CyberFight’s sub-brand Pro Wrestling Noah presented Wrestle Odyssey II live from the Ryogoku Kokugikan in Tokyo, Japan. It featured title matches galore, the N-1 Victory Winner’s Heavyweight Title shot, and a very strong match of the year contender. Let’s dive deep into this big show with our critic hats on.
Team NOAH (Atsushi Kotoge & Hi69) v. Hiroto Tsuruya & Hiroya Namiki – Tag
NOAH Dojo graduates wrestled former Junior Tag Champions (but not with each other) in the pre-show match. These matches only serve to hype the crowd before the main show, and that’s exactly what happened here. Kotoge beat Nakimi with an Air Raid Crash, hooray. Tsuruya and Namiki did their job with flying colors, at least.
Team 2000X (YO-HEY & Jun Masaoka) (c) v. Alejandro & Daiki Odashima – GHC Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship Match
In case you haven’t heard, NOAH’s Junior Division is on fire right now. Team2000X’s YO-HEY and Masaoka showed great chemistry, trading rapid-fire moves left and right. Meanwhile, Alejandro’s quest to get back the Junior Tag Titles raged on with Daiki Odashima in Dragon Bane’s place. Odashima was the MVP here, showing great heart and spirit against the evil Team2000X.
Lots of fun combos here, and wild offense that I don’t think I’ve seen before. A Front Chancery Pinfall?? Wow. Odashima would fall to Masaoka’s Rose Plant-type of move thing, getting spiked on the head for the Team2000X title retention. This was a really great match to kick off the main show; even with the heel victory, it was a high point.
Team 2000X (Alpha Wolf & Tadasuke) v. Black Menso-re & Kazuyuki Fujita v. Los Tranquilos de Japon (BUSHI & RYUSEI) v. Tetsuya Endo & Yuto Koyanagi – Four-Way Tag
Wow, that was quick—less than five minutes to be exact. Eight people were in this match, and everyone did their best to get something in. Alpha Wolf got the win for Team2000X after destroying NOAH Dojo young boy Yuto Koyanagi with a piledriver. Why, to tell a story that Team2000X is strong? My my, we’ve NEVER told that one before! The heels stand tall again; perhaps this is the theme for tonight?
Team 2000X (Masa Kitamiya & Takashi Sugiura) v. No Mercy (KENTA & Shuhei Taniguchi) – Tag
Taniguchi tried his best, and it was still a little painful to watch. Even with his mask, he’s gassed more than a Saudi Goldberg. The man is set to retire in early 2027 after years of wear and tear. At least Team2000X’s Sugiura and Kitamiya worked competently to get something out of the reunited No Mercy team. Taniguchi used his sasumata (spear-fork) to attack his opponents while the referee was down, and KENTA took a back seat to let Taniguchi have the spotlight.
Kitamiya ended it with a diving senton to pin Taniguchi. Taniguchi’s masked gimmick made its final appearance in the ring, and it’s sad to see this sendoff this way. It’s similar to Hiroshi Tanahashi’s knees giving out on him over time. At least this was a tag match where three other guys could cover up the limitations—sad face.
HAYATA (c) v. Shuji Kondo – GHC 200 Championship Match
This match didn’t include any Team2000X members, and housed the unique 200 Title. All matches contested for this belt must last under two hundred seconds. Unfortunately, this one ended under the time limit because champion HAYATA injured his knee. Kondo won by countout and became the new champion in the limpest way possible. Whether this injury is legitimate or not we don’t know yet, but if it is, then let’s get some prayers up for HAYATA. If it’s kayfabe, then protecting HAYATA this way is quite the dumb decision.
Kouga & Kenoh v. Yoshiki Inamura & Kaito Kiyomiya – Tag
The litany of nonsense over the previous few matches made for a dull time, but this brought things back into the positives. All four of these guys wrestled in the N-1 Victory this year, and they put in the work to make this match an epic one. Hard kicks versus hard bodies, and everyone had a hand in making it solid. Kouga is an absolute favorite of mine and he’s still a work in progress, with Yoshiki Inamura being the Joker to his Batman. Kenoh and Kiyomiya felt like side characters to their animosity, but it did force the other two to match intensity and pace with the more experienced peeps.
Right when you think you’d seen the finish, another breakup of the pinfall led to more. There was a Last Ride/Uranage combo off the top rope that led to a near fall, which looked gnarly. The finish finally came with a Discharge & Skywalk Elbow combo on Kouga to give Inamura and Kiyomiya the strong win. This was easily the match of the night, and could enter into Match of the Year territory with how powerful everyone performed. NOAH’s future involving these four will look beautiful, and this match was the shining jewel in that hopeful wish.
