I thought it would be timely to have a recap of all the goings on in NOAH right now, as the company doesn’t seem to be having much luck right now with injuries. But first, a quick look at the recent contract negotiations in NOAH…
New Year, New Contracts: As part of a cost cutting and perhaps a longer term downsizing measure, NOAH renewed the contracts of its twenty two main roster talent in early January, before dropping NOAH regulars Jun Izumida, Kishin Kawabata, Tsuyoshi Kikuchi, Makoto Hashi and Tamon Honda from the main roster to free agent status, presumably leaving the door open for their return in the future. Kentaro Shiga was also announced as freelance, perhaps indicating some links with the promotion in the future as well. Both Shiga and Honda have since announced they will be appearing on New Japan’s January 31st show at Differ Ariake. In other big news stemming from the contract renewals, Jun Akiyama has announced that 2010 will be his last year as an in ring competitor, citing mounting injuries including a back injury which forced him to relinquish the GHC Heavyweight Title last year, and from suffering post traumatic stress disorder, which has been increasingly worse since the death of Misawa.
More Injuries In NOAH: Along with Akiyama being injured, Kenta Kobashi once again has had to step away from his in ring work due to an injury in his elbow which has been causing him numbness in his fingers. Based on doctors advice, who diagnosed him with Cubital Tunnel Syndrome, they strongly suggested he had surgery otherwise he could be left with constant numbness in his fingers and an end to his wrestling career. Cubital Tunnel Syndrome is caused due to a repetitive strain and can cause nerve damage, so this is perhaps a side effect of the thousands of chops Kobashi has thrown over the years.
Go Shiozaki is also out with injury, believed to be a shoulder injury which will probably put him on the shelf for around six months. After being elevated to the top of NOAH last year, Shiozaki had the potential to be a new figurehead for the promotion due to the increasing age and injuries of their top stars.
Also injured is Kotaro Suzuki, who since suffering a back injury in December has been forced to take some time off and relinquish the GHC Jr. Tag Team Titles, which leads me on to…
Jr. Tag Title Tournament: A small four team tournament has been announced for mid February to name new champions, with Naomichi Marufuji and Atsushi Aoki taking on Yoshinobu Kanemaru and Genba Hirayangi on February 6th in Differ Ariake, and Taiji Ishimori teaming with Ricky Marvin to take on the gaijin team of Eddie Edwards and Bobby Fish on February 14th. The two winning teams meet on the 16th in Osaka.
Global Tag League: Moving the tournament to their first tour of the year, NOAH has changed the format of their Global Tag League from a single block tournament with the top of the league being named the winner, to a two block system with the two leading teams facing each other. Thus far, with just one match left in each block, Yoshihiro Takayama and Takuma Sano are leading Block A, and Takashi Sugiura and Shuhei Taniguchi at the top of Block B, with both teams on four points. However, dependant on how the matches go, it looks like their could be a draw at the top of both blocks, which could lead to a semi-final round being fought. The current plan sees the final takes place on January 24th at Korakuen Hall, with the winner of Block A taking on the winner of Block B. Also on the card is Jun Akiyama against Naomichi Marufuji.
Wednesday, 20 January 2010
Saturday, 9 January 2010
Puro Newsflash – New Year and Early January Events – DDT, AJPW, BJW and Zero1!
Before I start, I’m running down five shows across four days here, all at Korakuen Hall… wrestling capital of the world, perhaps?
All Japan at Korakuen Hall: As is tradition, All Japan headed to Korakuen Hall on January 2nd and 3rd to present two cards with feature both heavyweight and jr. heavyweight battle royals. The tradition itself extends waaaay back into Giant Baba territory of All Japan, the first heavyweight battle royal taking place in 1977, and continuing every year on January 2nd at Korakuen Hall ever since. The jr. heavyweight battle royal on the other hand started a little later in 1984, before skipping a few years and starting full time in 1991, once again at Koarkuen Hall on January 3rd. This year the heavyweight battle royal was won by Akebono, outlasting sixteen other men to take the win. One day later, Hiroshi Yamato won a much smaller nine man battle royal to win the jr. heavyweight version of the match for the first time in the new decade. Also on the cards, on January 2nd Kaz Hayashi made his seventh defence of the AJPW Jr. Heavyweight Title against Masanobu Fuchi, and on the 3rd Keiji Muto and Masakatsu Funaki unseated Taiyo Kea and Minoru Suzuki to lift the AJPW World Tag Team Titles. The New Years Shining Series continues until the 11th, with Triple Crown Champion Satoshi Kojima defending the titles against Joe Doering.
