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UPDATE ON JAPANESE TALENTS IN DGUSA, NOLA WEEKEND NEWS AND MORE

By Mike Johnson on 2014-04-08 10:21:06
Dragon Gate talents from Japan will be returning to DGUSA. The company had been waiting for renewed work visas to come through and they finally came through, but one day too late for arrangements to be made for talents to come from Japan to Wrestlemania weekend. The issue had been on the Japanese end and Dragon Gate in Japan didn't announce their own lineups for this past weekend until the last minute as they had been waiting to see whether they would be sending talents over to the United States. DGUSA is working on bringing top DG names over for the next set of events under that banner.

Gabe Sapolsky was raving about Highspots.com helping them out after the Japan situation went down as Highspots opened the door for them to use Masato Tanaka and Bad Influence by allowing them to work double shots with the Wrestlecon live wrestling event.

The promotion was happy with Low Ki's work this past weekend and are open to using him going forward. Sapolsky noted to me today on the phone that he'd love to see Ki take a mentor role in their locker room.

Teddy Hart was booked as a last minute surprise, unadvertised, to give fans one more additional "make-good" after the Japanese situation went down. He was said to have had a good attitude all weekend. There's a "50/50" chance he will be back down the line.

All of the WWNLive.com events from this past weekend are available now in HD for VOD replays at WWNLive.com On Demand. I heard raves about the Drew Gulak vs. Timothy Thatcher bout at Wrestling Odyssey.

There were no major injuries coming out of the weekend, but everyone was pretty tired and sore by the third day with many working three to five matches. There was a scary scene at the EVOLVE show when Chris Hero almost strangled himself in the ring ropes but he was OK after.

Bad Influence's appearance was just a one time thing as a dark match for the audience in New Orleans. They defeated DGUSA Tag Team champions The Bravados to send the crowd home happy. The feeling was that with their credibility, it wouldn't hurt the champions at all to lose the fall.

Sapolsky noted that he was really happy with the Friday DGUSA iPPV and felt it was one of the promotion's best ever shows, especially the 45 minute Johnny Gargano vs. Ricochet match. Sapolsky said that bout was "perfect and a total home run." Sapolsky was not as happy about the Saturday show and was really down on it after. On the other hand, I was not happy with how the Saturday show and was really down after it.

Sapolsky actually attended Wrestlemania so he could see Daniel Bryan on that major stage after all they had been through together.

The next shows are EVOLVE on 5/9 in Queens, NY and 5/10 in Brooklyn, NY.

Sapolsky filmed an episode of "The Kevin Steen Show" over the weekend in New Orleans, which he raved about as one of his favorite ever interviews.

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