(NOAH) The day when professional wrestling boy Kaito Kiyomiya was "absorbed" into Ariake Arena

18th October 2022

Note.Noah.Co.Jp

On that day, Kaito Kiyomiya was trembling at the deserted Ariake Arena. 

On October 30th, Pro Wrestling Noah will enter the main arena for the first time*, with a maximum capacity of 17,229 people. Since it's opening, Perfume and Hey! Say! JUMP have held solo concerts, and former SMAP members Goro Inagaki, Tsuyoshi Kusanagi and Shingo Katori performed at the Paralympic 1st Anniversary Event, "Tokyo 2020 Games - 1st Anniversary - TOKYO FORWARD". Noah will be the first to use it in a pro wrestling and martial arts capacity. 

Kiyomiya muttered this while sitting in the middle of the front row of the second floor seats. "The ring is right in front, so it's not far. As, I just watched it from the audience's perspective." "It's not far" is just a visual estimate of the distance from the audience seats to the ring. When he went up to the third floor seating area, he held the handrails with both hands, and looked down at the metallic seats and said with a smile, "Wow! This is no good. Too scary!!" Pretending to be afraid he said with a smile, "Kitamiya-san, you can't do this! Kitamiya-san would be no good here because he's afraid".

On the 4th floor seats, he felt the breadth again, but the moment he opened the door to the arena seats on the first floor, he looked awed and said, "Big!! Big!! Completely different! Is it bigger than The Budokan? I can hear your voices, I feel like I will be absorbed."

When he walked to the bottom of the four large screens called "Center Hang Vision", he stopped at the place where the ring will be set upon the day and spread his arms. This is a customary pose to show in the ring. Like this, he slowly turned to all four sides and standing in the middle of the arena, he embodied his current position in Noah. 

About 20 years ago, Kiyomiya was in the audience. Every time someone in the neighborhood invited him saying, "I got you a ticket to pro wrestling", his heart skipped a beat. When he looks back at the memories of the elementary school "Pro Wrestling Boy", there is no end to the list. 

At Pro Wrestling Noah, the moment Scorpio came out of the elevator at Korakuen Hall, he was so excited. He was fascinated by the coolness of TMDK (Mikey Nichols & Nick Miller), and just before Kenta Kobashi was hospitalized*, he rushed over and said "Please shake my hand!"* He saw both New Japan and All Japan at the venue. A Big Japan he fell in love with the bigness of Daisuke Sekimoto. At DDT when Minoru Suzuki knocked out Hikaru Sato, he cheered with all his might, saying "Go for it!" When the wrestler stood up, he thought "Ah, perhaps my voice reached you." That's why he was so enthusiastic about cheering, and was happy when they stood up".

The pro wrestling boy, who experienced first hand the importance of vocal support, went to the side where he would stand in the ring at nineteen. "It's been about two years since there has been no cheering for support, and the cheering has turned into applause. Even so, the feelings of the fans were reaching us, and I think we were able to catch them with our hearts. But I think the best way for people to express their feelings is to talk, and so it must have been stressful for the fans who couldn't do that. In Ariake you can cheer out loud. I feel very grateful for things that were taken for granted in the past."

Although there is a maximum capacity of 5,000 people to wear masks and maintain social distance, the ban on vocal support will be lifted from the Ariake event. The highlights are the five major GHC title matches; the GHC Heavyweight (Kazuyuki Fujita has challenged Kiyomiya), Heavyweight Tag Match (Kenoh & Katsuhiko Nakajima challenge Takashi Sugiura & Satoshi Kojima), National match (Kazushi Sakuraba challenges Masakatsu Funaki), GHC Junior Heavyweight match (Ninja Mack challenges HAYATA) and the Junior Heavyweight tag match (Atsushi Kotoge & Seiki Yoshioka have been challenged by Tadasuke & Hi69). 

In addition, there will also be a "Retirement Road 3" (Keiji Mutoh, Naomichi Marufuji & Yoshiki Inamura vs Hiroshi Tanahashi, Togi Makabe & Tomoaki Honma*).

"No matter how you look at Kazuyuki Fujita, he has strength and persuasion as a pro wrestler, but the champion must not avoid extremely harsh and tense matches. At Ariake, Noah's Holy Land, where everyone cheers in support. For me, the champion, there is no better situation than this. I want to show all the fans who return to Ariake how I will create pro wrestling in the future."

Keiji Mutoh will not be the last person to walk through the entrance gate at the Ariake Arena, it will be the 41st GHC Heavyweight Champion, Kaito Kiyomiya, who is the same age as Mutoh's eldest son. 

Translated from an article by "Noah's Ark" Fan Club Writer, Kanako Ito (Note.Noah.Co.Jp)

Picture credit: Note.Noah.Co.Jp

NOTES

*Main Arena is a Japanese term to differentiate somewhere which is used for concerts etc compared to a "sub arena" which is used for basketball tournaments etc. 

*Kobashi had kidney cancer. 

*Kobashi seems to have this quirk of fate. He met Katsuhiko Nakajima in much the same way and at roughly the same age. 

*Mutoh asked Tanahashi if he understood anything at all that Honma was saying, as he couldn't when Honma was his second. Tanahashi said it was like speed learning a language and could now understand about 80% or so of words.