The pinfall count.
[UNKNOWN]: It went everywhere.
[UNKNOWN]: A bunch of people that don't watch during it and don't know what they're talking about.
[UNKNOWN]: Decided to have it opinion on the bunch of southern indie bombs that I don't give a shit about
[UNKNOWN]: The BNK match got a certain level of attention, and then after the Ashita match and after the Sakamoto match, there was the four minute Madoka Kuku to shoulder injury debacle during gate match from Dead or Live 2021.
[UNKNOWN]: The BNK match was on its way to being a legitimately great match before he got knocked out.
[UNKNOWN]: It was a four and a half star match that was marked by the last 40 seconds.
[UNKNOWN]: Exactly.
[UNKNOWN]: The Kuku to match is such a historical oddity, and I think genuinely I think maybe the worst
[UNKNOWN]: is that we now will lose the history between Kukuta and Skywalker because their dream gay history is dead or live 2021, Kukuta gets hurt, dead or live 2023, Kukuta beat Skywalker for the title after his first defense against Strong Machine J and Dangerous Gate 2025, Kukuta defeats Skywalker and his first defense.
[UNKNOWN]: they had a fascinating run of dream gate matches between the oddity of 2021 the match the year contender in 2023 and whatever that 2025 match was but nevertheless there was history there that we won't be able to get to now but the Ben K match the Ashita match the Sakamoto match the KZ match the Yamato match guys it's an all-time great dream gate run don't let anybody ever tell you otherwise as a complete
[UNKNOWN]: I did not know that.
[UNKNOWN]: Yep, does discover that right now.
[UNKNOWN]: So he loses the belt to Yamato.
[UNKNOWN]: I've talked at length about this.
[UNKNOWN]: There were so much conversation in the summer of 2021 about should Casey beat Skywalker and then lose to Yamato, should Casey beat Skywalker and then beat Yamato, should Skywalker beat both guys, should he beat Casey and then lose to Yamato, and that's exactly what ended up happening.
[UNKNOWN]: So Skywalker loses the belt in the summer of 2021.
[UNKNOWN]: And that is when we start to see the dissension of masquerade.
[UNKNOWN]: We start to see Skywalker be cold to his teammates.
[UNKNOWN]: We start to see him not be all there.
[UNKNOWN]: We start to see him sort of expand his charisma into something that we had never really seen before.
[UNKNOWN]: And that takes us to 12, 12, 21, five years to the day after 12, 11, 16, Diane Furnown, D. Amantevers is Dragon, Diane, Shune, Skywalker.
[UNKNOWN]: I had not re-washed this match since it happened in the moment.
[UNKNOWN]: I called this match a brilliant storytelling match, the Hodgepodge of storytelling and in-ring action results and they flawed albeit thrilling main event with one of the most shocking finishes in Dragonhead history.
[UNKNOWN]: even with the clap crowd in a half full core again.
[UNKNOWN]: There was something about this match that to me, Mike, is utterly electric.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, and I think it really, like you have to watch the entrance of masquerade, and you have to see the way that shune plays off.
[UNKNOWN]: Like he gives, like, like in retrospect, one of the most insincere sidehogs ever, and they, like, they pose, but the one thing that goes through my mind almost five years later is shunny fucker.
[UNKNOWN]: I know what you're about to do in 20 minutes.
[UNKNOWN]: I know what's about that.
[UNKNOWN]: And it actually kind of adds a level of trauma to it
[UNKNOWN]: makes this viewing a stronger than it was in the moment.
[UNKNOWN]: I was four flat on it back in 2021.
[UNKNOWN]: I'd probably be four and a quarter maybe four and a half for the angle just because of how powerful it all was and it's just like such a interesting match because
[UNKNOWN]: Everyone's banned from ringside.
[UNKNOWN]: Our ED tries to slide in and Rio Saito doing actual good general management goes out there and goes no we're not doing this this is going to be these four guys and they kind of go through the ringer with it and it is like
[UNKNOWN]: so fascinating like the way the match is worked about how like diet gets basically destroyed for 10 minutes and then there is the big monkey flip that gets that shun skywalker does and it kind of spins things around here.
[UNKNOWN]: shun or diamante does like this wild, a domal stretch out of a teheris that's not exactly super clean but it's really kind of fun.
[UNKNOWN]: to see.
[UNKNOWN]: And then yeah, I mean, it's all about the finishing stretch.
[UNKNOWN]: It's all about a diet, trying to get a step in at a point where sky walker had taken a lot of damage and diet was trying to kind of do this guy walker's mask gets, gets shoved to the side.
[UNKNOWN]: I forgot about the masking shoved to the side.
[UNKNOWN]: That was something over five years that did not imprenn as much as I thought it would.
[UNKNOWN]: And then a key claims that Skywalker couldn't see Diabe shove some into Diomonte who does a well to finale at Henson for three.
