(NOAH) N-1 VICTORY, SEMI-FINALS (Korakuen Hall, 9th September 2019)

 

"It's not dramatic, but Noah is changing steadily"

Typhoon Faxai rolled into Japan late on the night of the 8th September 2019, and the worst typhoon in 25 years bought chaos to Tokyo when the city awoke and got ready to go to work on a Monday morning. Rain and high winds bought chaos to travel with the trains not running, and the roads full of traffic. The problems were such that even the Lawson ticket machines stopped working, leading Noah to upgrade some seats.
However, fans were not to be put off, (the trains might have improved, the weather might have been better, but the traffic was still dire), and 1,103 people came to the show - even some old fans who either hadn't been to Noah since the Misawa Memorial show in June, and some even longer than that. No matter whether they were new fans, old fans, regular fans or any other fans, everyone agreed that Noah was amazing today. 

In the interval (big shows are the traditional signs for announcing this), Noah announced that they were running two shows in early January 2020 at Korakuen Hall, on the 4th and 5th January. This would bring them on one night in direct competition with New Japan up at the Dome, the other show would be on the same day, but Noah would be having theirs at 11.30 and New Japan at 3pm. Noah's President Takeda spoke on this to Boku Pro, saying ""2020 will be a competitive year for Noah, so I want to start with a drastic new challenge. I decided to take on the challenge because I thought that it would produce a good synergistic effect for the industry. "

Today's event will be broadcast on Samurai TV on the 15th September.

MATCH ONE
50 Funky Powers (Mohammed Yone & Quiet Storm) vs Sonico & Hitoshi Kumano

Although he did not get the win today, Hitoshi Kumano put his apprenticeship in Kumaxiz to good use and reflected that being a second in the N-1 for the heavyweights, has taught him how to bring down larger wrestlers.

WINNER: Mohammed Yone with the Funky Buster Bomb on Sonico (3 minutes, 59 seconds)

MATCH TWO
The Return of The Dark Agents (Akitoshi Saito & Masao Inoue) vs The Tough (Masa Kitamiya & Yoshiki Inamura)

Fans talked about Yoshiki Inamura's growth as a wrestler (and he himself said that he is continuing rapidly in this for the match in Osaka), unintentionally one fan took a picture which captured a red streamer getting caught in his mohawk...the bell rang, and The Tough beat up on an old man who suffers the double affliction of gout, and being stalked by Takashi Sugiura (who posted during the last tour that he had heard Inoue in the bathroom stall making loud rude noises with no shame for lots of people being around)

WINNER: Yoshiki Inamura with the Oklahoma Stampede (6 minutes, 59 seconds)

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

Today's match was the last pre-match between Atsushi Kotoge and Daisuke Harada ahead of the IPW Junior Heavyweight championship in Osaka on the 16th, and the last opportunity YO-HEY had to wind HAYATA up before their own.
One fan described this match as "teamwork and tempo", with bodies flying everywhere.

WINNER: Daisuke Harada with the Katayama German Suplex on Atsushi Kotoge (10 minutes, 11 seconds)

After the mass brawl between The Sugiura Army (NOSAWA Rongai & Hajime Ohara), RATELS and STINGER at the end of the match, Noah management finally put their foot down to bring about an end to the squabbling between STINGER, The Sugiura Army & RATELS over the belts, by announcing online that as they challenged first then The Sugiura Army (NOSAWA Rongai and Hajime Ohara) could challenge for the GHC Junior Tag titles on the 23rd September. RATELS (Daisuke Harada & Tadasuke) will challenge the winners on the 3rd October at Korakuen Hall.
Harada told Kotoge when Stinger were leaving, that just because he had come back from the Heavyweights, he shouldn't think that he could beat the Noah juniors.
Kotoge said that he regrets the loss, and he feels shameful, but he has no choice but to grit his teeth and bear it.

YO-HEY also addressed HAYATA. He had a big grin on his face while he spoke. I am afraid I don't know what he said. Then he cut some kind of manic promo backstage about "the couples confrontation" being "dignified".

MATCH FOUR
N-1 VICTORY
Naomichi Marufuji vs Alex Hammerstone

Naomichi Marufuji said that he knew that win or lose,it would make no difference whatsoever to his standing in the league, but he was going to bring the wrestling that he was known for to this much anticipated match.
Hammerstone basically threw him about the ring, and at one point did the Burning Hammer on the ring apron.

WINNER: Alex Hammerstone with The Pendulum Nightmare (12 minutes, 35 seconds)

At the end of this beat down, Alex Hammerstone stood over his fallen opponent, and laughed.
Naomichi Marufuji, (who finished the league with 0 points), gave him the finger from the floor. He later wrote that as he will be 40 this month he could no longer give 100%, he needed to now give 120%. 

