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[SPEAKER_02]: Look at that one so high!
[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome back to Open the Voice Gate for August 5th, 2026.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm one of your hosts.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's your old pal, Mike Spear,
[SPEAKER_01]: It's an interesting time.
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like in the Dragon Gate schedule now feels like we've kind of had a little bit of return to tradition, but how are you doing bud?
[SPEAKER_00]: Ah, you know, I saw Brooks Jensen fired off another banger to you today.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I can't play.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had to make sure you knew about this tweet as soon as I saw it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, I'm just for for those that might have been sitting in the rest of the piece to Dory Fung Jr. You know, I shared my I shared my Dory Fung Jr. match of choice yesterday, which is, you know, he and Terry versus giant Bobbin and jumbo Saruta from 1973, which is the earliest photo.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but we is the earliest footage of jumbo we have and
[SPEAKER_00]: you can see from the jump that he's pretty great.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would say, you know, very, very cautiously as the man has just died, but far from the biggest dory junior fan, especially far from the biggest dory junior fan when he's not teaming with Terry, but nevertheless, it's a
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's a sad loss just for that era of wrestling, but as we talked about a few weeks ago, my antennas are up on this phony Brooks Jensen.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I see the Mike has painted me at a tweet that he sent out yesterday, 10 24 p.m. in which he said, not gonna lie.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was hoping to see more of our current talent and pro wrestling shows some appreciation for a pioneer like Dory Funk Jr.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just, I don't know what he was expecting.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's the guy tweeting this from the performance center.
[SPEAKER_00]: I see first comment, by the way, from Joe coffee, 98% of the roster don't have a clue mate and don't worry, ignorance must be bliss.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fascinating that Joe coffee would have that take of all people, but yeah, Brooks is very often another one.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am just, I'm all about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm such a big fan.
[SPEAKER_01]: I posted this and the open the voice gate channel on the voices of wrestling discord earlier and I love the fact that he's basically trying to purity test all these NIL hiring and I wanted to like construct a list of people that I feel like that he needs to be like
[SPEAKER_01]: bringing up or whatever, just because it's just, so after we had like the conversation the first time about Brooks Jensen's tweets and his, uh, just into meaner, it really has kind of become true, it would be become like very clear to me that this guy is just a focus of, in case I think he, he is watching earlier today, 705 AM at the PC match, Dory and Terry
[SPEAKER_01]: Another fan of that match.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I can't I can't tell if that's one that I sent out because they obviously had a few different tags for the 70s and that's, you know, that's very fun stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, the function of the 70s speak for themselves and I think that Boba that Boba jumbo team, I think at this point has kind of become largely unexplored because by the time you get to the early 80s jumbo was off doing his own thing and then very quickly you get into that jumbo.
[SPEAKER_00]: ten-routag team.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you sort of have to be up on your 73 to 79, all Japan, which luckily I am, and there's, you know, there's some real high point starting that promotion that I, you know, to me is sort of the pinnacle that we have on footage of 70th wrestling, but yeah, I really liked the 73 match just because it's a lot of, it's one of the only chances you really get to see like a primitive jumbo ceruda,
[SPEAKER_00]: getting worked over the way that a young boy would for the next 50 years, but it's jumbo doing it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's a little bit more engaging and just from the historical perspective of it, it's a little bit more interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: To me, Dory, it much more so than I feel like as a wrestler, because to me, I'm a lot like you, the funk brother scene is really kind of where it's at when you're like watching him.
[SPEAKER_01]: But,
[SPEAKER_01]: Like as a figure, I feel like that, and of course, like he has been kind of somewhat out of wrestling, somewhat in wrestling with the funky conservatory in Ociala, Florida, and all of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I feel like that he is, especially when you talk about Japanese wrestling and the ideas of him really being that star in the 60s and 70s and topping out at the early 80s, for him,
[SPEAKER_01]: He's kind of like one of those lots, other than Hanson, he is kind of the last guy in standard of that big 60s to 70s to 80s Arab to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And even Hanson, I would say, is a little bit from a much more recent era in a way, but like, thinking about at least that time period of Perro, and especially what the function meant as a tag team.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's kind of where I am, a lot of where my thoughts about
[SPEAKER_00]: 80s and 80s and 90s and 90s guy and then you know he retires in 2000, but you're right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, Dory represents an era that is without sound and crass an era that's just dead now, but even though I might not like watching a ton of Dory, but
[SPEAKER_00]: I have the same fascination with reading about his career that I have with a Jean La Belle or with a Danny Hodge or with, you know, Bruno, but especially Bruno and Japan or early Andre and Japan.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because one, I think Dave is kind of in a sweet spot when he writes about those guys.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I love when he mentions Danny Hodge because I think he's one of the most interesting humans ever.
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, this is going to be one of those where it might not hit me in the sense of when.
[SPEAKER_00]: 10 root passes when Hanson passes when Kobashi passes, you know, that, that will be a week dedicated to just going back and watching everything that I possibly can.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't have that for Dory.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm no Brooks Jensen.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't have that feeling when it comes to Dory Funktioner, but I don't have the error that he represents.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm very sad to see go by the wayside.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I'm totally with you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love the fact that I think we brought this up when we really did our ex-bizet of the Performance Center TV.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that it looks like that's very clearly a coffee bar or like hydration station that he's just posting right in front of watching.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was watching like PWG and stuff like this.
[SPEAKER_01]: At an era that's very clearly like get your coffee, get your fill your water bottle up,
[SPEAKER_01]: get back to like break the break room it feels like that he that this guy's just monol just monopolizing the TV watching whatever he wants to do for his brain.
[SPEAKER_00]: Psychotic.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is psychotic.
[SPEAKER_01]: In case speaking of psychos, dragon gate loss perhaps it's biggest psychotic presence yesterday, as Schumst guy Walker had his final match and a dragon gate ring against Amara at the sold out Corkin Hall show, the kickoff to Ray Dave for a house.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that we're going to do a lot more of an expansive conversation about the career of Schumst guy Walker and where we go from here
[SPEAKER_01]: where what we are expecting and kind of like his future next week, but just off the cuff, Cheon Skywalker's career in Dragon Gate almost 10 full years is now over with his victory over Hamari and the SSW Grand Finale.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the story here is that it's not that big of a story.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you and I next week are going to do a show dedicated solely to the Dragon Gate career of Cheon Skywalker
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I all put together some matches, Michael put together some matches and and wool.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had to go through point by point next week of what he's done over the last decade of his career.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I think it's worth a more thorough examination because as we talked about last year, you know, this is a guy who when you sculpt that Mount Rushmore, you know, you've got Schema and you've got Mochazuki and you've got Schingo and that last spot.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like most people would have debated between Yamato and Yoshino when I feel like the 10 years of Shun's Skywalker's career that we've had up to this point were far more effective and far more efficient and peak tire than the 20 years that we got from Yoshino, or as we said during the 20th year of Yamato's career, I thought Skywalker towards the end of last year sort of solidified himself as that fourth head on that Mount Rushmore.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now to
[SPEAKER_00]: At this time last year, late July, early August, what he represented a dragon gate, him ending that Yamato dream gate run, what was going to come of Skywalker versus Kakucha?
[SPEAKER_00]: That was only one year ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you would have told me, after getting through Kobe World with the Amato last year, with him winning the title and escaping that step of O of Heluces, he's going to
[SPEAKER_00]: to get past that, it's in one year later for him to actually leave.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the fact that it is not
[SPEAKER_00]: overtly catastrophic is really interesting on a number of levels.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's one of those things that I've had a hard time placing my emotions with.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've had a hard time synthesizing my thoughts on it.
[SPEAKER_00]: This podcast is going to hit your guys' feeds on Thursday morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: My goal will see if this happens is for the written review to be up Friday morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a chance that gets bumped back to Monday.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the goal is to have the writing up on Friday.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm just as, as I sit here even, you know, 24 hours removed from watching this show, I'm just having a hard time coming to grips with the idea that this is the last time that we're going to see him here.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm having a hard time coming to grips with the fact that it doesn't feel like that big of a deal either.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's, it's all one big swirl of confusing emotions that represent just how weird the last year, but realistically more the last six or seven months
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I originally, when we first got the news that he was leaving, I was like, all right, we have some time before I wanted to get together, like, you know, a written retrospective of a column, like, you know, like, what what I did for Shingo and what I like kind of doing for these kinds of things.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as we got closer, not to double down on what you're saying,
[SPEAKER_01]: my reaction as we got closer than yesterday in a lot of it was that I'm still kind of coming to terms.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm still kind of a little bit of a wait and see that that was going to happen or ending with his final match in the way that he kind of left the promotion and how a contrary
[SPEAKER_01]: The more that I think about it and
[SPEAKER_01]: It's really taking someone who has had maybe and one of the things I want to do next week case is I want to take a look at tenier stretches and people's careers in the dragon system because I feel like that for a year-mount rush more comment I still think that Yomato is very cemented as my number four on that Mount Rushmore but I think that if you take like the first 10 years of someone's career and within the dragon system to look at the
[SPEAKER_01]: But like the fabric, like how he affects like the fabric of the promotion, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like that maybe his departure being like now so far in advance probably helped that this being like the first strike and gate cork in above 1400.
