DRAGONGATE
KING OF GATE 2023 FINALS
AUGUST 3, 2023
KORAKUEN HALL, TOKYO, JAPAN

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Kota Minoura’s profession is a conundrum. 

The Gifu-native, 5 years professional but nonetheless solely 24 years previous, is a prodigy who doesn’t really feel like one. He’s one more success story amongst Dragongate’s dojo and coaching strategies, but he’s suffered great public failure. Even when securing his King of Gate crown, which eluded him in his prior two journeys to the finals, Minoura nonetheless felt like considerably of an underdog as he rallied in opposition to the white-hot Massive Boss Shimizu. 

This 12 months’s King of Gate was an extremely sturdy event. Working single-elimination brackets as an alternative of block play, which has been the motif since 2020, shifted the event’s focus from classic G1-like bangers to stable tales informed all through the rounds, though there’s a good case to be made that Dragongate’s high-end stuff on this event matches the high-end stuff from this 12 months’s G1. I digress. 

From the second the brackets had been introduced, it grew to become clear that Massive Boss Shimizu was going to be a participant on this event. I used to be nonetheless hung up on the truth that he reduce a promo on the Reiwa Six at Might’s Korakuen present, but nothing got here of it. I knew he was destined for one thing massive sooner or later this 12 months, and after I noticed how the brackets performed out, I knew he’d be a risk to win the whole factor. 

On Shimizu’s facet of the bracket, he was met with the potential for going through nothing however Reiwa Six wrestlers. He began out in opposition to Shun Skywalker after which met Sturdy Machine J earlier than wrestling Susumu Mochizuki, who superior through forfeit from the Reiwa’s Ben-Okay. Shimizu survived the veteran, which granted him entry to the semi-finals in opposition to the chief of the trigger, Madoka Kikuta. Minus Ben-Okay, who was not in situation to compete, and each Minoura and Yuki Yoshioka, who weren’t in Shimizu’s bracket, the now-10 12 months veteran ran via the celebs of as we speak with ease. 

As for Kota Minoura, he had an opportunity to win as a result of Kota Minoura all the time has an opportunity to win. 

The story has been informed a million instances now, however let me do it once more, rapidly. He debuted in 2018, after Ben-Okay and Shun Skywalker however earlier than Jacky “Funky” Kamei and Madoka Kikuta. He was good, immediately. He surpassed HYO and arguably Yuki Yoshioka in Mochizuki Dojo. When Dragongate returned from a pandemic hiatus in the summertime of 2020, Minoura was given an instantaneous push. He gained the Twin Gate belts that fall, fell to Kzy within the finals of King of Gate 2021, after which wrapped up his ties together with his then-unit Masquerade on the finish of the 12 months earlier than being given his personal unit in 2022. 

That unit, initially consisting of Kaito Ishida, Naruki Doi, and a freshly-debuted Takumi Hayakawa, now dubbed Minorita, grew to become often known as Gold Class, and their objective was to make it possible for Dragongate had the largest feminine fanbase in all of Japanese wrestling. 

Ishida reduce heel promos, Minoura flopped as a babyface, and Doi appeared mentally checked out, nonetheless. The one shiny spot was the person who walked in Minoura’s shadows. 

Then got here King of Gate 2022. 

Minoura was bounced within the first spherical by Kzy, however because of a Jason Lee harm (which I’ve all the time been satisfied was a piece), Minoura discovered himself within the semi-finals after successful a resurrection battle royal. He knocked Shuji Kondo out of the event in a dull, masturbatory exhibit of a Gold Class act that had already run its course. Minoura heeled it up, Minorita helped him win, and everybody sat on their fingers. 

Mercifully, Yuki Yoshioka gained the event, defeated KAI on the Ultimo Dragon thirty fifth Anniversary Present, and proceeded to have an electrical Dream Gate run that was nearly universally liked. 

If that had been the story, easy as may be, it will be an awesome one. However Minoura didn’t simply go away after dropping the finals of the event. 

July 11, 2022, started what we now acknowledge as The Kota Minoura Debacle. 

Within the midst of what was turning right into a sneaky-great Dream Gate affair between KAI and the aforementioned Shuji Kondo, the Korakuen Corridor lights flickered on and off, and when the constructing returned with lights, Minoura was standing over each males. 

Having coated Dragongate for seven years by that time, I knew in the mean time this was an issue. Now a 12 months faraway from the scenario, I can confidently say nothing throughout my time as a Dragongate reviewer has bombed this badly. This was a bomb for the ages. Simply one of many largest misses in the whole historical past of the corporate. It was like biting into rotten meals. As quickly as Minoura confirmed up, I knew we had been in for bother. 

The debacle was all-inclusive. Attendance for the remainder of the month fell off a cliff. There was an uncomfortable rigidity within the air that made viewing Dragongate practically unimaginable. It was as if the cloud of Minoura’s pressured, uneasy major occasion push hung over every little thing on the cardboard. 

Dragongate turned Minoura’s inclusion into a careless, three-way battle for Dream Gate matches. Minoura and Yoshioka outlasted Kondo, so throughout the two-headed dragon that was Ultimo’s Anniversary Present and Kobe World 2022, Yoshioka beat KAI, then Yoshioka beat Minoura. It was messy and predictable and painful. 

Yoshioka went on to prosper, whereas the again half of Minoura’s 2022 was spent in Dragongate’s equal of Witness Safety. 

