(NOAH CHRONOLOGY) KOTARO SUZUKI ~ GHC JUNIOR CHAMPIONSHIP
Number of title reigns: 4
Number of defenses: 5
Lost: PREMIUM PRELUDE, 8th November 2020, Korakuen Hall
Total number of days held: 204
Challengers
1. Atsushi Kotoge
2. Kaz Hayashi
3. YO-HEY
4. Seiki Yoshioka
5. Haoh
6. Daisuke Harada
Links
VS Atsushi Kotoge
Atsushi Kotoge announced on his official Twitter that he would be challenging former tag partner, Kotaro Suzuki, for the belt at the final night of the Noah Junior shows "NOAH In The Spotlight" on the 12th June. Kotoge, knowing Kotaro as he did (and probably remembering the difficulty that they had put YO-HEY & HAYATA through for the belts), knew that if he wanted to make his challenge then he would have to be persistent.
At the tag match that evening which pit Kotaro Suzuki & Kaito Kiyomiya vs FULL THROTTLE (Atsushi Kotoge & Hajime Ohara), Kotoge challenged the moment Kotaro got in the ring. He didn't speak on the microphone however, he started pestering him as Kotaro was sitting on the turnbuckle, belt on and ring robe still on. Kotaro told him to go away.
Kotoge started up again after the match (which was won by Kaito Kiyomiya), and he and Kotaro almost got into a tug of war over the belt, the funniest being when Kotaro turned to leave, and Kotoge started tugging on the strap. Kotaro turned around, batted Kotoge's hand away, and then wiped the strap of the belt on his thigh.
Kotaro had just met crazy, and crazy was not going to give up.
Later that evening during the Daisuke Harada vs HAYATA main event, Atsushi Kotoge came to the ring when STINGER were attacking Harada, and in the resulting confusion, hit the Killswitch on Kotaro to make his point. In the post match interview Kotaro agreed to Kotoge's title challenge, but said dismissively that, Kotoge could come to the match "FULL THROTTLE" but he didn't need to get out of "second gear".
Match was set for "NOAH GO FORWARD, DAY 1" on 14th June 2020.
Atsushi Kotoge came out in usual exuberant style, flanked by Hajime Ohara and Seiki Yoshioka. Kotaro came out with Yoshinari Ogawa and HAYATA (who must have only had time to wipe themselves with a towel, tidy their hair and put a fresh t-shirt on). Much to their credit STINGER did not get involved in the match and stayed at ringside; Ogawa with his hands on his hips.
Very good technical wrestling throughout the match, with Kotaro aiming at Kotoge's ribs, driving his knee in and jabbing with his elbows. Kotoge, however, could taste that belt and he fought on until the end, at one point headbutting Kotaro, who was enjoying punishing him. It was a hard match, and I did genuinely think that Kotoge was knocked unconscious at one point.
VS Kaz Hayashi
As FULL THROTTLE scraped Atsushi Kotoge off the canvas, Kaz Hayashi came to the ring to challenge Kotaro Suzuki for the GHC Junior Heavyweight, calling this his "permit" which was vital to being an accepted member of the Noah Juniors. Kotaro agreed to his challenge, but warned him that he would not be the one to ever give him his pass.
Kotaro Suzuki and Kaz Hayashi have a long history which started in 2005 when Kaz Hayashi came to Noah for the first time, in the following years they have fought in All Japan and W-1, even holding the tag belts together at one point. While this match was technical, full of lock ups, submission moves, armbars...and Hayashi treading on Kotaro's hand, and while it was almost an old style Noah match, you would have seen in 2005, many fans felt that Hayashi was puffed early on in the match and may not have the stamina needed to compete in the Noah juniors.
VS YO-HEY
As STINGER were celebrating, the former RATELS appeared, and YO-HEY challenged Kotaro Suzuki for the GHC Junior Heavyweight while Harada looked on with an expression like a watchdog. Suzuki made a comment to the affect that he knew that this would happen, with YO-HEY telling him that he was the last one left. Then in true fashion, a fight broke out as Kotaro held the belt up to YO-HEY, and YO-HEY grabbed Kotaro's face, and then they entered the fray fighting each other. Kotaro attempting to hit YO-HEY with the belt, with YO-HEY dodging him. The GHC Junior Heavyweight will be defended on the 19th July at Korakuen Hall. Personally, I think that should STINGER lose the tag belts then Ogawa's use of HAYATA ends and he gets thrown out of STINGER and to the wolves. I don't think anything will change should Kotaro lose the belt, the bond between himself and Ogawa is too strong, and apart from Chris Ridgeway, they don't really seem to have the need for anyone else in STINGER.
