Sunday, January 3, 2021

Pro Wrestling NOAH 12/6/2020 - NOAH The BEST ~ Final Chronicle 2020 ~

Pro Wrestling NOAH 12/6/2020 - NOAH The BEST ~ Final Chronicle 2020 ~

I am just doing selected matches here.

Kinya Okada vs. Yasutaka Yano

Yano is only 5'4. He would never have been allowed in NOAH a few years earlier, but wrestling companies will take anyone they can get anymore.

This was all basic rookie stuff. Okada hit a nice right hand and a knee later into the match which was the only real highlight to that point. Yano threw some awful chest clubs. Yano ended up losing here with a fisherman's suplex and trust me, this was not any good. Yano is not going to last long or get anywhere.

Kongo (Katsuhiko Nakajima, Manabu Soya & Masa Kitamiya) vs. FULL THROTTLE (Hajime Ohara, Seiki Yoshioka & YO-HEY)



Kitamiya steamrolls Yo early. Nakajima and Yoshioka trade kicks. Yoshioka hits a flying axe kick. Full Throttle triple teams Soya with kicks and dropkicks. Soya slams every member of the other team then Kitamiya follows with sentons. Yoshioka saves Yo-hey from a powerbomb and Yohey hits a leg lariat before tagging out. Ohara hits a John Woo dropkick on Nakajima then eats a nasty high knee/kick when rushing in.

Nakajima gets rolled into triple superkicks. Yo and Yoshioka dive onto the outside, but they get dropped and ran into the post. Soya and Kitamiya sandwich clothesline Ohara and Ohara takes triple attacks in the corner. Ohara flurry slaps Nakajima and Nakajima comes back with some kicks. Nakajima then wins with a brainbuster in a good little match. They kept it moving well here and FT's triple teams were on point. 

GHC National Title - Kenoh vs Kazushi Sakuraba

Sakuraba flurries Ken to start and drops him. Then they do an extended slap exchange that really was weak but looked cool. They slap battle more and go to the ground. Ken forced Sakuraba to break twice on the ropes which I really have a hard time buying. Saku then goes outside for what seems to be a breather. They then do an extended kick exchange. Sakuraba basically loses it then takes him to the ground where he tries an armbar.

Ken gets out and single leg crabs him. Saku gets out and tries to armbar him again but Ken hits the ropes. Saku puts Ken in a leg lock and Ken rolls on top of him while in it to win. It was short, the match wasn't very good and the finish was lame. I like worked MMA, but Ken should not be able to do anything on the ground against Sakuraba. 

Daiki Inaba, Kaito Kiyomiya, Shuhei Taniguchi & Yoshiki Inamura vs. M's Alliance (Keiji Muto, Masakatsu Funaki, Naomichi Marufuji & Yuko Miyamoto)







Shuhei and Funaki trade chops for forearms and Kaito and Muto come in. Kaito blocks a dragon screw attempt and gets armbarred. Miyamoto hits a dropkick and Marufuji calls out Inaba. Inaba hits him with forearms and then does a standing blue thunder bomb on him. Funaki gets in and kicks Inaba in the corner. Inaba gets some forearms in but goes down with a leg kick.


Mutoh gets in and hits the flashing elbow and an STF. Then he dragon screws him and puts the figure four on which Taniguchi breaks up. Kaito gets in and clears out everyone then missile dropkicks Mutoh from the top. Mutoh rolls through a sunset flip and hits a shining wizard. Funaki comes in and hits leg kicks on Kaito and Kaito germans him.

Marufuji gets out of an irish whip with cartwheel and dropkicks Taniguchi. Marufuji hits a kick combo and Taniguchi clears out 3 members of M's Alliance. Taniguchi hits some headbutts on Marufuji and chokeslams him. He then hits a splash from the top for 2. Marufuji hits him with a hook kick from behind and a step knee.

Miyamoto gets in and gets thrown into the ropes, then he handsprings off them and backflip kicks Inamura. Mutoh shining wizard's Inamura and Miyamoto moonsault double knee's him for 2. Miyamoto takes german's from 3 different people and Inamura tries to pin him but Marufuji stops it. Inamura does an assisted splash for 2. Inamura hits a great overhead belly to belly on Miyamoto and does a cool push into the corner on him, then he Muso's him for the win.

This was alright. It went a little longer than it needed to but nobody broke a hip and the legends weren't immobile.

GHC Heavyweight Title Match - Go Shiozaki (c) vs. Takashi Sugiura









They do basic stuff early and take it slow. Go does a nice armdrag into a chop and gives him more chops. Sugi comes back with forearms. We are like 5 minutes in and Sugi's chest is already bleeding. Go hits a hard back elbow and they keep chopping each other. Go puts him in a chinlock and Sugi escapes to another chop. Go flies off the ropes and misses, taking a knee on his way down. Go gets put in an armlock but hits the ropes. Sugi continues the attack on Go's arm by wrapping it around the rail at ringside and hitting forearms on it. Then he rams the arm into the post.

Go tries to chop but he can't hit as hard due to the arm work and Sugi brushes it off. Go tries machine gun chops but is hurting too much and gets a bunch of forearms. Go finally hits some though. Go dropkicks Sugi while he is on top and Sugi rolls to the floor. Go thinks of diving on him but Sugi runs in and spears him. Sugi tries to spear Go through the ropes but he doesn't quite make it through though he hits Go.

Sugi delay superplexes Go from the top. They trade chops for forearms. Go hits something like a deadlift superplex at 25 minutes in. Sugi release german's Go and I think he supposed to flip him, but it just ends up as a hard bump and then Go gets up after not selling it and german's him. Go spins around for something and Sugi lariats him. Go and Sugi both stand on the apron and Go hits some nice chops then Sugi removes the mats outside. Sugi then grabs him from the apron and spinning neckbreakers him on the floor.

Go got back in and Sugi hit him with forearms before he fired up. Sugi hit Go's injured arm and german suplexed him into the middle turnbuckle. Sugi hit another flurry of nasty forearms. Go took another release german and a knee for 2. Go then kicked out of an olympic slam but when Sugi pulled him up, he hit a big lariat. Sugi went out to the floor after a dropkick and Go hit a big dive over the top. When they got back in, Go sit-out powerbombed him for 2. Go hit more forearms and a lariat still for 2. Sugi hit a punch to the face and a knee to the face. More knees from Sugi and more elbows/forearms.

Sugi hit another olympic slam but nope, still not enough as he hit almost 40 minutes. They went up top and Go hit a backdrop from it. They charged at each other and Go hit a lariat for 2. Go did a moonsault but Sugi got his knees up. Sugi tried a guillotine but it didn't work and they traded more strikes at 50 minutes. Go then finally won at 51:44

The majority of this match was just two people waiting around or laying around doing nothing while the clock kept ticking. They kick out of a bunch of stuff for no real reason and even on 1.5x speed, this would have felt too long. No reason for this at all.

Overall thoughts: Of what I saw, it's typical NOAH. Really old and overexposed guys in the big spots on the card and the younger better talent in less meaningful matches. You always hope the younger guys will get their chance to shine the next time, but it never really happens. The two big matches on the show didn't deliver here and I wouldn't recommend this.

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