EDIT* A small handful of people have decided to come at me in my DM’s and on twitter because In this article I say I don’t know a wrestler who lives in the same country as I. I’m a nobody with an opinion so if you think it’s normal to go after someone for not knowing a wrestler then that says a lot more about you then it does me. Breathe in… Breathe out…. Conflict over something this small isn’t necessary, Don’t let others opinions bother you so much.
Yes Pro Wrestling NOAH is very obviously not an indie but outside of the indies NOAH has been the number one promotion I’ve followed the past few years and good lord I have a lot of thoughts about NOAH I’d love to get off my chest so thankfully I have this outlet.
Back in late 2019 when we knew Wrestle-1 was dying and Mutoh started working NOAH frequently I reactivated my NOAH fan card after cancelling it six months into the horrible Suzuki-Gun invasion of 2015. I fell back in love with NOAH because I’ve always loved Nosawa’s unpredictable style of booking and the talents they were using were honestly some of my favourite wrestlers of all time. Keiji Mutoh, Masato Tanaka, Masakatsu Funaki and Minoru Tanaka all were making appearances for the promotion in late 2019 – early 2020 and if any of you know me then you’d know how much love I have for those four guys. As well as the NOAH originals roster is up there with the upper echelon of Japanese wrestling rosters, Naomichi Marufuji still kills it, Go Shiozaki, Katsuhiko Nakajima, Takashi Sugiura, Daisuke Harada, Kenoh, Haoh and Masa Kitamiya are all guys who on their day can bust out five star performances. So yeah basically from late 2019 til now I’ve been one of the bigger NOAH fans around, I don’t think I’ve missed too many live shows whether that be on Abema or Wrestle Universe. During the no fans era I feel NOAH stood up as the best promotion during that devilish time period. The Go Shiozaki/Kazuyuki Fujita stare down will be remembered for years to come.
So why have I soured so much on a promotion I’ve adored for the best part of two and half years?
In 2022 they’ve genuinely have lost they plot, it’s as simple as that.
Katsuhiko Nakajima and Kaito Kiyomiya through 2020 were clearly positioned as the top guys of the promotion going forward for years to come yet once they ascended to that level things didn’t work out so why? Take Katsuhiko Nakajima’s recent GHC Heavyweight title reign for example, It made perfect sense and I think we can all agree that Nakajima was 100% the right guy to put the belt on so why did he lose to Kazuyuki Fujita who is way less popular then Nakajima within the NOAH setting?
As much as we all recognise the stupendous ability of Katsuhiko Nakajima he simply doesn’t have the drawing power that NOAH are looking for and as long as they are getting shit loads of money pumped into them they will not be putting guys like Nakajima/Kaito on top of the card. They paid a lot of money for Mutoh to become a NOAH guy and say what you will about him he managed to be the best draw card NOAH has seen for many years and that was done during an on going pandemic so Mutoh coming to NOAH was a huge success but the effects of his successful run on top with haunt the NOAH roster in the short term because not one NOAH homegrown talent can *currently* do those numbers. NOAH sadly doesn’t have a guy with more star power then a 59 year old Mutoh so the attendance drop off since he has lost the title (even worse since his injury announcement) goes to show how many people were just coming to see what Mutoh was doing. I can only speak for myself but I watched every single NOAH show Mutoh was on in 2020 and 2021 but since his injury announcement in January I’ve watched less than 10 NOAH matches in total. I didn’t watch a Nakajima title defence outside the Go Shiozaki bout at Sumo Hall and I love Nakajima but the Mutoh reign was just so different and once in a lifetime I couldn’t miss a match where as with Nakajima you know you’re going to get that four star minimum turn out but I’ve seen that Nakajima match 100 times. I don’t mean to sound cruel to Nakajima at all because he is probably the best actual bell to bell wrestler on the NOAH roster but with what NOAH are trying to do at the moment by taking their promotion global he quite clearly isn’t what their looking for. This is why the title is on Kazuyuki Fujita because out of the NOAH regulars right now he probably has the biggest name being an Inoki guy and former IWGP champion so even though the powers that be would be 100% aware of the fact Fujita isn’t going to be the one to carry the promotion for the next 10 years he is very much seen as a quick fix with a sumo hall show coming next month. If we listen to the *leaks* from the company then we know NOAH were pissed about Nakajima and Go drawing a thousand odd less fans to Sumo Hall this year so I feel they are very much in panic stations now as they aren’t going to be able to milk every last bit of life out of Mutoh due to his injury and every big match with the NOAH originals roster has been done over and over. The fact of the matter is NOAH is simply not going to grow to the levels they aspire to be at with their big budget if they kept throwing out the same matches with the same guys who have been on the roster for all/most of their careers. Their current answers to dealing with these growing pains are not good at all either so let’s get into that.
