DGUSA Fearless DVD Review.

When we last left off, Dragon Gate USA had just closed out 2009 by crowning BxB Hulk the first ever Open The Freedom Gate Champion, winning a tournament at the event of the same name. But now DGUSA would move on to 2010 as Hulk would have his first defense of the title in the United States, putting it on the line against Dragon Kid in the main event. In addition, there were five other matches on the PPV portion of the show that would continue events that began on prior DGUSA shows as well as in Japan, plus the standard bonus disc with extra matches and other goodies not seen on the PPV of the event. So with that in mind, let's move on to our review of...

Fearless - 1/23/10

Before the PPV opened, Brian Kendrick and Jon Moxley came out to cut a promo on Tommy Dreamer, running him down for everything from getting his butt kicked in all those hardcore ECW matches to selling his soul to the WWE machine, and challenged Dreamer to come out and fight him. I liked this segment a lot, Moxley cuts a hell of a promo, and even though I normally don't like it when heels run down their opponents for losing a lot of matches, it was presented more as something where the Tommy Dreamer that ECW fans knew and loved died when ECW closed its doors, and it was more of a challenge for Dreamer to come out and prove that he's still got it, which is better than just making him out to be a loser who was never any good.

The first match appeared to be a dark match that went on before the PPV taping started (I didn't see the PPV version so I couldn't say for sure), as TJ Perkins faced Gran Akuma. I've got to point out something Akuma did that I liked here, because I've pointed out in the past that, the same way a crocodile always looks like he's smiling even though he's not, Akuma always appeared to have this doofy grin on his face when he came out to the ring and during his matches. In this match though, he had more of a fierce look on his face and didn't do the grin once, and that was good because it's important to look serious when your character is supposed to be this martial arts badass. This was a solid opener that I expected to be very heavy on the kicks, but instead told a good story where they started out trying to outwrestle each other, but then as tempers flared it got more and more physical until they almost appeared to legitimately be trying to knock each other out. Perkins got the win which kind of surprised me, as Akuma was just coming off of a very strong showing in the title tournament, but it was a good enough match that I think both guys came out of it looking good.

From there we move on to a tag match that had its roots in the Salute To Skayde match in the tournament, as Mike Quackenbush teamed with Jigsaw to take on CIMA and Super Crazy. The story here is that Quack was mad at Super Crazy for trying to hurt Skayde in the tournament match, and was mad at CIMA because he felt CIMA took advantage of Skayde to advance in the tournament. Quack and CIMA had some words after the tournament match ended, and the tempers continued to flare here, as it was now going beyond both men trying to prove who was the better student of Skayde's and had now become personal. First, the bad news: Super Crazy actually looked even fatter here then he did in the tournament. The good news: it doesn't seem to have slowed him down that much, and that's an interesting gift how some people can pack on a bunch of weight and not lose anything in terms of agility or conditioning, but it still might be good for him to work on dropping a few pounds because it can never hurt. Another thing I liked about this is that, while Quackenbush and Jigsaw were in tag team action, it was wrestled as a standard tag team match instead of one of those ridiculous six man matches they've done on ROH and EVOLVE shows. I think Quackenbush and Jigsaw are both talented guys, and I think they get to show it more in matches like this where it's not spotspotspotspotspot. Quackenbush pinned Super Crazy to get the win, but the issue is not over yet because Quackenbush didn't beat CIMA, and in fact CIMA ran in after the fall and attacked both men, only to get chased off. Good match with a lot of dramatic near falls and other moments.

Next we got what may have been my favorite segment of the night as Jimmy Jacobs took on Brian Kendrick. Kendrick right away tried to get into Jimmy's head by bringing out Lacey to be in his corner, nearly a year and a half after her last appearance in ROH. Short but solid match, and Lacey figured prominently into the finish as Jimmy had Kendrick caught in the End Time, but Lacey jumped into the ring, causing Jimmy to break the hold. Lacey kissed Jimmy, and that served as enough of a distraction for Kendrick to nail Jacobs and hit Sliced Bread #2 for the win. Awesome booking for this, and it gets better because after the match, Kendrick says that now that he's beaten Jacobs, he's going to break his heart as well, and he made like he was going to kiss Lacey, but instead tossed her to Moxley, who took her head off with a lariat. Perfect, perfect booking and a great way to use a one shot appearance by Lacey. It got even better from there when Kendrick and Moxley beat Jacobs down 2-on-1, causing Tommy Dreamer to come out and get involved, ending up in an old school, ECW style brawl with Moxley that spilled out of the ring, through the crowd, and back into the ring where Moxley finally got the advantage on Dreamer, but only briefly as Moxley went for Dreamer's own DDT, but Dreamer reversed and hit his own DDT, then did the crucifix pose to end the segment. This was awesome on so many levels, and it really had the crowd going as well, complete with "that was awesome" chants after Moxley laid out Lacey.

