Travicity
09-27-2010, 01:08 PM
On September 26th, 2010 (my birthday and one Gabe Sapolsky's for that matter), I got the opportunity to attend Dragon Gate USA's "The Way of the Ronin" show in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
I arrived at the venue at approximately 1:00 (the originally projected belltime for Golden Ringside ticket holders was 1:15.) Everyone in the area was aware of the fact that the ring situation and Gabe Sapolsky was very informative to the fans outside the Miramir Theatre, repeatedly giving updates on the situation with the ring. All of the fans were very forgiving over the situation. The ring arrived at around 1:45. I believe the ring may have belonged to one "Skullcrusher" Rasche Brown, but do not take my word for it. (On the side of the truck, there was a "Krusher" logo, so I am just assuming). At about 2:20, we were informed that we should be let in at around 3:15 to 3:30 at the latest. We were let in at about 3:00 and it did not take long for the show to get started thereafter. The venue for the show was very small, making it a very intimate environment and the crowd was phenomenally more hot than the crowd seen in Chicago the previous night.
Results:
-Aeroform (Louis Lyndon and Flip Kendrick) over Zero Gravity (CJ Esparza & Brett Gakiya).
-CIMA over Chuck Taylor via Meteora.
-Johnny Gargano over Drake Younger after two kicks to the face and two Hurt DonutsBrodie Lee over Rich Swann/Mike Quackenbush/Jimmy Jacobs/Kyle O'Reiley/Silas Young after a running big boot to Swann.
-Dragon Kid over Arik Cannon after a Crucifix Bomb.
Ricochet over Gran Akuma after a 630 Splash.
-Bryan Danielson over Jon Moxley via 10 stomps to the face and a LeBell Lock.
-Kamikaze USA (Shingo, Akira Tozawa, YAMATO) over WORLD-1 (BxB Hulk, Masato Yoshino, and Naruki Doi) after a Stay Dream by Shingo on BxB Hulk.
Aeroform/Zero Gravity was a solid match from two high flying teams. Zero Gravity is a team that I have not seen too much of, but they did really well for themselves tonight. With a bit more experience, I could see them being prominent on the indy scene in the future.
After this match, there was a brief 10 minute intermission before the main show got under way.
CIMA/Chuck Taylor: CIMA is a great spokesman for the company. His promos are always fun to listen to and he is very friendly towards the crowd. He informed the crowd of Ricochet earning a spot in WARRIORS in Chicago yesterday and asked if the crowd felt that Chuck Taylor also deserved a spot to which most booed, then cheered Chuck as he entered. Go figure. I felt that this match was a great choice to open the "main" portion of the show. Both men meshed very well together, displaying some great comedy in the early minutes of the match. There was some great action all around. I'm very happy for Chuck Taylor to be getting more shots like this. In the past year and a half or so, he has really made an impact thanks to places like PWG and Chikara (and IWA in 2006 when he was their champion.)
After CIMA won, Gargano came out to once again continue his quest to gain CIMA's approval. This led to Drake vs. Gargano as Drake attacked while Johnny was talking.
Drake/Gargano: This was more of a brawl than I expected, but it was a very fun brawl. Both of them brawled around the venue a bit, but when they made it to the ring, the action was just as hot. In my opinion, due to how likable he is, Drake is a very easy wrestler to get behind in a match while Gargano (much like Chuck Taylor) can provide good comedy while also getting under the fans' skin.
Six Way Match (Brodie Lee/Rich Swann/Mike Quackenbush/Kyle O'Reily/Silas Young/Jimmy Jacobs): I was very surprised to see Mike Quackenbush come out. My friend and I originally thought that perhaps Arik Cannon had travel issues, hence Mike replacing him. I was informed that Quack said in an interview earlier this week that he was feeling sick going into this weekend, so it was probably the right decision to switch him and Cannon.
This reminded me quite a bit of some of the great 6-man scrambles that Ring of Honor had about three years ago. Action all around, and too many things went on to write down. In my personal opinion, this match was even better than the very acclaimed four way match from the recent Philadelphia PPV between Adam Cole/Arik Cannon/Ricochet/Chuck Taylor. All six men deserve a lot of props for bringing the heat for this one.
Arik Cannon/Dragon Kid: I thought this match was very solid. I felt that there was some communication issues between the two at points, but I am very happy that Arik got to do a big singles match like this. Out of the four coming out of the Philly PPV, I felt that he was the most underappreciated in that match and deserved much more praise. It was not said if this match, like CIMA/Chuck Taylor, was a tryout for WARRIORS, but both did very well for themselves.
Ricochet/Gran Akuma: These two also put on a solid match. Ricochet is a big topic on the independent scene right now, which I feel is very well deserved. On Saturday, Yoshino/Doi/CIMA did a great job with making Ricochet out to be the star of that match, and after this match, Dragon Kid and CIMA continued to help make Ricochet look like a big deal.
