Tag: noah

Pro Wrestling NOAH continued the never-ending STAR NAVIGATION 2023 Tour (it will now extend into at least April per schedule announcements today) today with an event headlined by a GHC National Championship match.

Today’s event was held at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo and can be watched on demand on WRESTLE UNIVERSE. You can also watch the first 3 matches FOR FREE on YouTube.

The announced paid attendance was 825. Vocal cheering was allowed, not sure what capacity limit was if any.

Match 1: Kinya Okada Return Match: Tadasuke & Hi69 beat Kinya Okada & Taishi Ozawa. Hi69 pinned Ozawa after Trance Rave.

Match 2: Super Crazy beat Yasutaka Yano.

Match 3: Timothy Thatcher & Hideki Suzuki beat Masaaki Mochizuki & Shuhei Taniguchi. Thatcher beat Taniguchi with a Fujiwara armbar.

Match 4: Kenoh, Katsuhiko Nakajima, Shuji Kondo & Hajime Ohara beat Daiki Inaba, Yoshiki Inamura, Ninja Mack & Atsushi Kotoge. Nakajima pinned Inamura after Vertical Spike.

Match 5: Satoshi Kojima beat Masa Kitamiya.

Match 6: Kaito Kiyomiya, Takashi Sugiura & Naomichi Marufuji beat Jack Morris, Jake Lee & Anthony Greene. Kiyomiya pinned Greene with a tiger suplex hold.

Match 7: In an Elimination Match, Yoshinari Ogawa, Eita, NOSAWA Rongai, Chris Ridgeway & Daga beat AMAKUSA, Junta Miyawaki, ALejandro, YO-HEY & Seiki Yoshioka. Order of elimination: AMAKUSA by Eita, Yoshioka by Daga, YO-HEY by Daga, Alejandro by Eita, Miyawaki by Eita. A Clean Sweep! Nobody on the winning team was eliminated.

Main Event: GHC National Champion Hijo de Dr. Wagner Jr. beat Manabu Soya to retain the title. V2 for Wagner Jr.

The next event is GREAT VOYAGE 2023 in OSAKA on 2/12 at Osaka Prefectural Gym in Osaka. Keiji Muto will be at the event but is not scheduled to participate (of bigger concern is a report that at the Great Muta Final Event he partially tore both hamstrings, although both tears were said to be very small-at a recent event appearance in Japan he was in a wheelchair). Live streaming on WRESTLE UNIVERSE in English only will begin Saturday at 11 PM PT/Sunday at 2 AM ET. This is an ABEMA-only broadcast in Japan so Japanese audio will not be available until when the on demand version is uploaded shortly after the event concludes.

In other news, the promotion announced additional dates for the March schedule and the April schedule. The majority of the events will be continuing the SUNNY VOYAGE 2023 Tour and a STAR NAVIGATION 2023 Tour event at the end of April. March wraps up with a 4-day run of events in north & northeastern Japan, while April is headlined by ABEMA presents GREEN JOURNEY 2023 in SENDAI on 4/16 at Xebio Arena Sendai in Sendai, followed by a Korakuen Hall return on 4/29 that will lead in to ABEMA presents MAJESTIC 2023, their Golden Week blowout event on 5/4 at Ryogoku Kokugikan in Tokyo (this one as well as 4/16 will probably be English-only on WRESTLE UNIVERSE if they are available live).

Pro Wrestling NOAH continued the never-ending SUNNY VOYAGE 2023 Tour with their first event in nearly 2 weeks after a post-Great Muta Final Event break.

Today’s event was held at Green Dome Maebashi in Gunma and will be available on demand on WRESTLE UNIVERSE Tuesday at 1 AM PT/4 AM ET. There was no live broadcast.

The announced paid attendance was 309. Because this had been decided on before recent government changes regarding guidelines for events, no vocal cheering today.

Match 1: Shuhei Taniguchi beat Taishi Ozawa.

Match 2: Atsushi Kotoge, YO-HEY & Seiki Yoshioka beat Tadasuke, Hajime Ohara & Hi69. Kotoge pinned Tadasuke after Kill Switch.

