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[SPEAKER_00]: This podcast is a member of the Voices of Wrestling Podcasting Network.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Visit Voicesof Wrestling.com to hear the rest of our great podcast as well as show reviews, columns, opinions, and updates across the world of wrestling.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Look at that one so far!

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[UNKNOWN]: Help me!

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[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome back to Open the Voice Gate, 4 September 29th, 2026.

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[SPEAKER_01]: We are members of the Voices of Wrestling Podcasts Network.

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[SPEAKER_01]: You can find us on the Voices of Wrestling Podcasts, feed or on our own dedicated Open the Voice Gate, feed wherever you get your podcasts and you can find us on social media at Open Voice Gate, both on Twitter and on Blue Sky.

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[SPEAKER_01]: If you liked it, don't know it to the show.

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[SPEAKER_01]: You can click the link in the show notes.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It'll take you to our redsircle.com landing site where you can click the red box to sponsor this podcast and you can save a one-time or reoccurring donation.

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[SPEAKER_01]: No obligation whatsoever, but we would like to thank all of our previous donors.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm one of your hosts.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It's your old pal, Mike Spears, join alongside your other host case low and uh yeah, I think we should just kind of just get into it buddy, uh how are you doing this week?

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[SPEAKER_00]: It's on to finally slap record on this one because I feel like I've been doing this show in my head since Sunday night, but.

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[SPEAKER_00]: We were, of course, planning on doing an episode of those days in Mitchell Cooper retrospective this week.

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[SPEAKER_00]: We are currently trying to figure out when we will record that again as this Friday.

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[SPEAKER_00]: There's a Drangate Quark and Hall show.

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[SPEAKER_00]: We will cover that next week on the podcast, but it should come as no surprise, of course, by the time you're hearing this, you'll have clicked on the episode title, but it should come as no surprise that this is going to be an episode entirely dedicated to the life and the legacy of the man that gravity forgot and Pock.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Really devastating news, you know, the sort of last thing that I was expecting Sunday night as I was flipping back and forth between what ended up being a devastating Rams game and a bleak VMAs.

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[SPEAKER_00]: It was interrupted by a text from a mutual friend of ours who had had texted me and said that I need to look at Twitter right away.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Based on the text, I actually thought maybe my Twitter got it hacked and I kind of rushed to Twitter very nervously afraid of what was going to be on my account, and of course the first thing that I saw was the announcement that Pock had passed away and it

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[SPEAKER_00]: It stopped me in my tracks and it's still something that is consuming my mind quite a bit.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm still a little stunned over the entire thing.

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[SPEAKER_00]: It is the death at risk of sounding crass and ranking my grief, you know, the Brody Lee death was just absolutely devastating, but it did not hit me as hard on the personal level.

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[SPEAKER_00]: The Jay Brisco death, which, you know, you and I were recording when that was,

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[SPEAKER_01]: You know, that was, I've had some bad luck with these in recordings.

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[SPEAKER_00]: We were, you were saying before we got going here that you were recording a podcast when the Brody death was passed.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, Jeff was announced.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

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[SPEAKER_01]: No, I was recording with Aaron Bentley back in the days of everything.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I'll lead a Patreon show when that news came across.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And so, you know, I mean, the, you know, the J stuff was was heartbreaking on so many levels.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I had very much become a subscriber to the Jay brisco redemption arc and I was really rooting for him on a human level to get the professional recognition that he deserved.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And so I, you know, that was such an unbelievable gut punch when he passed.

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[SPEAKER_00]: But the the Pac one,

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[SPEAKER_00]: for wrestling deaths is as hard as I've ever been hit and the only real comparison I have I'm sure I've made a reference to this this artist at some point during this show but the only other real reference I have is when David Burman who is the singer of the Silver Juice past away in 2019 and the more I thought about it the more I sort of compared the two I actually think Tianpock and in many ways had a lot

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[SPEAKER_00]: They're a way they were brilliant and yet completely not confident and their ability, which is just, you know, it's an onlooker just sort of striking, but you know, here we are now 48 hours removed from the announcement and I'm very happy.

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[SPEAKER_00]: To be recording this show with you, even if it's done under the war circumstances, a match of all.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, I'm definitely glad to be here with you.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I found out kind of similarly.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It was my brother who texted me, and I was completely off my phones on Sunday.

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[SPEAKER_01]: You know, hanging out my wife, and then I meet you.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Hold up Twitter, and that was there.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, this one, this one really hurts.

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[SPEAKER_01]: This one, at least for me,

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[SPEAKER_01]: It hit like in like multiple levels and like really I mean to be completely frank talking to you and Alan over the last few days.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I Sunday night I did not think I would be able to do the show today and then to this afternoon I was able to kind of get some footage and get some like return and normalcy because this one felt like in it's weird way kind of personal

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[SPEAKER_01]: and a way that, at least for me, that, like, levels of detachment and with that, and, of course, for someone that only as a huge fan of, like, it just felt like that for Packet was the, the, the, the one that, like, in a lot of ways that he is and was a figure that I, I feel like there was

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[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I, you know, I was thinking about this as I was writing the article that is now on voices of wrestling dot com remembering the man The gravity for god ten matches to highlight pox career, you know, I didn't include any AEW matches on that list just because I felt like anybody reading that was probably pretty familiar with that catalog of work, but

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[SPEAKER_00]: what I realized as I was going through that list and going through some mat recommendations that I had.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And then looking through my own tweets with pox name and it just to sort of remind me of anything that I need to be reminded of is for the seven year history of AEW, my relationship with the promotion has largely hinged on what pox is doing.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And there have been times where he's been the only thing that I've been hanging on to and there

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[SPEAKER_00]: turn a punk or the stuff that Osprey is doing now and stuff that Kyle Fletcher is doing, you know, there's other stuff that I have emotional connection to, but AWS for me, I really realized this week was sort of the vessel for me to care about Pock and still have a relationship with Pock as a wrestler and I took great pride

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[SPEAKER_00]: as a Dragon Gate fan, especially 19, 20, 21, 22, sort of A, W, phase one, where Pock was as heavily pushed and as heavily protected as anybody on the roster, and it's this kind of satisfaction that

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[SPEAKER_00]: we would never have ever gotten with Tozawa and WWE and even Ricochet there did it really feel the same way.

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[SPEAKER_00]: No, you know, I think the the only sort of similar thing, but again, it's a little different is, you know, shingo.

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[SPEAKER_00]: coming the successful New Japan heavyweight that he did and having those quotes about Tanahah, you know, from Tanahah, she's saying, you know, the locker room looks toward Shingo, you know, he's the guy that's driving the bus essentially right now.

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[SPEAKER_00]: As a fan of Drain Gate and just a somebody that has

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[SPEAKER_00]: the emotional connection to the promotion that I do because I've covered it for so long.

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[SPEAKER_00]: That was always very heartwarming, but to have him in those programs with Hangman, in that program with Omega, with the death triangle, you know, I think back to to some of the daily's place, AEW, where

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[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, a large amount of TV time was devoted to the young bucks, Matt Sidell, Mike Sidell, Pock Pintagon, Jr. and Ray Phoenix, and I was very much on board with that air of the promotion.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And again, as AWA has progressed into a few different phases, when Pock's been around, he's always been a top three, top five guy on the roster.

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[SPEAKER_00]: He's always been the guy that I have been most emotionally invested in.

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[SPEAKER_00]: pulling a clip from my sit down interview I did with Ricochet in 2024 where he was talking about what Pac means to him and what that 2011 feud was and I was like well I should probably go back and check

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[SPEAKER_00]: and see if Tony Khan and I ever had a pretty in-depth discussion on Pock and the last sit down in person, every I have with Tony Khan, we ended up talking about Pock for about a minute and you could tell in that interview, I'm going to post it on my Twitter tomorrow.

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[SPEAKER_00]: You could tell just how much Tony revered this guy and I think you and I knew this not

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[SPEAKER_00]: Now in the bracket, it was just way not anything from really not from inside information that we have, but just because we paid attention because it was pocket, you and I understood the respect that this person commanded within the wrestling industry, but I struggle to think of anybody that would get glowing tributes from the likes of sting and teddy heart and taco a wassa.

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[SPEAKER_00]: all in the rock all within the same 48 hour new cycle.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just not sure that there's anybody that has ever ever commanded that level of respect among so many different pockets of the wrestling industry.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And I think I think for a lot of people that may be liked him and may be followed his career in AEW from the beginning and maybe we're active fans of the guy

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[SPEAKER_00]: I would imagine the outpouring of support in the way that he's spoken about has caught some people by surprise, which again, it's awful that these are the circumstances that led to that.

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[SPEAKER_00]: But I like that seemingly a larger number of people have a greater understanding of what he meant to wrestling at large now.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and it does kind of

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[SPEAKER_01]: in some ways it's like all of these memories after the fact makes a lot of sense with everything that like has come out about him and things that we knew that that like this is the kind of praise he would have hated when he was alive coming from all spaces of the wrestling world and yeah

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[SPEAKER_01]: For a lot of ways, it is clear at least like the AEW side and I finished up the Iron Man match from the February, go home for Revolution 2000 in 20 match with Kenny Omega and right before we finished recording or we started recording and it just like the fact that like so early into the promotion.

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[SPEAKER_01]: and especially like at a time where like you had Jericho and with the title scene, everything with Cody going on there.

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[SPEAKER_01]: The fact that they decided and it kind of shuffled around to land with him and Omega and had Omega and him basically be like that center point of an early program even before.

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[SPEAKER_01]: the Orange Cassidy stuff even before the international title and death triangle title runs there.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Like he for as long as he had been on television in a for a w he has been at least for me as the most interesting part of the promotion.

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[SPEAKER_01]: and I'm in like not to keep on going back to like everything.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I'll leave it in like with that.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But my original interest into A.W.

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[SPEAKER_01]: is solely because of the drag and system guys there.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And sadly because of what all happened, what she might know, W.E.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, it ended up being that pack was the last one left, so, you know, in a lot of ways through the good and bad of AEW, I've been holding on to pack as, like, a lifesaver for the team.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Keeping my interest in, and I mean, even going into like Saturday night, I was not necessarily super jazzed about the bill going into all out, but,

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[SPEAKER_01]: knowing that, like, hey, there's a pack, a paperview match, and a title match, and I feel like my a fandom of his still was at, like, a certain level where, like, I was going, like, maybe packs when we become champion here, because they got to get the build off on Draw Day.

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[SPEAKER_01]: you know like on dry days doing but my feet doing a program with uh uh Osprey too and pack was the only guy for me that like I would still have like the silly like fan booking thoughts watching AEW.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I was like yeah, maybe this is the time like this and the the big difference between your Twitter

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[SPEAKER_01]: looking at pack and my Twitter looking at pack is how many times I just like would reach me the dry and get an answer being shot going, oh, faster, and pack with the dog at mid-brath.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Like that's different between our two Twitter.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Like my mind, if I'm just looking for it, when I would like look from completely inscrutable, completely inscrutable, our approach is the social media, completely diverse.

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[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I've, I've told stories about this a few different times on this show and I'm going to record a show with rich on the flagship Patreon.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I think we're going to try to do it before dynamite air tomorrow, at least for the sake of my schedule, I hope it's before dynamite air tomorrow, but.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I said on Twitter after he passed away, and of all people that asked me about this, it was Ryan Saturn, who I've had very few interactions with, but I've certainly never had a positive interaction with him until now, but I tweeted out on Sunday the first thing that I thought of was, if you've never heard his episode of The Art of Wrestling, which was recorded in 2012 with Kolkabana, this was right before he signed with WWE,

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[SPEAKER_00]: You have to.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I've been telling people to listen to this podcast for the last decade.

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[SPEAKER_00]: You know, when he was in the wilderness for a year in between WWE and his return in Draingate, I told people to listen to it.

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[SPEAKER_00]: When he came back to Draingate, I told people to listen to it when he started the Navy, I told people to listen to it.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I tell people to listen to it all the time.

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[SPEAKER_00]: It's it's

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[SPEAKER_00]: this is going to cover a wide swath of audio.

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[SPEAKER_00]: It's one of my favorite podcast ever recorded.

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[SPEAKER_00]: It's up there with the great mayoran interviews.

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[SPEAKER_00]: It's up there with the funniest comedy bang bang episodes.

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[SPEAKER_00]: It's up there with the the most absurd Bill Simmons rewatchables podcast.

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[SPEAKER_00]: It's it's just one of my favorite pieces of audio period.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And Ryan Sandinast,

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[SPEAKER_00]: If Pock had done another long form interview when it's post WWE career into my knowledge he never did and I've shared on here before that every time AW came to town and my relationship with Tom with my shoot job over the last three years Every time they have emailed me about, hey, we're going to have someone so in town, you know, can we set something up?

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[SPEAKER_00]: I have always asked about Pock's availability and

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[SPEAKER_00]: For the last two and a half years of that three year relationship, I know that the answer is no, but I just have to ask and I was always told no, but it was just one of those things that I had to do.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And I think I told the story right here where you know, I went really up the flagpole at one point and try to get us to down interview with Pock.

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[SPEAKER_00]: This is a little bit before the death writers would have formed and I was kind of feeling optimistic about it.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I was kind of feeling good about it.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And I mean, this window just respect to the person I'm about to mention, but after all of these emails back and forth, I get back the, okay, pots and available, how about Willow Night and Gayle, it was just like, oh, God, like God bless Willow, but not this is not what I want right now.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So he'd ever, I never got him in for a sit down interview, which on a on a personal level stunt, because I really,

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[SPEAKER_00]: I really wanted that and I really wanted to do his career justice and unfortunately it just never happened with him.

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[SPEAKER_00]: As for this episode, we don't we don't really have a show plan.

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[SPEAKER_00]: You and I are not going to have an issue feeling 90 minutes to two hours talking about Pock.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I have a few bullet points that I want to hit on at some point before we hang up.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I would imagine just because it's you and I a large poorest of this is going to focus on his Drain Gate Drain Gate USA Drain Gate UK stuff.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I actually specifically do want to talk about his Drain Gate USA stuff, but you know, one of my first big thoughts coming out of this.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And I started thinking about this a lot last year when Hamada passed away and then Oklahoma passed away the former Drain Gate President, Chikashio Kamora who

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[SPEAKER_00]: Draingate didn't, you know, was on the outs with he was one of the people that orchestrated the split in 2018 with Schema and, you know, has never been mentioned ever since it's essentially like he never existed to begin with and he passed away and Draingate did not mention it.

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[SPEAKER_00]: They did not honor him.

