(NOAH) EVENT RECAP - NOAH SANCTUARY (Club Citta, Kawasaki - Sunday October 17th)

"A new sanctuary to replace Differ Ariake"

Noah bought both a sold out and an insane show to little Club Citta, which Noah fans are calling the new Differ Ariake. Kaito Kiyomiya was like the calm before the storm as he signed autographs and posed for pictures, the rainstorm outside in Tokyo was a fitting backdrop to what was going to happen later. 

MATCH ONE

Masa Kitamiya & Junta Miyawaki vs Kinya Okada & Yasutaka Yano

Junta Miyawaki has rapidly shed the young rookie persona, and is undergoing a change to someone more mature and more of a threat in the ring, especially after his win over Ikuto Hidaka on Friday 15th in Yokohama. 

Yasutaka Yano too is growing, although he cannot match Masa Kitamiya in size or experience, he was able to do some reversals on him although he was sent flying with shoulder tackles. Yano was also cheeky enough to knock Junta off of the apron, and later Kitamiya too (he was saved by the ref from Kitamiya getting into the ring). Yano is starting to incorporate aerial moves into his repertoire, he's a little hesitant on the ones he hasn't done much before, but this is something he will get used to. I remember seeing Junta wobble when on the turnbuckle a few years ago. Although he did try, Yano could not keep Kitamiya out of the ring for too long and when Junta had Okada in the sub, Kitamiya had no problems keeping him out. 

WINNER: Junta Miyawaki with the Armbar on Kinya Okada (11 minutes, 52 seconds)

MATCH TWO

Funky Express (King Tany & Mohammed Yone), Daisuke Harada, Atsushi Kotoge & Hajime Ohara vs Kongoh (Manabu Soya, Tadasuke, Aleja, Haoh & Nioh)

Manabu Soya trailed behind the Kongoh Juniors looking more gruff than usual, but there were no noticeable cracks between the Kongoh Heavyweights and the Kongoh juniors tonight as this match was going to pretty much be about the Noah Juniors and their endless capacity for chaos, especially as they couldn't stay out of the ring when any other Noah Juniors were in it as there always seemed to be any three or four Noah Juniors in the ring at any one time. Pity the poor referee who could only protest to anyone who cared to listen, and who had to play groom to King Tany by once again removing his crown and his chain. Tadasuke, who loves fighting with heavyweights, seemed to have a goal to slam King Tany. He couldn't, and Tany took him out with a lariat. 

WINNER: Hajime Ohara with the Finnish Forearm on Tadasuke (9 minutes, 2 seconds)

This was not going to be the last we would see of what has been termed as the "Warring States" between the Noah Juniors this evening. 

MATCH THREE

Kotaro Suzuki vs Daiki Inaba

Kotaro Suzuki during his wandering years outside of Noah, had a lot to do with Daiki Inaba during the period when the two of them were in W-1 together. In W-1 they fought in tags, rarely together, and always as opponents, Kotaro even taking the tag belts away from Inaba's team once. Noah at Club Citta saw their first singles match, and they know each other well. Inaba knew that Kotaro must either be caught off guard or worn down, however, it's not Inaba's style to catch anyone off guard and so in this very technical match, he went to wear Kotaro down. Inaba had to be on guard however, as Kotaro was trained by Yoshinari Ogawa and so "sneak win" to him is part of his DNA.

WINNER: Neither, time out draw (20 minutes)

Kotaro offered Inaba a handshake after the match, but withdrew his hand at the last moment and gave him the finger. This behavior is unusual for Kotaro, especially as his generation were never allowed to act like this under his seniors and you rarely see him or them do it now, (although Misawa did once give Vader the finger). Later Inaba said he would bring all of these regrets to the next match with Kotaro. 

MATCH FOUR

Kenoh vs Seiki Yoshioka

The kicks between the two (Kenoh's Nippon Kempo vs Seiki Yoshioka's Taekwondo) got going quickly with  Yoshioka on the attack using his tornado kick and then into a swift pin. Kenoh punished Yoshioka for this, kicking him over the barrier and then choking him on the ropes before a submission. And as for being kicked, well if Yoshioka wanted to kick then Kenoh would demonstrate his own, bit in true style fitting someone who is in STINGER, Yoshioka aimed his kicks at Kenoh's knee, which he later targeted in his own submission. His attacks were enough to make Kenoh smack his knee a few times, but it didn't stop Kenoh knocking him down in the kick war. Kenoh, however, as the heavyweight with the superior strength (and to be honest, Kenoh does seem to have grown bigger recently), Kenoh only needed to deploy one very effective submission and Yoshioka tapped. 

WINNER: Kenoh with the ankle lock (11 minutes, 19 seconds)

Kenoh growled after the match, "Yoshioka..."

MATCH FIVE

GHC Junior Heavyweight Championship pre-match/Scramble 6 person tag match

Naomichi Marufuji, Yoshinari Ogawa & NOSAWA Rongai vs Kaito Kiyomiya, HAYATA & YO-HEY

NOSAWA had booked this match as a way to annoy Yoshinari Ogawa and force HAYATA to team with YO-HEY, which in turn would torment the Noah fans who he dismissed as "garbage". NOSAWA'S booking was going to come back and bite him however as the ultimate victim in this was going to wind up being him. 

