Opinion
(NOAH) WEEKLY NEWSLETTER VOL.41 ~ 30TH JUNE 2019
The Global Junior League drives the newest tour for Pro Wrestling NOAH! Hisame catches us all up with the proceedings!
The Global Junior League drives the newest tour for Pro Wrestling NOAH! Hisame catches us all up with the proceedings!
CURRENT TOUR RECAP
NOAH held the first night of Global Junior League on a blustery summer night in Tokyo at Korakuen Hall with the typhoon blowing in. Due to it being a Thursday night (and given the weather also) they didn’t manage a sold out house, but a very full one.
The traditional opening ceremony was held with the participants coming to the ring. Unlike Global Junior Tag League, Stinger (Yoshinari Ogawa & Kotaro Suzuki) actually deigned to attend, and YO-HEY spent his time trying to wind Daisuke Harada up, who gave him a glare in return.
Kotaro Suzuki, as last years winner, did the honor of placing the winners trophy in the middle of where the two blocks were lined up.
NOAH had also held short interviews about the league; Minoru Tanaka said leave it to him, Daisuke Harada said he was going to win by using his head, HAYATA refused to say anything and walked off, YO-HEY babbled something about fighting Stevie Wonder…and Tadasuke probably caused someone to press the gas pedal down and not stop until the next town, when he ran towards the road his fist raised and yelling at no one in particular as a car passed.
Global Junior League 2019 started with some very technical matches; Minoru Tanaka vs Yoshinari Ogawa & Hajime Ohara vs Chris Ridgeway. Although not as technical as the other matches, Daisuke Harada and YO-HEY clashed, with Harada coming away victorious after a bitterly fought match.
Hideki Suzuki had a singles match with Yoshiki Inamura, and while Inamura put up a good fight, he was of course no match for Suzuki.
After the match, Suzuki got on the microphone and challenged Go Shiozaki to a singles match. No pre-matches, no nothing – just one single match. Go Shiozaki later accepted in the evening.
Go Shiozaki vs Hideki Suzuki has been set for July 27th at Kultz Kawasaki.
Earlier in the week, Kenoh had thrown a complete tantrum when he saw that Naomichi Marufuji and Kaito Kiyomiya were on the cover of “Weekly Pro” under the title “The Ark’s True System”, and demanded an interview of his own. So, you can imagine what kind of mood he was. Kenoh squared up to Marufuji the moment he got into the ring (Marufuji said later that Kenoh always knows where he will be, “but don’t get in my way”) and then to Kaito Kiyomiya.
Masaaki Mochizuki was also making an appearance in NOAH in this match, and he and Kenoh had a kick war. The fans wanted more, and Mochizuki seemed to hint that there would be by saying that he was interested in doing more.
AXIZ defeated The Sugiura Army (KAZMA SAKAMOTO & Takashi Sugiura) in a match that was described as pretty much kick, chop and elbow. The match itself had the crowd on the edge of their seats, and was highly charged and emotional. Nakajima got the win, and AXIZ won the heavyweight tag titles back.
AXIZ where challenged afterwards by Kaito Kiyomiya and Shuhei Taniguchi (when they came to the ring to challenge, they kind of looked like they had interrupted AXIZ doing “the lean”, and AXIZ kind of looked as if they had suddenly noticed that they were there. Shuhei Taniguchi spoke first, challenging for the titles, but then Nakajima took the microphone from him and said in his usual sinister fashion (speaking to the belt which was across Kiyomiya’s chest, rather than Kiyomiya), that there was only one way that Kiyomiya and Taniguchi were going to get a title match, and that was to allow him (Nakajima) to challenge for the GHC Heavyweight.
Kiyomiya accepted Nakajima’s terms saying that he had a dream for a new Noah, and that involved having all the heavyweight belts.
Title match has been set for Noah’s July 27th show at Kultz Kawasaki, with the GHC Heavyweight tag belts being defended on the 21st.
