NOAH WEEKLY NEWSLETTER VOL.169 ~ 24TH APRIL 2022

Not any matches this week until Friday 29th and Saturday 30th April when NOAH hold their double header at Sumo Hall, but plenty of other events have taken place in the run up.

NOAH Fes 2022

NOAH held a fan event in Tokyo on Saturday the 23rd April. Fans were treated to prerelease merchandise, four talk events and then a photo and autograph session.

King Tany’s trouble consultation was not King Tany solving people’s problems, but rather fans being asked to solve his. The advice Tany was seeking on problems with communication at venues with others, his ongoing frosty martial problems (divorce may be on the cards), a hard time living and feeling the limitations of Funky Express. Mohammed Yone, as you can probably imagine, was not too pleased on hearing this and he also wasn’t too pleased that he wasn’t invited to be there. Although he is feeling the restrictions of his current character, Tany has no plans to go back to his old Maybach persona. Kendo Kashin sadly did not crash the event.

Kotaro Suzuki and Yuya Susumu gave a talk, which was very different in atmosphere to the others. Theirs was described as “awkward”. Although nothing has been officially announced, Yuya Susumu heavily implied that he has indeed signed with NOAH by saying that he could not abandon the thrill of being in NOAH, he gave up FREEDOMS for this, and for that reason he wants to get results. Kotaro told him then in that case he should just have freelanced in different promotions, take their belts and then show up in NOAH. Kotaro also suggested that if Susumu lost to him then he enters the NOAH dojo and starts from scratch by making Chankonabe.

Keiji Mutoh made an appearance with Naomichi Marufuji. Mutoh was on form, saying that he thought this was some kind of match (Marufuji had to explain otherwise), and saying that he thought the picture of Masa Kitamiya was Suwama. On a more serious note, Mutoh addressed his injury saying he was better and felt he could return soon, he was no longer pain and was aiming for the GHC National still for his 60th birthday. Their talk was intruded on by Ninja Mack and Extreme Tiger. The pair shook hands with Marufuji and Mutoh, and introduced themselves to the crowd. Mutoh commented that when he first went abroad, he had a Ninja gimmick, and would be asking for royalties. He had said the same thing when Marufuji said that he was HAYATA’S hero and HAYATA had based some of his own character on Mutoh/Great Muta. Marufuji laughed and said that everything Mutoh did was geared towards money.

The NOAH Junior Regulars held a talk show and a lottery afterwards. I think the crowd were a little exhausted from the whirlwind which was Mutoh, but they noticed a heaviness in Haoh when he spoke of Nioh’s frightening resolution to put both his hair and his name on the line. YO-HEY discussed how with Yoshinari Ogawa and Chris Ridgeway, you need to be able to find a gap to take the chance in order to win. Atsushi Kotoge is feeling a lot better mentally, although his knees are not yet in one hundred percent condition.

NOAH Junior Regular Week

For the run up to NOAH Junior night at Sumo Hall on the 29th April, The NOAH Junior Regulars (Daisuke Harada, Atsushi Kotoge, YO-HEY, Alejandro, Haoh & Junta Miyawaki) will be doing various online events to promote the show and their own matches.

Night 1 took the form of all six of them talking on the official NOAH Twitters Space where they took questions from fans, and addressed the spicy words that Jyushin Liger had to say about the Sumo Hall event. It doesn’t translate well, but he said something like the event is no good as it cannot measure up to the “good quality competition” found in the competition with New Japan. Despite the heated response by YO-HEY and Junta Miyawaki in particular, there were some funny moments such as Alejandro and the glitter mask, and the six of them trying to get used to new technology.

Night 2 was done on Instagram. This was meant to start at 8pm after NOAH Fes 2022 wrapped up, but it was delayed due to the sheer amount of people wanting to see the NOAH Junior Regulars. The broadcast was high octane, with Daisuke Harada acting as the MC and reading out the questions. As per fan request, they all posed individually for a lock screen or wallpaper background.

Night 3 was back to Twitter Space and was held between YO-HEY and Atsushi Kotoge, or “Momoperron” as fans are now calling them. They were as bright as ever (with “a lot of flirting”), but there was a note of worry, especially over how well the event would do.

