After a nearly four-decade career, Yoshinari Ogawa is stepping away from the ring.
Pro Wrestling NOAH announced overnight that, due to a neck injury, the 57-year-old Ogawa has decided to retire with immediate effect. Per Ogawa’s wishes, NOAH will not be holding a retirement press conference or retirement ceremony for him.
“We would like to express our sincere gratitude for the support & encouragement our fans [have] shown Ogawa over the years,” NOAH wrote. “Although he will be retiring from wrestling, we’re pleased to inform you that he’ll be able to live his daily life without any issues from the injury.”
Ogawa made his in-ring debut for All Japan Pro Wrestling in 1985. He left AJPW for Pro Wrestling NOAH when the latter promotion was founded in 2000. He spent most of his career as a junior heavyweight with title reigns in both AJPW and NOAH.
In 2002, Ogawa had a run as NOAH’s GHC Heavyweight Champion. He was the third-ever wrestler to hold the title (after Mitsuharu Misawa and Jun Akiyama). Ogawa & Misawa had two reigns holding the GHC Tag Team titles together.
The final match of Ogawa’s career was an eight-man tag bout that took place for NOAH on August 4.
The new issue of the Observer is up on the site right now featuring two very in-depth stories:
Judge Richard Boulware refuses to accept the $335 million TKO settlement in the Cung Le case, why, lawyers react, lots of inside ramifications of the case, how different settlements would work out for the biggest name fighters and the average fighters and what comes next and why they still can’t risk a trial.
AEW rights fees talks and what they mean, how much talent earns by percentage of revenues compared to other sports, estimating annual income at different rights points, cutbacks why the deal length is so important, noticeable TV cutbacks and ROH potential going forward.
SummerSlam preview, ticket sales, secondary market, expectations for finishes and favorites.
All In, update on new matches being teased, ticket sales, can they reach the next goal, PPV thoughts and promotion of the event.
Update on the G-1 Climax tournament
UFC 304 full coverage, what’s next for the fighters, new storylines, business notes, match-by-match rundown
What matches you need to see from G-1
A look at the retirement and career of Meiko Satomura
A detailed look at ROH Death Before Dishonor and the ROH brand
The life and career of longtime prelim wrestler Pete Sanchez/Gino Caruso
The most detailed look at the ratings from the past two weeks including where the top shows placed, breakdown on who is watching and changes, how badly the Olympics changed viewership and much more.
Death Triangle go to the hottest arena in the world and how the crowd reacted
One of the best high flyers in the world is almost ready to return
A look at two Stardom PPV shows and major title changes
Oldest male wrestler ever to do a match
Marigold tag team title decided and Grand Prix singles tournament
Death of former Crockett wrestler who had a short career but was in with the biggest names in wrestling at the time
Modern legend retirement tour first main event announced
Dijak and MJF to RevPro
Bloodsport with talent from WWE, ROH and TNA
Update on PPV numbers from WWE, AEW, TNA and Diaz-Masvidal and Paul-Perry
Tony Khan and Shane McMahon
Top star returns to AEW
Lots of injury updates
Bill Goldberg talks Tony Khan
Merch sales
Highest ticket prices ever for an MMA event at The Sphere
Updates on Brock Lesnar
This Week’s Wresting Observer Newsletter Back Issue
We have two weekend shows up on the site right now. My show with Garrett Gonzales on the week’s news including a talk with John Nash about the Cung Le vs. TKO lawsuit is up along with last night’s show with Bryan talking SummerSlam, G-1, MJF at Arena Mexico, UFC, and lots of other WWE and AEW news.
Regarding the injuries last night, we don’t have any updates past that Jacob Fatu was supposed to be selling the leg after the splash, to keep him away from any confrontation with Roman Reigns. He was in a walking boot last night and people were talking about an ankle injury but nobody in WWE at the top level who would know has confirmed to us the nature of any injury or if it was just the planned angle. Logan Paul was injured in some form.