Match 3: Satoshi Kojima, Naomichi Marufuji & Ninja Mack beat Masa Kitamiya, Daiki Inaba & SUper Crazy. Kojima pinned Inaba after Western Lariat.

Match 4: Anthony Greene beat Mohammed Yone.

Match 5: Kenoh, Katsuhiko Nakajima & Manabu Soya beat Takashi Sugiura, Hijo de Dr. Wagner Jr. & Timothy Thatcher. Soya pinned Wagner after Trajectory.

Match 6: AMAKUSA, Junta Miyawaki & Alejandro beat Yoshinari Ogawa, Chris Ridgeway & Yasutaka Yano. Miyawaki pinned Yano.

Main Event: Jack Morris & Jake Lee beat Kaito Kiyomiya & Yoshiki Inamura. Morris pinned Inamura after GLK (Good Looking Knee).

The next event is tomorrow at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo, continuing the also-never-ending STAR NAVIGATION 2023 Tour. Kinya Okada will return tomorrow from injury and a GHC National Championship match headlines the event. Live streaming on WRESTLE UNIVERSE will begin at 1:30 AM PT/4:30 AM ET.

Pro Wrestling NOAH continued the never-ending SUNNY VOYAGE 2023 Tour today with a house show that served as the final event before a huge weekend ahead on Yokohama. The event also featured a big pre-event autograph session for fans.

Today’s event was held at Fujisan Messe in Shizuoka and will be available on demand on WRESTLE UNIVERSE Wednesday. There was no live broadcast, although the 7th match did stream live on Instagram.

The announced paid attendance was 380, a full house/near sellout.

Match 1: Atsushi Kotoge beat Yasutaka Yano.

Match 2: Masa Kitamiya & Yoshiki Inamura beat Mohammed Yone & Akitoshi Saito. Kitamiya pinned Saito after Saito Suplex.

Match 3: Hijo de Dr. Wagner Jr. & YO-HEY beat Manabu Soya & Tadasuke. YO-HEY pinned Tadasuke after a dropkick.

Match 4: Timothy Thatcher beat Seiki Yoshioka by submission.

Match 5: Junta Miyawaki & Alejandro beat Yoshinari Ogawa & NOSAWA Rongai by DQ. NOSAWA DQ’d. Weapon use.

Match 6: Takashi Sugiura beat Daiki Inaba.

Match 7: Jack Morris & Jake Lee beat Kaito Kiyomiya & Shuhei Taniguchi. Lee pinned Taniguchi after Giant Killing.

Main Event: Kenoh, Katsuhiko Nakajima, Hajime Ohara, Shuji Kondo & Hi69 beat Satoshi Kojima, Naomichi Marufuji, Ninja Mack, AMAKUSA & Dante Leon. Ohara beat Leon with Mui Bien Clutch.

The next event is ABEMA PRESENTS GREAT MUTA FINAL BYE-BYE, the final career appearance by Keiji Muto’s masked/face painted alter-ego, on 1/22 at Yokohama Arena in Yokohama. All Elite Wresting participation is featured as Darby Allin makes his Japan debut and Sting returns to Japan one last time. Live streaming on WRESTLE UNIVERSE in English only will begin at 1 AM ET/Saturday at 10 PM PT. The event is also available as a PPV on FITE. The promotion also will participate in New Japan Pro Wrestling’s WRESTLE KINGDOM 17 in YOKOHAMA Saturday. That event will be available as a PPV only on New Japan World beginning at 3 AM ET/midnight PT then will be available to all subscribers on New Japan World and WRESTLE UNIVERSE in English only one week later.

After the event, the promotion announced that Kinya Okada, who has been out several months due to injury, will return on 2/5.

Pro Wrestling NOAH continued the never-ending SUNNY VOYAGE (now) 2023 Tour today headlined by a special non-title Champion vs. Champion match between the GHC Heavyweight & Jr. Heavyweight Champions.

Today’s event was held at Yokohama Radiant Hall in Yokohama and can be watched on demand on WRESTLE UNIVERSE.

The announced paid attendance was 227. No vocal cheering today.

Match 1: Tadasuke beat Taishi Ozawa.

Match 2: Jack Morris beat Shuhei Taniguchi.

