Just over twenty years ago in Manhattan, New York, one of indie wrestling’s legit dream matches took place. Noah’s legend Kenta Kobashi, known for some of the most stunning strong style matches ever, would face Samoa Joe, young in his career, but racking up big matches at the time. There are already some great videos out there about Joe vs Kobashi, and to be clear, this video isn’t about that match. It’s about the matches and appearances that could have happened, that might have been on the cards, but in the end weren’t.
In this video, we’ll look at the US excursion of Kenta Kobashi. We’ll look at how the tour came about, including all of the promotions he did, and nearly did work for. Then we’ll look at how he ended up at Ring of Honor, up to the announcement of his match with Samoa Joe.
You’ll hear about what was reported at the time by both the Torch and the Observer, but you’ll also hear comments from Gabe Sapolsky from an interview recorded years later.
Kenta Kobashi was thirty eight years old and seventeen years into his career in 2005. He was very much an active full timer though, competing in over a hundred matches in Noah alone that year. On July 18th 2005, he had a match that had a lot of people talking at Noah’s Destiny event, against Kensuke Sasaki. The match was so well regarded, it caused CM Punk of all people to rave about it on his Live Journal page, at the same time chastising everyone who didn’t see it as a classic. I promise that's a thing that happened, and I wish Punk kept up his blogging these days.
Despite Kobashi’s many accomplishments, one thing he had not done so far in his career was wrestle a match outside Japan. He had wrestled for an American company though, sort of. On April 13th 1990, Kenta wrestled at the Tokyo Dome, on a show co-promoted by All Japan, New Japan and WWF. He and Masanobu Fushi lost a tag team match early on the card to Tito Santana and Jimmy Snuka, on a night where Hulk Hogan versus Stan Hansen would be the main event. Though Kobashi had wrestled plenty of Americans, from the Rock and Roll Express, to Cactus Jack to Vader in his Noah days, he was yet to go there himself. That would be set to change in the Summer of 2005.
The US Tour
The first mention of Kobashi possibly going to the US is reported in the July 4th Wrestling Observer. It’s also claimed that he wouldn't be coming alone. “Kobashi, KENTA (that’s the other Kenta) and Marufuji are coming to the U.S. from 9/21 to 9/24 for a Harley Race scouting camp at Race’s school in Eldon, MO. They will probably wrestle on a WLW show, and there is talk of them doing a Pro Wrestling Iron show that week in Northern California as a TV taping.” In 1999, Harley Race founded World League Wrestling, an NWA territory and wrestling school in Missouri which is still running today even after Harley’s passing, currently run by his son Leland. He would hold an annual training camp that would take place in September. Each year, different representatives from Pro Wrestling Noah would be sent for this camp, and in 2005 it was the turn of Kobashi, KENTA and Marafuji. It seems that Harley had managed to keep good relationships with virtually everyone in the business, as a 2008 article from Slam Wrestling details the camp, promising that “representatives from the WWE and NOAH” would be present. “The cream of the crop will be invited to participate in a wrestling card at the end of the camp, which will be filmed by both NOAH and the WWE. “So it’s the opportunity to perhaps be seen in front of worldwide audience,” Race noted — a pretty rare opportunity indeed.” If you thought as I did upon hearing that WWE being involved sounded strange, here is an article from wwe.com that I found advertising Harley’s training camp, even mentioning Kenta Kobashi as scheduled to attend. While there is no date or author listed on the page, the dates in the article match when Kobashi was set to be there in 2005.
