NOAH WEEKLY NEWSLETTER VOL.172 ~ 15TH MAY 2022

NEWS

CYBERFESTIVAL 2022 Press Conference: DDT hunting Naomichi Marufuji, Kenoh’s “flaming kick”

CyberAgent held a press conference on the 10th May to announce the full card for this years joint festival, which will take place on June 12th. Not all of the NOAH roster will be taking part, with pretty much all of Kongoh, bar Kenoh, conspicuous by their absence.

The NOAH card is as follows

NOAH vs DDT: Kinya Okada & Kai Fujimura vs Toui Kojima & Yuya Takashika

NOAH 10 man tag: Takashi Sugiura, Kazuyuki Fujita, Masa Kitamiya, Daiki Inaba & Shuhei Taniguchi vs Michael Elgin, El Hijo Del Dr Wagner Junior, Rene Dupree, Simon Gotch & X

Rob Van Dam, HAYATA & Yoshinari Ogawa vs Kaito Kiyomiya, Daisuke Harada & YO-HEY

NOAH vs DDT: Tetsuya Endo, Jun Akiyama & Kazusada Higuchi vs Naomichi Marufuji, Atsushi Kotoge & Yoshiki Inamura

NOAH vs DDT, Special Battle: Kenoh vs Daisuke Sasaki

GHC Heavyweight Championship: Go Shiozaki vs Satoshi Kojima

The mystery wrestler X (most likely foreign talent) will be revealed when NOAH are at Korakuen Hall on June 7th.

Only a few wrestlers appeared and spoke. Kaito Kiyomiya (stepping away from his feud with Simon Gotch) spoke for his team but more for himself, when he said how excited he was to face Rob Van Dam, and he would make his name eponymous with this match. As for his opponents, this may be the first time that HAYATA has met Van Dam, but he and Yoshinari Ogawa know each other very well from Ogawa’s All Japan days where they had matches from 1994 – 1997. Ogawa even beat him to retain the AJPW Junior Heavyweight.

By far the most dramatic encounter of the evening was Kenoh and Daisuke Sasaki. Sasaki appeared in shades, nonchalantly drinking beer, while Kenoh came stamping dressed to fight and looking angrier than usual, carrying a bag. After yelling at Sasaki for drinking beer, categorically stating that he hated Sanshiro Takagi, and producing a pile of Weekly Pro magazines of which he demonstrated that no NOAH advertising was on the back of (plus slamming his fist down and making a huge crashing sound), Kenoh decided to attack Sasaki. A brawl on the stage led to a PFS from one of the tables, and then Kenoh set his leg on fire and kicked Sasaki in the head before leaving.

Jun Akiyama attempted to unify his team of Tetsuya Endo and Kazusada Higuchi against Naomichi Marufuji, who he said they all needed to work together to defeat. If they didn’t work together, the only person they would pin would be Atsushi Kotoge. A win is a win perhaps, but Naomichi Marufuji was to be preferred. Kazusada Higuchi was not really interested in doing things other than in his own way, which did not please Akiyama, but did Marufuji, who said their “victory was assured” if his opponents couldn’t work together, and that he had confidence in his team.  Later following some further provocation by Akiyama on Twitter, Marufuji commented that Kotoge was being attacked, but Inamura was being ignored. He didn’t know why, but what he did know was that he was looking forward to the match.

HAYATA in the middle, Xtreme Tiger, YO-HEY on the periphery 

HAYATA found himself in the middle of the STINGER squabble once again when Yuya Susumu (who didn’t look as if he was going to take “no” for an answer) confronted HAYATA backstage at the N Innovation on the 14th May, and basically asked him whose side he was going to be on? Susumu held out his hand, which HAYATA, after a moment of consideration, shook. As a result the card of the 19th (the last pre match before the title match on the 21st May) has been changed from HAYATA teaming with Chris Ridgeway and Yoshinari Ogawa, to him teaming with his old friends, Yuya Susumu and Seiki Yoshioka, both who seem confident that HAYATA is on their side. “Ogawa magic” as NOAH fans call Ogawa’s ability to get inside people’s heads, is a powerful thing, and under Ogawa’s influence HAYATA betrayed old friend YO-HEY (who seems to be having a lot of matches against HAYATA recently), so this highly nervous match for fans, might not be as solid as his old Hiroshima friends think.

Xtreme Tiger had his first pre match against HAYATA on the 14th May, and HAYATA found that he was going to have to come up with new strategies as Xtreme Tiger is unlike anyone he has had challenge him so far and was able to outwrestle him. Xtreme Tiger may not have pinned him (he pinned Kai Fujimura who seems to be filling in for the injured Yasutaka Yano), but he sent a message after the match that he was most definitely next.

STINGER vs STINGER

The question of HAYATA’S allegiance aside, the feud between the two sides took another turn in Yokohama as on the 14th Chris Ridgeway defeated Seiki Yoshika in a singles match, Yoshioka brushed off this defeat by tapping his head and saying that he needed to be more thorough. HAYATA stayed away as a (limping) Yoshioka came out to second Yuya Susumu in his tag match against Yoshinari Ogawa. Ogawa played all sorts of tricks to wind Yoshioka up, including goading him to get on to the apron, and then complaining to the ref when he did. The match was won by Kaito Kiyomiya defeating Simon Gotch. Afterwards, Chris Ridgeway got in the ring to try and pry Yuya Susumu off of Ogawa, he was kicked twice in the head by Seiki Yoshika.

