Dragon Gate Thread

[Lo-Drew]

Even with the great match against Fujii, Yoshino's reign was terrible. Mochi to me has been the best champion with both reigns. Ryo doesn't really count since he didn't make one defense. At least Magnitude was involved in the great "Killer Prince" storyline with Anthony W Mori. Honestly I don't see why many people crap on CIMA. Yeah I know with this current reign towards the latter end after the YAMATO match it's been average but he's had to carry the Ace position for Dragon Gate. Jae brought up a great point in his last podcast. He made Ryo into a star and unfortunately he didn't pan out. He gave the Ace position to Doi and he failed. He did the same to Yoshino and Yoshino failed as well. he was going to give the Ace position to Shingo but he got injured(he probably will lose to Shingo this year however Hulk losing the Triangle Gate titles might mean Hulk may take it). So they've tried to put it on new guys but they haven't work, hence why CIMA is currently on his epic run. And besides with his second reign, the Doi match in which he was almost killed in was good, I thought his title match against Iwasa was good and his Yoshino match like I said was the best match in 2008

[Arcz]

My gripe with CIMA is that he comes off as the John Cena of Dragon Gate. The infallible hero who wins so frequently, so as to suck much of the excitement and magic out of the show. They just seem to feed any up and comer to him, like Tozawa. Dude was on fire, then bam, ran head first into the CIMA road block.

Also, Team Veteran has no place holding all the titles at once. It's ridiculous.

[Lo-Drew]

I disagree because unlike Cena, CIMA is the best face and the best heel in dragon Gate. I've seen this before but the only two people that can match him on both playing a face and a heel as well as him are Tozawa and YAMATO. And remember, CIMA is still the ace of the company not because Dragon Gate wants him to "bury" the next generation, but because the guys they tried to put in that position wasn't up to it. I mean when he came back from the neck injury in 08, where was CIMA? He held the Brave Gate for a while. He was in the Twin Gate and Triangle Gate divisions. He would have the occasional big match Dream Gate challenge(World 09 against Doi, Gate of Destiny 2010 against Yoshino) and he passed the ace tag to both and both Doi and Yoshino wasn't ace material. I think now DG is better set for the future with the four main pillars(YAMATO, Tozawa, Shingo and Hulk).

As far as Tozawa goes, I've said this before, him and YAMATO are going to be the two aces for DG in the future. Plus he's only 27. He'll be fine. Plus if he did win the Dream Gate this year, they were teetering on Shingo 08 awkward face turn with him telling MB he didn't need them to win and wanting to win cleanly so thankfully that didn't happen.

I somewhat agree with the Vets holding all the titles, though Blankey Yellow losing may mean Hulk will be the next Dream Gate challenger. And besides, all have other things to do like eventually Tanisaki is going to have to settle things with the Dolphin. I've never been the biggest Gamma fan. Kishiwada's good in certain spots and I do like HUB but I don't like the team holding the titles. DK is fine as Brave Gate champ. However I have no problem what so ever with MochiFujii as Twin Gate champs. Maybe that's just me being bias but Fujii's God and Mochi's still awesome and they're still a great team.

[Liquid?!]

The Cena/CIMA comparison is totally void, especially if you look at the US and UK DG offshoots where he's put people over left right and centre, plenty of gaijin too. Tanisaki pinned him recently, and even Kzy of all people has pinned him this year. He totally wasn't a roadblock for Tozawa either, like Drew said, Tozawa is a future ace, and he would have tanked as champion this year (it would have been a forgettable short heel run, or an awkward babyface turn, there's no point putting the belt on him til he's a babyface that people want to see win the title, which they will since his charisma is off the charts). To bring up another point that Jae did, nobody complained when Mochizuki was beating everyone on the roster last year. That's what world champions do.

As for CIMA's reign this year, it's been perfectly fine. The Susumu and PAC matches were strong, the Tozawa match seemed good from the mega clipped version, and the YAMATO defence was great (that's all that I've seen). I'm not in love with all of CIMA's singles matches like I am with say, Mochizuki, but there's more to that when it comes to being world champion.

Also, I totally agree that Mochi was the best Dream Gate champion ever.