Jake Lee And Kenoh Are Heading Towards An Epic Battle For The GHC Heavyweight Title
On October 28th, the current Pro Wrestling NOAH GHC Heavyweight Champion Jake Lee will be defending his title against Kenoh at DEMOLITION STAGE 2023 in FUKUOKA. The stage is set for what is expected to be an epic battle for Pro Wrestling NOAH’s top prize within the promotion. The scenario leading up to this huge encounter is just about perfect.
From 2015 until 2022, Jake Lee was one of the top stars of All Japan Pro-Wrestling, holding the Triple Crown Title on 2 separate occasions. At the end of 2022, Jake Lee decided to leave AJPW when his contract expired. Jake Lee’s last match for AJPW was on December 25th 2022, one week later on January 1st, 2023 Lee made his debut for Pro Wrestling NOAH at the promotion’s The New Year event. A little over three months later Jake Lee defeated Kaito Kiyomiya to begin his reign as the GHC Heavyweight Champion.
Jake Lee is currently in the midst of an incredible run as the GHC Heavyweight Champion. He has successfully defended the title four times against top stars of Pro Wrestling NOAH. Lee has turned back the challenges of Katsuhiko Nakajima, Naomichi Marufuji, Takashi Suigura and most recently N-1 Victory 2023 winner Go Shiozaki. Jake Lee is without a doubt cementing his status as one of the top GHC Heavyweight Champions in the past few years. Since debuting for Pro Wrestling NOAH, Lee was experiencing an impressive run of never being defeated in a singles or tag team match. While in NOAH, Lee’s shoulders were never on the mat for a three count. That all changed on August 27th during an N-1 Victory 2023 Block A match. Jake Lee was pinned on August 27th for the first time in a Pro Wrestling NOAH ring, The man to defeat him? Kenoh.
Kenoh has been a very familiar face and mainstay of Pro Wrestling NOAH since 2014. You can arguably say that Kenoh is the face of Pro Wrestling NOAH and definitely one of the promotion’s all time greatest stars. He has enjoyed an incredible career within the promotion winning numerous titles including the GHC Heavyweight Championship on two occasions, The GHC National Championship on two occasions, and the GHC Heavyweight Tag Team Championship also on two occasions. Kenoh was the leader of the Kongo faction before deciding to disband the group in June 2023. The word epic match has been synonymous with the name Kenoh for many years.
Kenoh and Jake Lee crossed paths back in March 2023 when Katsuhiko Nakajima was set to be Lee’s first challenger for the GHC Heavyweight Title. A number of tag team matches between Kenoh’s Kongo (Nakajima was a member of Kongo) and Jake Lee’s GLG faction were made. Lee and Kenoh were yet to have a singles match and had to wait a little over 4 months before that singles match took place following the tag team encounters.
On August 27th at the NOAH N-1 VICTORY 2023 tournament, Jake Lee and Kenoh were scheduled for that highly anticipated singles match up. Lee and Kenoh were both in the A block and the winner of that match was going to head to the finals of the tournament. Lee went into the match undefeated since debuting for NOAH back in January 2023 so the odds were in his favor but Kenoh had other plans. After an intense match that was nothing short of spectacular, Kenoh was able to pin Jake Lee handing the GHC Heavyweight Champion his first loss in Pro Wrestling NOAH. The title was not on the line so it remained with Jake Lee but Kenoh made a huge statement with his clean victory over Lee.
In the N-1 VICTORY finals Go Shiozaki went on the defeat Kenoh and earn a shot at Jake Lee’s GHC Heavyweight Championship. Lee defeated Shiozaki to retain his title on September 24th at GRAND SHIP in NAGOYA 2023 in a match many people, including the author of this article, thought Shiozaki was going to win. Following his victory over Shiozaki, Lee nominated Kenoh, who was on commentary, as his next challenger. Lee is looking to avenge his only loss in Pro Wrestling NOAH and Kenoh was all too eager to accept the nomination of being the next challenger for the GHC Heavyweight Title. The match was then made official for October 28th at DEMOLITION STAGE 2023 in FUKUOKA.
There you have it. You can’t write a better story to lead up to a championship match. Jake Lee the GHC Heavyweight Champion since March 2023 with four straight successful championship defenses set to defend the title against the only man to defeat him in a NOAH ring, Kenoh. Simple, yet very intriguing and very effective. Fans getting ready for this match up can expect nothing less than an epic battle between two of the very best in the world right now and that is exactly what we are going to get on October 28th at DEMOLITION STAGE 2023 in FUKUOKA.
You can follow Lewis Carlan on Twitter @ShootingUpNorth
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