NOAH WEEKLY NEWSLETTER VOL.158 ~ 29TH JANUARY 2022

NOAH has a crowned new champions and there’s new additions to one of their most popular stables! Hisame drops all the knowledge.

NEWS

Katsuhiko Nakajima and Nioh absent

NOAH announced on the 26th January that Katsuhiko Nakajima would miss the Korakuen Hall event on the 27th due to fever. On the 27th January they announced that Nioh would miss due to the same, and the cards were hurriedly changed. NOAH have not said whether or not this is Covid related, but expect both back at Korakuen Hall on the 9th February.

New Junior Tag Champions

With STINGER being stripped of the belts, NOAH held a tag match in Osaka on the 22nd January between Yuya Susumu and Seiki Yoshioka (STINGER) and The NOAH Junior Regulars (Hajime Ohara and Atsushi Kotoge) to crown the new champions. Yuya Susumu won the match after seven minutes and thirty nine seconds, when he made Hajime Ohara tap out. STINGER did not nominate their teammates Yoshinari Ogawa and HAYATA as their challengers.

At Korakuen Hall on the 27th January, YO-HEY pinned Yuya Susumu and made his bid for the GHC Junior Tag titles. Despite the fact that Super Crazy was standing in the ring with him, YO-HEY nominated NOSAWA Rongai as his tag partner. NOSAWA by this time had already left the ringside area, and he did not appear in the comments booth either. Despite this, the title match has been set for Wednesday 23rd February in Nagoya. NOSAWA says he has been drawn into “something strange”, these aren’t the champions, HAYATA and Yoshinari Ogawa, who he wanted to challenge.

Masakatsu Funaki defeats Kenoh…and then joins Kongoh

NOAH’s wild night in Osaka came to an end in suitable style. Masakatsu Funaki defeated Kenoh for the GHC National in three minutes and fifty-eight seconds. If Kenoh has one weakness then it’s a chokehold, and with his face turning blue, he tapped. The M’s alliance (Naomichi Marufuji and Masato Tanaka) came to the ring to celebrate with their teammate, with Marufuji strapping the belt on him. But Funaki in his winners speech had something unexpected to say.

He was leaving the M’s alliance, and joining Kongoh. His reasons were simple, he had seen the hour long match between Kenoh and Nakajima and felt inspired, plus he felt this was the best way to fight his old unit. There doesn’t seem to be any bitterness between the two, and Marufuji said he was looking forward to fighting. Had it been the NOAH Juniors, he wouldn’t had have to have waited long, as a mass brawl would be occurring. Kenoh, calling Funaki “the strongest in pro wrestling”, which probably did little to endear this to Katsuhiko Nakajima who looked less than happy with Funaki joining, shook hands to welcome Funaki into Kongoh. As the other members came forward, only Nakajima held back. An icy handshake passed between them when Funaki went over to Nakajima. Nakajima never once took his eyes off Funaki, and gave him the stiff handshake, refusing to let go.

Backstage, Nakajima stood with his arms crossed and casting side eye glances at Kenoh and Funaki. His only comment on Twitter was “Masakatsu Funaki joins Kongoh”.

Funaki’s first challenger came forward at Korakuen Hall on the 27th January, and it was from his old unit. Masaaki Mochizuki pinned Funaki (yes, this was Funaki’s first Kongoh match and Kenoh refused to believe that he had been beaten, saying backstage that it was a ploy by Funaki), and challenged him for the GHC National. Six years ago in DragonGate, Mochizuki had sworn they would have a singles match, but it never quite happened, but it is “time to fulfill that promise”. Title match will take place on the 10th February at Korakuen Hall.

Tadasuke challenges Daisuke Harada
Tadasuke said he came to realization in Osaka; the punishing of Haoh which he had been threatening, he would leave to Nioh and Aleja, but he hated Daisuke Harada and he was going to take his belt, and so he challenged Harada at Korakuen Hall on the 27th January. He was going to smash his goal to create a new NOAH Junior too. Tadasuke I think is a little unaware that Harada’s goal is to create NOAH Juniors who won’t lose to the heavyweights, but Tadasuke in general has no idea why Harada is even champion. Harada says he is going to crush Tadasuke before he can prevent him from carrying out his aim. Title match will take place at Korakuen Hall on Wednesday 9th February.

