10 Holy Sh*t Wrestling Moments You Didn’t Know About

7. The Dragon Gate Six-Man That Changed Everything

Darby Allin
Ring Of Honor

The equally influential building block of modern indie wrestling: the 'Dragon Gate Six-Man'.

Every awesome adrenaline festival you see on AEW Dynamite can be traced back to the amazing, transformative war from ROH Supercard of Honor 2006 pitting Do Fixer against Blood Generation. It was an endorphin rush of a match that contrived to last for over 20 minutes. Though a semblance of realism was preserved with the sheer amount of saves and how crisply everything was struck, this was a virtuoso exercise in building pop; a technical achievement in structuring a match to increase the volume of the crowd response.

The momentum never rested in a match worked at warp speed; just as it felt like CIMA had outworked Ryo Saito with his propulsive agility, Saito smashed him back onto the canvas with a hurricanrana powerbomb cutoff. This sequence unfolded just three seconds after a stereo dive sequence to the outside. A blur of constant, graceful motion, the fans could barely get a chant going. They just spluttered in awe.

The match has held up remarkably well. It was gifted to the world 15 years ago, and 15 years prior to that, half of North American wrestling was worked in slow motion.

One chant did take, the proto-"Fight Forever": so overwhelmed with joy were the fans that, when they sensed the finish coming, they simply cried "Please don't stop".

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Michael Sidgwick is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over seven years of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential institution that was Power Slam magazine, and specialises in providing insights into All Elite Wrestling - so much so that he wrote a book about the subject. You can order Becoming All Elite: The Rise Of AEW on Amazon. Possessing a deep knowledge also of WWE, WCW, ECW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Michael’s work has been publicly praised by former AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and current Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes. When he isn’t putting your finger on why things are the way they are in the endlessly fascinating world of professional wrestling, Michael wraps his own around a hand grinder to explore the world of specialty coffee. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter) @MSidgwick for more!