Music of the Mat #86: Masters of Dragon Gate Vol. 2

(CONTENT WARNING: We very briefly discuss the events of this past week in professional wrestling at the very start of the episode. We do not go into any detail on specific allegations and it's easily skippable, about 3 minutes or so. We stand with and believes all victims.)

This week on Wrestling Omakase we talk some interpromotional matches from the mid-to-late 00s, a classic from NOAH in 2004 and much more. If you haven't listened to a 5 Matches episode yet, every week John and the guest each choose 2 matches to watch and talk about on the episode. Then we each choose a third match, which is put up to a vote on the @wrestleomakase Twitter account (or on the Patreon!), letting the listeners choose our fifth and final match of the week. It's a fun retro format featuring all sorts of different wrestling!

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John is joined by debuting guest Case Lowe (@_InYourCase) from VOW's resident Dragon Gate podcast Open the Voice Gate (@openvoicegate) as they start by discussing their attempts to get into Japanese baseball. Nippon Professional Baseball, the world's number two league, just returned this past weekend, and with the world's number *one* league seemingly as far away from returning as ever it's never been a better time to get into the NPB. They discuss the somewhat hilarious origins and state of Case's chosen favorite team, plus John talks a little about the NPB video game and enjoying it as a change of pace after many years of playing MLB The Show. Once that's out of the way they get into this week's chosen matches, which are:

1. Jado & Gedo vs. Masaaki Mochizuki & Don Fujii, NJPW 1/7/07 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gze6hk6fb7c&feature=youtu.be)

2. Naruki Doi, Masato Yoshino & Magnitude Kishiwada vs. Shingo Takagi, BxB Hulk & Cyber Kong, DG 7/1/07 (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nHljki0NJovM-SjNgx6mB0NmzNyKXusi/view?usp=sharing)

3. Go Shiozaki & Takashi Sugiura vs. Shinsuke Nakamura & Milano Collection AT, NOAH 3/1/09 (https://youtu.be/IE6sQtAXxgU)

4. Mitsuharu Misawa & Yoshinari Ogawa vs. Naomichi Marufuji & KENTA, NOAH 4/25/04 (https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x17q6ni)

5. Keiji Mutoh vs. Nobuhiko Takada, NJPW 1/4/96 (https://njpwworld.com/p/s_series_00141_1_10)

Topics that come up along the way include: JACKED JADO, Case <3s Masaaki Mochizuki, John <3s this one DG six-man (and they don't give a damn about no botched finish, JAE), Magnitude Kishiwada ruled, where Go Shiozaki and Shinsuke Nakamura were in their developments in 09, one of the last great Milano Collection AT matches ever, Misawa won't sell for these little pricks, KENTA channels Kawada, Keiji Mutoh struggles at shoot-style grappling, and finally John & Case disagree on a match after being very agreeable.

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Missed any of the 5 Matches episodes or just want to revisit one of the matches discussed previously but aren't sure what episode it took place on? Here's a handy Google Doc with links to every single match we've discussed on this series so far, which will continue to be updated every week: https://bit.ly/3dv3BjF