NOAH Great Voyage in Niigata

Pro-Wrestling NOAH
Great Voyage in Niigata: Great Voyage x Big Fireworks
23rd September 2014, City Gymnasium, Niigata

One of the Japanese workers with the most tenuous grasp on the status of 'legend' in the jaded and weary eyes of this blog is Atsushi Onita. Never really that good when he was allegedly good as part of All Japan's not-as-good-as-their-rival junior heavyweight division, he is known for his role in importing the deathmatch style into Japanese wrestling - as well as being a populist conservative member of the National Diet (parliament). Why do I bring this up? Well, he's here tonight, under the banner of a handful of cross-promoted matches with the near-dead ZERO1 promotion. 

But more on that later. Now for some housekeeping. Not a great deal has happened since this blog covered NOAH, and July's Great Voyage in Tokyo Pt. 2 event, but let me recap anyway. 

Company vice-president (SHOOT) Naomichi Marufuji, as you may recall, won the GHC Heavyweight Championship from Yuji Nagata in a bout that had a lot of hype leading in that met expectations both in ring and out of it. Stablemate Katsuhiko Nakajima challenged for the title immediately. It was a popular move and on the back of it I declared the company's soft reboot to be in full swing.

fujiwara armbar investigates: Big Japan Pro-Wrestling (BJW)

An occasional series in which, in a bid to further my spotty knowledge of Japanese wrestling promotions, I watch a recent event and assess whether or not I'd watch regularly given the time, money and ability to access.

Promotion: Big Japan Pro-Wrestling (BJW)
Event watched: BJW 28/4/14 (TV)

What did I know about the promotion going in?: Not a great deal. I knew that BJW had a reputation for keen adherence to the seemingly-passe deathmatch style, the kind of beyond-hardcore matches that require a lot of weaponry and props such as barbed-wire, fluorescent light strips and thumb tacks and very little in the way of what somebody like Les Thatcher would call 'real wrestling'.