[UNKNOWN]: And then afterwards you have Diabe balling his eyes out, ripping off his mask, SB Kento trying to lord it all over him trying to
[UNKNOWN]: just be the cocky prick that he was, and then diet inferno, unmasking himself.
[UNKNOWN]: After all the while that Shinskaya Walker said, Dianferno was not Yukiyoshioka, unmasking himself as Yukiyoshioka, saying, my duty here is done, and then
[UNKNOWN]: From that moment, we got the modern era of Dragon Gate from that match.
[UNKNOWN]: We got discouraged, we got Z-Breads, we got everything that went on from there.
[UNKNOWN]: We got Monte losing his match to Shun Skywalker, Shun Skywalker, finally getting to high on his own supply and getting kicked out of Z-Breads, having Hamara and it all branches off really from this one match in 2021.
[UNKNOWN]: Just as I scroll through the cage match here, I'm reminded of the sky walker versus KZ match in King of Gate 2022 and Osaka number two in what a special match that was.
[UNKNOWN]: I am reminded of sky walker versus Yoshioka for the Dream Gate belt in 2023 and how I think I like that match more than any other human on the planet.
[UNKNOWN]: planet, but how I just I love that mash and I specifically love skywalkers performance.
[UNKNOWN]: There, that leads into the layup of all layups, coco to defeating skywalker in debt or alive 2023.
[UNKNOWN]: As you go forward, zebra ashes become such a well-oiled heel unit.
[UNKNOWN]: I think they do such marvelous work.
[UNKNOWN]: You get
[UNKNOWN]: a number of great Z-Brats versus Kame matches, you get Skywalker versus Kuku to from Gate of Bayside and the special match that that was.
[UNKNOWN]: You get to see Skywalker in America starting in 2022 and go through all these promotions, some of which quite frankly he was above and yet he worked hard in all these promotions, he had really great matches and a lot of these promotions, very entertaining stuff there.
[UNKNOWN]: And then you get to
[UNKNOWN]: Homare in 2024 and you get to Ray Day per a house in 2025 and you get to him versus Yamato at world last year in what felt like the biggest match of the era.
[UNKNOWN]: And really, and I always think this is worth bringing up.
[UNKNOWN]: Again, you know, I said at the start of this podcast for SFM 50 voting.
[UNKNOWN]: I had this guy from 2021 to 2025.
[UNKNOWN]: Third, second, third, fourth, and third.
[UNKNOWN]: And that third in 2025 might surprise people, but I had Skywalker with a total of 22 matches at four stars or higher last year, including two matches at four and three quarters Skywalker versus Yamada and the pro wrestling revolution six man tag and a number of four and a half star matches as well.
[UNKNOWN]: This guy was great through the end of 2025.
[UNKNOWN]: Cypatra in November of 2025 looked like a stone-cold lock to be a great unit and it wasn't until the Hommari shoulder injury.
[UNKNOWN]: and the vacation of the triangle gate belts that they started to sputter.
[UNKNOWN]: And by the time we turned the clock to this year, things looked a little dodgy.
[UNKNOWN]: He had the Shemazoo match in Cork and that was really entertaining.
[UNKNOWN]: But once Shemazoo got hurt and the build the Golden Colosseum fell apart, Skywalker, for whatever reason, was never treated the same.
[UNKNOWN]: And never was the same in this promotion.
[UNKNOWN]: And we have now had a point where we were at the end, as we know it,
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, it's still kind of in a way, it's still soaking into me, you know, two months later, and then of course a week after his actual exit.
[UNKNOWN]: And I think at this point, let's get to the questions we got a good bit.
[UNKNOWN]: First questions are from actual former open-the-voice gate host and now host of wrestling Lakaze, John Carroll, three questions.
[UNKNOWN]: What kind of career are we talking about for Shune if you never turned heel?
[UNKNOWN]: Obviously impossible to know for sure, but would love to know if any of you had any guesses.
[UNKNOWN]: Case, do you have a thought on this one first?
[UNKNOWN]: I'm very glad we lived in a timeline of which he did turn heal.
[UNKNOWN]: I love baby face guy walker as well address in just a second.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm devastated.
[UNKNOWN]: We didn't get a second go round of baby face guy walker.
[UNKNOWN]: But the shune portfolio from 2022 to 2024 is absurd.
[UNKNOWN]: And he did that, you know, oftentimes as the best heal in wrestling, I called him the modern day Nick Bachwinkle, which is not a comparison that I make lightly.
[UNKNOWN]: to one.
[UNKNOWN]: Understand his character so deeply and so thoroughly in a way that was was very engaging for the entire audience, but he had this ability to if he's wrestling
[UNKNOWN]: He had the ability to bring them up to a place of legitimate competition.
[UNKNOWN]: And I always thought that was such a special and unique tool that more heels need to have.
[UNKNOWN]: Skywalker had it.
[UNKNOWN]: I think his career, if he just would have done masquerade for years and years and years, would have been great.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm very glad we got what we got, though.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I mean, I guess the big question about him is does shune actually have top of line as it relates to Dragon's system?
