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These reviews are from my old Dragon Gate blog, so you'll have to forgive the format. Like anyone who writes anything, I hate everything I created in the previous decade. But I love that I saved the match graphic below. Look at their baby faces! Takagi and Nakajima debuted very close in time to each other, and their careers have collided from time to time since.
September 10, 2005 - Osaka, Osaka
Masaaki Mochizuki, Katsuhiko Nakajima, K-ness & Susumu Yokosuka def. Shingo Takagi, Magnitude Kishiwada, Masato Yoshino & CIMA
From Dragon Gate Storm Gate. I always forget that Nakajima was in Final M2K, on loan from Kensuke Office. Everyone brawls to start. Takagi hits Mochizuki with a kneedrop for 2. Mochizuki smacks him to the mat. He hits a back kick. He and Nakajima tag turns kicking Mochizuki for 2. Yokosuka and K-ness hit a double spinebuster. Nakajima and Mochizuki hit chest kicks for 2. Mochizuki puts on a half crab. Takagi gets to the ropes. Yoshino tags in and hits a Tree of Woe dropkick. Mochizuki hits a chest kick. Yoshino dropkicks Yokosuka’s leg. CIMA puts on a leglock but Yokosuka gets to the ropes. CIMA puts on a different leglock but Yokosuka gets to the ropes again. Takagi wedges the leg in a chair and CIMA hits a double stomp. Takagi puts on a half crab. Yokosuka gets to the ropes. Yoshino kicks the leg. Yokosuka hits a backbreaker. K-ness hits an enziguiri. Yoshino puts on the From Jungle. Mochizuki makes the save. He hits Kishiwada with a miracle bodyslam. Nakajima hits a dropkick in the corner. He and K-ness hit a kick sandwich. Yokosuka hits the Jumbo no Kachi. Mochizuki hits a chest kick for 2. CIMA hits the Tokarev on Mochizuki. He hits the Venus and Iconoclasm. Yokosuka hits a super exploder on CIMA for 2. Mochizuki hits the Sankakugeri. Yokosuka hits the Jumbo no Kachi for 2. K-ness puts on the Aoki Hikari but Takagi makes the save. Kishiwada hits a handspring elbow on Yokosuka. Takagi hits the Gallon Throw. Yoshino hits the Torbellino for 2. Kishiwada hits the Superfly Splash for 2. Yokosuka blocks the Last Ride. Kishiwada hits a lariat. Yokosuka catches Takagi with a crucifix pin for 2. Nakajima hits a German suplex for 2. Takagi hits the interfering Doi with the Pumping Bomber. Yokosuka hits two Jumbo no Kachis on Takagi for the win at 11:17 shown of 22:20. Build up Takagi and Yokosuka: check. Give Yokosuka some of the heat Takagi has built up: check. Do it in a badass match: double check. Mochizuki endorses Yokosuka as his next Dream Gate challenger after the match. Rating: ***½
November 2, 2005 - Tokyo, Japan
Katsuhiko Nakajima def. Shingo Takagi
From Dragon Gate Crown Gate. They trade holds to start. Takagi chops Nakajima against the ropes. Nakajima returns the favor and a nasty chop/kick exchange breaks out. Takagi hits a shoulder tackle. Nakajima hits a dropkick. He unloads a series of chest kicks. He puts on a chinlock. He hits a back kick and puts on a Boston crab. Takagi gets to the ropes. He hits the dead lift suplex. He hits a kneedrop for 2. He hits a gutbuster and a DDT for 2. He hits the STO and puts on the Manriki. Nakajima gets to the ropes. He hits a dropkick. He hits a knee kick in the corner. He hits a vertical suplex. He hits a dropkick off the top for 2. Takagi hits a side slam. Nakajima blocks the Pumping Bomber and hits a pair of high kicks for 2. Takagi hits a backdrop driver out of nowhere. He hits a lariat in the corner. He hits a sit-out powerbomb for 2. Nakajima blocks another Pumping Bomber with a kick. Takagi hits a lariat. He hits the Last (Original) Falconry for 2. Nakajima avoids the Blood Fall. He trades kicks for Takagi’s lariats. Don Fujii tries to interfere but clotheslines Takagi by mistake. Nakajima hits a German suplex for the win at 12:42. The finish was terrible, but most of the match was pretty solid. Both guys had better matches earlier in 2005, but they beat each other up enough to entertain me.
