(NOAH) EVENT RECAP: SUNNY VOYAGE 2023 (Saturday November 18th, Agematsu Town Community Center, Nagano) - Eita's triumphant homecoming

Noah came today to Eita's home prefecture, Nagano, and although this is not really the cold North of Japan (or Japan's snow country), it had started to snow as fans and wrestlers arrived. Noah took a beautiful video of a local shrine with the flurries. Eita quipped that this was lovely sunny weather (although he did later say that he half expected the event to be cancelled as express trains were stopped). Subsequently, Noah set up heaters in the venue and announced an attendance of 414. 

Flowers were set up for Eita, which lined the perimeter of the hall, and he himself signed autographs for his local fans, and those who had braved the icy conditions on the roads. 

Event will be broadcast on WrestleUniverse from 18:00 JST on the 22nd November. The only live stream today was done on Instagram for the main event. 

MATCH ONE

Taishi Ozawa vs Yu Owada

Winner: Taishi Ozawa with the Boston Crab (5 minutes, 43 seconds)

MATCH TWO

Los Golpeadores (Dragon Bane & Alpha Wolf) & X-Treme Tiger vs Ninja Mack, Alejandro & TERRY YAKI

There was the usual wild entry, and the usual shoving (Alejandro's head) and then a fight between Ninja Mack and Alpha Wolf. As you can imagine, this match was very aerial and fans gave up taking pictures as invariably they were blurry and usually of bodies flying in mid air with their legs in the air. 

Winner: Dragon Bane with the Twisterbane on TERRY YAKI (12 minutes, 17 seconds)

MATCH THREE

Ryohei Oiwa vs Kai Fujimura

To their surprise, fans thought they could detect Yoshinari Ogawa's teaching in Ryohei Oiwa

Winner: Ryohei Oiwa with a Power slam (7 minutes, 42 seconds)

MATCH FOUR

Kenoh & Super Crazy vs Manabu Soya & Hajime Ohara

Kenoh provoked Manabu Soya when he (Soya) was on the apron, the referee holding Soya back. Fans also noticed that the bilingual (but no doubt trilingual) Referee Nishinaga counted in Spanish for the benefit of Super Crazy. 

Winner: Manabu Soya with the Trajectory on Super Crazy (12 minutes, 55 seconds)

Soya hadn't won over Kenoh, but he had won over Kenoh's team, and the two had a verbal altercation with Kenoh leaving yelling loudly. 

From here on, Noah streamed the final two matches live on Instagram. Jake Lee was seen to be watching through this (he wasn't at the event today, and had nominated Tadasuke as the "leader").  

MATCH FIVE

Good Looking Guys (Jack Morris, Anthony Green, LK Cleary, YO-HEY & Tadasuke vs El Hijo Del Dr Wagner Jnr, Masa Kitamiya, Daiki Inaba, Shuji Kondo & Junta Miyawaki

Daiki Inaba threw his t-shirt at Jack Morris, and started a brawl, but somehow as melee fights were going on about them, the juniors behaved. Poor Junta Miyawaki got the brunt of the attacks from both divisions. As if this match was not chaotic enough, Wild Tadasuke met with Wild El Hijo Del Dr Wagner Jnr, as he charged at him and got slammed, as did everyone who tried. 

Winner: Masa Kitamiya with the Diving Senton on Anthony Green (12 minutes, 31 seconds)

Masa Kitamiya threw Anthony out of the ring afterwards, and then attacked Jack Morris. Kitamiya had predicted that Green wouldn't be so smug the next time they met. Once this maelstrom had gone, four local people got into the ring with flowers for Eita and his team.

MATCH SIX

*Eita's triumphant homecoming*

Kaito Kiyomiya, HAYATA & Eita vs STINGER (Daga & Yoshinari Ogawa) & LEONA

After parading round the ring and cupping his hand to his ear to acknowledge the cheers of the fans, and stopping to point out to Daga that they were cheering for him, Eita and his team were handed flowers and they posed for pictures, even HAYATA, who stood at the front albeit not in the huddle with the others. Then as soon as they could, Yoshinari Ogawa, Daga and LEONA attacked their opponents and beat Eita with his flowers to boos and hisses from the crowd, leaving petals all over the ring (at one point Daga even threw him into his flowers that lined the hall, and Ogawa choked Eita with Eita's own merchandise, which he did to Kiyomiya too). Then Ogawa and Daga decided to rough up the ref, and the match was stopped after fifty-eight seconds. Eita spoke on the mic, saying that he didn't want it to end like this, and asked for the match to restart. A new ref came out and the match continued.

Winner: Eita with the Imperial Uno kick on Yoshinari Ogawa (34 minutes, 44 seconds)

Backstage, Eita commented that the match (which he estimated to be forty minutes) was tough. He also didn't expect so many people to come due to travel issues and his suspicion that due to the weather the show might be called off. And as the athlete from this town (he mentioned a couple of other names here), but more than anything while he acknowledged that it might be a while until he returned, he reiterated what he had said in the ring, on his return home for the first time in four years, he wanted everyone to remember that today he had beaten Yoshinari Ogawa in his hometown. 

With thanks to: Shishikazu & RX

Noah's next event: STAR NAVIGATION 2023, Friday November 24th 2023 (Korakuen Hall, Tokyo) - Live broadcast on ABEMA