The schedule for the rest of the NOAH Junior Week is as follows:

Monday 25th April: Haoh (8pm JST)

Tuesday 26th April: Alejandro (8pm JST)

Wednesday 27th April: Junta Miyawaki (8pm JST)

Thursday 28th April: Daisuke Harada (8pm JST)

They will do another live event with all six of them via Instagram on Friday 29th.

NOAH Press Conference

With the foreign wrestlers now safely in Japan and training in the NOAH dojo, NOAH will hold their second press conference ahead of the two nights at Sumo Hall on Wednesday 27th April live on NOAH’s official YouTube at 18:30 JST.

EVENT RECAPS AND POST MATCH PROMOS

Post match interview: REAL OVERTURE 2022 in Niigata (Sunday, April 17th)

ELSEWHERE IN NOAH

– Eita says that when he beats HAYATA he wants a parade. Either this will be in an open topped car or a Disneyland night parade with bright lights and Mickey Mouse. Despite this, he is genuinely proud to be the GHC Junior Heavyweight champion and to be in the main event of the first ever NOAH Junior night in such a grand venue as Ryogoku Kokugikan.

– Go Shiozaki revealed in a short radio interview that he feels closer to his cats (he has nine now) than his two dogs. His dogs bark at him when he comes home, and desert him after evening snacks before bedtime.

– Referee Shu Nishinaga and former referee, Akihiko Fukuda, will be appearing on Battlemen as the special guests on the 27th April.

– Further hints where given about the mystery partner of Naomichi Marufuji. He appears to have a spaceman motif or at least someone connected with astronauts or space. I recall that once upon a time during the Golden Era, Bryan Danielson’s theme music was “The Final Countdown”…

CURRENT CHAMPIONS

• GHC Heavyweight Champion: Kazuyuki Fujita
  Challenger: Go Shiozaki,”MAJESTIC 2022″, Sumo Hall, Saturday 30th April
• GHC Junior Champion: Eita
  Challenger: HAYATA,”MAJESTIC 2022 – N-Innovation”, Sumo Hall, Friday 29th April
• GHC Heavyweight Tag Champions: The Sugiura Army (Takashi Sugiura & Hideki Suzuki)
  Challengers: Kongoh (Kenoh and Katsuhiko Nakajima),”MAJESTIC 2022″, Sumo Hall, Saturday 30th April
• GHC Junior Tag Champions: The NOAH Junior Regulars (Atsushi Kotoge & YO-HEY)
  Challengers: STINGER (Yoshinari Ogawa & Chris Ridgeway),”MAJESTIC 2022 – N-Innovation”, Sumo Hall, Friday 29th April
• GHC National Champion: Masakatsu Funaki
  Challenger: Simon Gotch,”MAJESTIC 2022″, Sumo Hall, Saturday 30th April

THIS WEEK IN NOAH

Friday, April 29th 2022

ABEMA presents MAJESTIC 2022 ~ N Innovation ~, Sumo Hall (Tokyo)

Starts: 17:00 JST

Broadcast: ABEMA & WrestleUniverse

*English commentary available on WrestleUniverse

*This will also be Tadasuke’s 15 year debut anniversary

Saturday, April 30th 2022

WRESTLE UNIVERSE presents MAJESTIC 2022, Sumo Hall (Tokyo)

Starts: 15:00 JST

Broadcast: WrestleUniverse

*NOAH’s May 2022 schedule can be found here

Note about ABEMA broadcasts

If you are not a subscriber to WrestleUniverse, you can watch night 1 of the two Sumo Hall events on ABEMA, but this will not have English commentary and you can only watch it live. Unless you are resident in Japan, I do not recommend subscribing to ABEMA due to the problems with finding a VPN that works. If you do have a VPN that works and you are subscribing only for NOAH, a better subscription would be to WrestleUniverse, as ABEMA do not broadcast them as often and all ABEMA shows end up eventually on WrestleUniverse.

LINKS

Assuming a world class tough match, “Plain fight, simple is best” interview with Masa Kitamiya towards Ryogoku

Interview with Eita – a parade requested after defeating HAYATA at Ryogoku Kokugikan! Thoughts on the GHC Junior Championship, and the difference from DragonGate.

“Fighting The Industry”, “Preparing a secret plan” – interview with Seiki Yoshioka ahead of the Ryogoku for juniors, Extreme Tiger Match

With thanks to: Metal-NOAH

NOAH Junior Night picture credit: NOAH Official Twitter (all other pictures, save the GIF which is Samurai TV, where screenshotted by me)