(NOAH) Event recap - last night of "Navigation with Emerald Spirits", June 26th 2018
Prior to the event Kaito Kiyomiya was at the merchandise stand, and Atsushi Kotoge (and cape) did the private photosession with the Noah's Ark FanClub members. One attendee noted that Korakuen Hall felt like there was a concert on today, there were a lively festival atmosphere and there were so many people. To a visitor who had last seen Noah a year and a half ago (when Noah were picking up the pieces from New Japan) said that the atmosphere was completely different.
There had been a lot of speculation over the announcement that would be made that evening, someone proposed that KENTA might not be the only WWE bargained for...after all, there is "The Mighty Don't Kneel", Chris Hero....
A dancer trained in Chinese Beijing Opera came to the ring prior to the first match and did the dance of The Monkey King (Sun Wukong in Chinese) from the epic tale "Journey to The West" in full traditional garb.
MATCH 1
Maybach Taniguchi, Mitsuya Nagai, KAZMA SAKAMOTO & Cody Hall vs KENSO, Chang Yufeng, Lin Dongxuan & Sun Yi Lin
KENSO had had a hand in training the three men from "Eastern Heroes" in Beijing and today teamed with them against mortal enemies Taniguchi, Nagai and Cody Hall. KAZMA was also back.
Sadly not much was said about the Chinese athletes (or the match), except that they were impressive and they pulled off some pretty risky maneouvres. Afterwards they worked at ringside as seconds.
Although it was not publically announced, Cody Hall will be returning to America. He will return in September for "Flight", but no other participation has been confirmed yet.
WINNER: KAZMA SAKAMOTO with the running knee on Sun Yi Lin (10 mins and 35 seconds)
MATCH 2
Hajime Ohara & Junta Miyawaki vs Seiya Morohashi & LEONA
Hajime Ohara has been giving Junta Miyawaki a bit of mentoring recently, and the input of both himself and Yoshinari Ogawa was seen today when Miyawaki debuted a new submission move.
LEONA (who teamed with and will team with Seiya Morohashi at Global Junior Tag League) has come a thousand miles from what he was like at the beginning of the year. The somewhat timid looking boy, has been replaced with a guy with a bad attitude, and who can carry it off well. New ring attire, new attitude, new music, new LEONA.
He and Junta Miyawaki have a small rivalry going on. The last time they met LEONA threw him out of the ring and stalked to the back, acting as if he was angry that Noah sent him such children to fight. In this match he got Miyawaki to tap out by using a submission move. Despite this, Junta Miyawaki was said to be impressive today.
WINNER: LEONA with Four Foot Compression (8 mins and 55 seconds)
MATCH 3
Hi69, Minoru Tanaka & Yoshinari Ogawa vs Tadasuke, HAYATA & YO-HEY
The lights flooded the ring purple, the color of RATELS, but this was by far the nicest thing to happen to RATELS today as their opponents tortured them. HAYATA had his knee attacked again, Tadasuke had a sustained attack on his arm (he said unsurprisingly afterwards that it hurt); only YO-HEY so far has managed to escape them too much, although Hi69 says that they are coming for him.
At the end of the match, RATELS were thrown out of the ring.
WINNER: Minoru Tanaka with the Minoru Special on Tadasuke (9 mins and 37 seconds)
Then came the big moment.
Naomichi Marufuji came out to the ring and announced the card for his 20th anniversary show "Flight" which will take place on 1st September at Sumo Hall.
The lights dimmed, the screen flickered into life, the WWE logo appeared, and KENTA came on the screen (I'm sorry, I'm not in the habit of calling him "Hideo Itami", that is not his name in Noah, and I refuse to call him that) and gave a short video message. Marufuji announced that they would face each other in the main event. The complete card was also shown on the monitor:
FULL CARD FOR "FLIGHT"
Mohammed Yone & Junta Miyawaki vs Mitsuo Momota & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi
Akitoshi Saito, Masao Inoue & Hikaru Kawabata vs Takuma Sano, Tamon Honda & Shiro Koshinaka
Quiet Storm & Tadasuke vs Takao Omori & Cody Hall
YO-HEY & HAYATA vs Kaz Hayashi & Shuji Kondo
Hi69, Minoru Tanaka & Kotaro Suzuki vs Hajime Ohara, Hitoshi Kumano & Seiya Morohashi
Katsuhiko Nakajima, Masa Kitamiya & Taiyo Kea vs Go Shiozaki, Kaito Kiyomiya & Yoshinari Ogawa
Kenoh, Maybach Taniguchi & Atsushi Kotoge vs Sanshiro Takagi, HARASHIMA & Dino
Takashi Sugiura & Daisuke Harada vs Jun Akiyama & Atsushi Aoki
Naomichi Marufuji vs KENTA
(Interestingly out of all the old Noah dojo boys, Yoshinobu Kanemaru is missing).