Bryan Danielson/Jon Moxley: This match exceeded my expectations quite a bit. I love Jon Moxley, but I questioned the idea of these two working well together. As Danielson promised at the end of last night's Chicago show, this was not going to be a wrestling match. It was going to be a fight. The two of them fought around the ringside area, including Danielson doing a suicide dive into the crowd. Danielson even ended up bleeding, which I was very surprised over. He did not hold himself back at all in his two matches this weekend. Moxley was very over as a heel, pushing around his valet, but eventually succumbed to Danielson's claim: that he (Danielson) was going to kick his ****ing head in. I felt that this was a nice counteract to his match with YAMATO which at points was a very stiff match, but this was reminiscent of Danielson's series with Morishima in the aspect of both him and Moxley just not holding back against one another at all.
The post match I felt was very effective as well, to further establish Moxley as the top heel and further establish Jimmy Jacobs as one of the top babyfaces. Danielson put him over very nicely and was very funny, joking about the fact that because he was bleeding "he would probably be fired tomorrow."
Kamikaze/WORLD-1: As should be expected with these six-man tags, as cliché as it sounds, there is way too much action to call. These six went at it for around 29 minutes and I felt it was a better six-man tag than the one in Phoenix this year (which I still found great). Tozawa is such a great heel who should be REALLY fantastic in the next year or two. The two that particularly stuck out in this match to me were BxB Hulk and Shingo. For those not aware, these two had one of my favorite matches of the year in Dragon Gate in July that saw BxB lose his trademark hair. These two just really seemed like they legitimately hate each other. I would have to assume that since Shingo pinned BxB on this show, he will get a title shot at either 10/29 in Massachusetts or 10/30 in New Jersey which should be another fantastic match between these two. This match is definitely something to go out of your way to see.
Due to the delay, they had the meet and greet with Bryan Danielson after the show who seemed to (as always) be very friendly to his fans.
The show was over at approximately 6 PM. I think someone claimed the total length of the main show was about 2 hours and 15 minutes, and what a 2 hours and 15 minutes it was. Having seen all of DG USA's shows (barring Windsor from 5/7), this in my opinion may be the best show that they have had since the first show on 7/25/09. In fact, this show may have been even better than that one. This show just had a great flow (the lack of intermission probably helped) and I felt that every match delivered. Dragon Gate USA has not been very quick as of late with getting their shows to DVD, but I personally feel that this show should be put out as soon as possible. It is definitely a runner for independent show of the year in my opinion. Everyone involved deserves all of the credit. The wrestlers (who also helped o set up the ring once it arrived), the production crew, Gabe and Sal, and the fans in attendance for being a very hot crowd for what was a very hot show from Dragon Gate.
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I arrived at the venue at approximately 1:00 (the originally projected belltime for Golden Ringside ticket holders was 1:15.) Everyone in the area was aware of the fact that the ring situation and Gabe Sapolsky was very informative to the fans outside the Miramir Theatre, repeatedly giving updates on the situation with the ring. All of the fans were very forgiving over the situation. The ring arrived at around 1:45. I believe the ring may have belonged to one "Skullcrusher" Rasche Brown, but do not take my word for it. (On the side of the truck, there was a "Krusher" logo, so I am just assuming). At about 2:20, we were informed that we should be let in at around 3:15 to 3:30 at the latest. We were let in at about 3:00 and it did not take long for the show to get started thereafter. The venue for the show was very small, making it a very intimate environment and the crowd was phenomenally more hot than the crowd seen in Chicago the previous night.
Results:
-Aeroform (Louis Lyndon and Flip Kendrick) over Zero Gravity (CJ Esparza & Brett Gakiya).
-CIMA over Chuck Taylor via Meteora.
-Johnny Gargano over Drake Younger after two kicks to the face and two Hurt DonutsBrodie Lee over Rich Swann/Mike Quackenbush/Jimmy Jacobs/Kyle O'Reiley/Silas Young after a running big boot to Swann.
-Dragon Kid over Arik Cannon after a Crucifix Bomb.
Ricochet over Gran Akuma after a 630 Splash.
-Bryan Danielson over Jon Moxley via 10 stomps to the face and a LeBell Lock.
-Kamikaze USA (Shingo, Akira Tozawa, YAMATO) over WORLD-1 (BxB Hulk, Masato Yoshino, and Naruki Doi) after a Stay Dream by Shingo on BxB Hulk.
Aeroform/Zero Gravity was a solid match from two high flying teams. Zero Gravity is a team that I have not seen too much of, but they did really well for themselves tonight. With a bit more experience, I could see them being prominent on the indy scene in the future.
After this match, there was a brief 10 minute intermission before the main show got under way.
CIMA/Chuck Taylor: CIMA is a great spokesman for the company. His promos are always fun to listen to and he is very friendly towards the crowd. He informed the crowd of Ricochet earning a spot in WARRIORS in Chicago yesterday and asked if the crowd felt that Chuck Taylor also deserved a spot to which most booed, then cheered Chuck as he entered. Go figure. I felt that this match was a great choice to open the "main" portion of the show. Both men meshed very well together, displaying some great comedy in the early minutes of the match. There was some great action all around. I'm very happy for Chuck Taylor to be getting more shots like this. In the past year and a half or so, he has really made an impact thanks to places like PWG and Chikara (and IWA in 2006 when he was their champion.)