Rating: ***
August 6, 2009 – Tokyo, Japan
Shingo Takagi & YAMATO tld. Masaaki Mochizuki & Katsuhiko Nakajima {Round Robin Tournament Match}
From Dragon Gate Summer Adventure Tag League III. Takagi’s Mohawk is looking better than ever here. He and Nakajima start. They dodge each other’s strikes. Nakajima takes over with kicks. Mochizuki kicks Takagi off the apron. Nakajima does the same to YAMATO. YAMATO runs through some chops and absorbs Mochizuki’s kicks. A kick from Nakajima puts him down for 2. Mochizuki tags in and goes after the arm. Nakajima takes Takagi off the apron. Takagi returns the favor, hitting a clothesline and a chair shot to Nakajima’s leg. YAMATO and Mochizuki brawl around the building. In the ring Takagi works over Nakajima’s leg. He hits a swinging uranage and puts on the Manriki. YAMATO puts Mochizuki in the crossface. Nakajima comes back with kicks to both opponents. Mochizuki hits a springboard dropkick and the Sankakugeri. Nakajima kicks YAMATO to the floor. Mochizuki hits a big dive onto both opponents. YAMATO comes back with a spear for 2. He puts on the anklelock. Nakajima counters to one of his own but YAMATO gets to the ropes. Nakajima puts on an armbar. Mochizuki puts Takagi in the same hold. He and Nakajima both hit the Sankakugeri for 2. YAMATO and Takagi hit stereo vertical suplexes. YAMATO hits a brainbuster for 2. Takagi goes for the Last Falconry but Mochizuki blocks it. Takagi hits a lariat for 2. Mochizuki blocks the Blood Fall and unloads with kicks. YAMATO falls to kicks from both opponents. Nakajima hits a suplex and another big kick for 2. He hits a Tree of Woe kick to the head for 2. Mochizuki hits the Ikkakugeri. Nakajima hits a backdrop driver. Mochizuki hits a dragon suplex for 2. YAMATO comes back with a German suplex. He puts on the sleeper hold. Nakajima makes the save. Takagi hits the Pumping Bomber. Nakajima comes back with a huge double stomp off the top. Nakajima hits a pair of superkicks. He hits a brainbuster for 2. Takagi hits MADE IN JAPAN for 2. Takagi hits tired Pumping Bombers, trading them with Nakajima’s kicks until the time limit expires at 20:00. They keep fighting and have to be separated by Kamikaze. This just built and built until the time limit expired, and the scrape after the bell was a perfect touch. What an awesome match. I wonder what these four could do with a longer time limit… I wonder.
Rating: ****
August 26, 2009 - Tokyo, Japan
Shingo Takagi & YAMATO def. Masaaki Mochizuki, Katsuhiko Nakajima {Number One Contenders Match}
From the end of the tournament. Takagi has now successfully made it to the finals of every Summer Adventure Tag League. First with Kong, then with Dragon Kid, now with YAMATO. He’s never won before though. YAMATO and Mochizuki start. Mochizuki controls with strikes. Takagi nails Nakajima with the Pumping Bomber and gets 2 with a cocky cover. He hits a kneedrop for 2. YAMATO comes in and helps Takagi hit a double atomic drop. Takagi hits a vertical suplex. Nakajima starts to shrug off the grogginess, kicks Takagi’s arm and puts on an armbar. Mochizuki comes in and helps the arm abuse continue. They put cross armbreakers on both arms, but the referee won’t allow the illegal maneuver. Takagi hits a double clothesline and a double vertical suplex. YAMATO tags in and spears Nakajima. He hits a back suplex on Mochizuki. He puts on an anklelock, apparently having watched the semifinal match. He hits a brainbuster for 2. Nakajima hits both opponents with a double DDT. He hits a dropkick on Takagi. He misses a double stomp and Takagi hits the DVD. Takagi hits a clothesline but it puts him in some serious pain. He hits another anyway. He hits MADE IN JAPAN for 2. Nakajima blocks the Last Falconry and gets a victory roll for 2. He blocks the Blood Fall, and with Mochizuki’s help, sandwiches Takagi’s face with kicks for 2. Takagi clotheslines YAMATO by mistake in a spot stolen from their first match. Nakajima hits a German suplex for 2. He and Mochizuki unload kicks for2 . They hit stereo Ikkakugeris. Takagi avoids another and hits the Avalanche Falconry, which I guess is now being called the STAY DREAM. YAMATO hits a spear for 2. Mochizuki hits a dragon suplex. Takagi hits the Pumping Bomber for 2. YAMATO hits the Galleria for 2. Takagi and Nakajima beat the piss out of each other and roll to the floor. Mochizuki unloads on YAMATO with kicks, but gives up his back and YAMATO sinks in the sleeper hold for the win at 15:28 shown of 19:25. The early goings were slow, but told a good story. Takagi hit his finisher right away so that Nakajima would be weaker throughout the fight, and there’d be time to finish him off. In their first match he couldn’t get the job done before the time limit expired. This didn’t go to twenty minutes, and to be honest it wasn’t as intense as their first fight, despite the raised stakes. It was still great, and stiff as all hell, but the first match just had a little more oomph than this.
