(NOAH) CARD: GREAT VOYAGE 2022 in YOKOHAMA (Yokohama Budokan, Sunday March 13th)

Today's event will be broadcast on WrestleUniverse, with English commentary available. Broadcast begins at 16.00 JST (and for those of you lucky enough to be going, the doors open at 2.30pm JST). You must be a subscriber to view the event, but if you are not or you cannot either access the app or the site for any reason, you can watch the first four matches on Noah's official YouTube free. 

Katsuhiko Nakajima remains absent due to an eardrum perforation, and Funky Express (King Tany, Mohammed Yone and Akitoshi Saito) will be on commentary. 

MATCH ONE

Junta Miyawaki vs Kinya Okada

Junta Miyawaki opens the show and seeks to uphold the Noah Junior pride against the lone wolf Heavyweight, Kinya Okada. 

*Note* - whichever team wins will go on to the main event to face each other for the GHC Heavyweight Tag Titles. 

MATCH TWO

Block A: GHC Heavyweight Tag Team Championship Tournament

M's alliance (Naomichi Marufuji & Masaaki Mochizuki) vs Kaito Kiyomiya & Daiki Inaba

Naomichi Marufuji and Masaaki Mochizuki both dismissed Kaito Kiyomiya and Daiki Inaba as a team that didn't interest them, Marufuji is more looking forward to facing either Kongoh or The Sugiura Army in the finals. To Kaito Kiyomiya this is more than just a title challenge. The seniors are potentially in line to monopolize the heavyweight belts as Kazuyuki Fujita is the GHC Heavyweight Champion, and Masakatsu Funaki is the GHC National Champion. Kiyomiya stated that in order to seize the flow (or current) of Noah, they need to win. This will bring a foothold to a younger generation. 

(To explain for the newer fans watching Noah; the seniors are the older generation of Noah from the Misawa Era who generally consist of the veterans like Naomichi Marufuji, Takashi Sugiura, Yoshinari Ogawa (the most senior man in Noah), Mohammed Yone, and Akitoshi Saito etc. The mid generation are Go Shiozaki, Katsuhiko Nakajima, Kenoh and anyone who debuted round about 2004 onwards. The younger generation are Kaito Kiyomiya, Yoshiki Inamura and Kinya Okada. This is purely a heavyweight thing as the juniors, a far more wild division, don't really have ranks like this). 

MATCH THREE

Block B: GHC Heavyweight Tag Team Championship Tournament

Kongoh (Kenoh & Masakatsu Funaki) vs The Sugiura Army (Takashi Sugiura & Hideki Suzuki)

By the time this match comes around, we will know of who the winners of this match will be facing in the finals. Either it's going to be Kenoh's fury unleashed against Kaito Kiyomiya, or his joy at getting to kick Naomichi Marufuji around. But before all of that, Kenoh says he is going to make Hideki Suzuki regret ever coming to the Yokohama Budokan, let alone Noah. Hideki Suzuki, who had a miserable and frustrating time overseas (he seems to be able to talk about it, unlike KENTA who legitimately does not), returns tonight and says he will be coming to the ring with "The power of Yoshihiro Takayama". 

MARCH FOUR

STINGER (HAYATA, Yoshinari Ogawa & unofficial member Yasutaka Yano) vs Kongoh Juniors (Tadasuke, Hajime Ohara & Nioh)

For Noah fans, we get the pleasure of seeing Yoshinari Ogawa vs Hajime Ohara. Ohara, the only man who can make Ogawa tap, will not be the same friendly individual that Yasutaka Yano has known before. This is a darker and angrier Ohara, who will be out to hurt. For Tadasuke, with the remaining Kongoh Juniors, this is a chance to unify and build a new Kongoh Junior together.  

MATCH FIVE

The Noah Junior Regulars (Atsushi Kotoge, Haoh & Alejandro) & Perros Del Mal De Japon (NOSAWA Rongai, Super Crazy & Ikuto Hidaka)

NOSAWA fights the second of the pre match rounds against Atsushi Kotoge, and he brings back up in the form of Super Crazy and Ikuto Hidaka. Haoh and Alejandro, who both left Kongoh in succession, team together tonight under the Noah Junior Regular banner for the first time. 

MATCH SIX

YO-HEY vs Kotaro Suzuki

Kotaro Suzuki warned YO-HEY when he made the title challenge that he was going to destroy him (and for good measure, Atsushi Kotoge too), and tonight he says he will make good his promise. It doesn't matter how YO-HEY comes at him, the result is going to be the same. YO-HEY lost the last pre match to NOSAWA Rongai after a sustained attack on his knee led to him tapping out, he needs to gather everything he has together tonight in order to win, as Kotaro is Yoshinari Ogawa's pupil, a whole different experience from facing NOSAWA. 

MATCH SEVEN

Go Shiozaki vs Manabu Soya

Perhaps more than his four match "Road to GHC" series, Go Shiozaki's road back to the top of Noah starts here. Manabu Soya hasn't really said much about this match, partly because Kenoh does the speaking for Kongoh and partly because he's quiet, but that is why Shiozaki feels the challenge in him. Soya does his speaking in the ring, and that is something Shiozaki both understands and respects. 

MATCH EIGHT

The Sugiura Army (Kazuyuki Fujita, Kazushi Sakuraba & Kendo Kashin) vs Masato Tanaka, Masa Kitamiya & Yoshiki Inamura

Kazuyuki Fujita and Masato Tanaka (the champion and his challenger) clash in their one and only pre match before the title challenge. On Tanaka's team, a bond seems to be growing between himself and Yoshiki Inamura, who he defeated in ZERO-1 recently. After the match they shook hands, with Tanaka saying to Inamura to shake if he wanted to fight again, today they tag, which can be a useful of way of getting to know your opponent. 

Then there is Kendo Kashin, who is always up to something. Kashin is facing a team of one heavyweight and two ultra heavyweights. I am wondering who he is going to try and throw off a balcony or trap behind his plastic sheet.   

MATCH NINE

GHC Junior Heavyweight Championship Match

Daisuke Harada vs Eita

Noah have had some crazy match signings before; Kendo Kashin stalking Kenoh with a giant present, Kazuyuki Fujita having beer poured over him by Katsuhiko Nakajima, Shuhei Taniguchi pretending to be a ventriloquist's dummy, and Kenoh calling Jyushin Lyger "an old cartoon character" and the resulting row which meant Akira Taue was summoned, but no one no one at all has ever appeared naked and in the shower. Not even Takashi Sugiura, who probably wishes he thought of it. 

The shower scene aside, Eita's flippant attitude (Oolong tea or water for example) throughout the title challenge, which has not had a pre match by the way, has irritated Daisuke Harada in a way that no one else has. In response to Harada's often said claim that the Noah Juniors will not be overtaken by the Heavyweights, Eita said bored that Harada could say this to his face, after he had beaten him. Harada reacted with "I'll stand before you and say it to your face!". A win for Eita tonight will cause a big shift in the unit struggle and power map of the constantly warring Noah Juniors. 

MATCH TEN

GHC Heavyweight Tag Match

Winner of Block A vs Winner of Block B 

The main event is the showdown between the winning team of Block A and Block B. One team will emerge victorious for the GHC Heavyweight titles. 

Picture credit: WrestleUniverse

GIF taken from Noah Official YouTube