Pro Wrestling NOAH ran a STAR NAVIGATION PREMIUM event today in Tokyo, a weekday matinee for a holiday in Japan. The event just concluded and also featured the start of the NOAH Jr. Tag League.
Today’s event was held at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo and can be watched on demand on WRESTLE UNIVERSE in Japanese & English. This was an exclusive ABEMA broadcast in Japan and the English version is edited as a result. I had planned to do live results but was unable to because of last-minute schedule conflicts. You can also watch the first 2 matches FOR FREE on YouTube.
The announced paid attendance was 1560, a legit sellout.
Match 1: AMAKUSA & Junta Miyawaki beat Anthony Greene & Zozaya. Miyawaki pinned Zozaya.
Match 2: Harutoki beat Owadasan.
Match 3: Naomichi Marufuji, Takashi Sugiura & Kazuyuki Fujita beat Masa Kitamiya, Ulka Sasaki & Shuji Kondo. Marufuji pinned Sasaki with a triangle hold counter.
Match 4; NOAH Jr. Tag League Block B: Tadasuke & Yuto Kikuchi beat Atsushi Kotoge & Hajime Ohara. Tadasuke pinned Kotoge. Borderline squash that wwent only about 2 1/2 minutes.
Match 5; NOAH Jr. Tag League Block A: Mark Trew & Kieron Lacey beat HAYATA & YO-HEY. Trew pinned YO-HEY after True Star Press.
Match 6: Manabu Soya beat GHC National Champion Tetsuya Endo to win the title. Soya becomes the 15th GHC National Champion.
Match 7: NOAH Jr. Tag League Block A: Alejandro & Kai Fujimura beat Eita & Daiki Odashima. Alejandro pinned Eita after a huracanrana.
Match 8: Kenoh & KENTA (New Japan) beat Kaito Kiyomiya & Shuhei Taniguchi. KENTA pinned Taniguchi after GO 2 SLEEP.
Main Event: GHC Heavyweight Champion OZAWA beat Galeno to retain the title. V1 for OZAWA. Next up: Despite just winning the GHC National Championship back, Soya was out quickly to make the challenge. More to possibly come later today.
The next event is Saturday at Yokohama Radiant Hall in Yokohama. Live streaming on WRESTLE UNIVERSE will begin Friday at 11:30 PM PT/2:30 AM ET. As far as upcoming events go, all remaining February and all March events will be live and immediately on demand afterwards except for 3/20. 3/2 is TBD because of likely being an ABEMA exclusive (might be live outside Japan in English only).
UPDATE: It’s now official. DOUBLE TITLE MATCH! OZAWA-Soya for both titles. That match will happen on 3/2 at Yokohama Budokan in Yokohama. Also announced for 3/2 are Naomichi Marufuji vs. Masa Kitamiya and the NOAH Jr. Tag League Finals. No outside Japan broadcast plans are set for 3/2 yet because it looks like an ABEMA exclusive. Hopefully we’ll be able to get an English only live broadcast on WRESTLE UNIVERSE. We’ll find out as the event gets closer.
UPDATE 2: An emergency press conference has been announced for 2/12 at 7 PM PT/10 PM ET with Naomichi Marufuji & KENTA in attendance. This has me thinking KENTA could be possibly headed back to NOAH after a long time (he started with the promotion before going to WWE, then to New Japan after his WWE run ended). We shall see.
