Andrew’s NOAH the Glory Results & Match Ratings: 4.29.2021

After sharing a commemorative beer or three, we have a GHC National Championship match that proves to be brutal with Takashi Sugiura challenging Kazuyuki Fujita! Also, Keiji Mutoh’s second GHC Heavyweight Title defense comes against a younger wrestler in the image of an old friend/rival!

Aside from the Heavyweights, the Juniors have a tag match that’s seen NOSAWA piss off both of the champions. Atsushi Kotoge is looking for a worthy challenge, all while Kotaro Suzuki is trying to finally be rid of the ghost that is Susumu.

With a fairly stacked card, part of the fun will be to see if there’s any immediate challenges to new or retaining champions! Let’s get to it!

Ratings:

• Yasutaka Yano, Daisuke Harada & Atsushi Kotoge vs Full Throttle (YO-HEY, Seiki Yoshioka & Hajime Ohara): YO-HEY wins via Face G @11:54 – *** ¼
• Kongoh (Katsuhiko Nakajima & Nioh) vs Akitoshi Saito & Junta Miyawaki: Nakajima wins via Vertical Spike @11:49 – ***
• Kotaro Suzuki vs Yuya Susumu: Double Pinfall; DRAW @11:02 – ***
• Funky Express (Mohammed Yone, Masao Inoue & Shuhei Taniguchi) vs Sugiura-Gun (Kendo Kashin, Kazushi Sakuraba & Kazunari Murakami): Sakuraba wins via Scorpion Deathlock @10:48 – ** ¼
• GHC Jr Tag Team Titles: Stinger (HAYATA & Yoshinari Ogawa) (c) vs NOSAWA Rongai & Ikuto Hidaka: Ogawa retains via Head & Leg Counter Cradle @18:36 – **** ¼
• Kaito Kiyomiya, Yoshiki Inamura & Kinya Okada vs M’s Alliance (Noamichi Marufuji, Masaaki Mochizuki & Masato Tanaka): Marufuji wins via High Knee Strike @17:36 – *** ¼
• GHC National Championship: Takashi Sugiura vs Kazuyuki Fujita (c): Sugiura wins via Olympic Slam @18:08 – **** ¾ – TITLE CHANGE!!!!
• GHC Heavyweight Championship: Keiji Mutoh (c) vs Masa Kitamiya: Mutoh retains via Shining Wizard @22:53 – *** ¾

Results:

Yasutaka Yano, Daisuke Harada & Atsushi Kotoge vs Full Throttle (YO-HEY, Seiki Yoshioka & Hajime Ohara)

This started off the show great. Yano and Ohara start off, which helps to show off Yano does have some wrestling skills to not be completely eclipsed early by the veteran. Kotoge did his best to try and keep both YO-HEY and Seiki under control, to stymie any possible bids at his GHC Junior Heavyweight Championship.

Kotoge looked dominant, applying his height advantage over the smaller Full Throttle, but Seiki really turned the corner when he countered the Rolling Cutter attempt and landed a gorgeous Axe Kick to get Full Throttle back in the match. Another fun thing is the fact that Harada was a complimentary piece in this match, he mostly shined in tandem assists with Kotoge, but did have a small “lock horns” moment with Seiki. So that could be a future number one contender’s match.

With that said, Yano got to finish the match, and again proved a lot of ring intelligence. He even faked out YO-HEY during a rope run, to get YO-HEY to miss a Dropkick. However, YO-HEY’s stubbornness had him pop back up and land the Dropkick once Yano tried to take advantage of what he THOUGHT was an opening. YO-HEY rocks the rookie, hits Face G, and it looks like YO-HEY is probably next in line for Kotoge’s title!

Kongoh (Katsuhiko Nakajima & Nioh) vs Akitoshi Saito & Junta Miyawaki

Saito coming out with the Funky Express gimmick is still…still weird. He seems to be enjoying his slightly over midlife crisis, but yeah…someone needs to kill Disco now. I don’t mean Inferno, leave Glen alone.

Even if the new gimmick looks a little silly, Saito reminds everyone that he’s still dangerous even in his mid-fifties. Junta tried to show some heart, but the point to this match was Nakajima’s cocky and condescending personality almost comes around to bite him. Nakajima refused to tag in initially until Nioh had Saito pressed in their corner, so he reluctantly came in. A small kick exchange amused Nakajima but fired up Saito and Saito dropped Nakajima with a Shoulder Tackle.

Nakajima had many moments of amusement that turned into a precarious position. With every demeaning attack from Nakajima, Saito fired up. Multiple Death Cloak’s were landed, we saw three Death Cloaks, a Claw Hold Slam and then Saito passed Nakajima to Junta for a Fisherman Suplex Hold near fall. Finally after that, Nioh clears out Saito, Nakajima regains his composure and he puts Junta’s lights out.