Next up is a rematch for the FIP Title, as Masaaki Mochizuki defended against Davey Richards. Mochizuki had defeated Richards for the title in Japan a few weeks prior to this, which kind of surprised me, and when I found out this match was going to happen I was 100% certain Davey was getting the belt back. Now, I'm all for cross promotion and using whatever exposure you can to get your other business ventures over, but it would help if FIP had some new DVDs
to sell. Granted, I don't know all the circumstances behind why they're so far behind getting them out, but they have seven or eight shows in 2009-10 that haven't been released on DVD, and since Sal isn't producing DVDs for ROH anymore, I'm sure he has the time to kick out a few new discs. At the very least it'd be some extra cash to go around.

But anyway, getting on to Davey vs Mochizuki, which was my other favorite segment of the evening and far and away the best match on the show. As you might imagine, these two kicked the crap out of each other, and I'm always a fan of matches between two tough guys who can dish it out and can take it, and this match fit that bill. Really hard hitting stuff full of nasty kicks and both guys taking insane amounts of punishment, but firing themselves up and coming back at the other guy. The story of this match saw Mochizuki working over Davey's leg while Davey worked over Mochizuki's arm, and the end came when Davey caught Mochizuki in the Kimura Lock, Mochizuki escaped that and Davey changed it to a cross armbreaker, and Mochizuki was getting out of that so Davey changed it to a triangle choke, and finally Mochizuki tapped out. There was a real nice moment at the end where they shook hands, Mochizuki strapped the FIP Title around Davey's waist, and then they bowed to each other in a mutual show of respect. This was easily the best match on the show and on par with the stuff Davey was doing in ROH the same year.

Moving on, we come to a three way, tag team elimination match with Naruki Doi & Masato Yoshino taking on SHINGO & YAMATO and the Young Bucks. This came out of the last DGUSA event when the Bucks challenged Doi & Yosdhino following their victory over SHINGO & Dragon Kid, with SHINGO & YAMATO being added to the equation later on. This was a solid, if unspectacular match. I have to admit to being slightly disappointed because I thought there would be a lot more action considering what I've seen out of these six guys in the past, but it wasn't a bad match. If nothing else, the match before and the match after this one were both really good, so you can look at it as being somewhat transitional between the two. Bucks were eliminated first and then SHINGO & YAMATO, with Yoshino scoring both falls. This would become important because, in addition to building him back up after two straight losses to Dragon Kid so he'd look credible going into their third and final match, Yoshino was going to be challenging for the OTFG Title down the line, so it was a good way to make him look strong going forward.

The final match of the show saw BxB Hulk defend the OTFG Title against Dragon Kid. I really liked this match, and it struck me several times throughout the course of this one how much this match reminded me of the Rey Mysterio, Jr vs Psicosis matches back in the 90s. Obviously we're talking about two guys with a Japanese influence rather than lucha, but that aside, it felt like I jumped in a time machine and travelled back to 1995. In particular, I really like BxB Hulk because he's got the whole glam gimmick with the dancing and everything, but if you look past that and watch him in the ring, he's just such a deep worker between the martial arts, mat wrestling, and high flying stuff. I think he's probably one of the most diverse guys in the company in terms of his wrestling style. Even though Dragon Kid lost, he looked like a million bucks because Hulk had to kick his head off his shoulders and hit four EVOs to finally put the guy away, so Dragon Kid lost nothing by losing this match. Really good match, and afterwards YAMATO and Davey Richards came out to attack Dragon Kid and Hulk, with SHINGO coming out and turning on Dragon Kid to join in the attack with YAMATO and Richards. Finally Mike Quackenbush and his CHIKARA guys ran in to fight it out with Kamikaze USA, and then CIMA came in with a broom to clear everyone out, and finished the show by making a nice speech thanking everyone for coming and asking if they wanted DGUSA to return to Chicago, which of course they did.

So the final tally is one blowaway match between Davey and Mochizuki, two other really good matches with Kendrick vs Jacobs and Hulk vs Dragon Kid, and everything else was solid. I thought this was a better overall show that the title tournament, and did a great job of setting stuff up for the future, and the thing I have to give Gabe Sapolsky a lot of credit for is that he has this ability to even make the in-between shows between the big events (which is what this really was) seem important. That's something ROH has really stuggled with since he left, because ROH now has a lot of events that are completely missable, whereas DGUSA and EVOLVE don't have that problem. Big thumbs up for this one, but wait... that's not all! Time to move on to...

