Pro Wrestling Noah
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40 free Pro Wrestling Noah trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Pro Wrestling Noah was born in 2000, when Mitsuharu Misawa led nearly the whole All Japan Pro Wrestling roster out the door and started again. Within a year the new company had its own set of titles under the GHC banner, and the GHC Heavyweight Championship quickly became one of the most respected prizes in Japanese wrestling. These questions follow the GHC championship from its first tournament to its modern era: the inaugural champion, Kenta Kobashi's two-year reign, the oldest and youngest titleholders, shock upsets and the outsiders who carried the belt away. They also cover the junior and tag team titles, the company's biggest shows, its changes of ownership and the signature moves of its stars. The quiz suits longtime puroresu fans and newer viewers who found Noah through streaming or a crossover show. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you pick up some history even on the ones you miss.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Pro Wrestling Noah's original logo paired an ark with which bird from the biblical flood story?
A dove
A dove with an olive branch marks a fresh start in the biblical flood story, which the founders saw as a mirror of their own walkout from All Japan Pro Wrestling.
Q 02Noah founder Mitsuharu Misawa spent much of the 1980s as the second wrestler to play which masked manga hero?
Tiger Mask
Tiger Mask was a character All Japan licensed for him, and Misawa played the part until May 1990, when he told his tag partner to pull the mask off in the middle of a match.
Q 03Which knee-strike finisher did Pro Wrestling Noah star Kenta invent before CM Punk popularized it in America?
Go 2 Sleep
Go 2 Sleep drops an opponent from a fireman's carry onto a rising knee, and Kenta later added a version from a backbreaker rack that he called the Ura Go 2 Sleep.
Q 04Which American, a three-time WCW world champion, joined Scorpio as the first GHC Tag Team Champions in 2001?
Big Van Vader
Big Van Vader and Scorpio won an 11-team tournament that October, then lost the belts six weeks later to Noah's founder and his regular partner.
Q 05Under which new ring name did Pro Wrestling Noah's top star Kenta perform after joining WWE in 2014?
Hideo Itami
Hideo Itami means 'Hero of Pain', a name he unveiled on NXT in September 2014 before moving on to the cruiserweight show 205 Live.
Q 06Mitsuharu Misawa became president of All Japan Pro Wrestling after which founder of the company died in 1999?
Giant Baba
Giant Baba had run All Japan since starting it in 1972, and Misawa's clashes with Baba's widow over the company's direction led to the walkout that created Noah.
Q 07The letters GHC in the name of Pro Wrestling Noah's championships stand for which three-word phrase?
Global Honored Crown
Global Honored Crown is Noah's in-house title authority, set up after the promotion's first shows in 2000 to oversee every belt it awards.
Q 08Which star of New Japan's 'Three Musketeers' generation became the oldest GHC Heavyweight Champion at 58 in 2021?
Keiji Muto
Keiji Muto was 58 years and 51 days old when he won the title, and he wrestled on for two more years before retiring in February 2023.
Q 09Which masked New Japan icon with a horned, anime-inspired costume held Noah's GHC Junior Heavyweight title in 2004?
Jushin Liger
Jushin Liger won the belt at a New Japan event on January 4, 2004, and made five defenses over six months before a Noah wrestler took it back.
Q 10Which baseball stadium hosted Pro Wrestling Noah's Departure show in 2004 and its Destiny show in 2005?
Tokyo Dome
Tokyo Dome first welcomed Noah for Departure, headlined by a Kenta Kobashi title defense, and Destiny a year later was billed as the promotion's biggest event to date.
Q 11Mitsuharu Misawa beat which Pride cult hero in the 2001 final to become the first GHC Heavyweight Champion?
Yoshihiro Takayama
Yoshihiro Takayama lost that tournament final but took the belt himself in September 2002, only to drop it back to Misawa later the same month.
Q 12Which former sumo wrestler ended Kenta Kobashi's record 735-day GHC Heavyweight Championship reign in March 2005?
Takeshi Rikio
Takeshi Rikio pinned Kobashi with his Muso slam after the champion's 13 successful defenses, and he was seen sobbing as he accepted the belt.
Q 13Which founder of the Kongo faction held the GHC Heavyweight Championship for just one day in July 2025?
Kenoh
Q 21In which Japanese city did Pro Wrestling Noah founder Mitsuharu Misawa suffer a fatal in-ring injury in June 2009?
Hiroshima
Hiroshima was hosting a tag team match when Misawa lost consciousness after a suplex, and he was pronounced dead in hospital later that night.
