(NOAH) Endo’s shocking entry into TEAM2000X and his instant capture of the GHC National Championship: A high-stakes gamble between truth and illusion.

Weekly Pro

29th January 2025

"Stake my life", it turned out to be true.

Last December, at the DDT event at Ryogoku, Tetsuya Endo disbanded the unit "Burning." After appearing at Noah’s events at Nippon Budokan and Shinjuku early in the year, he sought to trace the origins of Burning and declared: "In 2025, I will stake my life as a professional wrestler and step into the Noah ring."

In Shinjuku, Endo declared his challenge for Manabu Soya’s GHC National Championship, and a title match was promptly set for the main event of Noah’s Korakuen Hall show. Leading up to the bout, "intensity" emerged as a key theme, with the match viewed as a continuation of the battles waged by the "Burning" faction. True to form, the energy in the venue intensified as the match progressed.

However, just as the challenger climbed to the corner, aiming for a Burning Star Press, TEAM2000X appeared. Endo seemed taken aback at first, but...it turned out that everything had been orchestrated behind the scenes. After seizing Yoshi-Tatsu’s tonfa, ostensibly to ensure a "fair and square" contest, Endo instead used it to strike Soya.

He settled the match in one swift move, capturing the GHC National Championship at the first time of asking. Grabbing a microphone after the bout, he declared, "Noah’s style of pro-wrestling has completely ruined my life. The roots of 'Burning'? I couldn't care less about that from the start! I came here for one reason and one reason only: in 2025, I’m going to destroy Noah, and I’m putting my entire life as a wrestler on the line to do it." With that, he donned the T-shirt of the villainous faction.

He will never forget June 2022. At CyberFight Festival in Saitama, Tetsuya Endo was knocked out by a stiff palm strike from Katsuhiko Nakajima, who was with Noah at the time. That humiliating defeat, suffered while he held the KO-D Openweight Championship, proved to be the moment that fundamentally altered the course of his career.

Given his past in DAMNATION, his alignment with the "the bad guys" comes as no surprise; it feels like a natural progression for him to transform into a man consumed by a thirst for vengeance.

When confronted directly by this magazine, Endo stated firmly: "There is only one reason I’ve come here: to reclaim my shattered life—and to destroy Noah. I’m going to capture every single belt that carries the 'GHC' name, as a 'gift' to bring back to DDT."

As for his quest for revenge against Noah, there remains the reality that Nakajima himself is no longer with the promotion. Addressing this, Endo remarked, "I don’t know if he’ll ever step into this ring again, but my ultimate goal is to exact revenge on Katsuhiko Nakajima. That is unshakable."

A rematch against Soya, who remains unsatisfied, has been set for February 11th at Korakuen Hall. 

Ultimately, the true driving force behind his participation is a deep-seated resentment toward Noah, a reality that is nothing short of intense. 

With his very life on the line, Endo has set his sights on revenge.