DGUSA Open the Northern Gate

1) Tag Team Grudge Match: Mike Quackenbush & Jigsaw vs. Gran Akuma & Akira Tozawa - 3

2) FIP World Heavyweight Title Match: Jon Moxley vs. Phil Atlas - 4
3) Special Challenge Match: CIMA vs. Jimmy Jacobs - 6

4) Special Attraction Match: Naruki Doi vs. Masaaki Mochizuki - 4

5) MPW Showcase Match: Bolen & Tyson Dux vs. Xtremo & Brad Martin - 5

6) 2 out of 3 Falls Match: Dragon Kid vs. Masato Yoshino - 6

7) Tag Team Action: BxB Hulk & PAC vs. YAMATO & Shingo - 6

Opener felt like Chikara-lite and that's as welcomed as a blowjob-lite. Quackenbush often strikes me as a guy who'd rather be collecting Pet Shop Boys bootlegs than actually being involved in anything in any way athletic. Moxley was freaking phenomenal in his match. He had this trashy-looking blonde as his valet and he pulled her hair, would fishhook her mouth, shove her around, etc. like an absolute creep. His antics alone were worth seeking this out for. I'll admit I probably liked the next match well more than most people. What really got me into it was the two distinct selling styles; Jacobs was theatrical, putting emphasis on the pain he was in, while CIMA did the more commonplace in Japan style of fighting through the pain, as if it was just temporarily sidetracking him from his goal.

Doi and Mochizuki was good but a little underwhelming. Doi got little offense in and while I enjoyed both guys targeting the legs (Naruki via submissions, Masaaki via kicks) I'd have preferred this to have been less one-sided. The local showcase was surprisingly good, perhaps the lack of quality tag wrestling in general these days boosts my enjoyment of even fairly standard stuff as the grading rubric in that category has evolved, but I dug this. Xtremo, lame name aside, would really fit in well in a southern-style group, don't know a lot offhand currently, save for XCW Mid-West, but I saw him as the best possible version of Brian Christopher. The Yoshino/Kid series came to a finale and it was arguably fitting of what had transpired before it. The finishes weren't exuberant crescendos but were largely believable and expertly executed. I wish, for their sake, they had gotten to pull this off in-front of a larger crowd then the handful of Ontario natives who showed up. The main event was awesome, balls-out Dragon Gate goodness, while it's not everyone's cup of tea, if you're a fan of fast-paced, crisp, spotty action then this is a tasty morsel. I toyed with grading it higher, but in reality, these guys do this type of thing all the time, on practically every episode of the 200+ backlog deep of their show Infinity, so amazing sprints with neck-crunching drops and amazing aerial wizardry isn't nothing new. I would have liked to have seen PAC get a few more big sequences in there, but I absolutely loved YAMOTO's wobbly selling and would realistically put it up there on par with Terry Funk's.