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like since last year.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, yeah, I mean, the farewell, it's funny you sent that note to me today about the sellout and my my initial response was like, Well, yeah, I fucking hope so.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I would weigh that things were going this year in 2026.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was not completely positive.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was going to happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess I was a positive either, but
[SPEAKER_00]: That's, I mean, that's the non-story at all this to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, yeah, they better put 1500 people in the building.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the shoes skywalker farewell show.
[SPEAKER_00]: Had they not done that, I would have been even more gravely concerned about the state of things that I already am.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that to me, which is like, yeah, they better have.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, good moving on.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's, you know, I was thinking about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: a few different things in relation is departure.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I mean, one, you're right, getting out in front of it in May, when the industry was already kind of talking about it, I figured something was up, given some conversations I had earlier in the year that when he wasn't on the WrestleMania weekend list.
[SPEAKER_00]: a few people were like, maybe he's her, but I was like, I feel like he'd be coming over on that trip if he was really committed to the product right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it didn't surprise me that he was on that list and then, you know, we got them announced, but it may.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we had a chance to wind down with him, whereas I think in real time, you know, the Tacumas and the Kentoas and the Kaitoashitas, the guys that leave in some veil of mystery, then always does some damage to the promotion.
[SPEAKER_00]: To me, this feels a lot closer to the A to departure.
[SPEAKER_00]: The reshingo departure, the shingo one, like I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was thinking about this last night where, you know, in real time, the consensus in 2018, and you got to remember this on the heels of the WWE split and she went to York and Lyndon leaving, but the shingo split was largely received as like, yes, this is good for both parties.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it just doesn't seem like there's anything else for him to do in this promotion.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we're as a long time coming.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Talk about him, wanting out probably for several years at that point.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, exactly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whereas, you know, the age of thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: He wins the dream gate in 2020.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's in R-E-D and all of those great R-E-D versus Masquerade matches in 2021, and then you get to 2022, when Schoom gets elevated at that hill unit leader spot, R-E-D becomes zebra hats, and then
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's like I'm still waiting here.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like a kid waiting for his dad to pick him up for the weekend.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm sitting on my front porch stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm still waiting on the H.A.
[SPEAKER_00]: Babyface turn and the partnership with Maria and whatever comes of that and the fact is it just never happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then H.A.A.
[SPEAKER_00]: was slowly phased out because of a mutual agreement that he had with the promotion to where when H.A.L.F.
[SPEAKER_00]: did he even get that announced final match.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just one day it was like, oh, okay, he's actually just he's a full-time Noah guide out.
[SPEAKER_00]: and we all washed our hands, but it wasn't that big of a deal.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what do you think feels more like that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Go ahead.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's going to say, and the eight to thing also had that the fact that there was after the Yoshioka mat, he did a curtain call for that danger skate.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we all thought that was it.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was that was gate of destiny, because that was, no, it was gate of, it was danger skate, because it was in Otaku.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're right, Yamada was gate of destiny.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, because he did he wrestled to Kuma on that on that show.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, that was eight of versus a Yoshioka man event.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, what was what was thinking like a year before that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sorry.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know it was the Kuma on that show.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's because there remember this was the first show that crowds could make noise at, which is it's crazy to think it was November of 2022, but this was such a big deal.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, it was it was a ton to Kuma.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, God, that makes me so sad.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then that your model, your shield, can imagine the main event, but yeah, that, uh,
[SPEAKER_00]: boy, that's depressing.
[SPEAKER_00]: But with Atos, he was slowly phased out to a point that we thought maybe after that Yo Shio come at, she was going to go away.
[SPEAKER_00]: He hung around for a little bit mainly just doing Tokyo and Osaka stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then when he left, it was like, we all kind of shrugged our shoulders and went, OK. And I think maybe we did half of an episode on Atos, but he just felt so disconnected from the fabric of the promotion.
[SPEAKER_00]: By the time he left, it didn't feel that kind of traffic and I do think it is a positive for the promotion.
[SPEAKER_00]: That soon feels the same way that they've successfully landed the plane on this idea that we're going to go forward first with Skywalker by our side and then later We're just going to go off in a separate direction of him and there are things on this show.
[SPEAKER_00]: that made me hopeful about the future.
[SPEAKER_00]: The problem is that you're not leaving behind 2022, Ata.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're leaving behind a guy who, as I've said for years and years and years now, won, I would put him as the fourth head on that Mount Rushmore, but, too, he's the best wrestler of the 2020s not name Will Osperia, Brian Daniel said.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is the guy that you're leaving behind.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think because of some of the odd, booking choices, some of his own creative choices that maybe haven't had the mark, and because he's been so devious this year,
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the type of thing that in the short term we're actually not going to feel, and it's a positive that we're not going to feel that, but in the long term, when we need a big showman event, and when we need a great match, and when we need a great promo, and when we need a great angle,
[SPEAKER_00]: Now we're taking that piece out of the puzzle, and that's devastating.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's the type of thing that is going to hit us all four or five months from now a year from now when we're going to be in a situation and the one guy that could really elevate things is the guy that's no longer here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, like the match itself that he had with Humare, maybe it was that now we have gotten Humare away from Cypatra.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, firmly it was Zeno Sol Nova and Rioia Tanaka that like he has like made his progression away from Shun Sky Walker, where Shun Sky Walker,
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I've been very static wrestler since, uh, uh, August of last year and that that kind of in a way really colored the match for me was just watching this and going like how Mara feels like he's like this figure or like feels like that he's progressing and coming up on that two year anniversary and it's like it goes from the past this match felt like to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, very much so.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, but that's the odd thing with all the shune stuff, as ever since the the cage mentioned, April, everything that he's done.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even when it's been good, it's just felt kind of unnecessary.
[SPEAKER_00]: And like I was really locked in on the Rayday Parace Brayhouse stuff on this show.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had a ton of investment at that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had a ton of investment in the Yamato and KZ stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was really into the opener one because of half the guys in it, you know, Tristan Moody included.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I had a harder time focusing on this guy walker home on our image because it felt unnecessary.
[SPEAKER_00]: He feels like a ghost from the past.
[SPEAKER_00]: It feels like this motion is already kind of moved on without him.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just a very strange thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm having a very hard time rapping my head around the fact that he is actually done even if realistically he's been done for a month now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and it was very much a shune skywalker style match like you had the opening brawl through the crowd and then how Mari tries to uh inverted and drags tune to the orange entrance and a lot of kind of fun cavern uh countering and then like a mobile life that turned into a a
[SPEAKER_01]: crowd or a crab.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then it just kind of went on towards the finish.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a SSW in the Sky Walker moon salt.
[SPEAKER_01]: There was a this was the second Sky SSW of the night.
[SPEAKER_01]: The first one was a wild avalanche into an SSW that as soon as an evil to get there for an immediate three count.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's the other aspect about me just, in a way, feeling like how a femoral this match is was, how Mari progressing and you know, already like, I would argue over the last three weeks has done a lot of good positive steps for his long-term career, and since Guy Walker can't even put over his protege on the way out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, okay, I'm glad you brought that up, because I was going to ask you this question at the finish bothered you or not, and I take it that it did.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I look at these kinds of situations with like the debates and credit system, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I feel like that Shune Skywalker, he had a on his way out.
[SPEAKER_01]: He could have really done the business and how Mario could be in an even better spot.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I feel like that that's a missed opportunity for Hamari's sake.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's my only sense of negativity with it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I, it makes sense that she and Skywalker would put down the guy that he put down in the seal cage for without going completely nuts on it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think only.
[SPEAKER_01]: like that the wrinkle of him heading him with his baby face finish, or his pre-excursion finish, also was kind of nice, but I do kind of wonder if Hommari could have gotten a little bit more out of this match than he ended up doing, because it just was a pretty standard shins guy walker style singles match.
[SPEAKER_00]: The tone of this match reminded me a lot of the final Okada matches in New
[SPEAKER_00]: a much more abrupt, much more dramatic exit.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think Drangate has navigated losing their Ocada in a bit of a more graceful way than New Japan did, but there was this outcry of Ocadas not putting over so-and-so, and so-and-so, and I was like, I don't know, I don't really buy that those guys had Ocada not been leaving.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't buy that they would have been able to beat him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I was watching this Omar imagine, given as I've talked about since April, the mangled booking that he's been a part of.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the fact that he didn't win on TV from May to July, not until they booked the Brave Gate match for World, but not before then,
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not like he came into this match with a ton of momentum happen to lose the Bravegate match, but God damn he's still hot right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Pomare is felt much hotter even in his short career.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think in a few different points in time in his career.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think had he won even if it would have been like a victory role.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I would have rolled my eyes a little bit because if we were going to have this match with the idea that Skywalker's not leaving,
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a zero-percent chance that I would ever buy Hommari winning.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I didn't need to force them.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't need them to force anything here.
[SPEAKER_00]: I felt like this was the appropriate finish.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if the one-night victory when everybody knows that Skywalker is not even one foot out the door.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's out the door by the time this match hits the ring.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if that victory does anything for him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think you have
[SPEAKER_00]: The symbolism of this match.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm very glad they got it in.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm very glad it exists now.