ZERO1 at Korakuen Hall: ZERO1, the promotion that most thought, including your writer, would not make it to the end of 2009, ended up surviving and finished the year with a new World Heavyweight Champion in former All Japan top star Toshiaki Kawada. The promotion’s first show of the year featured the new champion’s second defence of the belt against Big Japan representative Daisuke Sekimoto. On January 1st at Korakuen Hall, Kawada successfully defended the belt in just over a quarter of an hour. The main event of the show saw Akebono and Shinjiro Otani defeat Ryouji Sai and Kohei Sato in a special new years match.
New Year, New Deathmatches: Big Japan started the year in the only way they knew how, by heading in Koarkuen Hall on January 2nd and presenting not one, but two deathmatches! Drawing a crowd of 1,426, the first deathmatch on the show, a Scramble Bunkhouse Deathmatch, saw Jun Kasai and Jaki Numazawa defeat The Winger and MASADA in a nutty finish which involved a lighttube bat. The final match also featured Lighttubes in an elimination eight man tag death match. Union’s Isami Kodaka picked up the win for his team by elimination Abdullah Kobayashi after 27 minutes.
How Many Men Can You Fit In A Ring? It seems DDT was at lengths to find out the answer this question on December 31st when they ran a co-promoted show at Korakuen Hall with Kaientai Dojo and Big Japan in front of a customary 2,010 people. The main event was a huge 108 man battle royal. That’s right, one hundred and eight people. In one ring. The match was eventually won by Freedom’s representative Jun Kasai after 85:12. I suspect that the match is one of the longest of the last decade, and what a way to finish the decade off!
All Japan at Korakuen Hall: As is tradition, All Japan headed to Korakuen Hall on January 2nd and 3rd to present two cards with feature both heavyweight and jr. heavyweight battle royals. The tradition itself extends waaaay back into Giant Baba territory of All Japan, the first heavyweight battle royal taking place in 1977, and continuing every year on January 2nd at Korakuen Hall ever since. The jr. heavyweight battle royal on the other hand started a little later in 1984, before skipping a few years and starting full time in 1991, once again at Koarkuen Hall on January 3rd. This year the heavyweight battle royal was won by Akebono, outlasting sixteen other men to take the win. One day later, Hiroshi Yamato won a much smaller nine man battle royal to win the jr. heavyweight version of the match for the first time in the new decade. Also on the cards, on January 2nd Kaz Hayashi made his seventh defence of the AJPW Jr. Heavyweight Title against Masanobu Fuchi, and on the 3rd Keiji Muto and Masakatsu Funaki unseated Taiyo Kea and Minoru Suzuki to lift the AJPW World Tag Team Titles. The New Years Shining Series continues until the 11th, with Triple Crown Champion Satoshi Kojima defending the titles against Joe Doering.
ZERO1 at Korakuen Hall: ZERO1, the promotion that most thought, including your writer, would not make it to the end of 2009, ended up surviving and finished the year with a new World Heavyweight Champion in former All Japan top star Toshiaki Kawada. The promotion’s first show of the year featured the new champion’s second defence of the belt against Big Japan representative Daisuke Sekimoto. On January 1st at Korakuen Hall, Kawada successfully defended the belt in just over a quarter of an hour. The main event of the show saw Akebono and Shinjiro Otani defeat Ryouji Sai and Kohei Sato in a special new years match.
New Year, New Deathmatches: Big Japan started the year in the only way they knew how, by heading in Koarkuen Hall on January 2nd and presenting not one, but two deathmatches! Drawing a crowd of 1,426, the first deathmatch on the show, a Scramble Bunkhouse Deathmatch, saw Jun Kasai and Jaki Numazawa defeat The Winger and MASADA in a nutty finish which involved a lighttube bat. The final match also featured Lighttubes in an elimination eight man tag death match. Union’s Isami Kodaka picked up the win for his team by elimination Abdullah Kobayashi after 27 minutes.
How Many Men Can You Fit In A Ring? It seems DDT was at lengths to find out the answer this question on December 31st when they ran a co-promoted show at Korakuen Hall with Kaientai Dojo and Big Japan in front of a customary 2,010 people. The main event was a huge 108 man battle royal. That’s right, one hundred and eight people. In one ring. The match was eventually won by Freedom’s representative Jun Kasai after 85:12. I suspect that the match is one of the longest of the last decade, and what a way to finish the decade off!
Monday, 4 January 2010
Puro Newsflash – January 4th Tokyo Dome Results!
