Introduction from Hisame 
Hello and welcome to the first edition of (what I hope) will be a weekly newsletter to round up the weekly news from (and regarding) Pro-Wrestling NOAH. I am hoping to do this each Friday, however it may sometimes be as late as Saturday or Sunday.

As time goes along I do hope to adapt and change the newsletter, so if you have any ideas or suggestions, I can be contacted at @Hi5ame.

My DMs are open.

CURRENT TOUR RECAP
Global Junior League has returned to NOAH after a hiatus of three years. Kotaro Suzuki decided to enter after “Flight” to show the current NOAH juniors how weak they are compared to his day. Naturally, these comments haven’t gone down well, and Daisuke Harada rallied everyone round to show him just how strong they are. Both Daisuke Harada and Hajime Ohara, have called for Global Junior League to be held as regularly as Global Heavyweight League is.

At the time of writing, YO-HEY is doing very well in Global Junior League, with young Junta Miyawaki at the bottom with no points currently. Miyawaki, however, is determined to show everyone that he will get his first win in the league. NOAH have been teasing this with very very close falls.

Kenoh and Kaito Kiyomiya failed in their GHC Heavyweight Tag Championship challenge, with Akitoshi Saito getting the win over Kenoh with the Death Blade.  Predictably Kenoh was furious, and growled on his Twitter account that there would be “reprisals” for this, and that he could not believe he “lost to that old man”.

Kaito Kiyomiya (a little more polite), has shrugged the loss off and said he will concentrate now on the GHC Heavyweight single belt. Kenoh, however, remains obsessed with Marufuji, belt or no belt.

After the championship match, Mitsuya Nagai appeared in the ring with Cody Hall and Maybach Taniguchi to make a heavyweight tag challenge on their behalf. Naomichi Marufuji told him to get lost. Marufuji said that Nagai could make a challenge when he grew hair down to his shoulders, and if he couldn’t grow hair down to his shoulders, then he had better get himself a wig.

The matter of the GHC Heavyweight Tag challengers is undecided at the moment.

Katsuhiko Nakajima has challenged Takashi Sugiura for the GHC Heavyweight title. Nakajima, in usual sarcastic smirking style, said that he only meant to challenge for the sake of the seniors, basically, their old men, they should take it easy at their time in life, and he would “free them from their heavy responsibility.”

Like the last time he challenged, Masa Kitamiya was a filler for the challenge of Katsuhiko Nakajima, and didn’t really get much of a build up; Nakajima however will have all of September to crank up the pressure, before he challenges in early October. He says he is planning further evil, and so far this has included disrupting the match by going to the back and getting counted out, and with the usual evil grin on his face, choking Takashi Sugiura with chairs.

He says it is fun.

The Chinese athlete, MA Zhuji, has once again had his NOAH debut postponed. This is the second time it has now happened, neither NOAH or Eastern Heroes have given a reason for this. MA is expected to be the breakout star of the Chinese promotion.

It is unusual that a new debut starts his career doing mainly heavyweight matches, but in the case of Yoshiki Inamura, it seems to be apt given his body type and weight.
Naomichi Marufuji has said that the other boy, Kimiya Okada (whose debut was delayed due to injury), will debut soon, but no further news has been announced as yet.

GLOBAL HEAVYWEIGHT LEAGUE 2018
NOAH have announced that Global Heavyweight League (traditionally the event held to run up to the end of the year) will be held on the following dates:

Tuesday, October 30th 2018, Korakuen Hall (opening night, time TBC)
Thursday, November 8th 2018, Korakuen Hall (18.30)
Sunday, November 11th 2018, Matsuyama City Community Centre (17.00)
Monday, November 12th 2018, Hiroshima Industry Centre, West Exhibition Hall (18.30)
Wednesday, November 14th 2018, Takamatsu Symbol Tower Exhibition Hall (18.30)
Saturday, November 17th 2018, Edion Arena Osaka 2nd Stadium (18.30)
Wednesday, November 21st 2018, Aizu Wakamatsu City (18.30)
Thursday, November 22nd 2018, Sendai PIT (18.30)
Friday, November 23rd 2018 (TBC)
Sunday, November 25th 2018, Korakuen Hall (18.00)

No participants have been announced as of yet, but there is a lot of buzz among fans about the hope that Jun Akiyama will be competing (and Kenoh says he wants to face Yohei Nakajima).

GHC BELT NEWS

Current champions

• GHC Heavyweight Champion: Takashi Sugiura
• GHC Junior Champion: Daisuke Harada
• GHC Heavyweight Tag Champions: Naomichi Marufuji & Akitoshi Saito
• GHC Junior Tag Champions: Minoru Tanaka & Hi69

At the moment the only belt that has a definite challenge is the GHC Heavyweight Championship.

The GHC Heavyweight Junior, currently held by Daisuke Harada, will be challenged for by the winner of Global Junior League (Harada has also said he is interested in the heavyweight tag belts too).

The GHC Junior Heavyweight Tag Belts have been challenged for by Kazuhiro Tamura (from WRESTLE-1), but he needs to find a partner.

The GHC Heavyweight Tag Belts have also been challenged for, but this is uncertain at the moment. Quiet Storm has said that he and Mohammed Yone (50 Funky Powers) would like to challenge.