NOAH are looking for short-term solutions to long-term issues, they need to keep those young guys at the top of the card even if the champion is someone like Fujita but that’s not the direction that went with and now they think the solution to their issues is bringing in a bunch of oversea’s wrestlers (Rene Dupree is pretty cool) who they believe will boost Wrestle Universe subscriptions. This is a terrible idea that is going to bleed so much money for the stake holders in NOAH, they have announced like ten names coming into the promotion soon and not one of them has star power to draw significantly in Japan. For #1 I don’t know how they can afford it and #2 I don’t know why they think a genuine boat load of foreigners who will fill up the undercard will help the long jeopardy of a struggling promotion.
Here is a list of guys who have been announced for upcoming NOAH shows
Ninja Mack – US
Simon Gotch – US
SLEX – Aus
Extreme Tiger – Mexico
Dragon Bane – Mexico
Alpha Wolf – Canada
Rene Dupree – Canada
El Hijo De Wagner Jr. – Mexico
El Texano Jr. – Mexico
Chris Ridgeway – UK
Good on the lads getting a Japan tour and I hope they all have a great time but does this not scream disaster? Ridgeway seemed like he was liked during his previous run and guys like Extreme Tiger and Rene Dupree are talented but like they aren’t going to be positioned to take on Marufuji at Ryogoku. If NOAH are so obsessed about freshening up the undercard then they should realise they have a plethora of young hungry independent guys on their home soil but instead they like to throw money away. Every promotion that has died in Japan has some sort of horror story about hemorrhaging cash because of their decisions to bring in oversea’s workers yet NOAH are saying fuck it. Gotta respect them in that sense for going all in on this idea. Apparently SLEX worked NOAH in 2013. I’m Australian but I’ve never heard of SLEX before. He has big scary muscles and such but If someone that lives in Australia and is deeply ingrained into the wrestling scene like I am hasn’t heard of him then do you think the 600 fans turning up to your GHC World Heavyweight Title match in Nagoya are going to know who he is? I really don’t want it to seem like I’m taking the piss out of the foreign workers because they haven’t done anything wrong and are just trying to get paid but I’m looking at the big picture and a promotion struggling to make money flying in ten workers from all across the world makes zero sense to me.
I could be completely wrong and this group of fly ins could sell-out a Korakuen Hall show but until I see that I’ll definitely questioning this decision not because of the anything the foreign workers have done but because of the long-term effects we could see take place. If things continue to get worse they are still losing money except this time they are losing even more due to paying for all these foreign guys leaving the Japanese born/NOAH roster in limbo. All these guys have families and they won’t be able to make a living wage from NOAH if in 12 months time they have more gajin mouths to feed and can’t draw more then 500 people to Korakuen. We’ve seen NOAH come back from deaths door before and like by no means are they on deaths door at the moment but it’s a massive year for the timeline of Pro Wrestling NOAH. Are they going to be able to promote a product that will draw in new fans?
I have no idea but I do know one thing and that is NOAH likes to lose money so moving onto the next point…
HAYATA is in the main event of a NOAH Ryogoku Sumo Hall show in a singles match.
Taking on an outsider who has done little but pour water over wrestlers for the best part of nine months. Eita is the guy I’m talking about, he is also the current GHC Jr Heavyweight Champion but you wouldn’t even know it. Young Eita is great but this heel schtick in a clap crowd setting has put me to sleep, I couldn’t see this match main eventing a Korakuen Hall show let alone a building that can hold over ten thousand people. Yeah covid restrictions and whatever but unless they have the corpse of Rikidozan making a return to pro wrestling then I think we are very much in the realm of possibility of this being the lowest attended Sumo Hall show of all-time. I think Naoshi Sano’s 2016 Sumo Hall that Kazumasa Nihei main evented which drew less than 1,000 fans will outdraw this NOAH Juniors only event. Love the Jr concept but good lord they simply do not have a junior roster strong enough to put on a goddamn Sumo Hall show like holy moly this is going to lose so much cash. Like I said, I love these big Junior based cards like obviously the Super J-Cups are some of the most loved Japanese wrestling shows ever but with this NOAH roster I just cannot see things being successful unless all the top NJPW Jr’s appear which is still a possibility but doubtful. They’ve trialed these Junior only shows in Osaka this year with the ‘Innovation’ gimmick but those shows drew 150 fans and from that they think they can make money at Sumo Hall? They must be getting a significant discount for booking the two nights back to back, that’s the only reason I see this show existing. Work rate wise it will probably be as good as the show the next night but the crowd shots are going to be something else.
