Pro Wrestling NOAH kicked off the annual N-1 VICTORY Tournament today in Tokyo.
Today’s event was held at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo and can be watched on demand on WRESTLE UNIVERSE in English. This was an exclusive ABEMA live broadcast in Japan.
The announced paid attendance was 1492. I’m calling that a super full house/very near sellout even though the promotion didn’t.
And before we get started…prediction time! The promotion did a fan poll on Japanese social media where fans were asked to pick who would win each block but not necessarily the tournament. Their picks? The overwhelming Block A pick was Kaito Kiyomiya. The Block B pick by a much narrower margin was OZAWA. Make note!
All matches were N-1 VICTORY matches.
Match 1: Block A: Yoshiki Iinamura beat Yuki Iino.
Match 2: Block B: Masa Kitamiya beat Tetsuya Endo.
Match 3: Block A: Shane Haste Beat Kazuyuki Fujita.
Match 4: Block B: Manabu Soya beat KENTA.
Match 5: Block A: Chen beat Takashi Sugiura.
Match 6: Block B: Titus Slexander beat Kenoh.
Match 7: Block A: Kaito Kiyomiya beat Alpha Wolf.
Main Event: Block B: OZAWA beat Kouga (Yu Owada/Owadasan). The obvious question: Is fka Owadasan still Team 2000X or, based on pre-tournament presser comments, did he turn back face? We’ll see based on post-event comments.
Day 2 is Monday at Okayama Convention Center 1st Floor Event Hall in Okayama. Live streaming on WRESTLE UNIVERSE will begin at 2:30 AM PT/5:30 AM ET.