Morishima bows out at 36

[dawho5]

I'd venture to say that a lot of the handling of Akiyama in his early NOAH run had a lot to do with him not drawing. Instead of him keeping momentum after his big Misawa win in Febuary while still in AJPW, he ends up losing steam in his first Misawa singles match. If you want a guy to be the new Ace you have to commit to that push.

[Superstar Sleeze]

I'd venture to say that a lot of the handling of Akiyama in his early NOAH run had a lot to do with him not drawing. Instead of him keeping momentum after his big Misawa win in Febuary while still in AJPW, he ends up losing steam in his first Misawa singles match. If you want a guy to be the new Ace you have to commit to that push.

Akiyama did win in July to win the title from Misawa so I don't think that was horrible. What I don't understand is why if they were going to use Takayama in gaijin heel transitional role why have the Ogawa reign. Yes, Rat Boy is awesome but I think the reign did more harm than good.

[GOTNW]

I presume they didn't want Akiyama jobbing to Takayama, which is also likely since their first major singles match was in 2010.

[Steenalized]

Which is a travesty, given how great the two of them were in the early to mid 00s.

[rzombie1988]

NOAH happened exactly as I predicted it would. I was saying by 2004 they need to make new stars. By 2005 before Misawa's death, I was saying if Misawa or Kobashi goes down, they are in big trouble. Then Misawa dies and over the years Kobashi breaks every body part possible. Now Kenta, Akiyama, Go, Marufuji, Morishima, Kobashi and Misawa and are all gone. They are lucky that NOAH is alive at this point.

 

NOAH did what they could with Morishima but while he was a good worker, he didn't have a ton else going for him. He wasn't good looking and he didn't have charisma. It doesn't really matter though. When you have all-time stars like Misawa and Kobashi, you need a generation to fail after them so people can get over it and get ready for the next next stars.

 

Oh and they should have cashed in on Mutoh vs Misawa/Kobashi and one last Kobashi/Kawada match while they had the chance. Millions down the drain for politics.

[jdw]

I'd venture to say that a lot of the handling of Akiyama in his early NOAH run had a lot to do with him not drawing. Instead of him keeping momentum after his big Misawa win in Febuary while still in AJPW, he ends up losing steam in his first Misawa singles match. If you want a guy to be the new Ace you have to commit to that push.

 

Jun's lack of drawing was why his first run was handled that way. Misawa wanted to build NOAH around Kobashi and Jun, just as he wanted to build All Japan around them. He personally put Jun over in the singles match in Feb 2000. He put Jun over himself and Taue on the first NOAH card (Jun took both falls of the 2/3 over the two). He put Jun over Kobashi in a singles on the second card. He had the two headline the first "big" card of the promotion, which Kobashi getting his win back. The only reason Misawa won the GHC Title tourney was because Kobashi was out, and the "first" winner needs to have some gravitas to establish the belt, which is consistent with the JWA --> AJPW --> NOAH line of thinking on establishing belts. In turn, Misawa set up Jun to challenge on the company's first Budokan... and put him over again for his first big singles title. He then got put over the company's top gaijin, and got to go defend the title on New Japan's Tokyo Dome card. He got put over Kobashi on the company's second Budokan.

 

It didn't work. It basically never worked well for Jun as an Ace in NOAH. To a degree, Misawa protected him a good deal. Look up the number of times that he challenged for the title between 2001-2009 and *lost*. The only one I can recall was the Dome match with Kobashi. The other times he challenged for the belt he ended up winning it. He wasn't used in GHC matches as a "challenger" to make others look good by jobbing to them. Instead he seemed after that first failure to be saved in the holster as a fall back if someone else failed. To a degree like Bret Hart after his first run.

[DGinnetty]

Not sure if this means anything, but there are NO Di Colosseo episodes scheduled to air on G+ in May, and the 2 Di Colosseos in June are Misawa specials.

G+ is still airing the NOAH SP complete houseshows, (which don't require much post production), and the monthly show on Samurai TV.

 

Beginning of the end?

 

Dan

[Mad Dog]

They've been on borrowed time for 5 years.

[kjh]

I think NOAH's future is more secure than since the mid '00s with New Japan's support and serving as their satellite promotion.

 

I'm not really sure NOAH pissed millions down the drain. Even without Kawada after the July 2005 Dome show, they sold out five of the next six Budokan Hall events. Frankly, they were lucky they hadn't booked another Dome show for July 2006, because of Kobashi's cancer diagnosis.

[Parties]

At the time of Kobashi's '06 departure, I recall the best workers in the company being Misawa, Akiyama, Sano, and Takayama. SUWA's reign of terror was '05. The younger generation were not the ones I was excited about. April '06 had the really fun Akiyama-Inoue match, and I remember enjoying Misawa's title run (though the Morishima matches weren't his best). Even when Kings Road generation were falling apart, the mentors still had more fire than their proteges.

[fxnj]

People have been predicting NOAH's impending doom since Misawa's death 6 years ago. No, they're not in their golden age but they've actually done a really good job of handling that by cutting down costs and building themselves a solid second-tier promotion roster.

[Strand Peanut]

NOAH is just a downhill slope. There are no missed opportunities. Misawa was always out of his depth as the man in charge.

[dawho5]

For me it was also a downhill slope because of what it had to follow. It was the extension of Misawa's vision for All Japan, which was more and more excessive as the 90s went on. So it was always going to be a journey forward into more excess. The only saving grace was going to be the new supporting cast developing. As it turns out the best that should have been expected was a crew of midcard supporting players that fill up the card far better than ate 90s AJPW ever could. At least for the first nine or ten years. Part of what hurt NOAH was how everyone was trying so hard to be on the level of the Four Pillars right away. If they had moved their young guys through stages the way Misawa and crew came up it would have been far better for business over time. But what they did was have young guys in 20+ minute matches far before they were ready without a veteran in the ring to guide them. There were a few occasions where Misawa and co. were stuck into longish singles matches with each other before 1993, but those are the exception rather than the rule. And those matches show plenty of promise despite their flaws while the tags those same wrestlers had with one another were far more consistently good. It also helped that they weren't trying to live up to some impossible standards set by the generation before them.