Go Shiozaki’s “Road to GHC” series

Following his GHC Heavyweight loss and then again losing a match soon after, Go Shiozaki has come to a decision. In order to feel that he can look at challenging for the GHC Heavyweight again, or perhaps is worthy of challenging again, he has set himself a series of singles matches against Takashi Sugiura, Naomichi Marufuji, Masato Tanaka and Kenoh. If he can win all of these (and sadly Takashi Sugiura choked him out at Korakuen Hall on the 27th), then he is back up to the level he wants to be at. All of these matches will take place at Korakuen Hall with Masato Tanaka on the 9th, Naomichi Marufuji on the 10th and Kenoh on the 11th.

As stated earlier, his match against Takashi Sugiura ended in Sugiura choking Shiozaki out after twenty three minutes and twenty-four seconds. The referee stopped the match when Shiozaki fainted. He knew Shiozaki was never going to tap out. Backstage, Sugiura said it wasn’t a perfectly revived from injury Go Shiozaki he had beaten today, it was just Shiozaki.

“NOAH The CINEMATIC MODE”

You may have noticed that on some entrances NOAH switch the camera to a cinematic mode. NOAH will be upgrading this somewhat for the three consecutive days at Korakuen Hall (9th, 10th and 11th) which will be the first time they have done a three day run, with use of high quality cameras for all of the cameras in use, TV studio like match production, and limited movie like special effects. This will be the first experiment of this type in wrestling. Korakuen Hall too will be produced like a big match venue (i.e. a stadium).

EVENT RECAPS AND POST MATCH INTERVIEWS

Higher Ground 2022

Saturday, January 22nd (Edion Arena Osaka, 2nd Stadium)

Event recap Post match promos

Thursday, January 27th (Korakuen Hall)

Event recap Post match promos

ELSEWHERE IN NOAH

– Masakatsu Funaki would like to bring Katsuyori Shibata into Kongoh.

– Yoshinari Ogawa hinted in an interview that he and HAYATA are interested in tag belts other than the GHC Junior.

– The look on King Tany’s face after NOSAWA disrespected his crown!

– Takashi Sugiura has been posting comments (usually at 4am) about Viagra, anatomy parts being limp, and mentioned two names who he suspects of using Viagra. He’s also been trolling KENTA about being injured, who has just been ignoring his comments as usual.

– Haoh finally debuted a new costume after leaving Kongoh, swapping their red for the NOAH Junior Regulars white, but he has still not changed the name that Kenoh gave him. Perhaps it’s because since he entered NOAH, he has been Haoh?

– Masakatsu Funaki changed his yellow costume for the Kongoh red.

CURRENT CHAMPIONS

• GHC Heavyweight Champion: Katsuhiko Nakajima
  Challenger: Kazuyuki Fujita, “GAIN CONTROL 2022 in NAGOYA”, February 23rd, Aichi / Nagoya Congress Center Event Hall, Nagoya
• GHC Junior Champion: Daisuke Harada
  Challenger: Tadasuke, “STEP FORWARD 2022”, February 9th, Korakuen Hall, Tokyo
• GHC Heavyweight Tag Champions: The M’s alliance (Naomichi Marufuji and Keiji Mutoh)
  Challengers: No challengers as of yet
• GHC Junior Tag Champions: STINGER (Yuya Susumu & Seiki Yoshioka)
  Challengers: Perros Del Mal De Japon (YO-HEY & NOSAWA Rongai), “GAIN CONTROL 2022 in NAGOYA”, February 23rd, Aichi / Nagoya Congress Center Event Hall, Nagoya
• GHC National Champion: Masakatsu Funaki
  Challenger: Masaaki Mochizuki, “STEP FORWARD 2022”, Thursday February 10th, Korakuen Hall, Tokyo

THIS WEEK IN NOAH

(February schedule)

Sunday, January 30th: HIGHER GROUND 2022

Start time: 17:00

Broadcast: WrestleUniverse (from 18:00 JST on the 2nd February)

LINKS

“The resurrection of “I am NOAH” and “surpassing New Japan”, strong arm Go Shiozaki’s lifelong duty

GHC Champion Katsuhiko Nakajima’s confident Beast Fujita hunting declaration, inside the “Mysterious 3 count case” 

GIF taken from WrestleUniverse.