WWE with possible working agreement with NOAH: Hideo goes home on 8/29
 

From the observer:

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Can he just go back and stay? He has not meshed well here and he's FAR too good to be doing nothing.

I'd be for that, I just want a one off Marufuji match at a Takeover

Was the last time they worked with a Jap promotion in thr early 90's with SWS?

did the relationship with NJPW end in the 80s? Thought it ended in 91 for some reason.

So Naoh is working with WWE and Impact now. Pretty good for them and if Itami can return to Japan and then return back to WWE as Kenta it could be good. I think NOAH has Cody Hall as well who WWE will probably be interested in. Could also see this being the beginning of a NXT Japan brand.

Is NOAH any good

some1 tell me about it

They have some talent. The mentioned Marufugi is pretty good. Of the guys they've sent to Impact I've been impressed.

if they go to wwe wouldn't they have to drop impact vince don't play well with others.

They've been playing pretty well with Impact lately. It's ROH their on to now.

They've produced some decent to great stars in recent years and quality-wise are probably similar to the indies scene here.

They've also been struggling pretty badly financial-wise the past several years to the point NJPW took control for a couple of years to get them out of a very dire situation.

Nakajima is great, though I first really saw him during this:

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I thought it ended in like 1988? I know they worked with SWS in like 92-93 cause I have some of the shows in my collection.

I really don't think Vince ever lets TNA cross his mind unless he needs something from them.

If I was Hideo I would just stay there. Easily he is the biggest botch of NXT. Yeah he had some bad injuries, but that dude was as highly touted as just about any NXT signing, and the fact that he is stuck getting a midcard 205 Live push is atrocious.

Noah has a really talented young roster, but none of them have the natural charisma needed to break through the language barrier like Nakamura's and asuka have.

This is interesting. I wonder if this is the true beginning of WWE vs NJPW?

Would love to see Cody Hall in WWE, i wonder if he'd revamp the Razor Ramon Gimmick after his dad.

How is Cody Hall doing lately? Last I saw him, maybe 3 years ago he looked like Randy Orton but moved like Big Cass.

I saw Cody Hall at a local show 5ish years ago, he was making an appearance managed by his dad. He was a bit of a sarcastic douche, saw him give a couple of little kids (younger than 10) the cold shoulder for trying to talk to him, & was a bit sassy with me for glancing at his merch table without buying something :lol:

All wrestlers are like that about merchandise but also 95% of wrestlers have really cringey merchandise.

His NJPW run didn't really go to well and he even had Bullet Club association to help him out. Believe he'd just won his first match before he left as he was the one who ate most the pins in tag matches, being BC's young boy. Had a lot of injuries as well but has been with Noah since leaving New Japan and I haven't heard alot about him there.

Until Misawa died NOAH was the best product on earth

Easily the best match in Noah history here: story of the match is Marufuji just won the GHC Heavyweight Title which was incredible since junior-heavyweights had never won the heavyweight title. His first defense was against his former tag team partner KENTA. They went in the main event which again was unheard of for junior heavyweights to be main eventing. This was the test to see if it would work.

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Supposedly he had attitude issues and disliked the direction or progress of his career prior to leaving NJPW.

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The three matches I posted are probably the top 3 matches in Noah's history, easily on par with today's New Japan product, if not better.

NOAH was the bomb in the period adamle is referring to. Makes sense WWE would work with them over New Japan. It's like the ECW/WCW thing. Fund the smaller dudes to try and give them a boost against the other hombres that are currently at more risk of biting into your market share.

... because it worked so well for Curtis Axel.

I know this seems like an engraved invitation to bag on the man, but that initial push and pairing with Heyman was golden, until WWE got bored with him three weeks into it and killed his hype and credibility dead by jobbing him out and making him nothing more than the sole meatshield goon between Paul and Punk that literally anyone else on the roster not in the middle of a huge push could have done. No matter your opinions of him, that shit wasn't Axel's fault (nor was the whole Axelmania deal that was getting over being derailed because Hogan decided to be a dumbass).

More likely than not, they would trade in on nostalgia for Cody's debut, but then have him get his ass kicked on the regular while still scripted to talk big. Nobody will get behind that shit, yet it will be "his fault" when he eventually isn't over like they figure he should be.

Basically, he'll be what WCW did to Konnan. I have nearly zero confidence they would do anything beneficial for the man, and I feel that way because of their own trends.

I love Axel more than most, but the guy's lack of charisma is definitely a problem.

Feel like he has found charisma as a goofball

Cody Hall sucks.

He seems to have found a niche, which is good for him. It wasn't looking good for his future for a while there. He's been main roster for 8 years this year. Wow.

Marufuji v. KENTA on 9/1 for Marufuji's 20th anniversary show

KENTA feels good to see in writing

I wonder if he will still suck though.

0%

KENTA hasn't even really sucked in WWE. In NXT he was overshadowed by Finn Balor's entrance and then got hurt. Then he came back and a rookie fucked him up. Then they got Nakamura who has a lot more extroverted charisma and comes from New Japan which everyone is high on at the moment. Then he came back and the shit audience down there had already made up their mind that he was a let-down. He got called up to 205 Live to be a body, since they didn't have any plans for him and he crushed Kendrick's face and here we are.

He's one awesome match/moment away from getting everyone on his dick again. The problem seems to be perception. If he, for example, showed up on SmackDown and gave Bryan the "Knee That Beat Cena" and they gave him Heyman as a mouthpiece to say that the greatest American wrestlers today all stole their shit off OG KENTA then he's as much as a top heel as anyone else they try to make a top heel.

Hell, if they did the inverse of what they did with his introduction as Hideo Itami and just had "Hideo Itami" appear on the screen and then it fades into "KENTA" the right crowd would go apeshit.