(NOAH) EVENT RECAP ~ Korakuen Hall, Tokyo (16th November 2019, "STARTING OVER 2019")

"What will happen at today's Korakuen?"

Noah announced a rare live stream for today's show (you can find the link here, although if you are reading this a few days\weeks etc after the show, I cannot say whether or not it is still going to be there or chopped into individual matches). Noah seem to have got the live streaming quality down now, as there was no lag which had been a minor problem in some earlier shows.

Although people tuned in worldwide, to the venue itself Korakuen had an attendance of 805, I think that this partly may have been caused by the travel issues that affected Tokyo today (two of the main lines leading to Korakuen were effected by works, especially the all important Yamanote). However, despite the attendance being less than one thousand, the crowd were enthusiastic and vocal, and you could be forgiven for thinking that more people were there.

There was a huge buzz around the emotional Osaka boys turned enemies, Daisuke Harada vs Atsushi Kotoge (once the "Momo no Seishun" ~ The Peach Youths) fighting for the IPW Junior Heavyweight, and Kenoh's challenge to Kiyoshi Tamura.


Naomichi Marufuji (whose voice featured in an alarm clock you could win) and Takashi Sugiura took charge of the fan club and the merchandise.

Announcements
Korakuen Hall is the traditional place for Noah to make their big announcements, and they had announced previously that they would be making some today.
The first announcement was of the new tour after Junior Global League wraps up (February and March) with the second and third announcements concerning the Kongoh and Sugiura Army produce.

Kongoh announced that Daisuke Sekimoto will be appearing at their produce in a singles match against Yoshiki Inamura.

The Sugiura Army announced that at their produce not only would Hideki Suzuki, Kazuyuki Fujita and Kazushi Sakuraba be appearing (matches to be announced) but Hajime Ohara's 15th anniversary match would take place there. Ohara will team with his teacher, Ultimo Dragon, and Shiro Koshinaka vs NOSAWA Rongai, FUJITA and MAZADA.

MATCH ONE
Minoru Tanaka, Hitoshi Kumano & Junta Miyawaki vs The Sugiura Army (KAZMA SAKAMOTO, Hajime Ohara & Kinya Okada)

Like his dojo mate\roommate\and "rival", Kinya Okada is still running to the ring. Miyawaki however seems to have grown out of this. He was also seen holding back Minoru Tanaka, who was joking about really wanting to start against Okada.
Speaking of Okada in this match, there seemed to be hints of a possible Miyawaki vs Okada feud for the future.

The former partners (Hajime Ohara & Hitoshi Kumano, "The Backbreakers") faced off,  Hajime Ohara noted to have a taped knee. Later Miyawaki hit beautiful dropkick on Ohara, Ohara tortured him.

KAZMA did the shriek, which was imitated as shrilly by Hajime Ohara. Okada also joined in, but it was not as high (you kind of expect the Sugiura Army to bark).

Good energetic opener

WINNER: KAZMA SAKAMOTO with the pop up power bomb on Junta Miyawaki (9 minutes, 15 seconds)

MATCH TWO
50 Funky Powers (Mohammed Yone & Quiet Storm) vs The Return of The Dark Agents (Akitoshi Saito & Masao Inoue)

Masao Inoue entered the ring in a highly luminous t-shirt, and holding up the mask of The Destroyer (All Japan held the memorial event recently), and when he got into the usual struggle to take his t-shirt off, Akitoshi Saito went to put the mask on him. Sadly, this was the only time that Saito tried to prank Inoue.

Typically funny match with disco from 50 Funky Powers, Inoue bumbling around, and Saito yelling encouragement to him (at one point Yone had Inoue in the jaw lock, and said something back to Saito like "answer him", another overheard conversation was Inoue calling Quiet Storm a fool for trying to outfox him)

WINNER: Akitoshi Saito with the Suicludees on Quiet Storm (9 minutes, 27 seconds)

We discovered the reason for Saito's increased seriousness in the post match interview afterwards (although it probably won't stop him screwing Inoue over every now again), when he announced that he was forming a new group, the anti-wrestlers alliance.

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

No leather jackets today for RATELS (except the habitual Tadasuke), but they did come out to Tadasuke's music.
STINGER came out, and Chris Ridgeway stood and stared at HAYATA, who held up the belt to him. YO-HEY, however, was playing up to the chants in the hall.

Ridgeway and HAYATA started the match, with the fans loving the interaction between the two. Kotaro Suzuki and Tadasuke got into a fight outside the ring (Suzuki hopped over the barrier when Tadasuke went to throw him into it), the fight went right to 19 and they both looked at each other, stopped fighting, and then ran back into the ring.

Ironically, YO-HEY the only one of RATELS not in a title match with any of STINGER, was the one who got the brunt of STINGER'S torture, but he did manage to do one of his beautiful dropkicks (a double one).

WINNER: HAYATA with the roll up on Chris Ridgeway (16 minutes, 49 seconds)

Ridgeway went berserk after the match after the sneak pin, and decided to torture HAYATA'S arm until the referee pulled him off. Afterwards HAYATA and Ridgeway butted heads, and another fight broke out which YO-HEY and Ogawa had to separate.
Meanwhile, Tadasuke and Suzuki were fighting in the crowd.
The fight started to head backstage (after the third time of it being broken up, you could see YO-HEY rolling his eyes), in which HAYATA grabbed a chair (usual for him), ref removed it, and Ridgeway tortured his arm again. Yoshinari Ogawa and YO-HEY somehow managed to get order and separate the two teams.
Backstage YO-HEY cut a frenzied promo (which as you can probably tell I am really looking forward to unpicking) trying to control HAYATA and Tadasuke, who still wanted to fight.

