(NOAH) EVENT RECAP ~ STEP FORWARD 2021 (February 21st, Sendai PIT)

It was a Sendai spring evening as Noah arrived today in Miyagi Prefecture for the fall out show from The Nippon Budokan, with a dark blue sky over the arena as evening set in, flecked with pink tinged clouds. However, while outside might have been poetic, inside there was a worry from Noah about the seismic activity in the region as there had been an offshore earthquake on the 13th February which had caused strong aftershocks, the strongest being 5.3. While earthquakes are a common occurrence in a volcanic country such as Japan, the biggest concern was that this was believed to be an aftershock of the devastating 2011 Tōhoku earthquake. Ring announcer Ally made an announcement at the start of the show that should an earthquake occur, then the match would be stopped.  Despite all of this, fans flocked to the arena (many stopping off at Tower Records who were doing a Noah promotion, although Noah themselves held a limited shop), and snapped up tickets, so many tickets in fact that the event was sold out as much as it could be. Fans were particularly looking forward to the Kenoh vs Hajime Ohara ("Kenohara showdown") match, and they were going to get more than they bargained for, albeit in a strange way. They also wanted to see Keiji Mutoh, but as Noah do not currently bring the whole roster to shows outside of the Tokyo\Osaka metropolitan areas, he was not on the card today. 

While today's show was in progress, Daisuke Nakamura won a victory at DEEP100, and announced himself as "Daisuke Nakamura of the Pro Wrestling Noah's Sugiura Army!" in his victory speech (he looks to have fought in a Sugiura Army t-shirt too). Nakamura has appeared only once at a Noah show, at Takashi Sugiura's 20th anniversary in December 2020.

Fans had hoped that Noah would broadcast the "Kenohara showdown" via Periscope, but that did not happen, and today's show will be broadcast on WRESTLEUNIVERSE on Wednesday 24th February. You must be a subscriber to view this as it will not be a free stream. 

MATCH ONE

Haoh vs Yasutaka Yano

Not too much info on this, but Haoh won with a submission hold

WINNER: Haoh with the Boston Crab (4 minutes, 44 seconds)

MATCH TWO

Mohammed Yone & Shuhei Taniguchi vs YO-HEY & Kinya Okada

Fans said that the tag of the exuberant upbeat YO-HEY (with a green tongue) and the stoic solemn Kinya Okada was an unusual one to say the least. I don't know the details (but I can imagine them) as it was said that Mohammed Yone and YO-HEY had a great interaction today.  

Shuhei Tanguchi did the usual jig after bodyslamming YO-HEY & Okada in succession. Somewhere, Kenta Kobashi is not amused.

It wasn't match that YO-HEY and Okada could ever win in terms of size and experience against Yone and Taniguchi, but they put up a good fight. 

WINNER: Mohammed Yone with the Kinniku Buster on Kinya Okada (11 minutes, 38 seconds)

MATCH THREE

The Sugiura Army (Takashi Sugiura & NOSAWA Rongai) vs Kongoh (Masa Kitamiya & Tadasuke)

The two Noah juniors got in the ring, faced up, and then had a sunglasses stare off, before removing them in unison. While next to them, Takashi Sugiura and Masa Kitamiya glared at each other. Tadasuke's heavyweight strength served him well against one of his opponents (doing his wild attack on Takashi Sugiura on the turnbuckle), although NOSAWA wasn't so lucky, getting knocked over the barriers at some point. 

WINNER: Takashi Sugiura with the Olympic Qualifying Slam on Masa Kitamiya (14 minutes, 20 seconds)

MATCH FOUR

Kenoh vs Hajime Ohara

I don't really have any information on this match, but it seemed to be more significant for what happened after it, than what happened in it. 

WINNER: Kenoh with the PFS (7 minutes, 57 seconds)

As soon as Kenoh had won, a mysterious masked man wearing a black hockey mask over another mask (later revealed to be a lion), in a costume of green pants, red boots, white shirt with a red waistcoat ran into the ring and attacked him with a crutch he was carrying. The overall affect was as one fan put it, "a cheap pirate". When he left the ring, the strange masked man (who lets face it, was and is, Kendo Kashin), claimed his name was "Sugiura", and that he had changed his clothes and come out like this for Kashin. 

Now, no one looking at the physique of this "Cheap Pirate" would have been fooled into thinking it was Takashi Sugiura, who had been in the match before, but nevertheless felt the need to say that, "A playful old man? When I did have time to pull jokes?" Even Sugiura knew it was Kashin. 

Kenoh wondered who it was (I don't think even he would believe it was Sugiura) and said there would be no mercy for him. 

MATCH FIVE

Naomichi Marufuji & Seiki Yoshioka vs Kaito Kiyomiya & Atsushi Kotoge

Kaito Kiyomiya came bouncing out, shedding white feathers from his gown everywhere. 

Atsushi Kotoge had a rough match, chopped by Naomichi Marufuji (his chest went a deep red), and then at one point having his hair grabbed by him. Baba used to forbid this in his wrestlers, as he thought it was "vulgar", so it's more normal to see Marufuji grab people by the ears. 

WINNER: Seiki Yoshioka by reversing the Killswitch on Atsushi Kotoge (19 minutes, 1 seconds)

The two Noah juniors had a face off in the ring after the match over the belt. Afterwards, Yoshioka said that maybe he got the win because of Marufuji's support, but Marufuji said that was nonsense, Yoshioka was a great champion and didn't need support, and as a member of Noah he wanted him to do his best. 

MATCH SIX

Go Shiozaki, Yoshiki Inamura & Daisuke Harada vs Kongoh (Katsuhiko Nakajima, Manabu Soya & Nioh)

Old rivals and former tag partners, Go Shiozaki and Katsuhiko Nakajima started the match, which was kind of centered around them. Despite Nakajima's evil smile when giving Daisuke Harada the "Shutter Chance", and the fact that he never misses a camera opportunity, his smile most definitely snapped off and he looked demonic when he was chopped. Elsewhere, Yoshiki Inamura and Manabu Soya collided into a hoss fight, with a test of strength to start things off, and Daisuke Harada (whose traditional hooded jacket now contains the new Noah logo), looked merciless when crushing Nioh. 

WINNER: Katsuhiko Nakajima with the Vertical Spike on Yoshiki Inamura (21 minutes)

There was no after show microphone like there would normally be, but Nakajima was seen to be laughing at Shiozaki who lost the GHC Heavyweight to Keiji Mutoh on the 12th February and making belt motions about his empty waist, backstage he carried on laughing at him saying he thought it was funny. When he was done with Shiozaki, Nakajima said that he thought that the GHC Heavyweight Tag Champions (Sugiura and Sakuraba) were avoiding fighting THE AGGRESSION (not Kongoh or even "Kongoh's Aggression") in pre-matches. 

I think there was no end of event microphone, because there was no champion in the main event (Keiji Mutoh not being here), and in any case Noah didn't want to push their luck due to the seismic activity in the region, so fans left the arena quickly as the show closed out and Noah left soon after for a four hour drive back to Tokyo and their next event on Tuesday the 23rd. 

WITH THANKS TO: Noah informal cheering party, Kei, Kanata0426, Dragon, Teddy106, Jozenji Midori 

Picture credit: Noah GHC, Pro Wrestling DX 

Noah's next show: YAMADA Green Dome Maebashi Sub-event area (February 23rd)