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[SPEAKER_00]: There was no ten-bell salute when Schema and Magnum Tokyo made headlines earlier this year during one of their, their talk shows, which was essentially.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, you know, essentially that was the Japanese equivalent

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[SPEAKER_00]: the CM Punk episode of the art of wrestling after he quit WWE where he just went on an hour long tirade and in many ways changed the course of pro wrestling history.

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[SPEAKER_00]: One of the things that they talked about was that they were members of the Draingate roster who were upset that they had to essentially mourn and honor Okomora under a cloak of darkness because the company

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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, they shoot him up and mag them alleged that they, that there was the Shrine Token Morado Kamora's karate dojo that he still operated up until his death and they went privately and they went under the veil of secrecy to go do their last thought.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So, one of the things that I started thinking about then was for all of the hell in many incarnants that Drangade has gone through when they're 27 years from the Tory Monnlanding in January of 1999 and now all of the scandals, all of the departures, all of the drama both on and off the screen, I mean this year alone.

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[SPEAKER_00]: This year alone could be a book, but for all of the things that they've dealt with,

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[SPEAKER_00]: they have never really dealt with death, which I think is, which I think is, you know, unenomely.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And I go through the same thing in my own life.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm 27 years old now and I'm very aware that

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[SPEAKER_00]: None of my contemporaries.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody that I have any sort of relationship with that's my age has passed away.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I have both of my parents.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I lost my last grandparent earlier this year, but I'm not super close with my extended family.

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[SPEAKER_00]: As cruel as it might sound, those deaths don't rattle me a ton, but I have my parents.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I have my brother.

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[SPEAKER_00]: anybody that's my age or about my age or around my age that I have a relationship with, I have not lost.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And I realized that that and itself at this age now is a fiscal anomaly, and that will not always be true.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And I kind of feel like I'm constantly bracing for impact with that,

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[SPEAKER_00]: I don't even know if there's a it's not even like some of the guys that have defected have passed away.

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[SPEAKER_00]: There's no untimely death.

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[SPEAKER_00]: There was nobody that was an active roster member that has passed away.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I think, you know, every time I see a photo of 10 ruin the current day, my heart breaks a little bit because I know that he's not going to live forever as much as I would like him to.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And I imagine that that death will will kind of rattle some of the elder statesman on the roster.

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[SPEAKER_00]: But

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[SPEAKER_00]: This is the first tried and true.

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[SPEAKER_00]: This is a member of the Dragon Gate family, capital F family that has passed away.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm very curious to see, especially with a cork and haul show coming up on Friday.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm very curious to see how this company handles that.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and that's the the Dragon Gate family side is where my head has really been dwelling in other than thoughts towards his wife and family.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Over the last 48 hours just the the the one that really got me was Mochizuki Junior's post of him and pack at what I assume is Missaki Mochizuki's house as like a 10 year old

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[SPEAKER_01]: at like a family dinner and talking about how he would come visit all the time.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And like that, that aspect of this passing, like really it instilled how much.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It's not that just that pack is

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[SPEAKER_01]: is the greatest or was the greatest, dragons just before in or of all time.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Like that's I think has not been a topic of dispute for a long time on the show or within dragons to some communities here.

22:21.322 --> 22:28.228
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just that you absolutely write about the fact that this is the first family member really passing away.

22:28.568 --> 22:32.492
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, I mean, it's the first dream gate champion to pass away.

22:32.852 --> 22:36.395
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the first brave gate champion to pass away.

22:37.216 --> 22:43.481
[SPEAKER_01]: Of course, hockey bonus was a triangle gate champion and he passed away what was that?

22:43.541 --> 22:45.062
[SPEAKER_01]: 2019, hockey bonus?

22:45.443 --> 22:46.063
[SPEAKER_01]: I think so.

22:47.164 --> 22:50.587
[SPEAKER_01]: Around that time, but like this is the one that

22:51.808 --> 23:05.840
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, the, the, one of the things that strikes me about this is so we have that, we, we had that big return where like one night return of who had a nation and, uh, Oda earlier this month.

23:06.700 --> 23:14.266
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you like think about how the foreigner lineage went, and especially like the highlighted spotlight for

23:15.287 --> 23:22.980
[SPEAKER_01]: It went from Jack to Sidel to Pack to Ricochet to U-Haul.

23:23.852 --> 23:49.680
[SPEAKER_01]: And there was like a lineage there and you'd have people like Swan who of course are like a part of the lineage too, I mean Swan was a triangle gay champion, like I'm not just missing him and like this kind of thing, but like there was like always like this fake year that represented like the top foreigner with within the company and like we had like a revisiting of that a couple of weeks ago and now it feels like that the most important part of that

23:51.893 --> 23:52.734
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really strange.

23:52.774 --> 24:04.762
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I guess that's that's the point that I think you and I can drive home, maybe harder than anybody else can is, you know, the gate opens in December of 2005 with Jack Evans and Roderick Strong.

24:04.802 --> 24:07.804
[SPEAKER_00]: We in the first Americans that are invited into Dragon Gate and

24:08.937 --> 24:34.816
[SPEAKER_00]: from there, you know, it's everybody, you know, in terms of the foreigners that came over, it's everybody in front of the museum, you know, it's it's Chris Bosch and human tornado to flamita and drastic boy and bendito and Luis Monte, and, you know, as Skydo does a tour here and there, you know, Peter Cosa, turbo, you know, Kevinstein, whatever names, Tony Nays, whatever names you

24:36.925 --> 24:48.811
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously with Ricochet, Jason Lee, Flamita, Uha Nation, being a cut-a-bove, some of those guys, Luis Montage, depending on what day you ask me being on that list as well.

24:48.931 --> 24:59.857
[SPEAKER_00]: But if there was any doubt before his return in 2018, and I think there there was, I think you and I would have active conversations about who had the better drag and get career between

25:04.155 --> 25:07.357
[SPEAKER_00]: sidel and flamita didn't have the catalog that they had.

25:07.757 --> 25:20.545
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it was sort of a conversation between those two and then Pock came back in 2018 and 2019 and made sure that by the time he left, there was no question as to who the greatest foreigner in the history of Drangate was.

25:20.585 --> 25:29.530
[SPEAKER_00]: And so if you see that phrase that accolade being tossed around as we go throughout the week and as we move

25:33.174 --> 25:39.482
[SPEAKER_00]: It's important to note that that's not something that is being thrown at him only in death.

25:39.602 --> 25:48.953
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a widely considered opinion and had been since he'd left in July of 2019 and after he dropped the dream gate belt to Ben K where he came back during that run.

25:50.037 --> 26:15.147
[SPEAKER_00]: very clear that he was going to leave Draingate in a better place than he found it and boy did he do that and I can't imagine what this company would have been like and what direction they would have gone down had the stars not aligned for Pock to return and October of 2018 the way that he did but he is without a doubt the greatest foreigner this promotion has ever had and I don't know I don't know of a way that anybody

26:19.456 --> 26:40.408
[SPEAKER_01]: really it it it became so patently clear after 2019 just what his position is and how like and I think if then it not to tell people to go and roll the tapes on an episode like this but it it it it it became very clear how much he writeed the ship and how much

26:41.388 --> 27:06.670
[SPEAKER_01]: After the events of 2018 when Shima and Strong Hearts and Oklahoma were able to leave the company, yes, they go to Yoshino and then as like a bailing out the boats, you run your biggest match, you could do one last time Yoshino and Shingo Takagi at Kobe World at your Takagi is announces his

27:09.820 --> 27:18.424
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what the future of Dragon Gate would have been and what kind of position the company would be in now.

27:18.785 --> 27:37.414
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, as you just said, him coming in on October 4th to 2018 and how just distinct of a lead path he did and that that's the one for us or anything that we never really got out

27:40.216 --> 27:49.145
[SPEAKER_01]: even though like he is clearly one of the most trusted in Charter's people in the roster, we never got to see what happened when Pack got handed the ball there.

27:49.545 --> 27:55.492
[SPEAKER_01]: When we saw him get handed the ball again, so Masato Yoshino at the end of the year, and then what he did for the next.

27:56.212 --> 27:56.933
[SPEAKER_01]: seven months.

27:57.253 --> 28:02.436
[SPEAKER_01]: It was, I still think, one of the greatest championship roads.

28:02.717 --> 28:11.943
[SPEAKER_01]: And it righted back the ship that before you knew it, everyone looking around in 2018 at Kobe world going like, what is Dragon Gate even?

28:12.824 --> 28:14.465
[SPEAKER_01]: Is without achieving all these people?

28:14.805 --> 28:19.708
[SPEAKER_01]: Come 2019, the time that pack leaves the promotion and drops the belt to bank egg.

28:20.229 --> 28:22.510
[SPEAKER_01]: Things are moving into a direction

28:23.891 --> 28:33.334
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know, of course things go downhill in 2020 for everyone, but it allowed them to stabilize in much more of a way than anyone else.

28:34.434 --> 28:38.276
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, pop of possible, no one else could have right at the ship.

28:38.716 --> 28:44.878
[SPEAKER_01]: And Yoshino held on as much as he could with his body that was following a part of that time.

28:45.458 --> 28:53.828
[SPEAKER_01]: but the ball needed to be handed to someone for six months and that six month has have given us the last decade of dragon game.

28:54.348 --> 29:01.717
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, it's so important to know the circumstances of dragon game, but also the circumstances of pocket this time.

29:01.877 --> 29:03.379
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is something that

29:05.397 --> 29:27.767
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, this makes me especially sad because I used to talk to Rover about this a lot and the death of Poc has reminded me about how, yeah, how strangely hard the death of Rover hit me and I, you know, I thought the segment that Rich and Joe did on the flagship about Rover was was so beautiful because he was somebody who I mean anybody that's listed this podcast before knows that

29:28.647 --> 29:39.333
[SPEAKER_00]: I was so humored by him and I had so many positive private interactions with him and I was telling, you know, I was telling you guys this week, Rover and I like talking about three things.

29:39.373 --> 29:43.916
[SPEAKER_00]: We like bearing Matt Riddle for being a man-child.

29:44.376 --> 29:55.383
[SPEAKER_00]: We like talking about Morrissey and we loved talking about Pock and we both respected him and his work ethic so much and

29:56.711 --> 29:58.512
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really important to note.

29:58.532 --> 30:06.434
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is something that Rover would bring up occasionally is, you know, Pockley's WWE in the fall of 2017.

30:06.475 --> 30:14.237
[SPEAKER_00]: He walks out then, you know, 366 days from when he walked out of RAW to when he came back to Dragon Gate.

30:14.297 --> 30:15.858
[SPEAKER_00]: He's gone for an entire year.

30:16.218 --> 30:21.700
[SPEAKER_00]: A funny anecdote is during that time period, there was a photo of Pock, because you got to remember like,

30:22.939 --> 30:26.682
[SPEAKER_00]: When Pock walked out of WWE, no one heard from him.

30:26.722 --> 30:28.504
[SPEAKER_00]: He no one heard from him for a year.

30:28.564 --> 30:30.486
[SPEAKER_00]: There wasn't a jailbreak video.

30:30.846 --> 30:32.968
[SPEAKER_00]: He wasn't tweeting the hourglass.

30:33.268 --> 30:37.151
[SPEAKER_00]: He was off the planet for everyone.

30:37.632 --> 30:44.838
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, everyone thinking of that art of wrestling episode assumed that he went and became like, he was working in Newcastle.

30:44.958 --> 30:45.859
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, yes.

30:46.500 --> 30:49.222
[SPEAKER_01]: Just with the phrase was that he rather be a postman.

30:49.738 --> 30:56.201
[SPEAKER_00]: So I remember around that time after he had left before he come back to drinking, there was a photo of him that started going around.

30:56.241 --> 31:00.324
[SPEAKER_00]: And people thought it was an up-to-date photo of Pock.

31:00.344 --> 31:03.585
[SPEAKER_00]: Something that would have been taken in maybe mid-2018.

31:04.006 --> 31:05.446
[SPEAKER_00]: And I remember talking to Rover about it.

31:05.466 --> 31:06.267
[SPEAKER_00]: He was like, no, no, no.

31:06.687 --> 31:08.948
[SPEAKER_00]: He's got an old Newcastle jersey on.

31:08.968 --> 31:14.291
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no way that a guy who's that big of a fan of Newcastle would have an out-of-date kit.

31:14.651 --> 31:19.853
[SPEAKER_00]: This has to be an old photo of him in Japan, not a new one of him in Japan, and sure shit, Rover was right.

31:20.193 --> 31:21.813
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, Rover was right in Florida.

31:21.853 --> 31:23.174
[SPEAKER_00]: He completely nailed that one.

31:23.254 --> 31:34.177
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's so important to note that this is so long before the possibility of AEW was ever in play.

31:34.910 --> 31:50.834
[SPEAKER_00]: And it just so happened that he bet on himself at the right time to wear by the time that he was ready to exit out of Draingate, AW was there waiting with open arms, but it is not as simple as holding out on your contract in 2026.

31:50.894 --> 31:54.214
[SPEAKER_00]: He really took a risk and it paid off.

31:54.274 --> 31:57.075
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, you know, there's the side of it that you and I.

31:58.131 --> 32:05.673
[SPEAKER_00]: We're shouting from the rooftops about at the time where and I don't mean this in any sort of I was right in you Yeah, we're not trying to say real the tapes ever on it.

32:05.753 --> 32:24.218
[SPEAKER_00]: No, no, no, no, no, but there was you know the general sentiment was okay If this guy ever wrestles again, he's going to waltz in a new Japan He's going to do a super junior here's he'll be IWGP junior heavyweight champion and and by the way That's a division at the time which is Haromu and Dragon Lee and Will Osprey and

32:25.022 --> 32:26.403
[SPEAKER_01]: single was selling at that point.

32:26.623 --> 32:30.925
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, he, you know, he would have, he would have been matching up with Schingo there at some point.

32:31.366 --> 32:37.869
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, you know, 2019, he was the rise of bandito with that super junior tournament, which they, they believe they had a drink in singles match.

32:37.889 --> 32:38.730
[SPEAKER_00]: I know they're wrestling drinking.

32:38.750 --> 32:40.111
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't remember if those singles are not, but

32:40.851 --> 33:07.617
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you and I, not in a spung way, but whatever that would come up, you and I were like, well, he's, he's going to go back to Draingate and we weren't sure if it was going to be, you know, one off appearance almost like what Ricochet did to know to be, we a few years ago, you know, we weren't sure if it was going to be a one off appearance or if he was going to come back, but you and I were like, well, and with you, huh, a couple of exactly, you know, but you and I knew that if he was going to come back to wrestling, it was going to be there and that's exactly what happened.

