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.