Manabu Soya vs. Kinya Okada
What’s with the weird grey mat for this show? If we’re not gonna have the sacred green mat, then I need the NOAH ring to be plastered in sponsors, as our (former) LIDET overlords always intended. Ex-WRESTLE-1 hoss Soya and young boy Okada had a competent wrestling match to open the show, even though the atmosphere sometimes felt as grey as the mat. I guess the structure might’ve been a bit too 50/50 for my liking – would’ve liked to see Okada take more of an ass kicking. Still, what they went with was solid enough. That neck crank submission from the Big Red Manabu looks painful as hell. **1/4
Naomichi Marufuji & Yuko Miyamoto vs. Akitoshi Saito & Masao Inoue
I’m a massive fan of Akitoshi Saito’s theme. That guitar lick perfectly captures the essence of a damaged man who’s gone through some serious shit. My love for the match was limited to the music, because everything that came after was either inessential comedy or straight up bad. Miyamoto is a legend for putting this much effort into this kind of match. We’re not worthy of this man’s Moonsault double kneedrop. Also, I love Masao, but doing a semi-intricate rollup finish with this man was never going to work. *3/4
Kaito Kiyomiya, Shuhei Taniguchi, Mohammed Yone, Daisuke Harada & YO-HEY vs. Kenoh, Masa Kitamiya, Yoshiki Inamura, Haoh & Nioh
RATELS-on-the-run Tadasuke hooked up with Kongo during the afternoon show and his presence in the group already seems to have changed their dynamic. They were leaning a lot more into the heelishness, what with the ring-side interference spots and Soya illegally partaking in the Kaientai elbowdrop rush. It’s okay, I’d wanna join in on that thing as well. The heel shtick was handled fairly well, which is good news because you don’t want Kongo to turn into Hooligans 2.0. The match itself felt way too long but there were a lot of quality bits spread throughout, notably Inamura and Taniguchi showing off some tremendous meat-based chemistry that made me really excited about their upcoming N1 match. **3/4
Atsushi Kotoge, Hajime Ohara & Seiki Yoshioka vs. Kotaro Suzuki, Yoshinari Ogawa & HAYATA
Full Throttle and Stinger keep familiarizing themselves with each other and the match quality is looking up. Again, this was slightly on the long side, but there was enough good stuff to keep me engaged. Full Throttle throwing out their triple team motor-revving shtick right off the bat, Ogawa/Ohara mat wrestling, Stinger taking out Yoshioka’s leg: all positives. I would’ve taken more of a focus on Yoshioka/Suzuki considering they have a title match coming up, but Yoshioka proving to the Internet that he knows how to Sell The Leg was allright too. Dug all the backbreaker-based offense from Ohara in the ending stretch and was genuinely happy to see him get the tapout win on The Ratboy. BOOM BOOM. ***
Go Shiozaki & Katuhiko Nakajima vs. Takashi Sugiura & Kaz Hayashi
So good! Any time Go, Katsu and Sugiura are in the ring together, you know you’re in for a treat and this was no exception. The three toughest guys in NOAH just stiffing the shit out of each other for your viewing pleasure, with old man Hayashi rounding out the action with his veteran craftiness.
The big story here was Sugiura-Gun going after the champ’s mutilated arm – his primary weakness. Shiozaki sold his ass off and it led to a bunch of smart twists involving him being unable to throw chops at full strength. Particularly loved the bit where he had to stop his own machinegun chops due to the pain and ended up getting caught in Sugiura’s corner forearms of death. Brutally efficient finish between these two: Sugiura trying to slap Go unconscious only to get decapitated by lariats. God bless the NOAH heavyweight physicality. ***1/2