Match 3: Katsuhiko Nakajima & Manabu Soya beat Hijo dd Dr. Wagner Jr. & Timothy Thatcher. Soya pinned Wagner after Trajectory. Afterwards, Soya issued a challenge to Wagner Jr. for the GHC National Championship. That match will happen on 2/5 at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo.

Match 4: Masa Kitamiya, Daiki Inaba & Shuhei Taniguchi beat Naomichi Marufuji, Mohammed Yone & Akitoshi Saito. Inaba pinned Yone.

Match 5: Junta Miyawaki beat Yasutaku Yano.

Match 6: Takashi Sugiura & NOSAWA Rongai beat Kenoh & Hajime Ohara. Sugiura pinned Ohara after Olympic Yosen Slam.

Main Event: Kaito Kiyomiya beat AMAKUSA.

The next event is Sunday at Fujisan Messe in Shizuoka. There will be no live broadcast. It will be available on demand on WRESTLE UNIVERSE at a later date, probably next Wednesday.

The second half of NOAH’s doubleheader today, REBOOT 2023, consisted of the Semifinals and Finals of the Scramble Shuffle Tag Team Tournament, with other matches not announced in advance and matchups only revealed when entrances began.

Today’s event was held at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo and can be watched on demand on WRESTLE UNIVERSE in Japanese.

The announced paid attendance was 570. Vocal cheering was allowed. This was lower than the early event number but they were also running right after the opening day of the January 2022 Grand Sumo Tournament wrapped up.

Match 1: Shuhei Taniguchi beat Taishi Ozawa.

Match 2: Scramble Shuffle Tag Team Tournament Semifinals: Katsuhiko Nakajima & Seiki Yoshioka beat Manabu Soya & Atsushi Kotoge. Nakajima pinned Kotoge after Vertical Spike. As a result, Nakajima & Yoshioka advance to the Finals.

Match 3: Scramble Shuffle Tag Team Tournament Semifinals: Satoshi Kojima & Shuji Kondo beat Masakatsu Funaki & YO-HEY. Kojima pinned YO-HEY after Western Lariat. As a result, Kojima & Kondo advance to the Finals.

Match 4: Dante Leon beat Yasutaka Yano.

Match 5: Masa Kitamiya & Daiki Inaba beat Takashi Sugiura & Timothy Thatcher by ref stoppage. Kitamiya beat Sugiura with a head cutting Prison Lock. (Which probably means it included Kitamiya’s devastating headbutts)

Match 6: AMAKUSA & Ninja Mack beat Tadasuke & Hi69. AMAKUSA pinned Tadasuke after Firebird Splash.

Match 7: Kenoh & Hajime Ohara beat Masato Tanaka (ZERO1) & Shoki Kitamura. Kenoh pinned Kitamura after PFS.

Match 8: Naomichi Marufuji, Junta Miyawaki & Alejandro beat Hijo de Dr. Wagner Jr., Yoshinari Ogawa & Eita. Miyawaki pinned Eita.

Match 9: Jake Lee & Jack Morris beat Kaito Kiyomiya & Yoshiki Inamura. Morris pinned Kiyomiya after a Tiger driver. Significant as will be noted later below.

Main Event: Scramble Shuffle Tag Team Tournament Finals: Katsuhiko Nakajima & Seiki Yoshioka beat Satoshi Kojima & Shuji Kondo to win the tournament. Nakajima pinned Kojima after Vertical Spike.

The next event is tomorrow at Yokohama Radiant Hall in Yokohama, beginning the 2023 portion of the never-ending SUNNY VOYAGE Tour. Live streaming on WRESTLE UNIVERSE will begin at 12:30 AM PT/3:30 AM ET.

Now the significance of earlier-Morris has earned a GHC Heavyweight Championship match against Kiyomiya because of what happened. That match will happen on 2/12 at GREAT VOYAGE 2023 in OSAKA at Osaka Prefectural Gym. Also announced for 2/12 is GHC Heavyweight Tag Team Champions Takashi Sugiura & Satoshi Kojima vs. Masa Kitamiya & Daiki Inaba for the titles.

