(NOAH) Blurbs from Weekly Pro, 29th August 2000 (Issue No.992)

Contents

1. SAMURAI! This weeks recommended program: "Budokan-level" Akiyama vs. Kobashi and other Noah matches in the second round

2. Phone card winners 

3. Noah information

4. Introducing Noah Goods

5. October series schedule, "NAVIGATION" & ticket information

6. Fan Art

7. Competition! Find Five Mistakes

8. This week's Samurai! Information

SAMURAI! This weeks recommended program

"Budokan-level" Akiyama vs. Kobashi and other Noah matches in the second round

 A new wrestling promotion, Noah, was born after the split with All Japan, Noah's voyage into the 21st century has finally begun, and can be seen on SAMURAI! TV. The two consecutive events at Noah's sacred ground*, Differ Ariake, were premium events that only a very limited number of fans could attend on the day. Naturally, this meant that there were many fans across the country who wanted to see them but couldn't, so this new fight that everyone was interested in will now be available to watch on SAMURAI! TV.

 Starting August 5th, a new show called "Noah's Ark" will begin, featuring Noah wrestlers every week. The show will be expanded to two hours, and an emergency release will be made available as a live broadcast. 

 The inaugural event on August 5th, has been already broadcast on August 12th, but the second show on August 6th, will be broadcast on August 19th. The star of the show was Jun Akiyama! He fought a fierce, Budokan level match against Kobashi, and won a total victory. Don't miss this exciting fight, with Izumida unexpectedly defeating Omori, and Rikio tearing into Akiyama!

Notes

Sacred ground of Differ Ariake: As this phrase was being used as early as August 2000 shortly after the launch, proves that Differ was called this from the start and did not gain this appellation after Noah (much altered) left sixteen years later.

Phone card Winners

Weekly Pro announced that each week on "Dangerous Thursday", three people would be chosen by lottery to receive a telephone card. The design would be random. They chose to use a picture of Kenta Kobashi in an All Japan for the blurb picture. This indicates to me that they probably had a surplus they wanted to get rid of. 

Noah Information

~ This poster formed part of a "September Poster Giveaway"! for Noah's September 15th & 16th Differ Ariake events. Applicants had to write to Weekly Pro with their address, phone number, name, age and occupation with the title of "NOAH Poster Giveaway"

Introducing Noah Goods

~ NO FEAR had a range of merchandise including stickers (100 yen plus 100 yen shipping, length 10.5 x width 9.5cm for the "SKIRT" sticker, with 500 yen and shipping for the "NEW EYES" sticker, which was 11.5cm x 18.5cm)

~ Noah logo t-shirt (only came in black at 3,000 yen plus 400 yen shipping, sizes were XL, L, M.) 

~ In addition to these, if you ordered the commemorative pamphlet for Noah's launch (1,500 yen plus 400 yen shipping), by August 25th, you would get a match card included for either the 5th or the 6th August. 

Notes

The wording on the sticker differed from the t-shirt, that said "If it has wheels or a skirt, then ride it". 

October series schedule, "NAVIGATION"

Saturday 7th October: Differ Ariake (6pm)

Sunday 8th October: Yokohama Bunka Gym* (3pm)

Monday 9th October (National Holiday): Maebashi Gunma Prefectural Sports Centre (3pm)

Wednesday 11th October: Aichi Prefectural Gymnasium, Nagoya (6pm)

Thursday 12th October: Okyama Budokan (6:30pm)

Friday 13th October: Higashi Ward Sports Centre, Hiroshina (6pm)

Sunday 15th October: Hakata Star Lane*, Fukuoka (3pm)

Tuesday 17th October: Ishikawa Prefectural Industrial Exhibition Hall No.2, Kanazawa (6:30pm)

Thursday 19th October: Tsukuba Capio, Ibaraki (6:30 pm)

Friday 20th October: Iwate Prefectural Gymnasium, Morioka (6:30pm)

TICKET INFORMATION 

Sunday 8th October: Yokohama Bunka Gym

Ticket prices

Arena A - 10,000 yen

Arena B - 7000 yen

Arena C - 5000 yen

2nd floor reserved seat - 5000 yen

3rd floor reserved seat - 4000 yen

Release locations

In the Tokyo area, you could buy tickets from Ticket Pia, Lawson, Sotetsu, Yomori, Korakuen Hall, Shosen Book Mart etc. 

For Ariake, there had been a special advance sale since the 19th August

For Hakata Star Lane on the 15th October

Special ringside - 8000 yen

Ringside - 6000 yen

Reserved Seat A - 4000 yen

You could buy tickets nationwide from Ticket Pia, Lawson, Showa Kouken, Nishitetsu Ticket Service and the venue itself. 

General sales for both events began on Friday, August 25th. 

Notes

"Series" was an old word which was used very much in the Rikidozan era and carried on through to All Japan, this was replaced by "tour", which Mitsuharu Misawa disliked and used "Navi" when referring to travels with Noah. 

Yokohama Bunka Gym: Noah would come here for the next twenty years. The building, by 2020 was hopelessly out of date and dilapidated (Kenoh said you had to manually turn the hot water on when you arrived at the venue, something which he forgot to do once, the seating which was built for Showa era people no longer suited people these days, there was a row of seats which were about to collapse, and the lighting was so low over the ring, everyone was almost fried. Go Shiozaki found that after a match he couldn't cool down, even in the car on the way home with the aircon blasting, and Keiji Mutoh would grumble about there being no air con in the building) was torn down and rebuilt, and is now the Yokohama BUNTAI.

Hakata StarLane: The beloved bowling alley/venue was torn down in 2019 as repairs due to seismic damage would be astronomical (the building was constructed using out of date materials). It was here that Go Shiozaki would win the GHC Heavyweight for the first time in 2009 when the title was vacated due to Jun Akiyama's injury in the fallout after Misawa's death. For Shiozaki, this would start a pattern of having the most meaningful title reigns when he had to protect Noah in some form. As for the bowling alley, Daisuke Harada stole a pin and bought it to the ring with him in Noah's final match there in March 2019.   

FAN ART

From top left: Mitsuharu Misawa, Jun Akiyama, Jun Akiyama, Kenta Kobashi

From bottom left: Masao Inoue, Kenta Kobashi, Yoshinari Ogawa, Takeshi Rikioh

Competition! Find Five Mistakes. 

The first twenty people to answer correctly, won a photograph from this weeks magazine. 

"The long-awaited "Pro Wrestling Noah" wrestling battles (two events on August 5th and 6th) were finally held at Differ Ariake in Tokyo, watched by enthusiastic fans. In the much-anticipated semi-finals, Jun Akiyama announced himself as the new ace, taking spectacular wins over Misawa, Kobashi and Taue, adding a special touch to the event, and he newly resurrected new ace, Akiyama, seems to have already narrowed his target down to the October series"

This is basically a spot the difference, with the pieces cut out below, which can then be assembled over the picture. 

This week's Samurai! Information

Mitsuo Mimota made his first live appearance on S-ARENA on Wednesday, August 9th. On Monday and Tuesday commentator Takashi Kikuchi also made a special appearance. 

Akiyama, Kanemaru and Hashi* appeared on Noah's talk and variety show "NOAH'S ark" and tried their hand at outdoor activities, enjoying pear picking and insect collecting. The first broadcast will be on Saturday, August 26th at 7pm, and you can also watch the historic 5th August inaugural match, where President Misawa greeted the crowd in the ring, on the Samurai TV homepage.   

Notes

Kanemaru and Hashi: Yoshinobu Kanemaru and Makoto Hashi