Dragon Gate continues the Truth Gate 2024 Tour today with their annual mid-winter major event in Wakayama, MEMORIAL GATE 2024 in Wakayama. 2 title matches are on tap for today’s event-first up, Open The Brave Gate Champion Hyo defends the title against Punch Tominaga, who usually is more of a comedy wrestler & jobber but somehow managed to get himself nominated as the next challenger. In the main event, trios action is on tap as Open The Triangle Gate Champions KAI, ISHIN & Yoshiki Kato defend the titles against Kzy, BIGBOSS Shimizu & JACKY “FUNKY” KAMEI. The undercard is highlighted by the penultimate match together for the M3K faction as the 3 Mochizukis-Masaaki, Susumu & Junior (Masaaki & Junior are father-son, Susumu is not related to either) and Yasushi Kanda are in 8-man tag action. Later this week they will apparently disband and Junior will be heading to Europe for a training excursion.
Today’s event will be held at Wakayama Prefectural Gym in Wakayama and can be watched LIVE on DRAGONGATE NETWORK in Japanese. There will also be an alternate version with wrestler commentary. This is my first time watching Dragon Gate live on the service so it’s hard to predict how long the event will run, but between 7 matches and 2 title matches (plus a potential squash), and most regular matches have 15-20 minute time limits I’ll guess maybe 3 hours. (Update: You can also watch the first match FOR FREE on YouTube)
Today’s lineup:
Madoka Kikuta & Dragon Dia vs. Genki Horiguchi & Kagetora
Ryoya Tanaka vs. Strong Machine J
Kota Minoura, Ben-K & BxB Hulk vs. Don Fujii, Takashi Yoshida & Ho Ho Lun
Jason Lee & U-T vs. Shun Skywalker & Gianni Valetta
Masaaki Mochizuki, Susumu Mochizuki, Mochizuki Junior & Yasushi Kanda vs. Ultimo Dragon, Luis Mante, YAMATO & Dragon Kid
Open The Brave Gate Champion Hyo vs. Punch Tominaga for the title
Open The Triangle Gate Champions KAI, ISHIN & Yoshiki Kato vs. Kzy, BIGBOSS Shimizu & JACKY “FUNKY” KAMEI for the titles
Refresh this page occasionally for the latest results.
Updates below will begin at 9:45 PM PT/12:45 AM ET. The event is scheduled to begin at 10 PM PT/1 AM ET.
9:43 PM PT UPDATE: The live stream has begun. Updates will begin in a few minutes when we go to the venue. (We can hear live audio from the venue but no video yet)
9:49 PM PT UPDATE: Live updates begin now…
We are LIVE from Wakayama Prefectural Gym in Wakayama, Japan. Commentary will begin in a few minutes. The wrestler commentary version features a different wrestler on commentary for each match.
The paid attendance will be announced later today. This is a small venue and last year’s event here, held in mid-March, drew just under 500, so I think a safe estimate will be 450-500. (There is much more capacity, which would’ve probably pushed it closer to 2000, but it’s not used) (UPDATE: The announced paid attendance was 462)
The matches should begin in about 10-15 minutes.
The Natural Vibes faction comes out to open the event. Kzy with microphone. He gets the crowd fired up before talking about today’s main event. They are then joined by their opponents, Open The Triangle Gate Champions KAI, ISHIN & Yoshiki Kato. Main event promo follows.
The matches (really this time) begin at 10:17 PM PT. It looks like a hard-camera-only view today with no onscreen graphics, akin to a house show on WRESTLE UNIVERSE.
Match 1: Madoka Kikuta & Dragon Dia vs. Genki Horiguchi & Kagetora. 15 minute time limit
Result: Madoka Kikuta & Dragon Dia beat Genki HoriguchI & Kagetora. Dia pinned Horiguchi after DDDDT.
Match 2: Ryoya Tanaka vs. Strong Machine J. 15 minute time limit
Result: Strong Machine J beat Ryoya Tanaka
Match 3: Kota Minoura, Ben-K & BxB Hulk vs. Don Fujii, Takashi Yoshida & Ho Ho Lun. 20 minute time limit
Result: Kota Minoura, Ben-K & BxB Hulk beat Don Fujii, Takashi Yoshida & Ho Ho Lun. Ben-K pinned Yoshida after a spear.
Match 4: Jason Lee & U-T vs. Shun Skywalker & Gianni Valetta. 30 minute time limit
Result: Shun Skywalker & Gianni Valetta beat Jason Lee & U-T. Valetta pinned U-T after a King Kong kneedrop. Glorified squash. Valetta has a lot of Takashi Iizuka in him.
Match 5: Masaaki Mochizuki, Susumu Mochizuki, Mochizuki Junior & Yasushi Kanda vs. Ultimo Dragon, Luis Mante, YAMATO & Dragon Kid. 30 minute time limit
Result: Double Countout. Dragon Kid & Ultimo Dragon promo followed.
Intermission. (Starting at 11:43 PM PT)
The matches resume at 11:58 PM PT.
Match 6: Open The Brave Gate Champion Hyo vs. Punch Tominaga for the title. 1 Hour time limit
Result: Open The Brave Gate Champion Hyo beat Punch Tominaga to retain the title. V4 for Hyo.
Main Event: Open The Triangle Gate Champions KAI, ISHIN & Yoshiki Kato vs. Kzy, BIGBOSS Shimizu & JACKY “FUNKY” KAMEI for the titles. 1 Hour time limit
Result: Open The Triangle Gate Champions KAI, ISHIN & Yoshiki Kato beat Kzy, BIGBOSS Shimizu & JACKY “FUNKY” KAMEI to retain the titles. KAI pinned Kzy after Falcon Arrow. V3 for the champs. After the match, the champs did a short promo on the losers then Natural Vibes were left to do the show-closing promo.
The next event is Wednesday at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo. Live streaming on DRAGONGATE NETWORK will begin at 1:30 AM PT/4:30 AM ET. The broadcast will be available in Japanese and English.