The full card for the Great Muta Final Event on 1/22 at Yokohama Arena has also been announced:
Atsushi Kotoge & Seiki Yoshioka vs. Hajime Ohara & Hi69
Saori Anou & Jungle Kyona vs. Sumire Natsu & Maya Yukihi
Masaaki Mochizuki vs. Timothy Thatcher
Yoshinari Ogawa, Eita & NOSAWA Rongai vs. Junta Miyawaki, Alejandro & Yasutaku Yano
Jake Lee, Jack Morris & Anthony Greene vs. Masa Kitamiya, Daiki Inaba & Yoshiki Inamura
Kazushi Sakuraba vs. Hideki Suzuki in a GHC Martial Arts Rules Match
AMAKUSA, Ultimo Dragon & Ninja Mack vs. YO-HEY, Kzy & Dante Leon
Kaito Kiyomiya, Hijo de Dr. Wagner Jr., Takashi Sugiura & Satoshi Kojima vs. Kenoh, Katsuhiko Nakajima, Masakatsu Funaki & Manabu Soya
The Great Muta, Darby Allin (All Elite Wrestling) & Sting vs. Hakushi, AKIRA & Naomichi Marufuji
The event will be an ABEMA-exclusive broadcast in Japan, but will be available outside Japan in English only on WRESTLE UNIVERSE for subscribers and also is available now for pre-order as a PPV on FITE for $19.99.

Pro Wrestling NOAH kicked off 2023 with their annual New Year/year-opening mega-blowout event later today, and it’s legit mega to kick off the biggest annual week of pro wrestling in Japan. A massive 11-match event is headlined by 4 GHC Title matches including the latest chapter in the beyond white-hot Kaito Kiyomiya-Kenoh rivalry, with Kiyomiya defending the GHC Heavyweight Championship this time, and in the second half of the double main event it’s a one-time-only super dream match as current WWE superstar Shinsuke Nakamura returns home to Japan for the first time since before the coronavirus pandemic began for a match against The Great Muta, as Keiji Muto’s masked/face painted alter-ego makes his penultimate career appearance before saying goodbye ahead of Muto’s retirement next month.

Today’s event was held at Nippon Budokan in Tokyo and can be watched on demand on WRESTLE UNIVERSE.

The announced paid attendance was 9500, a legit sellout. That indicates 100% capacity with no vocal cheering.

Match 1: Yasutaka Yano beat Taishi Ozawa.

Match 2: Masa Kitamiya, Daiki Inaba & Yoshiki Inamura beat Mohammed Yone, Akitoshi Saito & Shuhei Taniguchi. Inamura pinned Yone after Musou.

Match 3: Ninja Mack, Dante Leon & Alejandro beat Shuji Kondo, Tadasuke & Hi69. Alejandro pinned Hi69 after Casadora Con Hero.

Match 4: Masaaki Mochizuki, Susumu Mochizuki & Mochizuki Jr. beat Hijo de Dr. Wagner Jr., Atsushi Kotoge & Seiki Yoshioka. Susumu pinned Yoshioka with Infinite Package.

Match 5: Kazuyuki Fujita, Kendo Ka Shin, NOSAWA Rongai & TBA-who turned out to be Hiroshi Hase, beat Masakatsu Funaki, Katsuhiko Nakajima, Manabu Soya & Hajime Ohara. Hase pinned Ohara with a Northern Lights suplex hold.

Match 6: Jack Morris beat Timothy Thatcher.

Match 7: GHC Jr. Heavyweight Champion AMAKUSA beat Junta Miyawaki to retain the title. V1 for AMAKUSA.

Match 8: GHC Heavyweight Tag Team Champions Takashi Sugiura & Satoshi Kojima beat Naomichi Marufuji & KENTA to retain the titles. Kojima pinned Marufuji after Western Lariat. V3 for the champs.

Match 9: Yoshinari Ogawa & Etta beat GHC Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Champions YO-HEY & Kzy to win the titles. Ogawa & Eita become the 54th GHC Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Champions. Eita pinned YO-HEY after Imperial Uno.

Match 10: GHC Heavyweight Champion Kaito Kiyomiya beat Kenoh to retain the title. V3 for Kiyomiya.

Main Event: Shinsuke Nakamura beat The Great Muta.

