NEWS

Mitsuharu Misawa Memorial moved to Korakuen Hall

Pro Wrestling NOAH announced on the 14th May that due to the Coronavirus epidemic, the Ota Ward Gymnasium has suspended all activities there for now. On a whim, NOAH went to see if Korakuen Hall was available, and were fortunate to be able to confirm that they would be running the Mitsuharu Memorial event now on the 31st May.

The card will be as follows;

• Seiki Yoshioka vs YO-HEY
• Kaito Kiyomiya, Yoshiki Inamura, Kinya Okada, Junta Miyawaki & Yasutaka Yano vs Kenoh, Manabu Soya, Haoh, Nioh & Tadasuke
• GHC Junior Heavyweight Tag Championship: STINGER (Yoshinari Ogawa & HAYATA) vs Momo No Seishun (Daisuke Harada & Hajime Ohara)
• GHC Heavyweight Tag Championship: THE AGGRESSION (Katsuhiko Nakajima & Masa Kitamiya) vs Funky Express (Mohammed Yone & Shuhei Taniguchi)
• GHC Junior Heavyweight Championship: Atsushi Kotoge vs Yuya Susumu
• GHC National Championship: Takashi Sugiura vs Kazushi Sakuraba
• Keiji Mutoh & Masato Tanaka vs Naomichi Marufuji & Masakatsu Funaki

The event begins officially at 18:30 JST, but due to time and the length of the card (eight matches), the card will start at 18:00 JST. The event will be broadcast with English commentary on WrestleUniverse and through FITE TV ($19.99). ABEMA will also stream the show, but at the time of writing I do not have the link or any further information as to whether it will be free and worldwide, or free in Japan only.

Funky Express get a title shot, Nakajima promises “The greatest ring they have never been to”

After enduring weeks of being beaten up by THE AGGRESSION (Katsuhiko Nakajima in particular), Funky Express finally scored their win over Kongoh at Korakuen Hall on the 15th May, albeit not on either of the tag champions, and announced their challenge.

Katsuhiko Nakajima, belt slung over his shoulder and strolling away from the ring, turned and laughed at Yone as if it was the funniest thing he had ever heard. He was still laughing when he got back int the ring, and laughing again backstage. Nakajima said he thought that they were going to be telling him that they were going to give everything up as Nakajima had been saying, but no, Yone wanted to know that if he wasn’t so scared of  the”old men”, then he should give them a title shot. Nakajima granted their wish, setting it for the Mitsuharu Misawa Memorial show on the 31st May, but warned that from now until then, he was going to be beating them up and wearing them down. Then he laughed evilly.

Speaking of Kongoh, Kenoh returned to the ring alongside Tadasuke, Haoh and Manabu Soya, all of who had to isolate for COVID after being close to Kenoh. Tadasuke was his usual crazy self, but Kenoh found that in his absence, the focus was now on Nakajima and it looked as if he had been pushed to the side somewhat.

CYBERFIGHT FESTIVAL 2021 NEWS

DDT’S Sasadango Machine “breaks in” to NOAH

With Takashi Sugiura refusing to even consider the request of Sasadango Machine and Danshoku Dino to face The Sugiura Army at The CyberFight Festival, Sasadango took matters into his own hands as Tokyo Sports called it, attempted to “break in”. On arriving the venue (complete with camera), he was told that he couldn’t buy a ticket and if he wanted to go backstage, then he needed to go to NOAH’s reception desk. He went to be met with NOAH’s iron lady, the fifty-five year old “Gatekeeper”, who deals with all applications for guests going backstage. Unfortunately, Sasadango hadn’t filled in any forms and therefore he was told that no application meant no entry. Sasadango left two boxes of ramen noodles from his hometown at the desk, and wandered off saying he didn’t understand how Takeshita had done it (probably filed an application in advance), or how Kenoh had gotten into DDT (probably by scowling) and how Kaito Kiyomiya and Yoshiki Inamura had done it (very politely bought tickets, very politely took their seats, and very politely got up on the apron).

The ramen noodles were handed to NOSAWA Rongai, who gave one box to Takashi Sugiura, who gave the other box to NOAH’s CEO (and the target of Sugi’s wrath), Nariohiro Takeda. Sugi was very vocal in an interview about it, saying that he wasn’t going to consider the match, and DDT\NOAH had better not try and put Sasadango in his way deliberately. He even went as far as to pinch the cheek of the interviewer and made him repeat, “Don’t bring him”.