YO-HEY may have eliminated Kotaro in the STINGER vs Daisuke Harada, YO-HEY & Tadasuke match at Korakuen Hall on the 18th July, but sadly history was not going to repeat itself at the match on the 19th. A fast paced match which was dominated by Kotaro Suzuki, despite how determined YO-HEY was, in which from the start Kotaro was throwing elbows which were audible in the hall, especially the crunch on impact and the moans that YO-HEY made when they hit him. Kotaro had his elbows, but YO-HEY had his chops, and Kotaro ended up with a chest as red as his ringwear. Like Ogawa, Kotaro pulled out some of Misawa's moves using his second rope frog splash, and his rope dive. A hard fought, bitter and desperate match with so much history behind it, ended with Kotaro turning YO-HEY'S Canadian Destroyer into the Requiem.
RATELS had lost the war.
VS SEIKI YOSHIOKA
With the final nail hammered into the coffin of RATELS with Tadasuke turning on YO-HEY and voicing his hatred for Daisuke Harada, you could forgive STINGER for sitting back and basking in their victory. All too soon they realized on the 10th August that any time for resting on their laurels was going to be very short, as into the RATELS vacuum stepped FULL THROTTLE, the new Junior unit in Noah consisting of Seiki Yoshioka, Hajime Ohara and led by the hyperactive Atsushi Kotoge. However, it was not Ohara or Kotoge who challenged Kotaro for the GHC Junior Heavyweight (after all, someone has to control Kotoge and these days its falling to Ohara), it was Seiki Yoshika, who did it after defeating Kotaro by reversing The Rolling Elbow into a Reverse Cross. Unlike Yoshinari Ogawa who likes to be difficult over granting people title matches, Kotaro said he will accept all comers, and so he granted Yoshioka a title match for the 30th August at Noah's show at Kultz Kawasaki.
The first pre-match didn't go so well for Yoshioka. On the 20th August he and FULL THROTTLE teammates Atsushi Kotoge and Hajime Ohara failed to defeat STINGER at Korakuen Hall. To make matters worse for Yoshioka, Kotaro got the direct pin with the Tiger Driver. As HAYATA and Yoshinari Ogawa let the ring quickly to prevent any issue of a title challenge from Kotoge and Ohara arising, Kotaro bent down next to Yoshioka and shoved the belt right in his face. Backstage, dismissing him as someone "young", Kotaro said that the finish was called just that, as you bring it out at the last moment to beat your opponent, Yoshioka got lucky last time and that was the difference between them, "the big difference".
As a true student of Yoshinari Ogawa, Kotaro Suzuki attacked the knee of Seiki Yoshioka which he had softened up in the pre-match, and today he returned with a vengeance to attack it. The match itself is hard to explain, but Kotaro as the veteran used his own almost twenty year experience against Yoshioka's twelve, and experience won out. This is not to say that Yoshioka didn't have a chance or didn't put up a fight, as much to Kotaro's horror he kicked out of both The Blue Destiny and The Endless Waltz. It took a combination of the Rolling Elbow and The Mass Driver to end the match in 17 minutes and 5 seconds.
VS Haoh
Kotaro Suzuki once went complaining to Naomichi Marufuji about the number of title defences he was forced to make in quick succession, but rather than finding sympathy from his older brother, he was given short shrift and told to put up with it because the Noah juniors want their gold back and it had been just the same for him when he was a junior. Kotaro probably thought of this moment when barely had he time to wipe the sweat from his brow when he was attacked by the Kongoh juniors, found himself face down on the mat, and with Haoh on the microphone above him challenging for the title.
After this attack, Kotaro said that no, he wasn't going to be accepting a challenge done in this manner. If Haoh wants to challenge then he does it in the ring.
