[Hi! This is the second of a three part series of my look at Pro Wrestling NOAH's current Heavyweight Champion and all around good boy Kaito Kiyomiya. The first part is here, it focuses on some of the matches he had when he was still a Young Boy, along with the first big singles matches he had upon his return from his learning excursion. Definitely suggest you read that article first, checking out the matches you want to, before coming back to this entry. Thanks!]
Where we last left our hero, he was...well Kaito was getting his ass kicked. Coming back from excursion didn't bode well for Kaito, even with a handful of multi man victories and one singles victory against Andrew Everett. But, now under the tutelage of Go Shiozaki, a man some guy on Cagematch says "has an air of royal arrogance about him and in that sense he reminds me of Vegeta from Dragon Ball Z" which is fucking poetic, maybe the young man will finally find his way and do better for himself. But the Global Tag League is no play-date for soft men, the competition is tough, a title shot awaits at the end of this road. Will the newly forged team of KAI-GO make it to the finals?
With Go Shiozaki vs. Akitoshi Saito and Masao Inoue, NOAH Global Tag League Night 1, 3.18.18
I had to look up what a "Dark Agents" was finally. I now have a...vaguely general idea. The answer is "It's Akitoshi and the lads defending Christmas". If anyone who works for or with Pro Wrestling NOAH somehow reads this, first off why? Secondly, Bring back the Great Happy Christmas Championship.
Anyway, Kaito and Go took the majority of the offense in this contest. I hate to say it, but they didn't seem to sweat their opponents here. Kaito started off handily out wrestling Saito, before letting Go come in to chop a motherfucker or two. Barring the laziest Total Elimination I've ever seen, nothing special actually came out of the Dark Agent camp (Note: I'm not trying to be overly critical of the Dark Agents here, but it was a clothesline and a calf kick. Saito may as well have been giving Inoue emotional support for all his kick did to bring Kiyomiya down). A few minutes later, Kiyomiya rolled up Masao with an O'Connor with a Bridge for the pin.
**1/2 (Despite how low I'm rating this, it was a pretty fun watch. If you only have 10 minutes on your hands I would actually recommend this.)
18.11.19
Kaito, The Agumon (Kaito Kiyomiya, Volume 1)
So I really like Pro Wrestling, but I haven't been watching a lot for it lately. Blame Grad School, blame work, blame the pit of despair and self loathing depression's sunken me into (but mostly that last one), but I just kinda stopped after the G1 this year. So I want to try and kick my ass into watching it again. So instead of trying and failing to cover big shows...I'm just gonna watch wrestling. Sometimes it'll be a single wrestler, other times a string of title defenses, and sometimes I'm just gonna watch random matches during the week. Fuck it, I don't have a format anymore.
Ask literally anyone who I'm friends with or have talked to for more than 5 minutes at a wrestling show, they'll tell you I love Pro Wrestling Noah. I don't know why. Maybe I like the little guys. Maybe it's the fanatical fan-base. I got in just as Suzuki-Gun and New Japan's booking influence was heading out, so a lot of my opinions on the company are skewed compared to contemporary fans. I never knew KENTA in NOAH, or Morishima, Kobashi, or Akiyama. I call Takashi Sugiura and Naomichi Marufuji "Uncle". I consider Junta Miyawaki, Yosiki Inamura, and Kinya Okada my Young Boy class (and occasionally think of myself as being in that class. If you tell me you've never even briefly fantasized about being a wrestler, you're lying). So I'm hoping to use my new style to watch literally as much NOAH as I can, as well as some good 90s All Japan to kind of grasp where NOAH's roots came from.
So, Kaito. I...I don't know how I feel about Kaito. My emotions are mixed. There's something about him I don't like, but everyone else loves him so I find myself grudgingly biting my tongue. I guess I'm hoping to use this and future entries on my blog to suss out what it is I don't like about him. So thanks for coming with me on this journey, for the three of you who didn't violently close the tab to this blog.
Vs. Minoru Suzuki, Great Voyage in Yokohama Vol. 2,10.26.16
Look at Kaito here. So tiny, so full of hope.
Suzuki's gonna crush him like an orange.
This match is from the first whole NOAH show I ever watched, the same show where Katsuyori Shibata and Go Shiozaki went 20+ minutes and Katsuhiko Nakajima won the GHC Heavyweight championship (Put a Big Ol' pin in this match, we'll be coming back to it and the following title reign one day.) I remember liking the whole card, but besides the two above mentioned matches, Suzuki vs. Kaito was the match I remembered the most vividly. Probably because I love any time Minoru (rocking his old theme here) takes apart Young Boys on a whim. The same proved true in this match, but Kaito honestly got more offense in than most trainees usually do against Suzuki. After a flurry of offense and trying his hardest to stand up to The King, Suzuki brutalized him with strikes for a good 30 second stretch, which includes Kaito being stood back up to take more by Suzuki more than. A great mauling.
**1/2
Ask literally anyone who I'm friends with or have talked to for more than 5 minutes at a wrestling show, they'll tell you I love Pro Wrestling Noah. I don't know why. Maybe I like the little guys. Maybe it's the fanatical fan-base. I got in just as Suzuki-Gun and New Japan's booking influence was heading out, so a lot of my opinions on the company are skewed compared to contemporary fans. I never knew KENTA in NOAH, or Morishima, Kobashi, or Akiyama. I call Takashi Sugiura and Naomichi Marufuji "Uncle". I consider Junta Miyawaki, Yosiki Inamura, and Kinya Okada my Young Boy class (and occasionally think of myself as being in that class. If you tell me you've never even briefly fantasized about being a wrestler, you're lying). So I'm hoping to use my new style to watch literally as much NOAH as I can, as well as some good 90s All Japan to kind of grasp where NOAH's roots came from.
So, Kaito. I...I don't know how I feel about Kaito. My emotions are mixed. There's something about him I don't like, but everyone else loves him so I find myself grudgingly biting my tongue. I guess I'm hoping to use this and future entries on my blog to suss out what it is I don't like about him. So thanks for coming with me on this journey, for the three of you who didn't violently close the tab to this blog.
Vs. Minoru Suzuki, Great Voyage in Yokohama Vol. 2,10.26.16
Look at Kaito here. So tiny, so full of hope.
Suzuki's gonna crush him like an orange.
This match is from the first whole NOAH show I ever watched, the same show where Katsuyori Shibata and Go Shiozaki went 20+ minutes and Katsuhiko Nakajima won the GHC Heavyweight championship (Put a Big Ol' pin in this match, we'll be coming back to it and the following title reign one day.) I remember liking the whole card, but besides the two above mentioned matches, Suzuki vs. Kaito was the match I remembered the most vividly. Probably because I love any time Minoru (rocking his old theme here) takes apart Young Boys on a whim. The same proved true in this match, but Kaito honestly got more offense in than most trainees usually do against Suzuki. After a flurry of offense and trying his hardest to stand up to The King, Suzuki brutalized him with strikes for a good 30 second stretch, which includes Kaito being stood back up to take more by Suzuki more than. A great mauling.
**1/2
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