MATCH FIVE
Kaito Kiyomiya, Minoru Tanaka, Hi69, Junta Miyawaki & Seiya Morohashi vs The Sugiura Army (Hajime Ohara, NOSAWA Rongai & Kinya Okada) & El Hijo de Dr Wagner Jnr.

One fan remarked that there was a color clash between the two teams, The Sugiura Army looked somber in black, while their opponents were more colorful.

Kinya Okada and Kaito Kiyomiya squared up...and later in the match Okakin (whose fans seem to being referred to among themselves as "Okakists") found himself trapped with Hi69 and Minoru Tanaka holding his arms out to the side, while Junta Miyawaki climbed on his shoulders.

WINNER: KAZMA SAKAMOTO with the Pop up Powerbomb on Junta Miyawaki (9 minutes, 49 seconds)

MATCH SIX
N-1 VICTORY
Kenoh vs Katsuhiko Nakajima 

Kenoh and Katsuhiko Nakajima did what everyone knew they would - when Takashi Sugiura and Go Shiozaki fight, its elbows and punches, with Kenoh and Nakajima, its increasingly stiff kicks.
The match started in the usual way, them both squaring up to each other (Nakajima looking smug, Kenoh scowling and muttering under his breath), until the referee separated them.
The match was said to be so stiff that some fans were in tears. 

WINNER: Kenoh via referee stop following right high kick (15 minutes, 3 seconds)

After the match, both Kenoh and Nakajima sat and looked at each other, then Kenoh left the ring. Nakajima was able to speak on the microphone to tell Kenoh, "I don't like you, but go to the final." (Nakajima means that he wants Kenoh to do it for the younger generation of Noah)
Later he said, that it was the end of his summer.

RATELS were photographed watching from the balcony. Interestingly, Harada stood with HAYATA, and YO-HEY with Tadasuke, the two balcony areas separating "The Blonde Couple".

MATCH SEVEN
N-1 VICTORY
Shuhei Taniguchi vs Masaaki Mochizuki

With Kenoh's win putting him at an unreachable six points, Shuhei Taniguchi knew before his match that winning wouldn't get him into the N-1 VICTORY Finals, but as he was Noah born, he had another mission to fulfil and beating his opponent would serve a purpose, and that was to defeat DragonGate's Masaaki Mochizuki and stop "an outsider" from getting into the finals.

WINNER: Shuhei Taniguchi with the Wyvern Catch (10 minutes, 39 seconds)

MATCH EIGHT
N-1 VICTORY
Takashi Sugiura vs Go Shiozaki

"Gotch once said, “The wrestler's heyday is 35 to 45 years old”, but Takashi Sugiura is 49 years old, when is your heyday? Is it still ahead?"

For those of us not at the arena, we had a pro wrestling photographer called NAPPONxxx who took the most amazing (and brutally raw pictures of this match), and you can imagine just how brutal it was from looking at them. The pictures showed just how much Sugiura was chopped by Shiozaki to bust his chest open (you can imagine just how hard these must have been as it took him about three or four shots), the skin folding at Shiozaki's neck as Sugiura's knee connected with his lower chin and shoulder, and the brutality of this beyond "Golden Era" match that they put on on. Naomichi Marufuji once spoke about a match between himself and Sugiura that "only we can do", the same can be said about Sugiura and Shiozaki too.
They pulled out everything for this match, Shiozaki even at one point dropkicking Sugiura off the top of a turnbuckle.

WINNER: Takashi Sugiura with the Olympic Slam (23 minutes, 10 seconds)

After the match, Kenoh came storming to the ring to face his opponent. Grabbing the microphone even he had to recognize the 49 year old Sugiura's stamina, strength and resilience, but he said that if this was allowed to triumph then Noah would not progress, and he would defeat him on the 16th and become the number one heavyweight.
Sugiura responded by saying that he was going to win all four matches, and he wasn't going to lose to Kenoh.

NOAH'S NEXT SHOW: Monday September 16th, Osaka Edion 1st Stadium, Osaka 
ATTENDANCE: 1103
WITH THANKS TO: Tobi, Metal Noah, Abeshin, FarFlower, NAPP0Nxxx, Shu Nishinaga, Yohei, Teddy106, Yamashiro, Jonbei, Osamu Kawada    
PICTURE CREDIT: Tadasuke, Noah GHC, PXDX, Atsushi Kotoge
GIF CREDIT: Republic News

(After the match Shu Nishinaga found a packet of curry crisps and said that he was amazed he had found any, the prefecture seemed to be running out of them, the reason? The flavor and the brand are a favorite of the Noah wrestlers, who had practically eaten all of them!)