(Noah) The Green Guide to "Departure" Noah's first ever show

From left to right: Akira Taue, Mitsuharu Misawa, Kenta Kobashi and Jun Akiyama announce the formation of a new group "Noah" - it would have a difficult birth, and its maiden voyage was fraught with difficulties.

Noah's first show ever, "Departure" (the name is a shot at All Japan) was held on August 5th 2000. It attracted 1,800 people, with more people watching outside Differ Ariake from the parking lot where huge TV monitors had been set up. 

It came close to never happening, the fact that it did was a miracle. 

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When Mitsuharu Misawa left All Japan in May 2000 he was walking out into the unknown and bringing with him most of the locker room, their trainees, and backstage staff. He had promised them all that everything would be all right and to trust him, and it had been a measure of their trust and respect for him that they had. The new promotion wasn't named until June, and then Misawa was faced with the task of introducing it to the public. 

A promotion needs exposure, and so Noah turned to NTV (Nippon Television Network Corporation), and began a long series of negotiations that were not concluded with Samurai, until three days before August 5th leaving very little time to plan the event. The negotiations had been hampered by contract disputes, offers from other companies and networks, documentation not signed and all the other red tape headache that comes with anything corporate. With some bitterness, Noah had to accept that their first show was not going to be broadcast live nationwide, there was just no way this could happen in such a short period of time. There was some sop to this though as Noah ended up being given the time-slot that had been previously occupied by All Japan. Like All Japan, the network would also become shareholders in the company, and like All Japan this would affect Noah very badly in the future. 

It had been decided that the introductory shows should be held in October, but due to being unable to raise the funds that they had expected to receive and so desperately needed, they decided to bring the show forward to August and so released advance tickets as working capital for the immediate future. 

Fortunately, they sold out in twenty minutes. 

THE CARD

In comparison to what audiences are used to today, Noah's very first fight card contained only five matches:

Takeshi Morishima vs Makoto Hashi

Haruka Eigen, Jun Izumida & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi vs Mistuo Momota, Rusher Kimura & Takeshi Rikio

Kentaro Shiga & Naomichi Marufuji vs Masao Inoue & Yoshinobu Kanemaru

Daisuke Ikeda, Masahito Kakihara & Yoshinari Ogawa vs Satoru Asako, Takao Omori & Yoshihiro Takayama*

Jun Akiyama & Kenta Kobashi vs Akira Taue & Mitsuharu Misawa (best two out of three falls matches)

Akira Taue walks to the ring in August 2000. The person holding the ropes open for him is the current GHC Heavyweight Champion (at the time of writing in March 2018), Takashi Sugiura. At this stage Sugiura was a trainee and had not debuted yet. Akira Taue would become the Acting President of Noah nine years later. Sugiura would hold the record for the most wins and the most defenses as champion.

Out of twenty-two people on Noah's fight card, its founder would not live to see the company he had risked so much for, to reach its first decade, and at the time of writing (2018), only three people (Naomichi Marufuji, Yoshinari Ogawa and Masao Inoue, although he is a freelancer) would still be with Noah. 

*The team of Asako, Omori and Takayama called themselves "NO FEAR", which would be resurrected a few years later and include a young trainee at ringside, then known simply as Kenta Kobayashi.