(NOAH) Event recap ~ "NOAH Stay Together" MUTA FANTASIA (May 10th 2020)

"Noah TV match, lets go!"

The event today was streamed live on ABEMA, who once again made it available to all to view worldwide. Its hoped they will continue doing this for Noah events going forward (even after Coronavirus).

The ring was fully disinfected with the ropes being wiped down, I think this probably caused them to be slippy as Nio went for a lionsault, and had to abandon it.

At the end of the event Noah announced two new dates for their next shows "NOAH NEW HOPE" on May 24th and May 31st; these will be broadcast on ABEMA (24th) and probably Samurai (31st). The event seems to be focused more on Noah's younger generation, and Kenoh has already started complaining of Kiyomiya being in the picture, saying that he isn't even the champion and he is STILL the centre of attention. 

MATCH ONE
Daisuke Harada vs Kinya Okada

Daisuke Harada came out looking grim, and prepared to work out all his frustrations and anger over the past 24 hours on poor Kinya Okada, and he did just that. Although the match was not a squash, and Okada used kicks (he's used to being kicked, and harder too) and came very close at a few points to getting his first win, and even complaining about the count in the process, it was the veteran who won throwing in a shoulder charge which winded him and using an old school Elbow drop finisher.

WINNER: Daisuke Harada with Diving Elbow Drop (5 minutes, 50 seconds)

Harada stormed off afterwards, and didn't even wait for his arm to be raised. He had nothing to celebrate today, and it was only going to get worse.

MATCH TWO
STINGER (Kotaro Suzuki & Atsushi Kotoge) vs The Sugiura Army Juniors (Hajime Ohara & Seiki Yoshioka)

The match up of Kotaro Suzuki vs Seiki Yoshioka worked well, with the commentators praising the speed. Ohara, who doesn't have the aerial ability that his partner does, tortured Atsushi Kotoge. It was the usual tag team antics, riling up the other team by knocking them alternately off the apron, keeping each other out of the ring during submission holds, and yes, Atsushi Kotoge started talking to the camera on his own rope submission hold, which the commentators thought was cool.

During the match the Sugiura Army Juniors debuted a new tandem move, which involved a kick to the head from Yoshioka diving off the turnbuckle, as Ohara held the opponent and turned it into a backbreaker after impact.

WINNER: Kotaro Suzuki with the Endless Waltz on Seiki Yoshioka (12 minutes, 17 seconds)

Afterwards, everyone stood around in the ring, and Kotoge edged closer towards Kotaro very slowly.
Something was about to happen. You could taste it.
Kotaro offered Kotoge his hand, Kotoge took it and then headbutted him. As Kotaro staggered he used The Killswitch on him.
Addressing the fallen Kotaro on the mic, Kotoge said that he wasn't happy about HAYATA joining STINGER, and no one at all had even told him about it, or the fact that STINGER had gotten back together. He then asked if he could join The Sugiura Army.
NOSAWA Rongai appeared from nowhere (seriously, it was like he appeared in a puff of smoke), and basically said no, Kotoge was too shady for The Sugiura Army. It was then that Yoshioka knocked NOSAWA down with a kick, and joined Kotoge. Hajime Ohara, attempting to keep the peace at first, then relented and joined too. They posed triumphantly with their feet on Kotaro and NOSAWA, before leaving the ring. Backstage they announced they would breathe fresh air into the Noah juniors, as a team called "FULL THROTTLE".

MATCH THREE
The Sugiura Army (Takashi Sugiura & Rene Dupree) vs Kongoh (Yoshiki Inamura & Nio)

Poor Nio, he really got it from the heavyweights today; Rene Dupree using sharp jabs,  and naturally there was no effect when he attacked Takashi Sugiura. Inamura, while he doesn't have the experience that Nio does, he has the weight and the size, and is even managing to dwarf Sugiura. There was a massive chop war between Inamura and Dupree, and they had a collision which shook the ring when they smashed into each other in middair.

WINNER: Rene Dupree with Diving Body press on Nio (7 minutes, 46 seconds)

MATCH FOUR
Katsuhiko Nakajima, Shuhei Taniguchi & Mohammed Yone vs Kongoh (Kenoh, Masa Kitamiya & Manabu Soya)

Katsuhiko Nakajima came strolling out to make his first appearance with the GHC National. He posed with it on the ramp, and did a modified version of his apron pose for the cameras. Inside the ring, Kenoh was waiting with Masa Kitamiya and Manabu Soya, who dwarfed him.

No disco today for Mohammed Yone (Kongoh are not exactly its biggest fans), but he got into a kick war with Kenoh, and although it does get overlooked, Yone can kick. He also gave Kenoh the look he gives the younger generation when they try to do that to him, which tells them that he came from another era (an era where he got kicked by KENTA) and what they do means very little.

The feud between Manabu Soya and Shuhei Taniguchi grew another notch, as they started the match by slamming into each other. Soya continued his dominance by knocking Nakajima down as if he was a freight train.

The Diamond Ring brothers (Katsuhiko Nakajima is the senior student of Kensuke Sasaki), faced off in a flurry of punches, which culminated with Nakajima doing the shutter chance on Kitamiya. Manabu Soya was very helpful, kicking Nakajima in the head to make him break the hold, which he took no notice of.

The match came down to Kenoh and Mohammed Yone. Yone with a big grin, he knew exactly what Kenoh was going to do when he kicked him, and he caught his leg. Not to be stopped, Kenoh fought back with a roundhouse kick and caught Yone square on with a perfectly landed PFS.

