NOAH Mitsuharu Misawa Memorial Night 2014 (06/13/14)

Hitoshi Kumano vs Mitsuhiro Kitamiya
These two put on a good energetic sprint. Kitamiya is in his rookie year and his big moves are limited to a dropkick. Kumano is allowed a wider range of moves and ends the match with a German Suplex Hold.

Genba Hirayanagi vs Kikutaro
This was a comedy match with some decent wrestling found within. Most of Kikutaro's comedy is lost on my due to the language barrier but a large percentage of the fans laughed so it must be a decent gimmick. Hirayanagi had a scary moment where a plancha was slightly mistimed and his head connected with the bottom bar of the guard rail. Genba rolled up Kikutaro after he collapsed presumably from oxygen deprivation.

Daisuke Ikeada vs Masao Inoue
Why did we need a second comedy match in a row. In the midst of their stalling they worked in a couple of decent comedy spots, such as Ikeada irish whipping various people around ringside into Inoue. Overall this was not my type of match especially ending with a Ikeada small package reversal for the pin.

Kenou vs Daisuke Harada vs Taiji Ishimori
I was questioning whether company storylines would be pushed to the side for the memorial show and thankfully that is not the case. On the 5/31 show Kenou attacked Harada after Harada's title defense and that is the driving story in the match. While Ishimori adds a lot of energy and some cool moves to the match, he sticks out as the third wheel taking more floor time than the other two combatants. He had an amazing transition into an Indian Deathlock on one opponent while DDTing the other. This match furthers the Kenou quest for Harada's GHC Junior title by pinning the champion clean as a sheet in the middle of the ring after his sweet suplex. Kenou used the most lackadaisical cover to pin Harada not even hooking the leg. It really looked like he was pinning a jobber on Saturday mornings rather than a champion who you would think would only lose by the skin of his teeth. This match was very entertaining and I am looking forward to the looming Kenou/Harada matchup.

BRAVE (Kotoge, Nakajima & Yone) vs TMDK (Nichols & Haste) & Quiet Storm
As I mentioned in the 5/31 review of the Haste singles match that I knew TMDK were a good tag team and they certainly show it here, working together with impeccable timing. There is one very complex comedy spot with both team members and Yone where Yone manuevers and tricks Haste into clotheslining his partner, which is more along the lines of my type of wrestling comedy compared with the two preceding matches. The more I watch Quiet Storm's power junior stuff the more I like it, my only critique would be to expand the moveset a little. The match was well worked with a nice flow and pace, which makes it an enjoyable match. The Mighty Don't Kneel take the win after one of their nifty double teams. They also take a post match bow to the large Misawa portrait which wins respect with both myself and the live crowd. Recommended if you have 20 minutes of spare time to kill.

Chi Kibou-Gun (Ohara, Taniguchi & Morishima) vs Tenryu, Koshinaka & Ogawa
This was a simple story told well, the younger guys were trying to kill the older team. This broke down to a wild brawl early before settling down to a match. Koshinaka was extremely over and got the biggest pop of the night thus far with his diving hit attack that he hit on everyone as often as he was able. Koshinaka got the pin after a powerbomb. At 64 years old Tenryu took the first heat segment but didn't really do too much overall. Chi Kibou-Gun are great at cheating behind the refs back, even if it feel weird to see so much cheating in Japan. Good match that is worth a look.

No Mercy (Suguira & Takayama) vs Daisuke Sekimoto & Yuji Nagata
I knew coming into the match I really liked 3 out of the 4 participants and the fourth, Suguira, I haven't seen a whole lot of to make an educated judgement. This match if full of stiffness and near falls and is great. Sekimoto almost decapitates Suguira with a lariat near the end and the crowd completely buys into the near fall. Suguira takes the match with an Olympic Slam where he almost dumps Sekimoto on his head. Give up watching one of your reality shows for the week and watch this match instead.

Akitoshi Saito vs Naomichi Marufuji
These two put on a pretty good main event really milking the nearfalls at the end. They implored a slow prodding pace with big moves and all in all the match worked for me. Marufuji almost screwed up the finish and had to muscle Saito for the suplex.Marufuji may be growing on me slowly, I am anxiously awaiting his showdown with Nagata for the GHC title. Recommended if a slow prodding pace is not an automatic turnoff. Also note the match is under 20 minutes not the full 30 as the file would indicate.

