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DragonDoor
Dragondoor
Acronym d2p
Founded April 27, 2005
Closed February 7, 2006
Headquarters Japan
Founder(s) Noriaki Kawabata
Owner(s) Noriaki Kawabata

DragonDoor, or d2p for short, was the first in a line of promotions based around the Dragon System that tried to be an alternative to Dragon Gate. Though the promotion had Ultimo Dragon's support, crowd interest was sparse as a result of bad booking and the use of older Luchadors who were taking up the spotlight from the performers fans actually wanted to see. The promotion lasted for less than a year, running six shows in total.

History

With the failure of Toryumon X and the split in 2004 between Toryumon and Dragon Gate, Noriaki Kawabata founded a promotion that would be an alternative to Dragon Gate, believing that the outcast Toryumon talent still had much to offer. d2p ran its first show on April 27, 2005. The promotion initially started as a means of building around the two chosen aces, Taiji Ishimori and Shuji Kondo with Ishimori as face and Kondo as heel.

However, d2p was experiencing trouble right away. Fans were not connecting to Ishimori that would sufficiently justify his being an ace. Furthermore, Kondo was getting very popular despite being a heel. It was realized that Kondo and his fellow Aagan Iisou members "brother" YASSHI and Takuya Sugawara were the most over wrestlers in the promotion, primarily because of fan interest in them following their firing from Dragon Gate at the very end of 2004. This created problems with booking as they were suppose to be heels, but were instead getting the fan support.

Making matters worse was the booking itself. Kawabata booked some of his older Luchador friends for the shows and they started hogging all of the attention, very similar to the situation that eventually happened in World Championship Wrestling. With the older wrestlers taking the spotlight away from the younger wrestlers that the fans wanted to see, it only fueled disinterest. Furthermore, there were times where there were as much as fifty wrestlers used, leading to chaotic situations.

Another booking disaster was the great amount of focus being used on the many gimmicks related to Ultimo Dragon. With "Dragon Tiger", "Dragon the Great", "Tiger the Great", and numerous imposters, it was a program that bombed very much like the ones used in World Wrestling Entertainment involving Undertaker in 1994 and Kane in 2006. Combined with the lack of fan support for the majority of the talent outside of Aagan Iisou as well as the mediocre match quality in comparison to the previous Toryumon projects and Dragon Gate, as well as a fraud scandal with financial backers Livedoor, DragonDoor folded on February 7, 2006 following its sixth and last show.

Events

See: DragonDoor Events
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