It was revealed that the deal with KENTA was that he would appear for one night only, go by his WWE name and music, and the negotiations had been dragging on for months.
Misawa had worked another miracle for his all but legally adopted son, which was what Marufuji was to him.
MATCH 4
50 Funky Powers (Mohammed Yone & Quiet Storm) vs Atsushi Kotoge & Kaito Kiyomiya
Atsushi Kotoge is on a quest to get someone of the "Super New Generation Army" to wear his cape (Hajime Ohara doesn't count as he only did it for some fun, and besides he is a junior heavyweight).
So he once again tried Kaito Kiyomiya.
Kiyomiya, a little less polite now, stared blankly at him.
"Disco Fever" vs "The Revolutionary Fist" was also back again.
Atsushi Kotoge was taken out by the Funky Buster Bomb, and Kaito Kiyomiya carefully rolled him (and the cape) out of the ring.
WINNER: Mohammed Yone with the Funky Buster Bomb on Atsushi Kotoge (10 minutes and 22 seconds)
MATCH 5
Naomichi Marufuji, Akitoshi Saito & Masato Tanaka vs Katsuhiko Nakajima, Masa Kitamiya & Go Shiozaki
This match wasn't really very remarkable for what happened in it, but rather what happened after it.
Since 2009, Akitoshi Saito has worked the opening matches. Its not a sign that Noah have in his abilities, (or that of the fans), its that since the accident with Misawa, Saito understandably suffered a knock in his confidence and he didn't want to get involved in story-lines or title matches. Noah let him do this, and now it seems that after nine almost ten years, he is ready to go again, but for years he quietly worked the opening matches.
Noah did start to tentatively prepare for him to have a larger role by having him do comedy with Masao Inoue (which worked, although they didn't win or even have any success in Global Tag League), Saito seemed happy with it though, and the crowd responded well to him doing it. I think this gave Saito the confidence to take things a little further and get involved in the "Generational War" which happened two months later.
Today after getting the pin on current rival, Masa Kitamiya, Akitoshi Saito announced that he and Naomichi Marufuji will be challenging for the GHC Heavyweight Tag Belts.
WINNER: Akitoshi Saito with the Deathblade on Masa Kitamiya (11 minutes and 17 seconds)
MATCH 6
Daisuke Harada vs Hitoshi Kumano (GHC Junior Heavyweight Championship match)
Hitoshi Kumano (with an interesting choice of colorful language) had vowed to take the title from Daisuke Harada, and Harada had dismissed his challenge as inconsequencial (although he did admit that Kumano was strong) and vowed to end this nonsense today at Korakuen Hall.
Hitoshi Kumano became the latest in a long line of challengers to be defeated by Daisuke Harada (it is thought that Yoshinari Ogawa will challenge next, although this picture makes me wonder if Hajime Ohara will again)
It was noted today that although Hitoshi Kumano has come far and is ready to start finding his own feet, he is not quite ready yet for a championship.
WINNER: Daisuke Harada with with Katayama German Suplex (15 minutes and 26 seconds)
MATCH 7
Takashi Sugiura vs Kenoh (GHC Heavyweight Championship match)
I dare you to look up the word "war" and see if you can find a more powerful word.
The fight today went beyond a war. It was intense and I am amazed that Korakuen Hall was even left standing as they bought the walls down. The atmosphere amongst the fans was one of frenzy (especially when Kenoh went to do the diving footstomp to the outside).
Takashi Sugiura was seconded by old friend Masato Tanaka (who as a second made a very good one, watch the FMW videos when he seconded Hayabusa, the care he had for him is very touching), and Kenoh was seconded by two people he can't stand (Kaito Kiyomiya and Atsushi Kotoge).
