This series is meant to be highlighting free wrestling that was recently uploaded, though this one was posted like a month and a half ago so I sorta dropped the ball on it. It was uploaded by the Real Hero Archive who upload lots of Japanese wrestling that isn’t distributed in the states like NJPW is. It’s too good of a match to not highlight so here we go!

Who’s who?

Katsuhiko Nakajima is in grey/black attire with rust colored hair.

He got an early start making his MMA at 15 and his Professional Wrestling debut at 16 vs Tomohiro Ishii in Riki Choshu’s World Japan promotion both times. His major league career would kick off in 2004 where he worked for NJPW at around 16/17, then 3 years in AJPW, before moving to NOAH in 2008 which has been his home promotion since while also working a decent amount of dates for Diamond Ring as his secondary company until they shuttered/became inactive in 2014.

Despite being with NOAH for nearly a decade, this reign is his first with their Heavyweight title, though in that span of time he was Junior Division Champion 3 times. This reign started in October 2016 when he beat long time NOAH talent Takashi Sugiura for the strap.



Brian Cage is in all yellow, with a mohawk. Brian Cage has been in lots of places throughout his career in the indies. He started in Deep South Pro Wrestling in 2007, then had a 2 year stint in the ECW Precursor Florida Championship Wrestling, 2010-2012 he worked as an NWA talent, during those years he also started appearing on PWG and garnering buzz. He was the brought in by AAA/Lucha Underground working a majority of his time in LU for 2015/2016, through 2017 NOAH has become the place he worked most for, in 2017 Brian Cage has worked for 37 different promotions. NOAH getting him the most with 13 appearances.

Since 2013 every year of Cage’s career has seen him wrestle in 18 different companies a year. As you may have guessed from all the places he has worked, Cage hasn’t had many belts of note. Winning this would be a big boon for his legitimacy as a contender for all world titles going forward. The biggest things he has had are the PWG tag titles with Elgin as ‘The Unbreakable Machines’ and his LU Gift of the Gods win and recently winning the poorly titled ‘Ultimate Opportunity’ in LU as well.

How’s the match?

Great, it’s a fast paced match that feels like it could have easily taken place at Reseda(PWG) or The Temple(LU). I’m not going to lie and say I’ve watched a ton of NOAH. It’s a bit of a blind spot and what I mostly know about them is their founder Misawa, and a few other notable names. I can’t say I’m half as versed in NOAH as I am in CMLL/NJPW/WWE. This match is a great start though and has made me interested to look into their history. They have some great champions in their history and before doing research for this piece I can’t honestly say I knew any of their former junior champions. Which shouldn’t be the case since NOAH is really the top indie of Japan. Though you could argue something like Shimmer or DDT is. NOAH really seems to be a place with great talent and great events.

This matches pacing is really fast and that might work against it for some people. Those who decry the ‘American Indie’ style of throwing everything against the wall might rub some people the wrong way. I don’t mind it when everything goes crisply, which it did here. At no time does it feel like they are blowing spots because of the lightning quick pace.

The few complaints I would have : I don’t like canadian destroyers, I said the same with Roja in CMLL when he was using one a few months ago. I just have never thought it looks good and continue to think that here. Cage also messed up his famous catch into a vertical suplex spot. They didn’t redo the spot… as that would be obvious and it didn’t really kill the crowd, with it being a bit into a hot match I think they recovered fine.

Toward the end Cage no sells which might ruffle feathers, but Cage is such a beast a no sell doesn’t seem silly. Plus, the champion immediately puts another bullet in the machine to end the match quickly after so it wasn’t like the no sell really lead to Cage getting offense off. It felt almost like hubris, Cage rather than selling and getting some air cockily got up and was knocked down twice as hard for his efforts. While most no sells are meant to make a guy look badass, Cage here came off looking foolish because he wanted to look badass.

I might be at a 4.5 while Dave Meltzer gave this a 4.75 out of 5. Regardless of what you’d rate it, it’s definitely worth a watch. I’m a big fan of Cage and if he calls NOAH home I could see that getting more American eyes on that promotions much like AJ Styles, Kenny Omega, and Elgin have done with NJPW. Elgin/Cage teaming up for a tag league in NJPW or NOAH would get me very interested.