Matches in chronological order; everything is HERE. Front page only has the last few months of updates.

Akiyama, Saito & Shiga vs Vader, Modest & Morgan, 8/28/01. A really fun match that focuses on Modest. This is fascinating for several reasons. One, he's over as hell after one tour. Two, he's someone that veterans like Vader and Akiyama are willing to give the spotlight to. This can be credited to Modest's great showing against Ogawa at Nippon Budokan. Good pace, lots of heat, and an unexpectedly harsh finish. (Repost)

Sasaki vs Sugiura, Global League, 11/14/11. All the ridiculously stiff strikes of their first match, plus a lot more structure, plus a decisive finish. Get allll this!

Hashimoto vs Omori, 12/23/00. Hard-hitting, to-the-point. This was a very important match for several reasons. One, it marked Hashimoto's first appearance since leaving New Japan to start Zero-One. Two, Omori felt that Hash was being uncooperative and decided to have the match end early; this led to Omori being put in the doghouse, and less than two years later he was gone. I included some nifty pre-entrance backstage footage. Repost.

Shiozaki vs Yoshie, Global League, 11/14/11. I'm a gloomy gus when it comes to more current wrestling, but this is an instance where something from 2011 tops something from before. In this case it's their singles match from 2007. At this point Yoshie has lost so much in NOAH that he shouldn't be much of a threat, but he matches up especially well against Shiozaki. He's thicker, so Go can't overwhelm him with strikes. He's nigh impossible to throw. He hits hard enough to hang with the champ in exchanges. And he proved in 2007 that even a moonsault won't keep him down. Can Shiozaki beat the rotund warrior before the big man caves in his ribcage with a splash?

Aoyagi vs Marufuji, 12/15/00. Pretty sure this match is from an alternate universe. Aoyagi started the '90s as someone known for intense matches with Onita, and later with assorted NJ and WAR guys. A few years after this he was a jobber. Marufuji, meanwhile, was a budding star. This match a few years earlier would have been an Aoyagi squash, and a few years later would have been a Marufuji squash. In December 2000, it's an open question how it will turn out. They have such totally different styles on paper, but Marufuji is quite grounded here and plays it straight, so this really feels nothing like a Marufuji match. Especially the finish. Repost.

Vader vs Morishima, 3/14/02. This was juuuust before Morishima developed enough to where taking on Vader would be a dream match. It's five minutes of Vader and Morishima going at it, so you know what you're getting: a straightforward slugfest. Repost.

Akiyama & Saito vs Honda & Sugiura, 3/1/03. Almost an angle more than a match, with an unusual beginning and a lot more intensity than one would expect from a somewhat throwaway tag with a (seemingly) obvious result. Honda had started teaming with Burning earlier in the tour, so I suppose the Sternness top two decided to try and take him out while Kobashi had more important things to work with. Certainly this makes you want to see more Honda vs Sternness, and more is what we got!

Sugiura vs KENTA, Global League, 11/13/11. Short, sweet and to the point.

Marufuji & KENTA vs Kanemaru & Hashi, 3/1/03. A hot start, a middle with some spite peppered in, and a good finish. That might not seem like much in light of the later works of KENTAFuji, most notably the rematch between these teams six months later. Yet this match, at the biggest NOAH show to this point, set the table for making the NOAH junior division relevant from within. Previously, Zero-One, New Japan and gaijin stars were a focal point. By getting a strong reaction from the crowd, they proved that something special could be produced with the young home-grown talent.

Sugiura vs Shiozaki, GHC title, 7/10/11, JIP. The home stretch has lots of struggle-for-control-in-strike-exchanges, which is everything I love about Japanese heavyweight wrestling. A fitting follow-up to the finish of their 2010 bout.

Sugiura vs KENTA, #1 contenders match, 10/10/11. Takes a bit to really get going, but man-o-man do they go to war in the finishing run.

Shiozaki, Sugiura & Taniguchi vs Takayama, KENTA & Kanemaru, 9/11/11. This match interested me when I saw the lineup. Who wins? One might dismissively say "the all-heavyweight team", except KENTA and Kanemaru are the junior tag champs, and their side is the top three members of the company's heel stable. It's not like Genba is in there as a blatant loss post. The top four guys in this all match up well with one another, and Sugiura/KENTA is a pairing that's delivered often enough over the years that I don't think I have to describe exactly why it works. Meanwhile, Shiozaki and Takayama are headed towards a GHC title battle. As a bonus, this has a darn good crowd for NOAH-outside-Tokyo. Plus I left the start intact so you can experience No Mercy's entrance song.

Sugiura, Morishima & Yone vs Sasaki, Nakajima & Miyahara 8/24/11. Sugiura and Kensuke renew their feud from the July slugfest, and everyone else gets in on it, especially Nakajima. Miyahara is sorta the odd man out, which doesn't stop him from getting clobbered. Also, Morishima is getting in shape, which for him means 'obese' instead of 'morbidly obese'.

Kobashi & Rikio vs Akiyama & Kanemaru, 10/7/00. Oh for those early days of NOAH, when the booking was really interesting. This is almost more of an angle than a match, but the bottom line is that it REALLY makes you want to see Kobashi get a rematch with Akiyama, which of course was the entire focus of the company at this point.

NOAH 7/10/04 part 2, TV version. Picture isn't as sharp as the comm DVD but it's got commentary. Contains the junior tag title match, Liger vs Kanemaru, and the IWGP tag.

NOAH 7/10/04 part 3, TV version. Picture isn't as sharp as the comm DVD but it's got commentary. Contains the top two matches.

Shiozaki vs Bison Smith, 6/13/11, JIP. As much as anything, there isn't much Bison on the site because he doesn't usually bring the level of impact that past big-men like Hansen and Vader did. Thankfully he does bring the beef in this one, making for a hot finishing run. Emotional post-match as they pay tribute to Misawa, which is especially sad considering what happened five months later. RIP Bison.

Shiozaki vs Morishima, #1 contenders match, 6/11/11. Starts slow and builds to a hard-hitting finish. Morishima's hammer blows are all kinds of brutal.

NOAH Finish Collection 1. The endings of Sugiura vs Akiyama 5/2/10; Sugiura vs Takayama GHC title 7/10/10; Suzuki & Aoki vs Nakajima & Kajiwara 7/23/11.