(NOAH) WEEKLY NEWSLETTER VOL.15 ~ 22ND DECEMBER 2018

We wish you a NOAH Christmas and a Kaito New Year! Shuddup, pay no attention to the editor lead in, and just read Hisame’s awesome newsletter.

NEWS

NOAHFul Gift
NOAHFul Gift is a time when all story-lines and feuds are put aside, and NOAH come together to have fun on their last event of 2018. This year’s event will feature the usual flea market, where the wrestlers personally sell their old ring wear (last year Kenoh put one of his red sparkly robes up for sale at a mammoth price), a few comedy matches via lottery (RATELS went one on one and left Harada hanging over the turnbuckle last year) and of course the traditional costumed battle royale will return. Kaito Kiyomiya did not participate last year, but apparently he’s been out shopping for his this year, and Cody Hall has been asking about what he should come as via Twitter poll.

Due to injury, Naomichi Marufuji will not be competing, although he will be at the flea market. He and HAYATA will be posing for photographs with fans.

“The Christmas Gift Bag” will also be on sale containing the Noah 2019 calendar, three t-shirts and other goodies.

Kaito Kiyomiya’s Car Crash
Last year when he was on exertion in Canada, Kaito Kiyomiya was travelling with other wrestlers from an event to another one, their schedule was harsh and they had all fallen asleep in the back of the car. The driver, also exhausted, fell asleep behind the wheel.

Kiyomia says he woke up to screaming car brakes and the car spinning, and he yelled out “Shit”, he then had a random thought that “Oh, I need to learn English better, because I do not wish to die like this!”

Fortunately, the car came to rest in some bushes.

After this Kiyomiya decided that he would live life to the fullest and not be afraid of anything.

Waruhiko – Katsuhiko Nakajima

(“Waru” in Japanese means “evil”, and “Waruhiko” is sometimes a nickname fans give him, although in NOAH , and among fans, he is known as “Kat-chan” (pretty much everyone has a nickname)

CURRENT TOUR RECAP
NOAH finished off their final show of 2018 at “Great Voyage in Yokohama Vol.2” all belts were on the line, and all belts changed, there were some goodbyes too as well as some alliances being formed.

Inamura and Okada tagged against Mizuki Watase & Lin Dong-Xuan. Inamura said was to be a little more confident than Okada. Wataste was drafted in due to Chang Yu-Feng suffering an injury.

Junta Miyawaki has still to get his first win (there is only one event left of the year, hopefully he can get it then), he also debuted a new move.

Kenoh and Kota Umeda got into a kick war which left the audience wanting to see more , Kazusada Higuchi and Masa Kitamiya collided with each other.

Doug Williams faced Yoshinari Ogawa for (what will most likely be) his final match in NOAH after announcing his retirement in October 2018. He hasn’t been in or part of NOAH since March 2009. Those in the audience who can remember the days when NOAH was young, were nostalgic for this match, as it was reminiscent of NOAH in “The Golden Era” in The Budokan. This was the highlight of the first half of the show, but while the match was good, it seemed to take a lot out of them both, especially Ogawa.
When Williams was asked for a comment afterwards, he said that Ogawa attacked his knee, knowing he had been suffering with problems, and this was “Classic Ogawa”.

The Backbreakers (with Hitoshi Kumano sporting a nasty black eye, which his opponents targeted) took the GHC Junior Heavyweight tag belts from Hi69 & Minoru Tanaka. This is the first time Hitoshi Kumano has had a belt in NOAH, but the second time Hajime Ohara has held the GHC Junior Heavyweight Tag (he held it with Kenoh previously, before Kenoh started shrieking that he was going into the heavyweight division).

After the match, they were challenged by Seiya Morohashi. Morohashi had originally been bypassed in his challenge for the titles as he did not have a partner, but today he had found one; young Junta Miyawaki, whom he had teamed with in Global Junior Tag League. Ohara said they have no track record to make a challenge, but he wasn’t going to dismiss their challenge outright, he would do an “evaluation match first”. Miyawaki said he would do whatever it takes.

Daisuke Harada took the GHC Junior back from Kotaro Suzuki in a hard fought match, he was fighting for both the belt, the honor of the NOAH juniors (whom Suzuki had derided as “weak”, even the freelancers), and to keep RATELS together.

He got back the belt with the Katayama German Suplex, and while RATELS let out a sigh of relief that they would live to drink in Osaka\Tokyo until the early hours of the morning again…YO-HEY turned on Harada and joined with Yoshinari Ogawa and Kotaro Suzuki. He declared a challenge for the GHC Junior Heavyweight, which will take place on January 26th in Osaka (Osaka is kind of the traditional place that RATELS usually have their title matches in). Prior to that, Harada will also take on Yoshinari Ogawa in a singles match on the 20th January, which should be interesting as both Ogawa and Harada are very skilled technical wrestlers (and in Ogawa’s case even the twenty year veteran, Naomichi Marufuji, STILL comes to him for advice on technique).

HAYATA will also face YO-HEY on one on the 20th January at Hakata Stalene.

After the match, Daisuke Harada (weapon in hand), tried to find YO-HEY backstage, but was subdued by HAYATA and Tadasuke. YO-HEY gave a somewhat somber interview, but although he said he wasn’t going to play the fool anymore, and was going to show Harada a more serious YO-HEY, he still referred to himself in the third person.