The show set all kinds of records and was the biggest money WWE event aside from a WrestleMania in history. Except for total attendance, where the largest SummerSlam was the 1992 show at Wembley Stadium, it was the second biggest ever. Wrestletix has it at 55,858. It wasn’t sold out as readers noted the South side of the highest deck was tarped and some other sections were tarped where tickets were sold and people were given lower and better tickets that hadn’t been sold. But in no way was this anything but an excellent crowd.
There was nothing of note at the press conference. There were no questions about Vince McMahon, Shane McMahon or anything, although there was one on Stephanie McMahon, who was there and shown during the show in the front row. Paul Levesque said she loves wrestling but has no official role in WWE and basically gave a you never know type answer regarding the future. Brandon Thurston was there but wasn’t called on for a question to Levesque. There were fans allowed in but they were not allowed to ask questions. There were a number of reporters also not allowed in due to space limitations with John Pollock being among them.
We’re looking for your thoughts on the show. You can leave a thumbs up, thumbs down or thumbs in the middle along with a best and worst match to [email protected]
Announced for Raw tomorrow night in Baltimore, which is basically sold out, is Sheamus vs. the returning Ludwig Kaiser, Miz & R-Truth vs. Austin Theory & Grayson Waller, New Day vs. AOP, Dakota Kai vs. Sonya Deville and Wyatt Sicks vs. Chad Gable & The Creeds. Obviously the show will be built around follow-ups from the Judgment Day and CM Punk-Seth Rollins angles. The show is basically sold out.
Bron Breakker was acting as a babyface in his post-show interview. Drew McIntyre said that he was done with Punk, which means he’s not. Coming off the show I could see Gunther vs. McIntyre for Berlin, as Gunther has to be in the main event, and he’ll likely be a babyface in Germany. That’s just speculation as we’ll have a better idea after tomorrow night’s show.
A&E bios tonight are Trish Stratus at 8 p.m. and Becky Lynch at 9 p.m.
Tony Ferguson, at one point among the most popular fighters in the UFC, hinted at retirement after losing yesterday. Ferguson submitted in the first round yesterday against Michael Chiesa on the UFC show in Abu Dhabi, hinted at retirement. He left one glove in the ring, but not the other. It was his eighth straight loss
Terrence Crawford who appeared on Smackdown twice in recent weeks, defeated Israil Madrimov at BMO Stadium in Los Angeles on scores of 116-112, 115-113 and 115-113. A lot of the rounds were close. We don’t have a breakdown but many had Madrimov as the winner.
Olympic wrestling will be all over Peacock over the next week. They have a session from 9-11 a.m. Eastern tomorrow morning for women’s freestyle and men’s Greco Roman. Amit Elor of the U.S., a medal favorite and multi-time world champion, has her first match in that session. Tuesday has stuff from 5 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. and again from 12:15 p.m. to 3:45 p.m. There will be wrestling every day through next Sunday.
NOAH’s N- 1 tournament started today in Yokohama. Titus Alexander beat WWE’s Tavion Heights, who returned to Japan where he competed in the 2021 Olympics, while Josh Briggs beat Ryohei Oiwa. NOAH’s top star, Kaito Kiyomiya, lost in the main event to former Open the Dream Gate champion Luis Mante of Dragon Gate.
Mina Shirakawa at last night’s Stardom show said that she would be leaving for a while to the U.S., so that would indicate maybe being back with AEW.
Tuesday 10/8 will be a major night for pro wrestling as Dynamite and NXT will go head-to-head. Dynamite is being moved that week. We don’t know the reason but it’s presumably the baseball playoffs. The last time this happened, both companies loaded up and I’m sure that will happen again.
G-1 continues with Tuesday & Wednesday shows at Korakuen Hall.
The final day of the TMart Charlotte wrestling convention is today with tons of major names including Mick Foley, Masahiro Chono, Jerry Lawler, Missy Hatt, Kevin Von Erich, Paul Wight, Sid Vicious, Nasty Boys, Al Perez, Jimmy Valiant, Velvet Sky, Angelina Love, Ken Resnick, Bill Irwin, Tommy Young, Len Denton and Thunderbolt Patterson.
