(NOAH) Event recap ~ Niigata City Gymnasium (26th November 2019)

After the successful live stream of the RATELS produce on Sunday 24th, Noah announced that they would be streaming another show live on their official YouTube channel, today's event from the sea green Niigata City Gymnasium (please note that Noah do not keep the shows up permanently, they cut them up into individual matches, so the link above may take you to the official site and not the event itself, although you should be able to find individual matches from there).
People watched it from all over the world - some while commuting home on packed trains, others having come home from work and eating dinner, others watching the GHC Junior Tag sheltering under a bike shed during a rainstorm (yes, that last one was me).

Today's show would have gone unnoticed save for Twitter comments had it not been broadcast, which would have been a real shame. Misawa would have been very proud of Noah tonight, especially the Noah juniors who in the last three days have just about managed to overshadow their rivals, the heavyweights.

MATCH ONE
Hi69, Minoru Tanaka & Junta Miyawaki vs The Sugiura Army (Hajime Ohara, NOSAWA Rongai & Kinya Okada)

Kinya Okada is still running to the ring (Miyawaki seems to have outgrown that), but both he and his budding rival were still being advised by the vets on the apron, who were encouraging the younger wrestlers. Okada looks to have bulked up suddenly, and even got Miyawaki in a submission hold that got the crowd screaming. Minoru Tanaka decided that he wanted Okada, and Okada felt the same, but sadly was no match for him.

NOSAWA was up to the usual tricks outside the ring, in the ring Hi69 (who got a lot of loud calls) kicked him in the face for messing around.

Energetic opener, with Miyawaki still trying for that elusive second win over a senior.

WINNER: Hajime Ohara with the Mui Bien on Junta Miyawaki (12 minutes, 6 seconds)

MATCH TWO
Akitoshi Saito vs Masa Kitamiya

Hoss fight, both slammed into each other with such force that the building seemed to shake on each impact.
Don't be looking for anything technical in this match, this was just two guys hammering down. Good chance for Saito to show what he could do outside the confines of comedy with Masao Inoue, and many facets were shown here - such as his strength and his brutality, which I think often gets missed. There is a reason why Marufuji used to say that "my partner is Saito-san", and this is it.
It was also good for Kitamiya to take a momentary break from the tag team division, and do some singles work. Match can be summed up as brute force.

WINNER: Masa Kitamiya with the Saito Suplex (10 minutes, 16 seconds)

MATCH THREE
50 Funky Powers (Mohammed Yone & Quiet Storm) vs Kongoh (Kenoh & Yoshiki Inamura)

Hell hath no fury like a Kenoh scorned. When 50 Funky Powers entered the ring, they were given gifts and a chance to pose with some local ladies who worked for local sponsors of the show. Kongoh were not given any presents, or asked to pose for a photograph, and the referee held them back.

You can tell just by looking at him (the Mohican is a big clue), just what kind of music that Yoshiki Inamura is into, and its not disco. Neither was disco appreciated, as Inamura squared up to Yone on Yone's funky rope break "Disco Fever" pose.

"What you got, huh?" Quiet Storm asked Inamura
So, Inamura answered him by showing his massive strength, by charging at and launching Quiet Storm into the corner, and then slamming him down in the Oklahoma Stampede.

Kenoh meanwhile was pacing slowly and angrily around the ring when he got into it, making the quick hawk like movements with his head. All his movements are calculated and deliberate. He knows exactly what he is going to do at any given time. 

To put it simply, 50 Funky Powers were crushed by Kongoh.
Just like when Disco was destroyed by electronic funk.

WINNER: Kenoh with the PFS on Quiet Storm (8 minutes, 25 seconds)

MATCH FOUR
RATELS (YO-HEY & HAYATA) vs STINGER (Yoshinari Ogawa & Chris Ridgeway)

YO-HEY & HAYATA came out wearing the same outfits for  either for solidarity (or because YO-HEY seems to have this habit of wearing HAYATA'S clothes at times), YO-HEY even tucking one of the legs into his boots to make it shorter like HAYATA'S.

STINGER (who came to the ring first), attacked even before the announcer had finished saying "HAYATAAAAAA..." the fight between Ridgeway and HAYATA went into the crowd, as inside the ring, Ogawa was working on YO-HEY'S knee (all I could think of was Bill's line from "Kill Bill".... "do you find me sadistic?" and it was no wonder that the audio picked up YO-HEY swearing), despite the attack on his knee, YO-HEY however, still managed to pull out a dropkick.

Chris Ridgeway found inventive ways to torture HAYATA (such as catching him when somersaulting into the ropes and getting him into a submission), but HAYATA did an innovation of his own when he used Ridgeway's back to bounce off of in order to kick Ogawa in the head.

STINGER dominant and at their most sadistic, they kept RATELS grounded, and needless to say, this was a brutal match to watch.

WINNER: Chris Ridgeway with the German Suplex Hold on HAYATA (14 minutes, 1 second)

Ridgeway tapped HAYATA on the side of the head sarcastically after the match, and then he took the belt, and held it over him (while Ogawa beat up on YO-HEY'S knee for YO-HEY trying to push Ridgeway off of HAYATA'S knee). When STINGER had left the ring, and RATELS had struggled to their feet, HAYATA was unusually angry, before the "Married Couple" limped to the back.