[UNKNOWN]: Is he a top of a line, a baby face?
[UNKNOWN]: And I don't know if he doesn't go through the heel turn in the last five years, I don't know if that's on the table.
[UNKNOWN]: I think if he remains where he was, like he needed the creativity of key brats, he needed the heel turn.
[UNKNOWN]: He needed to scratch that edge to get to that level of charisma.
[UNKNOWN]: I think that he was incredible in one of my favorite entering wrestlers up until 2021, but as 2022 happened, things became
[UNKNOWN]: Okay, so we were together in Vegas last year at WrestleMania weekend and it was the first time that I solution skywalker live and it gave a feeling in a presence to me at least seeing him in that like that our carnation that very few wrestlers have ever kind of imprinted on me.
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, yeah, I mean, again, by the end of the by the end of the zebra, that's Ron.
[UNKNOWN]: They had a system and a formula down where if they wanted to have a great multi-man match it kind of didn't matter who they're opponents were and we saw them in that Texas wrestling cartel show Drag some green Texas indie wrestlers should not a great match, but a thoroughly entertaining match Right the best thing they had done up to that point in their careers and that was
[UNKNOWN]: That was under the Skywalker mindset and formula.
[UNKNOWN]: We got to see Schoon really come into his own as that heel leader there.
[UNKNOWN]: I look, my favorite Schoonstuff by and large is what he did in Masquerade.
[UNKNOWN]: That year that we got of him there in the 2019 stuff, if I was making a Schoonst guy walker 10 best matches comp, probably 60% of them are going to come from 2019 or 2021, but the heel run made him what he is today.
[UNKNOWN]: Great.
[UNKNOWN]: John's next question, let's just assume she's going to New Japan and also joining House of Torture.
[UNKNOWN]: Is there any way for that to be good in your opinion?
[UNKNOWN]: No.
[UNKNOWN]: It'd be the...
[UNKNOWN]: Uh, uh, I'm not really for me either.
[UNKNOWN]: Can't he be the thing that that turns an insanely reviled unit on Western fans around?
[UNKNOWN]: Probably not with the way that they operate and the heel unit personally for me.
[UNKNOWN]: Or is the best case scenario?
[UNKNOWN]: Simply something like shoe and joint toss of September, but kicks out, Rennery didn't take over the leader after wrestling he knew him in January and finally rebrands.
[UNKNOWN]: The unit with a new name and image that this is going to come off as a non-answer, but I think everyone understand what I'm saying.
[UNKNOWN]: Who's to say that he's coming into the promotion as you and Skywalker to begin with?
[UNKNOWN]: My, I think that is assuming he comes in a shoe and skywalker, I have such a fundamental disagreement with the way that New Japan does so much stuff right now, and I say that as somebody who slowly making their way through the G1 and enjoying some of it enjoying a lot of it, you know, I'm I'm very selective in what I watch there's some, there's even some well thought of New Japan heavy weights that right now, I am just I'm not I'm not going to take time out of my day to watch them tell me tell me I want to know where an hour to tell me.
[UNKNOWN]: I'll say this.
[UNKNOWN]: I'll say, I'll say, I watched Zack Saber Jr. versus you a humorer, which had a very high cage match rating.
[UNKNOWN]: And I thought it was Zack Saber Jr. wrestling a broom, and he getting a four star match ahead of a broom.
[UNKNOWN]: In essence, it's one of the most impressive Saber matches I've ever seen, because I don't think anything of humorer.
[UNKNOWN]: But if Shoon is Shoon, or if he's something else, and he goes to House of Torture,
[UNKNOWN]: I just don't see how I will enjoy that.
[UNKNOWN]: I will give it a shot.
[UNKNOWN]: I will invest in it in a way that will probably pain me to do.
[UNKNOWN]: I just don't see how that's going to be any good, even with his talented ashooters.
[UNKNOWN]: How can the after eating the absolute greatest cheese burger in the world McDonald's Day Studio?
[UNKNOWN]: That's kind of how I feel about shune in house and torture.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I think that's entirely fair.
[UNKNOWN]: Alright, John's last question, did you always assume that she was going to get the big baby face run at the end of this?
[UNKNOWN]: Are you really surprised to turn it out this way?
[UNKNOWN]: No real face, certainly just leaves over their parallels with how Shingo basically left GG, right at the end of his biggest heel run in 2018 strong enough that he thought it might go down like this.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm going to pair this question case just so that we can kind of cover things once into this.
[UNKNOWN]: With Lewis question, is do you think Shun Skywalkers booking from 20 to 25 up till last week is more influenced by the company or by Shun himself?
[UNKNOWN]: I think that Shun has a level of control in his character in his book and I think that's pretty clear if you watch him versus really if you watch Cypattra that became clear that this was a kind of a Shun thing.
[UNKNOWN]: I think that if the company had its way, there would have been the Shun big baby face run.
[UNKNOWN]: Y'all know I'm a drag and assistant for additional us that's how things go.