Kenoh’s demand

Kenoh has demanded that should he lose the match against Kongoh (either directly or indirectly), then Sanshiro Takagi should resign his presidency over NOAH, and hand everything over to Kenoh to run.

Takagi says he is not even going to consider this. He stated to Kenoh that he had read what Kenoh had said in his column, and did he have any idea of how difficult things were to manage at the moment with Corona? Besides, Kenoh knows nothing of management.

GHC Heavyweight Match signing

Three major titles will be signed for on the 17th May, which will take place at CyberFight Festival on the 6th June; the GHC Heavyweight, the DDT Openweight and the Tokyo Joshi Pro Princess of Princesses. This will be streamed through NOAH’s official YouTube at 16:00 JST. Please check the time for your area.

EVENT RECAPS & POST MATCH PROMOS

Event recap: ALL OUT ATTACK 2021 (Saturday 15th May 2021)

Post match interviews: ALL OUT ATTACK 2021 (Saturday, 15th May 2021)

ELSEWHERE IN NOAH

~ NOAH paid tribute to Jumbo Tsuruta by playing his theme music, “Rolling Dreamer” at their most recent Korakuen Hall event. Tsuruta, an All Japan senior, who can probably be called NOAH’s Uncle, trained Mitsuharu Misawa, Kenta Kobashi, Akira Taue, Jun Akiyama, Yoshinari Ogawa and Naomichi Marufuji. Like Misawa, he would call Marufuji “Fujimaru”, and a young teenage Marufuji appeared in his training manual as a model demonstrating exercises.

~ Keiji Mutoh said he has an ambition to team up with Yoshinari Ogawa and challenge for the GHC Heavyweight tag titles, as he found tagging with Ogawa was so much like tagging with Misawa. Although Ogawa is a junior, he did hold the Heavyweight Tag with Misawa.

~ Yoshiki Inamura managed to knock the ABEMA ringpost camera off, and Kuniko Yamada says she is never taking him out to eat again after he got through fifty plates of Yakiniku.

~ Junta Miyawaki says that Momo No Seishun will “point the chaotic NOAH Juniors in the right direction”. Good luck with that.

CURRENT CHAMPIONS

• GHC Heavyweight Champion: Keiji Mutoh
  Challenger: Naomichi Marufuji (6th June 2021, “CyberFight Festival”)
• GHC Junior Champion: Atsushi Kotoge
  Challenger: Yuya Susumi (Monday May 31st, “Mitsuharu Misawa ~ Forever in Our Hearts 2021”)
• GHC Heavyweight Tag Champions: The AGGRESSION
  Challengers: Funky Express (Mohammed Yone & Shuhei Taniguchi) (Monday May 31st, “Mitsuharu Misawa ~ Forever in Our Hearts 2021”)
• GHC Junior Tag Champions: STINGER (Yoshinari Ogawa & HAYATA)
  Challengers: Momo No Seishun (Daisuke Harada & Hajime Ohara) (Monday May 31st, “Mitsuharu Misawa ~ Forever in Our Hearts 2021”)
•  GHC National Champion: Takashi Sugiura 
  Challenger: Kazushi Sakuraba (Monday May 31st, “Mitsuharu Misawa ~ Forever in Our Hearts 2021”)

THIS WEEK IN NOAH

Saturday, May 22nd: “ALL OUT ATTACK 2021” (17:30 JST) WrestleUniverse live stream

Sunday, May 23rd: “ALL OUT ATTACK 2021” (17:30 JST) Broadcast on WrestleUniverse on the 26th May.

*You will need to be a subscriber to WrestleUniverse to view these shows.

*Please note that ABEMA have changed their viewing policy. You can watch the event live, when it is shown free of charge and worldwide of course, but you must be a ABEMA Premium member to watch the replay. I do not advise that anyone outside of Japan does this unless they have a VPN they know works.

LINKS

Young Ace Kaito Kiyomiya, “Not only training, but diet is also important to get a good body” 

Remembering Misawa: The traditions of NOAH’s memorial shows

With thanks to: Metal-NOAH

Picture credit: NOAH, Pro Wrestling DX