WINNER: Kenoh with the PFS (12 minutes, 2 seconds)

Then there came an unintentionally funny moment.
While all this was going on inside the ring, Manabu Soya and Shuhei Taniguchi were having a shoving match and squaring up to each other. The ref had to break it up, and Soya got back inside the ring to find that Kenoh and Kitamiya were in position and patiently waiting for him so they could to their victory pose.

During the intermission, NOSAWA Rongai had burst in on Sugiura's post match interview, and told him that not only he was going to bring in new people (temporarily) to fill the gap left by the departing Sugiura Army Juniors, and he also broke the news about Kendo Kashin coming in to join The Sugiura Army.
Sugiura, by this time to weary with telling NOSAWA not to do bring in more people and having him ignore him, wasn't too pleased. Rene Dupree saved the situation by suggesting they all go out for a beer.

MATCH FIVE
Kaito Kiyomiya vs Hao

Fast paced match, which revealed interesting things about Hao in that although he loses out to Kiyomiya massively in size (he came up to about his chin), he has his speed, and he also has something of his strength. Kiyomiya seemed to enjoy the match today, but I think not only because he dominated the match, but because he got to wrestle as a junior, something ironically that Mitsuharu Misawa also loved, but sadly, only heavyweights can be company aces.

WINNER: Kaito Kiyomiya with a thrown German Suplex (11 minutes, 37 seconds)

MATCH SIX
GHC HEAVYWEIGHT TAG CHAMPIONSHIP
STINGER (Yoshinari Ogawa & HAYATA) vs YO-HEY & TADASUKE

It was a subdued sad and focused YO-HEY today, not the usual bouncy one. He and Tadasuke came out first, and then HAYATA with Yoshinari Ogawa and Kotaro Suzuki seconding. Daisuke Harada also came out to second Tadasuke & YO-HEY, and he and Kotaro stayed in the background until the end. Tadasuke attacked HAYATA as soon as he entered the ring, choking him with his jacket, as YO-HEY fought Ogawa.

The match went to a brawl outside the ring twice, with YO-HEY having to make the save for Tadasuke as he got carried away, and YO-HEY pulled HAYATA out of the ring, where they fought. HAYATA no sold YO-HEY'S punches, and then threw him into a wall. Ogawa and Tadasuke were also brawling outside the ring, and the time ran out. STINGER were almost ready to leave, when Tadasuke and YO-HEY begged the ref to restart the match. The match was duly restarted, and the fighting continued, this time there was no count out, as Tadasuke thriew HAYATA back in, and proceeded to bite him on the turnbuckle.

HAYATA had his cold sadistic face on, which is made worse by the contact lenses he wears, and was loving fighting RATELS. He didn't seem to have any feeling left for any of them, something which would become clear when the match finished. Tadasuke proved he could be just as cold, when he got into the ring and drove his boot deliberately and slowly into HAYATA'S face.

It was a very close pinfall match with several kick outs at the last moment, and it came down to YO-HEY vs HAYATA. They know each other so well, and managed to reverse moves or predict moves, but it was HAYATA who won the titles with The Headache.

WINNER: HAYATA with The Headache on YO-HEY (16 minutes, 29 seconds)

Atsushi Kotoge got into the ring after the win, with Seiki Yoshioka and Hajime Ohara, and had his hat snatched off his head by Kotaro as Ogawa and HAYATA showed their belts to the camera. Tragically, YO-HEY (who looked tearful) looked as if he was clinging to HAYATA'S leg, HAYATA had nothing but sadistic coldness. Harada pulled YO-HEY away, and squared up to HAYATA, and the juniors had a square off, shoving each other and then everyone backed into their three units; STINGER, FULL THROTTLE, and what was once RATELS and was now simply Tadasuke, YO-HEY & Daisuke Harada. Eventually everyone left, leaving STINGER alone. Harada lingered, and Kotaro swatted Kotoge with his belt.

Backstage, Daisuke Harada said that he wasn't going to be using the RATELS name anymore, HAYATA was gone, and no one betrays them to STINGER twice.
He was never coming back.

MATCH SEVEN
Great Muta & Magical Immortality vs Kazushi Sakuraba & Masaaki Mochizuki

The wait was over to see Magical Immortality, as he ascended from the underworld with a painted black and white face, and a matching costume of black and white. The kanji on one side of his face saying "Dead". The two demons spat mist as they couldn't do it in the match, which left a red around Magical Immortality's mouth.
Sakuraba complained about his demonic opponents, but it did no good.

Magical Immortality moved slowly, almost like Muta, and almost crawled. He also had a grounding in MMA and mat wrestling, as he was able to go up against Sakuraba (chop war too), but for Marufuji's partner Mochizuki, this was an unknown entity.

The two demons seemed to have a fascination with things of this world; Muta attacked a cameraman and stole his camera, Magical Immortality stole ring announcer Ali's Smartphone when the match went to the ring announcers table (fortunately Ali had the presence of mind to keep the hammer away from him), but I think Muta was probably a little less enamored of the cord that his opponents used to bind then choke him with. Then the demons got hold of a fire extinguisher, and tried to work out how to use it. They got one puff, and then Mochizuki kicked it, and it went off in Magical Immortality's face. He then worked out how to use it, used it to break the hold Sakuraba had on Muta, and then went made with it. Sakuraba emerged from this with a mysterious green goo on his face.

The match finished with Muta's flash fire in Mochizuki's face (I remember hearing a kind of clicking sound when I saw it live), and The Shining Wizard for the pin.

WINNER: The Great Muta with Shining Wizard (21 minutes)

The demons vanished back through the curtains, and backstage Muta said that he had "found a friend in this ring".

Picture credit: Noah GHC, YO-HEY, PKDX