WWE’s involvement wouldn't end there though. After Kobashi’s visit to the US, reports would come out of Japan about a meeting between Kobashi and a WWE office employee who was at the Harley Race camp. That WWE employee was at the time their EVP of talent relations, John Laurinitis. While on the surface a meeting like that might sound strange, the two did have history together. Ahead of the meeting Dave Meltzer would point out “It could be just for Japanese p.r. Kobashi & Johnny Ace were a regular tag team nearly 15 years ago with All Japan, feuding with Dan Kroffat & Doug Furnas.” He later notes that the two likely won’t have seen each other in a few years, as Ace stopped going over to Japan, possibly when he joined WWE. While the two were together, Johnny Ace would tell Japanese press “that they’d love to have Kobashi face their top stars like Angle, HHH and Undertaker,” though Dave reasoned, or possibly hoped, “Most likely nothing will transpire, because NOAH needs Kobashi and he’s a lifer with the company.” In another interesting thought, Ace also told the press “he’d like to set up a meeting with Vince McMahon and Mitsuharu Misawa.” Despite Ace putting this out into the universe, I doubt we were going to see Misawa come in at Wrestlemania 22 to try and stop the streak, but it probably would have been better than the Mark Henry match.
While he was there, Kenta Kobashi would have a match for World League Wrestling, making this, not his ROH matches that took place later in the week, his actual US debut. He would face Wade Chism, a staple of WLW shows, and Harley’s champion at the time. Wade was a trainee of Harley Race, and seemed to make WLW his main promotion, though he did go over and wrestle a tour with Noah and also had a WWE match on Velocity. In a 2011 interview with Missouri Wrestling Revival, Wade claimed that Harley said he had big plans for him, which seemed to be accurate. Wade would win several tag team titles most notably with another WLW trainee, Trevor Murdoch, and was also a five time Heavyweight champion for the promotion. While the fans in Eldon Missouri were unlikely to get a five star classic that night, the Observers report said that “Fans were giving Kobashi a standing o just for the chops. Chism didn’t do much, but came off good just for taking it.” Also on the card, KENTA would compete in a tag team match, and earlier in the evening, a young Kenny Omega would wrestle, just a few months before briefly appearing in WWE developmental promotion Deep South wrestling.
On this night, standing in the ring, Harley would take the opportunity to really show Kobashi the utmost respect. “Race, who was nicknamed Mr. Pro Wrestling in Japan, told Japanese reporters that he’s giving his nickname to Kobashi because he deserves it.” This wasn’t all though, as after Kobashi’s match, Harley would tell the crowd about the Mr. Pro Wrestling name, and then “presented Kobashi with one of his old NWA world title belts and declared him the greatest wrestler in the world.” From the reports of fans who were there, Kenta wore the belt in the ring, then politely took it off and handed it back to Harley Race.
So that’s the reason why Kobashi was heading to the US to begin with, but let’s take a closer look at the other promotions that were in the running to have Kenta appear for them. Pro Wrestling Iron was a school and promotion founded in 2002 in Haywood California, by two wrestlers very familiar with Pro Wrestling Noah, Michael Modest and Donovan Morgan, and a third owner Frank Murdoch. Morgan and Modest had begun wrestling as a tag team in Noah in 2001. They and Murdoch started their own company after leaving local rival APW on bad terms. PWI, not that one, had a strong Japanese influence because of the promoters and their ties to Noah. They would feature Noah talent such as Bison Smith, who was their champion for close to seven hundred days, and were even able to promote a handful of Mitsuharu Misawa’s few US matches. Misawa had previously wrestled a few US matches in 1986 when he was portraying the second version of Tiger Mask, so you could say that his 2002 match for Pro Wrestling Iron was his US debut under his own name. Despite a booking with Kobashi on the cards in July, Pro Wrestling Iron would close its doors in September, before Kobashi’s tour would happen. Each of the three owners would have their own reasons for this. “Modest bought a home in upstate California which is hours away from Hayward. Morgan, who said he’s gotten burned out on wrestling, recently got married and is moving to Florida. Murdoch is getting out of wrestling.”
Another promotion that was talked about early on was one you might not expect. “They are also said to have interest in working a TNA PPV, although at press time no talks have happened with either side”. On the surface, a Pro Wrestling Noah talent shouldn’t have been able to turn up in TNA, because they at the time had a strong link with New Japan, one that would only get stronger in the coming years. TNA would from time to time bring in big names from New Japan for appearances on their pay per views. In October, they would welcome Jushin Liger for a match with Samoa Joe at Bound For Glory, and they would bring in future Ace, Hiroshi Tanahashi in January for a match with AJ Styles. Starting in 2006, New Japan would be represented in TNA’s World X Cup tournament, with the team of Jushin Liger, Black Tiger IV, Minorou Tanaka and Hirooki Goto being sent that year.