At the time of writing Noah have not updated the results, but Takashi Sugiura won after a long hard fight, with the Olympic Slam.
Kenoh sloped off to the back to lick his wounds (and prepare to fly to London for FrontLine) and Go Shiozaki appeared and challenged Takashi Sugiura for the belt.
There has been some amazement that Kenoh did not win, but Kenoh needs a little longer to make it meaningful. He is on a journey, and it would be a shame if that journey was over after only three months.
1,517 were in attendance today.
There had been a lot of speculation over the announcement that would be made that evening, someone proposed that KENTA might not be the only WWE bargained for...after all, there is "The Mighty Don't Kneel", Chris Hero....
A dancer trained in Chinese Beijing Opera came to the ring prior to the first match and did the dance of The Monkey King (Sun Wukong in Chinese) from the epic tale "Journey to The West" in full traditional garb.
MATCH 1
Maybach Taniguchi, Mitsuya Nagai, KAZMA SAKAMOTO & Cody Hall vs KENSO, Chang Yufeng, Lin Dongxuan & Sun Yi Lin
KENSO had had a hand in training the three men from "Eastern Heroes" in Beijing and today teamed with them against mortal enemies Taniguchi, Nagai and Cody Hall. KAZMA was also back.
Sadly not much was said about the Chinese athletes (or the match), except that they were impressive and they pulled off some pretty risky maneouvres. Afterwards they worked at ringside as seconds.
Although it was not publically announced, Cody Hall will be returning to America. He will return in September for "Flight", but no other participation has been confirmed yet.
WINNER: KAZMA SAKAMOTO with the running knee on Sun Yi Lin (10 mins and 35 seconds)
MATCH 2
Hajime Ohara & Junta Miyawaki vs Seiya Morohashi & LEONA
Hajime Ohara has been giving Junta Miyawaki a bit of mentoring recently, and the input of both himself and Yoshinari Ogawa was seen today when Miyawaki debuted a new submission move.
LEONA (who teamed with and will team with Seiya Morohashi at Global Junior Tag League) has come a thousand miles from what he was like at the beginning of the year. The somewhat timid looking boy, has been replaced with a guy with a bad attitude, and who can carry it off well. New ring attire, new attitude, new music, new LEONA.
He and Junta Miyawaki have a small rivalry going on. The last time they met LEONA threw him out of the ring and stalked to the back, acting as if he was angry that Noah sent him such children to fight. In this match he got Miyawaki to tap out by using a submission move. Despite this, Junta Miyawaki was said to be impressive today.
WINNER: LEONA with Four Foot Compression (8 mins and 55 seconds)
MATCH 3
Hi69, Minoru Tanaka & Yoshinari Ogawa vs Tadasuke, HAYATA & YO-HEY
The lights flooded the ring purple, the color of RATELS, but this was by far the nicest thing to happen to RATELS today as their opponents tortured them. HAYATA had his knee attacked again, Tadasuke had a sustained attack on his arm (he said unsurprisingly afterwards that it hurt); only YO-HEY so far has managed to escape them too much, although Hi69 says that they are coming for him.
At the end of the match, RATELS were thrown out of the ring.
WINNER: Minoru Tanaka with the Minoru Special on Tadasuke (9 mins and 37 seconds)
Then came the big moment.
Naomichi Marufuji came out to the ring and announced the card for his 20th anniversary show "Flight" which will take place on 1st September at Sumo Hall.
FULL CARD FOR "FLIGHT"
Mohammed Yone & Junta Miyawaki vs Mitsuo Momota & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi
Akitoshi Saito, Masao Inoue & Hikaru Kawabata vs Takuma Sano, Tamon Honda & Shiro Koshinaka
Quiet Storm & Tadasuke vs Takao Omori & Cody Hall
YO-HEY & HAYATA vs Kaz Hayashi & Shuji Kondo
Hi69, Minoru Tanaka & Kotaro Suzuki vs Hajime Ohara, Hitoshi Kumano & Seiya Morohashi
Katsuhiko Nakajima, Masa Kitamiya & Taiyo Kea vs Go Shiozaki, Kaito Kiyomiya & Yoshinari Ogawa
Kenoh, Maybach Taniguchi & Atsushi Kotoge vs Sanshiro Takagi, HARASHIMA & Dino
Takashi Sugiura & Daisuke Harada vs Jun Akiyama & Atsushi Aoki
Naomichi Marufuji vs KENTA
(Interestingly out of all the old Noah dojo boys, Yoshinobu Kanemaru is missing).