Rating: ***¾
February 11, 2012 – Tokyo, Japan
Katsuhiko Nakajima def. Shingo Takagi
From Diamond Ring Kensuke Office Changes. They emphasize that Nakajima beat Dragon Gate wrestler Kenichiro Arai recently, using Masaaki Mochizuki’s moves. I think it’s pretty cool that Takagi is main eventing a show that includes Kenta Kobashi. Takagi powers Nakajima to the ropes to start, but misses a cheap shot. They trade strikes until Takagi hits a shoulder tackle. Nakajima’s kicks have Takagi’s leg in pain. Takagi batters Nakajima in the corner. Nakajima returns the favor. Takagi has trouble defending against Nakajima’s kicks so he bails. Nakajima hits a baseball slide. He posts Takagi’s arm. He hits a DDT on the floor. Takagi buys some time by clotheslining Nakajima’s leg. He hits a senton on the floor. Nakajima hits a superkick. Takagi hits the DVD on the apron. This is pretty damn awesome so far. Takagi hits a topé con hilo! He hits a double stomp. Nakajima hits a back kick, but not until after Takagi tries to block the snapmare. That was a nice touch. Takagi hits a dragon screw. He taunts Nakajima and hits another in the ropes. This match officially rules. Takagi puts on an anklelock on the apron but the referee makes him stop. He hits another double stomp. He hits a shinbreaker and a lariat to the leg. He puts on the Sharpshooter. Nakajima gets to the ropes. He catches Takagi with a chest kick. The crowd rallies behind him. He punts Takagi’s ribs and hits a backdrop driver. He hits a suplex. He hits a shotgun dropkick for 2, the first near-fall of the match. He blocks the Blood Fall and hits a buzzsaw kick for 2. He goes for a cross armbreaker but Takagi gets to the ropes. Nakajima kicks away lariat after lariat but gets caught with a side suplex. Takagi hits a powerbomb for 2. Nakajima knocks him to the floor with the Death Roll. Takagi beats the count at 15. Nakajima tries to drag him back inside but Takagi catches him with a lariat. He hits another in the corner. He hits the STAY DREAM for 2. Nakajima hits three superkicks. He hits the Twister for 2. He misses a moonsault. They block each other’s finishers until Takagi comes up with MADE IN JAPAN. It gets 2. Nakajima blocks a second attempt and hits a German suplex for 2. He hits the Death Roll. Takagi hits a weak Pumping Bomber. Nakajima hit a barrage of kicks so Takagi hits a desperation lariat. Nakajima almost gets counted down but he gets to his feet at 9. Takagi hits the Pumping Bomber for 2. He hits MADE IN JAPAN for 2. The crowd thought that was it. Takagi calls for the Last Falconry but Nakajima counters to a victory roll for 2. Nakajima hits a high kick. He hits a cross arm German suplex for the win at 23:29. This had excellent, dramatic action. I loved that once Nakajima figured out how to stop Takagi’s onslaught he immediately tried to put the big guy away with frequent pin and submission attempts. Following legendary stars might have been difficult, but this felt like a worthy main event. Takagi shows respect after the match.
Rating: ****¼
From Dynamite 131. This is a qualifying match for the Owen Hart Foundation tournament. Joe debuted at ROH Supercard of Honor, saving Jonathan Gresham from Jay Lethal (whose soul searching apparently led him to turn heel) & Sonjay Dutt after the main event. And now that ROH and AEW are the same thing, that seems worth mentioning. Caster’s pre-match rap was cute. This was real squashy, with Joe needing only two minutes to put Caster down with the Muscle Buster at 2:52. Lethal & Dutt pop up on the big screens and Lethal says he’d been trying to get a hold of Joe during his difficult soul searching time, and Joe never picked up. They have a present for Joe next week. N/A
From Dynamite 132. Jay Lethal & Sonjay Dutt were in the front row cheering on Joe. Sarcastically, probably, as they brawled with Joe at ROH Supercard of Honor XV. 
From Rampage 39. 
From Dynamite 137. 
From Dynamite 138. This is a 
From Double or Nothing. 