The second night of “Global Junior League” took place on the 29th June in Shimada, with NOAH managing another full house. RATELS members Tadasuke (who became manic) and HAYATA got wins in the league (HAYATA over Kumano, and Tadasuke over Miyawaki), while Daisuke Harada and YO-HEY faced off against Stinger in a tag match. Stinger attacked Harada’s knee relentlessly, so much so RATELS lost the match via count out, and Harada had to be carried from the ring by Kinya Okada (which caused some concerns with fans, but in the event of things, Harada was fine). While Harada was being seen to by the others in RATELS and the referee, Yoshinari Ogawa decided he was going to steal Harada’s IPW belt.
Not too much should be read into this however, as Ogawa has a habit of doing this, usually to people he’s fighting with, and then usually to wind them up. He gave the belt to a reporter to be given back to Harada in the post match promo afterwards.
Chris Ridgeway defeated Hi69 and advanced in Global Junior League. In his post match promo he said that he wanted to face both the champions (i.e. Minoru Tanaka and Daisuke Harada), but in the case of Harada, he wanted to take the IPW belt back home.
The first clash between The Sugiura Army and Kongoh was explosive with Sugiura defeating them via an Olympic Slam, and Kenoh doing the fist pose when pinning down both Sugiura and Ohara.
Sugiura told Kongoh after the match that the two sides were at war. Kenoh swore at Sugiura in his post match promo, and Sugiura said that he was going to drive them so far into a corner that they would have no chance but to disband. He would then turn them into the castrated fang-less dogs of The Sugiura Army (in his tweet about it he put “WOOF”).
EVENT RECAPS
Global Junior League Night 1 ~ Korakuen Hall (Post match promos)
Global Junior League Night 2 ~ Shimada City Sports Center Sub Arena (Post match promos)
NEWS
STREAMER BAN
NOAH have announced that from July 1st they are banning streamers from everywhere but Korakuen Hall. Fans didn’t take much notice the last time, but NOAH seem a little more insistent this time. One fan said about the streamers that “they are made and thrown with love”.
CURRENT CHAMPIONS
- GHC Heavyweight Champion: Kaito Kiyomiya
- GHC Junior Champion: Minoru Tanaka
- GHC Heavyweight Tag Champions: AXIZ (Go Shiozaki & Katsuhiko Nakajima)
- GHC Junior Tag Champions: Stinger (Kotaro Suzuki & Yoshinari Ogawa)
TOUR TIDBITS
~ Naomichi Marufuji decided to prank Kaito Kiyomiya by lifting up the strap of the belt which lay over Kiyomiya’s shoulder and down his back. Kiyomiya turned around and batted his hand away!
~ Go Shiozaki and Shuhei Taniguchi trashed the merchandise table in Shimada (where Kotaro Suzuki was sitting), when the fight went outside of the ring.
~ Kotaro Suzuki is still asking for a singles match with Naomichi Marufuji.
~ HAYATA chose to face the wall rather than watch Tadasuke acting like a crazy person during their post match promo.
~ Naomichi Marufuji and NOSAWA Rongai took the train to Shimada. No one wanted to sit next to NOSAWA with people preferring to stand rather than take the three empty seats (which later increased to six), until Marufuji took pity on him.
~ Junta Miyawaki has debuted new ring wear, and has his first merchandise out (which he was very touched that people bought).
~ Tadasuke refused to shake hands with HAYATA.
~ Kinya Okada has now his own theme music.
~ Naomichi Marufuji remains searching for a partner, Chris Ridgeway and Junta Miyawaki, (who has been told by Takashi Sugiura that he is not to join Kongoh), have volunteered.
~ YO-HEY shared a text from HAYATA asking whether he wanted to train or play basketball or table tennis, YO-HEY said “Wife is busy”. We never found out what YO-HEY chose though.
~ Quiet Storm appears to be working on a new move (a splash)
BROADCASTS
The opening night of Global Junior League from Korakuen Hall will air on Samurai TV on Friday, July 5th at 3pm JST
Minoru Tanaka’s 25th anniversary will air on Sunday, July 14th via Niconico (only available via payment with a Japanese credit card I am afraid)
It is hoped that NOAH will stream the Kultz Kawasaki show, or else it will be broadcast at a later date (if not shown live).