YO-HEY entered first and HAYATA came out second. The best way to describe them being together initially in the ring was when you get dumped at school, and have to sit near your ex. It was glacial, and when Kaito Kiyomiya entered he took a good look at his teammates who were ignoring each other and then stood between them. NOSAWA was pleased with himself when he got in the ring at what he had constructed, but as said, this was a complete house of cards which was going to collapse. When Yoshinari Ogawa came to the ring he refused to get in the ring where NOSAWA was holding the ropes open for him, crushed NOSAWA'S mask underfoot, grabbed YO-HEY and threw him back to NOSAWA and refused to go to his team, sitting defiantly on the turnbuckle. 

If you ever wondered where the Noah Born get their stubbornness from, I think you now know. Naomichi Marufuji entered (and would later leave) with a look that said he couldn't quite believe what was going on. Later, Marufuji wore a real "Oh, please!" look when NOSAWA went to tag Ogawa in, but Ogawa slowly pulled his hand back. 

With Ogawa reluctantly made to go to his own corner at the prompting of the ref, NOSAWA and even YO-HEY, the match began and soon started to fall apart as alliances began to blur until eventually teams were thrown right out of the window. So great is Ogawa's loathing of NOSAWA that he didn't even want to be near him on the apron, while on the other side, YO-HEY and HAYATA were doing their best to ignore each other. HAYATA didn't take any notice of YO-HEY until he tagged himself in against NOSAWA, and there was a small hint of perhaps them doing one of their old tandem moves for just a second, but NOSAWA ruined this by shoving YO-HEY in the way on a HAYATA handspring elbow. NOSAWA even went to attack his own team by kicking Ogawa when he took the ropes. At the end with everyone forgetting who they were teaming with and falling into HAYATA, Ogawa and Kiyomiya vs NOSAWA Rongai, and Marufuji wondering what the hell was going on in this division, HAYATA won by kicking NOSAWA in the crotch. 

WINNER: HAYATA (15 minutes, 42 seconds)

Marufuji didn't stick around to get involved in the beat down of NOSAWA by HAYATA, Ogawa and Kiyomiya, but Kotaro did attempt to come to the rescue and got involved in the fight, and like YO-HEY was thrown out of the ring for interfering. Unconscious and with his tongue lolling out of his mouth when they kept pulling him up, NOSAWA lay on the mat as HAYATA, Ogawa and Kiyomiya loomed over him and despite the fact that Ogawa was on the losing team, he celebrated with HAYATA and Kiyomiya as if this was a win. Kaito Kiyomiya who had said he was going to "take a step forward in a big way", took a massive one away from the formerly light, dreamy and nice boy he had been to someone with a far more darker, vengeful and sadistic personality, his dark smile matching STINGERS own. 

YO-HEY later said, "I wanted to work together" - but did he mean the tandem move that he and HAYATA were about to do, or the one with NOSAWA which NOSAWA broke to push him into HAYATA'S handspring elbow? 

MATCH SIX

GHC HEAVYWEIGHT & GHC NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP PRE-MATCH

Katsuhiko Nakajima & Masaaki Mochizuki vs Takashi Sugiura & Masato Tanaka (aka "The Bullet Yankees")

Katsuhiko Nakajima made his first appearance as GHC Heavyweight Champion, teaming with the challenger to the GHC National title, Masaaki Mochizuki, against the GHC National Champion, Takashi Sugiura and Nakajima's own challenger to the GHC Heavyweight, Masato Tanaka. Unlike the juniors in the previous match, the heavyweights kept to their own teams apart from their own unit alliances, if anything Sugiura and Tanaka (Sugiura Army and M's alliance) returned unofficially as The Bullet Yankees, the name of their old team, and Tanaka event at one point was seen to prevent Mochizuki from getting to the ropes.

After Nakajima had locked up with Tanaka, Tanaka went to tag Sugiura in. Nakajima, being irritating and with his usual smug grin, refused to tag Mochi in. Sugi wasn't going to start the match otherwise, and so Mochi literally took things into his own hands by grabbing Nakajima's hand and forcing him to tag in. Nakajima continued his streak of being irritating by then tagging himself in, ducking Sugiura and tagging Mochi in. Mochi, did it back to him and Nakajima got some vicious (but probably well deserved elbows) before Tanaka came back. While all of this was playing out in the ring, a very unimpressed Masa Kitamiya was on commentary, snorting at Nakajima being champion and referring to Tanaka and Sugiura as "the old men". 

As ever, Nakajima could not resist either his ego or the cameras, and while he wound Sugiura up with a kick to break a submission, Sugiura introduced him to his own boot when he knocked him off the apron. Soon afterwards, Tanaka wiped the smile off his face completely and his head smacked backwards and forwards like a pinball as he took elbows and punches from Sugiura and Tanaka at the same time. His "helper" Mochi might have helped to break the pin then, but ultimately it was The Bullet Yankees who put a stop to Nakajima's "hunting". 

WINNER: Masato Tanaka with the Sliding D on Katsuhiko Nakajima (29 minutes, 18 seconds)

Masato Tanaka closed out the show by speaking on the microphone, he spoke about being the Dangan Yankees again and how when they were together, they could not lose and if he won the championship, from Nakajima, he will challenge Sugi again for a belt, something Sugi himself is looking forward to. Tanaka left Nakajima with a warning;

"Nakajima! Neither I or the Dangan Yankees can lose! I am going to devour you deliciously, and tear the belt from your waist!"

WITH THANKS TO: ﾌｼﾞﾏﾙ☺︎ｼｭﾝGo, Metal-Noah and Tahtaunwa

GIFS taken from WrestleUniverse

Noah's next event: Sunday 24th October (Aore Nagaoka) 

Broadcast: WrestleUniverse (you must be a subscriber to view)