33:09.144 --> 33:31.279
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, there's there's these funny things that get lost in history that I started thinking about specifically with Park as the week had gone on where you know, one of them was It had been announced an August of 2018 that he was officially free from his WWE contract that he could go work anywhere that he wanted to And At danger escape 2018

33:34.773 --> 33:40.836
[SPEAKER_00]: Antias, which was the heel unit at the time, a critically pan heel unit, one of the worst things this company has ever done.

33:41.517 --> 33:52.663
[SPEAKER_00]: Antias that night rebranded to RED, and they had a multi-man match on that paper view where there was an X, you know, a mystery, a street partner, and everybody assumes that that was going to be Pock, and

33:53.913 --> 34:00.919
[SPEAKER_00]: And at the time, kind of is what you were talking about earlier, you know, she believes in May of 2018, he takes T-Hoc and Linda men and Yama Moore with them.

34:00.979 --> 34:11.727
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, and at the time, we were all very bullish on WWE and rightfully so, you know, it looked like the future wrestling and I think government paperwork got in the way of that more than anything else.

34:11.827 --> 34:12.028
[SPEAKER_00]: But,

34:12.996 --> 34:34.234
[SPEAKER_00]: we go through a Kobe world that was was a bit of a mess and it was you know the first time they announced Kobe with a real attendance number and so people people thought the sky was falling and it's not like you could look at that roster in 2018 and go oh well someone so it was going to save us like it you know for as big of a message during it has been in 2026.

34:36.675 --> 34:39.340
[SPEAKER_00]: The roster so much better now that it was in 2018.

34:39.380 --> 34:46.814
[SPEAKER_00]: The roster so much deeper, the issue now was the booking malpractice that hinders everybody from opening match to main event wars in 2018.

34:46.854 --> 34:47.836
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a little bit like,

34:48.828 --> 34:49.068
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.

34:49.088 --> 34:52.971
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, you know, by this point, had his life altering neck injury.

34:53.011 --> 34:58.834
[SPEAKER_00]: So he's moving a step slower, and she goes not around as much, and she must go on and T-hawks go on.

34:58.874 --> 35:02.656
[SPEAKER_00]: And I wasn't ever sold on ATA's being a one-ay mate of enter.

35:02.736 --> 35:07.019
[SPEAKER_00]: And we were sure we weren't sure if Shima's who was ever going to get out of his own way.

35:07.039 --> 35:12.422
[SPEAKER_00]: And we weren't sure what was going to happen with Ben K. And we were just weren't looking on going like, oh my god, like what's what's going to happen?

35:12.442 --> 35:13.523
[SPEAKER_00]: So we go in a danger state.

35:13.543 --> 35:15.324
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's not like anybody's feeling awesome

35:19.006 --> 35:24.351
[SPEAKER_00]: And in that being Cosmosacomoto, and not Pock, this is the one victory lap I will take.

35:24.411 --> 35:27.153
[SPEAKER_00]: I said from the jump, I said Cosmos is going to be awesome in Draingy.

35:27.173 --> 35:27.534
[SPEAKER_00]: He was.

35:27.554 --> 35:29.435
[SPEAKER_00]: I will take that victory lap until the end of time.

35:29.855 --> 35:41.806
[SPEAKER_00]: But we had to wait another two weeks for Pock to come into Draingy, and when Cosmosacomoto was that X, people had a real doomsday afternoon with Draingy, and so

35:42.878 --> 35:49.644
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that might have been the first time that that someone hit the, uh, this isn't your big brother's dragon gate before was Cosmos Aquaman.

35:49.664 --> 35:52.767
[SPEAKER_00]: It was funny because he ended up fitting like such a glove.

35:52.787 --> 35:54.389
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, he's gone for a fight.

35:54.409 --> 35:55.990
[SPEAKER_00]: He's been gone longer than he was in.

35:56.030 --> 35:57.932
[SPEAKER_00]: Drangate, I still missed the guy.

35:58.072 --> 36:04.157
[SPEAKER_01]: I think he put the door with the open for him right now if he wanted to if it were up to be I'd bring it back to Bar.

36:04.197 --> 36:11.783
[SPEAKER_00]: You still think the world of it was a wrestler you didn't think so good, but then 7 or 8 on the we win power ball list.

36:11.963 --> 36:16.567
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, Cosmos talk about it And it not first day, but you know later on in the week

36:16.807 --> 36:25.490
[SPEAKER_00]: And as I've said before, I weirdly cosmosak emotes one of the people in all of wrestling that I would like to sit down with the most because I think he's had such an interesting career.

36:25.930 --> 36:31.392
[SPEAKER_00]: Part of that being that he and Pock were really close with each other and FC W and NXT, which is just, you know,

36:43.642 --> 36:46.024
[SPEAKER_00]: They just needed, they just needed an adult.

36:46.184 --> 36:50.827
[SPEAKER_00]: They just needed somebody to say, all right, everybody get behind me.

36:51.027 --> 36:55.550
[SPEAKER_00]: And that wasn't really where Yoshino was at health wise.

36:55.590 --> 36:58.992
[SPEAKER_00]: Yoshino was more the planes going down.

36:59.732 --> 37:01.114
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to grab control.

37:01.154 --> 37:02.416
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to step into the cockpit.

37:02.476 --> 37:03.598
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to grab control.

37:04.139 --> 37:05.701
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to make sure that we don't know his dive.

37:05.841 --> 37:08.024
[SPEAKER_00]: But I don't know if I can land this plane.

37:08.385 --> 37:10.909
[SPEAKER_00]: And Pac came in and said, forget landing the plane.

37:11.349 --> 37:13.553
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to elevate once again.

37:13.673 --> 37:14.454
[SPEAKER_00]: And that run.

37:15.556 --> 37:17.538
[SPEAKER_00]: was just so utterly incredible.

37:17.578 --> 37:24.765
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, the KZ match rightfully so was remembered as one of the greatest tree and gate matches ever.

37:24.825 --> 37:29.770
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's the most fitting match possible to close out Hakata Star Lane's, which was the cork and haul of the West.

37:30.610 --> 37:36.456
[SPEAKER_00]: The, the Masado Yoshino match with the pre-match introduction where Pauk attacks him during God save the queen.

37:37.098 --> 37:38.379
[SPEAKER_00]: is an all-time great moment.

37:38.619 --> 37:40.821
[SPEAKER_00]: The Dragon Kid Mash is the one that I wrote about.

37:41.382 --> 37:56.375
[SPEAKER_00]: A really special match emotionally you could tell that Pock felt determined to give Dragon Kid a really, really great match and he did it arguably the best-ring kid singles match kind of depending on where you fall on maybe

37:56.875 --> 38:16.313
[SPEAKER_00]: The 2008 Yoshino Mash, the 2002 Darkness Dragon Match, the one that's in the middle there is a match that I wrote an entire article about previewing the match because I was so excited about it, which was the POC first of Shun Skywalker match, and we all know how POC elevated Ben K at Kobe World 2019, but that champion gate in Osaka 2019.

38:17.814 --> 38:18.615
[SPEAKER_00]: was soon.

38:18.675 --> 38:23.438
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, shoot was so unproven and untested and just happen to catch fire in.

38:23.918 --> 38:29.462
[SPEAKER_00]: You'll end up in a dreamgate match against Pock, which was just absurd.

38:29.602 --> 38:37.068
[SPEAKER_00]: It was unimaginable in December of 2018 that a March of 2019, this guy was going to be wrestling for the dreamgate belt.

38:38.081 --> 38:42.643
[SPEAKER_00]: And Pock gave him just a paint by numbers.

38:42.803 --> 39:00.993
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's how you do main event wrestling and Draingate match that I still think so fondly of and it was just one of the many times whether it be, you know, Schoenstein Walker there or Orange Cassidy in 2019 and 2020 or Ricochet in 2011.

39:01.013 --> 39:04.715
[SPEAKER_00]: I was sure there's others, you know, as we go throughout history where

39:06.118 --> 39:19.124
[SPEAKER_00]: their careers are night and day if they don't run into Pock at the right place at the right time and Skywalker is sort of the lost one and all of that, but Skywalker is not new Japan television champion right now.

39:19.564 --> 39:22.385
[SPEAKER_00]: If he doesn't have that match with Pock at that moment in time.

39:23.433 --> 39:28.395
[SPEAKER_01]: A, W, and all, and this one might be the more loaded one.

39:28.975 --> 39:37.558
[SPEAKER_01]: Do we think that, uh, Lucha Brothers, even though they had, uh, the highlight feud with the box and the pre-TV day?

39:38.398 --> 39:43.700
[SPEAKER_01]: I think Death Triangle kind of was the thing that most solidify them on the roster, given everything.

39:43.920 --> 39:46.541
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, Death Triangle was so cool.

39:46.821 --> 39:49.022
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, that was, that was a really,

39:52.338 --> 39:54.519
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, you know, it gives an accursed there.

39:54.579 --> 40:03.584
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a tough complicated legacy of the death triangle, but it was It was one of the first, I don't know if I piece the right one.

40:03.605 --> 40:04.545
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't really want to use IP.

40:04.605 --> 40:09.748
[SPEAKER_00]: It was one of the first original AEW creations, you know, the True.

40:09.848 --> 40:17.853
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's a proportion that inherited a lot of canon whether it be Jack Evans in in helico or whether it be

40:19.001 --> 40:37.964
[SPEAKER_00]: the box, you know, the existence of Kenny Omega, the, you know, Darby Allen might have been new for a lot of people in 2019, but for for people that watched evolve, but it was very fun this past week and to have a conversation with Darby Allen, where I was like, you know, I saw you debut for evolve, but he was very surprised to hear that, but, um,

40:39.015 --> 40:53.102
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, the death triangle was one of the first things that was uniquely AEW, and as soon as they formed, it was like, oh my god, you know, this is, this is the best case scenario for all three of these guys.

40:53.122 --> 40:59.205
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure on their own, all three of them would have been fine, but I'm very glad that we never had to find out.

40:59.225 --> 41:03.007
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm very glad that we existed in a timeline where we got death triangle, because

41:03.827 --> 41:05.128
[SPEAKER_00]: They were marvellous.

41:05.168 --> 41:07.889
[SPEAKER_00]: They are absolutely marvellous during their entire run.

41:07.929 --> 41:19.154
[SPEAKER_00]: And I still think that that best of seven series they did is a little underappreciated because those matches are again sort of blend together by the end of that hammer work.

41:19.794 --> 41:20.494
[SPEAKER_01]: The hammer work.

41:20.554 --> 41:23.676
[SPEAKER_01]: The fact that the hammer became a plot device throughout the seven matches.

41:23.976 --> 41:24.296
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

41:24.456 --> 41:26.077
[SPEAKER_00]: The hammer stuff was great.

41:27.097 --> 41:28.278
[SPEAKER_00]: The one match that.

41:29.642 --> 41:49.658
[SPEAKER_00]: I want I wanted to rewatch and I actually couldn't find it and I hope that a W. Post on their YouTube at some point because I believe I voted that number 10 match of the year in 2022 was Pock Penta and Phoenix on a dynamite against Fletcher Mark Davis and Will Osprey.

41:50.298 --> 42:10.432
[SPEAKER_00]: And you got to see Fletcher and Pock have these crazy interactions that felt like it was a sign of things to come, but it was also, you know, this was before Osprey was a roster member, this was, you know, maybe Osprey's second A-W batch, I mean, it was it was so early in the timeline of Osprey as I look here, this was.

42:15.590 --> 42:39.064
[SPEAKER_00]: fourth aid of fifth aid of you back so you know so early in the days of aspirin a w when you got him in pocket the ring and you know as we go throughout his career he's just gonna have dozens and dozens and dozens of you know yes there's the omega stuff in the orange cashy stuff in the ricochet stuff but I would imagine a lot of people listing probably haven't thought of pox phoenix and pentagon versus

42:40.058 --> 42:43.200
[SPEAKER_00]: Aussie open and will offspring from 2022 and quite some time.

42:43.461 --> 42:48.324
[SPEAKER_00]: The other one I'll throw out your real quick is from daily's place.

42:49.085 --> 42:59.713
[SPEAKER_00]: This match, if my memory served me correctly, this was a deal where they were taping maybe dynamites either back to back or one night after the other.

42:59.753 --> 43:02.155
[SPEAKER_00]: So this aired on a taped dynamite.

43:02.951 --> 43:10.735
[SPEAKER_00]: and word had gotten to Dave that this match was going to be it was going to be long and it was going to be great.

43:10.875 --> 43:18.559
[SPEAKER_00]: And so Dave was talking about how excited he was for it and then he ended up giving it five stars, which, you know, postocado mega take that for what it's worth.

43:18.619 --> 43:23.041
[SPEAKER_00]: But it was one of those were you knew Dave was really excited to watch it.

43:23.061 --> 43:24.702
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think it made everybody excited to watch it.

43:25.402 --> 43:26.683
[SPEAKER_00]: It was when Pentagon was out.

43:26.823 --> 43:29.284
[SPEAKER_00]: It was just Phoenix and Pock versus the

43:33.848 --> 43:34.989
[SPEAKER_00]: it's an unbelievable match.

43:35.309 --> 43:39.373
[SPEAKER_00]: It's absolutely incredible, and it's based on a lot of the work that pocketed with the bucks in that match.

43:39.433 --> 43:51.422
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, throughout his entire career, I think Pock and I'm sorry, you know, I think the bucks that I think Kevinstein were two of Pock's single biggest advocates, and you saw anytime the buck share the ring with them.

43:52.322 --> 44:01.930
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, through the greatest tag team of all time, but one of their single greatest opponents when you run the spreadsheet ended up being Pock and whatever incarnation they were in the ring together.

44:03.327 --> 44:18.248
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, and I feel like that that there could be a discussion about Kenny Omega 2 with those who not just the box the elite in general, especially getting a chance to go back and watch in the early pack stuff with a mate like I

44:18.912 --> 44:22.855
[SPEAKER_01]: I really did think the world of that, rewatching that Iron Man match today.

44:23.095 --> 44:26.157
[SPEAKER_01]: Like it was such a just fascinating match.

44:26.477 --> 44:30.540
[SPEAKER_01]: Might be one of the only great ones, or excellent ones.

44:30.620 --> 44:38.505
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it was a time, I mean, you know, AW was some new at that point that I think production on that feels so different than that one.

44:38.525 --> 44:41.046
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's that's a bummer because I really like the production.