MATCH FOUR
Kaito Kiyomiya, Naomichi Marufuji & Hi69 vs Kongoh (Kenoh, Masa Kitamiya & Yoshiki Inamura)

"Demon Kongoh co-operation"

Kenoh came stalking to the ring after Inamura charges through, but as his wrath is now directed towards a completely different target, he was not there to square up to Naomichi Marufuji when he bounced into the ring.

Kaito Kiyomiya made his own entry, and held up the belt to Kenoh. He got sworn at for his efforts.
Kenoh and Kiyomiya started the match off, with overwhelming chants for Kiyomiya. Kiyomiya was like another person since Sumo Hall, more confident, and playing up to the crowd a little more.

Yoshiki Inamura slammed Kiyomiya from his shoulder like he weighed nothing, and later did the same with Marufuji. Marufuji got revenge by throwing Inamura around outside the ring, where he got chopped (much to the delight of the crowd). Inamura really got it from the veterans in this match.

The crowd was chanting for Masa Kitamiya at some points (Kongoh are meant to be heels)

WINNER: Kenoh with PFS on Hi69 (16 minutes, 40 seconds)

After the match Kenoh started ranting about Kiyoshi Tamura again. He reiterated about his "biting", and what he had said in Osaka and tonight here at Korakuen Hall. He finished with saying about hearing the "UWF theme in Noah".

MATCH FIVE
IPW Junior Heavyweight Championship Match
Atsushi Kotoge (c) vs Daisuke Harada

IPW announced on the 15th November 2019 that their heavyweight championship would be defended one last time in December, and after that IPW would cease to do live shows. I am unsure as to whether the promotion is closing its doors or whether it is going through reconstruction. Nothing has been announced regarding the IPW Junior Heavyweight or the contender match in December, so I am not sure what the final outcome of this championship match is going to be, whether the belt will be repackaged, vanish in Noah, or return to IPW for whatever time is left to it.

RATELS came out to second Daisuke Harada with Kotaro Suzuki and Chris Ridgeway coming out to second Atsushi Kotoge (the two teams managed to stay away from each other).
The crowd where overwhelmingly for Harada, although this later split down the middle, especially with the high pitched end to the match with the last split second kick outs.

Atsushi Kotoge pulled out some high flying moves that he did not use as a heavyweight (dropkick from the top turnbuckle to the apron for example). Both were sadistic, with Kotoge showing a rare bit of frustration when he kicked one of the metal panels outside the ring after throwing Harada into it nearby (I think Kotoge laments the loss of their friendship than Harada does. Harada can forgive a lot, but he won't forgive anyone who betrays the juniors for the hated heavyweights).
After a beat down by Kotoge, Harada eventually had his "Shark Smells Blood" face on (which means he is going to mess you up), but Kotoge was all business in this somewhat technical match with a nasty slap war, which Harada won
I saw "somewhat technical" as Kotoge headbutted Harada, the sound made a dull thunk sound on the camera audio. Fortunately it did not draw blood, and despite the further loss of brain-cells for Kotoge, we are not talking Sugiura level head-butts.

It was an emotional match between two former friends, with a lot of near falls, in which both of them pulled out everything they had.
The crowd where at fever pitch.

WINNER: Daisuke Harada with the Katayama German Suplex (24 minutes, 6 seconds)

With this win, Daisuke Harada now holds two titles (he is never without a belt for long) and RATELS have once again monopolized all the junior titles in Noah.

MATCH SIX
AXIZ (Katsuhiko Nakajima & Go Shiozaki) & Shuhei Taniguchi vs The Sugiura Army (Takashi Sugiura, Hideki Suzuki & El Hijo de Dr Wagner Jnr)

Takashi Sugiura stood still and stared at Taniguchi when he entered the ring.
However, rather than finding this threatening and doing nothing, Taniguchi attacked Sugiura when Go Shiozaki and Hideki Suzuki were starting off and everyone just stood in the ring waiting (Nakajima got off the apron to look). Despite the referee breaking it up, it broke out again when Sugi attacked Taniguchi. In the meantime, AXIZ stood and watched with Suzuki waving his arms as if to say "come on, guys. Seriously?"
When they did eventually get back in the ring, Sugi destroyed Taniguchi with elbows and kicks to the head.

Nakajima wound El Hijo de Dr Wagner Jnr up and his Shiozaki chop challenge didn't go so well as Shiozaki floored him. Speaking of chops, Hideki Suzuki blocked Go Shiozaki's machine gun chops.
Yes. Blocked.
People don't block them.
However, El Hijo de Dr Wagner Jnr got his revenge on AXIZ when he took them on, and basically knocked them down.

The second time they got in the ring, brutal elbows flew between Taniguchi and Sugiura (Taniguchi knocked Sugi down this time.) Taniguchi was busted open by Sugiura again, and vicious fight between them erupted in the latter stages of the match, with Taniguchi using the kicks to the head that Fujita had used.

WINNER: Shuhei Taniguchi with the diving body press (23 minutes, 13 seconds)

As the Sugiura Army made their way out of the ring, (with Sugiura motioning to Wagner to get the belt), Shuhei Taniguchi addressed the crowd, which is rare. He basically said that he would make big flowers bloom in the title match.

ATTENDANCE: 805
WITH THANKS TO: Abeshin, Metal Noah 
PICTURE CREDIT: Noah GHC, YO-HEY, PKDK
NOAH'S NEXT SHOW: 26th November 2019 (aside from the RATELS produce on the 24th)