NO-MAS: Omos in NOAH, New Year Reboot

 

Omos/Jack Morris/Yu Owada vs. El Hijo del Dr. Wagner Jr./Galeno Del Mal/Saxon Huxley NOAH 1/2/25

ER: Omos's second match with the company felt like an incredible step backward. It's his second night with the company and he's working a throwaway trios match at a half sold Shinjuku FACE show, in a match where the focus is on Yu Owada's heel turn and not the gigantic black man entering your small building. The fans boo Owada in his Team 2000X when he enters the building after Omos as their mystery partner. To start the match, Omos locked up with Wagner. Obviously he won the lock up, easily, but why is this giant man locking up with a luchador half his weight? It would have been preposterous if Undertaker had worked a test of strength spot with Crash Holly, but at least it would have made sense within Holly's character. Omos doesn't need to be doing collar and elbow tie-ups with any other wrestler.  

I liked the stretch where Morris came in and cut Wagner off, Wagner selling a pump kick like Terry Funk before powering through and headbutting Morris, falling hard first, recognizing it was a bad idea as Morris was plopped on his butt rubbing his jaw. I liked how Morris set up Huxley's offense, selling a kneelift falling chest first into the middle rope with his arms draped over the top, getting bounced off the ropes as Huxley built steam, turning around just in time to catch a boot under the chin. Morris himself has bad hand clap offense but he can sell some difficult stuff well. Owada, the true focus of the match, is at minimum good at getting blown up by a shoulderblock. 

I wanted more from the Omos/Galeno shoulderblock exchange climax. They kept the big men mostly out of the match and they didn't even let Omos bump Galeno with a shoulderblock. Omos shoulderblocking Galeno into the ropes and then celebrating was like Luger celebrating his count out win against Yokozuna. The big double chokeslam was a nice ending and I especially love that it was so sudden. Galeno took one bump for Omos but it was for the finish. Crazy that Galeno took the slam so much better than Marufuji. 

TL: The only match I know Eric likes more than a battle royal is a NOAH six-man tag. To hear him glowingly praise Tamon Honda busting out freaky Rolling Hell variations or IZU throwing gnarly headbutts and sumo rushes or waxing poetic on Kikuchi's facial expressions brings me great joy; this is, predictably, a far cry from that, but does have its highlights and retains some of the spirit those matches had in their heyday.

Omos gets less to do here but does look markedly better than he did in the tag title win. Him single-handedly taking out Los Wagnercitos and Huxley with two big body slams and a lariat came off well to establish the gap between him and everyone else in the match. Eric mentioned how Omos needs to really lean into his strikes more and while the lariat was his only one in this match, it looked fine. There wasn't much of note from Morris or Owada. Morris did some basic stooging and bumped big on Huxley's knock off Brody running big boot, but Owada did a bunch of half-hearted stomping and striking in his faction debut and quickly faded into the background. Those performances by default made Omos being so dominant look that much more impactful.

Huxley got the shine here, which was odd. The Wagner Brothers were over pretty strongly and the crowd was playing along with their shtick. Hijo did well starting the match when Omos again got the early tag in, taking a powder and then trying to goad him into rushing him down, even stepping on his feet to try and get an advantage. I liked Galeno as NOAH's resident power brute knowing he was screwed but also knowing his best shot was bringing the fight to Omos anyway, even if it did fail spectacularly and he ate the fall.

Omos got a bit of a chance to show his staggered sell and recovery during Galeno's tackle rush, and it's obvious he's really trying to control the atmosphere as soon as he's between the ropes. He's working methodically like most big men, but he's aware of his surroundings and has the charisma to make it entertaining. He's also talking a lot of shit, and I think he could talk even more at this point; shit-talking in wrestling today is often either contrived or ironic, but Omos could make it his calling card if he wanted. While I was excited after the tag, this was more of a wakeup call. There's more to be unleashed and it will be interesting to see the path they decide to take to get there.