GRAND SHIP 2024 in YOKOHAMA, Pro Wrestling NOAH’s mid-June blowout event, is in the books.
Today’s event was held at Yokohama Buntai in Yokohama and can be watched on demand on WRESTLE UNIVERSE in English. The live broadcast in Japanese was only in Japan on ABEMA. You can also watch the first 2 matches FOR FREE on YouTube.
The announced paid attendance was 1815. This was the first time they ran this new venue, intended to be an eventual replacement for Yokohama Budokan, and while the venue’s listed capacity is 5000 I don’t know what the actual setup was. Until that is possibly known it makes the number once again sound on the low side.
Match 1: LJ Cleary beat Ninja Mack & Super Crazy in a 3-way by pinning Crazy.
Match 2: Chris Weiss, Takuya Sugawara, Yuki Nagao, Yasu & Hide Kubota beat Akitoshi Saito, Go Shiozaki, Mohammed Yone, Atsushi Kotoge & Hi69. Weiss pinned Hi69 after a package piledriver.
Match 3: Shuhei Taniguchi & Titus Alexander beat Masa Kitamiya & Daiki Inaba. Alexander pinned Inaba after Big Ugly.
Match 4: AMAKUSA, Hajime Ohara & Junta Miyawaki beat Shuji Kondo, Eita & Yu Owada. AMASKUA pinned Owada after Opening of the Country.
Match 5: Takumi Iroha beat Great Sakuya.
Match 6: Jake Lee, YO-HEY & Tadasuke beat Kenoh, Alejandro & Cristobal. Lee pinned Cristobal after FBS.
Match 7: Yoshinari Ogawa & Ulka Sasaki beat HAYATA & Ryohei Oiwa. Sasaki beat HAYATA with a modified heel hook.
Match 8: GHC Junior Heavyweight Champion Daga beat Starboy Charlie to retain the title. V7 for Daga.
Match 8: Naomichi Marufuji & Takashi Sugiura beat GHC Heavyweight Tag Team Champions Jack Morris & Anthony Greene to win the titles. Marufuji & Sugiura become the 67th GHC Heavyweight Tag Team Champions. Sugiura pinned Greene after Olympic Yosen Slam.
Main Event: GHC Heavyweight Champion Kaito Kiyomiya beat Gabriel Kidd (New Japan) to retain the title. V1 for Kiyomiya. Next up: YOICHI. Never heard of him? Me neither. That match will happen on 7/13 at Nippon Budokan in Tokyo. Also, as a result of what happened in Match 7, GHC National Champion HAYATA vs. Ulka Sasaki for the title will also happen on 7/13.
During the event a major announcement from a major WWE superstar was promised. It happened and it was…AJ Styles vs. Naomichi Marufuji on 7/13. The Phenomenal One returns to Japan! The 7/13 event, as a heads-up, will be an ABEMA-only PPV.
The next event is The Reeve Presents LIMIT BREAK.3 GO!, a Go Shiozaki 20th Anniversary event, Wednesday at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo. Live streaming on WRESTLE UNIVERSE will begin at 3 AM PT/6 AM ET.
UPDATE: It was also announced that Manabu Soya will return on 7/13 from injury, and that GLG will be disbanded after 7/13 (hinted at based on backstage comments with Lee headed back to New Japan for the G1 CLIMAX Tournament).
UPDATE 2: YOICHI is the former Yoshiki Inamura. He had been competing internationally since September.
