(CARD) NOAH “GO FORWARD” ~ 14th June 2020.

June is a very emotional month for Noah and Noah fans, and tonight's event takes place the day after the 11th anniversary of Mitsuharu Misawa's death. Toshiaki Kawada was asked about what he thought that Misawa would have done during the Coronavirus crisis had he been here, with Kawada saying that Misawa would have said that Noah would continue, and probably take the route that Noah have done, with empty arena shows. Misawa was never one to be phased by a crisis, and one of his personal mottos could be translated as "Seize the day". I wouldn't be surprised if tonight we got the usual Misawa tribute with the portrait looking down on the ring, and the traditional welcoming his spirit with the ring call and music. Although naturally there will be no streamers. 

The event will be a free worldwide broadcast on ABEMA, with coverage starting from 19:00 JST. 

If you can't catch it live, you can view it for seven days afterwards. 

Noah have announced that they have a major announcement to make tonight which will be made via monitor. 

MATCH ONE

Black Spider VII & SUSHI vs FULL THROTTLE (Hajime Ohara & Seiki Yoshioka)

While the crazy third member of FULL THROTTLE has a title match later on the card, Ohara and Yoshioka get a break from arguing about who is the leader for the evening (although Atsushi Kotoge is convinced that it is him). 

MATCH TWO

The Sugiura Army Juniors (Kendo Kashin, Kaz Hayashi & NOSAWA Rongai) vs Kongoh (Kenoh, Nio & Hao)

It's a well known fact that Kenoh hates NOSAWA Rongai (then again Kenoh pretty much hates everyone in Noah), so God knows what he is going to make of Kendo Kashin, who has probably not endeared himself to Kenoh in any way by saying that he has no idea how to tell the difference between Nio and Hao. Kashin vs Kenoh should be interesting due to their background in martial arts (Kashin MMA, Kenoh in Nippon Kempo), but ultimately its not Kenoh who is Kashin's focus, its Yoshinari Ogawa. 

MATCH THREE

STINGER (Yoshinari Ogawa & HAYATA) & Kinya Okada vs Daisuke Harada, Tadasuke & YO-HEY

The bitter grudge between STINGER & HAYATA'S former RATELS friends continues to reach boiling point after three days of the Noah Junior events "NOAH In The Spotlight", ending with Daisuke Harada vs HAYATA coming to a disqualification after STINGER came into the ring and interfered in the match. Simply put, something has got to give. 

MATCH FOUR

GHC JUNIOR HEAVYWEIGHT MATCH

Kotaro Suzuki vs Atsushi Kotoge

Atsushi Kotoge announced his intention to challenge for the title on the 11th June, and repeatedly pestered Kotaro Suzuki about it on the last night of "NOAH In The Spotlight". Taking a leaf out of Kotaro's "you have to be serious when making a challenge", Kotoge unexpectedly came to the aid of Daisuke Harada (although that was not while he was there) during a melee fight at the end of the main event, and to prove how serious he was, he hit Kotaro with The Killswitch. After that, Kotaro gave him his title match telling his former tag partner that he could come to the match "FULL THROTTLE" but he himself would not need to get out of "second gear". It remains to be seen whether Daisuke Harada tonight will return the favor to Kotoge yesterday by keeping STINGER away from the match. 

MATCH FIVE

The Sugiura Army (Takashi Sugiura, Kazushi Sakuraba & Rene Dupree) vs Kongoh (Masa Kitamiya, Manabu Soya & Yoshiki Inamura)

Hoss fight coming up between Takashi Sugiura, Masa Kitamiya, Manabu Soya (who had his front teeth knocked out by Sugiura) and Yoshiki Inamura. Manabu Soya has stated that he is interested in the GHC Heavyweight, so we may well see a challenge to whoever wins tonight, and Inamura has a goal to overcome his senor (and hero, despite the hatred between Kongoh and just about everyone else), Takashi Sugiura. It shouldn't also be forgotten that Rene Dupree is one half of the GHC Heavyweight Tag Titles, which no one has come forward for to challenge yet.

MATCH SIX

GHC NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP

Katsuhiko Nakajima vs Masao Inoue

When he won the championship, Katsuhiko Nakajima said he would accept all challenges, and Masao Inoue (usually the butt of jokes in Noah), came forward to challenge for the belt (something he didn't do when Takashi Sugiura was champion). Nakajima accepted and the match has been made for tonight. A comedy wrestler, usually the butt of jokes in Noah (i.e. harassed by Takashi Sugiura), Inoue does have a history of defeats over Nakajima and can strike very hard and very quickly when he wants to. Do not underestimate him. 

MATCH SEVEN

Keiji Mutoh & MochiMaru (Naomichi Marufuji & Masaaki Mochizuki) vs Kaito Kiyomiya, Shuhei Taniguchi & Mohammed Yone

This isn't quite the singles match that Kaito Kiyomiya wanted against Keiji Mutoh, but I think that will come when Noah get back to holding live events in due course, but for now he gets a tag match. Kenta Kobashi, who will be the special guest commentator for the evening, has stated that he thinks it is good for Kiyomiya to have matches like this against veterans, and he wants Kiyomiya to pace himself and work on the parts that are missing. In a way this is a kind of Misawa memorial match, with only Kiyomiya and Mochizuki never having known him. 

MATCH EIGHT

GHC Heavyweight Championship

Go Shiozaki vs Akitoshi Saito

This match has its origins in June 2009; on the 14th June, Go Shiozaki won the vacant GHC Heavyweight title by defeating Takashi Rikio for it. The title had been vacated due to Jun Akiyama suffering an injury. Akitoshi Saito was Shiozaki's first challenger that September. What ties these two together so deeply is their shared trauma from being Misawa's tag partner (Shiozaki) and his last opponent (Saito) on that day in Hiroshima in 2009. Eleven years have passed since then. 

Shiozaki has called this match "destiny". 

Picture credit: Noah.co.jp