44:41.146 --> 44:41.467
[SPEAKER_00]: But,

44:42.267 --> 44:46.088
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, we've had seven years of dynamite where we're used to.

44:46.108 --> 45:02.112
[SPEAKER_00]: It's changed the way that television wrestling works, but the idea of Pock and Kenny Omega having an Iron Man match on three mainstream American television in 2020 was still a novel concept.

45:02.152 --> 45:06.153
[SPEAKER_00]: That was still like a, wait, this is real, this is happening.

45:06.173 --> 45:07.733
[SPEAKER_00]: This is totally insane.

45:09.372 --> 45:18.079
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and like the fact that they treated the Ironman match completely shoot, stopping the clock during falls and having like the constant score bug.

45:18.459 --> 45:25.505
[SPEAKER_01]: And it just felt, and I know this was a point that became like a popular thing to bludgeon AEW with the felt.

45:25.825 --> 45:34.752
[SPEAKER_01]: Actually sports like, and especially like, it also took me back to like, oh yeah, AEW had rankings and yeah, and with all of that.

45:35.132 --> 45:40.594
[SPEAKER_01]: But no, like I'm looking, I just, I know I'm doing this before a second hour of our show.

45:40.654 --> 45:43.855
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm I'm looking at Kate Cage match.

45:43.915 --> 45:54.658
[SPEAKER_01]: I just pulled up his max guide and it is ludicrous like within a would take a w out the situation here.

45:57.039 --> 45:59.980
[SPEAKER_01]: He's a guy who had four star matches.

46:01.235 --> 46:04.017
[SPEAKER_01]: in so many different places across the last 20 years.

46:04.838 --> 46:10.043
[SPEAKER_01]: And arguably, like the last 15 years, it has been even more so.

46:10.143 --> 46:17.729
[SPEAKER_01]: And if Dave will review 2007, PWG, it might be even more of them too.

46:17.889 --> 46:21.973
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's just one of those things that it kind of takes me a little bit of back.

46:22.148 --> 46:38.463
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's that's what I tried to highlight a little bit with that with that article that I have on voices of wrestling is in my own head cannon I sort of separated all of those matches that I that I linked there's ten matches there in their own category where I had ring of honor.

46:39.103 --> 46:40.944
[SPEAKER_00]: I had early PWG.

46:41.464 --> 46:42.384
[SPEAKER_00]: I had to carer.

46:42.504 --> 46:43.805
[SPEAKER_00]: I had early Draingate.

46:43.865 --> 46:45.326
[SPEAKER_00]: I had early Draingate USA.

46:45.686 --> 46:46.686
[SPEAKER_00]: A Draingate UK.

46:47.006 --> 46:48.687
[SPEAKER_00]: I had late stage PWG.

46:48.707 --> 46:50.368
[SPEAKER_00]: I had late stage Draingate USA.

46:50.488 --> 46:51.448
[SPEAKER_00]: I had New Japan.

46:52.009 --> 46:53.509
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I had a Draingate return.

46:53.549 --> 46:54.990
[SPEAKER_00]: You'll late stage Draingate.

46:55.030 --> 46:55.370
[SPEAKER_00]: And so.

46:57.299 --> 46:59.021
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's, it's utterly remarkable.

46:59.262 --> 47:11.597
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, one of those things is again, a kind of loss of time is, you know, he came back to Drangate and from the jump there, he was great, but he was doing UK Indies at that point, too.

47:11.757 --> 47:14.780
[SPEAKER_00]: And some of the reviews on the UK Indie stuff was a little rough.

47:14.820 --> 47:16.162
[SPEAKER_00]: It was like, you know, he, you know, he,

47:16.777 --> 47:34.662
[SPEAKER_00]: As we saw a lot with guys that era that were in WWE for a while, they just had a hard time sort of getting back into the swing of things, and so if you go back and look at the reviews for the work that he was doing in the fall of winter of 2018, it's not incredibly highly thought of, but by the time you get to 2019 and

47:36.242 --> 47:38.425
[SPEAKER_00]: Now we've got the match with Oscar and Rev Pro.

47:38.485 --> 47:40.869
[SPEAKER_00]: Now he's got the match with Walter and OTT.

47:41.830 --> 47:51.043
[SPEAKER_00]: He's got the fight club pro tour that he did with Ata where he's got a singles match with Kyle Fletcher and that for historical purposes, I should rewatch.

47:51.283 --> 47:58.909
[SPEAKER_00]: it was got that car in a war match and I thought car in a war had a really beautiful tribute to to park on on his social media earlier this week.

47:58.970 --> 48:09.678
[SPEAKER_00]: But by the end of that run, you know, you could rack up OTT and Rev Pro and Fight Club Pro with other places that he also got over it.

48:09.719 --> 48:17.085
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, he's he's one of those guys, you know, it's a little bit like Samoa Joe, where

48:18.968 --> 48:36.839
[SPEAKER_00]: no matter what the expectation is when they get into a company, you know, when Joe came into ring of honor in 2002, the idea wasn't that he was going to be now 25 years later, still one of the flagship figure heads of that promotion when people read those initials

48:40.374 --> 49:04.922
[SPEAKER_00]: wasn't meant to be up until very recently a record setting open the brave gate champion and future open the dream gate champion when he came in as Matt side elves replacement drank it in 2007, but no matter where these guys went, you know, for Joe was you know, ring of honor and TNA and WWE, you know, there's no expectations that Joe was going to headline a paper for you against Brock Lesnar when he got there and for Pock, there was no expectation that he was going to have the

49:07.272 --> 49:27.621
[SPEAKER_00]: in Dragon Gate and in NXT and while he was on the main roster in WWE, he was the best TV worker there was a take that you can find me giving in real time that during his entire time on the main roster both, you know, Ross Macdown version of him and 205 live version of him.

49:27.861 --> 49:33.063
[SPEAKER_00]: He was the best TV worker on that roster which had some level of merit to it.

49:33.583 --> 49:35.724
[SPEAKER_00]: into AEW where again, he was pushed so heavily.

49:35.744 --> 49:37.905
[SPEAKER_00]: It just speaks to his talents that no matter where he went.

49:39.245 --> 49:42.646
[SPEAKER_00]: No matter what the expectation was, he was eventually going to get pushed to the top of the card.

49:42.686 --> 49:47.328
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, Drangit, you would say, I wrote about this, you know, when I talked about the six-man tag for Miami.

49:48.380 --> 49:52.603
[SPEAKER_00]: Dring it, you would say falls apart after pox signs with WWE.

49:52.823 --> 50:05.290
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I don't think that is a 100% cause and effect of pox leaving, but you and I have seen every possible second of Dring it, you would say, sometimes it felt like it was against our will.

50:06.511 --> 50:10.654
[SPEAKER_00]: From 2010 to 2012, the Canada shows where pox debuts to Miami,

50:13.895 --> 50:42.038
[SPEAKER_00]: Gabe was able no matter what was happening in that promotion, what was or wasn't getting over no matter what the card was, he could look at Pock and go, go have a match the night, and Pock would go have a match the night, and for his talented ads, Yamato was when he was in America, or Yoshino was when he was in America, or for his greatest Gargano when Swan and Chuck Taylor got by the end of that run, for his greatest ricochet was in drink at USA, they never had the thing to Pock had, and that promotion

50:43.560 --> 50:52.980
[SPEAKER_00]: really suffered from poca leaving because I think it gave them an air of legitimacy and I also think that they just simply weren't as good with him gone.

50:56.238 --> 50:57.078
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no.

50:57.798 --> 51:15.382
[SPEAKER_01]: I was very fortunate to be at that Miami match in person way back when 14 years ago, but it drag and get USA after you talk about revisiting the big stars during the ROH 10 year.

51:16.022 --> 51:18.843
[SPEAKER_01]: Pack became like the unique kind of

51:19.303 --> 51:31.080
[SPEAKER_01]: Traveling draw because outside of PWG where he would always go visit at that time period You weren't necessarily always seeing him in highlights stuff on the east coast.

51:31.121 --> 51:34.666
[SPEAKER_01]: You had that Toronto weekend that they had there

51:35.266 --> 51:59.175
[SPEAKER_01]: as well, like going into Milwaukee too, like he became like one of the, like the marketing that the market had figures within, especially after they weren't doing as many Japanese fly-ins, he became like one of the most important ones for them to have, especially after an era where Tizawa was out of America and you just didn't really have that kind of unique

52:05.132 --> 52:08.176
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, I thought it was worth writing about.

52:08.196 --> 52:11.079
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a reason that I included the Roderick Strongmatch from Ring of Honor.

52:11.179 --> 52:17.767
[SPEAKER_00]: And then Pock's Drain Get USA debut in May of 2010 or is BB Holkin Pock again, Schingo and Yumano.

52:18.188 --> 52:21.872
[SPEAKER_00]: The reason I included those matches was I want to tell the story there that

52:23.573 --> 52:44.051
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, pock comes in, you know, 2006, pock sort of becomes the designated special attraction guy in what was the UK and you see at the time, which was, you know, one PW, it was, it was Carina, you know, whatever was there.

52:44.071 --> 52:44.131
[SPEAKER_00]: So,

52:45.193 --> 52:57.984
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, he's wrestling age a strong rev pro back there, but it was a different era of kind of rev pro WXW Yes, he's an early WXW FWA was the first one.

52:58.004 --> 52:58.885
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.

52:59.065 --> 53:06.232
[SPEAKER_00]: One PW and I PWK were really early Pocrosions where he would wrestle

53:06.852 --> 53:14.678
[SPEAKER_00]: generico who was in it, you know, not in a ring of honorary at full time, but you know, had a reputation on the US and these, and he would wrestle AJ style.

53:14.698 --> 53:16.500
[SPEAKER_00]: They would wrestle Teddy Hart and he would wrestle him dog.

53:16.520 --> 53:21.343
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, he became that guy in 2005 and especially 2006.

53:21.404 --> 53:25.447
[SPEAKER_00]: And so he gets in tight with generico.

53:26.067 --> 53:28.089
[SPEAKER_00]: That gets him into PWG.

53:32.432 --> 53:38.534
[SPEAKER_00]: that first weekend that he's there, which is, you know, also, alter we can forward.

53:38.554 --> 53:46.457
[SPEAKER_00]: He wrestles AJ, which is good, but it's really the generacle match the next night where people start going like, whoa, who?

53:47.448 --> 53:48.809
[SPEAKER_00]: Who is this guy?

53:48.989 --> 53:54.591
[SPEAKER_00]: And so on that show, you know, among other people is Colca Bannon.

53:54.631 --> 53:58.652
[SPEAKER_00]: So Cabana starts blowing up a game and he's like, you, you have to use this guy.

53:58.672 --> 54:08.136
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, this guy would fit like a glove and everything that you're doing and Gabe, I, I, I compared it a little bit to how he felt about Chris here or before he started putting here a full time with Gabe.

54:08.897 --> 54:11.197
[SPEAKER_00]: wasn't really sold on and it didn't really see it.

54:11.217 --> 54:13.338
[SPEAKER_00]: So they go to the UK for the fifth year fast of all.

54:13.398 --> 54:16.178
[SPEAKER_00]: And he wrestles Roddy and he wrestles side-down.

54:16.218 --> 54:18.359
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the Roddy match is very good.

54:18.379 --> 54:21.019
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the side-el matches is good.

54:21.900 --> 54:25.400
[SPEAKER_00]: But they're not the level of the generacle match was.

54:25.420 --> 54:29.281
[SPEAKER_00]: They're not the level of what he was doing in PWG at the time.

54:29.781 --> 54:32.302
[SPEAKER_00]: And so the game sort of strikes your shoulders and goes from there.

54:32.742 --> 54:35.822
[SPEAKER_00]: And then they end up in the Northeast and August of 2007

54:39.544 --> 54:52.214
[SPEAKER_00]: where he wrestles Danielson on one night and in Hartford and then he wrestles Davey Richards of the Manhattan Center for Manhattan Man 2, which is an all-time great ring of honor show, but those matches don't get over it at all.

54:52.254 --> 54:57.839
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, Danielson had a reputation at the time, the one thing that he couldn't really do

54:59.443 --> 55:04.926
[SPEAKER_00]: at an extraordinary level was wrestle some of these small high flyer types and so he and Pock struggled together.

55:05.306 --> 55:08.027
[SPEAKER_00]: And then Pock and Davy kind of bombed the next night.

55:08.047 --> 55:19.592
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, Dave writes in the observer recap of that show is the one thing that we can that didn't get over because those are historically great ring of honor shows and Pock and Davy bomb and so Gabe, you know, I'm good.

55:19.632 --> 55:21.073
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't need to use this guy.

55:21.613 --> 55:23.694
[SPEAKER_00]: And I say all of that one because I think it's the

55:25.495 --> 55:40.574
[SPEAKER_00]: public facing failure that pocket, but when you watch that in conjunction with his drag it USA debut, which was open the northern gate 2010, like I said, BB Holkin Park versus Shingo and Yamato, the link to that matches on voices wrestling.com.

55:41.475 --> 55:47.439
[SPEAKER_00]: And you see the way that Pock is presented and you hear the way the commentators are talking about them and you see the way that that batch has worked.

55:48.080 --> 55:52.603
[SPEAKER_00]: By that point in time, Gabe looks at Pock like a god.

55:52.983 --> 55:57.967
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, he's the next great addition to Drenget USA and they're historically great first year.

55:57.987 --> 55:58.067
[SPEAKER_00]: And,

55:59.588 --> 56:16.535
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to say a lot of words and a lot of names really quick, but I just sort of want to rifle off some of his drink at USA catalog because a lot of this footage is now lost to time and you have the last show was 12 years ago and so there's going to be a lot of people that hear this that they've never seen drink at USA before.

56:16.555 --> 56:25.038
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't know where to find it and they don't know anything about it, but in the span of two years in drink at USA, you're going to rattle off some of the matches that he had.

56:25.885 --> 56:29.968
[SPEAKER_00]: Pock and Hulk versus Schingo in Yamato from Open the Northern Gate, 2010.

56:30.288 --> 56:36.653
[SPEAKER_00]: Pock and Yoshino versus Schema, or I'm starting to rookie doi and Ricochet, Dren, get USA United, Philly.

56:36.753 --> 56:39.775
[SPEAKER_00]: Pock versus Tozawa, Mercury rising, 2011.

56:40.095 --> 56:45.239
[SPEAKER_00]: Pock and Yoshino versus Schema in the rookie doi from Open the Ultimate Gate, 2011.

