(NOAH) EVENT RECAP ~ Premium Prelude 2020 (Saturday, November 14th, Act City, Hamamatsu)

Noah travelled about three or four hours outside of Tokyo to bring the final show before the Yokohama Budokan on the 22nd November, to the people outside the metropolitan area. This was a very big city style card, and after the event had finished, fans running on the momentum from the show went to buy tickets for the Yokohama Budokan. Unfortunately today was not broadcast live, and sadly we got no periscope either, but it will be available to watch on WRESTLE UNIVERSE from 18:00 JST on November 17th. You will need to be a subscriber to view this. Fans who were in attendance today say you should not miss this. 

The rural fans were given not only a treat with the card, but also Yoshinari Ogawa holding a class in the ring with Kaito Kiyomiya and Noah's newest debut, Yasutaka Yano. 

Kaito Kiyomiya on autographs, although it seems that Masakatsu Funaki was also giving them out, and he had pictures taken with fans too.

MATCH ONE

Shuhei Taniguchi & Mohammed Yone vs Yoshiki Inamura & Yasutaka Yano

This is Yasutaka Yano's first tag match, and because he is young, green and only twenty years old, he wanted to start first. Yoshiki Inamura, older and wiser, knew better and so he started which led to a clash between himself and Shuhei Taniguchi.

WINNER: Shuhei Taniguchi with the Wyvern Catch on Yasutaka Yano (10 minutes, 27 seconds)

MATCH TWO

Kotaro Suzuki vs Seiya Morohashi

I can imagine that this was somewhat of a technical match, the pictures I have seen seem to indicate this, although I don't have much information on this match. 

WINNER: Kotaro Suzuki with the Endless Waltz (7 minutes, 21 seconds)

MATCH THREE

The Anti Wrestlers Alliance (Akitoshi Saito & Masao Inoue) vs Kongoh (Masa Kitamiya & Manabu Soya)

Masao Inoue bought the comedy, although he did put up a good fight that not even Akitoshi Saito could believe, but things got tough between Saito and Kitamiya with a hoss fight of kicks, lariats, chops, shoulder tackles, and the standard loud roaring at each other. 

Inoue (who somehow survived the onslaught) ended up being attacked by both of Kongoh in a double lariat (they attack from both sides)

WINNER: Manabu Soya with the Ballistic on Masao Inoue (12 minutes, 43 seconds)

MATCH FOUR

The Sugiura Army (Takashi Sugiura & NOSAWA Rongai) vs The M's Alliance (Naomichi Marufuji & Masakatsu Funaki)

Naomichi Marufuji, who had made the title challenge partly because he wanted the tag belt, and partly because he wanted to see Funaki vs Sugiura, was intently watching their first encounter. He was rewarded, this was going to be an intense fight. He himself attacked NOSAWA'S knee.

Funaki also had fun watching, especially when Marufuji started chopping NOSAWA.

The match entered its final stages when the front neck lock of Sugiura's was applied on Funaki, somehow Funaki managed to reverse it and trap Sugiura in his own chokelock. The referee stopped the match. No one could quite believe it (even Sugiura looked surprised), least of all Naomichi Marufuji who even commented on it on social media. 

No one chokes Takashi Sugiura out. 

WINNER: Masakatsu Funaki with the Rear-naked choke sleeper hold on Takashi Sugiura, referee stop at 13 minutes, 21 seconds. 

MATCH FIVE

Momo no Seishun (Daisuke Harada, Atsushi Kotoge & Junta Miyawaki) vs STINGER (Yoshinari Ogawa & HAYATA) & Kinya Okada

With special guest referee, Kotaro Suzuki.

Kotaro Suzuki, wearing one of his own t-shirts and his usual ringwear, came to the ring to be the special guest referee. 

Yoshinari Ogawa, who taught Kotaro Suzuki everything he knows and therefore has no reason to trust him, bought an official Noah referee, Fukuda, to the ring. Kotaro said that he was tonight's referee, and therefore Fukuda was not needed. Kotaro then proceeded to body check everyone, and Ogawa looked like he crammed himself into the corner. 

Kotaro's strict refereeing was a code word for "butter wouldn't melt". The more innocent he looks, the worse he is going to do or has done, and so as ref, he nosed into everything, but somehow managed to miss Ogawa getting a pinfall as he was looking the other way. He was however looking the right way and used a "super high-speed count" when Junta Miyawaki pinned Ogawa. Japanese fans joked that this was done in "Shiro Abe" style (he set the standard in Japan for being the corrupt ref, and would use all the usual tactics like looking the other way, cheating, fast count and slow count etc).

WINNER: Junta Miyawaki pinned Yoshinari Ogawa (17 minutes, 11 seconds)

Yoshinari Ogawa went mad, and grabbed Kotaro by the throat. Kotaro waved three fingers in Ogawa's face protesting that the win was legal, but STINGER were not unsurprisingly going to take this as an answer, and again NOSAWA Rongai came to his rescue.

NOSAWA again offered his help backstage to Kotaro saying, "Calculating referee!" and saying that he was going to help him. Kotaro reminded him wearily that no, he didn't need his help, especially as he had his partner for the 22nd November at the Yokohama Budokan.

NOSAWA later complained that there was no word of thanks from "asshole Kotaro". 

MATCH SIX

Go Shiozaki, Kaito Kiyomiya & FULL THROTTLE (Hajime Ohara, YO-HEY & Seiki Yoshioka) vs Kongoh (Kenoh, Katsuhiko Nakajima, Haoh, Nioh & Tadasuke)

Kenoh and Kaito Kiyomiya couldn't wait to tear into each other, and tear into each other they did in the opening stages of the match, however, neither of them got in the pin on each other in the last pre-match. 

In many ways, this was a rare card, especially with the junior element; YO-HEY vs Katsuhiko Nakajima is rare enough, and YO-HEY (who looked like he had cotton candy colored hair) found himself the victim of "The Shutter Chance". It's true that YO-HEY loves the camera as much as Nakajima does, but not in this way. I'm sure Haoh was satisfied by this, as he had to put up with a crazy YO-HEY lock up (and YO-HEY thought it would be a good idea to imitate Kongoh's pose, in particular Kenoh's). Nakajima's other target was of course Shiozaki, whose arms he mercilessly attacked. 

WINNER: Kaito Kiyomiya with Tiger Suplex on Nioh (22 minutes, 23 seconds)

In the ring, the two champions and their challengers remained, Kiyomiya addressing Kenoh and Shiozaki addressing Nakajima. 

Shiozaki told Nakajima, "Nakajima! At the 22nd November at the Yokohama Budokan, even if you take my right arm off, I won't give you the belt!" Nakajima made no comment, and left laughing. Backstage, Shiozaki admitted (and this is a big thing) that Nakajima had "shredded" his right arm, but he would fight with his shoulder blade if necessary. 

Kiyomiya told Kenoh, "Hey! Kenoh! Was this "amazing view" created by shady people...or was it created by the company? What you have been saying, you should check at the Yokohama Budokan to see if I meant what I said, or if that phrase was created by the company. BUT! It's not Kenoh who will be putting on that belt, it's Kaito Kiyomiya"

Kenoh made no answer. 

With thanks to: Kei, Sachanhane, Chayaozu, Ryuji, Mikako, Sakura, 

Picture credit: PKDX, Noah GHC

Noah's next event: 22nd November, Yokohama Budokan