(NOAH) ALL FOUR SIDES

16th April 2020

"ALL FOUR SIDES" is the name of the tournament that was created by Katsuhiko Nakajima on the 14th June to determine the next challenger for the GHC National Heavyweight. Previously to this, Nakajima had said in an interview that he wanted to make his title reign different from Takashi Sugiura's (the first champion), and explore the potential of the belt. Nakajima's other ideas for future defenses were ladder matches and hardcore matches.  

To explain a little about the belt itself, it was created by Riki Choshu in 2019, when Noah was part of LIDET. They left LIDET in 2020 when they were bought by CyberAgent, and bought the belt with them. Compared to the complicated rules of the GHC Hardcore, the rules of the GHC National are straightforward - anyone of any weight and any promotion can challenge for the title, the only rule is that it is defended in Noah and in Japan.

Noah announced the tournament on the 15th January, with the following competitors;

Shuhei Taniguchi

Seiya Morohashi

Seiki Yoshioka

Hao

Hajime Ohara

Masa Kitamiya

Atsushi Kotoge

Yoshiki Inamura

Manabu Soya

Kinya Okada

Mohammed Yone

Rocky Kawamura

Rene Dupree

Nio

The first round will be on the 19th June, with the semi finals and the finals being on the 20th, with the championship match taking place on the 21st. 

Round one looks like this;

Shuhei Taniguchi vs Seiya Morohashi

Seiki Yoshioka vs Hao

Hajime Ohara vs Masa Kitamiya

Atsushi Kotoge vs Yoshiki Inamura

Manabu Soya vs Kinya Okada

Mohammed Yone vs Rocky Kawamura

Rene Dupree vs Nio*

The winner of Nio and Rene Dupree will go straight to the semi finals (I think this is either because there are either too many people in the tournament, or because Rene Dupree is one half of the GHC Heavyweight Tag champions, whatever the reason is, they get a bye).

BROADCAST DETAILS

19th June - WRESTLE UNIVERSE (19:00 JST)

20th June - WRESTLE UNIVERSE (15:00 JST)

21st June - ABEMA TV (TBA)

Picture credit: Noah.co.jp