History of the GHC Championship | Part 2 | In Memory of Misawa

It’s 2009 and NOAH is struggling. Mitsuharu Misawa was one of the only draws and the company’s president, and he died due to an in-ring accident. Jun Akiyama had to vacate the GHC title because of injury. So, on a very small show, Go Shiozaki went up against a former champion to figure out who would carry the company through this hard time. 

June 14, 2009 – Fukuoka, Fukuoka

Go Shiozaki def. Takeshi Rikio {GHC Heavyweight Championship Match}
From Souther Navigation. A lot of this match felt like a B-team house show main event. The crowd was quiet and the work wasn’t that engaging. But in the last five minutes or so they pulled the crowd in and beat each other up nicely. Shiozaki hit the Go Flasher for the win at 22:37. I didn’t expect very much out of this so I can’t say that it disappointed. Misawa had died just the day before, so I didn’t expect the fans or the wrestlers to really show up for this. They kind of did though, so there’s that. ***

December 6, 2009 – Tokyo, Japan

Takashi Sugiura def. Go Shiozaki {GHC Heavyweight Championship Match}
From Winter Navigation. Shiozaki successfully defended the title in the main event of the Misawa memorial show, but then ran into this obstacle. This was in the same building, but attendance was down a few thousand. This match was absolutely bonkers. Sugiura, who made his name as a junior, had put on enough weight to look like a tank. Dude came to play here. He brought it to Shiozaki so intensely that I started getting worried about the champ. Shiozaki tried to give as good as he got, but what he was getting was gnarly strikes to his entire upper body, gutwrench suplexes from the apron to the floor, and German suplexes into the turnbuckle. Sugiura hit an avalanche Olympic Slam for the win at 24:39. ****¼ 

July 10, 2011 – Tokyo, Japan

Go Shiozaki def. Takashi Sugiura {GHC Heavyweight Championship Match}
From Great Voyage in Tokyo Vol. 3. Sugiura had held the title for almost two years, the second longest single reign in the history of the belt to this day. He defended it in NJPW, AAA, and wXw. He beat Shiozaki in a return match at about the halfway point of this reign. He beat four former GHC Champions and defended the title 14 times in total. That’s more than Kenta Kobashi did during his two-year reign. But business did not recover during his reign, and attendance continued to slip. The building here was only half sold. I’m not sure how I feel about some of the bumps Shiozaki took here. A spider suplex onto your shoulder? I imagine there’s a reason you always see people do a backflip and take that bump on their knees and torso. Anyway, this match was slow going for a while, but it did pick up in a big way toward the end. They hit each other as snugly as you’ll see anywhere. The finish was a little odd, as Shiozaki hit move after move, with force but not with much urgency, unable to keep Sugiura down for the three count. Eventually he hit the Limit Break for the win, but the fact that Sugiura wasn’t really fighting back and was just hanging on at the end took me out of it. ***½ 

January 23, 2012 – Osaka, Osaka

Takeshi Morishima def. Go Shiozaki {GHC Heavyweight Championship Match}
From Great Voyage in Osaka. This show drew just over half the amount of people that NJPW Dominion drew in the same building the year before, and about 800 fewer fans than NOAH drew a year earlier there. Morishima won the second Global League tournament to earn this shot. Yep, NOAH was now doing their own Champion Carnival/G1 ClimaxThis was more or less on par with the previous match. They dropped an acceptable amount of bombs on each other, but I didn’t feel a sense of excitement building throughout the match. Unlike the last match though, this didn’t have weird one-sided issues down the stretch. Morishima picked up the win with a backdrop driver at 22:30. ***½ 

In March, it came out that NOAH had ties to the Yakuza. They lost their TV slot and were greatly diminished in general. They made another goof around this time. They released Kenta Kobashi from his contract despite his desire to retire soon. They went back on it and did give him a big retirement main event, but the damage was done. Shiozaki, Jun Akiyama, and a few others bounced to All Japan. 

