(NOAH) The Man Who Saved The Ark
8th & 15th January 2025 (Issue no 2335)
Noah has concluded its year-end shows with two events: December 19th at Korakuen Hall and December 22nd at Shinkiba (LIMIT BREAK). With a big event scheduled at the Nippon Budokan on New Year's Day, there is no time for the promotion to take a breather, but the end of the year is a turning point.
Noah's 2024 kicked off with a show at the Ariake Arena on January 2nd.
Before the show, there was controversy because Marufuji and Ibushi were featured in the main event instead of the GHC Heavyweight Championship, but that seems like a distant memory now. After the main event that day, Kaito Kiyomiya and Jake Lee closed out the show on the microphone.
Jake has already left the company, while Kiyomiya played a central role in Noah in 2024. Director Takeda also considers Jake's departure a significant event, but he reflects that the biggest news for Noah in 2024 was the change in management.
"With the change in president, the company's policies have become clearer. The previous policies could have led to all promotions becoming similar, but now we are able to operate each promotion while maintaining its own unique style."
Yasuo Okamoto's appointment as president in May naturally had a significant impact on Noah. While he was also the vice president of CyberAgent, President Okamoto was originally a pro-wrestling fan himself. Therefore, he prioritized the fan's perspectives and put forward several concrete policies to enhance the ring.
"The current president's policy is easy to understand. He wants to liven up the ring and increase the fan base with a wrestlers-first approach. He's focusing on scouting and actively pursuing activities with a view to the near future. The president has secured a lot of sponsorship as the driving force behind this, so we're using the funds for talent development."
Currently, Noah introduces its sponsoring companies on a screen before the start of each show, which is largely due to the connections of President Okamoto, who is also the Vice President of CyberAgent. It's been about six months since the new system was implemented. Noah's goal going forward is to build its own kingdom. The ideal scenario is to increase the number of fans through its affiliated and regular wrestlers, and to fill the venues for big matches centered around those wrestlers.
"At the next Budokan event, we'll have guests like Nakamura and KENTA, but compared to a few years ago, we're now able to put together matches mainly with our own younger wrestlers. We've created the right atmosphere for the venue, so now it's just a matter of attracting spectators. We're putting a lot of effort into promotion, and although we have a small staff, we're allocating personnel to public relations and social media. ABEMA, with whom we have a cooperative relationship, is also good at producing videos, so now it's just a matter of increasing the quality in the ring and the number of fans. The challenge is that we're creating excitement and putting on great matches."
The final Korakuen Hall event of the year (December 19th) brought together Noah's three proud brands, and from the first match, "MONDAY MAGIC," the audience was incredibly enthusiastic and the event was a huge success.
As Director Takeda said, the next step is "attracting spectators," and with the goal of "Korakuen Hall first," we will simultaneously be working on a major project.
Basically, we want to fill Korakuen Hall, but that doesn't mean we're not going to have big matches. We'll do big matches and fill Korakuen Hall. We have a lot of wrestlers on our roster, and we use a lot of foreign wrestlers. To be honest, just filling Korakuen Hall isn't enough to break even. You might say, "But you're not even filling Korakuen Hall," but assuming maximum expectations, we need to fill Korakuen Hall and fill the big matches as well. In 2024, we were able to create big matches that the fans enjoyed, and Korakuen Hall has recovered considerably from its peak through trial and error. That's why we need to push a little harder, so a new star can be born from that".
In July, it will be Yoshiki Inamura, and on the 1st of next month, it will be OZAWA. At the Nippon Budokan, which will be the largest event in the promotion's history, GHC Champion Kaito Kiyomiya will have consecutive title matches against his homegrown junior. In addition, AJ Styles will be in July, and next time it will be Shinsuke Nakamura, both superstars from WWE, with whom they have a cooperative relationship and who are highly supported by Japanese fans, who will be participating.
After the boom following Keiji Mutoh's retirement, Noah seems to have found its direction through trial and error. Furthermore, Director Takeda, reflecting on the past few years, states the following as one of the issues the company needs to change: "Since the COVID-19 pandemic, we haven't been able to structure our series in the traditional way of having an opener followed by the finals. This structure started to break down around 2021, and for the past few years, we've mainly concentrated our shows on weekends. There are various reasons for this, including the inability to travel to regional areas due to the pandemic. While immediate improvement in the first half of 2025 may be difficult, we want to establish a style with series and off-seasons in the second half. If we can achieve this, we can also conduct overseas tours during the off-season and utilize that time for various activities. Currently, it feels like we're competing all year round, lacking variety, so we want to restructure that. To achieve this, weekday regional shows will be a challenge."
This is his fifth year with CyberFight. While currently in the process of internal development, when it eventually takes a larger form, 2024 will be seen as the starting point. Believing that this day will come, Director Takeda will continue to lead Noah for the fifth year.
"It's important to work steadily. However, our promotion cannot survive unless we achieve great success as a result of that steady work. We will continue to do the steady work diligently, but it is also important to have big ultimate goals."
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