Jul 24, 2018
seen from Poland
seen from United States
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seen from United States
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seen from Poland
seen from United States
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Brazil
seen from Russia
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from Australia
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seen from United States
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Hong Man Choi, like all of us, is confused by Stalker Ichikawa
YAMATO (c) vs. Shun Skywalker, Dragongate Kobe Pro-wrestling Festival 2025, July 13, 2025
In the first half of 2025, New Japan Pro Wrestling and Dragongate Pro-Wrestling relied on their elder statesmen, Hirooki Goto and YAMATO respectively, to carry their standards while their younger wrestlers found their footing and wrote the next chapter for their companies. Unfortunately for Goto and NJPW, Goto's reign was merely a distraction, a diversion in Zack Sabre Jr.'s reign so that Sabre can pass the torch to the next wrestler. Dragongate, which seemed to be holding its breath until Shun Skywalker turned his attention away from personal grudges back to the Open the Dream Gate title, exhaled when Skywalker challenged YAMATO for the title after YAMATO defended it against Masaaki Mochizuki.
However, nothing can be without extraneous adornment in our era of shortened attention spans, so Skywalker and Dragongate had to gild this lily by declaring that Skywalker would leave the company if he lost. To add a little more substance to this threat, Shun Skywalker teamed with Dragongate alumnus Shingo Takagi and Yota Tsuji against Callum Newman, Great-O-Khan, and Jakob Austin Young at the same show where Goto lost the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship to Zack Sabre Jr. In theory, imposing this stipulation on himself provides Skywalker with the extra bit of motivation that he needed to beat YAMATO. In practice, we had already seen Skywalker pummel and dominate YAMATO in their match in January.
After making the challenge, Skywalker then refused to engage with YAMATO. While YAMATO wrestled the usual full time load of matches leading up to this title match, Skywalker ducked YAMATO, going so far as faking a knee injury so he could disappear for a week. He then ambushed YAMATO after YAMATO beat his protégé, Homare, and demanded a five minute warm-up match against him.
With these shenanigans, Skywalker proved that he was conniving and dastardly, and the specter of Z-Brats' interference on his behalf hung over the title match, which was the main event at Dragongate's most prominent show of the year. We've seen that the Japanese wrestling scene is seized in a decades-long fever of rule-flouting and black clothes-donning bad guy groups running roughshod over title matches in a variety of companies, and both Z-Brats and YAMATO's PARADOX factions were in the mix in their January singles match.
Shun Skywalker really outdid himself with this mask.
The match starts with a deliberate pace that portends a long match. As we saw in their match in January, Skywalker gets the better of most exchanges early and absorbs YAMATO's strikes.
Skywalker only gets pushed to defend when he gives YAMATO space, such as when charges into a knee strike from YAMATO from the opposite corner, which YAMATO then chains with a dropkick from the top turnbuckle.
The fighters move outside the ring and to the long elevated entrance ramp, where Skywalker shows that he can also turn YAMATO's reliance on momentum against him by lifting a charging YAMATO and dropping him with his double underhook driver, the Blaster.
Though YAMATO is able to stumble back into the ring before the referee can count him out, Skywalker remains in control of the match, kicking YAMATO in the corner with a pumping front kick in the corner and a running single legged dropkick to YAMATO's head. Nonetheless, the crowd is firmly behind YAMATO, even as he falls to Skywalker's uranage and moonsault double knee strike.
Skywalker then tries to knock YAMATO out with the BT Bomb, a stalling crucifix powerbomb.
Skywalker tries to finish YAMATO with his swinging powerbomb, but YAMATO is aware of the danger and breaks free, getting enough space to hurt a charging Skywalker with a headscissors and building momentum for the first time in the match.
YAMATO again uses Skywalker's momentum against him by catching his charge and lifting him for his Gallaria driver.
YAMATO applies a sleeper hold to Skywalker and spikes his head with a sleeper suplex, but Skywalker gets a second wind and a demonic grin. YAMATO baits him into a standing forearm strike exchange, which he wins, and chases a retreating Skywalker with a dropkick in the corner. YAMATO caps his offensive burst with a series of Go to Hospital jumping kicks to Skywalker's head and another Gallaria, but Skywalker is able to resist.
The end comes somewhat anticlimactically as Skywalker uses his long body to slip out of YAMATO's graps as YAMATO tries a third Gallaria. Skywalker is able to land his SSW, a spinning driver, his moonsault, and one more SSW. That is enough to keep YAMATO down for the three count and Skywalker's victory.
The match's ending felt flat to me since I was expecting some more escalation, but I suppose it makes sense within the match's narrative. Skywalker was almost as dominant in this match as he was in their January match, though he continued to make mistakes like letting YAMATO get spacing to start his offense and getting baited into strike exchanges that would end in YAMATO's favor. When he focused, however, he was consistently able to get YAMATO on the defensive, and he didn't need that much to finally finish YAMATO and end his reign.
Of course, that's not where the story ends.
After the match, Skywalker's fellow Z-Brat and fellow Reiwa Six, Madoka Kikuta, whom YAMATO had beaten in his first defense, betrayed him and hit him from behind with a lariat. Kikuta then declared that Skywalker was actually weak, usurped his leadership of the Z-Brats, and walked away with everyone except Skywalker's protégé, Homare.
So, unlike how NJPW used Goto's reign as a breather until they could retreat to Zack Sabre Jr., Dragongate used YAMATO's reign to set up its next main story between an aggrieved Shun Skywalker and a rival from his own generation, Madoka Kikuta.
As of this writing, this is the 48th highest rated match of 2025 on Cagematch, behind matches like Saya Kamitani vs. Tam Nakano and Kosei Fujita vs. YOH. I think that's fair; I wouldn't put this match above Kamitani vs. Nakano, for example.
The match and the show can be watched on the Dragongate Network.
