Pro Wrestling NOAH
NOAH held Destination 2024 in the Nippon Budokan in front of 4,196 fans. The show featured a championship match for the GHC Heavyweight Championship between Kaito Kiyomiya & YOICHI, along with dream match between Naomichi Marufuji & WWE’s AJ Styles.
NOAH announced that they & WWE would make a major announcement at the Yokohama BUNTAI show on June 16th. A message from a certain wrestler was also to be released. It turned out to be AJ Styles, who was to face Naomichi Marufuji in a special singles match on the July 13th show in Nippon Budokan. AJ was set wrestle outside of WWE for the first time since joining the promotion, and his name undoubtedly still has value in Japan due to his great run in New Japan Pro Wrestling, where he was able to win the IWGP Heavyweight Championship.
Expectations were tempered as both are past their prime, and the talk was that it would have been a fantastic match 10 years ago, but not today. The two proved every doubter wrong, as they went out there and killed it. AJ Styles is fantastic in 2024 as he has been having his best year since 2016, and the match against Naomichi Marufuji proves it. At some points, he was two or three levels above Marufuji, who clearly can’t keep up anymore with some of the best in the world, but still had a really good performance here. After 25 minutes, AJ Styles was able to win the match with the Styles Clash.
In the main event, Kaito Kiyomiya put his GHC Heavyweight Championship on the line against YOICHI, formally known as Yoshiki Inamura, who appeared after Kaito’s defense against Gabe Kidd and is back from his excursion. The story here is similar to the angle New Japan did with Yota Tsuji & SANADA ahead of Dominion 2023. The two had a great match that started slow but picked up well over time. Kaito was fantastic and made YOICHI look like a beast inside the ring. The final few minutes were fantastic and had multiple great counter sequences that ended with Kiyomiya winning by hitting the modified Shining Wizard.
YOICHI had his first shot at the GHC Heavyweight Championship here against Kaito Kiyomiya, who had his first shot at the GHC Heavyweight Title instantly after coming back from an excursion as well. He lost his shot back in 2018 against Kenoh but was able to capture the belt less than a year later, which bodes well for YOICHI’s return and could potentially speak for YOICHI to win the Championship in the next 12 months, but on Saturday, it wasn’t meant to be.
On the show, NOAH announced the line-up for the N1 Victory. The biggest surprise in the line-up is NXT’s Josh Briggs & Tavion Heights, who both will compete in Japan for the first time in their career. A couple of months ago, that was unthinkable, but now they are making their NOAH debuts. An interesting development as the partnership between NOAH & WWE continues to grow.
Aside from that, the line-up is interesting, with the A Block being far better on paper than the B Block. The winner of the tournament will earn a shot at Kaito Kiyomiya’s GHC Heavyweight Championship down the line, and it’s going to be interesting to see who takes the crown this year.
The official line-up of the N1 Victory:
All Japan Pro Wrestling
AJPW held the first night of the Summer Action Series tour in the Osaka EDION #2 in front of 958 fans. The show featured three championship matches with the AJPW Junior, AJPW Tag Team, and Triple Crown Championship on the line in three major match-ups.
Naruki Doi won the AJPW Junior Heavyweight Championship from Rising HAYATO in a good match. Doi played a great veteran who stole the victory from the young star with his experience and skill. The closing stretch was great and by far the highlight of the match as the two had many fantastic near falls. HAYATO’s run was underwhelming, made worse by the promotion cutting it short and failing to capitalise in their promising junior roster. That being said, Naruki Doi will be a great Junior Champion, as he has shown in his first run with the belt last year.
Jun Saito & Rei Saito successfully defended the AJPW Tag Team Championships against Kento Miyahara & Yuma Aoyagi in 19 minutes when Jun pinned Aoyagi. It wasn’t able to come close to the match in Miyagi last year, but it was still an entertaining match between the two top teams of All Japan. The Saito Brothers are on a great run, and their momentum doesn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon.
Yuma Anzai & Suwama had a great Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship match to end a good show. It was the last stand of Suwama in the main event scene of All Japan as he tried to capture the Triple Crown Title one final time. The two went at it, and Suwama came close to winning the title several times, but Anzai was able to use his quickness to escape Suwama’s finishes. He then used a Backdrop of his own to defeat Suwama to retain the Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship for the third time in his run. He has now reached the point where he could drop the belt at every defense, and it wouldn’t hurt him anymore as he has been established on the top of All Japan.
AJPW has set up three Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship matches at this show with Yuma Anzai defending the belt first against Ryuki Honda on July 20th. The winner of the match between the New Period duo will face Rei Saito in Sendai on August 3rd, and the winner of that match will face the winner of a No.1 Contender’s match between Ren Ayabe & Yuma Aoyagi on August 17th. There is another Triple Crown Title defence scheduled for September 1st in Fukuoka. A lot to look forward to in All Japan in the next month.
