Pro Wrestling NOAH kicked off 2025 in Japan today with their annual year-opening blowout event, NOAH THE NEW YEAR 2025, kicking off their 25th Anniversary campaign.
Today’s event was held at Nippon Budokan in Tokyo and can be watched on demand only as a PPV on ABEMA in select countries, including the US. It will not be available on WRESTLE UNIVERSE until an unknown later date if at all. You can also watch the first 2 matches FOR FREE on YouTube.
The announced paid attendance was 5088. That’s the best number for the promotion in at least a year. I’m guessing based on the setup that was around 80-85% full (the venue’s normal capacity for wrestling, at least what I can remember pre-pandemic, is around 8400, but it only holds maybe 4-5 events per year).
Pre-show match: Tadasuke won a 13 person battle royal, which included a surprise entry by Dump Matsumoto, last eliminating LJ Cleary. Eliminations were by pinfall, submission or over the top rope. Order of elimination: Yu Owada, Yuto Kikuchi, Dump Matsumoto, Saxon Huxley, Masao Inoue, Shuhei Taniguchi, Zozaya, Harutoki, Masaaki Mochizuki, Titus Alexander, Cleary. As a result, Tadasuke gets a GHC Championship match of his choice in the future.
Match 1: GHC Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champions HAYATA & YO-HEY beat AMAKUSA & Junta Miyawaki and Alejandro & Kai Fujimura in a 3-way, when HAYATA pinned Alejandro, to retain the titles. V5 for the champs.
Match 2; Go Shiozaki, Mohammed Yone, Atsushi Kotoge & Hajime Ohara beat Kazuyuki Fujita, Black Menso-re (Independent/Freelancer), Tetsuya Endo (DDT) & Shuji Ishikawa. Shiozaki pinned Menso-re after Go Lariat.
Match 3: Kazuyuki FUjita vs. Daiki Odashima went to a 1 minute time limit draw.
Match 4: Galeno Del Mal beat Hijo de Dr. Wagner Jr.
Match 5: KENTA (New Japan) beat Kenoh.
Match 6: In a 3 Falls Match, Eita beat GHC Junior Heavyweight Champion Daga 2-1 to win the title. Eita becomes the 57th GHC Junior Heavyweight Champion.
Match 7: GHC National Champion Manabu Soya beat Masa Kitamiya to retain the title. V4 for Soya.
Match 8: Jack Morris & TBA, revealed earlier this week to be Omos (WWE), beat GHC Heavyweight Tag Team Champions Naomichi Marufuji & Takashi Sugiura to win the titles. Morris & Omos become the 68th GHC Heavyweight Tag Team Champions. Omos pinned Marufuji after a double chokeslam.
Match 9: Shinsuke Nakamura (WWE) beat Ulka Sasaki.
Main Event: OZAWA (Taishi Ozawa) beat GHC Heavyweight Champion Kaito Kiyomiya to win the title. OZAWA becomes the 46th GHC Heavyweight Champion. HOLY SHIT!!! HOLY SHIT!!! HOLY SHIT!!! EPIC PROPORTIONS UPSET ALERT!!! This changes everything. And that may be a gross understatement.
The next event is NEW YEAR REBOOT 2025 Thursday at Shinjuku Face. There will be no live broadcast outside of Japan. Unfortunately it’s an ABEMA exclusive with no WRESTLE UNIVERSE broadcast (not even English only) scheduled.
In post-event news, while it’s not a title match at this time Ozawa’s first scheduled match as champion will be 1/11 at Korakuen Hall vs. Kenoh.
The promotion has also announced the following events to celebrate its 25th Anniversary in 2025: 3/2 at Yokohama Budokan in Yokohama (part of the NOAH Jr. Tag League 2025), 5/3 at Ryogoku Kokugikan in Tokyo, TBA in late June at TBA in Osaka, and 7/19 & 7/20 at Korakuen Hall.
