NOAH Announces NEO GREEN BOYS Initiative

A new tournament is coming to Pro Wrestling NOAH.

On Sunday, Pro Wrestling NOAH announced a new initiative called NEO GREEN BOYS. This will include a round robin tournament pitting four of the promotion’s most promising young talents, as well as an ongoing program to give prospective wrestlers an opportunity to learn the craft from Keiji Mutoh, Naomichi Marufuji, and Kenoh.

The four men who will compete in this first NGB tournament are Hiroya Namiki, who just recently won his first match, Yuto Koyanagi, Hiroto Tsuruya, and RYUSEI. The tournament will begin on December 5 and end at NOAH The New Year 2027 on January 1.

The tournament will be accompanied by a recruitment program, and, during a livestream, Director of Cyberfight, Akihiro Takeda, detailed his intent to inspire a wide range of people to become wrestlers. As part of the training program, NOAH will welcome any man or woman aged 16 to 25 who are in sound mind and body.

“Through this audition program, I hope to encourage a wider range of people with diverse personalities to aspire to become professional wrestlers for various reasons. We want to create a situation where wrestlers are already well-known through this program by the time of their debut match. Starting with this event, we would like to create a new recruitment method, separate from general applications and scouted applicants, where they would proceed to an entrance test after going through this audition.”

-Akihiro Takeda

According to the promotion, the application process with end on November 30th at 11:59 pm Japan Time and the final judging will take place around March of 2027. Unless corrected, it does seem at this time that this is open to people outside of Japan as well.

For more news from across Japanese professional wrestling, including word on the next GHC Heavyweight Championship defence, you can click here.

H/T to Fightful for the transcription.