[SPEAKER_00]: He can go focus on his AI unit where I can't think of the name of it to save my life right now and he could just go exist in that universe.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think he'll be better off for long term that way.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, no, no, that's a fair point that if this was a King of Gate match, we would not be calling for that.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'd be like, all right, let's see how, what step forward, how Mara would make in this match up against his former mentor, like that's an incredibly valid point about that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe, yeah, I mean, I think this was kind of worked like a like a King of Gate match.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't, I don't think the finish would have bothered me how to bin within the confining to that tournament.
[SPEAKER_00]: either.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just think he came into this match cold.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the issue.
[SPEAKER_00]: If he is on a completely different trajectory from made to now, and it feels like this victory could actually...
[SPEAKER_00]: bring him up or wrong in the pecking order.
[SPEAKER_00]: I probably have a completely different opinion on it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought they put a bandaid on him in the build to the Brave Gate match, which was largely saved just by the idea that Tanaka's having defense number 12 in your at Kobe world and the Brave Gate is going on second from last.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't really think homemarried at a ton
[SPEAKER_00]: to facilitate that atmosphere and to facilitate that environment.
[SPEAKER_00]: But he also wasn't given a chance because he's been booked so horrendously since he had his head shaved.
[SPEAKER_00]: If he comes into this match with more momentum and then he loses this, he might be a totally different conversation.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the guy, the guy, still pretty cold.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, this is a unit that's going to be propped up by Tanaka for a while, and we'll see how aggressive they get with Kamora.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ideally, I would like them to be really aggressive with Kamora, but we're a year into his career and they're not really showing signs that that's going to happen, but if you were going to do power rankings of the three guys, the average between Kamora and Tanaka and Kamora,
[SPEAKER_00]: Pomora is in third place right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think he's the coldest of the three.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think he's the least interesting of the three and it's not that I'm down on him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was bullish on him as a future Kobe World made adventure than anybody on this roster.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just right now he's in a slump and I think this match sort of accurately depicted that.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's fair.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I would still have Hommari above Komora just because Komora hasn't had a legit win.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I mean, they've got Komora Looking like B boy all of a sudden.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't recognize anybody hit the rig.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, uh, well, let's try to hold those.
[SPEAKER_01]: Did you have any more thoughts about the matches?
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you want to talk about?
[SPEAKER_01]: Zeno Stallnova, the hot new medication.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll table the rest of my Skywalker thoughts for next week.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's a massive loss, but it hits a little bit like the A to one, like I said, where I just think, I think a lot of, you know, for lack of energy from the morning that we were going to do about Skywalker happened when that announcement was first made and this
[SPEAKER_00]: farewell run was so awkward and at times so off put it, you know, in particular, the Kobe world match was so off putting that it is, it is only confused by emotions because I do think this guy is an all-time grade.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think he's one of the 100 greatest wrestlers ever.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think he's one of the most important people in the history of Draingate.
[SPEAKER_00]: This era of the promotion is going to be entirely defined by him and the fact that
[SPEAKER_00]: We're not getting more of him in common, that we're not getting more of him in Rita, that we're not getting more of him in Jason, that we're not getting more of he in Monte.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're not going to get Casey defending the belt against Skywalker, and I think the dynamics for that match would have been fascinating.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the stuff that's going to really hurt, but I think I'll be a little bit more ready to have that conversation next week, because I'm still just sort of fighting through the weird cloud that is this Skywalker fair well run right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I greatly feel the same about it, given a take the week, and we'll come back and do a full kind of post more about my mean, it's also like hard to even say like case, it's hard for me to say case what you're starting on this kind of match when I'm still kind of figuring out how I feel about this match in a way like it was a good enough.
[SPEAKER_01]: Farewell, it wasn't, it didn't have any of the emotions, like as we've kind of been talking about, we've been mourning in real time the departure and maybe we need to mourn for another few days and we'll come back next week to have a more full retrospective of the Dragon Gate career of Shimska Walk.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep, very much so.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Zeno Stahl, Nova, you brought up our new B-Boy look like Kazuma Komorik in his entrance here.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the name of Tanaka Gun.
[SPEAKER_01]: I direct everyone to Jay's blue sky for all the trappings of this that Manit kind of takes the one out of the sales a lot after the debut other than the fact that these are three very
[SPEAKER_01]: young guys in a cool young guy unit that, you know, the further we get away from the state view and like the fact that frankly, it's completely AI generated everything to do with this unit, probably the better everyone kind of feels about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I want to make sure that I'm getting the pronunciation of this, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: It is, you know, stall Nova.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not exactly
[SPEAKER_01]: Not even Italian connection.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not even Italian.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's no crazy Max.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I don't, you know, we're obviously you'd be better off a deep drunker.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know about that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, we've obviously hit a creative Nadir with how these units are being named, the way their logos are being created, the way that they're being built.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I will say I am super bullish on this unit.
[SPEAKER_00]: I really, really like the three of these guys together.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if Tristan Moody wants to stick around, I think he's more than welcome to join this unit.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, real impressive opening match for the Xenostall and Moody group.
[SPEAKER_01]: But this was the opener from Korkin.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was, it was love and peace, Jackie, Rita, and Junior versus Gajitokuro, Medokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokokok
[SPEAKER_01]: Zeno Solenova is a Rio yet's knock and Kazuma Kamora entering from the orange seats as well as Tristan Moody.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Moody every single time he has made the most of it and he feels
[SPEAKER_01]: already like he's up to speed and should be a part of this unit if not just as the assistant for this tour.
[SPEAKER_01]: For someone that Tanaka can team with while Komora and Hawaii are doing Ray Day at Ray House stuff and you know, open for the long-term future of Moody and Japan and seeing where he can go with them and it's he looks great in this and there was a great exchange that he had.
[SPEAKER_01]: uh... with uh... junior with us that the junior apparently popped them on a house show and the two of them just have a very quick and fast chemistry that has been a lot of fun to see uh... at least in this opener
[SPEAKER_00]: I can understand after seeing him work a few different times now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can understand how moody pops at a seminar, try out type of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because for a, I don't know if a relative unknown or a complete unknown is the app term, but certainly something that somebody that I was not familiar with, prior to his association with Dragon Gate,
[SPEAKER_00]: the way that he moves around the ring.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's two things here.
[SPEAKER_00]: One, once I was told that his favorite wrestler was AJ Styles, everything about him made so much force sets.
[SPEAKER_00]: I like this guy moves around the ring like AJ, but that's a good thing because this guy moves around the ring like AJ.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I watched him with laser focused on this match to see if he was going to have the timing needed to hang with Kame into hang with Rita into hang with Junior,
[SPEAKER_00]: in the hang with Jason and some of the more complex sequences and I was I was so thoroughly impressed by what I saw by this guy it raises questions once again and this is not a new issue this is sort of a seven or eight year long issue now at this point as to what people on the American Indies are watching and how a guy like this even at his age and experience level was able to slip through the cracks and all because he's clearly I think better than 95% of the guys that
[SPEAKER_00]: He's fantastic in this match.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm really bullish on him right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just want to see more of him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I get why he's not in a raday prey house.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that probably would have been overdoing it with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I hope that he makes TV on all of these two or shows because I want to see more and more of him now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and he works well with Xenosal Nova.
[SPEAKER_01]: It just, it clicked with him and Komora in this match.
[SPEAKER_01]: What a great babyface in peril.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like him just taking and ask kicking in the to the way that he was able to kind of pull that together and it rolled that he's probably going to have to do whenever they're doing the trios or the tag matches.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's going to be a lot probably of Komora getting
[SPEAKER_01]: beat up during Ray Day for a house, but he's already so good at it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's already such a good wrestler.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a thing with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think sometimes they play a very dangerous game.
[SPEAKER_00]: I worried about this with Dikey a little bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I guess I have similar concerns with food, although that's a different conversation, but sometimes in Dragon Gate, like,
[SPEAKER_00]: I just wish they would release the pressure valve and just have these guys get a win so that it's not a story about them not winning and the comor thing is so odd because given some of the the opportunities that he's been put in whether it was to triangle gate management tomorrow and skywalk or last year or the fact that he's now in a unit as a guy with the gear with the theme song and a push unit that's gonna be featured a lot
[SPEAKER_00]: It just feels like he's above a storyline where he doesn't have a win.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't think, I mean, maybe I'm wrong, but, you know, let's say they come back to Cork in next month.
[SPEAKER_00]: He gets his ass kicked all throughout Ray Day Paray House, and he wins they have our, you know, home already hitting the fireburg splash, and tomorrow still doesn't have a pinfall one year in his career.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't get the impression, maybe you just agree that if he just comes out next month and an opening eight man tag and throws junior through the mat and pins him, I don't think that's going to get that crazy of a reaction.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like he's above the storyline that they're putting him in and it's not one of those like Yoniguchi where like, we're like, oh god, I hope he can do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope he can get that first win who knows what that could lead to.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, all right, let's, let's get on with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like this guy's better than the pusher giving him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I don't think he needs to throw him crazy, but let's get on with this a little bit.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, like, even in this match itself, it felt like that with the way of where Junior is on the card right now, I kind of came into the match, thinking, okay, sure, Tanaka probably is going to win this match.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is the unit leader here, but the next most obvious thing for me was Kamura, Penning, or tapping out, Mocha Zuki Junior, and it would not have been a surprise.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, and I think it just, it would have been good.