January 27, 2013 – Osaka, Osaka

KENTA def. Takeshi Morishima {GHC Heavyweight Championship Match}
From Great Voyage in Osaka. This got a little bump in attendance from the year before. Morishima had defeated KENTA during his year-long run with the title. KENTA got revenge by beating Morishima in the block finals of the Global League. He went on to beat Sugiura to earn this title shot. Katsuyori Shibata is in KENTA’s corner. Morishima seemed off here. After hitting big moves, he’d just wander and pace rather than pressing the action. KENTA’s double stomp from the top to the floor wasn’t quite enough to make up for it. I liked that KENTA would work the arm whenever hitting the Go2Sleep seemed unviable, and that after he hit the move and it only got a two-count the arm work became his primary focus. Morishima looked poised to win with a backdrop driver, but he lifted KENTA for another rather than going for the pin and KENTA countered to the Game Over for the submission win at 21:12. I think that might be the first time someone won this title by submission. It might be the first time someone won any of the major three Japanese titles by submission. I can’t confirm that at all, my memory isn’t that good, but submission victories in main events are crazy rare in Japan. ***

January 5, 2014 – Tokyo, Japan

Takeshi Morishima def. KENTA {GHC Heavyweight Championship Match}
From New Year Navigation. Morishima beat KENTA during the Global League to earn this shot, but lost to Yuji Nagata in the finals. KENTA successfully put down Nagata’s title challenge, but Nagata’s win over Morishima becomes important later. Harley Race is the GHC Commissioner now, and he presents the match. Morishima has put aside his Terry Gordy cosplay and now looks like he’s in a K-Pop group. This was pretty flat. It was a standard main event star match with no interesting flourishes or innovative exchanges. I’m curious to know (but not curious enough to watch) if KENTA or Morishima’s successful defenses were as tame as their title changes. Morishima won at 21:48 with the backdrop driver. After the match, Morishima turned heel by inviting Naomichi Marufuji, Muhammad Yone, and Taiji Ishimori into the ring has bait for them to be attacked by Kenoh and Maybach Taniguchi. They formed the new stable Choukibou-Gun. KENTA bounced to WWE after this. ***

February 8, 2014 – Tokyo, Japan

Yuji Nagata def. Takeshi Morishima {GHC Heavyweight Championship Match}
From the Second Navigation. Nagata parlayed his win over Morishima in the tournament into this match. It’s weird to see an outsider win this title, though one of the initial principles of NOAH was allowing more outsiders into the company. Now Morishima has half of his head shaved and is carrying a big stone hammer. So he’s Bamm Bamm Rubble? Morishima’s crew beat up on Nagata on the floor, the first time I’ve seen outside interference in a NOAH main event. That doesn’t by any stretch mean it’s the first time that it’s happened, but it does mean that it’s the first time that it’s happened in a match that saw a title change. It seems odd to me that they beat Morishima in his first defense after he became the leader of this heel stable. Speaking of, it feels like NOAH at this point was pulling from NJPW threads desperately. They have a G1 Climax, so we’ll do a round robin tournament. They have more American style angles, so we’ll do one on top. They have Yuji Nagata as a former champion, so we’ll bring him in and make him champion. This was all very odd to see in a NOAH ring. Nagata hit a backdrop driver for the win at 19:01 after a match that was probably saved from total mediocrity by the overbooking. A year and change later, Morishima was forced to retire due to bad health. ***

July 5, 2014 – Tokyo, Japan

Naomichi Marufuji def. Yuji Nagata {GHC Heavyweight Championship Match}
From Great Voyage in Tokyo Vol. 2. This had a pretty good energy, and Marufuji’s arm selling was great. It was also nice to see a title change in front of a bigger (by ‘10s standards) crowd. Marufuji hit the Pole Shift for the win at 25:29. Like basically everything from this era, I wish they’d have cut some of the fat from this. But it’s a Japanese main event featuring a title change so it needs to convey an epic status whether that’s for the good of the match or not. ***½ 

March 15, 2015 – Tokyo, Japan

Minoru Suzuki def. Naomichi Marufuji {GHC Heavyweight Championship Match}
From Great Voyage in Tokyo. A couple months earlier, Suzuki and his Suzuki-gun stable in New Japan vowed to invade NOAH and take this title. The heat for this is wild as the crowd eats up all of the invaders’ interference and watches in despair as Marufuji falls to the Cradle Piledriver at 23:44. The match was good but not great, but it was very cool to hear the fans get up for a NOAH main event again. After the match. Suzuki snatches the belt out of Kobashi’s hands and Suzuki-gun antagonizes the retired legend. Akira Taue gets in the ring to reluctantly present Suzuki’s trophy, towering over everyone. I hate to be that guy, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that there’s been a downturn in crowds and viewership for both Japanese and American wrestling as the wrestlers have gotten smaller (in both stature and star power). I’m not saying it’s everything, but it seems like a lot of correlation across the board to ignore. ***¼ 