It was revealed that the deal with KENTA was that he would appear for one night only, go by his WWE name and music, and the negotiations had been dragging on for months.
Misawa had worked another miracle for his all but legally adopted son, which was what Marufuji was to him.
MATCH 4
50 Funky Powers (Mohammed Yone & Quiet Storm) vs Atsushi Kotoge & Kaito Kiyomiya
Atsushi Kotoge is on a quest to get someone of the "Super New Generation Army" to wear his cape (Hajime Ohara doesn't count as he only did it for some fun, and besides he is a junior heavyweight).
So he once again tried Kaito Kiyomiya.
Kiyomiya, a little less polite now, stared blankly at him.
"Disco Fever" vs "The Revolutionary Fist" was also back again.
Atsushi Kotoge was taken out by the Funky Buster Bomb, and Kaito Kiyomiya carefully rolled him (and the cape) out of the ring.
WINNER: Mohammed Yone with the Funky Buster Bomb on Atsushi Kotoge (10 minutes and 22 seconds)
MATCH 5
Naomichi Marufuji, Akitoshi Saito & Masato Tanaka vs Katsuhiko Nakajima, Masa Kitamiya & Go Shiozaki
This match wasn't really very remarkable for what happened in it, but rather what happened after it.
Since 2009, Akitoshi Saito has worked the opening matches. Its not a sign that Noah have in his abilities, (or that of the fans), its that since the accident with Misawa, Saito understandably suffered a knock in his confidence and he didn't want to get involved in story-lines or title matches. Noah let him do this, and now it seems that after nine almost ten years, he is ready to go again, but for years he quietly worked the opening matches.
Noah did start to tentatively prepare for him to have a larger role by having him do comedy with Masao Inoue (which worked, although they didn't win or even have any success in Global Tag League), Saito seemed happy with it though, and the crowd responded well to him doing it. I think this gave Saito the confidence to take things a little further and get involved in the "Generational War" which happened two months later.
Today after getting the pin on current rival, Masa Kitamiya, Akitoshi Saito announced that he and Naomichi Marufuji will be challenging for the GHC Heavyweight Tag Belts.
WINNER: Akitoshi Saito with the Deathblade on Masa Kitamiya (11 minutes and 17 seconds)
MATCH 6
Daisuke Harada vs Hitoshi Kumano (GHC Junior Heavyweight Championship match)
Hitoshi Kumano (with an interesting choice of colorful language) had vowed to take the title from Daisuke Harada, and Harada had dismissed his challenge as inconsequencial (although he did admit that Kumano was strong) and vowed to end this nonsense today at Korakuen Hall.
Hitoshi Kumano became the latest in a long line of challengers to be defeated by Daisuke Harada (it is thought that Yoshinari Ogawa will challenge next, although this picture makes me wonder if Hajime Ohara will again)
WINNER: Daisuke Harada with with Katayama German Suplex (15 minutes and 26 seconds)
 |
| "The old man is not defeated yet" - Takashi Sugiura |
Takashi Sugiura vs Kenoh (GHC Heavyweight Championship match)
I dare you to look up the word "war" and see if you can find a more powerful word.
The fight today went beyond a war. It was intense and I am amazed that Korakuen Hall was even left standing as they bought the walls down. The atmosphere amongst the fans was one of frenzy (especially when Kenoh went to do the diving footstomp to the outside).
Takashi Sugiura was seconded by old friend Masato Tanaka (who as a second made a very good one, watch the FMW videos when he seconded Hayabusa, the care he had for him is very touching), and Kenoh was seconded by two people he can't stand (Kaito Kiyomiya and Atsushi Kotoge).
At the time of writing Noah have not updated the results, but Takashi Sugiura won after a long hard fight, with the Olympic Slam.
Kenoh sloped off to the back to lick his wounds (and prepare to fly to London for FrontLine) and Go Shiozaki appeared and challenged Takashi Sugiura for the belt.
There has been some amazement that Kenoh did not win, but Kenoh needs a little longer to make it meaningful. He is on a journey, and it would be a shame if that journey was over after only three months.
1,517 were in attendance today.
Comments
Post a Comment
Spam will be deleted immediately