[UNKNOWN]: Holkett is running 2014 that way.
[UNKNOWN]: Yamato had his run in 2016 that way.
[UNKNOWN]: It was time for Shun's
[UNKNOWN]: I think that he was only interested in kind of doing shune things at for the last 13 months of his career in Dragon Gate.
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, really dating back to his, when he made that challenge to Yamato and decided by himself saying, if I went, if I don't win, I lose.
[UNKNOWN]: Like, there's an argument to be made that he kind of has been booking the way that he's done for a long time.
[UNKNOWN]: I don't know specifically if shune has all the power in his booking, but with the way that things came off with the power of hindsight, it sure felt like he did.
[UNKNOWN]: based on vague conversations that I've had with people over the last eight or nine months.
[UNKNOWN]: I think there was a lot of that's not going to work for me, brother with Schoen's guy walker.
[UNKNOWN]: A lot of what if we did this met with, well, we're going to do this instead, which is super disappointing to answer John's question.
[UNKNOWN]: We did that show in November with Cypatra, where it was right after they won the Triangle Gate Bell.
[UNKNOWN]: It was very keen on if Cypatra is going to work, they have to be a super baby face unit.
[UNKNOWN]: Skywalker, and they can tell, whatever story they want to tell to get there.
[UNKNOWN]: But it has to be a unit that ends with Skywalker high-fiving children.
[UNKNOWN]: They don't need to be the gone kid unit.
[UNKNOWN]: They don't need to be natural vibes.
[UNKNOWN]: They don't need to be love and peace.
[UNKNOWN]: but they have to be objective baby faces for this unit to work.
[UNKNOWN]: And that's not what happened.
[UNKNOWN]: And that's devastating.
[UNKNOWN]: Because skywalker, I think, would have been killer, would have been money.
[UNKNOWN]: as an ultra baby face at some point down the line.
[UNKNOWN]: I wrote this in my review for this last rainy perihash show, I'll read it again here.
[UNKNOWN]: Skywalker leaves years worth of unknown matches and angles against the likes of Binke, Yo, Jackie, Kame, Kazuma, Kamura,
[UNKNOWN]: Kasey Luis Mante Rita, Strong Machine J, and of course, Humare.
[UNKNOWN]: Those are names that have direct storylines and angles and consequences and moments in history.
[UNKNOWN]: was shown that we will now not see of all, but I don't even have Jason Lee on that list, Jason should be on that list as well.
[UNKNOWN]: Not having a baby face skywalker run takes away the next evolution of Ben and heo and Jackie and Jason and Camora and Kazy and Montenkey, Kuchan, Return Strong Machine J and Humara and that really sucks.
[UNKNOWN]: And you didn't even mention you, Kioshoca too.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, sure exactly right.
[UNKNOWN]: But like yeah, no, like someone is so much of what the company could have run with was taken off the table and it and taken off I think because of a lot of issues with how the company operates and
[UNKNOWN]: Yes, I had my concerns after the Madoka Kuku to match a dangerous game last year and my concerns turned out to be Exactly what I should be.
[UNKNOWN]: You're absolutely right about it.
[UNKNOWN]: It's the worst victory lap I have to take.
[UNKNOWN]: I was absolutely right that something about that match felled off.
[UNKNOWN]: It was no different than the AW Dynamite
[UNKNOWN]: From 2023 with Omega and Vikingo, where Joe Lanzas said, something's not right here.
[UNKNOWN]: Something is off, something is happening.
[UNKNOWN]: And I watched Junversus Kukuch and I said, something is off, something is happening.
[UNKNOWN]: And here we are now 12 months later.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: You know, who was a big, long time heel and dragon gate that became such a bigger baby face because everyone wanted to cheer him and then when he became a baby face even though he had heel runs afterwards.
[UNKNOWN]: He was always able to be that big baby face.
[UNKNOWN]: That was Gima.
[UNKNOWN]: Yes.
[UNKNOWN]: Well, I'm not saying Shun Skywalker Shima, but I am saying that like having someone that at least, like maybe I feel like I am a little bit more of the belief that this is more of the last year was more tune-based than you are maybe case, but like boy, I so much was left on the table in that way.
[UNKNOWN]: Moving on, Jamie O. D. of dramatic D. T. asked us, what shoes reputation among fans, permanently hampered by his first dream gate run, particularly when he injured Ben K. Not that I know of.
[UNKNOWN]: I don't think so.
[UNKNOWN]: I think that as you said, like the people who who's opinions should be discounted, probably had an opinion of Shin's guy walker being two dangerous.
[UNKNOWN]: I know that there are some people who are watching anyway, but they don't.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: And I think that like really like the situations with him and and Kuku are just too unfortunate circumstances that, hey,
[UNKNOWN]: I like to gamble sometimes you get it just because the law of numbers things end up in a bad way that bad things happen when they shouldn't have.
[UNKNOWN]: And I feel like that happened for them, unfortunately, there.
