Pro Wrestling NOAH continued the Keiji Muto Retirement Road series today with what possibly was the first pro wrestling event to be held at Tokyo’s new Ariake Arena venue, constructed for the 2020 (delayed to 2021) Summer Olympics in Japan. This marks the halfway point in Muto’s originally planned 5 match retirement series, today’s match was a crossover match with New Japan Pro Wrestling as Muto was opposite perhaps the G.O.A.T. of New Japan, the one & only Hiroshi Tanahashi.
Today’s event was held at Ariake Arena in Tokyo and can be watched on demand on WRESTLE UNIVERSE in Japanese and English. The live broadcast earlier was only in English due to being an ABEMA exclusive.
The announced paid attendance was 3739. Because vocal cheering was allowed, that meant 50% capacity (the venue’s normal max capacity will be 12,000). Between that and the layout, this was roughly 75-80% full, a good debut number for the venue.
Pre-Show Dark Match: Kai Fujimura beat Taishi Ozawa.
Main Show:
Before the first match, Go Shiozaki came out to address the crowd. He was wearing a t-shirt that read “I AM NOAH COMEBACK COMMING SOON”. Yes, it was misspelled. Shiozaki is out due to injury. He led the crowd in shouts of “I AM NOAH! WE ARE NOAH!”
Match 1: Manabu Soya, Shuji Kondo & Hajime Ohara beat Shuhei Taniguchi, Alejandro & Extreme Tiger. Kondo pinned Alejandro after a King Kong lariat.
Match 2: Jack Morris & Dante Leon beat Daiki Inaba & YO-HEY. Morris pinned YO-HEY after Inferno.
Match 3: Yoshinari Ogawa, Chris Ridgeway & Yasutaka Yano beat NOSAWA Rongai, Eita & Super Crazy by DQ. Eita DQ’d. NOSAWA weapon use.
Match 4: Hideki Suzuki & Dr. Wagner Jr. beat Takashi Sugiura 7 Masa Kitamiya. Wagner pinned Kitamiya after Wagner Driver.
Before the next match began, a recorded video played…O…M…G…January 1, Nippon Budokan…The Great Muta vs….SHINSUKE NAKAMURA!!! He’s coming home to Japan! (Nakamura has spent the last decade-plus in WWE since leaving New Japan) This will be an ABEMA live broadcast so hopefully in English on WRESTLE UNIVERSE.
Match 5: GHC Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Champions Atsushi Kotoge & Seiki Yoshioka beat Tadasuke & Hi69 to retain the titles. Kotoge pinned Hi69. V1 for the champs. Afterwards, Shuji Kondo & Hajime Ohara hit the ring to make the next challenge and start a Kongo beatdown of the champs until a mysterious masked man ran in to make the save and clean house. The mystery man then unmasked himself…Haoh! Tadasuke was en fuego because Haoh was expelled from NOAH after losing their last match against each other. But Haoh seems to be back and will now be known as AMAKUSA.
Match 6: Ninja Mack beat GHC Jr. Heavyweight Champion HAYATA by ref stoppage (injury) to win the title. Mack becomes the 50th GHC Jr. Heavyweight Champion. HAYATA could not continue due to an elbow injury. Never how you want a title match (or any match) to end. The injury occurred just before the 10 minute mark when Mack went for a sequence starting with multple backflips after bouncing off the ropes following a running start, then with HAYATA on the apron Mack backflipped over the ropes into a powerbomb to the floor. The ref checked on HAYATA then began the 20 count. At 5 the ref checked again on HAYATA and stopped it. HAYATA was already clutching his left elbow and wrist area. It might have landed on the hard floor just past where the mats around the ring ended.
Match 7: In a GHC Martial Arts Rules Match, GHC National Champion Masakatsu Funaki beat Kazushi Sakuraba by ref stoppage (submission) to retain the title.V6 for Funaki. The rules made this a very short match, just 199 seconds.
Match 8: GHC Heavyweight Tag Team Champions Takashi Sugiura & Satoshi Kojima beat Kenoh & Katsuhiko Nakajima to retain the titles. Kojima pinned Nakajima after Western Lariat. V1 for the champs.
Match 9: Keiji Muto Retirement Series-PRO WRESTLING LOVE FOREVER 3 ~TRIUMPH~: Keiji Muto, Naomichi Marufuji & Yoshiki Inamura beat Hiroshi Tanahashi, Togi Makabe & Tomoaki Honma (New Japan Pro Wrestling). Marufuji pinned Honma after Shiranui.
Main Event: GHC Heavyweight Champion Kaito Kiyomiya beat Kazuyuki Fujita to retain the title. V1 for Kiyomiya. And fulfillment as he avenged his only N-1 VICTORY 2022 loss.
Regarding HAYATA, it was announced after the event he was scheduled to be on the 11/10 event and is now off. The event will feature 5 matches, all GHC title matches. Thus here is who is next up for all the champions at that event (in match order):
Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team (Kotoge/YO-HEY): Kondo & Hajime Ohara
Jr. Heavyweight (Mack): Leon
Heavyweight Tag (Sugiura/Kojima): Mohammed Yone & Akitoshi Saito
National (Funaki): Wagner Jr.
Heavyweight (Kiyomiya): Timothy Thatcher
This event will be live on WRESTLE UNIVERSE.
More on the HAYATA injury when/if it becomes available. The earlier announcement means he is out at least 2 weeks. There are only 4 events scheduled in November with December’s schedule TBA beyond a special Tokyo Gurentai produced standalone event on 12/20.
The next event is Thursday at Kira Messe Numazu in Shizuoka, which likely will end the SUNNY VOYAGE 2022 Tour. This will be aired on demand on WRESTLE UNIVERSE at a later date, which probably will be 11/6 or 11/7 (there will be no live broadcast).
