Shinsuke Nakamura won his match against The Great Muta at NOAH The New Year 2023

The pro wrestling world got 2023 started off with a NOAH The New Year show that featured Shinsuke Nakamura taking on The Great Muta as a part of the latter’s retirement tour. As the former mentioned in an interview a couple days ago, this never would have been possible under the old WWE regime but times have certainly changed.

In so many ways it still felt hard to believe, but then it was showtime, and then it was match time, and then there he was:

And here’s the creative way they got to the finish:

Finally, here’s the actual finish itself:

This was the first time Nakamura has wrestled for anyone other than WWE in five years. We’ll see what, if anything, this will mean for him when he heads back to the States.

As for Muta, his next stop is the Tokyo Dome for Wrestle Kingdom 17.