(NOAH) CARD: N-1 VICTORY 2021 NIGHT 5 (26th September 2021, Korakuen Hall)

How to describe tonight? Explosive? Emotional? Tense? Tonight is not just about winning, it's about surviving. What you score, your place in the league and whether you go to the finals depends on other people and how they score, and then if that wasn't enough Noah have introduced the following rules;

"If there is not one clear block winner than there will be a match between the two, should this come to a draw then it will go into overtime. If there are multiple block leaders all with the same score, then a match will be held between all of them."

Scoring system

Win: 2 points

Draw: 1 points

Loss: 0 points

BLOCK A

Kaito Kiyomiya - 4

Keiji Mutoh - 3

Takashi Sugiura - 1 (out)

Manabu Soya - 0 (out)

BLOCK A: Keiji Mutoh vs Kaito Kiyomiya

BLOCK A: Takashi Sugiura vs Manabu Soya

Simple enough, Kaito Kiyomiya needs to defeat Keiji Mutoh both for his own sake as Mutoh is the wall he cannot get through and to advance in the N-1, (Mutoh however dismisses Kiyomiya as "low risk), and Mutoh obviously needs to beat Kiyomiya to become block leader and to go on to the finals. Takashi Sugiura and Manabu Soya with 1 point and 0 points are both out of the N-1, and even a win for Sugiura will only tie him with Mutoh and not put him over Kiyomiya. Sugi however doesn't seem to concerned, he's taken to trolling Manabu Soya, who is ignoring him.

BLOCK B

Masaaki Mochizuki - 4

Kenoh - 2

Kendo Kashin - 2 

Daiki Inaba - 0 (out)

BLOCK B: Kenoh vs Masaaki Mochizuki

BLOCK B: Kendo Kashin vs Daiki Inaba

Kenoh needs to beat Masaaki Mochizuki to bring him up to 4 points, which means that both he and Mochizuki tie and they go to the playoffs. Kenoh needs Daiki Inaba to defeat (or draw with) Kashin or else that means that Mochizuki, Kenoh and Kashin all go to the playoffs each being on four. Should Mochizuki win, he will win the block with a perfect string of wins and 6 points, leaving Kenoh and Kashin behind. Inaba can only score 2, so he is out of the N-1 this year.  

BLOCK C

Masato Tanaka - 3

Kazushi Sakuraba - 3

Katsuhiko Nakajima - 2

Kotaro Suzuki - 0 (out)

BLOCK C: Katsuhiko Nakajima vs Kazushi Sakuraba

BLOCK C: Masato Tanaka vs Kotaro Suzuki

Katsuhiko Nakajima has to beat Kazushi Sakuraba to get four points, and he also needs Masato Tanaka and Kotaro Suzuki to somehow draw (or else Kotaro defeat Tanaka), Kotaro is out of the N-1 so what he finishes with makes no difference, but a win for both Tanaka and Sakuraba would bring them to five points each and put them into the playoffs. 

BLOCK D

Kazuyuki Fujita - 4

Masakatsu Funaki - 4

Akitoshi Saito - 0 (out)

Masa Kitamiya - 0 (out)

BLOCK D: Kazuyuki Fujita vs Masakatsu Funaki

BLOCK D: Masa Kitamiya vs Akitoshi Saito

This is probably the most simple block other than Block A. With Akitoshi Saito and Masa Kitamiya out of the running (they can only score a 1 or a 2), Masaaki Mochizuki will take on Kazuyuki Fujita to be block winner. Their last match was in 2019 when they fought for a title in Real Japan), so either could be winning the block or going to the finals, and if they draw it means that they have to fight until one of them is the winner. 

The semi finals will be held on 3rd October at Korakuen Hall with the four highest scorers out of each block will fight it out to reach the finals, to be held that same night. 

Tonight's event will be broadcast on ABEMA with the first two matches (Masa Kitamiya vs Akitoshi Saito & Takashi Sugiura vs Manabu Soya) being broadcast live on Noah's official YouTube. Event starts at 18:00 JST. 

The ABEMA broadcast should be free and worldwide, but you can only watch it live and you cannot replay to watch from the beginning or watch repeats without being a subscriber. Unless you either live in Japan or have a VPN which you know is compatible with ABEMA, and it can be notoriously difficult, time consuming and expensive to find one that is, I do not recommend that you subscribe. A subscription to WrestleUniverse (where it will be placed eventually) would be a better investment. As WrestleUniverse is undergoing an upgrade at the time of writing, please do this before 16.00 JST on the 26th September - plus you get four months free viewing. 

Picture credit: Noah's Official Twitter