Pro Wrestling World Festival 2005

July 3, 2005 – Kobe, Japan

Championship Rundown
Open the Dream Gate Champion: Masaaki Mochizuki
Open the Triangle Gate Champions: Ryo Saito, Dragon Kid & Genki Horiguchi
Open the Brave Gate Champion: Naruki Doi

Oddly, there was no episode of Infinity between the last PPV and this one, meaning they used the Gate of Maximum PPV to advertise this. To put things in perspective, that would be like WWE using the No Way Out/Elimination Chamber PPV to advertise WrestleMania without any episodes of RAW in between.

BxB Hulk {PH}, Anthony W. Mori {PH} & Super Shisa {PH} vs. K-ness {FM}, Kenichiro Arai {FM} & Susumu Yokosuka {FM}
The HEARTS start the show with a full-blown version of what would come to be Hulk’s pre-match dance. Shisa and Arai trade holds to start. They trade monkey flips. K-ness hits Hulk with a shoulder tackle. Hulk hits a dropkick. Yokosuka hits Mori with a shoulder tackle. Mori comes back with a dropkick. Hulk hits a standing moonsault for 2. K-ness hits a vertical suplex for 2. He and Arai wash Hulk’s face. Yokosuka joins in clobbering Hulk. K-ness and Yokosuka whip Hulk hard into the corner. Yokosuka hits a backbreaker. Arai hits a powerbomb. K-ness and Yokosuka drop Arai head-first onto Hulk for 2. Arai puts on a Boston crab. Hulk gets to the ropes. Mori tags in and cleans house. Shisa hits a suicide dive. Hulk hits the Ace Crusher. Mori hits a plancha. Arai hits a big boot. Hulk hits a clothesline. He hits the BxB Smash for 2. He throws Arai into the post. Shisa gets a roll up on Yokosuka for 2. Yokosuka hits a northern lights suplex. Shisa hits a butterfly suplex for 2. He misses a dropkick. Mori dropkicks K-ness in midair. He hits a northern lights suplex for 2. K-ness hits an enziguiri. He hits the Kaishaku for 2 Arai hits a springboard dropkick. K-ness and Yokosuka hit a double Darkness Buster. They put on a double Aoki Hikari but Hulk makes the save. Shisa hits a super armdrag on Yokosuka. He gets a sunset flip for 2. Hulk hits an elevated facebuster. He hits the EVO for 2. Mori hits the Eleganton for 2. Hulk misses a moonsault and gets dropped on his head by Arai. Everyone takes out everyone with their signature stuff. Hulk hits Yokosuka with the Mouse and a hurricanrana for 2. Arai spits in his face. K-ness hits the Shouryuukyaku and Yokosuka hits the Jumbo no Kachi for 2. He hits the Yokosuka Cutter for the win at 17:51. Typical Dragon Gate opener, in that it was fast-paced and got the crowd excited without being in danger of overshadowing more important matches.
Rating: ***¼

Jackson Florida {FB} & Johnson Florida {FB} vs. Michael Iwasa {FB} & Daniel Mishima {FB}
Iwasa and Mishima try to attack them before the bell, but the Floridas dropkick them to the floor. Iwasa and Mishima run to the back, and then come back out with masks of their own. Iwasa and Johnson start. They fight to a stalemate. Iwasa has a hard time getting used to the mask. Jackson and Mishima trade strikes. Mishima hops on Iwasa’s shoulders and they stay in control with offense from that position. The joke ends with Iwasa inadvertently hitting Mishima with an electric chair drop. Iwasa forces Jackson to put Johnson in a figure 4 leglock. Then he forces them to kiss. Johnson and Mishima trade masks. The goofiness continues on in that fashion for a while. Johnson hits a weird dive to the floor. Mishima hits a crossbody for 2. Referee Kinta intercepts a chair. Iwasa pulls Kinta in the way of a big boot from Johnson. Jackson hits him with a foreign object. He knocks baguettes into Mishima’s face. The Floridas pile Iwasa onto Mishima, and pile baguettes onto Iwasa. They both go for splashes and come up very short. Iwasa and Mishima roll onto them for the win at 9:55. This started dragging hard about halfway through.
Rating: ½*

