(NOAH) EVENT RECAP ~ N-1 VICTORY, NIGHT 7 (Korakuen Hall, 29th August 2019)

Pro Wrestling Noah returned to Korakuen Hall today to kick off the second part of N-1 VICTORY. Sadly the venue was not sold out with only 835 in attendance, but those who did come were on their feet and enthusiastic since the start.
Personally, I would rather see a small excited crowd, than a small bored one.

Noah also announced that they would be live streaming the show via their YouTube channel, which had about 17,871 people worldwide tune in. Naturally, some of the theme music had to be muted as a result as Noah do not own the rights. However, the technology they use does have a slight lag at times, but on the whole the broadcast went well.

Previous to all of this, NOSAWA Rongai had announced that he would be bringing another "friend" to Korakuen Hall today, which he termed as "The Last Successor", and Noah also had an announcement to make during the interval about a future participant, although this was not announced prior to the event.

Naomichi Marufuji (who celebrated his 21st anniversary in pro-wrestling with a small party at Yamada Maru, which is the former "Muscle Grill", which I believe he now owns), included Takashi Sugiura (and I like to think KENTA, although I doubt it), was on autograph duty.
Alex Hammerstone took charge of the Noah's Ark fanclub pictures.

MATCH ONE
50 Funky Powers & Sonico vs The Return of The Dark Agents (Akitoshi Saito & Masao Inoue) & Junta Miyawaki.

Lots of calls from the audience for Junta Miyawaki (and Sonico too), when they both locked up.
Energetic opening match with fast paced exchanges between Miyawaki and Sonico, which the crowd got behind. This is something that I think people would like to see more of.

WINNER: Sonico with the Swanton Bomb on Junta Miyawaki (8 minutes, 57 seconds)

At the end of the match, Mohammed Yone (with characteristic kindness), stopped Sonico from exiting the ring and told him to go and stand on the opposite turnbuckle to celebrate his win.

MATCH TWO
Yoshiki Inamura vs Kinya Okada

Battle of the big thicc beefy boys, which was dominated by the far more experienced and advanced Inamura. Sadly, Okada's career has been blighted due to injury which prevented him from debuting at the same time as Inamura, and then he had another spell which put him behind further.
The match was short, but the crowd were screaming at the end when Inamura had Okada in the Boston Crab.

WINNER: Yoshiki Inamura with the Boston Crab (3 minutes, 49 seconds)

Okada rolled out of the ring.
Inamura stood and watched him, hands on hips.

Then NOSAWA Rongai appeared and got into the ring. He had bought with him "The Last Successor", Kazuyuki Fujita, and he challenged Inamura to a singles match with him at Osaka.
Inamura's response was to first yell into the microphone (he did that afterwards as well) and then attacked Fujita. A fight broke out (with the crowd chanting for Inamura "Ina-kun...Ina-kun"), which NOSAWA had to break up, was a nice little taster of the match to come.
This will be a very good experience for Inamura, who says he realizes this is a big chance for him.

MATCH THREE
STINGER (Yoshinari Ogawa, Kotaro Suzuki, Atsushi Kotoge & Chris Ridgeway) vs RATELS (HAYATA, Daisuke Harada, Tadasuke & YO-HEY)

RATELS came out first, and got jumped by STINGER who did not wait for their own entrance. Kotoge attacking Harada (who hadn't even taken his jacket off). In the end it was Ogawa who helped Harada off with his jacket.
By flinging it into the crowd.

Tadasuke got into the ring like a manic whirlwind, knocking STINGER off the apron twice, and YO-HEY joined in with his fist pose on the apron (Harada was on the floor, HAYATA just watched).
Fast paced match, which made you quite understand why people in the countryside said that it was near impossible to take pictures. The crowd screamed when HAYATA did a massive over the top rope somersault.

Harada and Kotoge managed to roll back into the ring on the count of seventeen (everyone was outside the ring), and Harada got the pin.

WINNER: Daisuke Harada with the deformation pin on Atsushi Kotoge (9 minutes, 18 seconds)

The fight wasn't over, as Harada and Kotoge continued to go at it with the ref getting knocked down in the process, and then Kotoge angrily standing over him to protest the decision.
Harada told him to get lost.

Interestingly, Tadasuke didn't stay with the rest of RATELS to celebrate the win, and YO-HEY got into the ring with the GHC Junior Heavyweight on his shoulder.
HAYATA did a double take as he started parading around with it, and then asked for the belt back.
YO-HEY handed it over.
HAYATA was hesitant to take it, despite YO-HEY'S pleadings, but he did.
YO-HEY then tried to kick him.
HAYATA ducked.
YO-HEY made it look like it was all a jest, HAYATA didn't quite believe him.
YO-HEY is probably THE ONLY person who can irritate HAYATA. Many have tried. All have failed.
Thing is, they know each other too well.

