(NOAH) Event recap ~ NOAH the SPIRIT 2020, Fuji San Messe (Night 2, 22nd March 2020)

Noah arrived on a cloudy spring day with Mount Fuji hidden by mist, the sky later improved as the evening set in, but the summit remained wrapped by swirling fog (when I passed by on the Bullet Train to Osaka, I had a perfect view of the mountain with bright blue skies). The light inside the venue always seems to mimic the mountain, the last time Noah where here it was greens and yellows, and today it was a stark winter-spring grey white like the sky.

Backstage Naomichi Marufuji took a rare video of himself, Mohammed Yone (who didn't seem to be wearing any pants) and Atsushi Kotoge throwing a shuttlecock into a cup, Marufuji had been inspired by this for some reason by a friend who is a darts player. Later that evening he was on autograph duty, which sadly due to the precautions against the Coronavirus created what one fan called "a sense of distance", which is one thing that Noah has always strived against as they pride themselves on making their roster visible and accessible to fans at events. Knowing that fans would like pictures, but naturally Noah are not allowing fan pictures at the moment due to the risk of infection, Marufuji posed for them (albeit on his own, and behind a barrier). Speaking of Marufuji, it looks like the issue over the cancelled date for the GHC Heavyweight Tag will be resolved as over in DragonGate today Takashi Yoshida and Diamante called out MochiMaru (Naomichi Marufuji and Masaaki Mochizuki) over it and the date of April 8th has been settled.

Sadly no part of the show today was live-streamed.

MATCH ONE
YO-HEY vs Kinya Okada

Kinya Okada tested his kicks on YO-HEY, at one point it looked like he was doing a flying kick too.

WINNER: YO-HEY with the Face G (10 minutes, 31 seconds)

MATCH TWO
Mohammed Yone & Shuhei Taniguchi vs The Anti Wrestlers Alliance (Akitoshi Saito & Masao Inoue)

No one, not even Yone's partner Taniguchi, looking impressed by Yone's "Disco Fever".
There was the typical Masao Inoue beat down by Mohammed Yone and Taniguchi, Taniguchi gave it the worst to him though.

WINNER: Shuhei Taniguchi with diving body press on Masao Inoue (12 minutes, 58 seconds)

To the amusement of the fans, Akitoshi Saito scraped up Inoue afterwards and helped him out. Inoue then spent the rest of the show sitting at a table and watching the event.

MATCH THREE
The Sugiura Army (Takashi Sugiura, Hideki "Shrek" Sekine, Hajime Ohara & NOSAWA Rongai) vs Kongoh (Kenoh, Masa Kitamiya, Haoh and Nioh)

Former policeman Hideki "Shrek" Sekine made his debut in Noah today, coming out with the Sugiura Army and wearing a white "Company Dog" t-shirt which looks like a tent on him. I don't think anyone in the audience could believe either his immense size or his power. I don't think there is anyone brave enough to tell him (except possibly Takashi Sugiura, who seemed to engaged with holding up the GHC National to Kenoh for some reason despite it being a belt that Kenoh says he has no interest in) that red is Kongoh's color... 

Melee brawl broke out and went to the four corners of the arena, Kitamiya vs Ohara, Kenoh vs NOSAWA, and it's hard to know who to pity more as Nioh was trying to fight Shrek, and poor Haoh was being stamped on by Sugiura. Inside the ring Shrek's shoulder tackle was likened to "the sound of a traffic accident" by one fan. His encounter with Kenoh was stiff kicks.

WINNER: Takashi Sugiura with the Olympic Slam on Nioh (17 minutes, 4 seconds)

MATCH FOUR
Kaito Kiyomiya vs Yoshiki Inamura

"Inamura showed his strength, but Kiyomiya's was of Yokozuna Sumo".

