CURRENT TOUR RECAP

Following their five day in a row event, Noah have been inactive since Tuesday 18th September, and have been very much quiet over the last week.

Noah’s next show will be held on the 29th September in Yokohama, where Kotaro Suzuki and Daisuke Harada will finally clash in the main event, this will be an epic encounter, as Daisuke Harada is of course the final outcome for the winner of the Global Junior League being the GHC Junior Heavyweight Champion, and Kotaro Suzuki has stated that all of the Noah Juniors are weak compared to when he was one, and he means even the freelancers are weak, an insult that Daisuke Harada is not going to take lying down.

Yoshinari Ogawa (who no-one, junior or otherwise, wants to mess with) isn’t included in Suzuki’s assessment.

Daisuke Harada and Kotaro Suzuki have clashed before (the last time was in January 2012), but this will be their first ever singles match as Noah tend to save singles for something special and don’t routinely book them for normal tour matches. I doubt it will be their last match, singles or otherwise, Kotaro Suzuki is now on better terms with his home promotion (he is Noah born), and will no doubt be back in Noah from time to time after Global Junior League wraps up and will add the heel element that the division needs.

Global Junior League has only three dates left to run; September 29th, September 30th and October 4th, which is the final and will take place at Korakuen Hall.

Autumn Navigation will take place in October, with Global League 2018 (heavyweight division equivalent and run on a yearly basis) taking place as usual in the winter months from 30th October to November 25th.

Noah have not announced any names for Global League yet, and fans were hoping that Jun Akiyama might take part, however he has been injured, and I don’t know whether he will be able to compete. Shingo Takagi has announced recently that he is leaving DRAGONGATE to become a freelancer, leaving fans to speculate that given both his friendship with Naomichi Marufuji (and his apparent conflict with Kaito Kiyomiya at the last “Power Hall”), he may compete this year.

Naomichi Marufuji will miss both Noah events on the 29th and 30th September as he will be competing outside the promotion. It will be interesting to see how Noah does for the two days he is not there.

NEWS

KOJI KANEMOTO & KOJI FUJINAGA APPEARING IN NOAH
The card is yet to be announced, but Koji Kanemoto and Koji Fujinaga will be appearing for Noah in Kobe (October 14th). Koji Kanemoto was last in Noah in 2010 when Naomichi Marufuji and Atsushi Aoki defeated himself and Tiger Mask for the GHC Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Titles (in 2011 Noah, All Japan and New Japan put aside their differences and came together for “All Together” which was a fundraiser for the earthquake and resultant Tsunami).

Koji Fujinaga I am afraid I don’t know too much about, but he has never been in Noah before, and was the general manager of El Dorado at one point in the mid 2000s.

“COME AT ME YOU BASTARDS”
Kenoh wrote his bi-weekly column for “Puroresu Weekly”.

As the last few themes have been about Takeshi Morishima (probably the only senior, aside from Jinsei Shinzaki, that Kenoh has any respect for), this week he took some fan suggestions and decided to talk about harassment and bullying in sports.

Non kayfabe he said that the people who do it are those who have powerful backers, personally he has never thought it a good idea to develop any kind of romantic, sexual or megalomaniac feelings for anyone else in your business, especially as he is one of the directors of his own dojo and teaches Kenpō (roughly described as a form of Shaolin Kung-Fu).

Naturally, this being Kenoh, this leads on to the fact that he starts ranting about Naomichi Marufuji (vice president of Noah) and President Uchida, using their power to keep him down.

Translated article can be read here

NAOMICHI MARUFUJI VS DOUG WILLIAMS
Naomichi Marufuji clashed with Doug Williams for one final time on Sunday 23rd September for IPW in Maidstone, Kent.
I would say that they have had better matches, but this should no way detract from the fact that this match would still rank among them. The action was fast paced, deliberate and well thought out with teased moves although sadly, we never got a Shiranui, although Doug took the gunshot sounding chops which had the audience recoiling.

At the end of the match, (I won’t spoil it for you as it will make tape), Doug got on the microphone and addressed the crowd and the IPW roster, most of whom had come out and stood around the ring, saying that he was honored to face Marufuji one last time in the “twilight of my career”, they had been having matches for fifteen years.

Although Marufuji did not address the crowd, he did say later on Twitter that he would like Doug to come to Japan for one last time.

Getting to the UK wasn’t too bad for him, but getting home was a nightmare, two hours into the flight the plane en route to Japan, turned around with engine troubles and bought everyone back to Thailand.

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

Naomichi Marufuji said recently about the challenge for the GHC Heavyweight Tag Belts by “The Hooligans” that “The bald octopus isn’t going to get his own way by demanding a title match”.

(The “bald octopus” is Mitsuya Nagai)

Daisuke Harada won the GHC Junior Heavyweight title from Taiji Ishimori on 1st October 2017, which means he will certainly go into the GHC Junior Championship match against the winner of Global Junior League having held it for more than a year. If he can hold on to it for another forty-five days after the 1st October, he will have beaten Taiji Ishimori’s record in being the longest running GHC Junior Heavyweight champion.

In many ways other than holding the premier titles in their divisions which make them the faces, Harada is like Sugiura’s equivalent; both have had lengthy title reigns, and both have a special look which indicates not to mess with them, Sugiura looking like he is going to kill you, Harada looking like a shark which smells blood, and both rarely (if ever) have bad matches, plus both of them are part of factions.

The GHC Heavyweight Championship match signing will take place on the 29th September 2018 in Yokohama before Noah’s event there.

TOUR TIDBITS

• Naomichi Marufuji turned 39 on the 26th September.
• Noah’s resident bookworm, Tadasuke, seems to be the only one out of Noah so far who has read “The Heir To The Ark”.
• Atsushi Kotoge will turn 33 on the 18th October, he will be holding a “Revolutionary Birthday Party” on October 28th. Katsuhiko Nakajima (looking tired) also held his own fan event this month which was a simple exercise class with a dinner afterwards.
• Hajime Ohara will be holding gymnastic classes in Kawasaki in October.

“HEIR TO THE ARK”
The English translation of Naomichi Marufuji’s autobiography “Heir To The Ark” continues (it is updated each day), the Epilogue is now done with Chapter One well underway. You can read what is available here.