A couple of weeks later in the July 18th Observer, Dave Meltzer provides more detail on the idea of Kobashi appearing for TNA, and the potential challenges. “NOAH officials have said that TNA can use Kobashi as long as it’s in between tours. The hold-up there is political, because TNA is aligning itself with New Japan, and that alliance may prevent the booking.” Only this year in August 2025, Jeff Jarrett addressed these reports on his My World podcast. When Conrad reads the Observer to him, Jeff never actually names Noah or directly addresses the chance to bring Kobashi in, but says that he wanted TNA to have one promotion they were working with in Mexico and one in Japan, implying that they were happy enough to just work with New Japan. *clip*
Dave also noted in the Observer that it seemed at the time like the political issues could have been avoided however, and that would have been through the olive branch of professional wrestling, Harley Race, who was said to be on good terms with both Noah and TNA, having had a history with both. As well as Harley’s links with Noah and WWE through his training camps, his good relationship with TNA may well have come through them both being NWA affiliated at the time. On June 19th 2002, Harley would appear on TNA’s first ever event, in the very first segment, as part of a parade of NWA legends that would be brought to the ring. In fact, Harley is one of the very first faces seen on that broadcast, and is given the task of making the NWA World title feel important for it was put on the line in the main event. Unlike TNA and Pro Wrestling Iron, Kenta Kobashi would actually make it to Harley’s training camp, and I’ll cover that when I get to it in the timeline. Before we do though, there is one question left to answer, how did Ring of Honor come to be involved?
According to ROH’s booker at the time Gabe Sapolsky, he made a phone call, apparently at this very desk, to Harley Race upon hearing that Kobashi would be in the country. *clip 1* Gabe says that Harley was initially surprised about the request, not expecting anyone to want to book him, perhaps not knowing how aware American fans were of Kobashi’s work. *clip 2* A few weeks later after the announcement of Kobashi going to ROH had been made, the Observer mentions that there were also “attempts to get him booked on 10/7 and 10/8 for FIP in Florida”, with Full Impact pro being ROH’s sister promotion of sorts. These bookings are never mentioned in any reporting again, and they might have fallen through due to scheduling. On the date of one of the FIP shows, Kobashi wrestled for Noah in Korakuen Hall. Another thing that Gabe mentioned is that booking Kobashi quote, “wasn’t cheap”, so I imagine that extending his US trip by a few weeks would have been very expensive for FIP. *clip* If you’re curious, Full Impact Pro did have a guest of honour that weekend, a very different one, as Sean Waltman would wrestle a main event match against Jimmy Rave, which I bet had a ton less chops than Kobashi vs Rave would have had.
Timeline
July 8th - The Announcement
Now that I’ve covered all of the promotions that were potentially involved, let’s look at the timeline leading up to Kenta Kobashi’s Ring Of Honor matches. On July 8th ROH would present Sign of Dishonor from Lake Grove New York, not exactly close to where Kobashi’s match would take place, which might be important in a bit. It was also the company's first ever event in the Long Island area. This show would actually take place one after Death Before Dishonor 3, where CM Punk would surprisingly win the ROH title, when it was known that he was WWE bound. The name of the show comes from the opening segment, where Punk would come to the ring uncharacteristically wearing a suit, and would sign his WWE contract on the Ring of Honor World Championship belt. It was later on this night where the official announcement was made that Kenta Kobashi would be coming to ROH. Unfortunately for the company though, according to coverage in both the Torch and the Observer, This wouldn't necessarily get the reaction that Gabe hoped for.
