(NOAH) Finally happened! Yoshinari Ogawa's first GHC Junior challenge! ~ "It's not very exciting if you leave it to the young guys".

 

Noah.co.jp
2nd January 2020

Yoshinari Ogawa special feature

~ Admiration for Mitsuharu Misawa on the road to being a professional wrestler
~ GHC Heavyweight champion
~ First GHC Junior challenge
~ "I'll destroy everything", interview with Weekly Pro

Admiration for Mitsuharu Misawa on the road to being a professional wrestler

After making his debut in All Japan, he was active as a junior wrestler while learning wrestling techniques. After building his era as a junior, he was selected as Misawa's partner from 1998, which increased his battles against the heavyweights. Through learning through experience, he has trifled with heavyweight wrestlers and despite his junior physique he is one of a kind. In 1999, he won the world tag title with Misawa, and proved his strength as Misawa's true partner, and since then he has been active in both junior and heavyweight.

GHC Heavyweight champion

Even after the move to Noah, he was active in techniques that made use of his speed, despite his junior weight, and despite the many super heavyweight wrestlers. In the tag with Misawa, the number of combinations increased, and they took the GHC Heavyweight tag twice in 2002.
Ogawa then set the standard for the GHC Heavyweight, which is said to be the top of Noah, and in the same year at the 7th April Ariake Coliseum, he pinned Jun Akiyama with his own technique, and became the third GHC Heavyweight champion.

In July 2005, the singles match at The Tokyo Dome with Genichiro Tenryu, who he had seconded after his debut, was a big topic. He made Tenryu angry with numerous provocations, that he had not done when he was attending. After the match, Tenryu acknowledged Ogawa after the match saying, "I did the match with respect."

First GHC Junior challenge

Since 2010 he has been active as a junior, and in 2013, he teamed with Zac Sabre Jnr to join the junior heavyweight tag league. Unfortunately, they missed out on the victory, but the sustained combination increased the accuracy, and in December of that year they became for the first time, the GHC Junior Tag champions. Called the Japanese-English tag, they showed their presence in the Noah juniors.

He was crowned for the fourth time with the GHC Junior tag on February 24th 2019, with his partner Kotaro Suzuki, who is part of the same unit of STINGER.
Participating in Global Jnr Tag League 2019 as the GHC Junior Tag champions, they succeeded in five defenses with overwhelming strength, such as winning the final at the "Mitsuharu Misawa Memorial Tournament", and winning the championship, keeping the tag titles for about nine months.

In STINGER, a unit equipped with talented people such as Ogawa, Kotaro, Atsushi Kotoge and Chris Ridgeway, and as leader he played a central role in their strength in 2019.
On December 3rd, as the fight between STINGER and RATELS intensified, Ogawa, who had been away from the singles title front for a while, finally stirred! Aiming for the GHC Junior that HAYATA currently holds, who had just defeated the challenge of Ridgeway, he made his own bid. This is the first time, despite being a 35 year veteran, that he has challenged for the GHC Jnr.

Like a demon he attacked HAYATA'S knees from the pre-matches. In Sendai, the referee stopped the match. In Hachinohe, Harada threw in towel as HAYATA'S knees were relentlessly attacked, and the champion was overwhelmed.
HAYATA seemed to be heading into the title match with disadvantage, and in the final round of Aomori, HAYATA hit Ogawa with his special skill, the Headache, and the pre-match ended as Ogawa was stretched out. Finally, only the Korakuen Hall event is left, which will take place on January 4th 2020.

In Global Jnr League 2020, which starts on January 10th, the current champion HAYATA and the challenger, Yoshinari Ogawa, will be participating in the same A block. As the GHC Junior champion, who will be in the league as the centre of the Noah juniors?!

"I'll destroy everything"

In a statement in an interview on January 1st with "Weekly Pro", he said that the RATELS vs STINGER fight was "a good feeling", and then he suddenly said, "but I guess that flow is going to be destroyed."
He also gave his thoughts on the GHC, touching on the belt that he had won in the past, "All my thoughts are on the belts created by Misawa", and referring to the GHC Junior challenge he said, "It's not very exciting if you leave it to the young guys". After saying, "If I can get the belt..", after that the remark about leaving STINGER also came out.
As expected, is this meaning of "destroy everything?"

Link to original article from Noah.co.jp
Picture credit: Noah.co.jp