In just a few months, Gold Class had utterly revamped itself. Out had been Doi and Ishida, the latter leaving the corporate totally with the previous restructuring his contract to develop into freelance, and in was Ben-Okay, who had spent the previous couple of years going nowhere quick. He joined Gold Class and obtained what can solely be described as a Nakamura-esque charisma injection. Lengthy gone was the stoic, unable-to-cut-a-promo Ben-Okay, and in his place, a loudmouth, banana-loving, hip-hop-adoring Ben-Okay took over. With out Ben-Okay, I don’t assume the Gold Class branding would have survived. 

Ben, Minorita, and later BxB Hulk put the unit that wasn’t theirs to start with on their again and leaped into the highlight whereas Minoura remained doing busy work on the undercards. 

In January, Minoura gained Triangle Gate gold alongside Ben and Hulk, however that was extra of a automobile for Hulk to ascertain himself on this unit. It wasn’t till July, this 12 months’s Kobe World to be precise, when Minoura began to really feel like himself as soon as extra. Flanked by Minorita and the still-freelance, now-quasi member of Gold Class Naruki Doi, the trio gained the Open the Triangle Gate belts in a match that truly put the highlight on Minoura. He had finished a lot harm to his picture within the 12 months prior that it took them a full 12 months to rehab and regain belief in him, however Minoura delivered when he wanted to. 

He parlayed that success into King of Gate, the place we stand now. Minoura headlined in Osaka in opposition to Doi and seemed nice standing over the Nara-native, victorious. He bought by Punch Tominaga, simply. Then, within the quarter-finals, he was met with a challenger that will probably be a thorn in his facet for his whole profession. 

On July 23, 2023, simply over a 12 months faraway from the beginning of The Kota Minoura Debacle, he totally redeemed himself. In his hometown (which doubles as Yuki Yoshioka’s hometown) in a super-no emptiness viewers, Minoura and Yoshioka went to battle. They’d a Kobe World-level match with out the existential dread and despair that their precise Kobe World match had. This shook off no matter was left of Minoura’s 2022. He was good on this match. He was the wrestler that I all the time thought he might be in Mochizuki Dojo or Masquerade. It was, undoubtedly, essentially the most pivotal match in his profession. Had he laid an egg on this setting, it will be arduous to ever consider within the concept of Minoura as a reputable major eventer. 

Minoura took down Yoshioka, setting the desk for a semi-finals encounter with HYO and a potential third straight King of Gate finals look. 

1,258 individuals had been on-hand at Korakuen Corridor to see Kota Minoura lastly win the event that he had been unable to win the prior two years, and nothing about his participation within the finals this 12 months appeared pressured. 

He thwarted HYO’s path of destruction to get to the finals. Nothing about this match was dangerous, nevertheless it was the HYO Formulation that every one of us have seen earlier than. 

The finals in opposition to Shimizu, who defeated present Dream Gate Champion Madoka Kikuta to get right here, was merely an beautiful match. 

Each Minoura and Shimizu are two wrestlers who excel at placing collectively partaking ending stretches, and so they put forth their greatest foot ahead with this encounter. Shimizu was the primary to really put a dent in Minoura’s armor, touchdown each a Massive Boss Press and a Shot Put Slam on the Gifu-native. Minoura survived, nonetheless, by placing his foot on the rope throughout the ensuing pinfall after the Shot Put. 

A robust wave of “Mi-Nour-A” chants echoed all through the constructing because of his survival. He rode that wave of momentum right into a near-fall together with his signature Bevel Gear pin, then started buying and selling strikes with one among Dragongate’s largest monsters. I had by no means seen Minoura present such hearth earlier than. If his early years represented him as an artist not but snug in his personal pores and skin, this was a efficiency that represented Minoura’s evolution into changing into a brass ring-grabber. He wiggled out of a last-ditch La Magistral from Shimizu, popped him together with his Working Knee, then planted him with the Golden Rose. 

Kota Minoura is lastly King of Gate. 

Whether or not he sticks the touchdown at Harmful Gate or not is but to be seen. He’ll have his second singles match of the 12 months with Madoka Kikuta, the first of which was a traditional and led to Kikuta’s eventual Dream Gate win. 

The story of Kota Minoura’s profession is way from over, however we’ve got lastly reached out first little bit of closure together with his King of Gate victory. Whether or not he turns into Dragongate’s Carmelo Anthony, a participant that dominated the headlines regardless of carrying out little or no, or Dragongate’s Dwayne Wade, a successful participant who thrived with a robust supporting forged, remains to be undetermined. 

All that’s clear is that in solely 5 years’ time, we’ve seen the rise, fall, and return of Dragongate’s Kota Minoura. 

KING OF GATE FINALS MATCH RATINGS: 

• Massive Boss Shimizu def. Madoka Kikuta: ****1/4 
• Kota Minoura def. HYO: ***
• Mochizuki Junior, Susumu Mochizuki, & Yasushi Kanda vs. ISHIN, KAI, & Shun Skywalker (double countout): ***1/4
• Ben-Okay, BxB Hulk, Minorita, & Naruki Doi def. Daiki Yanagiuchi, Dragon Child, Punch Tominaga, & Yoshiki Kato: ***1/4 
• Don Fujii & Masaaki Mochizuki def. Shuji Kondo & Takashi Yoshida: ***
• Dragon Dia, Eita, Kagetora, YAMATO, & Yuki Yoshioka def. Jacky “Funky” Kamei, Jason Lee, Kzy, Sturdy Machine J, & U-T: ***1/2 
• Kota Minoura def. Massive Boss Shimizu: ****1/2

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