On January 1st, KENTA and Naomichi Marufuji will reunite and challenge the current GHC Tag Team Champions Satoshi Kojima and Takashi Sugiura for the titles. The match will take place at Pro Wrestling NOAH’s “The New Year 2023” event.
?OFFICIAL – KENTA & Marufuji will REUNITE on 1 January at Nippon Budokan!!!!!
?GHC HVT Tag Team Titles@noah_sugiura @cozy_lariat (c)
?@KENTAG2S @noah_marufuji_ #noah_ghc#wrestleUNIVERSE pic.twitter.com/W0VHF5sggX— Pro Wrestling NOAH Global (@noahglobal) November 23, 2022
Marufuji issued a challenge at Wednesday’s Pro Wrestling NOAH’s “The Best” show to Kojima and Sugiura and then revealed his partner to be current NJPW superstar KENTA.
Naomichi Marufuji and KENTA have quite a history with each other in Pro Wrestling NOAH. They were great teammates and great opponents for one another in the early years of Pro Wrestling NOAH.
Marufuji and KENTA held the GHC Jr Heavyweight Tag Team Titles, winning them in July 2003. Their reign lasted almost two years.
As opponents, KENTA battled Marufuji numerous times including classic matches for the GHC Jr Heavyweight and GHC Heavyweight Titles.
Their match at the NOAH Autumn Navigation ’06 on October 29, 2006 in which Marufuji successfully defended the GHC Heavyweight title against KENTA has reached legendary status.
KENTA and Marufuji last teamed together in 2014 when they defeated Katsuhiko Nakajima and Takashi Sugiura at the NOAH Navigation With Breeze 2014 event. This was KENTA’s final match with Pro Wrestling NOAH before he left for the WWE.
Pro Wrestling NOAH’s “The New Year” will also feature The Great Muta vs. WWE star Shinsuke Nakamura.