MATCH FOUR
Katsuhiko Nakajima, Hi69, Hitoshi Kumano & Minoru Tanaka vs The Sugiura Army (Takashi Sugiura, KAZMA SAKAMOTO & Hajime Ohara) & El Hijo de Dr Wagner Jnr.

As music is not allowed, this makes a good substitute for "When Love Comes To Town"

Katsuhiko Nakajima and El Hijo de Dr Wagner Junior started the match. El Hijo making the mistake of offering his hand to, and then than shaking hands with Nakajima (who kicked him in the stomach).

The former Backbreakers (Hajime Ohara and Hitoshi Kumano) faced off, and Kumano still has a little blue in his hair left over from the Atsushi Aoki memorial show earlier this month.
Kick and chop battle between Takashi Sugiura and Katsuhiko Nakajima.

KAZMA SAKAMOTO did "the scream", which was imitated by both Takashi Sugiura and Hajime Ohara (I think this may be the first time that I know of that Ohara has done it).

Big applause for El Hijo de Dr Wagner Junior during the match, especially the moonsault at the end.

WINNER: El Hijo de Dr Wagner Junior with the Moonsault Press on Hi69 (11 minutes, 38 seconds)

The Sugiura Army then posed together to celebrate their win.
I guess El Hijo de Dr Wagner Jnr is now a member, as he was wearing a "Company Dog" t-shirt.

"Gore! Gore! Gore!"

During the intermission, Noah made an announcement.
A video package played announcing that IMPACT'S Rhyno would be appearing in Noah at the Edion Arena 1st Stadium Osaka event on 16th September.
Further match details are to be announced.

During the intermission, RATELS, squabble over (for now) appeared at the merchandise table.

MATCH FIVE
Kaito Kiyomiya & Alex Hammerstone vs Naomichi Marufuji & Shuhei Taniguchi.

Shuhei Taniguchi had warned Naomichi Marufuji yesterday that they would celebrate his 21st anniversary by taking on "the championship team", and he should take care he does not fall behind. Any feelings of comradeship were short lived, as at the beginning of the match, Taniguchi shoved Marufuji aside to start with Kiyomiya.
Taniguchi also refused to tag him in at one point.

Kaito Kiyomiya took the time to greet a small child on his way to the ring, while inside of it, Hammerstone and Marufuji squared up.
Kiyomiya got into the ring and held up the GHC Heavyweight to both Taniguchi and Marufuji. There were a lot of alternating and intermingling "Marufuji" and "Kaito" calls.

Marufuji and Hammerstone faced off ahead of their N-1 match (the ever curious Marufuji said at the N-1 press conference that he was only interested in wrestling the gaijin wrestlers), and he got his wish here - Hammerstone threw him around the ring after mocking the "Marufuji" chants.
Hammerstone not only no sold the infamous chops, he knocked Marufuji down in return. The Shiranui was met by Hammerstone picking him up and putting him on the turnbuckle.

WINNER: Alex Hammerstone with the Pendulum Nightmare on Shuhei Taniguchi (16 minutes, 2 seconds)

After the match, the champions posed with their belts.

MATCH SIX
N-1 VICTORY
Kenoh vs Masaaki Mochizuki
*Hisame's Match of The Year 2019*

Lets get one thing straight.
All they were going to do in this match pretty much was have a stiff kick competition, which got going as soon as the bell rang (at one point I thought Kenoh had been genuinely knocked out). Neither held back at all from anything, and the crowd volume rose in pitch with each kick, punch and anything else in between.
Crowd was on Kenoh's side pretty much, as he might not be a Noah born, and like Mochizuki come from elsewhere, but he is part of the home team.
Utterly brilliant stiff as hell match.

WINNER: Masaaki Mochizuki with the Triangular Kick (16 minutes, 53 seconds)

MATCH SEVEN
N-1 VICTORY
GO Shiozaki vs Masa Kitamiya

Masa Saito homed in on Go Shiozaki's heavily taped elbows and shoulder (which appeared to be giving him some pain at the start of the match). One of his knees is also heavily taped, and I did think that he had picked up an injury at one point, but he seemed to come through the match fine.
Hitoshi Kumano came out to second him.

It is very rare to see Shiozaki pull up the crash mats from outside the ring and expose the floor, (but this is a league), and in the event of things it was Kitamiya who drove his knees into it.

This match was brute force, full of chops, kicks, elbows and slams (perhaps the most technical thing you got was Masa Kitamiya's "Prison Lock" submission". This was not a technical match, this was a test of endurance and strength.
The crowd were on fire.

WINNER: Go Shiozaki with the Gowan Lariat (25 minutes, 23 seconds)

After the match Go Shiozaki cut an emotional promo thanking everyone for coming today. He also said that this is Noah, and at the center of it was Go Shiozaki.

NOAH'S NEXT SHOW: Friday September 6th
ATTENDANCE: 835
WITH THANKS TO: Metal Noah, Abeshin
GIF CREDIT: Noah GHC 

Before Noah chop it up, you may be able to catch the full event here from their official YouTube channel