56:45.399 --> 56:49.502
[SPEAKER_00]: Three way match and up rising, 2011, Ricochet versus Pock versus Rich Swan.

56:49.942 --> 56:52.864
[SPEAKER_00]: Open the Freedom Gate Championship match from the second anniversary show.

56:53.144 --> 56:54.185
[SPEAKER_00]: Yamato versus Pock.

56:54.405 --> 57:02.548
[SPEAKER_00]: The most underrated drink at U.S.A. match in history, Tozawa Shimon, Rikashay vs. Pock, Rich Swan, and AR, Fox from chasing the dragon that captain's fall match.

57:02.928 --> 57:06.789
[SPEAKER_00]: Pock vs. Rikashay, Shimon, Rikashay vs. Yoshino and Pock at a big tag match.

57:07.109 --> 57:10.350
[SPEAKER_00]: The infamous now, tragically, for multiple reasons,

57:10.710 --> 57:14.715
[SPEAKER_00]: Pock versus Brody Lee match from Boshito Code of the Warrior 2011.

57:15.075 --> 57:26.769
[SPEAKER_00]: Pock versus Tozawa again from Open the Golden Gate, low key versus Pock, and low key Tozawa and Baby Hulk versus Masaki Bochizuki, Pock and Ricochet is final drink at USA Match, and that's just to name a feel.

57:27.974 --> 57:46.494
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, he has across the 50 shows the dragon gate USA has he has 21 matches and most of those are on different shows so in that 20 show stretch arguably during that time period he is the most important person on the roster.

57:47.014 --> 57:58.919
[SPEAKER_01]: even though you had Yamato's time as the open the freedom gate champion and by 2012, you were starting the rise of Johnny or Gano.

57:59.600 --> 58:00.900
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was out there.

58:01.881 --> 58:05.002
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was out, but it was out by 2012 was already a made man.

58:05.822 --> 58:09.604
[SPEAKER_01]: But like he was already a featured attraction coming in with Matt Blanky at that point.

58:10.607 --> 58:28.226
[SPEAKER_00]: It is absolutely remarkable to go through those matches and there, I mean, I'm looking at my, I'm looking at my, I'm looking at my, I'm looking at my, I'm looking at my, I'm looking at my, I'm looking at my, I'm not pulled this document up in six years now, there is a chance it's 15 or that's 19 to hear.

58:32.703 --> 58:43.267
[SPEAKER_00]: There is a chance that I think 19 of these 21 matches, I had at four stars or higher, maybe 18, I had at four stars or higher.

58:47.847 --> 58:50.008
[SPEAKER_00]: That is absurd.

58:50.149 --> 58:55.612
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, the two that I know for sure I did not have were Ricochet Pock and Swan that three way, which is still a real, I mean, I mentioned it.

58:55.632 --> 58:56.673
[SPEAKER_00]: It's still really fun match.

58:57.153 --> 59:09.001
[SPEAKER_00]: In the six way elimination, free match with Ricochet, AR Fox, Pockrich Swan, Sabu, in the United States, Sabu, though, because Sabu comes out randomly and that match just goes to a hole.

59:09.221 --> 59:11.002
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, but other than that,

59:11.963 --> 59:15.085
[SPEAKER_00]: I might have, I might have given all these matches at least four stars.

59:15.105 --> 59:29.092
[SPEAKER_00]: And as I've said now for years, when you look at the Dringate six man's in America, number one blood generation versus due fixture 2006, number two muscle outlaws versus typhoon 2008, number three to me with a bullet.

59:29.692 --> 59:34.374
[SPEAKER_00]: is Pock Ricochet and Moshezuki versus Kitozawa in Hulk from 2012.

59:34.414 --> 59:36.875
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that matches only a hair below those other two.

59:36.915 --> 59:46.318
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a four and three quarter star match that has been criminally underrated and lost due to time, but you know, it's not just the four star matches.

59:46.358 --> 59:49.219
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the four and a half of the four and three quarter star matches that he pulled off and

59:53.250 --> 59:56.412
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going through my rewind and rewatch notebook right now.

59:56.452 --> 01:00:01.414
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I have finally gotten to a point where packed is not have a four star map.

01:00:02.115 --> 01:00:05.997
[SPEAKER_01]: And most of these matches were four in a quarter, four and a half.

01:00:06.317 --> 01:00:10.559
[SPEAKER_01]: And that was the United Gate Final was three and a quarter, or three and a half for me.

01:00:10.759 --> 01:00:12.280
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm also flipping through it.

01:00:12.800 --> 01:00:16.302
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's like, okay, then the next show, we had open the Southern Gate.

01:00:16.702 --> 01:00:16.802
[SPEAKER_01]: And

01:00:17.262 --> 01:00:38.254
[SPEAKER_01]: I know that a pack had a that wild dream tag team matchery got busted open against Chuck Taylor and then before you know it you're in Atlanta and he has four star a four and a quarter star match with the Kirito Zawa and the next night always packed doing the next night he has a four and a half star match with Yoshino versus Shiman.

01:00:38.814 --> 01:00:41.976
[SPEAKER_00]: I've got a pull-up my open the southern gate notes real quick.

01:00:42.096 --> 01:00:42.477
[SPEAKER_00]: I need to

01:00:45.932 --> 01:00:50.054
[SPEAKER_00]: the dream match, uh, before I can ricochet versus Tozawa and Chuck Taylor.

01:00:50.114 --> 01:00:52.535
[SPEAKER_00]: I believe in great games of Polski branding.

01:00:52.615 --> 01:00:56.436
[SPEAKER_00]: I believe this was the stable shootout for open the southern gate.

01:00:57.356 --> 01:01:04.359
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, but this also was like the dream partner's match because pack into Zau would have the brave gate match the next night.

01:01:04.619 --> 01:01:06.820
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, uh, four and a half stars on that one.

01:01:07.060 --> 01:01:09.341
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, okay, wow, I got it.

01:01:09.541 --> 01:01:11.102
[SPEAKER_00]: I got to find that and re-wash that.

01:01:11.422 --> 01:01:11.462
[SPEAKER_00]: I.

01:01:12.718 --> 01:01:22.272
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember you're right, I remember Pockup busted open, I remember nothing else about that match, but I gave it four and a half stars.

01:01:22.352 --> 01:01:25.257
[SPEAKER_00]: So it must have been really fucking great.

01:01:25.357 --> 01:01:26.819
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow, I mean, again, that's this is.

01:01:28.000 --> 01:01:45.689
[SPEAKER_00]: This is to me the sort of thing that just made his career so unique and anybody that's heard this show before And I say that because I imagine we're gonna have some people listening to the baby never listen to the show before But one of the things that I talk about a lot is that we now live in the era and this is true for all media But it's especially true for wrestling.

01:01:45.729 --> 01:01:51.912
[SPEAKER_00]: We live in the era of over consumption and so I don't know when that cut off is I think you know in my head.

01:01:51.952 --> 01:01:52.973
[SPEAKER_00]: It's right around 2018 or 2019 where

01:01:55.514 --> 01:02:06.590
[SPEAKER_00]: everything became a streaming service and then when a w came into play, they started giving us so much content and then we had the pandemic where time sort of stood still for a minute and so

01:02:08.024 --> 01:02:18.069
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just harder now to create a legacy and to have a defined legacy than ever before because something that happened three days ago was old news.

01:02:18.109 --> 01:02:23.732
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you know, I was out of the house on Saturday night for all out.

01:02:24.292 --> 01:02:34.757
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was before the news to Pockbroke, I was planning on watching the show on Monday and I was like, oh God, like I'm already so far behind because I haven't watched this Saturday paper view

01:02:36.738 --> 01:02:48.362
[SPEAKER_00]: time move so quickly, we fixate on things for shorter amounts of time and it's just harder to establish a unified front of greatness if you want.

01:02:48.382 --> 01:02:52.123
[SPEAKER_00]: I think Pock particularly falls victim to that because, you know,

01:02:53.777 --> 01:03:01.822
[SPEAKER_00]: The Dragon Gate Library, especially outside of specific of the year 2011, is one that is not well-capped.

01:03:01.862 --> 01:03:07.686
[SPEAKER_00]: That footage is hard to find, and it's extremely hard to know what to look for if you're a new fan.

01:03:08.206 --> 01:03:13.549
[SPEAKER_00]: The Dragon Gate USA Library is not existent, and I would imagine that.

01:03:14.910 --> 01:03:19.053
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's like some random stuff has been put up on at WWE YouTube channel.

01:03:20.122 --> 01:03:23.363
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and it, like, usually stuff that's like Gargano Bay.

01:03:23.643 --> 01:03:24.423
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, exactly.

01:03:24.443 --> 01:03:27.624
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's, it's for all intents of purposes, not existent.

01:03:27.904 --> 01:03:29.004
[SPEAKER_01]: The Dread Media.

01:03:29.224 --> 01:03:33.525
[SPEAKER_01]: The, the Dragon Gate UK stuff is, is dead media.

01:03:33.565 --> 01:03:40.687
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, for you and I, that stuff has been hard to track down over the years and did you and I try to, try to keep tabs on everything.

01:03:40.927 --> 01:03:48.569
[SPEAKER_00]: His debit match in New Japan was a Samurai TV broadcast, which means it will never be on New Japan world.

01:03:49.169 --> 01:03:59.658
[SPEAKER_00]: The 205 live stuff, only myself and Joe Lanza and Joe Gagney were paying attention to it in a real time, and nobody's going to define Pox legacy by that stuff.

01:03:59.959 --> 01:04:16.473
[SPEAKER_00]: The PWG archive, I respect high spots, and the last month for kind of being like, hey, why don't we just put some of this stuff on YouTube, we have access to it, but the PWG archive is so vast and scattered and not clear at all on it.

01:04:17.053 --> 01:04:37.940
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, if you don't know, like, you know, I just think about, like, if you're a newer wrestling thing, if you got into wrestling in 2022 and you love Pock and you love a W I, you know, of course you don't know where to look for PWG batches and you wouldn't know what to look for if you knew where to look, you know, it's it's all such a mess and the more I started thinking about you a lot of Pock's career

01:04:39.144 --> 01:04:55.843
[SPEAKER_00]: is dead media, you know, it pox career is preserved on daily motion and on VK and on unlisted YouTube uploads that you and I have, but outside of the UW, it's really hard to string together this guy's career in a way that's visible.

01:04:56.463 --> 01:04:57.324
[SPEAKER_00]: And accessible.

01:04:57.484 --> 01:05:16.961
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I understand why when you know you myself and and Alan for I'll do a podcast where we talk about the greatest wrestlers of all time, I understand why if I make this statement and I say that Pock for instance is the 44th best wrestler of all time, why that might be joined to some people.

01:05:17.521 --> 01:05:19.341
[SPEAKER_00]: But I said, you know, I've seen all of it.

01:05:19.502 --> 01:05:20.722
[SPEAKER_00]: I've seen all the PWG stuff.

01:05:20.742 --> 01:05:21.882
[SPEAKER_00]: I've seen all the Draingate stuff.

01:05:21.902 --> 01:05:36.286
[SPEAKER_00]: I was there in real time for the NXT stuff pre-network, which was my introduction to him was watching the earliest days of full-sale NXT on Hulu, when it was still Seth Rollins in gender mahal and

01:05:37.006 --> 01:05:39.748
[SPEAKER_00]: Adrian Neville teaming with quarry graves.

01:05:39.788 --> 01:05:49.596
[SPEAKER_00]: That was my intro option to pop and then I was there for the 205 live stuff and I was there for the dragon gate return and I've been there for all of a W but if you weren't there for most of it.

01:05:50.617 --> 01:05:54.440
[SPEAKER_00]: I think a lot of people this week have maybe been taken aback by just how deep that resume is.

01:05:55.861 --> 01:06:14.252
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the last time I did, greatest wrestler ever was 2021 and I remember when we were talking with Alan, I said, yeah, I've packed it 25 and as someone who, I mean, I think that's another reason why it's such a gut punch is that essentially

01:06:15.493 --> 01:06:21.837
[SPEAKER_01]: But for those who don't know, he makes Dragon Gate in 2007, and then it's completely off to the races with the guy.

01:06:21.857 --> 01:06:29.721
[SPEAKER_01]: I made for me as an adult wrestling fan, essentially 2007 is that time where I'm essentially watching everything from this.

01:06:29.741 --> 01:06:42.869
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is a guy that at least it was so clear where he was in 2001 to me and if anything, the cow lock hasn't even gotten even stronger, especially when you look at like the Osprey match and things like that.

01:06:45.291 --> 01:06:54.099
[SPEAKER_01]: it is such a shame about the lost media situation and especially like it's just something where things are going to get more worse and worse.

01:06:54.119 --> 01:07:04.768
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I saw someone post on blue sky a catalog of all of his brave gate matches from 2011 and it's just like

01:07:05.288 --> 01:07:18.276
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, a lot of it may take, but, you know, I, the, the person's links were to, uh, uh, we're excellent or internet archive and it by just like, oh, yeah, none of this is up on the dragon gate.

01:07:18.316 --> 01:07:19.376
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, work at this point.

01:07:19.416 --> 01:07:22.098
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just like, where do you could you even really direct them for like that?

01:07:22.718 --> 01:07:35.580
[SPEAKER_01]: And then it not to go guns blazing about to 2016, which this episode has actually been kind of nice not to have a 2016 existential crisis with you this week.

01:07:35.600 --> 01:07:46.542
[SPEAKER_01]: That's one little like little piece of solace there, but like I really hope that they would put more stuff up, especially given this week.

01:07:47.142 --> 01:07:49.823
[SPEAKER_01]: If not to the YouTube channel, but to the network.

01:07:50.484 --> 01:07:57.499
[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe they will run you know, and if we get through core kind of there's nothing out by will I will certainly inquire about that, but you mentioned the brave gate run and

01:07:58.438 --> 01:08:14.585
[SPEAKER_00]: For anybody that's been watching Drangate in real time in 2025 and 2026, you know, Pock has been a regular conversation piece because for those that don't know, Riyoya Tanaka, who is arguably the brightest prospect that Drangate has.

01:08:14.645 --> 01:08:21.848
[SPEAKER_00]: He won the open the Brave Gate belt at Kobe World 2025, which is their biggest show on the calendar, and then very

01:08:26.490 --> 01:08:45.139
[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody that's followed the promotion for any length of time then had the first idea, which was, oh Maybe he's gonna go after after Pox record and so, you know, Pox was open the brave gate champion from August of 2010 through November of 2011 with most of that rain taking place

01:08:45.599 --> 01:08:49.921
[SPEAKER_00]: during the blood warriors versus junction three field, which was in drag it was split up in the two camps.