Masato Yoshino {BG} & Shingo Takagi {BG} vs. Yuji Hino {KD} & SUPER-X {KD}
The real issue here is between Takagi and Hino, who’d been calling each other out leading up to this. Both claimed to be the better young strongman. They start and fight to a stalemate. Takagi hits a shoulder tackle. Hino hits a leaping shoulder tackle. Yoshino hits X with a supercharged dropkick. Takagi chops X to the mat. Yoshino puts Hino in a chinlock. X kicks Yoshino in the corner. Yoshino pulls him by his mask. Takagi hits a gutbuster and Yoshino hits a legdrop. Takagi hits a DDT for 2. He puts on a chinlock. X goes to the eyes. He hits a dropkick in the corner. Hino hits a bodyslam and a splash for 2. He hits a fall away slam for 2. Takagi comes back with the dead lift suplex. Yoshino hits the Sling Blade on X. He hits a huge DDT on Hino for 2. Hino hits an overhead suplex. Hino hits a bodyslam and a spazzy frog splash for 2. Takagi hits X with a powerslam for 2. X hits a leg lariat for 2. Takagi hits the STO. Yoshino hits the shotgun dropkick for 2. X comes back with a suicide dive. Takagi and Hino trade strikes. Hino hits a spinebuster. He hits an exploder for 2. X hits a leaping knee kick. Hino hits a German suplex for 2. X hits Yoshino with a hurricanrana for 2. He kicks Yoshino around. Yoshino comes back with the Torbellino. He debuts the Lightning Spiral for the win at 14:31. They tried hard, but never really found their groove. The Lightning Spiral didn’t get any kind of reaction, but I guess they had to debut it somewhere. Everyone brawls to the back after the match.
Rating: **½

Magnitude Kishiwada {BG} vs. Naoki Tanisaki {DF}
Tanisaki mocks Kishiwada during his entrance, wearing a Kishiwada mask under a white mask and destroying both of them. He brings with him a barrel and a bag of cement. Do Fixer has his back, having all felt the sting of Kishiwada’s deceitful entrance into the company. Kishiwada has his full stable for backup. Tanisaki attacks before the bell. He hits a shoulder tackle, getting the crowd all excited. Kishiwada comes back with a press slam. He throws Tanisaki to the floor and whips him into the crowd. He hits a chair shot. Back in the ring Kishiwada hits an avalanche. He hits a butterfly suplex. He hits a standing moonsault for 2. He hits a pair of bodyslams. He comes out of the corner with a dropkick for 2. He puts on a chinlock. Tanisaki gets to the ropes. Kishiwada misses a moonsault. Tanisaki hits a dropkick. He hits a topé con hilo. He hits a missile dropkick for 1. Kishiwada hits a lariat for 2. He hits a bodyslam and a Superfly Splash for 2. Tanisaki hits a miracle backdrop. He hits a legsweep. He hits the DH and the FH for 2. He gets a sunset flip for 2. He gets another roll up for 2. Kishiwada hits a German suplex. Tanisaki pops up, only to eat a lariat. That gets 2 for Kishiwada. The crowd is all behind Tanisaki now. Sadly their support is for nothing, as Kishiwada hits the Last Ride for the win at 9:03. Tanisaki showed his first signs of greatness in the roll of the comeback kid here. It would prove his best bet throughout the years, as his best matches were those in which he had to fight from behind.
Rating: ***

After the match Kishiwada puts cement on Tanisaki, but the rest of Do Fixer makes the save. Kishiwada motions that he’s coming for Mochizuki’s belt.