[SPEAKER_00]: to be able to to take that breath, and then I think it would have made this rate a Praha's team more interesting because if Komora gets his first win in this match on this show in Corkin, now I can watch what he does in Kobe and what he does in Nauron, what he does in Osaka, I think they're making tape twice at the tournament.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like now I could watch those with the idea that oh he could get another win on the show But I don't think and I forget where he makes TV But let's just say he he's making TV in Nara.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think they're gonna give him his first win there And I don't really want that for him I think at this point, they're just they're kind of already in a position I know this is dangerous to say one show into this unit's history But I worry a little bit there already sort of
[SPEAKER_00]: pulling back or needlessly reigning in this unit.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm ready for Komor to do something else.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the more they talk about him not having a win, the more like for lack of a better term, uncomfortable it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I just want him to be in a higher spot than he is now, because I think for the workers on this roster, at least the output we've gone in 2026, I think he's in the upper half, he's in the upper echelon.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it definitely feels like that it closing in on that anniversary, if not have already passing in.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just not remembering offhand right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I believe it was September.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I think it was September of last year.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because October was that triangle gauge match that he had lined.
[SPEAKER_01]: That makes sense because then September he was at the he was in the algebra
[SPEAKER_01]: 11 months into his career.
[SPEAKER_01]: It feels like that he in a lot of ways he's doing exactly where you want your uh dragon gate rookie to be in like I mean he's already in his first unit he's already like at this point but it does in a lot of way and I think it's just like his sheer ability and the the hot first six weeks of his career making you feel like man.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can he really, can we really get the show on the road here?
[SPEAKER_01]: And it almost feels like in that way that he's behind when in reality he's kind of where he should be at in a way other than his prodigious ability kind of changing the overton window with him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hmm, yeah, I think that's interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, he rocks and I don't love his gear.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't love this new look.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I think the shorts might be a mistake.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think going back to the biker shorts would be a better look for this makes him look a little smaller, which I don't like.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and if he did the shorts, he could look like 2000 and two.
[SPEAKER_01]: Dick Toga.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, right now he just looks like B-boy from the SoCal Indies.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't, he's doing the like 2,000 Indies shorts that I just, I don't, I don't, I don't like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me ask you this, let me ask you this.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have a one roast on the gimmick, but before I, you toss on a alternate, LeDani and Thomas and Jersey, we'd be saying he's MCKZ.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the thing, it kind of reminds me of like Puggie KZ.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't really want to be reminded of Puggie KZ.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, and I like the, and I understand that like his little logo that he still has on the shorts that were the same from his tights, maybe don't translate to light blue and gold as well as other things, but it, it's a little bit of a pleasure shorts job, you know, a little jersey all pro.
[SPEAKER_00]: This can relate to both the opener and the main event.
[SPEAKER_00]: I sort of want to get your thoughts as just a concept here.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're now removed from Kukuta's dream gate champion, Eastern and Kato's still your twin gate champions.
[SPEAKER_00]: Gosh, I'd joke around the way that they were represented and the way that they performed on this show.
[SPEAKER_00]: What's your temperature check there with them as the hill unit?
[SPEAKER_00]: Now that we don't have Kukuta with the belt.
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel pretty comfortable, you know, I kind of felt like as soon as Kakura dropped the belt and really like we kind of got into, I know we're not the one year anniversary point, but as we got away from it, that things would feel a little bit more comfortable and I think also having a tag tournament happening, kind of restrained the amount of Gajadokuro.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right now, you know, I mean, they're down to functionally five people, so there's not as much just influence on the show and I think that impacts it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm with you there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I'm, I think I'm ready.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now I also said this two years ago and it didn't happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I'm ready for Kai to do something different.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I think paradox Kai, and I would like for paradox to go away too.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think paradox Kai is probably a little bit more tolerable than gosh, I don't grow Kai at this point.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I like Jason and Kuku together,
[SPEAKER_00]: I worry about Eshen and Kato, I simultaneously really like that tag team, and also think that they don't bring out the best in one another, which is a very odd thing to say.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think as a team, they do good work, and I feel like both of them are still capable of doing something better.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think, and I get not to jump too far ahead into the main event, because I have separate thoughts on that and we'll talk about heo and the lot and all that sort of stuff, but
[SPEAKER_00]: I wasn't bothered by the referee interference in the weapon spots in the main event, given the context of what that main event was.
[SPEAKER_00]: I felt like that fit, that was fine, that didn't bother me.
[SPEAKER_00]: What I don't want is when we're in Nara at the end of the month, I don't want Asian and Cato versus Cami and Rita.
[SPEAKER_00]: to turn into that same sort of structure of match.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think this is a time and the same way that I want them to release some of the pressure with with Komora.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think this is a time for Gajadokuro to play things a little bit more straight.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's Jason and Kuku to go out there and just have really good matches.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is no need for them at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: to have any sort of referee interference spots for the next month.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is just not something they are going to need to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think those guys are capable of being a really great tag team, at least for the month that we have them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And while I, in theory, would like to blow up vives, and I would like to blow up paradox, and I would like to blow up Gajadokro, and I would really like to shuffle the deck on some of the stuff, and get guys like Montay back in the mix, and we'll see what they're doing with food here, which I'm a little intrigued by, which we'll talk about here in just a minute.
[SPEAKER_00]: If they're going to exist, they're going to be around.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do feel like this is a time to go a little bit easier on what they had been doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I feel like we might get that with Jason and Kakuta.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't feel like we're going to get that with Isha and Kato and that's a bit of a bummer.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do have a bad feeling that their entire tournament is going to look like what we saw in the main event.
[SPEAKER_00]: And to me, that's just unnecessary.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it would be real nice if we don't see the cookie sheet that much over the next month.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I thought it worked in that main event.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought it made sense for that match.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't need it in Kobe.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't need it in Osaka.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't need it in a Nara.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't need it next month when those semis in Korken.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't need it anymore.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, I'm with you on that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just think like having Kakuta in this tag team with Jason and it just being the pressure being left it off of that and just having a A month or so where he's just kind of in that scene and at least with the situation with
[SPEAKER_01]: team 204 as twin gate champions, you kind of know that he's not going to be challenging for the twin gate most likely and it just feels like that this is where it needs to be and it would be nice if we had if we dialed back all the heel shenanigans for this tournament and
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, I'm with you on how they kind of felt in this match.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I really enjoyed this opener.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was, I was three and three quarters on it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought that it was really great.
[SPEAKER_01]: The finish was cross-saver on to junior, just a really, really fun stuff and moody is great with these two guys.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I really feel like that the further we get away from it,
[SPEAKER_01]: I know that generative AI is what it is and people have their well-founded opinions on it and more often than not I'm on I'm completely with them on it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just kind of think that this is in a lot of ways.
[SPEAKER_01]: that yeah, dragon gate has always been bright units and with that in a level of kind of creativity that is that that isn't thick enough of that, but I do think that the more that it just kind of get through it and it was I other than just the silliness of it and the fact that this company is the one company that seems to be using AI for everything and I totally understand
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's going to be hard to kind of get through now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't have the energy to do the AI conversation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, because I have it enough in my own personal life.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just feel like I'll shoot myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I talk about it anymore, I don't like it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't change anything about the promotion for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wish they wouldn't do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I feel like these names are overly confusing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they're not going to catch on.
[SPEAKER_00]: And
[SPEAKER_00]: It's it's word vomit for the sake of word vomit.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I wish they would get away from it from that perspective I really at this point in time given the way that they're using it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have no further opinion on it as for the match I don't know if it's a hot take to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mike.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was I thought it was the best match on the show and I also had a really okay I had it three and three quarter same rating.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought it was the best thing on the show.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now it had Komora and Kame and Rita and Jason
[SPEAKER_00]: and Tanaka and Junior in it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you're taking away a lot of the structure that is holding up this roster right down, you're putting them all in one match.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought this was the best thing on the show.
[SPEAKER_00]: I did not go notebook with anything on this show.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I had one match at notebook that we'll talk about later, but yeah, it this was not a bad cork and that this was very much a cork and that although it was red day for a horse based the real purpose of this cork and what's it tell this Tokyo crowd.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, next month red day for a horse finals were back here for that, but after that, we have our big show in Oda Ward and we have all of this set up for Oda Ward.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think it achieved that that purpose and I think that the match quality was enough that I'm not going like, geez, we don't have three four star matches that this is a garbage cork and I don't think it was a garbage cork and and I think that you know the shoe skywalker match could be anything from three stars to four and a quarter and I believe you I just haven't come down at that point at on sing what it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought this was a productive show, which I really haven't been able to say about most of their shows this year.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought this accomplished a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: I did not love everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I tolerated just about everything and I thought they accomplished a lot on this show and I will take that every few corkons over just a great show I would love for them at some point this calendar year to whip up a great show that'd be nice to see that would be a nice change of pace I don't really think we've got one of those in cork and since
[SPEAKER_00]: January, realistically, like a top-to-bottom, hey, everybody's got to check this out.
[SPEAKER_00]: How great was this show type show?
