{"id":89684,"date":"2021-04-17T14:18:53","date_gmt":"2021-04-17T18:18:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=89684"},"modified":"2021-04-17T14:18:53","modified_gmt":"2021-04-17T18:18:53","slug":"match-point-atsushi-kotoge-nioh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2021\/04\/17\/match-point-atsushi-kotoge-nioh\/","title":{"rendered":"Match Point: Atsushi Kotoge vs Nioh"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><strong>Atsushi Kotoge<\/strong> is a well-decorated junior heavyweight. He is a former 7-time GHC Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champion, Former IPW UK Junior Heavyweight Champion, and held the GHC Junior Heavyweight Championship on 2 separate occasions. However the last time he held that belt was in 2016, and he has a chance to add another reign to his legacy. However, odds didn\u2019t look as if they were in his favor opposing defending champion, <strong>Seiki Yoshioka<\/strong>. Yoshioka was making his first defense and was on a roll, however lightning struck. Atsushi Kotoge <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2021\/03\/16\/atsushi-kotoge-wins-ghc-junior-heavyweight-championship\/\" target=\"_self\">defeated Seiki Yoshioka<\/a> and won the Junior Heavyweight Championship.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">At Korakuen Hall the new champion led a group of young <strong>NOAH<\/strong> borns into battle. On the opposite side of the ring were three KONGOH juniors all gunning for the new Champion. The one who got the right to step up was the man who won for his team. <strong>Nioh<\/strong>, who is a former 3-time GHC Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champion in his own right and a longtime Junior in NOAH who has failed at capturing the GHC Junior Heavyweight Championship.\u00a0 Nioh stated that he thinks he can beat the new champion with ease. Nioh hasn\u2019t challenged for the gold since his last challenge against Kotoge\u2019s tag partner, <strong>Daisuke Harada<\/strong> back in 2018. Now he has his chance once again.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The two men faced off in various preview tags in the lead-up to the title match. With Kotoge winning the first with a victory over Nioh. However, Nioh proved to be a threat by getting a direct and decisive win over Kotoge in the following preview. Under the bright lights of Korakuen Hall on April 18, 2021, will Nioh realize his destiny, or will Atsushi Kotoge continue to lead the NOAH juniors?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><em><span class=\"s1\">Stay tuned to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/\" target=\"_self\"><span class=\"s2\">Last Word on Pro Wrestling<\/span><\/a>\u00a0for more on this and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world, as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world. You can watch Pro Wrestling NOAH as well as DDT, TJPW, and more on<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ddtpro.com\/universe\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span class=\"s2\">\u00a0Wrestle Universe.<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><em><span class=\"s1\">Looking to talk wrestling, pro football, or any number of sports? Head on over to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/boards\/index.php\" target=\"_self\"><span class=\"s2\">LWOS Boards<\/span><\/a> to engage in conversation with fellow fans!<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Atsushi Kotoge is a well-decorated junior heavyweight. He is a former 7-time GHC Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champion, Former IPW UK Junior Heavyweight Champion, and held the GHC Junior Heavyweight Championship on 2 separate occasions. However the last time he held that belt was in 2016, and he has a chance to add another reign [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3712,"featured_media":89691,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13,24,2192],"tags":[7570,2207,7229],"class_list":["post-89684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","category-noah","category-wrestling","tag-atsushi-kotoge","tag-match-point","tag-nioh"],"modified_by":"Alex Richards, LWOF Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3712"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}