[2.0] "Lion’s Gate reminds me a lot of what NOAH did with their failed SEM project 10 years ago. It basically allows a big company like NJPW to go indy and book matches they wouldn’t normally do, testing outside talent and giving their own young talent the spotlight away from the veteran domination. Sadly I feel this is the wrong thing for New Japan to do. Most interesting here was: Taka Michinoku -vs- Shota Umino [*] “Red Shoes” son making his pro-wrestling debut! And “Red Shoes” Hiroyuki Unno was even refereeing this bout! Shota Umino, turned 20 just days after his debut, was your typical rookie. Had a top rope elbow drop and showed some aggression against Taka. Going to be fun following this guy considering the heritage. El Desperado -vs- Hirai Kawato [* 1/2] Decent little singles match. Not that they were going to rock the world, it gradually grew with Kawato eying a chance, and ended up being the best match here. YOSHI-HASHI -vs- Toru Sugiura [* 1/4] YOSHI-HASHI looked dangerously close to looking like just another indy guy against Sugiura. I was never impressed with what they produced. Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima -vs- Ayato Yoshida & Dinosaur Takuma [3/4*] LION’S GATE create some unique matches that wouldn’t otherwise been booked in New Japan. Ever wanted to see 6-times IWGP Tag Champions wrestle a guy in a dinosaur costume…. no? Yuji Nagata & Tomoyuki Oka -vs- Manabu Nakanishi & Katsuya Kitamura [*] God, they’re turning their heavyweight rookies into Nakanishi clones!"

[6.0] "An enjoyable little showcase event. TAKA got a pretty nice debut match out of Unno, who had his first match referee'd by his father which was nice (**3/4). Desperado vs Kawato was a really exciting little match that had a lot of nice moments (***1/4). WCTT vs the AJPW boys was kind of boring, but nothing much bad otherwise (**1/4). YOSHI vs Toru was a decent match that had some good brawling on the outside (**3/4). TenKoji vs the K-DOJO boys was a nice tag match that built to its tag well; Dinosaur Takuma was a standout (***1/4). The main event had a lot of BIG BOY offense, but was a bit plodding; Kitamura definitely has that star power though (***). Nothing must-see, but an enjoyable ~90 minutes of wrestling."