After that, the two members of STINGER (former members perhaps as Tokyo Sports thinks they may have split) stood over the fallen champions and made belt motions. Backstage, Susumu said that they where STINGER, as in himself, Yoshioka and HAYATA. He also wondered why their opponents hadn’t “shown anything yet…”. Fans know from experience that the longer Yoshinari Ogawa is quiet, the worse his revenge will be.

Daisuke Harada deals with H.Y.O, Z-Brats not off the hook though

Daisuke Harada levelled things with H.Y.O by scoring the NOAH Junior Regulars one and only victory over Z-Brats at Yokohama Radiant Halls on the 14th. Throughout the match H.Y.O had been his usual irritating self by doing things such as rolling out of the ring and sitting on chairs in the audience, fanning himself on the electric fans, and even doing squats. H.Y.O is convinced that despite the result, he won the match, but Harada has hinted that it’s not quite over with Z-Brats yet. As well as Z-Brats, Harada remains focused on holding the next N Innovation at Ryogoku, but he knows there are further issues to overcome, such as attendance. Sadly, the N Innovation was not sold out, with an attendance of 134.

EVENT RECAPS AND POST MATCH INTERVIEWS

N-Innovation (Saturday May 14th 2022, Yokohama Radiant Hall)

Event recap

Post match interviews

ELSEWHERE IN NOAH

– Poor YO-HEY had to wrestle the N Innovation match with partial sight, as he lost a contact lens.

– Following on from the success of the NOAH Junior Regulars Twitter Space talk, Kaito Kiyomiya and Yoshiki Inamura held their own impromptu session.

– Haoh has promised to be more “self assertive”. Speaking into the camera, Tadasuke wondered why on earth he didn’t do or say this in the NOAH Juniors.

– Kenoh tried some very hot noodles over on the “Kenoh Channel” 

– Junta Miyawaki had to tell Alejandro to duck down as he was blocking him when the NOAH Junior Regulars posed for a picture following Harada’s defeat of H.Y.O

– Kenoh says he will be appearing at the Hana Kimura memorial not for himself, but to help her mother make sure that what happened to Hana, never happens to anyone else.

– The referees in Yokohama spent a lot of time picking up after the wrestlers; YO-HEY’S jacket shed fluff, Kaito Kiyomiya’s sheds feathers and Atsushi Kotoge dropped his chain.

– The look on H.Y.O’s face when Daisuke Harada threw his jacket at him!

CURRENT CHAMPIONS

• GHC Heavyweight Champion: Go Shiozaki
  Challenger: Satoshi Kojima, CyberFight Festival, Sunday June 12th
• GHC Junior Champion: HAYATA
  Challenger: Xtreme Tiger, “Dream on 2022 Final”, Ota Ward Gymnasium, 21st May 2022
• GHC Heavyweight Tag Champions: Les Mexicanas (Rene Dupree and El Hijo Del Dr Wagner Jnr)
  Challengers: Masa Kitamiya & Michael Elgin, “Dream on 2022 Final”, Ota Ward Gymnasium, 21st May 2022
• GHC Junior Tag Champions: STINGER (Chris Ridgeway & Yoshinari Ogawa)
  Challengers: STINGER (Seiki Yoshioka & Yuya Susumu), “Dream on 2022 Final”, Ota Ward Gymnasium, 21st May 2022
• GHC National Champion: Masakatsu Funaki
  Challenger: TBA

THIS WEEK IN NOAH

(May schedule)

Dream on 2022

Thursday, May 19th

Venue: Yokohama Radiant Hall

Broadcast: WrestleUniverse (18:00 JST)

Dream on 2022 (final night)

Saturday, May 21st

Venue: Ota Ward General Gymnasium (Keiji Mutoh returns)

Broadcast: WrestleUniverse & ABEMA (16:00 JST)

(English commentary is available)

Note about broadcasts

Unless you are living in Japan or have a VPN you know is compatible with ABEMA, please do not subscribe to the service. For fans living outside of Japan, a subscription to WrestleUniverse would be better as they show more NOAH shows than ABEMA, and usually the events get uploaded very quickly. ABEMA broadcasts are only in Japanese, you can only watch them live, and this is the only NOAH they show. They do not broadcast old shows as these belong to Samurai TV.

Birthdays & Anniversaries 

Monday 16th May: Hajime Ohara debut anniversary (18)

Tuesday 24th May: Daiki Inaba debut anniversary (9)

Tuesday 24th May: KENTA debut anniversary (22)

LINKS

Redefining the “ability to communicate”, Kenoh’s flaming kick at the press conference is a model for all NOAH wrestlers

“Surpassing the serious Yoshinari Ogawa”, interview with Seiki Yoshioka ahead of the “Stinger Showdown” GHC Junior Tag Battle

“It is inevitable that I will become the GHC Heavyweight Champion” – signing ceremony with champion Shiozaki ahead of the GHC title match at the Saitama Super Arena main event

“Moss does not grow on a rolling stone” – handsome man Yoshinari Ogawa, pro wrestler biography series (article from 2002)

GIF taken from NOAH official YouTube & WrestleUniverse