LINKS
Katsuhiko Nakajima inherits Choshu-ism
Shiozaki & Nakajima endure Sugiura’s onslaught to recapture the GHC tag
Katsuhiko Nakajima gives a childcare lecture in Kashiwa, Chiba
Global Junior Tag League Mini Interviews
Tadasuke
Shuhei Taniguchi
Junta Miyawaki
Katsuhiko Nakajima
PICTURE CREDITS: Noah GHC, PKDX
Newsletter by Hisame
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Opinion
TheChairshot.com PRESENTS: WWE Bash In Berlin Immediate Reactions
Join DJ and Tunney for their immediate reactions to WWE Bash in Berlin. For the latest, greatest and up to datest, ALWAYS #UseYourHead and visit THECHAIRSHOT.COM
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About Chairshot Radio Network
Launched in 2017, the Chairshot Radio Network presents you with the best in sports, entertainment, and sports entertainment. Wrestling and wrestling crossover podcasts + the most interesting content + the most engaging hosts = the most entertaining podcasts you’ll find!
MONDAY – Bandwagon Nerds (entertainment & popular culture)
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About Chairshot Radio Network
Launched in 2017, the Chairshot Radio Network presents you with the best in sports, entertainment, and sports entertainment. Wrestling and wrestling crossover podcasts + the most interesting content + the most engaging hosts = the most entertaining podcasts you’ll find!
MONDAY - Bandwagon Nerds (entertainment & popular culture)
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Opinion
AJ’s Top 3 Favorite SummerSlams
AJ is back with his annual opinion article, and this time the SummerSlam buzz got him wondering about his personal Top 3.
It’s been a while since I have done any form of writing and SummerSlam is this Saturday. Of all the SummerSlams I’ve seen over the years; which ones are my favorites? While it’s not a revolutionary idea, I figured everyone loves to debate favorites of well, anything. Don’t worry though because this isn’t just going to be pure recency bias. I’ve watched the majority of them so with the ones I put on the list, it hit me more in some way shape or form whether it was story, a really good match or it just felt like a solid event.
At least this proves WWE is trending in a good direction for me, when it gets the ol’ brain juices flowing just because a show is around the corner!
#3: 2022 (Ol’ Brock Lesnar Has A Farm)
Starting off the show, we get Bianca looking for a rematch against Becky from last years SummerSlam and it was better than the 21 second affair that everyone claims was a squash. This time Bianca holds her own and beats the Man in a fairly decent match, good way to get the event started. Next up is the heat seeking missile, Logan Paul against the former heat seeking missile because, well he wasn’t cut out for it and wasn’t a guy in everyone’s eyes, The Miz. After they had their blow off at Mania with Logan coming out on top which… isn’t awful, I just don’t like Logan Paul because he has that dude bro aura and swagger to make him more hateable than any other person on the card. Which I suppose is his gimmick…so…kudos?
First Championship match is for the US Championship and it’s as expected that in Theory, he should never beat someone to the caliber of Bobby Lashley which is no surprise. Dominik and Rey still back when Dom wanted the good fight against the Judgement Day before joining them later. The former Colts players, which they hammered it dahn in this match up showed that the canal swimming, trash talkin’, podcastin’, current RAW Color Commentatin’ goofball we all love, Pat McAfee came out on top again Bum Ass Corbin.
Usos putting the Street Profits on lockdown in the penitentiary since I believe this was peak Bloodline with the belt collecting and running all of WWE. Liv beat Ronda Rousey which isn’t astonishing but it’s not something people had on their bingo cards for anything with WWE so it was a nice little shock factor. The most memorable part of the night is obviously the Main Event, Lesnar brings the tractor, Roman catching the Microphone and Brock stands on top of the vehicle. Damn good match that showed off what they do in the ring since Roman caught his stride as the main bad guy and Brock… liked people after all of this? That is still a weird statement in my head. Brock being a good guy people person. If Liv wasn’t on bingo cards for wrestling, that is not on bingo cards in any aspect of life really.