From PWF York Cougar Football Fundraiser. I didn't know that this match happened until over a month after the fact. This started out as a non-title match, but we'll get to why I've listed it as a title match in a moment. FTR have Mick Foley in their corner while their opponents have Bill Behrens. I’ve never actually seen Behrens do an on-camera gig before. He's holding a tennis racket, presumably as an Umaga to Jim Cornette. But it's confusing because there was actually a tennis player named Bill Behrens. They announce this match as having a 20-minute time limit. Only 11 minutes in, they say there are three minutes remaining. Until then, this was as run-of-the-mill as a modern FTR match gets. But the announcement snapped everyone out of their heat-on-Wheeler funk and forced them to go for desperate pins. They announce ten seconds remaining a couple of times, but no one can get the roll up pin they're looking for. The 20-minute time limit expires at 1
From NXT UK 183. McGuinness started by essentially saying that Fraser is going to pee or poo himself during the match. Unnecessary. Had Shawn Michaels been game to have a good match against Vader, this is what it would have looked like. Actually, a more appropriate and modern analogue is Brock Lesnar vs. Seth Rollins from SummerSlam. Much like that match, Frazer used quick strikes and avoided his larger opponent’s signature big move to stay alive. Here it was the powerbomb whereas there it was suplexes. Here, Frazer also successfully damaged WALTER’s knee, which slowed the big man down and made it hard for WALTER to hit the powerbomb. Unfortunately for Frazer, WALTER was able to bide his time and clothesline Frazer’s legs out from under him. An inevitable powerbomb followed and won the match for WALTER at 14:02. I hate to say this because I’m happy that he’s healthier, but the way WALTER has slimmed down has taken some of the magic away from his aura. At least for me it has. That said, dude can clearly still go as well as ever in the ring. ****
From NXT 659. Strong was feeling it here, which is thanks in large part to the crowd being maniacally loud from the get go I’m sure. His whole game was fast and devastating stick and move attacks. That worked pretty well, as WALTER was dazed from time to time. But as with all good WALTER matches (which is pretty much all WALTER matches), everything WALTER does is devastating here so it takes very little for him to take back control. And eventually he did just that and hit the powerbomb for the win at 9:46 (shown of 12:18). After the match, WALTER gets on the microphone and says that his name is Gunther now. I did not think WALTER would be a victim of the renaming curse this far into his run. What will they rename Strong?! ***¾
From NXT UK 185. Andy Shepherd helpfully announces from inside the ring that the reason for the stipulation is that the feud has gotten so violent that it wouldn’t be safe to have fans around. Devlin says during the match that it’s because he thinks Dragunov could only muster the energy to win if he had the crowd behind him. I like that explanation a lot more. The only real reason I could think of to do this without fans is that there was a scheduling conflict with one of the wrestlers for the regular TV taping date and they needed to get this thing filmed. We just had such a long stretch of empty arena NXT UK episodes that I can’t imagine anyone was dying to get another taste of it. This aired the day after Adam Cole vs. Orange Cassidy in a match that was also no disqualification and falls count anywhere, and this served up everything I felt was missing from that match. Now you might say, “Brad, Cassidy is not the same kind of character as Devlin or Dragunov, how could you expect the same level of violence or intensity?” To that I say, when Cassidy started his match by breaking his own sunglasses and rapidly punching Cole, he was indicating that level of violence and/or intensity. And instead the match was mostly wacky. Anyway, this was not wacky. It was stiff and intense and featured weapons that made sense and spots the didn’t take forever to set up. Dragunov got in trouble when his eye injury acted up. Devlin took control and beat the crap out of him. I wasn’t wild about how meek Dragunov was when Devlin was zip tying his hands, but I did like that in the end it turned out to be an error on Devlin’s part anyway because Dragunov’s finisher requires no hands. And indeed, a bound Dragunov jumped off the steel steps (which had been brought into the ring) and hit the Torpedo Moskau on Devlin for the win at 21:43. NXT UK is still sneaking in these dope matches that no one is watching. Y’all should watch them. ****¼ 
From AAA Triplemania Regia. FTR come out with Vickie Guerrero. This was supposed to be explained at an earlier AAA taping but FTR and Guerrero all missed them. AAA is notorious for having this kind of luck/being incompetent lately. FTR is also wearing Eddie Guerrero tribute tights, with American flags on one side and flames on the other, I suppose to pay homage to his Gringos Locos and Latino Heat gimmicks. This match mostly sucked, but one cool spot saw FTR tie Pentagon’s mask to the ropes and force him to unmask with his hands over his face to stop them from climbing the ladder. That would have been a very meaningful moment to lead up to the Lucha Brothers winning the titles back, but unfortunately instead it led into nothing. He just got his mask back and the match continued on in its lame, derivative way. At one point, Pentagon was the only man standing, but instead of climbing the ladder he grabbed a table from the floor. So the titles mean enough to him that he’d unmask to stop his opponents from winning, but not enough for him to get the titles when he had a clear path to do it? Vickie powered Pentagon, causing him to voluntarily jump through the table and Harwood grabbed the belts at 12:12. This was abysmal. *