[SPEAKER_00]: This was certainly not that, but I do think they accomplished a lot here, and I'll take that every once in a while.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I do really think that you look at how much the running Tokyo at this time of year, and given that next one is the Radea Prahaos finals, next Gorkin is that, and then you turn around and they're right in Oto Ward.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that there's a level of understanding, and it changes kind of the window of what you expect out of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: They'll be back in the building in less than a
[SPEAKER_00]: You know me, I typically just asked for a month long build for at least a dream gate match if not brave twin triangle and we're we're working on the twin gate in this tournament.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've got our brave gate bash.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've got our dream gate match.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would love for them to have any sort of desire to put any sort of emphasis on the triangle gate belts that just doesn't seem like it's going to happen as long as 11 piece our champions, which is a complete end in the tournament too.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this tournament makes it real hard to build up a triangle gate match.
[SPEAKER_00]: It does, but you have, you, you booked a love and peace trio smash and cork at it.
[SPEAKER_00]: This was probably the one thing where I was like, oh, well, they could have, they could have done something here.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I get maybe they don't want to tip their hand.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, maybe it ends up being Jason the cocoon tie challenging for those belts, and they can't announce that until after the rainy, perihostanding shake out the way that they do.
[SPEAKER_00]: I get that, but I would have like some greater inclination as to what direction we're going with that, because you could realistically tell me they have no idea what the triangle gate match is going to be at September, and I would be forced to believe you if that was the case.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, and I think that it may be this year for me, Morso, because of Oda Ward, being where it is afterwards.
[SPEAKER_01]: It kind of, and I don't have the immediate recollection of how I felt about, well, I know how I felt about some of our venture tag league 2016, but 2017 2018 as how it relates to the other titles, like I don't remember that off top of my head, but I do kind of feel like the fact that you have the triangle gate.
[SPEAKER_01]: belts across two teams in the tournament, kind of in a way, takes them those three people out of winning Ray Day Prahaus.
[SPEAKER_01]: In a way, given the fact that I think it's within expectations that it's probably going to be Ray Day Prahaus one or in a twin gate kind of match.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I guess you're right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hadn't really thought about the fact that they just figured out a new excuse to beat Kame and Rita, but they now have a new excuse to be Kame and Rita.
[SPEAKER_00]: They can job them out for all of Radea Praha's and then give them a lame duck, triangle gate match at what was dangerous gate.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're just really avoiding that name today, aren't we?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I can never think of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the, like, going to call a scene, oh my god, that was easy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Uno does trace, I like that name.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the, what, Hector one finnity in, I can't, I, like, I'm not even doing a gimmick.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't think of what it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: Tokyo Infinity Hector Pascal.
[SPEAKER_01]: It looks so bad on Twitter, but like I feel for Jay having to, basically, whenever they're doing all the match announcements for
[SPEAKER_01]: things for it going, uh, uh, the symbol for cyclone Tokyo spelled as if you were writing it from Spanish.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's with an eye.
[SPEAKER_01]: The infinity symbol and then the abbreviation for Hector Pascal, which I did not know was until music man made this up on H on AI.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's Tokyo
[SPEAKER_01]: uppercase P, lower case A, that's what the show's called now.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, and again, I'm not doing a gimmick.
[SPEAKER_00]: What's the Tanaka unit?
[SPEAKER_01]: Xenosol Nova.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, God, that is so annoying.
[SPEAKER_01]: That the frustrating thing is like, it's very clear what if they are supposed to be, why is it Xenos with an X and not Xenos with a Z?
[SPEAKER_00]: And why is it Xenos with an X and not Z?
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's blowing up right here because it's a Gen Z unit.
[SPEAKER_01]: They should have a Z name in it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You would think now I do like that at least as of now.
[SPEAKER_00]: They haven't really.
[SPEAKER_00]: The unit is not about how young they are.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's a trope that there's a dangerous trope to get into with all of Japanese wrestling right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I like that they're just guys that happen to be together.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you're right.
[SPEAKER_00]: But again, Uno does trace.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can remember that golden Coliseum.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can remember that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hector Pedro Pascal or whatever the show is I can't it's going to and I'm going to have a right that that's going to kill me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, man, uh, and it's even like for a gate of origin at a sea rank show going and becoming to Hoku dragon gateway, you can remember that one.
[SPEAKER_01]: because you're like, okay, it's into Hoku, Dragon Gate, way, and that's it, but this one is rough.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is, I remember it because it's only really funny to hear being said.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the only reason why I remember it's because it's ridiculous.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is really interesting that in such a down you're creatively and such a down you're at the box office.
[SPEAKER_00]: that they have decided to make so many of those changes, whereas I think if I was manning the helm, I would be really firm on, hey, you know what, at least for this year, we're gonna keep the debtor live branding.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know it's in a different building, but it's still debtor live.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're gonna keep the danger escape branding.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're gonna make sure that both of our new units don't have stupid names that nobody can remember.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would lean into that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Drangate seems to be going the opposite direction.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will say I like the colors.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think you'd going baby blue is a color that they really have not done too much of.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even though I know that D. Courage had blue in it, but going like baby Carolina blue, I think is a nice kind of difference.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was expecting pink and we got just neon blue, which is kind of... Oh God, no, Tonaca looks great.
[SPEAKER_00]: How am I?
[SPEAKER_00]: I wish Kamor would change his gear but he largely looks very good.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it was a successful launch.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I just think the name of the line.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and and I do think that the further we get away from it, the more we're just going to be deep drunkers, you know, I think that that was a great name, you know, but Looking of things we could get away from zero shambashi go had Mike.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, Girishambashi had the next part of the Yamano-tae train challenge series at Condestation.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was Yuzu Shikanda.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everyone knew it was Yuzu Shikanda.
[SPEAKER_01]: He ran through him in 45 seconds with the reviews.
[SPEAKER_01]: Giro afterwards said, hey, this is ridiculous here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everyone knew that it was Condah.
[SPEAKER_01]: let's just move on here and Riosite said nope you have not won yet and i think you're going to though i think you're right you're going to have your last one because at auto ward the last stop potentially the harajuku station stop of the yamanote line shambashi series will be against manorasizuki
[SPEAKER_00]: Nice to see you Suzuki back.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure that match will be fun.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm starting to once again lose energy and lose focus on GRO over the last year.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've gone through various spurts of really enjoying it and then being out on it and that he sucks me back in.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm back out on it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I really just want him to be incorporated in the roster at this point.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you have Bang Bang Paro, the clown's hanging around here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Too much comedy we talked about it last week and at least like this time on a show that there was a lot of things that had to be done, they kept the comedy thing and really the jokiness of the show kind of to a minimum.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no, that was, I mean, that was great.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, you know, I thought it was a productive show.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're gonna talk about a match in just a second that had an undercard angle on it, which I haven't seen from this promotion this year.
[SPEAKER_00]: So limited comedy, stuff happening, no clowns, a nice change of pace.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'd say, I'd say, and talking about the endocrine angle, the next match was a 10-man tag.
[SPEAKER_01]: They realized that Zenith wasn't on the show, so they re-they re-figured out this match.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was Ultimo, Zenith Yukiyoshioka, and Bikotima Norp, Panchamunaga, and Rhea Fuda, versus the veterans of Masaki mojizuki, Don Fuji, Ginki, Horiguchi, Mondai Ryo, and Takashi.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a nothing match up until the finish and I thought the finish was super newsworthy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the finish was Coachman Nora running through, hitting the R-301, Rhea Fuda, shoves them out the way, gets the three count and immediately challenges Rhea to Naka for the Brave Gate title, to Naka comes out and goes, you're not facing me for the Brave Gate title.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been wanting to challenge Dragon Kids and Skobae World.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not doing this.
[SPEAKER_01]: You've done nothing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And J.M.
[SPEAKER_01]: Riosito said, yes, no, we're going to go track and kid at Oda Ward and Reofuda standing around looking frustrated at this.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't think kind of started to do something with him last year during the moches of Kidojo stuff where he started to win some matches and that led to him challenging to knock him for the brave game belt.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I thought all of that stuff was done very well and I thought maybe that was going to be the jumping off point for food where we would see him as less of a sore thumb on this roster and more of just an actual roster member.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then that didn't happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now we've once again reset where we're going to try to do something with Fuda as we approach his fifth year anniversary in November debuted same time as to Kuma Fujiwara right after Rita on a show that was headline by Yamato versus Binke and a high-end
[SPEAKER_00]: and it seems like we finally have something with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought this angle was clever.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love what they do stuff like this.
[SPEAKER_00]: This promotion, my biggest complaint this year is not the comedy.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is not even the overdone heel stuff that Gajadokuro has done.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the fact that a lot of times pre-intermission
[SPEAKER_00]: nothing happens, and nothing gets accomplished, and nothing goes forward whatsoever.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so now you're in a position, I mentioned this after world where I don't want to knock at a hit as 12th defense and then lose in a 13th, I would like for him to extend himself beyond pox record for a little bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what I like about this is that you're setting up an opportunity for him to beat dragon kid and then for him to also beat fooder.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now you've set up two brave game matches, which I think it's really well done and you're sort of have a question mark hanging over what food it does now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I would say that also you look into how the fall is and let me pull back up the schedule for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Homecoming shows.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, homecoming shows September 20.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was just looking at the same thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this timber schedule is going to be chaotic as it's going to be.
[SPEAKER_01]: The third will be the Ray Day for a house finals.
