(NOAH) CARD: Dream on 2022 (May 4th 2022, Korakuen Hall, Tokyo)

The fall out from the two nights at Ryogoku Kokugikan comes to the atmospheric Korakuen Hall tonight. From start to end, the card is going to be wild; pre match GHC Heavyweight lariat vs lariat, junior chaos in pretty much all the matches they are in, a clash of styles, titles to be challenged for and a title match in the main event. If Korakuen Hall is going to remain standing, it's going to be from the time the show starts at 18.30 JST, with the ABEMA broadcast beginning at 18:00. Please note this will not have English commentary, and should it be free and worldwide (which it usually is), you can only watch it live. For those outside of Japan, please do not subscribe to ABEMA to watch as VPN can be difficult to bypass their firewalls with. A better subscription would be WrestleUniverse, of which it will be uploaded to eventually. Last time it was only an hour or so after the event. 

Noah will stream the first three matches live on their official YouTube.

MATCH ONE

Simon Gotch vs Kinya Okada

Interesting opener between Kinya Okada, Noah's Showa Era style wrestler, and Simon Gotch, the man who caused Masakatsu Funaki to be caught off guard. I think this is going to be a very good learning experience for Okada, as like a lot of the youngsters in Noah, they have not often fought foreign wrestlers in singles matches. 

MATCH TWO

Perros Del Mal De Japon (NOSAWA Rongai, Texano Jnr & Super Crazy) vs Alejandro, Kai Fujimura & Yasutaka Yano

First wild junior match on the card, and I feel kind of sorry for the young boys and Alejandro as they are going to be up against the usual Perros style match (cheating) and the Bullrope that has come into play. Yasutaka Yano has momentum pinned NOSAWA Rongai before (twice), something NOSAWA has never forgotten or forgiven. 

MATCH THREE

Kongoh (Kenoh & Masakatsu Funaki) vs Kendo Kashin & SLEX

This match contains Kenoh's worst nightmare, Kendo Kashin. If there is anyone who scares Kenoh, it is him. No King Tany to drag to ringside tonight though. The other person in this match not likely to amuse Kenoh is SLEX. I can see Masakatsu Funaki enjoying the sunglasses though. Not only that, after fighting Simon Gotch he said he enjoyed fighting foreign wrestlers as the physique, power and techniques they used where different, and SLEX fits that bill. 

MATCH FOUR

Kongoh Juniors (Tadasuke, Hajime Ohara & Hi69) vs Dragon Bane, Alpha Wolf & Extreme Tiger

Note to the lucha boys. If Tadasuke offers you his hand, please do not shake it. Extreme Tiger vs Hajime Ohara, the battle of the technicians should be interesting. Meanwhile you have Tadasuke and his wild heavyweight strength, who will no doubt get completely carried away, and then there is HI69. HI69 lost both his Kongoh name and his hair against Haoh at the Junior Night at Ryogoku on the 29th. Tadasuke has said he is "Kongoh Junior's HI69", but we will see if he himself really feels that way.  

MATCH FIVE

Kongoh (Katsuhiko Nakajima & Manabu Soya) vs Michael Elgin & Masa Kitamiya

Katsuhiko Nakajima is probably not in the best mood, although his younger brother finding a new tag partner might amuse him though. Someone is going to get a kicking, while Manabu Soya gets into hoss fighting.

MATCH SIX

STINGER (HAYATA, Yoshinari Ogawa, Chris Ridgeway, Seiki Yoshioka & Yuya Susumu) vs The Noah Junior Regulars (Daisuke Harada, Atsushi Kotoge, YO-HEY, Haoh & Junta Miyawaki)

Daisuke Harada has vowed to smash STINGERS grip on the titles, and that no doubt starts tonight with the GHC Junior Heavyweight as the junior tags have been challenged for (I wonder if Perros are going to stay out of this match). Whether or not HAYATA gets a challenge from Daisuke Harada, another member of Noah Junior Regulars, someone else or even his own team, this is going to be chaos. 

MATCH SEVEN

Kaito Kiyomiya vs Ninja Mack

Clash of styles as the down to earth Kaito Kiyomiya meets the high flying Ninja Mack. It's going to interesting to see how each of them brings the other either down or up to their level; Ninja Mack with a ground based technical attack and Kaito Kiyomiya with some aerial maneuvers. 

MATCH EIGHT

Go Shiozaki, Daiki Inaka & Yoshiki Inamura vs Satoshi Kojima, Naomichi Marufuji & Masato Tanaka

The GHC Heavyweight pre match begins as Go Shiozaki meets Satoshi Kojima. But while lariats vs lariats is the spotlight here, there are other things going on and no one is truly a bit player, the other four have grudges with each other too. Naomichi Marufuji and Daiki Inaba don't exactly get along, with Marufuji winding Inaba up, much to his own detriment though as Inaba has defeated him before, and the continuing rivalry between Masato Tanaka and Yoshiki Inamura. Tanaka has admitted that each time they fight, Inamura becomes stronger and harder to beat. 

MATCH NINE

GHC Tag Championship Match

The Sugiura Army (Takashi Sugiura & Hideki Suzuki) vs Les Mexicana's (Rene Dupree & El Hijo De Dr Wagner Jnr)

The evening culminates in a tag championship match. To set the scene, Rene Dupree and El Hijo Dr Wagner Junior (aka The Sugiura Army International), won Global Tag League in April 2020 and soon after that won the GHC Heavyweight Tags, but had to vacate the belts due to not being able to come back to Japan to defend them due to the pandemic. Ironically, the vacated belts were won by Takashi Sugiura (and Kazushi Sakuraba). Just over two years later, Les Mexicana's are now returning for the belts they had to give up, but never lost.