There was a show last night at The Gathering before about 400 fans: Justin Kindred b Jovannsi, Big Vito b Andy Anderson, Psycho Boy Fodder & Angelina Love b Bozworth & Samantha Starr, Colby Corino b Movie Myx, Ricky Morton b George South with Tommy Young as referee (South apparently cut some hilarious promos on the fans) Marti Belle & Allysin Kay b Emily & ?, Pitbull Gary Wolfe b CW Andeson, Nate the Great b Kerry Morton, Court Montgomery and Bam Bam Bundy for the TMart promotion championship when Nate speared Bundy. Nate seemingly retired after the match. (thanks to Jamie Combs)
Bryan Danielson vs. Jeff Jarrett will be a no time limit no DQ match with Ricky Steamboat as a special guest at ringside on Wednesday. No time limit is notable because that would indicate the match will be of some length.
Troy Waugh, an MMA referee from 2008 to 2014 who worked on UFC, Strikeforce, Bellator and World Series of Fighting shows in that period , passed away over the weekend due to brain cancer.
Earlier in the week, Sheamus and Sonya Deville were at Major League Soccer’s All-Star Skills Challenge in Columbus, OH and presented the Crown Legacy’s Chituru Odunze with a title belt for winning the Goalie Wars competition. (thanks to Brian Henke)
The King Bees defend the NWA women’s world tag titles at the NWA 76th anniversary show on 8/31 in Philadelphia against Ella Envy & Ms. Starr.
Kirk White’s Big Time Wrestling from Friday night in Newark, CA, which was sold out: Kaka Meng b Dom Cirrus, Ishmae Vaughn b Jiah Jewell, Toa Liona (AEW) b Juicy Finau, Journy Fatu and Lossefa Parisi in a South Pacific War party match featuring lots of chair smashing, Starboy Charlie b Lince Dorado, Too Fresh b Vinnie Massaro & Levi Shapiro, Viva Van b Jada Stone, Marcus Lewis & Big Fonz b Aaron Solo & Robbie Eagles. Lewis vs. Solo will headline the building for the BTW title on 10/18 (thanks to Jim Davis).
James Storm and Marti Belle appeared on Saturday’s Memphis Wrestling TV show.
ESW Keystone debuts on 8/17 at the Saga Club in Erie PA with Spencer Slade vs. Channing Decker as the main event.
Wrestler Bulldog Dan Hansen passed away on Thursday due to kidney failure. The CAC reported his death yesterday.
Wrestling Observer Radio with Bryan Alvarez and Dave Meltzer is back with tons to talk about including the latest in the Cung Le lawsuit, more on the death of WCW, the SummerSlam card so far, Nattie re-signs, the death of Ken Hoffman and what he meant to the Observer, NOAH, Marigold, FantasticaMania, Smackdown and Collision reviews, and more! A fun show as always so check it out~!
Timestamps: Start: Black Saturday anniversary, UFC antitrust lawsuit update 6:30: Natalya re-signs with WWE, SummerSlam lineup, other lineups for this week 10:10: Lenita Erickson & Who Killed WCW 27:00: Ken Hoffman passes away 34:04: NOAH & Marigold thoughts featuring WWE talent 46:59: NJPW Fantastica Mania US recap 58:19: WWE SmackDown notes 1:05:16: AEW Collision notes
During Saturday’s NOAH Destination event, it was announced that Josh Briggs will be competing in the A Block of the N1 Victory tournament, while Tavion Heights will take part in the B Block. The tournament, similar to NJPW’s G1 Climax tournament, begins on August 4 and runs through September 1 when the finals will be held in Osaka.
— プロレスリング・ノア ｜PRO WRESTLING NOAH (@noah_ghc) July 13, 2024
Here is the full list of entrants for this year’s tournament:
A Block:
Kaito Kiyomiya
Go Shiozaki
Masa Kitamiya
Rohei Oiwa
Jack Morris
Dragon Bane
Luis Mante
Josh Briggs
B Block:
Kenoh
Manabu Soya
Ulka Sasaki
YOICHI
El Hijo del Dr. Wagner Jr.