The Bonus Disc

The bonus disc, as usual, opened up with some of the matches from the bonus card preshow at the Fearless taping, and this first of those matches was a Six Man Elimination Match which included Kyle O'Reilly, Brad Allen, Johnny Gargano, Lince Dorado, Arik Cannon, and Jon Moxley. Surprisingly, Moxley was the first one eliminated when Brian Kendrick ran in and attacked the other guys in the match, causing Moxley to get disqualified. I guess they were trying to protect Moxley, since he came in and ran amok like a monster before getting disqualified, but I would have preferred to see him in a longer match outside the context of a six man elimination match where he would go over someone instead of getting brushed out like that. The match continued and was almost an EVOLVE match since so many of these guys are heavily involved in that company. You get some idea of the pecking order in EVOLVE during this match as Gargano pinned Allen, and then Arik Cannon went on to eliminate Gargano and Dorado before he and O'Reilly had a great couple of minutes at the end where it was just the two of them. O'Reilly finally got the win after a back and forth segment with Cannon. I liked this, it didn't really mean much in the overall scheme of the DGUSA world but it was a good showcase for six good indy talents.

The second match was an AAW Title Match, as Silas Young defended against Hallowicked. I'm sorry to say this, but neither guys has ever really set my world on fire. I think Hallowicked's okay and he's an entertaining character, but to me this would have been the bathroom break match if I'd been there in person. Plus, when a title is defended outside the promotion it belongs to, you know there's almost no chance it's going to change hands, so it's not even like there was any kind of drama that you thought there might be a title change. Sure enough, Young hit his springboard moonsault for the win to retain the AAW Title.

Next we go to the promo for the Fearless PPV, and instead of the usual clips of the PPV event and backstage promos, we instead got the BxB Hulk vs YAMATO match that opened the first DGUSA event. This is patented Gabe Sapolsky, in that instead of hyping it up with a lot of talk, he lets the action speak for itself, and in this case it makes for a great promo segment. It's obvious that they wanted to kick off DGUSA with an action packed match that would set the tone for the company as a whole, and they picked the perfect two guys to start things off with. Just nonstop, hard hitting action, and even though we didn't see the finish in the promo segment (BOOO!), YAMATO beat Hulk setting up the finals of the OTFG Title tournament finals and a rematch that is over a year in the making and won't happen until sometime after the First Anniversary Celebration.

Next was the highlight video of the PPV, and the thing that really stood out to me was that, in highlight form, you can see what a nasty, physically intense match Davey Richards and Masaaki Mochizuki had. They literally kicked the crap out of each other and I stand by my opinion that it was the strongest match on the PPV. And speaking of Davey and Mochizuki, we then go to the match that led to the match on the Fearless PPV, as Davey defended the FIP Title against Mochizuki on 12/6/09 in Japan. This match was as good, if not better than the match on the Fearless PPV. I became a huge Mochizuki fan just based on what I saw on this DVD set alone, and he and Davey had two of the hardest fought, realest matches there were in 2009. Just unbelievable.

Finally, we wrap things up with BxB Hulk's first defense of the Open The Freedom Gate Title as he defended against Susumu Yokosuka. The interesting thing about this match was that it had more of a face/heel dynamic than anything I've seen in Dragon Gate so far, either in the US or Japan, because you had Yokosuka clearly working heel, using chairs and the interference of Ryo Saito and Genki Horiguchi to his advantage throughout the match. This match was ridiculously good and hard fought, and the thing about BxB Hulk is that the more I watch him, the more impressed I am with him because he's not just a good wrestler who can work literally any style, but he's also got great psychology. In this match, Yokosuka spent most of the bout working Hulk's knee over, and Hulk would go on to perform high risk moves, but instead of completely no-selling the injury like a lot of American indy guys do, he would perform a high risk move and then act like doing the move destroyed him knee and would continue to sell. He is such a great worker and I like him more and more every time I see him. Big thumbs up for this match and the DVD set overall.

* * *

At the end of the day, we have another must buy DVD set. For the price of this DVD, you have two blowaway, must see Davey Richards vs Masaaki Mochizuki matches, three terrific BxB Hulk matches including one match with Hulk vs Susuma Yokosuka that's on the level of Davey-Mochizuki, a great match/promo featuring Brian Kendrick, Jon Moxley, and Jimmy Jacobs, and some good stuff featuring the CHIKARA crew. There's no way I can't give this a major thumbs up. Great job all around by everybody involved, and I can't wait to see the Phoenix events.

PWI.