(NOAH\IPW CHRONOLOGY) DAISUKE HARADA ~ IPW JUNIOR HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP

Won: Tuesday 15th January 2019, Unit Nine, Milton Keynes, England

Number of defenses: 3
Lost: Monday 16th September 2019, Osaka Edion 1st Arena, Japan
Total number of days held: 245 

Challengers
1. Hitoshi Kumano
2. Chris Ridgeway
3. Atsushi Kotoge

Inaugural title win
In late 2018/early 2019, IPW announced that they were bringing over Daisuke Harada, HAYATA, Tadasuke & YO-HEY to compete in their Junior Heavyweight Championship tournament in January. Normally all four of them together are known as "RATELS", but this was the period during in which YO-HEY had turned on the other three, and aligned with rival faction, STINGER.

The tournament was fought round robin style with the other competitors being Chris Ridgeway (who will feature again in Harada's title reign), James Castle, Kid Lykos, and Ben Basden.

In the first round of the tournament, Harada defeated Chris Ridgeway. Ridgeway went beserk about the loss and grabbed a chair from ringside and went to attack Harada. Harada, however, was saved by Kip Sabian ("Same old Ridgeway"). HAYATA defeated Kid Lykos with the "Headache", and YO-HEY and Tadasuke were defeated by James Castle and Ben Basden.
This left Harada and HAYATA facing each other, which Harada won with the Katayama German Suplex, and James Castle defeated Basden with the flying knee kick. With Tadasuke, YO-HEY & HAYATA now out of the tournament, as well as Ridgeway, Basden and Kid Lykos, it came down to Castle vs Harada. Harada prevailed with the Katayama German Suplex, and became the first IPW Junior Heavyweight Champion.
The belt was handed to him in a symbolic gesture by Doug Williams (who had competed in Noah during what was known as "The Golden Era"), who served both as special match commissioner and guest commentator. At this time Daisuke Harada was holding the GHC Junior Championship too.

VS HITOSHI KUMANO
As both companies were in a state of change, the title remained unchallenged for until 29th March 2019 at the final night of "Spring Navigation 2019", when Hitoshi Kumano made a challenge. Kumano's reason for challenging went far beyond just wanting a title (so far Noah's "Growing Bear" has only held the GHC Junior Tag with Hajime Ohara, albeit briefly), he wanted to use the belt to be able to work Europe as he felt he worked well with foreign wrestlers.
This was not the first time that Kumano had challenged for a belt that Harada was holding; he had challenged him on the 26th June 2018, and although successful in the pre-matches, Harada reduced him to a whimpering wreck in the title match. The Kumano who challenged in March, was a very different one, who was far more experienced. Harada who had previously warned him that he was "in over his head" in his last title challenge, had to take him seriously this time.

The title match (not televised) took place on Sunday 21st April 2019. It was fitting that the first ever defense for both the champion and the new belt, took place at the Mandaijima Multipurpose in Niigata, which was the first that Noah had ever run a show here. I am afraid that I don't have very much information on the title match itself, save that it has been compared to something you might have seen The Four Pillars done in All Japan in its intensity (plus a nasty looking DDT on the ramp). Daisuke Harada retained the title via Katayama German Suplex after 17 minutes and 16 seconds. In his post match promo he said that he wanted his next challenger to be British....

VS CHRIS RIDGEWAY

"My priority first is to break through the block of strong opponents, but I would still like to face the champion; Minoru Tanaka (GHC Junior Champion) or Daisuke Harada (IPW Junior Champion). I lost to Harada in my own country, and I want to take that belt someday." 
Chris Ridgeway)

Chris Ridgeway came to Noah in May 2019 to participate in Global Junior League (ironically he teamed with Harada's last challenger, Hitoshi Kumano). After the league when he and Kumano went their separate ways, he joined the STINGER unit of Yoshinari Ogawa and Kotaro Suzuki (YO-HEY had left and returned to RATELS, and Atsushi Kotoge would join in July 2019 after leaving the heavyweight division. Ridgeway was generally thought among fans to be a far better fit for STINGER than YO-HEY).
STINGER are RATELS enemies, and Chris Ridgeway was going to fit in very well, proving that he was just as sadistic as Yoshinari Ogawa could be (and no doubt to Ogawa's approval, who has hated RATELS since day one).
The title challenge was made in August 2019, and Ridgeway set about torturing Harada in the run up to the title match, first it was just simply making him tap, then it was taking off his boots and attacking his bare feet with submission moves. Then it was removing his boots, attacking his bare feet and attacking him a chair (there was no Kip Sabian to save Harada this time). This led to some matches being stopped and then restarted. Ridgeway wound Harada up into such a state, that he started giving interviews in his latest Osaka dialect (in one he said that as he was British, he thought that Ridgeway was a gentleman).

In the title match (a technical classic), which took place on 25th August 2019 at the Osaka Edion 2nd Stadium, Ridgeway again took of one of Harada's boots, and even took off the athletic tape around his foot in order to apply the ankle lock with more effectiveness, and so Harada went through the match barefoot (he took the other boot off as he couldn't walk properly), but managed to get the win via  Katayama German Suplex (14 minutes, 34 seconds).

VS ATSUSHI KOTOGE
After the match, Harada got on the microphone and asked "Who is next?"
The crowd nominated the only man that they could; fellow Osaka native, STINGER member and Daisuke Harada's former tag partner, Atsushi Kotoge.

Daisuke Harada and Atsushi Kotoge go way back, both native Osaka boys they both debuted in Osaka Pro (Kotoge in 2005, and Harada in 2006, Harada making his debut against Kotoge). In Noah they tagged together, and at the time when Kotoge left the junior division to go heavyweight in 2017, he was the GHC Junior Heavyweight champion and was holding the GHC Junior Tag belts with Harada. Harada never forgave him for abandoning both the juniors, and the titles. In Noah there is a slight resentment between the Noah juniors and the heavyweights (if Kenoh has his Budokan, then Harada has his 1st Arena), which has reared its head over the early summer and periodically surfaces. It's often that people leave the juniors for the heavyweights, but its rare that they return.
Kotoge had announced that he was leaving the heavyweight unit Kongoh in the late summer of 2019, and soon after returning to the juniors, had joined STINGER (as mentioned above). Harada was not impressed to see him return, and neither was he amused when the fans nominated Kotoge as challenger, telling him that he was going to humiliate him. Kotoge said that he didn't want to challenge, and Harada said that he didn't want to be challenged by him (he has also said that Kotoge shouldn't think he can not make his mark on the heavyweights, and then come back to the juniors and that maybe he should just quit wrestling). In his first match back to the junior division, Kotoge had actually beaten Harada (causing a massive Harada tantrum complete with throwing chairs), but he has not been too successful against Harada or RATELS since.

The title match between Osaka's native sons for a British championship, was set for the 16th September 2019 at the Osaka Edion 1st Arena.

The match started with the former tag partners staring at each other from across the ring, and it took the referee to get them going. Even though they had not teamed together since 2017, and faced each other rarely since then, they still knew each other all the too well and neither could get the advantage. In the end after a fierce battle, Kotoge got the win with the Overkill Killswitch (following one of his infamous headbutts), which is a modified version of his finisher that he had used twice on Harada in the past to get the win (one ironically in Osaka in 2015), after 16 minutes and 34 seconds to get the win and become the second IPW Junior Heavyweight title.

NEXT CHAMPION: Atsushi Kotoge