Tetsuya Naito Questions The Drawing Power Of Pro Wrestling NOAH’s Top Stars, KENOH Fires Back With a Heated Response

By: Lewis Carlan

Pro Wrestling NOAH superstar KENOH has been feuding with former NJPW superstar Tetsuya Naito on and off for the past few years.

With Naito now competing in NOAH as a freelancer, it only makes sense that their feud would escalate and even reach a fever’s pitch. The latest episode of their rivalry occurred yesterday on X.

On April 1st, Naito and his Los Tranquilos de Japon teammates lost an eight man tag team match to OZAWA and members of the TEAM 2000x faction at Korakuen Hall.

There was an announced crowd of 1,102 fans in attendance which Naito appeared to have an issue with. During his backstage post-match interview, he questioned the drawing an ability of NOAH’s top stars including OZAWA and Kaito Kiyomiya.

From Tetsuya Naito:

“In my opinion, OZAWA was last year’s Pro Wrestling Awards MVP. That’s how fascinated I am by him. Did you see the turnout at Korakuen Hall today? It was about 75 percent full. Don’t you think OZAWA, Kiyomiya, and Inamura need to bring in more fans?”

Despite not being named by Naito, this obviously did not sit well with KENOH who is a long time NOAH superstar and arguably the face of the company. KENOH fired back at Naito with a fiery response in defense of NOAH.

From KENOH:

“Here we go again—the classic New Japan Pro-Wrestling blame game! It sounds like you’re just trying to shift the blame onto others because you don’t want people to think you’ve lost your edge. Of course everyone else feels more responsible than you guys do!!”

While Tetsuya Naito has his hands full with OZAWA at the moment, it’s a safe bet that we will see Naito and KENOH facing off once again inside a NOAH ring.

One thing is certain, the Tetsuya Naito vs. KENOH feud is far from being over.

(All English translations via Deepl.com)