[SPEAKER_01]: They have a Yamato homecoming match on the six.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then they have a kind of gawa show, they have a knock-in-o show, and then on the 20th, they have Tohoku, Dragon Gateway, and you've just set up your Brave Gate programs through that point.
[SPEAKER_01]: And with Tanaka, at least, you look at the length of a rain and the records that he has left.
[SPEAKER_01]: He gets through those
[SPEAKER_01]: He's going to be past day 400 and he's staring down packs single rain record of 447 days.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's within reach now.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I see no reason why they should be eager to move off of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, dragon, it's not going to beat him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I feel like he would be a disaster for food if he beat him.
[SPEAKER_01]: That would feel like he would have to turn heel immediately.
[SPEAKER_01]: It would have to be a whole thing where like he betrays everyone in his hometown and joins
[SPEAKER_00]: What did that suck?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the way they in the Tanaka reign.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that, you know, you already have the pressure.
[SPEAKER_00]: This will sound overly dramatic, but I feel it within the context of Trangy, this is actually a fair comparison.
[SPEAKER_00]: You already have the issue of whoever beats Tanaka.
[SPEAKER_00]: is going to run the risk of being the Takeshi Rikio to the Keticobashi with the GHC Heavyweight title 20 years ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're already going to run that risk given how this brave gate run his bed.
[SPEAKER_00]: I still think there's one guy that I would even entertain right now in terms of beating Tanaka and that is Gucci.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think the company is going to go in that direction, which baffles me, but he's the type of guy that has the momentum is at the right place in
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, to where I think he would really benefit, it would actually be elevated from beating Tanaka.
[SPEAKER_00]: Food is not on that spot where there's a baby face or a heel.
[SPEAKER_00]: And given everything we've gone through this year, with Gajado Cro, and the overreliance on the cheating and the heel antics and what a turn off this unit has been for most people, sub-one thousand attendance cork, it's multiple times this year.
[SPEAKER_00]: For them to even think about ending the Tanaka Brave Gate run, and some sort of gimmick heal finish would be revolting.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean it would be absolutely disgusting.
[SPEAKER_00]: It would take a lot of the wind out of my sales and look, I'm not exactly in love with things that are going on right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have my own issues sometime opening up the laptop.
[SPEAKER_00]: and really having to try really hard to focus on these shows because there's just not a lot for me to sink my teeth into.
[SPEAKER_00]: Food of beating Tanaka in that fashion, I would really have to start looking in the mirror and asking myself some questions about what I'm doing here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, I just can't dismiss it out of hand.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're absolutely right about it is such a gut punch to end the greatest brave gate run of all time and all the momentum on that Gucci is the obvious exit ramp whenever you want to get to that point.
[SPEAKER_01]: It just seems like to me that, like, we are really entering this phase of Tanaka's brave gate run that he has that one last record to get through and getting through these two defenses will get them to that point, at least that'll get him to day 448 or at least close to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, well, yeah, I mean, if that's the case, I didn't realize he was that close to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: If he's that close to it, then yeah, I mean, full steam ahead, get him two more defenses.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you're still in a situation.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I know we've gone through this exercise a ton, but you know, I just want to look back at who he's defended the belt against and who he has it because you could always go back to.
[SPEAKER_00]: a com a rematch or a retail rematch or they can do, um, you know, if they want to do another UT match, I would I would certainly welcome that, but you're going to get the Dragon Kid match.
[SPEAKER_00]: I presume we're going to get the food of match.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's always a chance they could do Sussoumo or Cagotaur if they wanted to cut some weight.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we still don't have a junior defense.
[SPEAKER_00]: He hasn't wrestled the clowns, which I guess is now a possibility.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm still waiting on an Australia defense if he wanted to come back and wrestle one time in Japan.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that would be super interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's still some mileage here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, unless and less to move is we are going to elevate Gucci and then put Tanaka in the dream gate conversation immediately.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm really not interested in the possibility of him losing the title because I think this title rain, whether it is against dragon kid first time match, food a rematch, whatever it is, whatever the outcome is, I'm still super into it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just want to see this rain go and go and go and outside of Gucci, there's nobody that I really feel is fit to properly challenge him and to
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, it just seems like you have to get to the point when you're ready to get it to Gucci and you know, it does feel like as you like go towards fall and I mean, you got to do it in cork and if you do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Got a new one.
[SPEAKER_00]: He hasn't done the heo match yet either.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think it would be crazy if they had this big long brave gate running.
[SPEAKER_00]: You didn't have the heo match.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think heo should beat him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I would say heo realistically has better odds of beating him than you.
[SPEAKER_00]: She does.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just think Gucci's the obvious answer even if the company doesn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you go through drank and you go through food.
[SPEAKER_00]: And by that point, they'll have probably be 11 piece on every single show ever.
[SPEAKER_00]: So then they'll have lost a triangle
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I kind of look at heo as King of Gate 2026 at this point and I agree the the problem is then you're in look I'm I'm far from the guy that judges people on size, but a crazy yo dream gate main event.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's certainly appalling to go they're not exactly landing the cover of weekly pro with that match here.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean they're even for dragon gates.
[SPEAKER_01]: He didn't even make it for winning the title.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, no, of course not.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's G1 season.
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you think they're going to do?
[SPEAKER_00]: Show coverage of dragon gates?
[SPEAKER_01]: We have to get you, uh, you'll win more on the cover.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, of course.
[SPEAKER_00]: But.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love KZ.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think he should realistically have a dreamgate match with the next year.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do think they're even for Drengeet is an optics issue of heo versus KZ for the dreamgate belt.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just think that is inviting anybody that's a tractor or a doubter of this promotion or of this style.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think they could hone in on a match like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm just not sure that that's where I want heo challenging for the belt.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, that's entirely fair.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I also think that he and Tanaka in Cork and having a brave game match won.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think you could headline Cork and with that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And two, I think it would be super, super hot.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's crazy they've held it all for on it for this long.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm, you know, that's another one that's like, I'm ready for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that would be great.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think they could do 1300 people in the building with that match.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, I think that especially the way they treated Gucci in the building it seems like even if it's not hand-winning the title there you've got to do the brave gate match for him and cork and it's a great story that would be I mean that that writes itself if they go through this to knock around if they don't do that whether Gucci wins or loses I think that's malpractice that's just terrible.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I am totally with you on that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's talk about the Rade per A house action that we had.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was three matches to kick off the opening night.
[SPEAKER_01]: They opened the show with a full ceremony.
[SPEAKER_01]: Humari, technically, as the winner of last year's Rade day per A house gave the opening address, which was kind of funny.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that he was even kind of surprised about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: But we got into tournament action.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have three block matches.
[SPEAKER_01]: C-L-O and Monte versus Fulmida and Songrae's Tech Adjunir, the original Jimi's versus Strong Machine J and Lyona, and then the main event of Team 204 versus Hio and Mion Mion.
[SPEAKER_01]: An interesting first night, we were all kind of speculating on Mion Mion.
[SPEAKER_00]: We talked about Mion Mion first, let's go chronological here, because I think you and I are maybe on completely different pages on one of these matches.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, we're going to get into that right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: The first right-day Praha's match was Monte and LCLO versus Fumita and a song greatest tech adjunior.
[SPEAKER_01]: This was a B block matchup.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a super tea great out of nowhere to get the win for Monte and CLO putting them at two points and leaving Fumita and as tech adjunior at zero points.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I love this.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was foreflight on this.
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought that this was
[SPEAKER_01]: And as someone who I'll admit, I am, I have not been watching enough of Mitch Noku Pro and Sangeria's second junior here, but I really enjoyed him a little meet in this.
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought that Montana and C.L.O.
[SPEAKER_01]: had a great chemistry as a team here, and these two guys do kind of seem like natural pairings, and I just thought that this was the strongest thing on the show.
[SPEAKER_01]: really enjoy the fact that it just kind of was in all out sprint, uh, just tag match.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it with two teams that never really have team before that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yet a huge flame fly near fall at 10 minutes that I bought completely.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll rank these workers individually in this match.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought Cielo was great, though this was an outstanding LCLO performance, really like the energy that he brought to the table, I do.
[SPEAKER_00]: It just has a caveat, as a little side note here, given what we saw with Kaisi and with Kukuta in July, it is crazy to think that Cella was ever in that conversation.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I say this is so many that doubted whether or not Kaisi should even be in that spot, but knowing what I know now, it's crazy that Cella was even considered.
[SPEAKER_00]: That being said, Cella was great in this match.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought Flamita,
[SPEAKER_00]: was very good.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tournament for me to modern-day natural vibes to lead to, I complained at the end of our Kobe Road review.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought he might go home after a world and I thought, God, are they waste this time in Japan this year?
[SPEAKER_00]: Just nothing of note, nothing for him to sink his teeth into the weakest Japanese tourist half that's probably 2019.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now we're sticking around for a day per a house.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought he was very good here.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do keep up with modern-day Mitch Joku Pro.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think he's very clearly a step behind Fulmita.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think he's a step behind Cello.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought Sangeria's Tega was good.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought he looks like a lower tier Dringy wrestler in this match, but you know what?
[SPEAKER_00]: When you're in a match with Fulmita with Cello, that's okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: He held his own as best he could.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know what planet Louis Monte was on in this match.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought he at various points in time.