December 23, 2015 – Tokyo, Japan

Naomichi Marufuji def. Minoru Suzuki {GHC Heavyweight Championship Match}
From Destiny. Suzuki defeated Marufuji in a rematch, but Marufuji won the Global League tournament (beating Shelton Benjamin in the finals) to earn this shot. This wasn’t any better than their first match to me. Suzuki worked over Marufuji’s arm forever, and then it was just completely forgotten in the second half. I understand that’s what happened in their match from May as well. Why do that? A 20-minute match would have been fine, good even. The action in the second half was dope, and the aborted interference was a nice enough touch, but I got so frustrated that the first half of the match led nowhere. Marufuji won with the Pole Shift at 34:00. After the match, Suzuki kept smiling during Marufuji’s celebration. Sugiura congratulated Marufuji, but then turned on him. He joined Suzuki on the ramp and shook his hand, turning on NOAH and joining Suzuki-gun. ***¼  

Shiozaki had returned months earlier as a freelancer, having left All Japan because of their pay structure. He formed a tag team with Yoshinobu Kanemaru, but Kanemaru turned and joined Suzuki-gun. Shiozaki offered to help Marufuji fight Suzuki-gun, but Marufuji didn’t trust him after his stint in All Japan. 

January 31, 2016 – Yokohama, Kanagawa

Takashi Sugiura def. Naomichi Marufuji {GHC Heavyweight Championship Match}
From Great Voyage in Yokohama. Whoopsie doopsie, this was bad. They spent 25 minutes doing move after move without much rhyme or reason. Then, Lance Archer botched his pull-the-ref-from-the-ring spot and forced Sugiura to kick out of a big move he wasn’t meant to kick out of. Then Suzuki interfered, which really led to nothing. Then Sugiura beat up Marufuji with a chair and hit the Olympic Slam for the win at 31:21. Nothing connected to anything and the crowd was dead for all of it. It was like watching a DDT main event, totally silent. It’s such a bummer because the first few minutes, when Marufuji opened up Sugiura’s already injured chest with chops, were so dope. Oh well. After the match, Shiozaki helped fend off a Suzuki-gun beating. Marufuji shook his hand and gave Taniguchi a little respect too. I guess Taniguchi turned babyface at some point. **½ 

Shiozaki beat Sugiura for the title, signed on to NOAH full time, and held the title for two months. Sugiura won it back and held it for three months before dropping it to Katsuhiko Nakajima. I can’t find those three matches anywhere, so I’m skipping them for now and I’ll amend this if they ever fall into my lap. After Nakajima won the title, he successfully defended it against Suzuki. Sugiura turned on Suzuki, left Suzuki-gun, and then beat Suzuki in a match. Suzuki-gun left NOAH. The angle had helped NOAH maintain business, but not expand it. Now that they were gone, the boat started sinking again. 

August 26, 2017 – Tokyo, Japan

Eddie Edwards def. Katsuhiko Nakajima {GHC Heavyweight Championship Match}
From Summer Navigation Vol. 2. Good for them for biting the bullet and going all out with new talent on top in 2017… but Edwards? Nakajima was fresh off a successful defense against Brian Cage (who I think would have made a much more interesting GHC champ than Edwards). There were under 1,000 people in attendance here. Edwards is advertised as an Impact wrestler. Not sure what good that does NOAH. This was alright. Both guys worked hard I guess, though Edwards didn’t seem to be sweating by the end. The dude has no charisma and needs to be dragged kicking and screaming through a match’s story. Nakajima didn’t drag him, so it was just a bunch of moves happening at you. They were good moves, but there’s a reason the crowd didn’t cheer for anything except in shock at the three count. Edwards hit the Die Hard Driver for the win at 25:41. ***

