Departure 2004: WrestleFile Historical Verdict

Mitsuo Momota defeated Haruka Eigen in a short veteran singles opener at NOAH's Departure 2004 Tokyo Dome event. Both competitors had lengthy careers tied to Japanese wrestling's older traditions, making their appearance a deliberate bridge to the company's roots before a very different set of championship bouts. Momota received the victory, while Eigen provided familiar opposition at the beginning of the Dome card. The limited runtime prevented the match from developing the longer competitive arc seen higher on the show.

No title was at stake, so its importance lies in who opened the historic arena event and how NOAH chose to present veteran performers alongside its evolving roster. The bout should not be given the same viewing priority as the top GHC championship contests, although fans interested in the promotion's institutional history may appreciate its position. It provided a starting point without asking a small match to carry the prestige of the entire Dome presentation.

Tamon Honda, Jun Izumida and Tsuyoshi Kikuchi defeated Masao Inoue, Kishin Kawabata and Masashi Aoyagi in an early six-man tag at NOAH's 2004 Tokyo Dome event. The pairing assembled several familiar supporting wrestlers around the promotion's biggest destination show, demonstrating that the card could showcase more than the headline titleholders. Honda and Kikuchi had long experience in Japanese wrestling, while Izumida provided a physical presence beside them. Inoue, Kawabata and Aoyagi supplied an opposing group with equally deep connections to the existing roster.

The match lasted just under eleven minutes and carried no GHC championship stakes. Its purpose was to offer a complete team result and introduce part of the undercard before the increasingly prominent junior and heavyweight contests. The winning side deserves recognition as a trio, not as one individual who defeated three opponents in singles action. For fans revisiting the entire show, its historical role is roster continuity: the company's Dome event drew on experienced workers outside the top programs.

Michael Modest and Donovan Morgan defeated Kotaro Suzuki and Ricky Marvin in 11:55 during NOAH's 2004 Tokyo Dome show. The dated NOAH result ledger identifies Morgan's Day After Tomorrow on Marvin as the finish. The contest brought an outside pairing opposite two wrestlers associated with the promotion's increasingly important junior-heavyweight ranks. Suzuki and Marvin could work at a quicker pace than the heavyweight matchups surrounding them, making their presence useful for varying the first half of the card. Modest and Morgan provided experienced opposition and ultimately secured the official result.

There was no GHC Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship involved in this match. That title would be defended later by Naomichi Marufuji and KENTA against Takashi Sugiura and Kendo Kashin. Keeping the two tag contests distinct helps preserve the event's structure: this was a non-title guest-versus-home-roster pairing, while the later bout decided an actual championship defense. The result is a modest but interesting snapshot of the international talent and junior division styles on display in NOAH's first Tokyo Dome presentation.

Scorpio and Richard Slinger defeated Akitoshi Saito and Makoto Hashi in a sixteen-minute heavyweight tag match at Departure 2004. Scorpio brought a career that crossed multiple wrestling territories and major promotions, while Slinger offered a familiar Japanese-style partner. Saito's physical offense and Hashi's determination gave the opposing team a different identity. The winning pairing wasn't competing for the GHC Tag Team Championship, but the match had enough time for its wrestlers to develop a sustained exchange rather than a rapid preliminary finish.

The event's later championship defenses overshadowed most of its early tags, so this contest serves as a supporting selection for viewers who want the full card rather than only the famous main event. Its length helped bridge the short opening matches and the first junior title defense, maintaining variety in the lineup. The recorded result credited Scorpio and Slinger together, with Saito and Hashi on the losing side. That straightforward fact is more important than implying the match redirected NOAH's entire tag division.

Akira Taue and Takuma Sano defeated Daisuke Ikeda and Mohammed Yone in a supporting heavyweight tag at NOAH's Departure 2004 Tokyo Dome event. Taue had been one of the promotion's most accomplished founding heavyweights, and his inclusion offered a link to the era that produced many of the card's best-known stars. Sano supplied extensive Japanese wrestling experience beside him. Ikeda's aggressive striking and Yone's heavyweight presence gave the opposing team the tools to make the contest more physical than a ceremonial legends appearance.

The match was relatively short and ended with Taue and Sano taking the win. It wasn't a GHC Tag Team Championship bout, since that title had a separate semi-main-event defense involving Mitsuharu Misawa and Yoshinari Ogawa. Nor was it connected to the visiting IWGP Tag Team Championship contested later on the card. Its principal contribution was pacing: a recognizable heavyweight pairing provided a final piece of undercard action before the evening's string of major championship encounters began.