[UNKNOWN]: Alan Forrell is, is she in a better tag wrestler or single wrestler in the Dragon Gate context?
[UNKNOWN]: Uh, better singles wrestler just off the dome looking at my old match of the year tracking sheets.
[UNKNOWN]: UT in 2018, 2019, he has the Mochazuki match, the Pock match, the KZ match, the Kaito Ashita match, the Ben K match, 2021 KZ, Kaito Ashita, Yamada, Kazuma, Kazuma Sakamoto and a king of gate empty arena, Yamada match that was also incredible.
[UNKNOWN]: Not to mention a, uh,
[UNKNOWN]: Okay, to achieve.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm sorry, that was a, that the amount of mattress in a kite.
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, no, no, no.
[UNKNOWN]: The amount of mattress into your read a, the second sheet of match from King of Gate.
[UNKNOWN]: That was also pretty spectacular.
[UNKNOWN]: 22 22 that Casey mentioned of soccer that I just mentioned again, 23, the coco to match the OCHO match, a big boss.
[UNKNOWN]: Jim as you match from July King of Gate that year that I thought was unreal.
[UNKNOWN]: 2024, nothing super high in singles, but he didn't get a ton of opportunities to do so.
[UNKNOWN]: And then 2025, he had the Yamato singles match, not only the one from January, but then the one from Kobe world, his tag resume super impressive.
[UNKNOWN]: I think his triangle gate or trio's resume is a little bit underrated, but no, he's he's that he's like Mocha Zuki in the sense that you can look at all the great Mocha Zuki tags and he's still a better singles wrestler.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: I think I agree with you on that.
[UNKNOWN]: I think that because he became such a dominant figure and became like such the mainstay of the dreamgate picture and then I mean we didn't really talk about it like this is the person that I would.
[UNKNOWN]: At least the modern era of the steel cage warfare, a restless match, I'd most identify it with shoe and skywalker, to be quite honest because of you look at the 2019 match and then you you fast forward to okay he gets, uh, he gets Monta's mask and then he takes Amara's hair, he takes Hio's hair and it's just like he is someone that kind of is not necessarily put in the scenario that yeah, you do have kung fu master's versus
[UNKNOWN]: Shun Monte at Kobe World that year and like that is I mean to this day I think the best match to have ever happened at Kobe World but he just was not in a scenario really to have like a to be cycled down in a way that like Neruki Doy was cycled down for so long so you got to see him a lot of good tag team Shingo Takagi gets cycled down for a significant time period I think if anything two hours into this podcast people can kind of pull from is that this is the person that
[UNKNOWN]: when we write the book of Dragon Gate from 2021 at least and we can probably go back a little bit further about this if we're talking about who the true main character was and yes we did say decorate where the main characters of 2022 and 2023 it was she and skywalker and I think because of that he wasn't necessarily put in those kind of tax scenarios in the way that like
[UNKNOWN]: Realistically almost done with 2026.
[UNKNOWN]: We're going to be at the end of this decade.
[UNKNOWN]: But he don't tell me we're almost done with 2026.
[UNKNOWN]: We're almost done with 2026.
[UNKNOWN]: We're going to be at the end of this decade before people realize it.
[UNKNOWN]: And we're going to really see the effects of the overconsumption era that we're in when we're in 2029 and we're trying to place all of these things historically and where things rank out.
[UNKNOWN]: If he goes to New Japan, let's say he goes to New Japan, and he reaches the same amount of success as a heavyweight that should be heavyweight.
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, yes, the same amount of success as a heavyweight that Schingo reached as a junior heavyweight.
[UNKNOWN]: Does that make sense?
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, no, I follow.
[UNKNOWN]: This is a guy who that's a Hall of Fame career.
[UNKNOWN]: Well, I don't know if it's a Hall of Fame career.
[UNKNOWN]: I will say if you certainly closes out the 2020s as probably one of the 10 most important wrestlers.
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, you're going to have Osprey.
[UNKNOWN]: You're going to come a Tony.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: Hangman, MJF, Mystico.
[UNKNOWN]: Did you say Cody?
[UNKNOWN]: I did not say Cody Cody there.
[UNKNOWN]: I refused to say Roman Reigns.
[UNKNOWN]: I think I think he's in the court of the earth.
[UNKNOWN]: Come on.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, system quarterback.
[UNKNOWN]: It makes absolutely no positive difference in pro wrestling whatsoever.
[UNKNOWN]: Should not be in the whole thing.
[UNKNOWN]: I think you're a more on if you go to front of the Hall of Fame.
[UNKNOWN]: Disqualifying vote if you do that.
[UNKNOWN]: It awful.
[UNKNOWN]: It just absolutely does not have an impact on the 2020s.
[UNKNOWN]: But Cody absolutely does.
[UNKNOWN]: I mean.
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, I, from 2020 to now.
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, I can't say, oh, Cotta, I can't say nighto.
[UNKNOWN]: You won't be able to say Fletcher because he's two, it's two few years.
