(NOAH) Event recap - Lake Hamana Boat Race, Hamamatsu ~ 1st February 2020

Lake Hamana lies in Shizuoka prefecture, and is actually a lagoon (brackish, which means it has a mixture of salt and freshwater from both ocean and estuary), which has been developed for motorsports and pleasure sailing (naturally, this being early spring February by the lake, there was a strong and cold wind blowing.). Junta Miyawaki said that he used to come here as a child with his father. Noah came here today to a hold free events to introduce people who normally wouldn't watch wrestling, to the promotion, and in the case of the auctions, to raise money for charity.

The crew came the day before to set up the ring, with the roster (plus trainees), arriving the next day. As the days schedule started at 11.20am, they had to leave early in the morning as the drive was about 3 - 4 hours, with Kaito Kiyomiya photographing himself (bags under eyes) in a deserted children's playground.

The day ran as follows:
11:20 Gymnastics class for children (Kinya Okada & Hajime Ohara)
11:49 Auction Part 1 (Naomichi Marufuji)
12:19 Auction Part 2 (Kaito Kiyomiya)
12:49 Naomichi Marufuji & Chihiro Oyama* talk show
13:20 Match 1 (Tadasuke vs Kinya Okada)
13:51 Match 2 (The Sugiura Army (Takashi Sugiura & Hajime Ohara) vs Shuhei Taniguchi & Junta Miyawaki)
14:23 Match 3 (AXIZ (Go Shiozaki & Kaito Kiyomiya) & Kaito Kiyomiya vs Kongoh (Kenoh, Masa Kitamiya & Yoshiki Inamura)
14:55 Children can play in the ring (overseen by Kinya Okada)
15:30 Boat race prediction (Naomichi Marufuji, Go Shiozaki and Katsuhiko Nakajima)

*A boat racer from Fukuoka Prefecture. Born in 1996 (which makes her roughly the same age as Kaito Kiyomiya), her mother had been boat racer, and they became the first mother and daughter duo to race together.

Noah ran a merchandise stall, in which the most popular items were the AXIZ hats and the LIDET t-shirts (which sold out quickly).

Gymnastics class for children
Hajime Ohara jokingly introduced Kinya Okada by saying, "he might be a hopeless guy who has wasted his educational background, but his mat exercises are amazing". Naturally, Ohara was said to be kind, gentle and made things very easy to understand for the children.

The Auctions
Two auctions were held for charity (I am afraid I don't know which one, but I did hear about it being something for the support of women boat racers), in which Noah sold their own items, such as Kaito Kiyomiya's training gear, and signed merchandise. A t-shirt signed by the entire roster exceeded 10,000 yen in bids and final sale. Naomichi Marufuji and Hoshino (the lady who hosted the YouTube videos) did the one at 11:49, with Kaito Kiyomiya and Chihiro Oyama doing the second one.

Naomichi Marufuji & Chihiro Oyama talk show
I don't have much on this I am afraid, but Marufuji and Oyama introduced themselves and each other to the fans who don't follow either wrestling or boat racing. Marufuji also talked about his knee injury.

The matches 
The format was to have a match, then a boat race, and this happened three times (with Kiyomiya's theme playing over one of the race footage). Happily, people who got up to watch the boat race live (and not on the monitors), returned to Sun Hall to see more of Noah. I don't have too much information on the results, aside from Kaito Kiyomiya pinned Yoshiki Inamura with the Tiger Suplex, but;

~ Tadasuke said the old men in the crowd took a liking to him, and chanted him to do the "Rolling Sobat kick" (aka the Jump Kick or the Axe kick)
~ Kenoh was on hand to square up to Kaito Kiyomiya
~ Melee brawl in the main event
~ Go Shiozaki used a very rare move for him, The Iron Claw, which he used on Masa Kitamiya

Kaito Kiyomiya spoke on the microphone after winning the main, and asked if pro wrestling appealed to fans who like water motorsports, then he went round the ring as per usual meeting the crowd. He was described as "sparkling".

Boat race prediction (Naomichi Marufuji, Go Shiozaki and Katsuhiko Nakajima)
Originally billed on the Noah site as it just being Marufuji, AXIZ joined him on stage. Shiozaki, as ever, had a fit of his infamous giggles, which Marufuji and Nakajima provoked even more. Even the watching Junta Miyawaki got his share of Marufuji's humor, when Marufuji told the whole room that Miyawaki's betting ticket was for 1,000 yen.
The dynamics between them and their method of predictions as to who would win the cup later in the month was interesting to see - Marufuji was said to be the more experienced (he after all, the oldest), Shiozaki (not very academic, but very good with people a good judge of people) went by intuition, while Nakajima (the maths genius) went by statistics. 

Hopefully we will get some YouTube footage of today's event.

With thanks to: Happin, Noah Boy's father, North Lake, Cat Girl

Links
Naomichi Marufuji & Shuhei Taniguchi visit Lake Hamana Part 1
Naomichi Marufuji & Shuhei Taniguchi visit Lake Hamana Part 2

AXIZ fan event at Lake Hamana (recap)

Picture credit: Noah GHC