Naomichi Marufuji (c) v. Luis Mante – GHC National Championship Match
The Genius never stops evolving. Even in his 40s, Marufuji still manages to bust out moves wrestlers couldn’t normally think of. Luis Mante didn’t leave the best impression. As someone who hasn’t seen previous matches of Mante’s, he’s pretty good, but not spectacular. Marufuji being a single-man spot monkey didn’t leave much room for improvisation, but the spots were still memorable. Rough-looking hurricanrana off the apron in the middle of this, by the way.
Shockingly, Mante won. The former Masked Phantom Invader won at the end of the day with a pop-up Powerbomb to gain the GHC National Title. Christ alive. Never thought the former Dragon Gate guy would beat Marufuji on his first main match in NOAH. Good for him though!
Passion Ratel’s (Manabu Soya and Yuki Iino) (c) v. TMDK (Mikey Nicholls & Shane Haste) v. Good Brothers (Doc Gallows & Karl Anderson) – GHC Tag Team Championship Three-Way Tag Match
The chaos section of the show continued on with a three-way tag for the GHC Tag Titles. Individual pairings like when Shane Haste squared off with Manabu Soya was great. Anderson and Gallows were alright, being the main disruptors between TMDK and Passion Ratel’s. There were many screams about passions and chop battles to challenge each man’s “Jōnetsu!” Because of the breakups, there wasn’t much room for stuff in the match to breathe properly.
After all that hullabaloo, Iino rolled up Shane Haste to get the win for the champions’ retention. There was no real reason for the Good Brothers to be in this match, other than they’re in Japan. TMDK and PR’s had good chemistry otherwise, even if Shane Haste looked significantly better out there than Mikey Nicholls. After the match, the next Tag Title challenge was set. White Raven Squad’s Tetsuya Endo and KENTA walked out to the ring to challenge the passionate Tag Champions to which they accepted, passionately of course.
Kai Fujimura (c) v. Dragon Bane – GHC Junior Heavyweight Championship Match
Another case of NOAH Juniors being at the top of the game. Kai Fujimura’s main heel tactic seems to be unmasking luchadors in the middle of the match. Mexico would hate him. That spot being transitional seemed a bit excessive in an otherwise great match. Dragon Bane was unbelievable here, shoving lots of moves into this one with the speed escalating into drama late on. The amount of Team2000X nonsense at ringside compared to the others on this night wasn’t egregious too, so that gets points in my book.
Fujimura’s Death Hanger finisher put away Dragon Bane after a solid stretch of nearfalls planting doubt into people’s minds. Bane not winning was a crime here, as it would’ve been an awesome crescendo to the lightning energy this bottle of a match caught towards the end. That made Team2000X victorious again. Talk about a strong faction, eh? Too strong…
Tetsuya Naito (c) v. OZAWA – GHC Heavyweight Championship Match
OZAWA entered with a black-and-white filtered entrance that looked cool as hell, if only he got that every night. The challenger also dyed his hair just like Hiromu Takahashi before this match just to play mind games with Naito. This match started out nice and slick with Naito and OZAWA trading taunts and cheeky moves. As the gears progressed, though, things only got crazier and scarier. For instance, Naito’s avalanche hurricanrana got countered into a top rope powerbomb where Naito’s body bounced off that canvas with a sickening thud. Then, both Team2000X and Los Tranquilos de Japón ran interference to pull together dueling false finishes.
Quite the excessive amount of kickouts, but we’re not done yet. Naito hit Valentia which is a Scoop Brainbuster, and good LORD, Naito nearly killed OZAWA by spiking him on his neck. If that wasn’t enough, Naito botched his Destino multiple times, and it got very painful. This one mercifully ended with one final Destino for the Naito win and championship retention. The N-1 Victor of 2026 fell short of victory, leaving Team2000X a four-out-of-five win record tonight across the roster. After this one, Kenoh challenged Tetsuya Naito for the GHC Heavyweight Title on the November 9th Korakuen Hall show.
Where do I even start when describing this match? It started out great, actually. The pacing was slow compared to the Juniors, but it got the ball rolling. Sadly, it then fell off a cliff once the interference started. NOAH needs to get Naito out of the main event scene; he’s too broken down to be wrestling at this high of a level. Going through a wrestling match with the worry of your opponent getting hurt instead of the guarantee of him wrestling another day is not how wrestling should be. OZAWA didn’t seem seriously shaken up after this, and thank god for that.
OVERALL:
What a rough way to end the show. Naito and OZAWA have had worse matches against each other, but they’ve also had better. Some things on the show were inconsequential like the GHC Tag Titles and Taniguchi’s Tag match, while others were bad or awkward, like HAYATA’s injury. The shining points of this show were the Junior Heavyweight and Junior Tag Titles on the line, and that superb Kouga/Kenoh v. Inamura/Kiyomiya Tag match. Other than those three awesome matches, there’s nothing much else to recommend from this show.
The directions of certain title pictures are definitely ones to watch out for, though. Passion Ratel’s versus White Raven Squad should be very fun. And who’s going to possibly challenge Luis Mante for the National Title? There are still positives to look forward to after a very hit-or-miss event.