The next events are on 1/8 at Korakuen Hall, a same-day doubleheader featuring a scramble tag team tournament. 8 teams participating consist of a NOAH wrestler and a Kongo wrestler, making for very interesting pairings. The first event will have the Quartterfinals, the second event will have the Semifinals and Finals. Live streaming on WRESTLE UNIVERSE will begin Saturday at 10 PM ET/7 PM PT for the first event and next Sunday at 4 AM ET/1 AM PT for the second event.

In other news, it was announced that the Keiji Muto Retirement Event on 2/21 (that’s an early Tuesday morning event in the US). will be available live ONLY ON ABEMA AS A PPV. If available worldwide the cost will be around $40 US. There likely will be no live broadcast on WRESTLE UNIVERSE or anywhere else, and UNIVERSE subscribers will probably have to wait at least one week to watch on demand as ABEMA has PPV replays for 7 days included. But the Great Muta final event on 1/21 will be live on WRESTLE UNIVERSE and also available on FITE as a PPV for $19.99 (while that’s almost 3 times the cost of WRESTLE UNIVERSE you don’t have to deal with subscriptions. That will likely have only English commentary).

Pro Wrestling NOAH wrapped up their 2022 schedule today with the final N INNOVATION event of the year, shining the spotlight on their Jr. Heavyweight division once more with a major event headlined by two title matches.

Today’s event was held at Shinjuku Face in Tokyo and can be watched on demand on WRESTLE UNIVERSE.

The announced paid attendance was 320. Vocal cheering was allowed meaning this sounded like a higher number than what reduced capacity would usually be, possibly a sellout (the venue’s normal capacity is roughly 500).

Match 1: Shoki Kitamura beat Hi69 by submission.

Match 2: Ninja Mack, Alejandro & Andy Wu beat Shuji Kondo, Tadasuke & Hajime Ohara. Alejandro pinned Tadasuke after Casadora con Hero.

Match 3: Yasutaka Yano beat NOSAWA Rongai. UPSET ALERT!

Match 4: Yoshinari Ogawa vs. Eita went to a No Contest. Tadasuke & Hi69 interference.

Match 5: YO-HEY & Kzy (Dragon Gate) beat GHC Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Champions Atsushi Kotoge & Seiki Yoshioka to win the titles. YO-HEY & Kzy become the 54th GHC Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Champions. Kzy pinned Kotoge after KZ Time.

Main Event: AMAKUSA beat GHC Jr. Heavyweight Champion Dante Leon to win the title. AMAKUSA becomes the 52nd GHC Jr. Heavyweight Champion. The former Haoh plays the ultimate revenge version of Kongo Bongo…first he got kicked out of the faction. Then he got kicked out of NOAH. Then he snuck back under a mask and a new name. Now he does what most of Kongo has not been able to do-win the Jr. Heavyweight Championship. Very fun times ahead.

And with that, Pro Wrestling NOAH’s 2022 comes to a close. It was another up & down year especially with generally poor attendance for major events despite being helped out by funding from CyberFight Corporation to keep them going, and once again they were hurt by their top stars going down with injuries for long stretches. And then it became all about Keiji Muto when he announced he will retire in February, and I believe they did become the first promotion to run the new Ariake Arena in Tokyo (built for the 2020 Summer Olympics). The start of 2023 will be all about Muto’s retirement but they also have a literally red-hot rivalry between Kenoh & Kaito Kiyomiya that shows no signs of slowing down. It’s always been a bit of a struggle for the promotion since the death of founder Mitsuharu Misawa, but they always keep him in their hearts and continue voyaging forward.

The first event of 2023 is ABEMA presents “NOAH THE NEW YEAR” 2023 on 1/1 at Nippon Budokan in Tokyo. It’s an absolutely loaded blowout event with a one-last-time worldwide dream match as former New Japan superstar Shinsuke Nakamura, currently competing in WWE, returns to Japan for a special single match against Keiji Muto. Live streaming on WRESTLE UNIVERSE in English only will begin at 1:45 AM ET/10:45 PM PT on 12/31. This is an ABEMA-exclusive broadcast so the original Japanese broadcast will only be available on demand after the event.