01:08:49.941 --> 01:08:51.282
[SPEAKER_00]: Junction three was the baby phases.

01:08:51.742 --> 01:08:52.883
[SPEAKER_00]: Blood warriors was the heel.

01:08:53.303 --> 01:09:00.107
[SPEAKER_00]: If you see any footage of park wearing green junction three types, you're going to want to stop what you're doing and watch it.

01:09:00.127 --> 01:09:08.191
[SPEAKER_00]: That's typically if you're looking for more pocket footage and maybe you don't know all the drag and get stuff, you're typically in the right place when you find pocket that junction three gear.

01:09:09.392 --> 01:09:11.474
[SPEAKER_01]: He's wearing silver or if he's wearing green.

01:09:11.754 --> 01:09:12.535
[SPEAKER_01]: You're doing okay.

01:09:12.555 --> 01:09:27.631
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, if he's wearing weird yellow tides Maybe because there was no great stuff then or I just saw Rob Nailer just posted a clip of of Pocon generico from that next second anniversary show and it's yeah, it's like, you know That's yellow tides are a pocket.

01:09:27.651 --> 01:09:29.412
[SPEAKER_00]: He's just crushing it on that.

01:09:29.733 --> 01:09:31.435
[SPEAKER_00]: That was so such a fun match, but

01:09:32.495 --> 01:09:36.756
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's the wild thing about him, is that we're talking about a match that was happening in 2007.

01:09:36.796 --> 01:09:37.256
[SPEAKER_01]: And 2008.

01:09:37.837 --> 01:09:39.617
[SPEAKER_01]: But you're same different.

01:09:39.657 --> 01:09:40.637
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

01:09:40.677 --> 01:09:41.598
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

01:09:41.618 --> 01:09:41.818
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

01:09:41.838 --> 01:09:41.978
[SPEAKER_01]: 2008.

01:09:41.998 --> 01:09:44.699
[SPEAKER_01]: So 18 years that this guy has.

01:09:45.539 --> 01:09:48.420
[SPEAKER_01]: And in 2008 he was not the wrestler he would be in 2010.

01:09:48.900 --> 01:09:56.762
[SPEAKER_01]: But like he has been legitimately very good to great for nearly 20 years since he landed on the scene in 2007.

01:09:57.222 --> 01:09:59.182
[SPEAKER_00]: I was astounded when I started

01:10:01.303 --> 01:10:22.861
[SPEAKER_00]: the matches that I wanted to write about for voice to wrestling.com I had a pool of about 20 matches and the ones that jumped mind immediately because I want to make them the less I didn't want to do he and ricochet from Osaka and I didn't want to do you know the Kobe World 2011 tag match with Poc and Dragon Kid versus Sheaman ricochet for my money is

01:10:24.082 --> 01:10:32.008
[SPEAKER_00]: the best straight tag match of the 2010s in one of the best straight tag matches of the 21st century.

01:10:32.929 --> 01:10:41.196
[SPEAKER_00]: The only the only caveat there being the buck super smash brothers and future shock from PWG in that latter match, but two on two no gimmick tag match.

01:10:41.236 --> 01:10:43.998
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, what about Kung Fu Masters versus Shien Monte?

01:10:45.870 --> 01:11:02.570
[SPEAKER_00]: It's every bit as good as She-Mun, Ricochet versus Poc and Drankhead, you know, it's so pretty good, but you're talking about 21st century tag matches at that point, but of the 2010s, it's the best tag match of the easily of the 2010s, and I don't want to do stuff like that, but when I started to put together the list of like what I thought was those.

01:11:03.531 --> 01:11:18.676
[SPEAKER_00]: Under the radar, either truly legitimately great matches, or sort of those second-tier pop matches, I couldn't believe the amount of 2007 that immediately came to mind of he and Ricochet and Chikara, he and Claudio and Chikara,

01:11:19.056 --> 01:11:26.063
[SPEAKER_00]: he and Roddy and Ring of Honor, and then the PWG stuff where, you know, he's got Claudio and PWG.

01:11:26.083 --> 01:11:28.405
[SPEAKER_00]: He's got the generic or rematch in PWG.

01:11:28.425 --> 01:11:30.487
[SPEAKER_00]: He's got the tag team with Rodderick strong in PWG.

01:11:30.547 --> 01:11:36.252
[SPEAKER_00]: It's all the same year, and then by the end of that, they're very little bit of Drengeet 2007 Pock footage we have.

01:11:36.292 --> 01:11:38.715
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not like he's the weak link in any of those matches.

01:11:38.735 --> 01:11:43.519
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's a different era of his career in a different body and a different look, but it's

01:11:44.540 --> 01:11:45.622
[SPEAKER_00]: Still pretty damn good.

01:11:46.143 --> 01:11:51.532
[SPEAKER_00]: And so all of that leads to eventually what was, you know, prior to that dream gate run in 2019 and

01:11:53.388 --> 01:11:59.492
[SPEAKER_00]: prior to if you want to pick a favorite era of a WWE career, well, what was his magnum opus was this brave gate run.

01:11:59.612 --> 01:12:01.774
[SPEAKER_00]: That was 447 days.

01:12:02.274 --> 01:12:05.977
[SPEAKER_00]: It was 11 successful defenses.

01:12:06.397 --> 01:12:16.704
[SPEAKER_00]: And once to knock a got to four or five of those defenses really quickly, the conversation turned to, oh, I think they're going to have them go after pox record.

01:12:16.824 --> 01:12:17.745
[SPEAKER_00]: And so at Kobe

01:12:22.848 --> 01:12:47.677
[SPEAKER_00]: And the conversation for the last seven months in dragging has sort of been comparing those brave gate runs of who's was better Tanaka's or Pax with, you know, now we say with the benefit of hindsight that Pock losing to Ricochet in 2011 was one of the most satisfying ends with title reign imaginable Tanaka losing to Dragon Kid, very divisive, but Shami, you know, sort of a catastrophic booking decision.

01:12:49.892 --> 01:13:02.198
[SPEAKER_00]: The brave gate title forever, especially because of the way that Tenaka's ended, the brave gate title is always going to be compared to what Pock did with that belt in 2010 and 2011.

01:13:02.278 --> 01:13:10.523
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, the Dragon Kid match from Gate of Destiny 2010, the Yamato match, which I believe is on the Gaioa YouTube channel.

01:13:10.543 --> 01:13:12.544
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that Dragon Kid match might be too.

01:13:19.819 --> 01:13:35.345
[SPEAKER_00]: Hurricane Rhona, we're Tanazaki's on the top turn buckle facing the floor and Pock does a hurricane Rhona that sends Tanazaki from the top rope to the concrete where he does a flat back bump between one of the northeast fums in Drengeet history.

01:13:36.305 --> 01:13:44.808
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the ricochet core can match the Tozawa match in Atlanta, the Doi match from Dead or alive, Ricochet and Hakata Star lanes.

01:13:44.828 --> 01:13:49.169
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a Tanazaki match in core, and they don't remember that I'd like to go back and re-watch.

01:13:49.569 --> 01:13:59.772
[SPEAKER_00]: And then Yankee and Osaka, Dragon Kid, the night after Pac versus Shingo, on that Shingo versus Yokozuka, three-drangate UK show.

01:14:00.372 --> 01:14:24.392
[SPEAKER_00]: And then it ends with Ricochet versus Poc and when I interviewed Ricochet in 2024, he said himself, he goes, you know, those matches were Ricochet Osprey before Ricochet Osprey and you really see the groundwork in the inspiration of what will would take seven years later, or five years later, with those guys of being in the super junior years, you see it especially in Ricochet versus Poc and that Osaka match.

01:14:26.184 --> 01:14:50.421
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and really that that came at a time with the Bravegate title to like his 2011 that the Bravegate just never well look like it would have some good strong champions but just the idea of the way that pack kind of collected those defenses and the way that then it merged into the requisite few to just

01:14:52.222 --> 01:15:18.107
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, we're so deep into bats up happening booking wise in 2026, but at a time where that they put care into the belt, this was like just a such a different level of care that happened that it did so much for ricochet, but at the end of it, like essentially pack was his legacy within the promotion was complete by that time, and that's before you get into Dragon Gate UK,

01:15:20.967 --> 01:15:34.716
[SPEAKER_01]: The fact that this wall was kind of all happening at the same time even makes it more remarkable because it's he is when the most reliable stars in the same promotion across three continents, which is a ludicrous thing to be able to say.

01:15:35.757 --> 01:15:44.902
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the things that I was struck by when I was looking back at some of my notes and the cage match listings that Pock has is

01:15:46.787 --> 01:15:54.059
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, he signs with WWE in the summer of 2012 his last show is Kobe World 2012 for Draingate.

01:15:54.079 --> 01:15:57.645
[SPEAKER_00]: He wins the triangle gate belts on that show and that immediately vacates some.

01:15:57.665 --> 01:15:58.447
[SPEAKER_00]: You know,

01:16:00.511 --> 01:16:07.015
[SPEAKER_00]: World 2012 for hardcore Draingate fans was always a really hard show to track down.

01:16:07.055 --> 01:16:11.318
[SPEAKER_00]: It was one that like I had to actively work to get for the longest time.

01:16:11.358 --> 01:16:17.742
[SPEAKER_01]: And now there's a very long story that yes, yeah, it was during that content kind of pause that happened in 2012 and 2013.

01:16:18.683 --> 01:16:22.667
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so you're like, like, Uh-huh nation has this legendary farewell.

01:16:22.827 --> 01:16:24.669
[SPEAKER_00]: Ricochet had a very emotional farewell.

01:16:24.689 --> 01:16:26.250
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, Pock had one too.

01:16:26.330 --> 01:16:35.198
[SPEAKER_00]: It just wasn't seen by that many people and still hasn't been seen by that many people, which is a real bummer, but I was looking at his 2012.

01:16:35.278 --> 01:16:41.825
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was just, I was so taken a back

01:16:42.893 --> 01:16:52.159
[SPEAKER_00]: By how good he was before he signed that year, he has the Tozawa rematch on the Open the Golden Gate Drain, get USA show.

01:16:52.719 --> 01:16:56.542
[SPEAKER_00]: That goes into a match that I wrote about for voices of wrestling.

01:16:56.942 --> 01:17:03.426
[SPEAKER_00]: Pock generico in Yoshino versus Tozawa Kevinstein and Super Dragon, which I've always said.

01:17:04.106 --> 01:17:07.909
[SPEAKER_00]: If that match, which was a PWG match, if that match took place in Racida,

01:17:08.589 --> 01:17:18.805
[SPEAKER_00]: We would all universally agree that it's one of the great trio's matches to ever take place on American soil, but it happened during that wrestle reunion show at LA X.

01:17:18.945 --> 01:17:19.766
[SPEAKER_00]: So the crowd.

01:17:20.995 --> 01:17:27.519
[SPEAKER_00]: is good, but they're not 2012 PWG recita crowd levels of good, so that kind of hurts that match a little bit.

01:17:27.820 --> 01:17:31.202
[SPEAKER_00]: He's got the open-the-dream gate match against Schema, which is just such a gorgeous match.

01:17:31.742 --> 01:17:40.888
[SPEAKER_00]: The match against Loki, the six-man that we talked about from Miami, this is when World One International Forms, and so take your pick on any combination, pocket the time is

01:17:45.291 --> 01:17:48.173
[SPEAKER_00]: It's in Saty Hoko boy to something great, but like it's funny.

01:17:48.373 --> 01:17:49.134
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't forget Saty.

01:17:49.194 --> 01:17:49.995
[SPEAKER_01]: Of course, of course.

01:17:50.015 --> 01:17:53.918
[SPEAKER_01]: Like during the the three years that Saty Hoko boy mattered.

01:17:54.118 --> 01:18:02.304
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's funny that World One International has the legacy that it has because all told the unit wasn't really around that long.

01:18:02.324 --> 01:18:05.246
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it was like what 18 months, I don't know.

01:18:05.706 --> 01:18:10.330
[SPEAKER_00]: If that, it may be even a little maybe maybe closer to 15, but wasn't around that long.

01:18:11.324 --> 01:18:29.250
[SPEAKER_00]: and i would i would argue never did anything super historically significant but when you see the photo of park swan rickishia yoshito doi is hatching hoko boy together you go well this must have been the greatest unit of all time it's so it's funny it's in months 18 months and so surprisingly 18 months

01:18:29.270 --> 01:18:45.920
[SPEAKER_00]: So what are like, you know, you and I know because we've done shows where we've, you know, we've ranked the best units in the company's history, where the original world won, which was Hulk, Doy, Yoshino, Pock, you know, briefly MCKZ, briefly Kotoka, you know, Panazaki.

01:18:45.940 --> 01:18:54.485
[SPEAKER_00]: Panazaki that silver and gold hair of the world won and Bush out of our caskins, you know, that silver and gold hair of world won is actually one of the greatest units in company history.

01:18:58.421 --> 01:19:07.004
[SPEAKER_00]: obviously great, but not the legacy of the original world one, but it's just funny the way that world one is remembered because of the great color scheme of the great town involved.

01:19:07.144 --> 01:19:11.326
[SPEAKER_00]: But I say all that because he has all those matches just by March of that year.

01:19:11.946 --> 01:19:22.429
[SPEAKER_00]: And then he goes into super juniors, where he's got the Liger match, the devoured match, and the Tuguchi semi-files match, I've got an order coming from Japan right now after Pockpastway.

01:19:22.469 --> 01:19:25.550
[SPEAKER_00]: I hate spending money and especially right now, I really hate spending money.

01:19:25.570 --> 01:19:26.351
[SPEAKER_00]: But I was like, you know what?

01:19:27.351 --> 01:19:29.473
[SPEAKER_00]: It's been a while since I bought some Japanese magazines.

01:19:29.913 --> 01:19:33.856
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me, you know what I just got yesterday for me enough?

01:19:34.016 --> 01:19:35.597
[SPEAKER_01]: I got the Dragon Kid Shupro.

01:19:35.777 --> 01:19:37.858
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so I order the Dragon Kid Shupro.

01:19:37.938 --> 01:19:40.660
[SPEAKER_00]: I ordered the POS Dreamgate Shupro.

01:19:41.381 --> 01:19:44.083
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I still want one on my wall right next to us right now.

01:19:44.283 --> 01:19:48.746
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I saw that POC first is Liger from the Super Junior's made the cover of a Shupro.