[UNKNOWN]: Although Fletcher was great from 2022 on that he's I might need to reassess Ozzie open.
[UNKNOWN]: I was very out on Ozzie open.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, watch Ozzie open a new Japan.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I think that's why I need to reassess.
[UNKNOWN]: Fletcher's Fletcher's very much in play for this.
[UNKNOWN]: But if he even has that level of success in New Japan, if he's on a top 10 guy, he's probably a top 15 guy for this decade.
[UNKNOWN]: And that is with that, you know,
[UNKNOWN]: Yep, no, I'm with you on that.
[UNKNOWN]: Avengers 2-3 says would have been less painful a loss of Xu and Skywalker jump to an American company instead of New Japan.
[UNKNOWN]: No, not for me.
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, I think about the Dragon Gate things first to be quite honest, and it's not going to change like this.
[UNKNOWN]: I would say in America, it would be fascinating.
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, that's a huge open question what Xu and Skywalker would look like in AEW.
[UNKNOWN]: I do wonder if AEW would be the right place for him
[UNKNOWN]: WWE's out the question, I feel like with this, I do think that New Japan's probably the place that he has potential to be the most like shoe skywalker, I would say.
[UNKNOWN]: I think if he went to Noah, he'd very quickly become GHC heavyweight champion and although I have a lot of issues with Noah, I do think.
[UNKNOWN]: I would like to say good for you Shane haste.
[UNKNOWN]: You managed to pull off the Rick Flair room analogy in a match in 2026.
[UNKNOWN]: Good for you.
[UNKNOWN]: I have I have been a legitimate Shane haste fan since late 2013.
[UNKNOWN]: I am related about the year he's having.
[UNKNOWN]: Although I will not watch his match against night O. I have seen clips and I am incredibly impressed with what Shane haste pulled off in that match.
[UNKNOWN]: For as many issues as I have with pro wrestling Noah and there are many.
[UNKNOWN]: I think I would have, I think I would have preferred him go to Noah more than any other place.
[UNKNOWN]: I think Noah, New Japan, A, W would be my rankings.
[UNKNOWN]: Actually, see him out well.
[UNKNOWN]: Noah, New Japan, A, W would be my rankings, but my love would be fascinating.
[UNKNOWN]: I would love that.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I really wish that's I really wish he was moving to Mexico, but.
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, I have a match for you that that would have happened.
[UNKNOWN]: Him versus Voldo, a door to you in here.
[UNKNOWN]: Mm-hmm.
[UNKNOWN]: Him versus Kevin R.O.
[UNKNOWN]: I think you would match up really well with that roster.
[UNKNOWN]: I think it's a bummer, because I really like- That's like the perfect size for that roster, too.
[UNKNOWN]: That Russell Con, 10 man that CMLL versus Drangate match was a little awkward at times, but I thought soon, soon and there with Mr. Co felt like a massive ordeal.
[UNKNOWN]: And the crowd recognized it as well.
[UNKNOWN]: And I would have really liked that.
[UNKNOWN]: Maybe we get shoot on fantastic amount of tours now.
[UNKNOWN]: So maybe there's a, there's a pathway there.
[UNKNOWN]: But I think his ceiling of Noah was, it would be so high that I would prefer to go to Noah than then New Japan.
[UNKNOWN]: But Noah's Noah, that comes with its own list of issues.
[UNKNOWN]: But him going to an American company, I wouldn't have cared.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, him and Noah also, I think creatively, he would probably get less of a filter too, which would probably be good and maybe bad.
[UNKNOWN]: Joke Agni asks, says, Shoons only lost in Skullton, called Seamless to Johnny Fulida.
[UNKNOWN]: I know you said fans would not think how Mari had earned a win over Shoon, but who else would have beaten, should have beaten Shoon if anyone?
[UNKNOWN]: And I mean, the promise it's a roster full of cold guys at the only, like,
[UNKNOWN]: It would have been interesting if they would have done something with shune and heo and it would have gotten something out of it because heo is hot.
[UNKNOWN]: Yes, and it would have been interesting if they did something non-title with shune and tenaka.
[UNKNOWN]: But otherwise, like, Komora wasn't ready for that spot.
[UNKNOWN]: Hommari was booking malpractice.
[UNKNOWN]: Jason couldn't get anything from it because Jason's a heal of.
[UNKNOWN]: Jason was a baby face.
[UNKNOWN]: I would have a different opinion on that.
[UNKNOWN]: Comment, yeah, but comment, retail weren't in a position to gain from it either.
[UNKNOWN]: The answer is Hommari, but Hommari was just booked like a jackass for two months straight.
[UNKNOWN]: Right, yeah, no.
[UNKNOWN]: you couldn't even like Ray was six is now like might as well be 10 years ago, so you couldn't even like pull up Jay or Yoshioka for that either
[UNKNOWN]: And for no asks, Jun has had a lot of tag team partners over his career, who would you say has been his best.
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, Monte.
