On January 1st, 2025 Pro Wrestling NOAH once again presents it’s biggest show of the year NOAH “The New Year” 2025. Numerous big matches have been confirmed for this event including Kaito Kiyomiya defending his GHC Heavyweight Title in a grudge match against Ozawa. The current WWE US Champion Shinsuke Nakamura will be featured on the event as well against Ulka Sasaki. In a dream match of sorts, KENOH will face NJPW superstar KENTA. In addition numerous title matches are set for NOAH “The New Year” 2025.
All fans of Pro Wrestling NOAH look forward to this one event more than any other NOAH event all year. This is the big one, the big show, the WrestleMania of Pro Wrestling NOAH. On January 1st, NOAH fans will have their eyes fixated on their computer screens as they watch the stars they have been supporting for many years. Well, that is if you are a Pro Wrestling NOAH fan in USA, South Korea, Thailand or the Philippines. You see, unless you live in one of those 4 countries you won’t be able to watch NOAH “The New Year” 2025 as it happens. In other words, if you live in Canada, UK, Mexico, Brazil, Ireland or any other country besides USA, South Korea, Thailand or the Philippines, you will be shut out from watching NOAH’s biggest show of the year.
Pro Wrestling NOAH has made the very confusing decision to basically punish many of it’s loyal fans. Instead of distributing the PPV on its Wrestle Universe streaming site, it chose to go with Abema which has just a four country reach. Loyal fans who have been supporting Pro Wrestling NOAH for many years will be forced to miss the event they are very much looking forward to. The feeling these NOAH fans are getting is that Pro Wrestling NOAH doesn’t think we are important enough. I mean, I don’t blame them, why would NOAH make such a unintelligent decision to prevent their fans from watching this event live?
This is not the first time NOAH has done this either. Back on July 13th, 2024 NOAH Destination 2024 featured WWE’s AJ Styles vs Naomichi Marufuji which was a true dream match. Fans in countries other than USA, South Korea, Thailand and the Philippines got shut out from that one as well. Pro Wrestling NOAH decided that fans from Canada, UK etc were not good enough to watch this event as it occurred.
While fans were disappointed in the Destination 2024 decision, we let it go. But now NOAH has done it to their top show of the year and we can’t let it go. We can’t let Pro Wrestling NOAH feel its ok to make decisions that prevent so many fans that have supported them for years from watching major events. NOAH did indicate that NOAH “The New Year” 2025 will be released on Wrestle Universe as a VOD at a later date. We all know that’s not the same. We all know that there is something special about watching live events without knowledge of who is going to win. Unfortunately, Pro Wrestling NOAH doesn’t seem to get it.
The bottom line here, is if Pro Wrestling NOAH won’t make these major events available as they occur to fans in Canada, UK, Mexico, Brazil, Ireland or any other country besides USA, South Korea, Thailand or the Philippines, then maybe we should all reconsider whether or not we should continue supporting Pro Wrestling NOAH.
New Japan Pro-Wrestling Wrestle Kingdom 19 and All Japan Pro-Wrestling New Years Eve 2024 are both upcoming events which have been made available to NJPW & AJPW fans WORLDWIDE. NJPW & AJPW appreciates all of their fans, Pro Wrestling NOAH apparently does not.
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