“GENESIS” – THE RETURN OF TAKESHI MORISHIMA HAS BEEN CANCELLED
It was announced on 13th September, that Takeshi Morishima’s return event “GENESIS” has been cancelled. On the 10th September, Morishima had been running, when he developed a severe pain in one of his feet, and was rushed to hospital. At the hospital, septic arthritis was diagnosed (this is basically means that Morishima probably had a cut on his foot somewhere which the germs entered in through and caused an inflammation around the joint), onset is rapid, which explains why it was so sudden that he developed symptoms. It also does indicate to me that he does indeed suffer from diabetes, as the condition is one of the leading causes for foot problems of this type, and is why diabetics are counselled to take care of their feet, and wear socks or slippers around the house.

The rehabilitation period is four weeks or longer, and as a result the event has had to be cancelled. There is no word yet as to whether it will be rescheduled, but Morishima himself is determined to return to the ring. For now, tickets will be refunded, and the matter will be left until later.

As NOAH only had one person appearing on the show, Takashi Sugiura, it hasn’t created too big a problem for them, all it means is that the card on the 15th October will need to be reshuffled.

Contrary to current misconception, NOAH are not booking the event for Morishima, and aside from Sugiura’s participation, are not involved in any other way.
NOAH have wished him well, with Takashi Sugiura saying that all he wants from Morishima at the moment, is to get better.

IPW
Sadly IPW have now changed the card for “Global Clash 2018”, and as a result RATELS and Kaito Kiyomiya will not be appearing in the UK on 23rd September.
Naomichi Marufuji, however, will still be facing Doug Williams, for what is probably the last time in their careers.

HOLY WAR. VOL 3.
Junta Miyawaki and Kaito Kiyomiya will be appearing at Holy War Vol.3 in October, with NOAH freelancers Masao Inoue and Minoru Tanaka also on the card. Akira Taue, will be having the traditional “Talk Battle” with Toshiaki Kawada.

Kawada says he wants to hear about Taue’s time as NOAH’s president, and hear all about the struggles during that time (Taue as president had to deal with things that Misawa never had to, namely death, scandal, walk out, loss of revenue)

Minoru Tanaka will be facing Junta Miyawaki.

Miyawaki is thrilled about this as he lost in Global Junior League to Tanaka in five minutes on the 14th, and has vowed to rectify this.

Kaito Kiyomiya will be teaming with Daichi Hashimoto and Tōru Sugiura vs Shiro Koshinaka, Takao Omori and Yoshiaki Fujiwara.

“COME FOR ME YOU BASTARDS” – KENOH’S COLUMN
Kenoh wrote his column for “Puroresu Weekly” and talked about Takeshi Morishima at “Flight”.
Despite the fact that he referred to Morishima’s presence as “The Boss” (he has also called him “The Don”), reading between the lines, Kenoh seemed to be aware of Morishima’s somewhat erratic state of mind, and wondered what he was going to do. He said that he thought that Morishima was going to hug him after the match, but instead he asked him for a microphone. Kenoh did, and then tried to leave discreetly, but Morishima caught him, called him back and addressed him by his surname “Nakae”.

Instead of talking about Marufuji vs KENTA, Morishima made the challenge for Sugiura, gave Kenoh his t-shirt to give to Sugiura and then left the building hurriedly. Kenoh said that he had hoped that Morishima would have stayed to see his old friends, but said that he didn’t think he could face it.

“HEIR TO THE ARK” – NAOMICHI MARUFUJI’S BIOGRAPHY
Naomichi Marufuji gave an interview to Puroresu Today following the press conference\fan talk he gave about his autobiography. Amongst other things he discussed, he says that he wants to continue the tradition of his own seniors (who took a fatherly interest in their juniors), and connect with his in the same way.

The book is currently only available in Japan, but no doubt will be available at some point on Amazon UK and Amazon USA. I have very very kindly been sent a copy by Metal-Noah, and so will start translating it into English as soon as possible.

TOUR TIDBITS

• YO-HEY overslept and had to run to the hair salon to get his hair dyed purple
• Akitoshi Saito appeared on BattleMen, he has also had a t-shirt bought out (he’s a cat lover, and continuing the current trend of merchandising wrestlers pets, his is themed around his cat)
• There was a rainbow over the Shimizu Marina on the 8th September
• 50 Funky Powers now have a disco ball for their entry. It’s not a disco ball effect, its an ACTUAL disco ball.
• Atsushi Kotoge offered his cloak to Go Shiozaki and then to ring announcer Ally. Neither of them wanted it.
• Having trained in Osaka and spent his early career there, Quiet Storm calls Osaka his “second home”.
• HAYATA refused to shake hands with YO-HEY after their match, so YO-HEY ambushed him and clung on.
• The seniors still hold all of the heavyweight belts.
• Despite the damage caused by the typhoon, NOAH had a sell out crowd in Osaka on the 9th at 920 people, which is a record for them being their highest since 2015.
• YO-HEY paraphrased Kotaro Suzuki as saying “the NOAH juniors are noodles without Peperoncino”. Interesting idea, which I am not going to ponder on.
• Tadasuke says he is “The Dark Horse” of Global Junior League.
• According to Naomichi Marufuji, the “bookworms” in NOAH are Tadasuke and Masao Inoue, who are also good fiends.
• Hi69 says he burnt his ass at the tanning salon, so a long journey was painful. I don’t want to know ANY more or HOW he did it.