KAI-GO GO NOAH Rangers (Kaito Kiyomiya, Volume 2)

[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.)


With Go Shiozaki vs. Katsuhiko Nakajima and Masa Kitamiya, NOAH Global Tag League Night 4, 3.31.18
The Aggression is such a different feel from AXIZ (The current team of Shiozaki and Nakajima). Masa Kitamiya is such a good contrast to my favorite wrestler in NOAH Nakajima; raw and unfocused power makes for a good foil to the technical, tactical striking from his partner. I think I like it more than Shiozaki being Katsuhiko's partner. Speaking of, the fucking lover's spat at the beginning of this goddamn match was a wonder to watch. Katsu and Go hit each other so hard and so good back and forth. They're going to have a singles match in a month real time and I can't wait.

Kaito eventually gets isolated by the tag champs and the real work began. The best moments in this match came from the stretch before Go could be tagged back in. Both champions German suplexed Kaito back to back causing the Korakeun crowd to cry in shock and despair for the child. he survived the onslaught and started crawling for the tag, to an empty corner. Shiozaki was layed out on the floor, and Nakajima didn't even sweat having just been hip tossed out of the corner. Ending stretch sees Shiozaki and Kitamiya in the ring trading shots while their partner's brawl on the outside (read as: Nakajima starts clattering Kaito). Go nails te tag champ with his Gowan Lariat and gets the pin as Kaito holds Katsuhiko from getting in the ring and breaking up the cover.
*** 1/4

With Go Shiozaki vs. Takashi Sugiura and Kenoh, NOAH Global Tag League Finals, 4.11.18
God this was wonderful. I wanna retroactively go back and watch as much Kenoh and Sugiura as a team as I can. But business first, gotta finish the Kaito retrospective (before i forget, Takashi Sugiura is GHC heavyweight Champion in this match. Put a huge pin into that reign, I will be coming back for tat pristine shit sometime, hopefully soon.) The opening moments of this match saw Kenoh and Shiozaki get into the classic dick swinging contest of taking shots and not going down. Kenoh does a great job of not going town to Shiozaki's chops for a while. Eventually he does fall, but gets to his partner to tag in NOAH's Terminator. as soon as Sugiura gets in Kaito wants...he wants the tag and Go, no. Go don't do it. Go he's a child he...Well, Kaito got tagged in, surviving longer than I expected him to. He spent thirty seconds as a flurry of strikes, before Takashi just fucking decks him, dropping Kaito like a sack of potatoes. I love Dog Uncle, so much. The heavyweight champion worked over Kiyomiya for a while and even after Shiozaki gets tagged back in, the offense was only slowed momentarily. Takashi is compared a lot to the terminator and that's not a completely wrong comparison, between his build and his seeming disinterest in pain.

The final stretch of this match was great. The legal men for the last 7 minutes were Shiozaki and Kenoh, but both of their partners had more than enough say in the results of the match from this point as well. It's an extension of the opening minutes and it gives Kenoh a lot of clout that he could stand essentially on a level plain with Shiozaki. It definitely feels like two former heavyweight champions trading blows. Kenoh eventually goes for a Top Rope footstomp, but Go was up before he jumped and nailed the flying man with a Gowan Lariat. I shouted from joy thinking that was definitely the end, but Shiozaki only picked his opponent up for a Go Crusher. Sugiura broke up the pin that came from this, but he couldn't make it back into the ring in time to save Kenoh from another Gowan Lariat. KAI-GO wins the match, the Global Tag League, and are in line for a Tag title shot based off this and their victory over Aggression during the tournament
***3/4 (A Fucking great match. The first really good match chronologically from this retrospective.)