That is more of the event that had solid matches and story going for it. No weird double count out, multiple people involved, 5 tag matches on the card. Things made sense and weren’t convoluted, had shocking moments that were great to see like Liv actually getting a title defense and there were the results we all expected at the time like Theory losing in 4 minutes to Bobby Lashley.
#2: 2009 (Are You Ready for The Return?)
This event wasn’t that strong. It was strong with the star power involved in 2009 with guys like Rey Mysterio as Intercontinental Champion, Orton and Cena for the WWE Championship as it was becoming as stale as month old chips and CM Punk was facing Jeff Hardy before he ultimately returned to TNA at the beginning of 2010 after this PPV. For me, it’s not so much of the show itself, it was more of the memories because the Balai as our friends Chris Platt and Rey Cash like to call my brother and I, we were just coming back into wrestling and we were TNA Fans. We didn’t watch WWE that much really, it was just what came on after another channel had old ROH shows before they moved to three hours and swallowed the 8pm Eastern Slot. No, the reason why this has so many memories for me is three main reasons. First, Orton and Cena. They have had their rivalry since the beginning it seems, being each others foils like Hogan and Piper before them and there had to be a stipulation where if Randy was Counted Out or DQ’d, he’d lose the championship regardless. This was prime Viper Randy and the obvious joke we had of Super Cena where he very rarely lost, unless it was SummerSlam surprisingly enough.
Number two reason was CM Punk and Jeff Hardy. Hardys known for the Ladder and TLC matches in the past and this being the penultimate match for this feud and it was a banger of a match. If you didn’t know Punk before, it was a great introduction to his wrestling. I used to like Punk a lot because of this match because he could talk, wrestle… and not insanely personal with things in wrestling. In all seriousness, this was a great match. Ultimate risks, high reward for Punk grabbing the World Heavyweight Championship and he was given his next feud because of the final boss of SmackDown at that time. Thanks, Teddy Long.
The main and final reason though why this match gave me the memories flowing back is more of the fact that one of my closest and longest termed friends of 23 years, also loves wrestling. Back when we were younger, he’d do MoCap videos on YouTube with his figures. We’d have friends come over for parties at his house and we’d do the one thing WWE always told us not to do and that was try it at home. He was always stronger than me, I was always more charismatic. He had the power aspect and did things with brute force, I could talk my way out of trouble with parents if we did something wrong. There was always one thing that our respective mother’s always called us though… it’s on the tip of my tongue… oh right, ‘Degenerates’.
As soon as we were called that, we kind of parodied the DX line. I was limber enough to do the HBK pose and do a Superkick before it became the new DDT and he would just Spinebuster people and knew how to do the water spit. So what do you think was the main reason we even ordered this PPV for his 13th Birthday? I think the two guys we were pretending to be were set to return on a tank and toss out some glow sticks. The return of DX, Shawn Michaels coming back after Mania with Triple H to deal with the Legacy problem was an amazing return for them and made everything so much fun.
So we have the solid card and this one has a personal story… what’s my number one SummerSlam? Is it personal? Well yes but not going into that. Is it a good card? To me, it was a phenomenal card! Is it memorable? Seeing how wrestling fans still mention at least three matches to this day.
#1: 2005 (Octopus in the Washer, Lover’s Quarrel and Where the F%#$ is Vickie?)
Quite possibly some of the best matches I’ve seen and one that was just the most hilarious moments of overselling in wrestling history, I know why I love this SummerSlam but it’s also a really good card at the same time. Redacted beats Orlando Jordan in 25 seconds for the US Title and they made jokes about it like, he can make a coffee faster than he beat Orlando and stuff like that, it’s pretty funny. Angle getting sick of Eugene’s antics for his Gold Medal was also a great bit they had play up, the Year long feud of Randy Orton and Undertaker was still going on where Orton comes out on top this time around to get the win back from Mania, Jericho returning for the match with Cena in a whole promotional thing for each other’s groups, Fozzy for Jericho and the Chain Gang doing Bad, Bad Man for Cena leading up to a match for the WWE Championship. JBL won a 20 man battle royal on SmackDown to win the Championship…… Opportunity to face the newest member of SmackDown, Batista but the three main matches that a lot of people talk about to this day; Edge vs Matt Hardy, Rey vs Eddie for Dominik and Hogan vs HBK in the Main Event.
