BRM Reviews DGUSA Open the Ultimate Gate 2012 (awesome)

[Big Red Machine]

DGUSA Open the Ultimate Gate 2012 (3/30/2012)- Miami Beach, FL

Welcome back to BRM’s Monthly “This Day in Wrestling History” Review Series! March is our anniversary month (I’ve been doing these for FIVE YEARS now), so I always like to look for a big show. Fortunately, in addition to New Japan’s anniversary shows and sometimes ROH’s, WrestleMania weekend used to be in March, so that left us with plenty of big shows to choose from. Today, we’re going back to my shameful shelf of unwatched DVDs and picking out DGUSA Open the Ultimate Gate 2012.


RICH SWANN vs. A.R. FOX- 7.25/10
This was a good action opener with a nice show of respect afterwards. Fox won cleanly, so he is now 3-0 against Swann in their careers. That seems like something that could become relevant down the road, but I don’t know.

SEGMENT TO CHANGE THE MAIN EVENT BECAUSE OF CIMA’S INJURY- very good
CIMA says his neck is injured, so he can’t wrestle, and he and Ricochet will have to vacate the Open the United Gate Championship. Upon hearing this, Chuck Taylor ran out to ringside, jumping around and celebrating. Johnny Gargano followed behind him, not celebrating at all. Chuck said that CIMA & Ricochet should forfeit the belts to him and Gargano, who were scheduled to be their challengers tonight. Johnny Gargano does not like this because they’re not earning it; not proving that they deserve to be main eventers, which is what they set out to do when they formed Ronin. Masato Yoshino, who will challenge Gargano for the DGUSA Open the Freedom Gate Title tomorrow night- and who regularly teams with Ricochet in Dragon Gate, offered to be Ricochet’s partner tonight to defend the titles. Everyone was okay with this. Gargano and Ricochet shook hands, but no one else did. Gargano did at least offer to Yoshino, though, as opposed to Taylo who left the ring the moment he saw Gargano offering a handshake.

BOBBY FISH & TOMMY DREAMER vs. THE SCENE (w/Larry Dallas, Steffi, Shelley, & Amber)-5/10
Steffi, Shelley, and Amber are Sassy Steffi, Shelley Martinez, and Amber O’neal. The lack of any sort of music for the surprise revelation of Tommy Dreamer as Bobby Fish’s partner was odd.
Early in the match, Dreamer got Konley in a crossface, and Fish ran up and kicked Konley in the face. OUCH! Other than that, this was standard fare, with Dreamer as the babyface in peril. I could have done without the spot where he kissed the two valets when they tried to attack him. Fish made Konley tap out.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- stupid
Shelley shoved Dreamer and kept saying that she hated him. He grabbed her hair and was going to kiss her, but decided not to. Shelley apparently decided that two wrongs make a right, so she got revenge Dreamer forcibly kissing her pals against their wills by forcibly kissing him against his will. Dreamer spanked her. This was all pointless and stupid.

PAC PROMO- good
This was good hype for his match against Low Ki. He emphasized how much he respected Ki and how long he has been looking forward to this match.

BxB HULK vs. SAMI CALLIHAN- 7/10
Before the match, Sami cut a promo into the camera saying that he would “retire” Sabu tomorrow. BxB Hulk’s selling of his knee was a little spot for my tastes (basically he didn’t sell it until the story wanted it to start being a problem, which was shortly before the finish). Christina Von Eerie spat some of BxB Hulk’s alcohol in Sami’s face to cost him the match.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- decent
Sami Callihan says that the D.U.F.s don’t trust women, but also says that he doesn’t care about this loss, because all that matters to him is beating Sabu tomorrow night so that he can finally get the “sickness out of his head.” The lights went out so that Sabu could teleport into the ring. He and Sami brawled. Sabu was winning the brawl until the other D.U.F.s showed up. Jon Davis and A.R. Fox ran in to help Sabu. Fox and Callihan brawled to the back, leaving us with a…

STREET FIGHT: Jon Davis & Sabu vs. D.U.F.s (Arik Cannon & Pinkie Sanchez)- 6/10
They did stuff with weapons. Davis pinned Sanchez with 3 Seconds Around the World after Sabu put Cannon through a table.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- good
Sami Callihan attacked the babyfaces from behind. He hit Sabu with a broken bottle, then stepped on his throat while telling him that he wanted him to spend all night thinking about how tomorrow would be his last match, because his career would end at the hands of the Callihan Death Machine.