Alpha Wolf
Titus Alexander
Tavion Heights
In last year’s tournament, Go Shiozaki defeated Kenoh in the finals to win for the first time.
Briggs has been on NXT television for several years, most recently breaking out as a singles wrestler after teaming with Brooks Jensen. Heights meanwhile has just started making regular appearances on NXT as the newest member.
With Bryan Alvarez being sent to culture training, Filthy Tom Lawlor joins Mike Sempervive in getting you ready for a busy weekend. Predictions for WWE Clash at the Castle, TNA Against All Odds, the main bouts from NJPW, NOAH & more. A fun show as always, so check it out~!
An announcement from WWE & Pro Wrestling NOAH is set to be made this weekend.
It was revealed today that WWE & NOAH will be making a “major announcement” at NOAH’s Grand Ship 2024 show in Yokohama, Japan this Sunday (June 16). NOAH wrote on social media:
BREAKING A MAJOR announcement from NOAH & WWE will be made at our Yokohama BUNTAI event on Sunday! A message from a certain wrestler will also be released!
Last month, Yasuaki Okamoto — the new president of CyberFight — stated that one of his goals was to strengthen CyberFight’s relationship with WWE. CyberFight is the parent company of Pro Wrestling NOAH, DDT, and Tokyo Joshi Pro-Wrestling.
WWE is returning to Japan next month for its first events in the country since 2019. There will be three WWE house shows from July 25-27. The events are taking place in Osaka and Tokyo.
Grand Ship 2024 is being headlined by Kaito Kiyomiya defending his GHC Heavyweight Championship against NJPW wrestler Gabe Kidd. The show will air live on Wrestle Universe with English commentary. In Japan, it will stream on Abema. Abema is also WWE’s broadcast partner in Japan.
Giulia is set to make her in-ring debut for Pro Wrestling NOAH.
On her first official day of free agency, Giulia appeared on NOAH Monday Magic in a segment with Nosawa. Nosawa first attempted to convince her to wrestle on today’s card, but after she rejected his proposal, Giulia announced she will compete at Wrestle Magic on May 4 at the Ryōgoku Kokugikan in Tokyo.
Her opponent for the event has yet to be announced.
Giulia would later say:
I’m Giulia, unemployed from today, I quit Stardom yesterday. I came here because I was called. The fact that I’m here means that the wrestling world will become more and more interesting, so please look forward to the future Giulia. Arrivederci, see you soon!
.@giulia0221g: "I'm Giulia, unemployed from today, I quit Stardom yesterday. I came here because I was called. The fact that I'm here means that the wrestling world will become more and more interesting, so please look forward to the future Giulia. Arrivederci, see you soon!" pic.twitter.com/FR7JMCfojJ
Giulia’s contract with Stardom officially expired at the end of March. She is expected to be part of Rossy Ogawa’s new promotion in Japan before eventually landing in WWE. She dropped the NJPW Strong Women’s Championship to Stephanie Vaquer on Stardom’s March 10 show in Korakuen Hall.
With the decision made this past week that there will be no more ECW house shows after the end of November, WWE sources say panic has begun to set in over the brand’s shelf life.
WWE has a contract with Sci-Fi through the end of 2007 for a Tuesday night television show. There have been talks for several weeks about trying to get word out that ECW is really WWE, but exactly how that will be established isn’t clear. Internally, the declining ratings have been blamed on the ECW initials, thinking that because people aren’t aware it is really WWE, they aren’t watching. Clearly that makes no sense because it did great numbers for a few months and it’s only been of late where the decline has been marked.
The house shows have been averaging roughly $25,000 per event on about 1,000 paid attendance, making them big money losers. While some shows have done better, there is no indication after seven months that house show business is improving.
Kota Ibushi has issued an apology for his performance at NOAH The New Year 2024.
Ibushi faced Naomichi Marufuji in the main event of the January 2 show. Despite being injured going into the match, Ibushi wrestled for 33 minutes. The match fell apart and Ibushi’s performance was clearly hindered by injury. He further injured both of his ankles during the match and was taken to the hospital after the show.