[UNKNOWN]: I really think that Monte was a special kind of pairing with the two of them and allowed the the two guys on the roster had that level of height kind of play off of each other.
[UNKNOWN]: I thought that there was a lot more mileage on the shoe Monte team and I.
[UNKNOWN]: You know, like the person that would have been his best acting partner sadly is the guy who has probably one of his best opponents in Jackie Came.
[UNKNOWN]: Shune and Jackie would have been a hell of a team.
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, God, yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, I think Mochi and Shune probably have a deeper resume than Monte and Shune do.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: Because I've complained about this number of times, it's like, Drangate finds a good tag team, then they become a verse to putting them in tag matches.
[UNKNOWN]: And that's what the Shune Monte run.
[UNKNOWN]: is so much shorter than people, remember, they just happen to have two iconic twin gate matches between the Diocio-Chiocamatch and Deteralive, and then the, the Kame Jason-Matchic-Cove a world, but they don't have a ton other than that, so the most Suzuki run is deeper, but I agree.
[UNKNOWN]: I think his best partner was deal on today.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I still think, imagine what, if they were able to pay off any of the commands stuff, like that would have been so fascinating to see that, that happened.
[UNKNOWN]: All right, the last question is from Fred Morlin, this is less tune, more general Dragon Gate.
[UNKNOWN]: The vibes around DG seem rancid 12 or so months ago, they seem decent.
[UNKNOWN]: If in perfect to my knowledge the power players ever made the same at that time, considering that is there any semblance of hope for this promotion or is a headed
[UNKNOWN]: I think there's certain, I think that this is a question that has to kind of be taken in parts.
[UNKNOWN]: The power players are the exact same.
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, Toro Kito to everyone's knowledge is the owner of the of Dragonate Lake.
[UNKNOWN]: It's not just President CEO.
[UNKNOWN]: It's a privately held company that all assumptions are that he owns especially after the Magnum Talk.
[UNKNOWN]: Rio Cytode does not seem to have any threat to his booking journal manufactureships, so that's just going to kind of stay there.
[UNKNOWN]: But is there so much of hope for Dragongate case?
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, of course there is.
[UNKNOWN]: Again, this promotion is not all that different than it was in 2018, which is that I think world 2018 sort of calm some choppy waters and I think world 2026 did something very similar.
[UNKNOWN]: The danger with this promotion right now is I think they could veer off course very quickly and take my confidence level, which is right now at about a five, it make it a two very quickly, but also it's, it takes one guy getting hot.
[UNKNOWN]: And that will elevate the rest of the roster.
[UNKNOWN]: That's the issue with Shun's farewell and him putting people over is,
[UNKNOWN]: Like I just said, it was a roster full of cold wrestlers.
[UNKNOWN]: There was nobody for him to put over.
[UNKNOWN]: If you would have gone back two years ago, you would have a plethora of guys that could have lost a shoot on his way or that that shoot could have lost one his way out and it would have elevated all of them.
[UNKNOWN]: So, no, I don't know.
[UNKNOWN]: Maybe it's my last man on the boat mentality, but I think it's silly to think about Drain Gate as a ship head towards a nice part.
[UNKNOWN]: There's reasons to have hope.
[UNKNOWN]: They have a super talented roster.
[UNKNOWN]: If the roster sucks, if Kame and Rita and Gucci and Kazy all leave tomorrow, okay, we can have a separate conversation.
[UNKNOWN]: But it's a talented roster.
[UNKNOWN]: It's a deep roster.
[UNKNOWN]: It's just a lot of mismanagement right now, but that can change.
[UNKNOWN]: very quickly.
[UNKNOWN]: We see that with AEW where they have these paper view cycles that are sort of a disaster and they're super mismanaged and dischointed and then they pick themselves up when they just themselves off and and before you know they're white hot again and I think during it is a very similar thing.
[UNKNOWN]: They just go through cycles some longer than others.
[UNKNOWN]: where they are a mess.
[UNKNOWN]: And I think this is historically a mess of a period, but then that could start to change tomorrow.
[UNKNOWN]: You know, we've got no soccer show waiting for us on the network right now.
[UNKNOWN]: I haven't talked to anybody about it, but who knows?
[UNKNOWN]: Maybe that shows fills me with hope.
[UNKNOWN]: I don't know, but it's not.
[UNKNOWN]: I don't buy it on the ice per comparison.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I think that we also have to keep in mind that the drag and system is not like the spring chicken it was before because I agree if everything you said there I don't need to double up on that this promotion I mean we're getting close to this probably should be 30.
[UNKNOWN]: And when you look at the history of Japanese wrestling, promotions that turn 30 are very few and far between.
[UNKNOWN]: And we've kind of, I would have to look up DDT.
[UNKNOWN]: I think DDT just crossed over to that.
[UNKNOWN]: Like, Noah still has to get to 2030 before they turn 30.