“The announcement didn’t get a huge pop from the fans in attendance, but his appearance is likely to draw a new group of veteran fans who maybe otherwise wouldn’t attend a live ROH event or purchase an ROH tape. It’s a marketing strategy ROH often uses where they bring in a known draw among a core group of fans, hoping to hook them on the rest of the product in the process.” Gabe had actually used this strategy with the very show the announcement was being made on, as Long Island local Mick Foley would appear, getting involved in CM Punk’s storyline. You could conceivably guess that there may have been more casual fans than normal in, especially for the promotions first time in the area, supported by the following show on the night after. “The reaction was huge the next night in Manhattan for the same announcement. Right now Kobashi is only booked on 10/1, but they are working on a second date for him.”
In the Observer Dave Meltzer would write that the entire show, not just the Kobashi reveal would suffer from a lower than expected crowd reaction. “The Lake Grove show was said to be a disappointment as far as crowd heat, but the crowd of 750 was really strong and it was attributed to doing a lot of angle stuff for casual fans who didn’t know the storylines and weren’t internet fans, which explains the totally different Kobashi reactions.”
July 23rd The Homecoming (Philadelphia announced)
The next time there would be any new developments on Kobashi would be a couple of weeks later at their next show in Philadelphia. On this night it would be announced that the second date that ROH were trying to add had been finalized, and so he would also be wrestling on October 2nd. This announcement would lead to some questionable booking, and some even more questionable reasoning from Gabe that were printed in the August 1st Observer.
From the National Guard Armory in Philadelphia, the company would present The Homecoming, where in the main event for the ROH World title, CM Punk would go to a sixty minute draw with Christopher Daniels, and we all know how much wrestling fans love time limit draws. Besides this, many fans were left unhappy with the sheer number of heel wins on the night. Gabe, it seems, felt he could get away with this just the once for a very special reason, Kenta Kobashi was now booked for the next show in Philadelphia. “Gabe Sapolsky felt they needed the screwjobs to get some heels over and felt Philadelphia was an okay place to do it, because Kenta Kobashi is on the next show, so he figured everyone would come back.” While it’s generally not considered good booking practice to annoy your fans knowing they will come back anyway, at least he did this just for the one show, and not let's say for about ten years.
As we got into August, Gabe was openly considering potential opponents for Kobashi. While Samoa Joe was the choice of many, Gabe also seemed to be considering Low Ki for the second match, but this wasn’t going to come without some difficulties. There were some merits to picking Low Ki, “there would be no issues as to finish, since both work for NOAH and Low Ki isn’t going to refuse a job for Kobashi.” While the two had met in three separate tag team matches that same year, a singles match between the two would have been more difficult to book, “because of the size difference making it hard to work a match, in the sense they can work together, but in NOAH, Kobashi is a legend and Low Ki is just a junior heavyweight undercard guy, so how much can he give him? In a tag, they can work it better, with the idea of a heavyweight and a junior heavyweight on each team.”
Possibly less so today than back then, given how many wrestlers we see move up into the heavyweight ranks, there was a perception between the two divisions that a heavyweight would fair better against a junior, therefore it might make the match less appealing or competitive. Because of this and other issues around the idea of Kobashi losing, Dave calls a tag match with Joe possibly involved “an easier political deal.” Gabe also explains that having Kobashi work two singles matches with high expectations on them would also have been a mistake. Ultimately, the idea of a Kenta vs Low-Ki singles match would be nixed, and a tag team match was considered the better option. *clip*
From the time of the initial announcement, there was already a lot of talk about who Kobashi would wrestle when he arrived in New York. Even at this point, “There is a push for Kobashi’s opponent to be Samoa Joe.” More opponents were discussed, but Joe was the one person that everyone seemed to come back to. Not a lot would come out officially though, and Gabe said years later that this was because the deal came extremely close to falling through several times. *clip*
Match announced
On August 29th 2005, Kenta Kobashi’s matches for Ring of Honor would finally be announced. On October 1st in New York he would face Samoa Joe, and on the next night in Philadelphia, he would team up with Homicide against Samoa Joe and Low-Ki. We’ll get back to the tag match in a minute because there’s a lot going on there, but the singles match with Joe was considered something of a dream match.