The New Year in Japan can only mean one thing… New Japan heads to the Tokyo Dome once again for another one of their January 4th spectaculars, for the 19th year in a row. Building on such a legacy is not easy, and this year New Japan brought in wrestlers from promotions across Japan and the world, with representation from NOAH, All Japan, SMASH, TNA, CMLL and ZERO1, along with US legends Terry Funk and Abdullah the Butcher. With the big line up of talent, and a huge five title matches on the ten match card, New Japan succeeded in bringing in a reported 41,500 fans to the show, the biggest attendance since 2006.
In the main happenings from the show, Prince Devitt and Ryusuke Taguchi made their successful fourth defence of the IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Titles against the CMLL team of Ultimo Guerrero and Averno. Also in Tag Team Title action, TNA’s Team 3D lost the IWGP Tag belts to Yujiro and Tetsuya Naito in a triple threat match which also featured the team of Karl Anderson and Giant Bernard. Not surprisingly, neither of Team 3D were in the finish of the match, meaning that once again they haven’t lost in Japan. We shouldn’t complain, at least TNA can’t devalue the belts anymore. The next two matches on the show also featured tag battles, with the outsider team of TAJIRI and Masato Tanaka overcoming Akebono and Yuji Nagata, followed by the legends tag match, named ‘the legend never rots’. Seriously. Anyway, one team featured the 65 year old Terry Funk, 46 year old Masahiro Chono, 58 year old Riki Choshu and 42 year old Manabu Nakanishi, making a combined age of 211, taking on 73 year old Abdullah The Butcher, and his team of Toru Yano, Takashi Iizuka and Tomohiro Ishii, whom Abby was at least 30 years older than any of. Terry Funk’s team picked up the win in just nine minutes.
The NOAH vs. NJPW series ended at two matches each way, with Naomichi Marufuji winning the IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Title from Tiger Mask after earning the opportunity by winning the 2009 Super J Cup, and becoming the first person to hold Jr. belts in AJPW, NOAH and NJPW. Following that, New Japan ace Hiroshi Tanahashi overcame Go Shiozaki, and Togi Makabe beat Mohammed Yone, before Takashi Sugiura made his successful first defence of the GHC Heavyweight Title against Hirooki Goto, to finish the series at two wins each. I expect more promotional warfare between these two.
In the final match of the night, IWGP Champion Shinsuke Nakamura made his fourth defence of the title against outsider Yoshihiro Takayama in just over fifteen minutes after delivering the Boma Ye to Takayama. In a suprising move, Manabu Nakanishi stepped up at the end of the show to challenge the champion to a match, probably at Sumo Hall some time in February. The event has already gained some critical acclaim, and the quality here is hopefully something the promotion can continue in 2010.
In the main happenings from the show, Prince Devitt and Ryusuke Taguchi made their successful fourth defence of the IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Titles against the CMLL team of Ultimo Guerrero and Averno. Also in Tag Team Title action, TNA’s Team 3D lost the IWGP Tag belts to Yujiro and Tetsuya Naito in a triple threat match which also featured the team of Karl Anderson and Giant Bernard. Not surprisingly, neither of Team 3D were in the finish of the match, meaning that once again they haven’t lost in Japan. We shouldn’t complain, at least TNA can’t devalue the belts anymore. The next two matches on the show also featured tag battles, with the outsider team of TAJIRI and Masato Tanaka overcoming Akebono and Yuji Nagata, followed by the legends tag match, named ‘the legend never rots’. Seriously. Anyway, one team featured the 65 year old Terry Funk, 46 year old Masahiro Chono, 58 year old Riki Choshu and 42 year old Manabu Nakanishi, making a combined age of 211, taking on 73 year old Abdullah The Butcher, and his team of Toru Yano, Takashi Iizuka and Tomohiro Ishii, whom Abby was at least 30 years older than any of. Terry Funk’s team picked up the win in just nine minutes.
The NOAH vs. NJPW series ended at two matches each way, with Naomichi Marufuji winning the IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Title from Tiger Mask after earning the opportunity by winning the 2009 Super J Cup, and becoming the first person to hold Jr. belts in AJPW, NOAH and NJPW. Following that, New Japan ace Hiroshi Tanahashi overcame Go Shiozaki, and Togi Makabe beat Mohammed Yone, before Takashi Sugiura made his successful first defence of the GHC Heavyweight Title against Hirooki Goto, to finish the series at two wins each. I expect more promotional warfare between these two.
In the final match of the night, IWGP Champion Shinsuke Nakamura made his fourth defence of the title against outsider Yoshihiro Takayama in just over fifteen minutes after delivering the Boma Ye to Takayama. In a suprising move, Manabu Nakanishi stepped up at the end of the show to challenge the champion to a match, probably at Sumo Hall some time in February. The event has already gained some critical acclaim, and the quality here is hopefully something the promotion can continue in 2010.
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