Magnum TOKYO {DF} & Genichiro Tenryu vs. Kensuke Sasaki {KO} & Katsuhiko Nakajima {KO}
Sasaki is all business tonight. TOKYO smacks him to start. Sasaki comes back with a shoulder tackle and three bodyslams. Nakajima tags in and trades kicks with TOKYO. Tenryu tags in and gets nailed by a shoulder tackle. He ducks a kick but Nakajima avoids his chop. Sasaki rushes in and chops Tenryu. TOKYO tags back in, since Tenryu wasn’t doing so well. He tries to trade chops with Sasaki but that doesn’t go well for him. He hits a couple of kicks and goes for the Egoist Driver. Sasaki blocks it and hits a backdrop. He hits a powerslam. Tenryu tags in and helps TOKYO hit sandwich strikes. He and Sasaki trade chops. Nakajima tags in and hits a dropkick for 2. He hits a vertical suplex for 2. He puts on a rear naked choke. Tenryu starts to fade but gets to the ropes. Sasaki tags in and hits a brainbuster for 2. TOKYO tags in and hits a facebuster. Nakajima hits him with a leg lariat up top. He hits a plancha. Sasaki suplexes TOKYO back into the ring for 2. He hits the Tornado Bomb for 2. He puts on one of his strangleholds as Tenryu and Nakajima throws a chair at each other on the floor. TOKYO gets to the ropes. Tenryu is all pissed off and demands TOKYO get in the game. TOKYO hits Sasaki with a hurricanrana and goes for the tag, but Tenryu smacks him and tells him to fight Sasaki some more. That fires TOKYO up, but Sasaki puts him down with a lariat for 2. Sasaki goes up top but TOKYO kicks him off the turnbuckle. Sasaki took a scary bump there. TOKYO hits a missile dropkick but Sasaki doesn’t leave his feet. TOKYO hits another and Sasaki falls to his knees. TOKYO hits a third and a fourth for 2. He hits the Erect Smash for 2. Nakajima attacks Tenryu again. Sasaki hits TOKYO with a lariat for 1. He helps Nakajima hit a German suplex. TOKYO tries to block the northern lights bomb, but Sasaki fights harder and hits it for the win at 15:34. The Kensuke Office team was rocking it in 2005. Sasaki two weeks away from his now-famous match against Kenta Kobashi, and the team was a few months away from a SICK tag team match against Kobashi and Go Shiosaki. As for this match, you could see the elements for greatness in the team. It was cool to see a completely NOAH-style match, and my only real complaint is how much of a non-factor Tenryu was, action-wise. He did serve to keep TOKYO fired up, but he barely saw any ring time at all.
Rating: ***½

After the match TOKYO puts everyone over and says that he’s glad he lost because it will motivate him to be better.

It’s intermission time, and tonight we get clips from matches involving our main event players. Luckily matches involving CIMA and Don Fujii were available.

Masaaki Mochizuki, TAKA Michinoku {KDX} & Shoichi Funaki {KDX} vs. Shiima Nobunaga {CM}, Sumo Fuji {CM} & TARU {CM} [Michinoku Pro – 6/12/99]
I’m pretty sure TAKA and Sho were under WWF contracts at this time. The clip starts with Mochizuki knocking TARU around. Fuji comes in and regains control for the Crazy Max team. He hits a bodyslam and an elbowdrop for 2. Michinoku and Mochizuki hit TARU with a double dropkick. Mochizuki kicks Michinoku by mistake. Funaki hits a plancha. TARU hits Mochizuki low. He hits a lariat for 2. Mochizuki hits a big boot and a missile dropkick. TARU hits another low blow. He hits a bodyslam and a moonsault for 2. Mochizuki hits the Sankakugeri and a plancha. Funaki hits Fuji with a facebuster. Michinoku chokes Nobunaga on the floor. Fuji hits Funaki with a powerslam for 2. Funaki rolls through a chokeslam and dropkicks the leg. Fuji hits a facebuster. He hits the chokeslam for 2. Michinoku dropkicks Nobunaga. He hits a hurricanrana. Nobunaga crotches him up top. He hits the Venus. He hits another and the Iconoclasm for 2 when he releases the pin. He tries to hit Michinoku with the Michinoku Driver, but Michinoku blocks it. Nobunaga hits Fuji with a plancha by mistake. Michinoku botches one dive but quickly recovers and hits another. He hits a missile dropkick. Mochizuki hits the Sankakugeri. Michinoku hits the Michinoku Driver. He dropkicks Mochizuki by mistake. TARU hits the Michinoku Driver and Nobunaga hits the Mad Splash for the win at 7:38 shown of 24:08. I’m surprised they clipped so much out but left in Michinoku’s flub. Hard to rate with so much cut out. Michinoku and Mochizuki have to be separated after the match.

