High Tide Raises All Ships: GHC Tag Team Title Picture

By: Jamie Johnson

In recent years the GHC Tag Team Championships have been curiously cursed by illfated title changes, short reigns, and wrestling misfortune. Pro Wrestling NOAH has bore the brunt of inconsistent booking, while also reaping the rewards of pioneering, hard-hitting and exciting wrestling. But as an O.G. once said… bad times don’t last. NOAH’s tag division has bounds of potential, a host of impressive potential teams, and the possibility for great matches – but fans of the Ark have been left guessing, with seemingly coherent story arcs and logic present behind the booking. The unlucky strike of Keiji Muto’s latest injury, a cause of his decades long, legendary career, obscures the real problem – the promotion’s overreliance on aging veterans. Alongside Naomichi Marufuji, NOAH’s beating heart, Muto recently carried GHC tagteam gold after beating a flurry of younger, rising talent. It leaves us to wonder why the tag division hasn’t become more of a vessel for promoting new, younger talent. Fans in the West are becoming increasingly vocal about the chances offered to younger domestic stars, even while gaijins are being announced one by one as competitors for upcoming 2022 NOAH events.

Hard Times for the Youth

Daiki Inaba, Masa Kitamiya, Yoshiki Inamura, and even the likes of Manabu Soya could benefit from a prominent position in the GHC Tag Team division. The delight of NOAH’s exciting young wrestlers and the prospect of raising midcarders up the card could be enjoyed by the tag team division. Although, a flip-flop style of title changes and frequent strange booking decisions have meant the tag ranks are screaming out for its savor.

Since the Agression’s title reign came to end, the heavyweight tag division has been nearly impossible to follow. With COVID-19 quarantine laws in effect, Sugiura-gun (Takashi Sugiura and Kazushi Sakuraba) picked up the tag titles in 2020. They had an exciting reign, highlighted by their beautifully violent losing effort to the Aggression.

The Agression’s third time as champions was cut short with Kitamiya’s shockingly betraying Nakajima. While this shot Nakajima into the main event scene of NOAH and provided a meaty storyline for singles gold, it left us to question the gravitas of the GHC tag-titles – once held for 379 days by Mitsuharu Misawa and Yoshinari Ogawa, and three times by AXIZ (Katsuhiko Nakajima and Go Shiozaki) at a combined 310 days.

Despite the best efforts of many, including Marufuji, who has been a proponent of raising the stocks of the tag titles, the championships are still being treated as bastard children by lead booker NOSAWA Rongai.

Fear The Revival

.@noah_sugiura puts Inaba to sleep! Sugiura and @Hideki55Suzuki are the NEW GHC Heavyweight Tag Team Champions! #noah_ghc #wrestleUNIVERSE pic.twitter.com/ATiO8JOPcJ

— Pro Wrestling NOAH Global (@noahglobal) March 13, 2022

I can sense it, and perhaps you can too: A revival is coming. Spearheaded by the newly reigning champions, Sugiura and a returning Hideki Suzuki, the GHC tag division has the potential to rise to prominence once again as a logically booked, great match producing class of tag teams. And it comes at a time that tag-team wrestling has captivated fans globally, launching some of its mainstays into superstardom in the process.

“Tag team wrestling is an art,” Dax Harwood recently told Monthly Puroresu. “And so many times, teams just paint by numbers like ‘Here’s your shine. Here’s our heat. Here’s the comeback,’ and a ton of false finishes.”

Take it from a man who knows how to work with aging superstars.

“Thinking back to AEW Dynamite Grand Slam [in 2021], we had 11 mins total [against Sting and Darby Allin] and I wanted it to be a frantic paced tag match where you never knew where the heat was, you never knew when the actual comeback was going to happen.”

Perhaps Sugiura was taking notes.

Following triumph in a highly-impressive four-team tournament, at NOAH’s Great Voyage in Yokohama (March 13th), the Sugiura-gun duo set in motion a potentially groundshifting reign. Out-wrestling the KONGO representation of Kenoh and Masakatsu Funaki, before eventually defeating a spirited Kaito Kiyomiya and Daiki Inaba in the final, the pair put on a great showing. Especially given that this was Suzuki’s return show, it was fantastic to see his adept technical wizardry; gnarly submissions and hard-nosed offense.