Q 22What color was Pro Wrestling Noah's signature ring mat before a 2019 rebrand replaced it with white canvas?
Green
Green was also the color of founder Mitsuharu Misawa's ring gear, and the switch came with the first major rebranding in company history, new logo included.
Q 23Which Tokyo arena, built for the 1964 Olympics, hosted Kenta Kobashi's retirement match in May 2013?
Nippon Budokan
Kenoh won the belt on the first night of a two-night event and lost it to Kenta the next evening, the shortest reign in the title's history.
Q 14Which graduate of Noah's own dojo became the youngest GHC Heavyweight Champion in December 2018, aged just 22?
Kaito Kiyomiya
Kaito Kiyomiya had made his debut only three years earlier, and he went on to hold the belt for 384 days before losing it in January 2020.
Q 15Which junior heavyweight, Mitsuharu Misawa's regular tag partner, won the GHC Heavyweight Championship in a 2002 upset?
Yoshinari Ogawa
Yoshinari Ogawa was the first junior heavyweight to hold Noah's top belt, and he kept it for five months and two defenses.
Q 16Which future All Japan president ended Mitsuharu Misawa's first GHC Heavyweight Championship reign in July 2001?
Jun Akiyama
Jun Akiyama became the second champion that night and reigned for more than eight months, and he took charge of All Japan in July 2014.
Q 17Which former soldier broke Kenta Kobashi's record with a 14th defense in one GHC Heavyweight Championship reign in 2011?
Takashi Sugiura
Takashi Sugiura made the record-breaking defense against Claudio Castagnoli in Oberhausen, Germany, during a reign that lasted 19 months.
Q 18Which protégé of Kenta Kobashi won his first GHC Heavyweight Championship in June 2009 after the title was vacated?
Go Shiozaki
Go Shiozaki won the vacant belt in Fukuoka after a twenty-minute match, one day after teaming with Mitsuharu Misawa in the founder's final bout.
Q 19Which high-flyer, nicknamed the Genius of the Ark, was first to hold all five GHC titles that existed in 2006?
Naomichi Marufuji
Naomichi Marufuji completed the set in September 2006, when he pinned the heavyweight champion with an inside cradle.
Q 20Which American became the first non-Japanese wrestler to win the GHC Heavyweight Championship in August 2017?
Eddie Edwards
Eddie Edwards won the belt on a summer tour of Japan and defended it as far away as Canada before losing it that December.
Nippon Budokan staged the farewell show, which journalist Dave Meltzer called the end of an era in Japanese wrestling, likening it to Pelé's retirement.
Q 24Which abbreviation marks New Japan Pro-Wrestling's main titles, the counterpart of Noah's own GHC governing body?
IWGP
IWGP stands for International Wrestling Grand Prix, and Noah's GHC works the same way, as an in-house body whose name appears on its belts.
Q 25Kenta Kobashi stepped away in 2006 after doctors found a cancerous tumor on which organ, returning in December 2007?
Kidney
Kidney surgery lasting five and a half hours, followed by chemotherapy, kept Kobashi out for about 18 months, and his return tag match was named a Match of the Year.
Q 26Kenta Kobashi's 2005 Destiny match against a Noah newcomer is remembered for long exchanges of which strike?
Knife-edge chops
Knife-edge chops were Kobashi's trademark, thrown in rapid 'machine gun' bursts, and doctors later warned him the move was damaging the nerves in his arm.
Q 27Mikey Nicholls and Shane Haste, who won Noah's tag titles as The Mighty Don't Kneel, come from which country?
Australia
Australia produced both men, who passed a Noah tryout held in the United States in 2010 and went on to win the GHC Tag Team Championship twice.
Q 28Noah's roster faced New Japan's on the third night of which New Japan event in 2022, held at Yokohama Arena?
Wrestle Kingdom
Wrestle Kingdom had never before run for three days, and part of the proceeds from the joint night went to the Japanese Red Cross.
Q 29Which former Holy Demon Army tag star became Noah's president after Mitsuharu Misawa's death in 2009?
Akira Taue
Akira Taue was appointed two weeks after the founder died and stayed in charge until the company was sold in November 2016.
Q 30Which New Japan veteran led his stable into Noah in 2015 and held the GHC Heavyweight Championship for nine months?
Minoru Suzuki
Minoru Suzuki and his Suzuki-gun stable attacked Noah's champions on arrival that January, and in December he lost the belt back to the man he had taken it from.