By mid 2005, Samoa Joe was six years into his career and twenty six years old. Despite this he was already something of a legend to ROH fans, having already held the Ring of Honor championship for nineteen months, a record unbroken to this day. Much like Kenta Kobashi, he too was racking up classic matches, only his list was far shorter so far.
While already respected by ROH fans, by mid-2005 he was also just starting to make a name for himself in TNA. On June 19th at Slammiversary, Joe made a very impressive debut, beginning a seventeen month undefeated streak that would eventually end when Kurt Angle arrived in the promotion. At the same time, much like Kobashi, Joe had been racking up highly regarded matches, even some that are still talked about today. On September 11th 2005, he would be one third of a famous triple threat match at Unbreakable against AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels. For eighteen years, this would be the only five star match that TNA ever promoted, until Bound for Glory in 2023.
Despite the eleven year experience difference, Joe and Kobashi were both collecting five star match ratings. I promise that star ratings don't normally get a lot of attention on this channel, but just bear with me for a minute. Between the years 2003 to 2006, Dave Meltzer awarded five five star ratings, and every one of those matches included either Joe or Kobashi. By the time of their match in October 2005, Kobashi had previously earned seventeen five stars, while Samoa Joe had just two. Very soon they would both have one more.
Ending
Odds are that if you’re watching this channel you know all about the classic match that would take place in the Grand Ballroom of the New Yorker Hotel. You’ve likely even seen it for yourself, from Kobashi breaking his usually stoic demeanour at the sound of the fans cheering loudly for him, to Joe’s chest ending up looking like something out of a horror film. What if Kobashi had done more in the US though? What if he had appeared for TNA, if he looked like a fish out of water at ROH, imagine what he would have looked like in the Impact Zone competing in the X-Division? What if he’d gone on a tour of the indies, facing spirit squad members and other freshly ex-WWE talents of the time. While it’s an interesting thing to guess about, it’s likely for the best that the ROH matches stand out, that the US matches Kobashi had remain few and special. Still, I wouldn't have minded seeing a really weird match somewhere though.
Sources:
WON July 4th Coming over for Harley Race/TNA https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/july-4-2005-observer-newsletter-wwe-completes-draft-lottery-brock/
WON Sep 5th 05 Iron closes https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/september-5-2005-observer-newsletter-pride-final-conflict-recap-chris/
WWE article about Harley’s camp https://www.wwe.com/inside/news/archive/race1
Harley and noah https://www.google.com/amp/s/slamwrestling.net/index.php/2008/08/22/race-noah-camp-a-unique-opportunity/amp/
WON July 18th Booking first announced - Harley Race, TNA and FIP https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/july-18-2005-wrestling-observer-newsletter-death-shinya-hashimoto-wwe/
Timeline
PW Torch July 23rd 2005 - Official announcement https://www.pwtorch.com/artman2/members/uploads/2/871TorchNewsletterPDF.pdf
WON Aug 1st Gabe not concerned with upsetting fans as they will come back for Kobashi next time https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/august-1-2005-obsever-newsletter-muhammad-hassan-character-banned-upn/
WON Aug 8th Gabe not announcing opponents for a while - Low Ki https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/august-8-2005-observer-newsletter-bret-hart-meet-wwe-over-dvd-business/
WON Aug 29 Match announced - Low Ki https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/august-29-2005-observer-newsletter-summerslam-recap-fedor-vs-mirko-cro/
FFD Sep 5th Match Announced - tag confusing https://members.f4wonline.com/newsletter-search?post_date=08012005+09012005
WON Sep 21 Advertised for Japanese TV https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/september-21-2005-observer-newsletter-spike-wwe-counterprogram-one/
Wade Chism interview https://missouriwrestlingrevival.com/2011/05/29/10-quick-hits-from-former-wlw-champion-wild-wade-chism/
WON Sep 26 Johnny Ace meeting Kobashi https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/september-26-2005-observer-newsletter-wwe-unforgiven-stacked-raw/
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