[SPEAKER_00]: ground this match to a halt, lacked energy, lacked charisma, didn't pull his weight.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought the finish looked like shit, which was by way of him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought Montage dragged this match down.
[SPEAKER_00]: to a noticeable degree.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I'm not going to panic and have any long-term concerns about Monte, the stock still high.
[SPEAKER_00]: I still wish this guy was in a unit.
[SPEAKER_00]: I still wish they would push him and do something with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: But my God, did I think this was an off night for Monte?
[SPEAKER_00]: And as a result, I was nowhere near as high as you were.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, Montet had a really gnarly moment hitting the top turn vocal and falling to the floor towards the finishing stretch that took Jay and Oh, well, when they noticed how rough that kind of was in the fact that he kind of revitalized himself to get him into the or make it to the finish was kind of surprising there.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that for me, this was a match that kind of, I was so excited about seeing Sangeria's Taka, that maybe my enthusiasm, maybe colors it, somewhat that I had high expectations and it didn't completely stink, so I thought it was better than probably.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I thought as Taka was good in this match, my issue was Monte Ling on his back, putting him in a key lock for what felt like 25 minutes.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were just little Monte things in this match, where I was like,
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, yes, the Flamita Montay and Alphabet and Dragon Wolf matches from last year.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, those were cursed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those all ended poorly for whatever reason those matches outside of the bull you didn't want, which is the one that nobody saw, but you and I, you know, those matches in cork and just for whatever reason did not have the vibe, they were not able to stick to landing on those, but they went balls to the walls and they were all super crazy in those matches.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this was.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought Cielo being reckless in a way that was wildly entertaining.
[SPEAKER_00]: Flamita sort of being the glue of this match.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just take a junior being there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I thought Montet was just, it was like he was wrestling a different match.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like you're in there with Cielo with Flamita.
[SPEAKER_00]: Pick up the energy just a little bit.
[SPEAKER_01]: He had to have a great mask though.
[SPEAKER_01]: He had to have a soul.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Him and C.L.O.
[SPEAKER_01]: had disparate masks.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then Fulmeta and Aztec Jr. had split mask.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it was a really cool aesthetic, performance at the very end.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, look, I mean, look, this is, you know, I don't know if we're going to get the digest stuff on YouTube.
[SPEAKER_00]: It seems like there might be tentative plans to do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that way, we would see more of Flamita and Estika Jr.
[SPEAKER_00]: If we only get Kobe Osaka Nara, this will be the last time we see them.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm looking forward to seeing what else Montana and CLO can do.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to like that team.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would love for Zenith to eventually be Yoshio Kaminura, Montese yellow fooda, because we didn't really talk about that with fooda.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think
[SPEAKER_00]: I would kind of like the swerve of menorah liking his fire and inviting him into that unit.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you could put Montaine's yellow there, then you filled out that unit without issue.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm going to need to see more of this team and I'm going to need Montaine to pick up the pace a little bit.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and given the fact that we're going to have a lot of seal them on to make tape hopefully this was just an off night, and then we could see how things are as we progress further.
[SPEAKER_01]: The second Ray Day Pray House match was a a block match.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was the original Jimmy seam of Susumi Yakuza and Cogatora versus the second generation.
[SPEAKER_01]: uh... the war between the fuchanami and the harada family it was forty years of a war that to sue me fuchanami wage uh... unveiling street super strong machine but that has finally this year has been put behind us we have the second generation team uh... it is the harada in the fuchanami fan families finally united strong machine j and liona
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was a machine, it was a machine suplex hold after a struggle on cockatura getting the win for the second generation team.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe a little bit of a surprise upset.
[SPEAKER_01]: The original Jimmy say pat at zero and strong machine Jay and Leon at exit the first night with two points.
[SPEAKER_00]: I only would have been bothered by the finish had it been Leon up hitting somebody, but strong machine J, you know, he needs wins.
[SPEAKER_00]: He needs to look strong.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not sure this tournament's going to accomplish that with them.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's a little bit dangerous to have the young vibes together, to have KZ is dream gate champion.
[SPEAKER_00]: and to have Flavito with seemingly a really exciting partner, which Strung Machine J already feels ice cold to then put him with Leona.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have some long-term concerns there.
[SPEAKER_00]: But this was perfectly acceptable mediocre per wrestler.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, Leona is just a hard watch.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: He just moves around the ring in a way that is unpleasant to watch.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, he's just not a, not a aesthetically pleasing pro wrestler discipline to just, I'm not pulling punches here.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is a weird looking guy like, like Elineman, he's a weird looking guy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the way he wrestles is like, he, he's not forgetting that he spent time in the, in the snake pit.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, that's okay, I guess.
[SPEAKER_01]: But,
[SPEAKER_01]: It's tough sledding this team, having him around like it makes sense.
[SPEAKER_01]: I like the storyline.
[SPEAKER_01]: I like the fact that they are able to play off of the old history with that.
[SPEAKER_01]: It seems that it pops the crowd.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's cool, but
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't have much enthusiasm when I figured out that it was Leo and uping his tag team partner and I still don't really have a lot of enthusiasm about the team and it felt like I liked the Sassumu and Sean Machine J.
[SPEAKER_01]: But towards it, Kagatura goes for a tornado Alcopu go that was kind of wild with it.
[SPEAKER_01]: But those were just kind of the two moments in this match.
[SPEAKER_01]: This was a gentleman's three of a tag match.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just wish that it was strong machine J and UT.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if it would have raised the floor of this match all that much, but I think it would have been a good one.
[SPEAKER_00]: How old that way?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: It would have had to, okay, and maybe that there's more credence to, like I know that there was, like, big fears about UT's neck and going into a Golden Colosseum and seeing like it with how that brave gate match with that there was a level of concern there with him, but I guess that they were really churn by the way of doing this second generation team make thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Indeed, you know, we skipped over something here.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was trying to go chronological and I had to remind myself, just a second ago, I was like, there's no way they went to intermission after this man.
[SPEAKER_00]: I apologize.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, it's okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: They went to intermission after the Luchador tag, which is only I'm glad we had this conversation because as you were talking, I was like, Did they go to intermission after the Leona match or have we lost the plot that much?
[SPEAKER_00]: But no, they went to intermission after the Luchador tag and Mike, what did we find out of intermission?
[SPEAKER_01]: When we went to enter mission, we found out that the video screen was not just there to display the Zeno-Stald Nova, which is the name of the Tanaka unit.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, Zeno-Stald Nova.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not gonna stick with me, but I appreciate it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, to show that logo with it, it was to display a video of someone making his return for the first time in 14 years, or sorry, 12 years, Uga Nation is returning to Dragon Gate
[SPEAKER_00]: That's awesome.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I mean, you know, you and I were covering the promotion.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know at least I was.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you were probably doing, you were doing drag-a stuff by March of 2020.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, are you?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, 2015, I was doing solo stuff and just doing other kind of drag-and-gate reporting.
[SPEAKER_01]: I wasn't affiliated with voices or wrestling at that time though.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but, you know, it's, it's a long time coming for Uha March of 2015 as a really, really long time ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, as I look at this card, the last show that he wrestled on, you still have the original Jimmy's.
[SPEAKER_00]: You still have Dio Hearts, second match on this show, Tozawa and Shingo versus Lindemann and Maria.
[SPEAKER_00]: you have the mad-blanky zombies of Shima Donfujian Gamma on this show wrestling, by the way, UTT Hawking Kotoka of the Millennials, semi-man event Yoshino and Sashiyoka Boy vs. Cybro Kong in Yamato, and then your main event at the U-Honation Farewell Dreamgate match, BB Holk vs. U-Honation.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought when Newha signed 12 years ago, I thought he was the biggest slam dunk, no brainer superstar.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought there was no way they take this super likable charismatic, muscular athletic guy and turn him into a shell of a human and yet that's exactly what happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he spent 12 years, hopefully making very good money, hopefully spending a lot of time with his family, but doing nothing of note,
[SPEAKER_00]: nothing of relevance within the world of pro wrestling.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he's only back for one night.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's only going to wrestle on that Tokyo show on the 12th, but it'll be very nice to see him back.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is there anybody currently on the roster?
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess let me ask you this way.
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you hope Uha is doing on the 12th?
[SPEAKER_01]: I hope it's not like a cram him in ten man tag like that's that that is kind of my fear because you like you look at the people that were around and that he was really affiliated with and the the only member of monster express that's still around the sociogo boy.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he is kind of like this, but well, like two or three generations away, it was great to have him back.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's going to be amazing.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was, whereas you thought he was a note-out, and since Superstar, I thought he went to WWE to early.
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought that he still had at least probably a year's worth of development in Japan before that.
[SPEAKER_01]: and we didn't and but I mean he took the offer when it happened I don't know who you have him face to be frank case I've been racking my head around about it since yesterday.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yamato's tied up and when you look at guys that were really around in 2014 it's kind of the veterans and that's that and that's not what you want you don't want to see the veterans versus Uha Nation.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to see him and coco to together.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think my ideal version of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think my ideal version of that is Uha and Mochi against coco to and Jason.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what I'm hoping we get out of this.
[SPEAKER_01]: I like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that you could probably get something there with that, or at least it'll keep my intention with that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know that's contradictory to the point I've made over the last year.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I'm sick of seeing Kukuta wrestle guys his size and he always wrestles better against guys much smaller than he can push around.