From AEW Full Gear. Silver was hamming it up a lot more here than he was the year before in New York. That said, this had stronger just-a-match vibes than the aforementioned match. After Silver ripped out Cassidy’s pockets, Cassidy turned up the heat and these guys put on a middle of the row undercard match. Not bad by any means, but nothing memorable either. Cassidy hit the Beach Break rather out of nowhere for the win at 9:42. **¾ 
From the second Honor Reigns Supreme. The commentators sold this as Gresham getting a big shot against a top ROH guy after being an also-ran in the Television Championship division for a while. This was terrific. Both guys did a fantastic job selling their respective targeted limbs, and Gresham in particular played the role of the tenacious underdog perfectly. He didn’t just watch to see where Lethal would have trouble executing his finisher because of the damage he’d done to the former ROH Champion’s arm, he pressed the assault whenever he could, taking out the arm to make sure the Lethal Injection would never come. But what he couldn’t do was stop Lethal from battering his knee and ultimately winning with a Figure 4 Leglock at 17:54. ****¼ 
From the second Masters of the Craft. Columbus has way more Gresham fans than Concord did. That’s a neat little advancement to the plot, innit? They both went after the same limbs that earned them dividends in their previous match. And then they went ahead and built an incredible match out of that story. At first it seemed as though Lethal wasn’t going to be able to get Gresham’s leg to give out. But about halfway through the match, Gresham’s knee was in trouble. Gresham was able to escape the leglock this time by using the momentum of Lethal pulling him away from the ropes to shift to an armbar. But Gresham’s focus on the arm bit him in the ass. Lethal went for the Lethal Injection and collapsed again, but when Gresham went for a roll up after that Lethal cut back on it for the win at 18:27. This is one of the best American examples that I've seen of a match building on the match that came before. Rather than try to outdo the maneuvers from their first meeting for the sake of a big crowd reaction, they adjust their game plans in logical ways that, to me, were just as exciting. I think this match is slept on, by virtue of the fact that I’ve never heard anything about it before watching it. ****½ 
From ROH Wrestling 364. In real life, 
From Death Before Dishonor XVII. Gresham and Lethal had been teaming, but Gresham grew frustrated and started heeling. Ultimately, he turned on Lethal. It took them a little while to get there, but once they got into a groove this was exactly what I wanted from this match. It was back to their old tricks, with Lethal targeting the leg to set up for the Figure 4 Leglock and Gresham targeting the arm to block the Lethal Injection and set up for his Octopus. In the end, Lethal tried the cutback trick that worked for him in Columbus, but Gresham countered to a pin and then put on the gnarliest Octopus for his first win over Lethal at 17:20. This is the best kind of wrestling series. And none of it felt stale because it was a year after they’d wrestled last and because they found ways to energize the old tropes. And that’s not to mention Gresham busting out what I can only describe as a sumo-style assault. Gresham and Lethal make up after the match. ****
From ROH Wrestling 500. During the pandemic, ROH made the most of their empty arena shows by kicking them off with a tournament to crown a champion for the revived Pure Championship. Gresham won the tournament, and this was his fourth defense of the title. Lethal and Gresham were still allies here. In an interesting move, the other match on this milestone episode was two other partners fighting in Jay and Mark Briscoe. They cut to a commercial break about six minutes in, though the action didn’t get beyond (admittedly fast-moving) mat wrestling until the 10-minute mark. That had me thinking this was going to go long, but things took a different turn. Both guys had abused the other’s shoulders, and Lethal used that to his advantage best. He forced Gresham to use his first rope break to stop a pin, and his second to escape a crab. Then, he used the failed Lethal Injection to bait Gresham into a crossface, forcing the champ to use his final rope break. But he made the mistake of giving Gresham a breather and was quickly caught in a head scissor takedown giving Gresham the winning pin at 14:06 (shown of 16:40). For an empty arena match, this held my attention. It was totally different than their previous matches while still using a couple elements from the rivalry to elevate it just a bit. Not essential viewing, but if you’re working your way through their series you shouldn’t skip it. ***¼ 
