Still looking for more great action this year? Well it does not end yet as Pro Wrestling NOAH will be having its first N-1 Victory Tournament! Before I head on over to the official previews of each competitor, allow me to share some background regarding the promotion itself and the tournament for newcomers.
NOAH was founded in the year 2000 by the great Mitsuharu Misawa. In the early 2000’s NOAH was arguably the biggest wrestling promotion in all of Japan. Thanks to the legendary matches they’ve produced and the wrestlers whom are now considered by many as icons and legends.
Since 2010 they’ve held their annual round robin tournament “Global League.” A similar concept to New Japan’s “G1 Climax” and All Japan’s “Champion Carnival.” In its 9 year existence there have been different winners: Yoshihiro Takayama, Takeshi Morishima, KENTA, Takashi Sugiura, Naomichi Marufuji, Minoru Suzuki, KENOH, and Kaito Kiyomiya respectively. The tournament is usually where NOAH gets to showcase the biggest stars of their heavyweight division and eventually challenge for the coveted GHC Heavyweight Champion.
Earlier this year, the company went on a complete “re-packaging” being bought by a new company, and ditching the green brand they were closely tied with to Misawa. Among many other things, they’ve changed the Global League to the N-1 Victory. So here we are.
Traditionally 16 wrestlers would always participate in the tournament divided into two blocks, this year however there will only be 10. I have to be honest, I’m not really a big fan of the fewer number of participants but I understand why they did it, I just wish they would have been able to showcase more, especially now since they’ve been recently getting some attention again and are on the “rise from the ashes” if you will since Misawa’s passing. The reigning GHC Heavyweight Champion: Kaito Kiyomiya has stated before that he won’t be participating in this year’s tournament and will await the winner for the title at their upcoming Sumo Hall show.
Anyway, without further ado, let’s go right ahead and meet this year’s N-1 Victory competitors.
A BLOCK:
Naomichi Marufuji
Pro Debut: 1998
At this point of his career, Marufuji is the spiritual successor of Misawa to NOAH. He is without a doubt still the company’s biggest draw and is able to pull off great matches as well despite nearing 40. I think the perfect comparison for him would be Hiroshi Tanahashi to NJPW. Both men have seen the twilight years of their respective promotions, but they persevered through it all and seen the light again. In the case of NOAH they are far from their peak in the early 2000’s but at least they are gaining traction again from the fans, especially outside of Japan.
Marufuji has a long history of tournaments in his career. He has participated in every Global League with the exception of 2011. Also one of the few to compete for the Global League, G1 Climax, and Champion Carnival, even winning the latter in 2017. He is arguably NOAH’s greatest wrestler since the Pillars and has loads of accolades to back him up such as being a 3x GHC Heavyweight Champion and 6x GHC Tag-Team Champion.
My personal favorite to win this year’s tournament too, at the very least for the A Block. Kaito has defended his title against almost everyone but it’s been a while since his defense against Marufuji, plus if they want a guaranteed sellout for the Sumo Hall event, a Kaito vs. Marufuji main event would do them a solid.
Takashi Sugiura
Pro Debut: 2000
There are many men in professional wrestling can claim that they are legit tough acts but only few can prove it to be true, Takashi Sugiura is one of those men. Just looking at him, Sugiura is far from Marufuji being a flashy wrestler, he is just a straight up no non-sense fighter who is out to destroy anyone in his path. A man of few words, but a man full of strikes.
Statistically, Sugiura is the greatest GHC Heavyweight Champion ever. Holds all kinds of records with it: 1,064 days combined across 4 reigns and a total of 23 different defenses. Sugiura’s latest run with the belt with him being billed as a “final boss” type character, helped in the recent resurgence of NOAH. The crowning moment of Kaito Kiyomiya when he finally defeated the seemingly unbeatable beast in Sugiura.
If you’re a fan of wrestlers like Minoru Suzuki and Yoshihiro Takayama, then you’ll probably enjoy a Sugiura match as well. In fact he even became a Suzuki-Gun member when they invaded the company way back but it is better we not talk much of those awful years. Sugiura now leads his own faction however, Sugiura-gun with members such as Hideki Suzuki, Nosawa Rongai, and Kazma Sakamoto just to name a few.
I don’t think he will be winning it this year, but check out his matches anyway, Sugiura is one of the best veterans in pro wrestling today especially if you like brutal, hard hitting matches.
Go Shiozaki
Pro Debut: 2004
If Marufuji is the spiritual successor to Misawa, then Shiozaki is the successor of Kenta Kobashi. Being trained by the man himself, Shiozaki emulates a lot of his wrestling repertoire to Kobashi especially the machine gun chops. Shiozaki, unlike many of his peers who originally came from All Japan to transition in NOAH, is actually a product of the NOAH Dojo and the only wrestler to graduate from his class in 2003.
He first mainly started teaming up with his mentor Kobashi until finding his own in singles action. In the 2000’s, while Marufuji, KENTA, and Morishima were finding success in the US too especially in ROH, Shiozaki wrestled for the most part in Japan and became a staple part of NOAH as one of its young core. He first won the GHC Heavyweight Championship in 2009 defeating Takeshi Rikio for the vacant belt and has won it two more times since then.
Nowadays Shiozaki is mainly a tag-team wrestler and is now on the veteran side of the roster. He is currently 1/2 of the GHC Heavyweight Tag-Team Champions with Katsuhiko Nakajima as AXIZ.
The chances of Shiozaki winning are pretty slim, he could still bust out a great match every once in a while though so don’t sleep on him.
Masa Kitamiya
Pro Debut: 2011
Kitamiya is a fairly young wrestler trained by two Japanese legends in Kensuke Sasaki and Masa Saito, the latter whom he really emulates a lot in his career with the looks, moves, and everything. He first started in Kensuke Office and made his way to NOAH in 2012.
Still trying to find his footing as a singles competitor as so far he has only won the GHC Heavyweight Tag-Team titles three times, once with KENOH and twice with Nakajima.
Unless NOAH are planning some grand push for Kitamiya, he might be taking a lot of the losses in his block. There is potential in him being a top champion at some point but I don’t think this year is the right time.
Alexander Hammerstone
Pro Debut: 2013
Just a few weeks ago as of the writing of this article, it was announced that Major League Wrestling (MLW) and NOAH have formed a partnership. This is great for both sides as the rosters of each promotions are stacked and can help in the exposure of the wrestlers involved, gaining experience in the process as well.
Since the announcement of N-1 Victory, many speculated if any MLW wrestler would be involve and it’s been confirmed that reigning MLW National Openweight Champion: Alexander Hammerstone will be competing in his first ever tour of Japan. (a part from that one match with INOKI ISM in 2017.)
He is a member of the “Dynasty” faction in MLW along with MJF and Richard Holliday. Been watching a lot of MLW myself and while I prefer someone like a Davey Boy Smith Jr. or Tom Lawlor to compete representing the promotion, I think this is great for Hammerstone as he is still fairly young and will be able to gain lots of experience wrestling against the top talent of NOAH and performing in front of an international crowd.