While one can argue that Nakajima was never truly in trouble, the fact that Saito took offense to nearly everything, made for an interesting dynamic.

Kotaro Suzuki vs Yuya Susumu

Suzuki and Susumu start off with some classic chain wrestling, into a little high flying and then Suzuki works the mid-section with a Sole Butt, Kitchen Sink, Senton and Body Scissors.

Susumu was very much on the receiving end of most of the attacks, having to purely rely on counter wrestling. Excalibur, Bit Blaster and a few other signatures from Suzuki gave him a heavy early advantage. Susumu started coming back after landing a counter Meteora, then we got into some fantastic action. Fast paced, counter holds, and the finish was clever. Suzuki went for a Double Leg Cradle, but Susumu kicked him off, ran him back to the ropes, went for the Japanese Leg Clutch but Suzuki grabbed his arms and slid him back into more of a Dragon Suplex pinfall attempt. Problem was, Suzuki never got his shoulders off the mat, so the referee counted a Double Pinfall, so we still haven’t gotten a clean decision between these two.

Funky Express (Mohammed Yone, Masao Inoue & Shuhei Taniguchi) vs Sugiura-Gun (Kendo Kashin, Kazushi Sakuraba & Kazunari Murakami)

This was just a gang fight for a long part of it. Kashin continues to take things in directions that most Sugiura-Gun guys don’t really like, but then they turn around and do a tandem cheating maneuver. Kashin and Taniguchi seem to be building something, Inoue gets beaten around and Sakuraba eventually puts things away transitioning a Heel Hook, into a Figure Four, into a Scorpion Deathlock.

Decent enough but the weakest match thus far.

GHC Jr Tag Team Titles: Stinger (HAYATA & Yoshinari Ogawa) vs NOSAWA Rongai & Ikuto Hidaka

Stinger has a great plan to begin with, and that’s to stop NOSAWA’s shenanigans. Ogawa and HAYATA take turns breaking down NOSAWA, working over his arms and his body to outwrestle someone known to utilize every shortcut in the book. Hidaka manages to help NOSAWA find an opening, which then allows NOSAWA to prove he can wrestle. An Indian Deathlock/Butterfly Lock combo, into a Koji Clutch, grounded Cobra Twists and Leg Submissions really help get across NOSAWA basically meeting their challenge of forcing a wrestling match, and giving the challengers a long advantage.

HAYATA was on the receiving end of all that, eventually making a comeback on Hidaka, and Ogawa takes the hot tag and shows more fire than we usually see out of the veteran Rat Boy. Relentless Hip Tosses, Powerslams, and power, causes Ogawa to fall over in exhaustion after taking on both challengers for a little comedy.

HAYATA comes back in and keeps the pressure up, but NOSAWA and Hidaka prove themselves to be resilient. Numerous pinfall breakups, La Magistral from NOSAWA as a callback to how he beat Ogawa in a singles match, Shining Wizard as a mock/homage to Muto from NOSAWA, but all for near falls. Just crazy action that everything felt very high risk with great break ups.

Hidaka laced HAYATA in a Grapevine Ankle Lock to give NOSAWA full access to the victory, but as he goes for La Magistral again, Ogawa turns the tables and gets a Head and Leg capture to barely retain! Great match!

YO-HEY and Seiki Yoshioka come out to challenge for the Tag Titles. That makes you wonder who’s challenging for the singles now?

Kaito Kiyomiya, Yoshiki Inamura & Kinya Okada vs M’s Alliance (Noamichi Marufuji, Masaaki Mochizuki & Masato Tanaka)

This is one of those matches that NOAH does a lot, where they do generational matches towards the top of the card when it involves main eventers and rising stars. We see a lot of great ability from Inamura, Kiyomiya definitely proves himself to still be the shining Supernova, but the 3 veterans are still very close to the top of their games, so this isn’t easy for the new school.

Okada also is still the least experienced, but he’s slowly gaining more traction. His matches get better, he’s gaining some fame on TV shows and he definitely looks like he will be a force in the future. Even though Okada eats the pinfall, Inamura had great power highlights, hell even his dismissal was great. He takes on both Mochi and Tanaka, Tanaka chop him down with kicks and elbows, then a Sliding Kick in tandem with the Sliding D from Tanaka finally took Inamura down to get dumped out of the ring.

Great showing for the new generation, but these three veterans could easily be in line to challenge for any title.

GHC National Championship: Takashi Sugiura vs Kazuyuki Fujita (c)

A short stare down turns into a Shoulder Tackle from Fujita to knock him down and have Fujita miss the Soccer Ball kick that finished Sugiura during a preliminary tag match. Then they stand up and go into great amateur wrestling standing switches, really quick given the fact both men are 50 and bulky killers.