[UNKNOWN]: And if you want to like date Tory him on to 1997, or you want to date to 1998, or if you want to go to 131-99,
[UNKNOWN]: The reality of it is that if you look at this promotion the same way that you would look at new Japan or all Japan or or at the time all Japan women's wrestling it there's absent flows and I think that.
[UNKNOWN]: issues are that you have a lot of things happening with I think that happens with calcification and with in management and within like things being done in a certain kind of way and that maybe not taking the thoughts of other people on the roster when they could and that
[UNKNOWN]: And as it relates to, is there hope with it?
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, we've seen, this isn't Mitch and Oku pro losing everyone in that time period.
[UNKNOWN]: This isn't an Osaka pro split.
[UNKNOWN]: This isn't an WWE split.
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, I was on the ground for, we were both kind of there for that time period.
[UNKNOWN]: And this doesn't feel like that.
[UNKNOWN]: This, if there is a fear with it, it is the reality of that this is a company that,
[UNKNOWN]: that that I mean realistically like the business never got to where it was in January of 2020 and taking those years of COVID and reduced capacity almost two full years of that and having that with a promotion that relies so much on crowds, so much on engagement on investment and it did a
[UNKNOWN]: it's still kind of coming to terms with in a lot of ways, guys.
[UNKNOWN]: I would say and I think that that all kind of clouds it and that we have one guy who virtually has done it all in ten years.
[UNKNOWN]: Still has five years left of stuff he could have done, but at this point,
[UNKNOWN]: exiting now.
[UNKNOWN]: I don't think that's going to it, Iceberg.
[UNKNOWN]: I don't think that it is a symbol of bigger problems.
[UNKNOWN]: I think that what you saw is someone who made this company of its size his for this time period and as we saw with like Shingo Takagi and as we saw from Akira Tizawa, I mean Dragon Gates never going to be the company that keeps people.
[UNKNOWN]: or keeps too many people that are not necessarily motivated to stay in the company.
[UNKNOWN]: I mean that the money is never going to be, there are never has been there.
[UNKNOWN]: And I think that that is something that also kind of has to be considered in this.
[UNKNOWN]: Like, I mean monetarily, Shinskai Walker's entering his prime earning years.
[UNKNOWN]: If he has a level of agency, do you stay in the company that pays you at one rate or do you just go to other places that even though they may not be paying as much as they did in years past?
[UNKNOWN]: still a significant step up.
[UNKNOWN]: For someone, if you're looking at your career in that kind of way, students skywalkers doing what students skywalkers going to do, and that's not, and that's not indicative of anything within Dragon Gate.
[UNKNOWN]: I would say.
[UNKNOWN]: I'll end with this.
[UNKNOWN]: I've covered Skywalkers career from his very first match to now throughout that time period.
[UNKNOWN]: He's been my favorite wrestler to watch.
[UNKNOWN]: He's been my favorite wrestler to cover.
[UNKNOWN]: I think he is responsible for as many iconic for moments in his own promotion over the last 10 years as anybody is to their own promotion.
[UNKNOWN]: He is my favorite active wrestler.
[UNKNOWN]: But covering Skywalker for the last decade has been one of the highlights of my time as an analyst.
[UNKNOWN]: I will greatly miss watching him and Drain Gate on a show in show-out basis and I absolutely wish him the best going forward.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I mean, this is kind of what we always say.
[UNKNOWN]: Why we love Dragon Gate.
[UNKNOWN]: We love seeing a promotion that takes advantage of young talent and gives them the opportunity to prosper.
[UNKNOWN]: And I think if you look at it in that kind of way, Shinskai Walker is kind of the best case example, right?
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, he, before he turned 30, he accomplished stuff that people like Masato Yoshino never did.
[UNKNOWN]: And it is,
[UNKNOWN]: Kind of it will be sad.
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, he is a whole that is similar to Tizawa that like there's going to be the what if and there's going to be the personal enjoyment loss of your favorite guy in your favorite place.
[UNKNOWN]: I could only hope that in the future for him.
[UNKNOWN]: He's given the same opportunities and it and gets the same kind of chances that he got in dry and get for the last decade because
[UNKNOWN]: This is someone that could very easily be one of the biggest stars in wrestling, not just in Japan, but in the world.
[UNKNOWN]: And we just were fortunate to be able to cover him from the start.
[UNKNOWN]: And I think on that note, we're going to close up shop here.
[UNKNOWN]: This is,
[UNKNOWN]: This was a long one by had a feeling it was going to be, you could follow us on social media at Open Voice Gate, that's both on Twitter and on Blue Sky.
[UNKNOWN]: Cases out on her score in your case, I'm at Fuji Haya.
[UNKNOWN]: There's a voice is a wrestling discord which I want to extend, uh, it thanks to everyone who asked us questions for this show that really, was a great addition to do this and we appreciate each and every one of those, but we have that channel as well as the Dragon Gate channel.
[UNKNOWN]: there as well, and we'll be back with you next week at Talksome Ray Day for Aha's.
[UNKNOWN]: Take care, everyone.