Naomichi Marufuji and KENTA entered NOAH's 2004 Tokyo Dome special as GHC Junior Heavyweight Tag Team champions and retained against Takashi Sugiura and Kendo Kashin. The matchup asked the reigning juniors to handle challengers with contrasting approaches: Sugiura brought explosive physical offense, while Kashin's history and grappling reputation supplied an older outside element. A defense on this stage was more demanding than a routine tour appearance, because the company had organized the Dome card around both junior and heavyweight title significance. Keeping the belts on Marufuji and KENTA reaffirmed their position as an established pairing.

This retention also protected the junior tag lineage amid a night full of inter-promotional attractions. NOAH's depth wasn't represented only by the heavyweight names positioned later in the show; its junior division could place a substantive championship match on the same destination card. The outcome shouldn't be merged with the separate singles junior title change that followed. Here, the incumbent team defeated Sugiura and Kashin and retained its own two-person championship.

Yoshinobu Kanemaru defeated Jushin Thunder Liger to win the GHC Junior Heavyweight Championship at Departure 2004. The result had cross-promotional importance because Liger had held NOAH's junior singles belt despite his stature as a New Japan icon. Kanemaru's win put the title back in the hands of a NOAH regular on a Tokyo Dome stage, making the victory more than a routine belt switch. It also separated the singles championship story from the Marufuji-KENTA tag defense earlier in the card, allowing the junior division to produce two distinct consequences in one night.

For a historical reader, the identity of the defeated champion is integral to the stakes. Beating Liger provided Kanemaru a credential grounded in both his own promotion and a major rival's junior heavyweight legacy. The result should be indexed as a singles title change, not treated as an exhibition or a New Japan title defense. NOAH's junior championship remained its own lineage even when an outside star was carrying it.

Yoshihiro Takayama and Minoru Suzuki defeated Takeshi Morishima and Takeshi Rikio to retain the IWGP Tag Team Championship on NOAH's Departure 2004 Tokyo Dome card. Takayama and Suzuki entered with belts belonging to New Japan, despite defending them on a competing promotion's major show. Morishima and Rikio presented a young heavyweight challenge associated with NOAH's future. The visiting champions prevailed, preserving the separate IWGP title lineage rather than transferring the belts to the NOAH challengers.

The championship's promotion is the key detail here. Other tag belts were also defended on the evening, including NOAH's junior and heavyweight GHC titles. This contest shouldn't be recorded as one of those defenses simply because its participants appeared on a NOAH event. The shorter runtime compared with surrounding marquee matches prevented an extended epic, but the interpromotional stakes made it meaningful. Takayama and Suzuki remained champions; Morishima and Rikio gained experience against prominent heavyweights without receiving a title through this challenge.

Mitsuharu Misawa and Yoshinari Ogawa retained the GHC Tag Team Championship against Keiji Muto and Taiyo Kea in the semi-main event of NOAH's Tokyo Dome show. The challengers carried genuine cross-promotional stature: Muto had an established place in Japanese heavyweight history, while Kea was a notable heavyweight associated with the All Japan roster. That made this defense a meaningful clash of tag teams rather than a collection of famous names placed together without stakes. Misawa and Ogawa's victory kept NOAH's tag belts with the incumbent champions before the GHC heavyweight title main event.

The match also showed how the 2004 Dome card used visiting wrestlers to test NOAH titleholders without transferring every belt. The challengers were credible enough to make a change plausible, but the promotion protected an important part of its own championship hierarchy. Ogawa's role next to Misawa matters: the team was not simply a singles showcase for its most famous member. Their retention is the sourced outcome, distinct from the separate junior tag defense earlier that night.

Kenta Kobashi defeated Jun Akiyama to retain the GHC Heavyweight Championship in the closing match of NOAH's 2004 Tokyo Dome event. Their rivalry already had historical weight dating back to the company's opening weekend, when Akiyama stopped Kobashi in a singles match. Here the roles were reversed: Kobashi held the promotion's top title and defended against a challenger who had once demonstrated he could beat him decisively. The Dome setting gave that personal history a larger platform, and a successful defense strengthened the champion's celebrated reign rather than shifting the belt on the biggest available stage.

Akiyama wasn't a token opponent brought in to justify a special venue. His own main-event credentials supplied the competitive uncertainty, making the result central to how the company presented Kobashi as its defining champion. The win belongs to the GHC Heavyweight title lineage and must not be confused with the other GHC belt defenses elsewhere on the same card. As an archival item, the bout connects NOAH's launch history with its growth into Tokyo Dome headliner status.