MATCH FIVE
GHC JUNIOR TAG TITLE CHAMPIONSHIP
RATELS (Daisuke Harada & Tadasuke) vs STINGER (Kotaro Suzuki & Atsushi Kotoge)
Added to Hisame's Match of The Year 2019 list

Atsushi Kotoge did the right thing by returning to the Juniors, and Kotaro Suzuki did the right thing in returning to Noah (albeit as a freelancer), add in Ogawa and Chris Ridgeway to both STINGER and bringing a breath of fresh air to the Noah juniors, the division is very strong and very vibrant at the moment.

This was a real watch through your fingers match. So many near pinfalls on either side, Suzuki using Misawa's rope dive, the Outkast from the top turnbuckle, Kotoge moonsault (and about the fourth headbutt in the space of two days, although this one did not draw blood), the crowd were at fever pitch by the end of it. There was some unintentional comedy too when Suzuki managed to fall over a chair when Harada threw him into the crowd, both almost counted out when fighting outside the ring but looked at each other, stopped and then ran back in. 

Everyone fought to the bitter end. What more could they bring out? In the end exhaustion and Tadasuke's tendency to showboat to the crowd, which meant that Kotoge had time to recover while he was playing up, meant that RATELS lost the junior tag titles. Tadasuke at one point was so manic, he ignored Kotoge who had gotten to his feet and was trying to attack him as he was marching round the ring.

Yoshinari Ogawa and Chris Ridgeway came out to second STINGER, unsurprisingly YO-HEY & HAYATA did not for RATELS.  As they left the ring, Kotoge was heard telling Ridgeway "Next you! Next you!" (he means the junior championship that Ridgeway is challenging for)

WINNER: Atsushi Kotoge with the Killswitch on Tadasuke (20 minutes, 1 second)

Daisuke Harada has made no comment, but Tadasuke.....

MATCH SIX
GHC NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP (First ever defense)
Takashi Sugiura (c) vs Shuhei Taniguchi 

GHC National now has its own theme like all the other belts do.

There was no punches pulled in this match, the audio picked the impact up very clearly (and that of Taniguchi's headbutt). Taniguchi and Sugiura beat the hell out of each other throughout the whole match (nothing technical at all much happened here), and even the ref got thrown aside trying to pry Taniguchi off.

WINNER: Takashi Sugiura with the Olympic Slam (23 minutes, 59 seconds)

Masa Kitamiya (in Kongoh t-shirt) came out to challenge, and attacked Sugiura from behind, Saito suplexing him and knocking him down.
Kitamiya made his challenging saying he was going to challenge as Sugiura was the champion, and breaking through this wall was the barrier he needed to overcome to pull himself out of the dip he was in. Sugiura basically responded with, "bring it asshole, if you think you are hard enough. If you want it, try and take it."

Despite his trolling of him on social media, and his provoking him into doing and showing more, Sugiura did show some sympathy for his fellow soldier, and said that the flowers might not have bloomed today, but the petals were not faded or scattered.
Taniguchi himself has vowed to make an even bigger bloom.

MATCH SEVEN
Katsuhiko Nakajima & Go Shiozaki 15 Anniversary Debut Special Match
KUMAXIZ (Katsuhiko Nakajima, Go Shiozaki & Hitoshi Kumano) vs Kaito Kiyomiya, Naomichi Marufuji & Masao Inoue.

Masao Inoue appeared first to Naomichi Marufuji's music, and looked as if he was going to fall down the ramp as he walked down it. The crowd naturally wild for Marufuji, a little less so for Kiyomiya, but they were still vocal and animated to see him.
Then AXIZ sinister music hit, and with Kaito Kiyomiya in his white fluffy robe, and AXIZ in their sinister brown and black feathered coats, I can only think of the Noah joke of senior referee Nishinaga picking up the feathers that shed everywhere backstage.

Inoue was looking bruised even BEFORE this match began. There was some light comedy, with Shiozaki kicking him, chopping him and his telling him "don't be stupid" when he threw him into the corner. He also yelled to the referee that his count was terrible when trying to pin Shiozaki.
Inoue was menaced by Nakajima at the start of the match (who warned him not to try anything funny), and then he was intimidated by Shiozaki with a rope break.
It was also an audible "thunk" sound when Shiozaki hit him with the lariat for the pin.

Nakajima used the Misawa tag in for Kumano against Marufuji (Misawa used to do sudden tags in against an opponent, when he felt he wanted a rest), and Marufuji treated Kumano like a small boy (patting him on the head), Kumano (whose hair was purple and somewhat wild) was not appreciative and a chop fight broke out, at the end of this Kumano (for whom this was a very heavyweight match), was almost knocked out by Marufuji's high knee, and seemed to be suffering the effects of this throughout the match.
It didn't have the same effect on Katsuhiko Nakajima, however, who told Marufuji at one point his attacks were "no good" (he said the same to Kiyomiya).

If Hitoshi Kumano got it from Marufuji, then Kiyomiya got it from AXIZ - he took the dreaded kick\chop sandwich, and the machine gun chops. He did manage to revenge himself on AXIZ though by a double Misawa apron dive.

WINNER: Go Shiozaki with the short range lariat on Masao Inoue (23 minutes, 1 second)

Poor groggy Kumano was thrown back in the ring afterwards with AXIZ, with Shiozaki patting the bear. While Kumano found a big sack to lean on, Shiozaki spoke to the crowd, thanked them for coming, touched on Noah's 20th anniversary, and shook hands with Nakajima for both today, their upcoming match at Korakuen and their 15th anniversary debut, before doing the famous lean.

ATTENDANCE: 1020
GIF CREDIT: NOAH GHC
PIC CREDIT TADASUKE
WITH THANKS TO: METAL NOAH
NOAH'S NEXT EVENT: December 3rd, Korakuen Hall