01:19:48.786 --> 01:19:50.407
[SPEAKER_00]: So I went and ordered that one as well.

01:19:51.087 --> 01:19:52.628
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't know that that made cover.

01:19:52.688 --> 01:19:53.809
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't have it down then.

01:19:53.829 --> 01:19:54.450
[SPEAKER_01]: You didn't have it down.

01:19:54.470 --> 01:19:54.890
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to go.

01:19:56.049 --> 01:20:05.776
[SPEAKER_01]: My wall is getting now cut that this one wall is just drag and get shoe pros and some of like my more, uh, uh, some of my more like obscure stuff.

01:20:05.796 --> 01:20:14.401
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I have a program from Bruiser Brody's Memorial show from Duacan, but it is now going to be completely filled up now with drag and get shoe pros.

01:20:14.461 --> 01:20:15.662
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so I've heard this one.

01:20:15.862 --> 01:20:17.583
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, track that down to the front.

01:20:17.803 --> 01:20:20.765
[SPEAKER_00]: The cover is popped doing a standing shooting star on Liger.

01:20:20.785 --> 01:20:22.146
[SPEAKER_00]: So I should get that in the mail tomorrow.

01:20:23.483 --> 01:20:47.583
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, that was one of the things that I started to think about when I was thinking about his career totality and just, you know, the 2012 run I was like, wow, he was actually, he was really turning a corner almost, you know, almost in the way that Osprey did in 2019 where, you know, 16, 17, 18, we all knew that we'll Osprey was great, but something happened in 2019 where was like, oh, wow, oh, he's like here now, you know, he's a guy.

01:20:48.143 --> 01:21:04.971
[SPEAKER_00]: And when you go back and look at pox resume from the first six months of 2012, you see him taking a similar sort of progression and then he signs and it just changes things, but that super junior's tournament, I think it's so important to understanding who

01:21:15.107 --> 01:21:21.749
[SPEAKER_00]: It just how respected he was and how desired he was in other promotions.

01:21:22.129 --> 01:21:24.130
[SPEAKER_00]: He goes into Corkin and Penn's Liger.

01:21:24.170 --> 01:21:40.374
[SPEAKER_00]: He comes back a week later, that Prince Debit match is to my understanding the thing that that really pushed it over the top for Pock to sign with WWE, but he beats Liger and Corkin and then he beats Debit and Corkin and then he goes to the semi-finals that where he loses to Taguchi.

01:21:40.674 --> 01:21:42.115
[SPEAKER_00]: But Pock is not

01:21:42.975 --> 01:21:56.929
[SPEAKER_00]: a contractor to Japan wrestler he's pocket of dragon gate and he gets an absolute rocket strap and that super junior tournament and I can only speculate that had he not signed with WWE.

01:21:57.369 --> 01:22:01.974
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, let's say he just bulked up the contract to offer and decided to stay in Japan for a little bit longer.

01:22:03.666 --> 01:22:19.548
[SPEAKER_00]: I think we end up with the golden years of Bushy Road, New Japan, where we're getting pock versus Cushita and pock versus Kylo Riley, and some more pock versus Devin because Devin would stay in Japan for two years after their singles match.

01:22:20.605 --> 01:22:40.534
[SPEAKER_00]: I think he has an entirely different career in an entirely different legacy if he doesn't sign when he did because that New Japan Avenue, for as hard as I think it would have been for him to leave Drangate, I think the same thing happened to Ricochet a few years later, it was like, okay, well, I've done everything and New Japan is offering me real money and Drangate, I thank you, I love you, but I'm going to go to New Japan now.

01:22:40.574 --> 01:22:42.675
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the same thing could have happened to Pock and

01:22:43.375 --> 01:22:59.504
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I have zero down based on the small sample size that we have that not only would he have been great from a Bell and a Bell standpoint, I think he would have been so respected and so protected in the booking and I'm I'm sad in that we didn't get more of him in that era of new Japan.

01:23:01.189 --> 01:23:26.543
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and especially for if we're playing like, okay, sliding doors, he would be able to consistently be one of those junior markers throughout the 2020, you know, I mean, who was to say, 2019 or any of this that he decides that a W comes around he goes, but like

01:23:30.825 --> 01:23:37.115
[SPEAKER_01]: that ends up being a stand-hands and like figure and funny enough like not now just thinking about it.

01:23:38.957 --> 01:23:45.547
[SPEAKER_01]: I think like something that struck me over the last 48 hours that it and go with me on this.

01:23:47.657 --> 01:24:02.555
[SPEAKER_01]: In any other, uh, if this was a scenario that happened, talking about a guy in his career, in any of the traditional Japanese major promotions, we'd be talking about someone who's

01:24:06.019 --> 01:24:20.965
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that that is kind of a way for those that I mean every podcast could be someone's first one or this could be someone that just knows Pac for me, he W and listening to this because they want to hear about the other portions of his career.

01:24:22.045 --> 01:24:37.013
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a comp that I feel kind of more and more comfortable of your last 40 hours being able to say that if you're trying to understand PAC and his importance to the promotion, he ends up being like the Stan Hansen of Dragon Gate.

01:24:37.354 --> 01:24:46.759
[SPEAKER_00]: In the way that he was respected and revered always in the booking absolutely, you know, and that's been the punch after a gut punch over the last 48 hours

01:24:49.384 --> 01:24:55.427
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I, you know, that was the, you know, I went to bed Sunday and I, I told my girlfriend because I was, yeah, I was pretty tore up at Sunday night.

01:24:55.447 --> 01:24:59.269
[SPEAKER_00]: I go, yeah, I just, yeah, I'm going to go to bed and I just hope Joe tomorrow, I hope I feel better.

01:24:59.329 --> 01:25:02.210
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I was joking with her Monday afternoon, which is like, how are you feeling?

01:25:02.230 --> 01:25:04.051
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, I woke up Monday feeling much worse.

01:25:04.131 --> 01:25:04.452
[SPEAKER_00]: I go.

01:25:05.452 --> 01:25:05.632
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

01:25:05.652 --> 01:25:08.553
[SPEAKER_00]: When I went to bed, news hadn't broken Japan yet.

01:25:08.613 --> 01:25:17.697
[SPEAKER_00]: And when I woke up Monday, the news had got into Japan and that, you know, that was a pretty sobering Twitter experience that morning.

01:25:18.337 --> 01:25:23.559
[SPEAKER_00]: But you're, I mean, again, talk to talk to Ricochet, talk to Jack Evans.

01:25:23.579 --> 01:25:26.120
[SPEAKER_00]: So I thought at a very nice video to share with you today, talk to Swan.

01:25:27.081 --> 01:25:31.182
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it can't be, you know, you know, but, but, you know,

01:25:34.212 --> 01:25:55.572
[SPEAKER_00]: the headhawk show of those foreigners at the time, and Ricochet says that I'm still going to say, I wasn't looking at, he says it in the interview, I did with him in 2024, because I wasn't looking at wrestling at some business until I went to Japan and started hanging out with Pock, and then I realized just how seriously he was taking everything, and how seriously he was taking his body and his diet and his training, he goes, you know, I wasn't

01:25:56.551 --> 01:25:57.732
[SPEAKER_00]: I wasn't there yet.

01:25:57.832 --> 01:26:11.960
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't know that that was a thing until I started, you know, spending, you know, again, he spent, you know, all 2011 with Poc in the ring and out of the ring and it gave Ricochet the career that he has now and Ricochet has been very open about talking about that.

01:26:12.080 --> 01:26:20.305
[SPEAKER_00]: But, yeah, you know, I think both in terms of the actual inring presentation, the handsome compass accurate, but I also think that behind the scenes,

01:26:20.825 --> 01:26:27.629
[SPEAKER_00]: part of a Dren Gate where, you know, if you were going to survive as a foreigner in that company, you were going to do what Pock did.

01:26:27.729 --> 01:26:30.231
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you got out of line, it wasn't going to work for you.

01:26:30.271 --> 01:26:36.154
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, while he was there from 2007 to 2012, I think that's, that's a very apt point.

01:26:36.174 --> 01:26:39.676
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, continuing in that timeline just real quick.

01:26:41.597 --> 01:26:44.439
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's, it's important to note this.

01:26:45.439 --> 01:26:47.000
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, just time moves on.

01:26:47.040 --> 01:26:48.301
[SPEAKER_00]: We forget about certain things.

01:26:49.785 --> 01:26:58.347
[SPEAKER_00]: But Hock is signed to a WWE contract before generico, before debit, before Kenta, before

01:27:08.942 --> 01:27:16.704
[SPEAKER_00]: which is still John Loranitis and Big Show and John Cena sort of as your focal point of TV.

01:27:16.844 --> 01:27:18.724
[SPEAKER_00]: And yes, that is the year.

01:27:19.385 --> 01:27:23.986
[SPEAKER_00]: We're Danielson and punk sort of genuinely become main event stars.

01:27:25.366 --> 01:27:29.667
[SPEAKER_00]: But Pock was so good.

01:27:29.747 --> 01:27:31.708
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that's the way it has to be described.

01:27:32.128 --> 01:27:34.388
[SPEAKER_00]: Is that Pock looked the way he did?

01:27:34.528 --> 01:27:36.089
[SPEAKER_00]: Was the size that he was?

01:27:38.072 --> 01:27:46.276
[SPEAKER_00]: It was was a great promo in a w and was a great promo in a game, but didn't do the WWE promo style and never, you know, was never because he just wasn't corny.

01:27:46.296 --> 01:27:47.657
[SPEAKER_00]: So he was never going to be really good at that.

01:27:48.577 --> 01:27:49.738
[SPEAKER_00]: All of those things worked against him.

01:27:50.158 --> 01:27:53.439
[SPEAKER_00]: They still signed him when they did.

01:27:53.639 --> 01:27:58.942
[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't one of those situations where the had generic on the had David and Kenton scene and

01:27:59.202 --> 01:28:07.504
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, then they were off to the races, doing the theater tours for NXT, and oh, by the way, here's an indie guy, a guy that was wrestling in Japan that had some buzz.

01:28:07.824 --> 01:28:08.864
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's bring him in.

01:28:09.484 --> 01:28:12.125
[SPEAKER_00]: Pock was before all of those guys.

01:28:12.145 --> 01:28:21.027
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, Pock was back to FC W. And that, I think, speaks to the town of him really almost more than anything.

01:28:21.087 --> 01:28:25.448
[SPEAKER_00]: It's absurd how early he was there, especially,

01:28:26.519 --> 01:28:32.805
[SPEAKER_00]: because that snowball hadn't started rolling yet of the Triple H vanity fat.

01:28:32.865 --> 01:28:37.849
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, he's in there for the earliest days of full sale and succeeded in the WWE network.

01:28:38.910 --> 01:28:49.719
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, the live streaming component, the NXT, the Black and Gold era, I think you have to attribute the most success to that that Claudio Sami Zainbach.

01:28:50.400 --> 01:28:53.142
[SPEAKER_00]: But Pocca's is right there with them

01:28:54.923 --> 01:29:11.732
[SPEAKER_00]: for a lot of fans, they hadn't seen a match in America with English commentary, which I think has to be noted here, with WWE production, you know, this wasn't a shitty ring of honor,

01:29:18.275 --> 01:29:24.278
[SPEAKER_00]: The San Luis A. and Adrian Nelebatch from December of 2014 on American soil before.

01:29:24.678 --> 01:29:34.363
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's the type of thing that now with the existence of a W and with Pock being on national TV and so many different incarnations that I think we can take for granted for a little bit.

01:29:34.904 --> 01:29:40.666
[SPEAKER_00]: But like Mike, there's a reason that those dorks in a fruit basket to triple Asia one point.

01:29:40.947 --> 01:29:42.848
[SPEAKER_00]: It's because they were getting Pock!

01:29:44.118 --> 01:30:08.187
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, look, objectively because they were getting pocket, it opened up the world to a style of wrestling that had never been seen at that level before because it was something different than what Ray was doing and it was something different than what Eddie was doing, but it was clearly inspired and funneled through some beaker.

01:30:08.987 --> 01:30:32.202
[SPEAKER_00]: to get to Pock, I mean, I compare him more to Brett Hart than I do any higher flyer because he was always so precise and so perceived at his work, but still like, that was a WWE show where we were getting an unfiltered version of genericovers as Pock and in 2014 that blew people's minds.

01:30:33.847 --> 01:30:34.127
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

01:30:34.928 --> 01:30:54.827
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that it being someone that fell fellow to his career and him in NXT and the fact that the Adrian Neville, I ever get the tag team, the British excellence tag team, I think it was what was called, but just in general, the Adrian Neville run where he just was.

01:30:55.508 --> 01:30:57.210
[SPEAKER_01]: pack under a different name.

01:30:57.230 --> 01:31:08.546
[SPEAKER_01]: It gave a level of credence in XT that they weren't going to, that there wasn't going to be completely Vince McMahon fingers over everything.

01:31:08.906 --> 01:31:11.169
[SPEAKER_01]: Because it was clear at that time that like,

01:31:11.990 --> 01:31:29.222
[SPEAKER_01]: him entering WWE and that system he was going to be a tough sell and then the way that he goes in through NXT and NXT like him not being the character like the mighty mouse character or anything like that that

01:31:29.622 --> 01:31:33.565
[SPEAKER_01]: very clearly they would try to have them on the main roster to start.

01:31:34.146 --> 01:31:52.681
[SPEAKER_01]: What gave a level of authority to NXT at a time where it was, the landscape was what it was and it needed to kind of show that at least for what NXT was at that era, that it was distinct and better than the WWE other product.

01:31:52.741 --> 01:31:55.424
[SPEAKER_01]: It was creating its own challenge around within itself.

01:31:57.165 --> 01:32:04.472
[SPEAKER_01]: to that thesis stadium or that thesis statement as a Claudio or Seth Rollins or anyone else on that rock.

01:32:05.392 --> 01:32:12.759
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I said earlier, you know, I thought when he was in that system, he was the best tea worker that there was.

01:32:12.799 --> 01:32:14.280
[SPEAKER_00]: He's got a great scene of match.

01:32:14.300 --> 01:32:20.586
[SPEAKER_00]: He's got that Seth Rollins match that you know, I was watching on real time and blew everybody's mind.

01:32:20.626 --> 01:32:22.107
[SPEAKER_00]: It was just absolutely incredible.

01:32:25.197 --> 01:32:31.781
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, maybe it was only one or two, but I felt like he had a million great matches with Kevinstein during that time period.