TAKA Michinoku {KDX} & Shoichi Funaki {KDX} vs. Masaaki Mochizuki & Gran Hamada {MP} [Michinoku Pro – 6/13/99]
This is basically just clips of Michinoku and Mochizuki kicking each other. The other two wrestlers in the match aren’t even shown. Mochizuki wins with a knee kick. Thirty seconds of the match was shown.

President Okamura comes out to the ring to thank the fans for their support during Dragon Gate’s first year. Antonio Peña, AAA owner, comes out to announce a working relationship with Dragon Gate. Peña and Okamura look very pleased with each other and the new arrangement.

Ryo Saito © {DF}, Dragon Kid © {DF} & Genki Horiguchi © {DF} vs. CIMA {BG}, Don Fujii {BG} & Naruki Doi {BG} [Open the Triangle Gate Championship Match]
You could call this the most important match in Dragon Gate history, for reasons I’ll get into after the play-by-play. Everyone brawls to start. They brawl around the building. CIMA hits Saito with a bulldog on the ramp. Fujii slams Horiguchi on the floor. In the ring Fujii and Doi hit Horiguchi with a double back elbow. Doi elbows Kid to the mat. Kid hits a head scissors takedown. Horiguchi does the same to Fujii. Saito and CIMA slug each other’s chests. CIMA hits a dropkick. Saito hits a powerbomb and a shoulder tackle. He and Kid hit a double back elbow. Kid hits a kneedrop for 2. Doi hits a pair of bodyslams for 2. Saito and Horiguchi double-team Doi. CIMA finds a baguette from the Florida Brothers match and breaks it over Saito’s head. He hits a dropkick from the floor to the apron. Naomichi Marufuji must have been watching. CIMA hits a senton. He goes for another but Saito rolls out of the way and hits a dropkick. Horiguchi and Kid hit dropkicks for 2. Horiguchi misses a dropkick. CIMA stands on his crotch in the corner, slamming his head to the mat at the same time. Doi hits a vertical suplex for 2. He rips the bandages off of Horiguchi’s back and hits a backbreaker. He puts on an abdominal stretch. Fujii works the back with elbows. He hits a side slam for 2. He and CIMA hold Horiguchi for a senton from Doi. Kishiwada, Yoshino and Takagi interfere. CIMA hits the hanging double stomp for 2. Horiguchi comes back with a snap suplex, but CIMA quickly puts him back on the mat. CIMA puts on an abdominal stretch, but the crowd support helps Horiguchi escape. Fujii tries to keep Horiguchi in the Blood Generation corner, but Horiguchi hits a back elbow and tags to Saito. Saito hits CIMA with an overhead suplex. Kid hits Doi with the Déjà Vu. He hits CIMA with an enziguiri. Horiguchi hits the topé con hilo. Kid hits the Bermuda Triangle. Fujii rolls through Saito’s hurricanrana for 2. He hits a powerslam for 2. CIMA hits Kid, stacked on Saito, with a facebuster. Fujii flings Horiguchi into his partners, and then holds Horiguchi high for a CIMA double stomp. It gets 2. Horiguchi dodges two Venuses. CIMA rolls through the DDT but Do Fixer immediately starts triple-teaming him. Horiguchi hits the facebuster for 2. Saito hits the Shrimp. Kid hits the Jesus for 2. Doi dropkicks Kid’s face. Kid hits a stunner. He puts on the Christo. Doi hits a side slam to escape. CIMA misses the big crossbody and Kid rolls Doi up for 2. Fujii clotheslines Doi by mistake and Do Fixer takes over with lightning-fast offense. Kid misses a Dragon Rana and Fujii hits a lariat. Horiguchi hits a DDT. Doi hits the Rydeen Bomb. Saito hits a fisherman suplex. He hits the Fisherman Express on CIMA. CIMA hits the Perfect Driver for 2. Saito blocks the Mad Splash and hits a German suplex for 2. Kid hits the stack hurricanrana and Saito hits the Superfly Splash for 2. Fujii hits three lariats. Doi hits the Doi 555. Kid saves Saito from the Bakatare Sliding Kick. Fujii hits Horiguchi with the chokeslam for 2. CIMA superkicks Fujii by mistake. Horiguchi hits the Beach Break but his back is too messed up to cover. Awesome. He eventually gets 2. Fujii hits a powerbomb. Doi hits the Bakatare Sliding Kick for 2. Horiguchi avoids the Schwein and gets the Backslide from Heaven for 2. CIMA hits a superkick and the Tokarev. He hits the Schwein for 2. Now the crowd is rabidly behind Horiguchim but CIMA crushes them when he hits the Venus, Goriconoclasm and Mad Splash for the win and the titles at 25:53.

