What Will Pro Wrestling NOAH Be Remembered For?

[KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!!]

Since the prestige of the company has dropped drastically in recent years (though I still say NOAH's not dead until it's dead) I thought this would be an interesting topic to the think about. I think it may be best remembered not for really creating new stars, but for letting some of Japan's best have some final good runs. Also, for producing the best shows during a time when the rest of the mainstream wrestling scene in Japan looked bleak (the dark days of NJPW and AJPW having to pracitally start from scratch after NOAH was created).

[SOR]

Good matches with little in the way of story line. A wrestling company for people who just like matches really.

it's sad to see how far they've fallen. TMDK now hold gold there.

[froggyfrog]

I'll remember it for crossover with ROH

[EyeofTyr]

A cautionary tale of how you can't rely on nostalgia and big names forever, you need to start making new big names, new stars. And, not get cold feet on them the second things don't sky rocket off into profits immediately with them.

They were barely hanging in there for years on the backs of Kobashi and Misawa. All it took was for Kobashi's body to fall apart even more than it already had, Misawa to die in a horrible fashion from pushing his body even more than Kobashi had done to his own, and for Akiyama to watch his mentor die in the ring.

In a lot of ways, WWE and TNA should be mindful of NOAH.

[Djm Doesn't Find You Funny]

Some great stuff in the mid 2000s, and being a prime example of why you can't keep the old guard around forever and how your smaller guys CAN be just as important as the larger guys.

[Non Banjoble Tokens]

The green ring canvas?

[Deleted]

Some really good matches but mostly Misawa dying in the ring.

One of the smarter guys in the whole AJPW/NOAH split has to be Johhny Ace though, part of it is that he probably felt loyalty to both Misawa and Ms. Baba and he didn't want to go against either, but he landed a good job with WCW and then a really good job with the WWE when it went out of business. I'd say that he gained the most from the split somehow.

[HMARK Center]

Yeah, NOAH presents a cautionary tale in many ways, but also a hopeful one in terms of what CAN be done beautifully in wrestling. You can't lean so heavily on the old guard, you can't keep asking them to put their bodies on line so much (or risk such a tragedy as Misawa's), but wrestling as an athletic spectacle can still sell out arenas, and there is young, dynamic talent out there that can carry on traditions of greatness...ignoring them means ignoring what's best for everybody.

In an ideal world, KENTA, Marafuji, Morishima, and many of the other young guns of NOAH would've picked up the banner earlier, while Misawa, Kobashi, and the rest of the old guard could have scaled back the demand on their health and bodies earlier and eased back their work. Again, it's a caution to other companies and wrestlers out there: time moves on, and the industry must move with it.

[________ has left the building]

Aug 11, 2013 20:38:31 GMT -5 @akeem said:

Some really good matches but mostly Misawa dying in the ring.

One of the smarter guys in the whole AJPW/NOAH split has to be Johhny Ace though, part of it is that he probably felt loyalty to both Misawa and Ms. Baba and he didn't want to go against either, but he landed a good job with WCW and then a really good job with the WWE when it went out of business. I'd say that he gained the most from the split somehow.

Johnny helped shape a great deal of the current WWE scene. Not bad for someone who was a midcarder.