01:32:32.241 --> 01:32:43.267
[SPEAKER_00]: I started laughing today because I saw the clip of he and Austin Aries on the WrestleMania pre show and I'm pulling up that rest of the card right now.

01:32:43.688 --> 01:32:45.629
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it was not one Orlando show.

01:32:46.741 --> 01:32:51.064
[SPEAKER_00]: But I remember, I mean, this is 2017.

01:32:51.144 --> 01:32:53.786
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm losing interest.

01:32:53.806 --> 01:33:06.155
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I'm definitely not watching raw week to week at this point, whereas maybe you're maybe in 2015 and 2016 I was, but I was laughing when I saw the clips of that batch because I remember.

01:33:07.626 --> 01:33:10.707
[SPEAKER_00]: That was the only thing on that show that I really cared about.

01:33:10.827 --> 01:33:13.827
[SPEAKER_00]: It'd probably hit the ring at like four Easter in that day.

01:33:15.267 --> 01:33:17.848
[SPEAKER_00]: But that was, that ended up being the mania just for context.

01:33:17.888 --> 01:33:28.330
[SPEAKER_00]: That was when the hearty's came back that was AJ Styles versus Shane McMahon, which apparently would 20 minutes triple age versus Seth Brawlands, which I have no memory of.

01:33:28.430 --> 01:33:30.890
[SPEAKER_00]: Randy Orton versus Pray Wyatt, which I have no memory of.

01:33:31.390 --> 01:33:33.671
[SPEAKER_00]: Goldberg versus Brock, which I'm sure was cool.

01:33:33.771 --> 01:33:34.151
[SPEAKER_00]: And then

01:33:35.351 --> 01:33:44.377
[SPEAKER_00]: The absolutely fraudulent, horrific, should have just qualified him from the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame, Roman Reigns versus Undertaker made of that.

01:33:44.797 --> 01:33:50.821
[SPEAKER_00]: But just seeing pocket areas, just baking in the sun on that.

01:33:50.921 --> 01:34:13.437
[SPEAKER_00]: kick off show it into big such an awesome match like it was the one thing I was excited about and I remember it happened I was like hey well I have my fill of WrestleMania that was incredible like I alright you know on the next I guess but it no matter the environment that he was put in I again my introduction to it but I I mean I had it thought about this stuff in so many years but the first time that I saw him would have been

01:34:15.635 --> 01:34:25.647
[SPEAKER_00]: way before the network, way before, you know, NXT had any sort of of ballas, but it was just, it was just at a point of my life where I was 13.

01:34:26.247 --> 01:34:29.011
[SPEAKER_00]: I was desperate to find any wrestling.

01:34:29.051 --> 01:34:30.392
[SPEAKER_00]: I was getting into Ring of Honor.

01:34:30.412 --> 01:34:33.836
[SPEAKER_00]: I was getting into PWG, but it was just there was nothing that could satisfy

01:34:34.617 --> 01:34:36.338
[SPEAKER_00]: The need, there was always a need for more.

01:34:36.778 --> 01:34:52.165
[SPEAKER_00]: And I remember just stumbling upon NXT on Hulu again at the very beginning of the full cell era and that was my introduction to Seth Rollins and that was my introduction to Broly Lee and then you know, it was my introduction to pocket.

01:34:52.865 --> 01:35:10.797
[SPEAKER_00]: I was kind of blown away by what I saw of him in WWE developmental and then putting the pieces together as I would get older PWG DVDs, I know Jesse Collins mentioned that PWG sells out compilation, which when I got when I got PWG sells out volume three in the mail Mike that that was.

01:35:11.858 --> 01:35:13.559
[SPEAKER_00]: A historic day in my household.

01:35:13.579 --> 01:35:26.488
[SPEAKER_00]: That was I probably what that was like nine hours of footage across three DVDs I might have wanted to get entire thing in one sitting and a lot of that one was Pocon generico and Poconstein and Pocon Roddy versus tune in generico.

01:35:26.948 --> 01:35:35.214
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, and by the way Here's Pocon in the young box again steam generico and Cecilia Coast guy just all these things It was just like oh, that's the guy from NXT.

01:35:35.334 --> 01:35:41.158
[SPEAKER_00]: I like that guy there, but holy shit Look at him now and then I started getting in a drag it shortly after that and then I was like, oh, he's there too

01:35:41.658 --> 01:35:43.480
[SPEAKER_00]: then there's the training USA stuff, always there too.

01:35:43.520 --> 01:35:58.075
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, you know, again, I, you know, on a very selfish level as we sort of start to maybe round out this conversation, the one thing that I will say about me and all of this is I don't know flattered as the right word, but as somebody that has

01:36:00.411 --> 01:36:08.237
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't want to speculate and draw a direct comparison to pox death, but, you know, in my own life, I have my own issues.

01:36:08.337 --> 01:36:18.706
[SPEAKER_00]: I struggle with my own mortality and at some times, whether I want to meet that mortality and my place in this world or whether anybody ever gives a shit about anything that I do or if I disappear to anybody care.

01:36:19.346 --> 01:36:27.593
[SPEAKER_00]: And the amount of people that reached out to me directly to say, I heard the news and I thought of you is heartbreaking to one degree.

01:36:28.930 --> 01:36:51.210
[SPEAKER_00]: it reminds me that all of these hours and hours of podcast and all this writing that I've done about Pock's career specifically in about Drain Gate is for a purpose and it's awful that I had to be reminded of that this way but nevertheless it was to some degree flattering to hear from so many people that wanted to confide in me once they heard the news.

01:36:52.587 --> 01:36:59.994
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, it's been nice to see the community and everyone kind of pull together during this.

01:37:00.814 --> 01:37:18.570
[SPEAKER_01]: And I originally did not know if I was going to be able to immediately stomach tomorrow's attribute to Pac show, but now especially after seeing Rikashay versus Osprey and just knowing that it's going to the way that AEW handles these kinds of things.

01:37:18.890 --> 01:37:19.671
[SPEAKER_01]: It's going to be

01:37:21.272 --> 01:37:42.067
[SPEAKER_01]: It'll be an emotional kind of night, and it's weird to still kind of grapple with the idea that now we at least, as a fan, we don't have a, we're now in a world without him, and I mean, it just then, and then you think about the family and friends and the people that actually did know I'm in.

01:37:42.727 --> 01:38:00.247
[SPEAKER_01]: that is still kind of a sad thought, but I have to say at least case, as someone who I had never dread doing this show this week, I had a little bit or at least over the last 48 hours, a lot of feelings about doing tonight.

01:38:00.747 --> 01:38:01.247
[SPEAKER_01]: episode.

01:38:01.348 --> 01:38:04.670
[SPEAKER_01]: I like to thank you for doing this episode.

01:38:04.690 --> 01:38:12.375
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel a lot better at least around pack and everything and sing down and talking to you and taking some time to tonight too.

01:38:12.435 --> 01:38:14.417
[SPEAKER_01]: Remember the man who gravity forgot.

01:38:14.577 --> 01:38:16.138
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, thank you for saying that.

01:38:16.158 --> 01:38:22.682
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's again, I I've been doing this podcast in my head since since Sunday.

01:38:22.702 --> 01:38:24.363
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's nice to get some of this out of my

01:38:27.815 --> 01:38:30.356
[SPEAKER_00]: Excited is certainly not the right word, but I am.

01:38:30.376 --> 01:38:30.696
[SPEAKER_00]: I am ready.

01:38:30.716 --> 01:38:49.725
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to be on my couch at seven central tomorrow to take this pop show all in and I expect just as the Brody show made me really emotional I expect more of the saying I got a little emotional writing about him last night just realizing that like, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I

01:38:50.695 --> 01:38:53.976
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I'm not ever going to write about him in the present tense anymore.

01:38:53.996 --> 01:38:54.476
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's funny.

01:38:54.496 --> 01:39:06.280
[SPEAKER_00]: You mentioned that I this hit me today, where I was like, oh, like I've been fantasy booking pop matches in my head for.

01:39:09.502 --> 01:39:27.432
[SPEAKER_00]: 12 years now like it's caught you know when I like you know when I when I had a dog and I I had a you know girlfriend for a number of years I had a dog with her that I that I love so much I love going on these walks with this dog because the dog was was super sensitive towards other dogs

01:39:28.653 --> 01:39:46.526
[SPEAKER_00]: and as you would imagine walking a dog in the city of Chicago when the dog is super sensitive to other dogs is a super difficult thing to do and you sort of have to be the only imagine you know you sort of have to be on guard at all times and it forced me to go outside without headphones and I started

01:39:47.920 --> 01:40:03.023
[SPEAKER_00]: really looking for it for a stressful as it could have been in worn there were days were going outside sucked because they were all these other dogs outside you're so sometimes good weather was a curse in that in that situation but I started to look forward to going outside because I wouldn't wear my headphones with the dog and at you know it adds

01:40:04.264 --> 01:40:13.551
[SPEAKER_00]: everybody that's going to listen to a podcast that covers what once was the second biggest promotion Japan, which is now maybe the fifth biggest promotion Japan.

01:40:13.851 --> 01:40:20.415
[SPEAKER_00]: If you've made it this far, we've all taken walks and thought about what matches would look like between wrestlers that I've never had the chance to wrestle before.

01:40:21.076 --> 01:40:21.196
[SPEAKER_00]: And

01:40:22.892 --> 01:40:38.587
[SPEAKER_00]: I have spent on godbly amount of hours walking around the city of Chicago, thinking about what Pock would look like against certain wrestlers or thinking about the joy that Pock has brought me and matched in the past.

01:40:38.707 --> 01:40:45.593
[SPEAKER_00]: I tweeted out the gift last night of the Kobe World 2009 Triangle Gate Batch, which

01:40:47.446 --> 01:41:14.969
[SPEAKER_00]: I look at this sort of like the the first like holy shit Pox really here in Dragon Gate Match and there's that spot where Pox on the apron and Takuawasa grabs him and I I don't even know how you would describe the move He gets Pock up and sort of like a like a backpack position, but Pox inverted so they're back to back In a washer just drops him off of the apron and Poco's chin first into the apron

01:41:15.968 --> 01:41:17.809
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the best no-shagami bump of all time.

01:41:17.829 --> 01:41:19.030
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the best no-shagami bump of all time.

01:41:19.150 --> 01:41:20.090
[SPEAKER_00]: Mike, I watched that.

01:41:20.170 --> 01:41:22.071
[SPEAKER_00]: I very vividly remember.

01:41:22.131 --> 01:41:33.957
[SPEAKER_00]: I watched that match for the first time in 2014 because this was before I was writing for voices of wrestling.com, but I had a blog spot site where I reviewed all the Kobe worlds from 2014 to 2013.

01:41:35.732 --> 01:41:37.573
[SPEAKER_00]: and preparation for World 2014.

01:41:38.234 --> 01:41:43.197
[SPEAKER_00]: And I saw that spot, Mike, I think about that spot at least once a week.

01:41:44.117 --> 01:41:47.620
[SPEAKER_00]: It is just so violent and catastrophic looking.

01:41:47.700 --> 01:41:49.741
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's never been another bump like it.

01:41:50.301 --> 01:41:52.923
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought about it probably once a week for 12 years.

01:41:53.483 --> 01:41:57.486
[SPEAKER_00]: And as I sat down to write more about Poclast,

01:41:59.107 --> 01:42:21.780
[SPEAKER_00]: to sort of come to grips with why I was doing it, which was much different than writing about him in real time in 2018 and 2019 for Drangate, and much different than discussing him in the everything elite discord from 2019 to now, and you know much different than hopping on a podcast with you and I was going to talk about the greatest wrestlers ever to

01:42:22.622 --> 01:42:29.283
[SPEAKER_00]: to come to grips with why I was talking about Poc in that article was was a pretty devastating thing to do.

01:42:29.463 --> 01:42:38.005
[SPEAKER_00]: And so for anybody that's reached out to me, I really appreciate it, for anybody that's lost this podcast, I really appreciate it, for anybody that read that article, I really appreciate it.

01:42:38.785 --> 01:42:45.027
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, sort of here coming at grips with the fact that we won't have new Poc passes to watch.

01:42:45.067 --> 01:42:47.887
[SPEAKER_00]: And that that might sound overly dramatic to some, but he's been

01:42:52.280 --> 01:43:17.188
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a pretty tough thing to come to grips with, but I, you know, I have solace in the fact that as you wash these tributes, poor and again, I, you know, I made a joke earlier, everybody from sting to teddy hard, but you know, I saw the clip of Jeff Jarrett today talking about how much he enjoyed pocket's a person and if Jeff Jarrett and Park can get along as friends, it just speaks to the type of person that he was and and through all my years of

01:43:18.208 --> 01:43:19.889
[SPEAKER_00]: trying to get to him.

01:43:19.909 --> 01:43:43.440
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, almost like this is a reference that that I think you will understand maybe nobody else will, but in this same way that Mark Marin for years obsessed with interviewing the Warren Michaels and in trying to under he was obsessed with trying to understand Lauren Michaels, I had a little bit of that with Pock and I tried to just suck information out of anybody that had ever come, you know, come and contact with him, had to wrestle them at any sort of relationship with

01:43:44.803 --> 01:43:47.224
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it was kind of the moby dick.

01:43:47.245 --> 01:43:50.446
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, like the great work, the white out of everyone.

01:43:50.466 --> 01:43:52.588
[SPEAKER_01]: I, I guess, as we're lying in this.

01:43:52.668 --> 01:43:54.669
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was, you know, my point there is just real point.

01:43:54.689 --> 01:43:57.030
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you know, you just, you never heard a bad word about them.

01:43:57.431 --> 01:44:01.493
[SPEAKER_00]: And you, it wasn't, you never, it wasn't not that you ever heard a bad word about it.

01:44:01.633 --> 01:44:02.033
[SPEAKER_00]: It was.

01:44:03.194 --> 01:44:27.866
[SPEAKER_00]: for as great of a wrestler as he is he's even a better person and that was a sentiment that was shared by every person that I ever came across that knew him to any sort of professional or personal degree is you think he's greater than the ring easy even better as a person and so you know we you know we go on and and I think hopefully hopefully we can all try to to live our lives a little bit more like Pac going forward

01:44:28.897 --> 01:44:32.669
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, I think that's a beautiful way to end this on.

01:44:33.030 --> 01:44:39.170
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll be back with you next week to talk about the Dragon Gate cork and it's happening this Friday.

01:44:40.414 --> 01:44:43.604
[SPEAKER_01]: Hope everyone has a good rest of your week and take everyone.

01:44:43.905 --> 01:44:44.045
[SPEAKER_01]: Bye.