LOW KI PROMO- great
Not only did he build up his match with Pac, but knowing where his character will go when he starts in EVOLVE soon (and the two companies are about to become kayfabe joined as the hip as well as outside of it), you can see the little hints of that in his comments here about how Pac has worked his way up to Ki’s level and how everyone else should pay attention to their match.

MASAKI MOCHIZUKI vs. AKIRA TOZAWA (w/Christina Von Eerie & BxB Hulk)- 8.25/10
Awesome stuff here, with Tozawa’s offense built around German Suplexes and Mochizuki dissecting Tozawa with kicks. Mochizuki got the win here, despite interference from CVE.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- bad
Christina Von Eerie hops into the ring and tells Mochizuki “I have a message for you from Mad Blankie. Come here and I’ll tell you.” Dumbsh*t babyface Mochizuki comes over to her… and she hits him in the nuts.

SAMURAY DEL SOL vs. JOHNNY VANDAL- 4.5/10
Samuray del Sol won a short match that was a lot more even than it really should have been. Ricochet joined Lenny Leonard on commentary for this match, so I assume they’re building to the natural match between him and Samuray del Sol.

UHAA NATION PROMO- meh
He is injured and on crutches, but promises to return better than ever. His catchphrases were REALLY lame.

LOW KI vs. PAC- 8.5/10
Arik Cannon replaced Ricochet on commentary. He was extremely annoying.
There was a “THAT WAS SPLENDID!” chant. The match, too, was splendid. It was exactly the combination of high-flying, grappling, and striking that you’d imagine these two would produce.

LOW KI PROMO- very good
He puts Pac over and offers him a rematch any time. He says a lot of other babyface stuff, then says that he thinks that EVOLVE should have a championship.

TAG TEAM MATCH FOR THE VACANT NEW DGUSA OPEN THE UNITED GATE CHAMPIONSHIP: World-1 International (Ricochet & Masato Yoshino)vs. Ronin (Chuck Taylor & Johnny Gargano) (w/Rich Swann)- 8.25/10
I had been under the impression that Yoshino was just filling in for CIMA tonight, but actually the titles were vacated and this was a match to crown new champions. Gargano’s injured back got worked over and Ricochet got to play Ricky Morton. The match was very exciting, but didn’t really stand out to me in any particular way other than being your usual conception of a very exciting, action-packed tag team match. At one point Taylor pulled Gargano off of a cover to try to get the pin himself. He also tried to use a title belt as a weapon, but Gargano stopped him. Ricochet and Yoshino got the win when Taylor tapped out.


POST-MATCH SEGMENT- good
CIMA offered Gargano a handshake, which Gargano accepted. Taylor took this opportunity to attack CIMA from behind, hitting him in his injured neck. He then superkicked Gargano, breaking away from Ronin. Taylor left. Yoshino took the opportunity to stand over Gargano and tell him that he would take his DGUSA Open the Freedom Gate Title tomorrow.
Taylor’s turn was a nice shake-up for the roster, but in light of that, I’m really surprised that it wasn’t Gargano who tapped out to Yoshino, as that would have both built up tomorrow night’s match and also let Taylor blame Gargano for their loss more directly.


This was an awesome show from DGUSA, with lots of excellent wrestling and some good storyline hooks. Speaking of hooks, here’s your teaser for next month: It’s part two of a double-header of which we’ve already done part one.