On Friday, Ibushi posted a message on X apologizing for the match and stating that it was his fault. Ibushi claimed that he was scammed by a C5 Clinic that he received treatment from.
Ibushi hurt his ankles during the match when hitting a moonsault to the outside.
Ibushi was already wrestling with a broken left ankle and with this Moonsault, he further injured himself.
“Ibushi definitely needs a lot of time off and there are real questions about him going forward given how little he wrestles and how many injuries he has,” Dave Meltzer wrote in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. “He did walk backstage on his own after the match but said he was in so much pain he couldn’t do post-match interviews. They called an ambulance for him and took him to the hospital.”
Ibushi hasn’t been the same physically since injuring his shoulder against Kazuchika Okada in the 2021 G1 Climax finals. He was out of action from October 2021 to March 2023 after that injury.
Last November, it was confirmed that Ibushi is officially signed to an AEW contract. Ibushi described it as a flexible deal where he’s also able to wrestle for other promotions.
“I’m based in Japan and I will travel for the matches,” Ibushi said. “Basically, I’m in Japan, I work in Japan, I will be active.”
Ibushi defeated Marufuji in their match for Pro Wrestling NOAH. There was a staredown between Ibushi and Jake Lee & Kaito Kiyomiya after the match.
For the first time in more than a decade, Kota Ibushi will be competing for Pro Wrestling NOAH.
Ibushi made a surprise appearance for NOAH on Saturday, setting up a match against Naomichi Marufuji for NOAH The New Year 2024. Ibushi issued a challenge that Marufuji accepted.
NOAH The New Year 2024 is taking place at Ariake Arena on Tuesday, January 2 and will air live on Wrestle Universe with English commentary.
“Today I was able to step into Noah’s ring for the first time in 12 years. And thank you, Marufuji-san, for accepting the match,” Ibushi posted on social media.
“Welcome, Ibushi-kun, to Ariake Arena on 2 January,” Marufuji said in a post-show press conference. “It’s finally time to do it. Let’s do it first thing next year, on the best stage, one on one.”
NOAH has officially confirmed the match and announced that it will be the main event of NOAH The New Year.
Last month, it was officially announced that Ibushi is under contract with AEW. It’s a “flexible” deal that allows Ibushi to wrestle for other promotions.
“I’m based in Japan and I will travel for the matches,” Ibushi said. “Basically, I’m in Japan, I work in Japan, I will be active.”
NOAH The New Year 2024 will feature a GHC Heavyweight Championship match with Kenoh defending against Manabu Soya. Among the other matches scheduled for the show is a tag bout with Zack Sabre Jr. & Yoshinari Ogawa facing Hiroshi Tanahashi & HAYATA.
Before their Wrestle Kingdom 18 match, Zack Sabre Jr. and Hiroshi Tanahashi will be competing against each other in Pro Wrestling NOAH.
NOAH has announced that Sabre & Yoshinari Ogawa will face Tanahashi & HAYATA in tag team action at NOAH The New Year 2024 on Tuesday, January 2. The show is airing live on Wrestle Universe with English commentary.
The tag team bout is being billed as a “Wrestling Symphony.”
NOAH The New Year is taking place just two days before NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 18. Sabre will defend his NJPW World Television Championship against Tanahashi at the January 4 Tokyo Dome event.
Tanahashi pinned Sabre during a trios match at NJPW Power Struggle earlier this month, setting himself up as Sabre’s Wrestle Kingdom challenger.
NOAH The New Year 2024 is being held at Ariake Arena and will be headlined by Kenoh vs. Manabu Soya for the GHC Heavyweight Championship. Here’s the updated card for the show:
GHC Heavyweight Champion Kenoh defends against Manabu Soya
Three-way match: GHC Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champions Dragon Bane & Alpha Wolf defend against Yo-Hey & Tadasuke and Ninja Mack & Alejandro
GHC Junior Heavyweight Champion Daga defends against Eita
Zack Sabre Jr. & Yoshinari Ogawa vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi & HAYATA