With Go Shiozaki vs Katsuhiko Nakajima and Masa Kitamiya, Great Voyage 2018 in Niigata, 5.6.18
In the first match we watched between these two, the Aggression really didn't have too much of a game plan and it came to bite them in the points. So in this match for their titles, they identified Kaito as the obvious weak link in the team, before proceeding to destroy Shiozaki's knee. Which in the log run is a great strategy, the only thing better than one weak link is a pair of weak links unable to hold together. Before go was officially in the ring and getting an already damaged knee worked on, Kaito was doing his best to hold off both Nakajima and Kitamiya. Although, he made the mistake of attacking Katsuhiko on the apron, which is a move I would heavily advise against. I wouldn't want to face the man on a good day, let alone make him mad first. Hot tag was eventually made to Kaito, who tried to make up for lost momentum by bringing the emerald Fire to the champions. Breaks down into a 4-way with Masa and Kaito as legal men. Nakajima tries a Top Rope Frankensteiner on Shiozaki for whatever reason, but the challenger holds on turn turn it into an Emerald Flowsion from the middle turnbuckle and it was awesome. Kaito hit Masa with the sweet, sweet top rope Dropkick and a Tiger Suplex for the...not...fall...maybe? I don't know what happened, but Masa went from dead to very much alive very quickly. The burly fucker went for a Spear but Kaito managed to turn it into a small package for the pin and our baby boy has his first title.
***1/2 (A really good match in context of this series. I don't know what it'd be like cold, but I thought it was really fun.)

Vs. Katsuhiko Nakajima, Navigation with Breeze 2018 Night 2, 5.4.18
I'm going to be honest, after the Dark Agents match I was doing the research to put this blog post together (finding the match dates, getting the show names, etc) and I stumbled onto the match time and results of this match. 8:14, Referee Stoppage. I immediately decided to damn whatever order I was going to watch these matches in and pulled this up and Oh My God. I may have found my new favorite one sided beat down in all of professional wrestling. Katsuhiko was very not happy that he lost his belt to Kaito and Go. Kiyomiya got...like three small spots of offense here? The rest was Katsuhiko just clattering the fuck out of him with kicks. No thigh slapping needed with the velocity Nakajima throws his shots. To talk about any more of this match would do it an injustice. The match is less than eight and a half minutes long, just go watch it.
**** (This is as high a rating I can give this match. If I still did 1000 Fucking Star Matches, this would win that honor.)

With Go Shiozaki vs. Katsuhiko Nakajima and Masa Kitamiya, Navigation with Breeze 2018 Night 10, 5.29.18

God, the lovely pink NOAH shirts worn by the tag champs and the Young Boys in this match. Go still has a busted up knee in this match and Katsuhiko has lost all pretense of good form, going right after it within a minute with the biggest smile on his face. I love Katsu-Sama so fucking much. Eventually, Kaito came in to save his partner any more suffering, and he does pretty good for a walking corpse against the challengers. He has a long standoff with Kitamiya and these two are fighting like they've got something to prove (which they do this is NOAH). Shiozaki gets back in (why, your knee's fucked) as does Nakajima. After machinegun chops, Shiozaki whips NAkajima into the corner. Nakajima uses this momentum to boot Kaito off the apron, and Masa came in and put all of his fucking bowling ball body into taking Shiozaki's leg out from under him Jesus Christ, and from this moment shit is on. Attempted by Katsuhiko at a top rope Hurricanrana again and again Go blocks it. But when he went for a middle rope Go Crusher his unwilling knee comes to haunt him. At this point it was over for the champions. Go can't get any good power into a Gowan Lariat with a compromised leg and Kaito's a useful as a sack of hammers when he's not pulling off a Top Rope Dropkick (which he did in this match, hitting both challengers at once). A High kick clatters Shiozaki, a Punt kick is what really put him out, but Katsuhiko gave him a Vertical Spike for the win.
****1/4 (A fucking great match. The best match so far in this anthology. I would definitely go watch this match.)

Well, that was a roller coaster. We finally found our first great matches, all it took was Kaito to die for my sins as a reviewer and for Shiozaki to lose all feeling in one of his knees. But we must move onward and upward. On the same night that KAI-GO lost the tag titles, Takashi Sugiura successfully defended the heavyweight title against Naomichi Marufuji. after that match, both Kenoh and our shiny happy boy Kaito came out to challenge Sugiura for his title. The two are going to have to fight it out to see who's next in line and that's where we'll pick this saga up next time.

Thanks for reading! I'm glad that I can turn my passion for wrestling into something that so many people enjoy. If you want to get regular updates on when I release more reviews, you can follow me at Twitter at @LSWayne21. Big shoutout to Hisame, the one woman workhorse translating NOAH news and interviews. You can catch her updates, translations, and overall charm at her Twitter here. Credit also has to go to the RealHero account on Rutube and KINGSAARK youtube channel for hosting the matches in this series, found in the live links throughout the entry.
See you down the Road.