After CIMA won, Gargano came out to once again continue his quest to gain CIMA's approval. This led to Drake vs. Gargano as Drake attacked while Johnny was talking.
Drake/Gargano: This was more of a brawl than I expected, but it was a very fun brawl. Both of them brawled around the venue a bit, but when they made it to the ring, the action was just as hot. In my opinion, due to how likable he is, Drake is a very easy wrestler to get behind in a match while Gargano (much like Chuck Taylor) can provide good comedy while also getting under the fans' skin.
Six Way Match (Brodie Lee/Rich Swann/Mike Quackenbush/Kyle O'Reily/Silas Young/Jimmy Jacobs): I was very surprised to see Mike Quackenbush come out. My friend and I originally thought that perhaps Arik Cannon had travel issues, hence Mike replacing him. I was informed that Quack said in an interview earlier this week that he was feeling sick going into this weekend, so it was probably the right decision to switch him and Cannon.
This reminded me quite a bit of some of the great 6-man scrambles that Ring of Honor had about three years ago. Action all around, and too many things went on to write down. In my personal opinion, this match was even better than the very acclaimed four way match from the recent Philadelphia PPV between Adam Cole/Arik Cannon/Ricochet/Chuck Taylor. All six men deserve a lot of props for bringing the heat for this one.
Arik Cannon/Dragon Kid: I thought this match was very solid. I felt that there was some communication issues between the two at points, but I am very happy that Arik got to do a big singles match like this. Out of the four coming out of the Philly PPV, I felt that he was the most underappreciated in that match and deserved much more praise. It was not said if this match, like CIMA/Chuck Taylor, was a tryout for WARRIORS, but both did very well for themselves.
Ricochet/Gran Akuma: These two also put on a solid match. Ricochet is a big topic on the independent scene right now, which I feel is very well deserved. On Saturday, Yoshino/Doi/CIMA did a great job with making Ricochet out to be the star of that match, and after this match, Dragon Kid and CIMA continued to help make Ricochet look like a big deal.
Bryan Danielson/Jon Moxley: This match exceeded my expectations quite a bit. I love Jon Moxley, but I questioned the idea of these two working well together. As Danielson promised at the end of last night's Chicago show, this was not going to be a wrestling match. It was going to be a fight. The two of them fought around the ringside area, including Danielson doing a suicide dive into the crowd. Danielson even ended up bleeding, which I was very surprised over. He did not hold himself back at all in his two matches this weekend. Moxley was very over as a heel, pushing around his valet, but eventually succumbed to Danielson's claim: that he (Danielson) was going to kick his ****ing head in. I felt that this was a nice counteract to his match with YAMATO which at points was a very stiff match, but this was reminiscent of Danielson's series with Morishima in the aspect of both him and Moxley just not holding back against one another at all.
The post match I felt was very effective as well, to further establish Moxley as the top heel and further establish Jimmy Jacobs as one of the top babyfaces. Danielson put him over very nicely and was very funny, joking about the fact that because he was bleeding "he would probably be fired tomorrow."
Kamikaze/WORLD-1: As should be expected with these six-man tags, as cliché as it sounds, there is way too much action to call. These six went at it for around 29 minutes and I felt it was a better six-man tag than the one in Phoenix this year (which I still found great). Tozawa is such a great heel who should be REALLY fantastic in the next year or two. The two that particularly stuck out in this match to me were BxB Hulk and Shingo. For those not aware, these two had one of my favorite matches of the year in Dragon Gate in July that saw BxB lose his trademark hair. These two just really seemed like they legitimately hate each other. I would have to assume that since Shingo pinned BxB on this show, he will get a title shot at either 10/29 in Massachusetts or 10/30 in New Jersey which should be another fantastic match between these two. This match is definitely something to go out of your way to see.
Due to the delay, they had the meet and greet with Bryan Danielson after the show who seemed to (as always) be very friendly to his fans.
The show was over at approximately 6 PM. I think someone claimed the total length of the main show was about 2 hours and 15 minutes, and what a 2 hours and 15 minutes it was. Having seen all of DG USA's shows (barring Windsor from 5/7), this in my opinion may be the best show that they have had since the first show on 7/25/09. In fact, this show may have been even better than that one. This show just had a great flow (the lack of intermission probably helped) and I felt that every match delivered. Dragon Gate USA has not been very quick as of late with getting their shows to DVD, but I personally feel that this show should be put out as soon as possible. It is definitely a runner for independent show of the year in my opinion. Everyone involved deserves all of the credit. The wrestlers (who also helped o set up the ring once it arrived), the production crew, Gabe and Sal, and the fans in attendance for being a very hot crowd for what was a very hot show from Dragon Gate.
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