Kaito Kiyomiya played the senior in this match, appearing in his white and light green ring wear, and with a big smile on his face. Once a somewhat nice boy who didn't want to hurt or offend anyone, he showed the cruel streak today that he has had to learn by necessity of being GHC Heavyweight Champion, by attacking Yoshiki Inamura's taped knee. It was an intense match which is really setting the path for their future pre match and ultimately title showdowns, with Inamura launching Kiyomiya across the ring with his GEKITOYZ, and the flying shoulder tackle from the top turnbuckle.

WINNER: Kaito Kiyomiya with Tiger Suplex (13 minutes, 14 seconds)

MATCH FIVE
STINGER (Yoshinari Ogawa, Kotaro Suzuki & Atsushi Kotoge) vs RATELS (Daisuke Harada, Tadasuke & HAYATA)

YO-HEY came out to second RATELS, and although he was not in the match, he joined in with the traditional Tadasuke entry. In typical YO-HEY style, he was also the one caught staring at the camera in fan pictures.

HAYATA has had a rough and painful few months - Chris Ridgeway winding him up and torturing him, Yoshinari Ogawa torturing him, rib injury and STINGER torturing him. YO-HEY looked on, as did Daisuke Harada with cold eyes, as STINGER attacked HAYATA en masse, and then drove back Harada and Tadasuke when they tried to pull them away. However, the tide turned today and HAYATA was able to pull out some defensive moves (such as a moonsault), and he got the sneak pin on Kotaro Suzuki following a Tadasuke lariat. 

WINNER: HAYATA with the roll up (17 minutes, 51 seconds)

Yoshinari Ogawa (with his endless capacity for denial) insisted that it was only a 2 count and that STINGER got cheated. So as RATELS (including YO-HEY) celebrated, somewhat in STINGERS faces (Tadasuke with a big grin), a fight broke out with ended with Kotaro being double kicked by HAYATA & YO-HEY, while Ogawa and Harada squared up and Kotoge watching from outside the ring.

MATCH SIX
AXIZ (Go Shiozaki & Katsuhiko Nakajima) vs Naomichi Marufuji & Minoru Tanaka

AXIZ were not wearing their feathered crow jackets today (although their ring wear was matching), they came out in their new black branded AXIZ t-shirts (Shiozaki gold, Nakajima silver) and on entry turned their back to the crowd and pointed thumbs to see the text on the back.

The chop war between Naomichi Marufuji and Go Shiozaki was immediate, the crowd were fired up by it, and the venue acoustics amplified it making it sound like a firing range. Marufuji and Shiozaki would chop each other throughout the match, with Marufuji commenting afterwards "as usual, Shiozaki's chops hurt". The pictures of the sunburn left behind showed how different their styles were,  Shiozaki flat hand, Marufuji more like a whip with his fingers splaying could be seen.

With Marufuji and Shiozaki facing off, this left Tanaka vs Nakajima and in the melee fight outside the ring, Nakajima knocking Tanaka into the crowd, where he fell on someone's soft drinks can. Later in the match Tanaka got Nakajima's rope choke "Shutter Chance", which Tanaka managed to back to him, and with the "Click click" motion as well. Tanaka's woes were not over as Shiozaki finished the match by taking his head off with a massive Gowan lariat.

WINNER: Go Shiozaki with the Gowan lariat on Minoru Tanaka (21 minutes 4 seconds)

Go Shiozaki gave the traditional GHC Heavyweight champion speech, thanking everyone for coming today and telling them all to stay safe in light of the Coronavirus pandemic because he would be back to see them, he finished by touching on the match with Kazuyuki Fujita saying he would win and ending with "I am Noah", as both the crowd and Nakajima applauded. On their way backstage they stopped at the curtain and did the famous lean.

ATTENDANCE: Not announced
WITH THANKS TO: Sekidon, Kei, Shinya, Sachan, Hori, Chairman Chikuwa, Chanmi
PICTURE CREDIT: Noah sales team, Noah GHC, PKDX
GIF CREDIT: Naomichi Marufuji, 
NOAH'S NEXT SHOW: 27th March, Yokohama Radiant Halls