December 22, 2017 – Tokyo, Japan

Kenoh def. Eddie Edwards {GHC Heavyweight Championship Match}
From Winter Navigation. Edwards had defended the belt against Marufuji in Japan and El Hijo del Fantasma in Impact in Canada. Kenoh won the Global League to earn this shot. It’s interesting that three champions in a row here were originally indie guys (Kensuke Office, Ring of Honor, Michinoku Pro) after a history of home growns only (plus Suzuki). I guess Edwards’ time in NOAH predated his time in ROH, but that’s how we got into this mess of Edwards as champion instead of Cage, so I hate it. Attendance was up here, around 1,600. Not coincidentally, the crowd actually made noise for this match as they were invested in Kenoh winning the belt. Edwards’ selling here was actually excellent. He got hit with an apron dragon suplex and spent the rest of the match paying for it. This was a huge step up, and the best title change since Sugiura’s first win. Kenoh beat Edwards at 23:50 with a pair of diving double stomps. ****

March 11, 2018 – Yokohama, Kanagawa

Takashi Sugiura def. Kenoh {GHC Heavyweight Championship Match}
From Great Voyage in Yokohama. These two were tag partners at the time. This was what I call an escalating dickhead match. It’s exactly what it sounds like; each guy becomes a greater and greater dickhead as the match wears on until one guy is such a dickhead that the other guy just can’t stand it. In this case, it went from crazy suplexes to brutal strikes to Sugiura straight up choking Kenoh out and Kenoh blacking out of existence at 27:36. I quite liked it, but not as much as Kenoh’s title win. ***¾ 

December 16 2018 – Yokohama, Kanagawa

Kaito Kiyomiya def. Takashi Sugiura {GHC Heavyweight Championship Match}
From Great Voyage in Yokohama Vol. 2. Sugiura had a very prolific title reign. Kiyomiya won the Global League to earn this title shot. In winning this match, he became the youngest GHC Heavyweight Champ ever at 22. It seems to me that NOAH didn’t have Kota Ibushi so they created one of their own in Kiyomiya. There was a small but very persistent group of Kiyomiya supporters in the crowd that eventually got to be very irritating. This was neat, as most of the match was Sugiura dominating, but once Kiyomiya took control the champ couldn’t grab it back. A Crossface Chicken Wing almost put Sugiura out, but it was a tiger suplex that finally did him in at 33:00. Too long, but not by a terrible amount. I liked Kiyomiya’s slow comeback. ***½ 

January 4, 2020 – Tokyo, Japan

Go Shiozaki def. Kaito Kiyomiya {GHC Heavyweight Championship Match}
From New Sunrise. During Kiyomiya’s reign, NOAH got a brand makeover. The company’s logo changed, the mat went from green to white, and the championship belt got an update. It was made by the fella who made the IWGP and AEW Championship belts, and you can tell. This followed the purchase of the company by Lidet Entertainment. There were a lot of masked folks in the crowd, so you can see that the pandemic was looming/had already arrived in Japan. This was a really fun teacher vs. student type of match. Kiyomiya and Shiozaki were dressed like teammates, adding to that dynamic. Kiyomiya had only ever defeated Shiozaki once, in the Global League that he eventually won before winning the title. But Shiozaki wasn’t having it here. His strikes were so much more on point. Near the end, he’d clearly rope a dope’d Kiyomiya to the point of complete exhaustion. He hit a moonsault for the win and the title at 27:42. ****¼ 

Not long after this, Lidet sold its shares in NOAH to Cyber Agent (the folks who owned DDT), and later hired Kaz Hayashi to make a new company out of the ashes of the recently shuttered Wrestle-1 (ostensibly, as in reality they mostly folded Wrestle-1 into NOAH). The pandemic led to NOAH running empty arena shows almost immediately after their New Sunrise show. Shiozaki’s first defense was against Kazuyuki Fujita in a rather famous bout that went almost an hour because the first thirty minutes, literally, was a staredown. I suppose you should experiment when can’t have fans around anyway, though it certainly makes it seem like DDT’s weirdness is already bleeding into NOAH. Shiozaki is still the champion, though he recently fought Kenou to a draw in a match for both his title and Kenou’s GHC National title. So look for that to come back around once the Global League, now called N-1 Victory, wraps up (it’s in process as I post this).