EVENT RECAP: HIGHER GROUND 2022 (January 30th, Act City Hamamatsu)

"This is the first time I have watched Noah live in my life, because it is held in my hometown of Shizuoka prefecture"

Today's event took place about four hours outside of Tokyo, with some of the fans travelling down to see it. Unfortunately it was not streamed (WrestleUniverse will have it up to view on the 2nd February) and Noah did not do a usual livestream via Twitter or Instagram. I have done my best to write up today with information from live tweets from fans (all credited at the end). 

MATCH ONE

Hajime Ohara vs Kai Fujimura

WINNER: Hajime Ohara with Boston Crab (8 minutes, 21 seconds)

MATCH TWO

Funky Express (King Tani & Mohammed Yone) vs Daiki Inaba & Kinya Okada

Poor Kinya Okada got the funky tandem rope move (Tany was on the right team this time)

Winner: Mohammed Yone with the Kinniku Buster on Kinya Okada (12 minutes, 7 seconds)

MATCH THREE

Takashi Sugiura & Kotaro Suzuki vs Masa Kitamiya & Atsushi Kotoge

Rare tags between the two teams, and naturally Takashi Sugiura and Masa Kitamiya started with shoulder tackles. For Atsushi Kotoge, his right arm was targeted by his opponents. 

Winner: Kotaro Suzuki with the Tiger Driver on Atsushi Kotoge (12 minutes, 26 seconds)

MATCH FOUR

STINGER (HAYATA & Seiki Yoshioka) & Yasutaka Yano vs Perros Del Mal De Japon (NOSAWA Rongai, YO-HEY & Super Crazy)

Seiki Yoshioka appeared with the two tag belts as Yuya Susumu is absent today. NOSAWA created problems right from the start. If Yoshinari Ogawa wants a singles match with Eita, then he wants a singles match with HAYATA. This wasn't the end of NOSAWA'S mischief making however, he later tied HAYATA to the steel barriers by his shoelaces. HAYATA was the one that NOSAWA saw as champion, completely ignoring Seiki Yoshioka, even going so far as to make belt motions at him. 

Seiki Yoshioka and YO-HEY (red tongue today) was said to be so high speed, that fans found it hard to take pictures. 

Yasutaka Yano may have been using Tiger Mask moves. 

WINNER: Super Crazy with the Reinera on Yasutaka Yano (14 minutes, 8 seconds)

Backstage, YO-HEY talked about the title challenge, while NOSAWA spoke again about Ogawa and Eita and himself and HAYATA and said again how he's not really interested in challenging for the belts. He also told YO-HEY that if he wants him to team with him, then he needs to show him more in the ring.  

MATCH FIVE

Manabu Soya vs Yoshiki Inamura

"The match I wanted to see the most today"

One of the matches that the fans were really looking forward to, and from the sounds of things, one of the highlights of tonight's card, did not disappoint. In the test of strength, Yoshiki Inamura got Manabu Soya to his knees, later in the match he would suplex him. After this followed smashing into each other without letting go, and as I understand the fight even went outside the ring. I'm not sure how the metal barriers where even standing let alone the ring given Soya's finisher. 

WINNER: Manabu Soya with a Jumping DDT (10 minutes, 39 seconds)

MATCH SIX

Naomichi Marufuji & Junta Miyawaki vs Kaito Kiyomiya & Yoshinari Ogawa

Another rare tag combination. Yoshinari Ogawa and Kaito Kiyomiya (who fans said was different today, but perhaps because of his partner) got on well enough, but Naomichi Marufuji was noted to not give the tag to Junta Miyawaki easily when he wanted to tag in against Kiyomiya. Kiyomiya showed no mercy to his friend, even going so far as to throw him to Ogawa a couple of times. Marufuji also gave a few chops to Ogawa, who I don't think was too pleased about it. 

WINNER: Kaito Kiyomiya with the Cattle Mutilation on Junta Miyawaki (15 minutes, 17 seconds)

After the match Kaito Kiyomiya spoke about the match with Kotaro Suzuki at Korakuen Hall and how much he learned from it. He also felt that he and Ogawa were working on the same wavelength. 

MATCH SEVEN

Go Shiozaki, Daisuke Harada & Haoh vs Kongoh (Kenoh, Tadasuke & Aleja)

Naturally Daisuke Harada and Tadasuke started, but Haoh was Kongoh's main target today. Punished by them throughout the match he got the tandem elbows and Kongoh pose. Kenoh at first wouldn't be in the ring with him and tagged out as soon as Haoh tagged in, but he wasn't too disinterested him though to not attack him from the apron by shoving his boot into Haoh's head which rammed into the turnbuckle, alongside a headbanging Tadasuke. When they were in the ring together, Kenoh did his wide armed "fight back" pose. Tadasuke was also noted to have a pain in one of his legs (or maybe both), but he appeared to be okay. Poor Haoh wound up getting the Jidanda lariat and then the Outcast from Tadasuke, and then the PFS from Kenoh. 

Winner: Kenoh with the PFS on Haoh (20 minutes, 15 seconds)

Kenoh spoke on the microphone afterwards and thanked everyone for coming out today, he promised that when Kongoh returned to Hamamatsu next they would bring all of their members. Tadasuke also spoke on the mic, saying to Harada to polish his belt up as he was going to take it from him. Backstage Kenoh spoke again about how people come and go from Kongoh, but I think he grudgingly admired Haoh for following his own principals. Tadasuke spoke about Harada, saying that he didn't quite understand this whole "a Noah Junior not defeated by the heavyweights" and saying that one that "wins" against them would be better. 

Attendance: 181 people

GIF taken from Noah official Twitter

Picture credits: PKDX, Pro Wrestling Noah

Noah's next event: STEP FORWARD 2022, Wednesday February 9th, Korakuen Hall (live broadcast on ABEMA)

With thanks to:  オカ＠スロッター, マーク･ルーイン(脇グイグイ), Shishikazu, Kei, 藤枝ミルコ, Chiyaozu, Ryuji, ゆうへいへい, Metal-Noah