Katsuhiko Nakajima and Go Shiozaki faced Maybach Taniguchi and Yuji Hino to defend the GHC Heavyweight Tag championship against them. Shiozaki got hit in the face with the belt, and bled everywhere, his face was caked in it and when he was chopped, the mist from his mouth was red (a little girl in the crowd when he fell down near her outside the ring, was quite upset by it).

The Hooligans hit their opponents with any weapons they could find, Nagai yelled commands, and Cody Hall even used the electronic equipment in front of President Uchida, and handed it to his comrades.

However, “The Mid Generation” weren’t without allies…even if he was a lunatic in a cape, who came speeding towards the ring at top speed, and like Poochy from “The Simpsons” got taken care of very quickly.

The referee was down, Taniguchi got his Sasumara pole out, and Cody Hall got into the ring to assist… then Yuji Hino picked up Go Shiozaki, who is 6ft and weighs 253 pounds, and slammed him as if he were a ragdoll. The Hooligans then took their first belts.

Due to the nature of how the belts were lost, “The Mid Generation” have been granted a rematch on the 1st January at NOAH’s first show of 2019.

After the match, 50 Funky Powers came to the ring, Hino was once again sarcastic saying “Quiet Storm, my old friend…” and then saying something along the lines of, “you should have kept in touch”. Later Nagai called him “child sized”

Takashi Sugiura defended the GHC Heavyweight Championship against young twenty-two year old Kaito Kiyomiya whom he had dismissed as being of no consequence (and whom Kenoh would take care of for him). Kiyomiya wouldn’t stay down, despite the fact that Sugiura had vowed to knock him down, but in the end the boy made history and became the youngest ever GHC Heavyweight Champion in GHC History.

On Kiyomiya winning the GHC Heavyweight championship, Kenoh (scowling as ever), came to the ring and in a reverse of last year, challenged him for the belt. To Kenoh this match had been entirely unimpressive and challenged him for the belt. Kiyomiya (polite as ever) said that he wasn’t the same person as he was in January 2018, and this match was going to be very different from the last time.

The title challenge will be held on the 6th January 2019 at Korakuen Hall.

Kaito Kiyomiya has broken five Noah\GHC records
~ Youngest GHC Heavyweight Champion (beaten Naomichi Marufuji’s record, he was 25)
~ Youngest GHC Heavyweight tag champion
~ Youngest person to win Global Junior League & Global Tag League
~ Shortest time from debut to win a title (he has broken Go Shiozaki’s record of four years)

Please click this link for full event report

SUN ON THE SEA: A RECAP OF PRO-WRESTLING NOAH’S 2018
You can read a chronological recap of the ups and the downs of Pro-Wrestling Noah’s 2018 here

GHC BELT NEWS

• GHC Heavyweight Champion: Kaito Kiyomiya
• GHC Junior Champion: Daisuke Harada 
• GHC Heavyweight Tag Champions: Yuji Hino & Maybach Taniguchi (“The Hooligans”)
• GHC Junior Tag Champions: Hitoshi Kumano & Hajime Ohara (“The Backbreakers”)
  
  TOUR TIDBITS
  ~ Noah have an ex trainee working as ring crew. He had to quit training due to injury.
  ~ Minoru Tanaka will celebrate 25 years in wrestling in 2019
  ~ Katsuhiko Nakajima has a new sinister t-shirt out 
  ~ Since turning on RATELS, YO-HEY has removed them from his social media
  ~ Toshiaki Kawada’s “Holy War Vol.4” will be back in February 2019 
  ~ YO-HEY has celebrated ten years in wrestling on the 22nd December
   ~ Junta Miyawaki is appearing in YOUNGDOMS
  ~ Cody Hall has a black and white t-shirt design, which can be found through Pro Wrestling Tees
  ~ MUSCLE GRILL held their Christmas Party with Hi69 and Naomichi Marufuji in attendance, Hi69 did karaoke, while Marufuji accompanied him on some kind of tambourine. Over at Yoneya, Daisuke Harada who was acting as one day manager as Marufuji couldn’t physically (it involves a lot of standing up and walking around), dressed as Santa and poured beer for people (naturally, he did it perfectly)
  This is going to be awkward…. 

KING SHAMELESS CORNER
He’s been good, but expect him to try and shock Tokyo Sports before the year is out.

BROADCASTS
Samurai TV will broadcast the first night of “Navigation For The Future 2019” LIVE on the 6th January. 

BOOK CORNER

The translation into English of “Heir to The Ark” (Naomichi Marufuji’s biography), has reached Chapter 3 “Departure: The decision to board The Ark and being crowned GHC Junior”. Chapters 1, 2 and 3 are now complete. I have also bought Noah’s photobook, “PHOTO THE LIVE”

LINKS
Doug Williams post match promo
Noah from The Vault: KENTA shares a memory of Ryu Nakata
“Birth of the youngest champion in the history of the GHC Heavyweight – interview with Kaito Kiyomiya
“GHC Heavyweight Champion, 22 year old Kaito Kiyomiya is the youngest in history, “I will defend the belt for one year”
Marufuji surpassed! Kiyomiya is the youngest GHC Champion in history at 22 years old
Kaito Kiyomiya is the youngest GHC Champion at 22 years old, Marufuji’s record beaten by four years! Noah’s “New Face” declared