Suzuki is a perfect partner for the fittingly-named Killing Machine, as his precise, technical, MMA-founded style poised a great synergy between their wrestling. It also helps that they both have striking looks. This is part of what makes them a fitting vessel for the revival of the GHC Tag Team Championships.

Longtime NOAH blogger, Hisame, might have put it best.

“Suzuki fits in well [with Sugiura-gun] because of his background in MMA, which his own catch wrestling shares similarities with.”

The MMA style has long been associated with the emerald promotion, with Sugiura’s army of hard-hitting being an evergreen showcase of this. Suzuki’s famed catch-as-catch-can leanings fit beautifully with this, as with every submission and grappling encounter his legitimacy oozes out yet more.

The mini-tournament to decide the new champions, following Marufuji and Muto’s relinquishment, boasted three superb tag team matches between four grand teams. This was an optimistic signal of the potential the division has long possessed. The problem NOAH had was never one of not having the promise, but instead delivering on it.

Suzuki and Sugiura as GHC tag champs hope to change that narrative. Their victorious showcase shined like a beacon of promise. It feels like as champs, Suzuki and Sugiura could lead a revival, returning the GHC tag-team gold to top tier status within Japanese wrestling as a whole.

Championship Attitude

GHC Tag Champions @noah_sugiura & @Hideki55Suzuki defend v Kongo! #noah_ghc pic.twitter.com/gpxJ7AWLBk

— Pro Wrestling NOAH Global (@noahglobal) April 30, 2022

Hisame sees Suzuki as having found new fighting spirit: “He’s determined to avenge what happened [in WWE].” Suzuki’s ill-fated stint in the USA was a blip on an otherwise stellar resume, which has been filled with the sort of wrestling that is less than a stone’s throw away from stiff MMA.

“The belt to him is vengeance, each title challenge is vengeance” said Hisame, who sees Suzuki’s return as one spurred on by a desire to right the wrongs of his past – and begin a chapter of mercilessly proving his real worth.

The champions’ first defense, against Katsuhiko Nakajima and Kenoh, retains all the hallmarks of a thrilling, Match of the Year caliber tag team outing. Inside the historic Ryogoku Sumo Hall, Sugiura-gun have the chance to retain their titles in stunning, high-profile fashion against KONGO’s most striking and beloved duo.

Their reign should certainly be a lengthy one – establishing the division under their leadership. There are plenty of potential teams who would have mouthwatering matches with Suzuki and Sugiura (Masa Kitamiya and Yoshiki Inamura is the very first that pops into my mind). The opportunity to have a championship-defining title reign must not be lost on the booking forces in NOAH, as it will set the table for a feast in the tag team division.

The killer Sugiura-gun pairing will add some much needed legitimacy to the GHC Tag Team Championships if their reign is a lengthy, packed and fruitful one. Each match they’ve had so far has impressed, and I see this trend extending even further, with a whole host of great match-ups possible. In much the same way a high tide raises all ships, good champions raise an entire division.

Pro Wrestling NOAH’s tag team division has been needing a revival for the past year. Takashi Sugiura and Hideki Suzuki are the men to provide it. Full of intensity, class, style and bruising skills, Sugiura-gun are the high-level champions who should bring about a thrilling reinvention of the GHC Tag Team Championships.

Sugiura-gun (Takashi Sugiura and Kazushi Sakuraba) REIGN: August 30th 2020 – March 7th 2021

Aggression (Katsuhiko Nakajima + Masa Kitamiya) REIGN: March 7th 2021 – July 22nd 2021

Kaito Kiyomiya and Masa Kitamiya REIGN: July 22nd 2021 – November 13th 2021

M’s Alliance (Keiji Muto and Naomichi Marufuji) REIGN: November 13th 2021 – February 8th 2022

NONE (vacated due to injury): VACANT: February 8th 2022 – March 13th 2022

Sugiura-gun (Takashi Sugiura and Hideki Suzuki) REIGN: March 13th 2022 – May 4th 2022

Sugiura-gun (Rene Dupree and El Hijo del Dr. Wagner Jr.) REIGN: May 4th 2022 – May 21st 2022

Michael Elgin + Masa Kitamiya REIGN: May 21st 2022 – July 12th 2022

NONE (vacated due to Elgin leaving NOAH): VACANT: July 12th 2022 – July 16th 2022

Sugiura-gun (Hideki Suzuki and Timothy Thatcher) REIGN: July 16th 2022 – present