Matches announced for the April 29th Juniors only card
GHC Junior Heavyweight Championship: Eita (C) vs HAYATA
SB Kento, HYO & Shun Skywalker vs Junta Miyawaki, Daisuke Harada & Alejandro
Dragon Bane vs Alpha Wolf vs Ninja Mack (google Dragon Bane and STRONGHEARTS)
* Masato Tanaka will be working this show also
Thank you for reading today’s piece, I’m not so fluent with my words. I don’t have many real conversations with people so when I do a bigger article like this I tend to get very anxious because I’m not confident in my writing abilities so I highly appreciate anyone who has decided to read all of this.Take care and I’ll be back with some indie stuff soon!
WHAT IN THE WORLD HAS HAPPENED TO NOAH?
PURO IN THE ROUGH 
Saw this via the Twitter response – I think you’re being a little bit unfair in dismissing Slex. Not only does he rule; but he’s got prior experience in NOAH and has other deep ties in NOAH via his TMDK stablemates like Jonah Rock, Mikey Nicholls, Shane Haste, Damian Slater and Marcius Pitt. Strongly recommend his match vs Okada from 2017, along with his series vs Ospreay, Adam Brooks and Davis Storm. Prior to the complete shitstorm of 2020, he was likely on his way to being a main-eventer in Ring of Honor as well.
Thought that the pile-ons you were getting today on Twitter were equally unfair – but very much worth keeping an open-mind on Slex, I think he’s one of the best pick-ups on the open market that NOAH could have chosen to run with.
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OMG. Your an Australian and you have never heard of SLEX.???? You have no right to call yourself an Australian wrestling fan… ingrained you say in the scene…my ass. He has been wrestling said scene for over 15 years. Won just about every title there is to hold in Victoria…Competed all over the country. Wrestled overseas for a few companies here and there. I’m just aghast at your so called lack of knowledge about someone the the scene you say your engrained in. No credibility for your opinion whatsoever
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I thought this would be the typical “I can’t believe they jobbed Nakajima out to an old guy” thing, but i was surprised.
The main issue with the junior thing is they escalated it way too quickly and it seems more tied to getting a good deal on Sumo Hall by doing two days which is cheaper than Budokan. The N-ovation shows were held in radiant hall and they should have tried a Shinjuku Face and built it up over time instead, but I’ve realized if Cyberagent is willing to spend money on a Sumo Hall rental for 1700 TJPW fans than even if this draws 1000 it wouldn’t be the end of the world on its own.
I don’t really see the foreigner as directed at getting an international audience except in a few cases. It seems to be trying to compete with NJPW who use gaijin as a way to distinguish themselves from other promotions. You’re comparing the flyouts to the past flyouts of wrestlers who commanded big paychecks due to having name value as in 90s WWE/WCW guys. Most of these guys are indie wrestlers who aren’t going to command a whole lot of money and most were used by NOAH before the pandemic. The only new ones they’re bringing in are Ninja Mack, Gotch, Texano and Slex and they aren’t commanding big bucks. They aren’t being used as the answers yes rather as a way to spice up the undercard which is already filled with plenty of ex-indie guys who haven’t drawn well themselves. It’s hardly to going to break the bank compared to paying the big name freelancers to use these guys who will probably live at the dojo while they’re there. I somehow doubt the Mexico contingent got a lot out of NOSAWA given he knows the rates they get back home. These are relatively desperate guys from a country that is far more hampered economically by COVID than Japan.
In the main event scene, there is no foreigner or domestic talent who would raise numbers based on their name alone as NJPW has a monopoly on top name foreigners because they pay way more and have ties to the non-WWE orgs. Only say DDT has a chance of bringing a big name like Kenny Omega in because of his sentimental ties to the promotion.
The financial issues definitely exist, but it’s more a wider problem with apathy towards wrestling in general in Japan rather than any of these moves individually breaking NOAH. If no one cares about NOAH’s wrestlers even with the financial investment and significant promotion compared to any non-Bushiroad promotion, that just says there isn’t really room for another big promotion in Japan(and mostly Tokyo for that matter).
Cyberfight as a whole last year lost 2 million; I doubt any of these moves send it drastically higher. If the heavyweights can’t draw no matter who they put in the main event, that is what will eventually get the plugged pulled, but they have more time than other promotions in Japan(besides NJPW) due to Cyberagent. They don’t have a “long-term” if the expectation is they perform now, so they can’t just go with pushing young guys over time. They wouldn’t have done Budokan twice a year or Sumo Hall if they were taking a gradual approach.
With Slex he is one of the more well-known Australian wrestlers who haven’t been in WWE so it is still odd to say that he’s a nobody in the Australian scene. He is one of the few Australian indy guys that people outside of Australia who follow wrestling deeply know. He’s even done PWG.
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