I have reasons to enjoy the Hardy/Edge match but it looked like a real fight, it really made us believe that Matt Hardy was going to kill Edge because real names were dropped during this tirade from Hardy. It wasn’t Edge and Lita, it was Adam and Amy. Matt was so dead set on beating the hell out of Edge that they made a situation into gold and it was a great moment for this match to happen, I believe it was also an Unsanctioned Match too which added the intensity until matt got concussed and knocked senseless that it looked like he couldn’t fight for anything but the build up was what made it seem like a marque match. It made it feel real, it made it feel awesome and it made it feel personal.
Eddie kept tormenting Rey Mysterio about Dominik not being Rey’s but Eddie’s for the summer. That’s all you heard from Eddie being the weasel he was is hanging out with Dominik, making the world believe it’s his son and what not (Let’s not do a fast forward to today where he has the mullet, mustache and everything like Eddie) but they settle this in a Ladder Match where the top of it is a document for the custody of Dominik and my god, this match is better than it should have been. I expect nothing else from Eddie because the man hated having a bad match, Dom got involved and stopped Eddie, Vickie was late and stopped Eddie. The whole match was good it was just very weird with the premise but was a great match. I wonder if Rey regrets his decision to win the match now…
Octopus in a Washing Machine… those five words have resonated with Shawn Michaels’ performance in this match, forever. It was supposed to be an amazing match up between Hogan and Michaels, Icon vs Icon it said and suddenly Hogan’s back gives out, can’t do a trilogy of matches so we can only do the one and then pull out of everything after. This match was set up to be a classic and instead turned into the most unbelievable sell fest ever. A Hogan big boot caused Shawn to tumble 3 or 4 times, getting crotched on the ropes had HBK bouncing higher than he should have, being tossed out of the ring made it look like Shawn never broke his back in 1998 from how much he flopped and flipped around like crazy. It’s bad… or maybe even good that a lot of current wrestlers watched this match that went, “I can sell like that, I want to be a wrestler” and did. So good or bad, I don’t know but for some reason this PPV has always had a place in my heart for how memorable it was.
Those are my top three SummerSlams so far but who knows, 2024 has potential to maybe bump something or at least get me to consider a shift. Should be fun to see how the show plays out! What are some of your favorite SummerSlams?
About Chairshot Radio Network
Launched in 2017, the Chairshot Radio Network presents you with the best in sports, entertainment, and sports entertainment. Wrestling and wrestling crossover podcasts + the most interesting content + the most engaging hosts = the most entertaining podcasts you’ll find!
MONDAY - Bandwagon Nerds (entertainment & popular culture)
TUESDAY - Musical Chairs (music) / Hockey Talk (NHL)
WEDNESDAY - The Greg DeMarco Show (wrestling)
THURSDAY - Keeping the news ridiculous... The Oddity / Chairshot NFL (NFL)
FRIDAY - DWI Podcast (Drunk Wrestling Intellect)
SATURDAY - The Mindless Wrestling Podcast
SUNDAY - The Front and Center Sports Podcast
CHAIRSHOT RADIO NETWORK PODCAST SPECIALS
Attitude Of Aggression Podcast & The Big Five Project (chronologically exploring WWE's PPV/PLE history)
TheChairshot.com PRESENTS...IMMEDIATE POST WWE PLE REACTIONS w/ DJ(Mindless), Tunney(DWI) & Friends
Patrick O'Dowd's 5X5
Classic POD is WAR
Chairshot Radio Network Your home for the hardest hitting podcasts... Sports, Entertainment and Sports Entertainment!
Powered by RedCircle
Let us know what you think on social media @ChairshotMedia and always remember to use the hashtag #UseYourHead!