Put simply, this is the best match in Dragon Gate history. The action could not have been faster and smoother than it was. Saito was a beast, Kid flew all over the place with insane precision, and Horiguchi captured the crowd in a way that only he could. Blood Generation looked absolutely unstoppable, and way CIMA taunts Saito after the match sums everything up perfectly. Not only is it the best match in Dragon Gate history, but like I said before it’s also probably the most important. From here these two teams had a series of rematches, all excellent. This caught the attention of Ring of Honor. ROH imported the match in early 2006, with Yoshino instead of Fujii. That match occurred in Chicago in front of ROH’s largest crowds to date because WrestleMania was also in Chicago that weekend. Dragon Gate gained a ton of attention from American fans, and thanks to the outstanding performance they’d put on that night (and the night prior in Detroit), they’d build enough momentum over the following few years to open Dragon Gate USA. What more can you ask of a single wrestling match?
Rating: ****¾

After the match CIMA reiterates Kishiwada’s earlier claim that Blood Generation is coming after the Dream Gate title, so that they can completely control Dragon Gate.

Masaaki Mochizuki © {FM} vs. TAKA Michinoku {KD} [Open the Dream Gate Championship Match]
Mochizuki is rocking the gear that Yokosuka gave him on the last PPV. They fight on the mat to start. Michinoku controls there. Mochizuki gets to the ropes. He kicks Michinoku’s back. He kicks the crap out of Michinoku in the corner, targeting the arm. Michinoku drops Mochizuki’s leg on the turnbuckle. They go back to the mat with Mochizuki goes after Michinoku’s arm and Michinoku going after Mochizuki’s leg. Michinoku puts on an anklelock. He dropkicks the leg and puts on a leglock. Mochizuki gets to the ropes. Michinoku dropkicks the knee again. He hits a shinbreaker on the apron. He rams the leg against the post. He hits a dragon screw and puts on the figure 4 leglock. Mochizuki gets to the ropes. Michinoku hits a knee kick but Mochizuki catches him with the Sankakugeri. He goes for a dive but he’s unable to run the ropes fast and Michinoku cuts him off with a forearm. Mochizuki catches Michinoku coming off the top with a kick. He uses more kicks to stay in control. He hits the axe kick and a kick to the arm for 2. He puts on an armbar but Michinoku gets to the ropes. Mochizuki puts on a cross armbreaker but Michinoku gets to the ropes. Mochizuki hits the Sankakugeri. He counters the Michinoku Driver to a DDT. He hits an over the shoulder facebuster. Michinoku hits a superkick. Mochizuki hits a running knee for 2. He hits the Twister for 2. Michinoku kicks him to the floor and hits him with an Asai moonsault. Back in the ring he hits a kneedrop. He hits a superkick for 2. He puts on a crossface but Mochizuki gets to the ropes. Michinoku avoids the Sankakugeri and goes back to the crossface. He turns it into a Cobra Stretch to keep Mochizuki from grabbing the ropes. Mochizuki gets to the ropes anyway. He hits a dragon suplex for 2. Michinoku hits the Michinoku Driver. They trade kicks until Mochizuki hits the Saikyou High Kick for the win at 25:25. The first fifteen minutes were pretty much all Michinoku slowly dissecting Mochizuki’s leg. Though Mochizuki was up to hobbling, he wasn’t up to letting all the leg work damage his kicking game. The last ten minutes were solid but I (and the crowd) never bought that Michinoku might win the belt, which is a pretty bad thing to happen on your biggest show of the year. To be fair, they weren’t going to top the previous match no matter what they did.
Rating: ***

After the match Mochizuki challenges Michinoku to put up his three titles, like he did against Hi69 in Kaientai Dojo. That match happened a few months later, and put the match they had on this show to shame.