Pro Wrestling NOAH held a post-7/16 press conference early today that also revealed the entire field for the upcoming N-1 Victory Tournament. This year’s N-1 will feature 16 participants in 2 blocks with traditional round-robin tournament rules.
The participants:
Block A: Kenoh, Kazuyuki Fujita, Go Shiozaki, Masato Tanaka, Masaaki Mochizuki, Hideki Suzuki, Hijo de Dr. Wagner Jr., Anthony Greene
Block B: Masakatsu Funaki, Kaito Kiyomiya, Katsuhiko Nakajima, Takashi Sugiura, Masa Kitamiya, Satoshi Kojima, Timothy Thatcher, Jack Morris
Nakajima is the defending tournament winner, beating Kenoh in last year’s final. So they could very well have a Finals rematch that could set up a rubber match for the GHC Heavyweight Championship.
The tournament runs from 8/11-9/3. Note that some events will be ABEMA-only live broadcasts and will be on demand on WRESTLE UNIVERSE. The Finals likely will be an English-only live broadcast on WRESTLE UNIVERSE.
In terms of 7/16 fallout, GHC Jr. Heavyweight Champion HAYATA vs. Shuji Kondo for the title has been announced for 8/5 at Korakuen Hall, as well as the return of Naomichi Marufuji, who has been out the last few months due to injury. Marufuji was on Japanese commentary for yesterday’s event.