[SPEAKER_00]: Uha's different.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would like to see Kukuta Uha, that feels like the most natural pairing to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm totally with you on that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that it makes a lot of sense to have him there for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we got the great news of Oohawk coming back, then we got the Leona match, then we got the Shun Skywalker fair.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, we've already talked about that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that took us to the main event.
[SPEAKER_01]: That took us to our main event of Ray Day, a Praha's kickoff.
[SPEAKER_01]: This also was in the A block.
[SPEAKER_01]: This was the Open The Twin Gate Champions team to a 4KG of Eshen and Yoshiki Kato versus Hio and Mion Mion.
[SPEAKER_01]: me on me on we all work speculating what exactly are they going to do it is it going to be heo wrestling with these stuff to leopard is it going to be junior and the onesy that he had on at a primed zone.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had kind of a little bit of a feeling that it was going to be what happened
[SPEAKER_01]: Heo makes his entrance.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is pulling on the chain.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's pulling on it hard and he yanks out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Johnny Voleta and matching it tights and then the zebras theme hits.
[SPEAKER_01]: Gianni Valeta is now Gianni, meon, meon, Valeta, and he is Hio's tag team partner during Ray Day, Bray Haas.
[SPEAKER_01]: They kind of work.
[SPEAKER_01]: They kind of don't.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a lot of Hio trying to love on Gianni and Gianni being Gianni Valeta.
[SPEAKER_01]: He gets to the win with the Klaus Lamb and the King Kong knee drop because he's Gianni Valeta, and he's going to seem roll his way through.
[SPEAKER_01]: What all the shenanigans team to afford put them to to put a heo and Johnny at two points leaving the first night and and the open the twin gate champions start off their tournament with a loss.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look, I don't I don't love it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But they found a reason for validity to stick around.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't need them in love and peace.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't need them beyond this tournament.
[SPEAKER_00]: I really don't think I want to see his face come October.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if he's working this tournament through the Big Show on the 12th and Oto Ward,
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, they got me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I popped when he came out of the curtain cork and went crazy when he came out of the curtain It was a nice moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: It gives you something of substance to do in this tournament My guess is they're gonna win the entire thing now, but if not, they're gonna come damn close.
[SPEAKER_00]: Which I have some issues with
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's okay, you know, I wouldn't much rather see a smaller or more work-rated team eventually come out on top.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I mean, God, you mentioned that earlier about the triangle gate champions now being in this tournament and being unrealistic for them to win it, I think it's unrealistic for coming and reto to win it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mike, I don't think it would shock me if a month from now we have a twin gate match with Heo and Voleta in,
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that would mean no triangle gate match.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but it's coming and Rita, they don't care.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, you're right, they, they, they don't.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, what's the difference?
[SPEAKER_00]: Throw them in a match with junior that won't be for the belts and they'll move on with their day.
[SPEAKER_00]: I, I've learned, you know, I'm not gonna fall for this again and again and again.
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't care.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're focused in this unit.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't even think they're necessarily wrong for this.
[SPEAKER_00]: They look at heo as the primary focus of this unit.
[SPEAKER_00]: To me, my whole argument with love and peace
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, when bin case healthy, you've got five guys that you can push to the forefront.
[SPEAKER_00]: This can be your mega super baby face unit that does everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the most visible.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the most active that wins the most.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're not doing that, but they still have some value in Heo, and it feels like this is now the team that is going to win this match, because by the way, Mike, if you have Heo and Kame and Rita defend the twint of the triangle Gebelts in Tokyo, then what do you do with Junior?
[SPEAKER_00]: So you got to have Kame and Rita off the show, so they could, or at least off of a title match, so they could then team with Junior, so they could eventually lose the triangle Gebelts on a smaller show.
[SPEAKER_01]: Man, that's the person.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, I don't like it, but that's just how it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and the pop that they got for Johnny was through the roof.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was awesome.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a great moment.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it was exactly kind of the thing that you want to see drag me kind of do with it, it does kind of feel like that it is a way to keep Johnny busy, which, you know, given the situation, it needs it that he's going to stick around.
[SPEAKER_01]: Love new some on.
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't put them in the veterans.
[SPEAKER_01]: It keeps them in a kind of an active part of the roster.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm I'm down with that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I I just like to me, it does.
[SPEAKER_01]: For you, it seems like that Johnny entering the tournament has completely changed the calculus of this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ray Day playoffs.
[SPEAKER_01]: It still hasn't changed it for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I still think that they're running essentially a three match series with the ZNF in team to a four.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I think that'll be the finals.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it'll be Heo and Valetta versus YoshiO can menor an expo and quite honestly.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it'll be a super hot match.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's a 50, 50 match.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I had my choice of those two teams, I would go with the Zine of Duo.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if that's the finals, given the fact that this company has struggled to generate matches that crowds want to see and that crowds can get invested in this year, I think that solves that prominently for one night.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's fair.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think you're selling me on it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't, I don't necessarily like it.
[SPEAKER_00]: To me, it's the tournament that should be coming in, Rita, or Cagatore, and Sistumo, or Montaine, CLO.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who I thought at this time last week, we're going to win the whole thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I think it's a toss up between Heo and Valedo and Yoshio Konmanora.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm still going towards a zenith, but I'm not completely as firm on it as I was last week.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I thought that it was fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought Eshen brought his working shoes and was really going for, especially like the cannon ball top that he does, like, right at the start, like the Johnny basically doing the old Roderick Strong and Jack Evans offense with you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm always a fan of that kind of tag team work here.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I mean, everything kind of paid off.
[SPEAKER_01]: You had a big thing about the turn up, turn buckle pad, being pulled off.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then this was the match ahead, heel shenanigans, and at least at a certain rate, too.
[SPEAKER_01]: It made sense that you did them against Johnny, where they've greatly don't work against.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was on board with that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I mean, it was like a three and a half star main event.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm with you there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had the same rating.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought it was,
[SPEAKER_00]: A really entertaining three and a half star match.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought it was work in the way that it should.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I said earlier, I thought the heel stuff really worked in the confines of this match.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want it throughout the rest of the tournament.
[SPEAKER_00]: But for what this was, the timing of the frantic nature of the fact that Valetta was involved.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought all of this worked very well.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was very satisfied with this main event by the end of it and that is not a feeling I've had a ton this year.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that the word satisfied also kind of puts a nice like bow on my thoughts on this cork in.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was not the killer cork and hoping that that will be the Ray Day Praha's finals of cork in for that.
[SPEAKER_01]: We know how crazy it was in Kobe last year for the three matches for Shun Mara to win Ray Day Praha's last year 2025.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm satisfied with this show.
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought that there was a lot
[SPEAKER_01]: coming out of Kobe world we had a level of optimism and at least an air a fresh air kind of coming in and then they had you know done landed the plane on certain things and you had an eye looking ahead to what would happen on this cork and and I think that
[SPEAKER_01]: This was a story line advancement quirk in that also kicked off the tournament, but it was more heavily slanted to its story lines and for a company that that hasn't been kicking them dead with story lines at least in twenty twenty six I thought that by and large this was a large success of the show.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would not say that I'm optimistic, but I do think this show is productive and that is baby step towards being optimistic, so I will take that for now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and didn't even mention that the drinkate match is finalized.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is Yamato making a challenge against KZ at Oto Ward.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have essentially the business end of the card already figured out six weeks out, or five weeks out, and I think that's fantastic.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's all I asked for.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what I wanted out of Kobe world and yet we were a month out from that trail with nothing book.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is an improvement.
[SPEAKER_00]: I like the matches on paper.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think you model versus KZ you could be really special.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think to knock a versus Dragon King could be really special.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll have that twin gate match.
[SPEAKER_00]: It in zero versus Minoru Suzuki is what it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: Could be super fun, could be annoying.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll have to say.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep, we'll have to see about that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But buddy, I think that's all I have for us this week.
[SPEAKER_01]: As we mentioned earlier next week, we'll be a lot more of a retrospective on the career of shoe and sky walker and we'll probably stop on stuff and with whatever Ray Day Praha's thoughts we have at that point if anything makes you too.
[SPEAKER_01]: But anything else you want to touch on for we got out of here?
[SPEAKER_00]: end of the month the return of those days that is very much in the forefront of our minds we're working on figuring out the next one you'll have one at least one by the end of August if not maybe a double up towards the end of the month but that's coming but next week a full break out of the the Dringy career shoe and skywalker.
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely, and you could follow us on social media cases at underscore in your case on Twitter.
[SPEAKER_01]: I met Fuji Hale with two eyes like Don Fuji there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Open the voice gate is on both Twitter and blue sky.
[SPEAKER_01]: You could find us at open voice gate on both platforms.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's the voices of wrestling discord where you could have a live chat figuring out Xena Stahl Nova, which is Tanaka Guns name, guys.
[SPEAKER_01]: And during the Dragon Gate channel,
[SPEAKER_01]: as well as me making sure cases well a praise of one of the more cringe people in the wrestling industry in Brooks Jensen.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the open-to-voice gay channel, but as we get to those days at the end of this month we will have our match listings posted there as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the voices of wrestling discord, but that's going to do it for us this week.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll be back with you next time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Take care of