In the interim show on the 6th September at Fujisan Messe, Haoh scored a victory over Seiki Yoshioka, and warned Kotaro that he was coming for him and he did on the 13th September in Kanazawa when he pinned Kotaro directly during a six man tag between The Kongoh Juniors and all of STINGER. Kotaro had one focus during the match, Haoh and only Haoh; this meant that The Kongoh juniors were kept out by either himself knocking them off the apron or STINGER keeping them away. Funnily enough, Kotaro had no problem with STINGER being in the ring at the same time. Haoh won the match via a combination of speed and surprise, and then celebrated ecastically. STINGER were a little less pleased and complained to the referee. However, Haoh had fulfilled all the requirements, he had pinned Kotaro fair and square, and as Kotaro left he called to him that the challenge was decided now, wasn't it?
Title match has been set for 11th October in Osaka, which will be a big night for Noah as it is the finals of the heavyweight N-1 League.
Their next pre-match came on the 22nd September at Korakuen Hall, when Noah's heel group, Kongoh Jnrs, met the ultra heel group, STINGER. As he got into the ring, Yoshinari Ogawa took a moment to survey his opponents, but no matter how much he hates Tadasuke, and is indifferent to Nioh, the person with the bullseye painted on him was Haoh. A challenge to any member of STINGER marks you as a target, and their attack was relentless. Haoh was very eager to prove himself against Kotaro, and this was sometimes on the verge of desperation. Kotaro however, had nothing but contempt for him and resorted at the end of the match to use the technique of breaking the pin to torture the opponent more. Usually this backfires, but not in this case as the match went to a referee stop when Kotaro used the Javelin on Haoh.
Kotaro then spoke on the microphone and gave Haoh a vicious character assessment, telling him that not only should he start over as a wrestler, but that he was the "weakest GHC challenger ever". Haoh got his revenge the next day, when he and Kongoh came to ringside and attacked Kotaro during a melee brawl which most of the juniors participated in. Worse was to come, however, when Haoh got the win again over Kotaro by reversing the Endless Waltz in Niigata on the 26th September, and that left only one date before their title match; the 4th October at Korakuen Hall. However, that event would be a huge rumble between all of the Noah juniors and since entry was going to be random there was no guarantee that they would even be in the ring together.
It didn't turn out that way, however, and Kotaro and Haoh found themselves in the ring together with Haoh eliminating Kotaro in what could be considered their last pre-match, not via over the top rope elimination, but by pinfall via Jack Knife. Some STINGER pride was salvaged however, as it was HAYATA who eventually eliminated Haoh. The damage had been done, and even if he didn't win the title, Haoh had definitely won the pre-match war. Kotaro, no doubt will beg to differ, as Haoh had an assist from Nioh.
On the night, Haoh was seconded by Nioh and Tadasuke, but Kotaro (for whom the previous title match did not go the way Ogawa expected) was on his own. Haoh immediately went on the attack and for the early pin, which is always a mistake against Kotaro. Haoh had frenetic momentum, and even once used the Misawa rope dive and in the shades of old Noah, even used an apron hurracanrunna, but Kotaro remained controlled.
Despite his earlier dismissal of Haoh as "The Weakest Challenger" and the dismal assessment of his abilities, as the match wore on and Haoh managed to reverse the Tiger Driver, Kotaro started looking scared and taking him a little more seriously. It then reached the point when Kotaro decided enough was quite enough, and won with the Big Ben Edge in 15 minutes and 47 seconds.
VS Daisuke Harada
Daisuke Harada was not through with STINGER. Not content with taking the GHC Junior Heavyweight tag belts from Yoshinari Ogawa and HAYATA, he wanted the GHC Junior as held by Kotaro Suzuki. Harada made clear his intentions; he was going to destroy them. Kotaro accepted the challenge, and told Harada to chose his favorite place and then left the ring. Harada caused slight laughter by telling him to head on home by the Hanshin train. The title challenge has been set for November 8th at Korakuen Hall.
Having been betrayed by STINGER at Noah's event at Korakuen Hall on the 28th October, Kotaro went into the championship match alone and focusing on defeating Harada. Once Harada was out of the way, then he could and would deal with STINGER. To their credit, STINGER kept away from the title match (until the melee brawl at the very end when they stormed the ring), and let Kotaro and Harada fight it out.
Fight it out they did; nothing they used against each other worked with Harada kicking out of both the Blue Destiny and The Tiger Driver and Kotaro not letting himself be pinned by the Katayama German Suplex. It was a gruelling technical match which bought out the best in both of them, and ended with a series of reversal pins, as they simply had nothing left that would work against each other.
Next champion: Daisuke Harada
Links
Comments
Post a Comment
Spam will be deleted immediately