Fujita manages to knock Sugiura down long enough to pull him outside and run him into the guardrails as he comes back in to apply a Single Leg Boston Crab. Sugiura gets to the ropes, fires up and drives Fujita into the corner to start peppering in Elbows. Fujita absorbs them, meets Sugiura in the corner with a Lariat which has him slump down, so Fujita goes to town with strikes. German Suplexes from Fujita, Fujita goes for a Soccer Ball Kick, but Sugiura picks the ankle and locks in an Ankle Lock for a hot minute. Fujita is stuck for a while, but gets to the ropes, but the damage is visible. Sugiura found a way to take a little of the power base away and Fujita is too stubborn to stop his offense.

The strike exchanges became insane. Fujita lands 2 Soccer Ball Kicks, goes for a third but gets caught in an Olympic Slam. Then we get an open hand slap exchange of glory. Fujita showed a lot in the gas tank and put a lot of great effort into this match, for anyone that questions his motivations at times, this was an amazing Strong Style bout.

Sugiura managed to barely edge out Fujita after three more Olympic Slams. Fujita gets stretchered out to get over the violence and physicality.

Kazushi Sakuraba is the next to challenge.

GHC Heavyweight Championship: Keiji Mutoh (c) vs Masa Kitamiya

Mutoh does his best to keep this match comfortably paced and within reach. Mutoh goes after the knees and gas tank of the bigger/younger man. Mutoh starts off with Headlocks and a Kimura attempt just to force Masa to carry his weight in precarious positions. Once Masa breaks the holds, we see the flaws in Mutoh’s game plan. Mutoh goes for a Flashing Elbow, and misses, which gives Masa multiple openings for Lariats, Football Tackles to drive the champion into the corner and just dominate with power.

Mutoh looks to be getting tossed around, until Masa missed a Spear into the corner and posts himself. This allows Mutoh to hit a Dragon Screw Legwhip and start working on the legs. The Figure Four that has won Mutoh a few matches recently doesn’t put the angry challenger down, but it does good work on the power base. Masa fires up plenty of times during this match to keep Mutoh reeling.

Masa hits Chop Blocks into the repaired knees, Saito Suplexes, great power, leans into the Prison Lock multiple times to try and cripple the legend. A nice call back to the previous tag when the Prison Lock plus a Headbutt knocked out Mutoh, but Mutoh managed to shake it off enough to get to the ropes.

Cleverly the finishing sequence was great. Masa had Mutoh in the corner, the referee tries to get a break, Masa pushes the referee down and Mutoh sees his opening and uses the doubled over referee as his base and hits a Shining Wizard to an unexpecting Kitamiya. Five more Shining Wizards finally put down the challenger!

【NOAH the GLORY 2021】VOD on #wrestleUNIVERSE !

You can watch April 29 NOAH event with English commentary by VOD on WRESTLE UNIVERSE‼️

👑GHC Heavyweight Championship
👑GHC National Championship
👑GHC Jr.Tag Championship

▶️https://t.co/zzesxEjMIB#noah_ghc pic.twitter.com/2BAqMYQWMw

— プロレスリング・ノア (@noah_ghc) May 1, 2021

It took a while to get there, but the last five or so minutes was fantastic. Marufuji challenging Mutoh after the fact is very cool as well.

Overall Score: 8.5/10

Two very possible Match of the Year contenders with different angles to get there. Sugiura and Fujita was just a Strong Style slugfest that would make Inoki-ism proud and the Jr Tag Title match was great story telling mixed with impressive mat work, pro wrestling aspects and personality. Hell, even Mutoh’s defense was pretty solid, even if it took some time to ramp up beyond a “carry the old man to the 15 minute mark” kind of match. Kitamiya’s “Go For Broke” mentality helped to explain in the match why he was so persistent on making a statement on Mutoh and not just trying a quicker win where his youth and power advantage would’ve shined.

The Junior division is shaping up interestingly, and Nakajima is doing great work at keeping the Heavyweight tags relevant just because his personality is so electric that whatever and whoever he faces is must see television. Suzuki having an interesting Draw with Susumu extends their rivalry nicely without needing overbooked idiocy of Western wrestling.

Lastly the interfaction challenges for the National and Heavyweight make for a great story of respect or friendship through pushing one another. It dabbles in the grey areas of not needing a heel/face dynamic when you know both competitors are elite and revel in the challenge. Also a great boon is Stewart Fulton and Mark Pickering on English commentary. Though I have my personal gripes with Fite TV as a service, the fact the English was available on Wrestle Universe helps them shine. Great show, one of the best shows this year!