Final Thoughts
The card from top to bottom isn't great with only the top half far outweighting the bottom half of the card. The No Mercy tag is worth going out of your way to see, the rest is skippable for a casual Puro fan.

NOAH Navigation With Breeze - Night 4 5/31/14

Hitoshi Kumano vs Mitshuhiro Kitamiya

We start with the young boys doing their damnedest to learn the art of pro wrestling. There isn't much here but what is here is entertaining enough. I have no reliable database to tell me who is who without spoiling the rest of the card so they will be judged together instead of on their own merit. My favorite spot in the match has the man in red holding an armbar then transitioning to a backslide. After this spot I put all my money on red and lost it all as black who made red tap out with an octopus hold. Good enough opener.

Masao Inoue vs Yoshinari Ogawa

The fact that this 8 minute match is clipped to less time than the young boys match should speak volumes on its quality. It seemed like Ogawa wanted to wrestle a straight match and Inoue said "No on my watch" and proceeds to work almost all comedy spots. While I am far from a wrestling snob and enjoy some comedy within wrestling, this was not my taste. Ogawa gains the pin after sitting down on a Inoue sunset flip attempt. Not worth your time.

Kenou & Hajime Ohara vs Katsuhiko Nakajima & Taji Ishimori

Though this match had a lot of energy and contained a lot of moves, I found it lacking direction. What they did here was an entertaining spotfest with plenty of cool moves such as the German Suplex hold that Kenou used on Ishimori where he held him swinging between his legs then lifted Ishimori all the way up and around for the German. Of course they include a couple of Fighting Spirit exchanges of forearms and kicks which are fine in my book, if a little cliche. Kenou pinned Ishimori for the win after an interesting suplex (for lack of a better term). There is very little that completely turns me off in wrestling but if you hate spotfests this might not be the match for you.

Akitoshi Saito & Atsushi Kotoge vs Yoshihiro Takayama & Genba Hirayanagi

This match was clipped way down from its 16 minutes and it was still a match Takayama could not save. It is worse than the spotfest, skip it.

Naomichi Marufuji vs Shane Haste

I have heard Marufuji can be lazy when unmotivated and that seemed to be the case here. No one cared about this match including the performers and the crowd. While I understand the big picture story involves Marufuji heading for a future GHC Heavyweight Title match, the story of the match seemed to be that both wrestlers had no specific strategy to win the match so they would just hit moves until something worked. I like what I see from TMDK as a team but the jury is still out on them in singles matches and this may not be a good match to make judgement on Shane. If Marufuji was indeed phoning it in then there is little Haste could have done to make the match meaningful. Marufuji won with a submission hold of which I cannot find a name. This match is not worth your time.

Daisuke Harada © vs Quiet Storm - GHC Junior Heavyweight Championship

In my wildest imaginations would I have thought I would be watching Quiet Storm matches in 2014. The last I had seen of him was in 2002 or 2003 ROH and Storm looks like a completely different wrestler. Quiet Storm is now a mature 30 year old and is gigantic compared to the skinny teenager on those early ROH shows. My 6 year old daughter watched this with me and I tried to sell her on Quiet Storm having muscles but she confirmed he is just fat. Quiet Storm disappointed me by not shouting STORM CRADLE DRIVER once in the match, which I would have popped for. These two work a nice little big/small story with slightly bland offense. Shoulder blocks rule the first half of the match establishing Quiet Storm's size advantage and then transitions to more power moves in the latter half of the match. I was very disappointed in the brainbuster on the concrete floor being sold like any ordinary move. Harada won with a German Suplex that never toyed with the idea that Quiet Storm was difficult to pick up due to his size. Still compared to the previous few matches this was better and worth a view if you have 16 minutes to spare.

Takeshi Morishima & MAYBACH Taniguchi © vs Takashi Sugiura & Masato Tanaka - GHC Tag Team Championship

I like stiff wrestling but I didn't love this. These four put in enough work for a great match but the lack of drama makes the match feel underwhelming. Some of this may have come from all of the Cho Kibou-Gun interference which takes the focus away form the match. Sugiura & Tanaka have some good teamwork and hopefully will have a good reign after ending Taniguchi/Morishima's title run at 126 days.

Final Thoughts
Skip this show unless you have the need to see every NOAH show. The title matches are okay but nothing really stands out up and down the card. Recommended to avoid.