Various: NOAH Announces Hiroshi Tanahashi & Zack Sabre Jr. for The New Year 2024, “Speedball” Mike Bailey on 2024 Being Contract Year, Indies

Nov 25, 2023

Pro Wrestling NOAH Announces NJPW’s Hiroshi Tanahashi & Zack Sabre Jr. for The New Year 2024 Event

Pro Wrestling NOAH recently announced that New Japan Pro Wrestling talents Hiroshi Tanahashi and Zack Sabre Jr. will be making an appearance for the company at their The New Year 2024 event, which takes place on January 2, 2024 at the Ariake Arena in Ariake, Japan.

It was also announced that Tanahashi will be teaming up with HAYATA in a tag team match against Sabre Jr. & Yoshinari Ogawa at the event.

📣 OFFICIAL – NEW MATCH for 2 January at Ariake Arena! @tanahashi1_100 HAYATA
🆚
ZSJ, Y. Ogawa

📺 LIVE on #wrestleUNIVERSE
🎙 English commentary #noah_ghc #njpw @njpwglobal pic.twitter.com/Akf3R6WAWM
— Pro Wrestling NOAH Global (@noahglobal) November 24, 2023

Current card for NOAH The New Year 2024:

GHC Heavyweight Championship – Manabu Soya vs. Kenoh (c)
GHC Junior Heavyweight Championship – Eita vs. Daga (c)
GHC Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship Three-way match – Tadasuke & YO-HEY vs. Ninja Mack & Alejandro vs. Dragon Bane & Alpha Wolf (c)
Wrestling Symphony match – Hiroshi Tanahashi & HAYATA vs. Zack Sabre Jr. & Yoshinari Ogawa

“Speedball” Mike Bailey Comments on His Match with Will Ospreay & 2024 Being a Contract Year

Instinct Culture’s Denise Salcedo held a recent interview with “Speedball” Mike Bailey. One of the topics discussed included Bailey’s thoughts about his match against Will Ospreay being among his favorite matches of this past year and his best rated match ever in his career.

“I make a real effort, and I remember, honestly, if you tell me a match from this year, I can probably tell you most of it, at least the structure and how it went down and the moves and everything. But my memory is very good. So I got to wrestle this year once again, some of the greatest pro wrestlers of all time, and I don’t say that lightly. I think that pro wrestling right now is the best it’s ever been. I got to be in the BOLA Finals and beat Konosuke Takeshita, who also, much like me, was the greatest wrestler in the world. I said it about him in 2016, I think, and now people are finally starting to believe it. I got to have another match with Will Ospreay. I got to wrestle Alec Price. I got to wrestle Bryan Keith, and he is also someone who hopefully it doesn’t take much longer, and very soon people will be saying he is one of the greatest wrestlers of all time. But that match with Will Ospreay really stands out. According to Dave Meltzer, at least, it is the greatest match that I’ve ever had.”

Bailey also gave his thoughts about his belief that he has a lot of momentum going into his contract year for 2024.

“A lot of people value his opinion, and I think that IMPACT right now, going into TNA, is in a great place, and I think that I am closing off this year, I just finished my second year with IMPACT, end it on such a high note that’s good for myself, but good for the direction in which IMPACT is going and what’s coming up next. It is the highest-rated match in IMPACT/TNA history since Joe/AJ/Daniels in 2005. That is the year, 2005, I was 15 years old, and j had just started going into pro wrestling. That match, I saw it and I was like, ‘Oh, this is the kind of wrestling I want to do.’ Now to have an official marker of, the wrestling you wanted to do and the level you wanted to be at, you’re it. That’s it. Time to go. I’ve been in IMPACT for two years now, heading into my third year. We’re TNA, we’re back. Things are changing. This is momentum, I think is the word I can use, that describes it the best. I’m going into my contract year with all the momentum in the world, and I am ready to do big things with IMPACT in 2024.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com

Misc. Wrestling News & Notes

Westside Xtreme Wrestling and indies wrestler Absolute Andy, real name Andreas Ullman, passed away at the age of 40 this past Thursday. Ullman’s passing was first announced by wXw on Twitter following a lengthy illness battle. Ullman’s career in wrestling spanned from 2003 to October 2023. Among Ullman’s accolades and achievements during his career included being a two-time wXw Unified World Champion, a five-time wXw World Tag Team Champion, and winner of the 16 Carat Gold tournament in 2016.

Game Changer Wrestling recently announced that ECW legend Justin Credible will be making an appearance for the company at their C’mon Dude event on December 2nd in Hartford, Connecticut.

GCW also recently announced that Microman will be making his official debut appearances for the company at their January 12, 2024 event in Chicago, Illinois and their January 13, 2024 event in Columbus, Ohio.

DEFY Wrestling recently announced that they have joined GCW’s The Collective 2024 set of events on April 4-6, 2024 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Post Wrestling’s John Pollock reported that New Japan Pro Wrestling drew a paid attendance of 720 for a live gate revenue of $48,230 for their November 10th Lonestar Shootout 2023 event in Garland, Texas based on recent audit data from Pollstar.

Indie wrestler Josh Sipple, former AEW talent Leva Bates, and former wrestler Allison Danger recently announced on social media that they were among the contestants for the first season of Netflix’s Squid Game: The Challenge reality competition series.

NJPW Strong and indies talent Danny Limelight announced on Twitter that he recently joined the cast for the On Call television series for Amazon.

Major League Wrestling and Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre recently announced one new match for the card of MLW One Shot event on December 7th in New York City, New York:

MLW World Middleweight Championship and CMLL World Historic Welterweight Champion vs. Champion match – Rocky Romero (MLW) vs. Mascara Dorada (CMLL)