page_title: Suzuki-gun
section_title: Pro Wrestling Noah invasion (2015–2016)
hierarchical_section_title: Suzuki-gun / History / Suzuki-gun / Pro Wrestling Noah invasion (2015–2016)
caption_attribution_description: Takashi Sugiura as the GHC Heavyweight Champion on the Pro Wrestling NOAH European Navigation 2011, Wolverhampton Civic Hall, 14 May 2011. Processed using PictureShow by original uploader. Cropped from original.
context_page_description: Suzuki-gun is a villainous professional wrestling stable in the New Japan Pro-Wrestling promotion. The group was founded in December 2010 by IWGP Heavyweight Champion Satoshi Kojima as Kojima-gun, but the members of the stable turned on Kojima and appointed Minoru Suzuki as their new leader in May 2011. Suzuki-gun has since added several new members, most notably Davey Boy Smith Jr. and Lance Archer, known collectively as the Killer Elite Squad, who are three-time IWGP Tag Team Champions and two-time NWA World Tag Team Champions as part of the stable. Other accomplishments attained by the stable include Suzuki and Archer winning the 2011 G1 Tag League and founding members Taichi and Taka Michinoku becoming one-time IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champions. As the leader of Suzuki-gun, Suzuki became one of NJPW's top wrestlers and has challenged for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship on multiple occasions.
  In January 2015, Suzuki-gun, through a partnership between NJPW and Pro Wrestling Noah, took part in a storyline, where the stable invaded Noah, making it their primary promotion.
context_section_description: The day after Wrestle Kingdom 9 in Tokyo Dome, Suzuki-gun declared war on Naomichi Marufuji and TMDK for them coming to Yano's aid at the event. On January 10, the entire Suzuki-gun made a surprise appearance for Pro Wrestling Noah, occupying the ring after the main event where Marufuji had successfully defended his GHC Heavyweight Championship. While Suzuki hit Marufuji with his finishing move, the Gotch-Style Piledriver, his stablemates attacked everyone who tried to enter the ring to stop him, including new GHC Tag Team Champions TMDK and GHC Junior Heavyweight Champion Atsushi Kotoge. The members of Suzuki-gun made their Noah in-ring debuts at the January 12 event, where El Desperado defeated Hitoshi Kumano in a singles match, Archer, Iizuka and Smith defeated TMDK (Nicholls, Haste and Jonah Rock) in a six-man tag team match and Suzuki, Benjamin, Michinoku and Taichi defeated Brave (Marufuji, Kotoge, Muhammad Yone and Taiji Ishimori) in an eight-man tag team main event. Over the next four weeks, all eight members of Suzuki-gun also worked all subsequent Noah events. The first big event of the storyline was on February 11 with a card full of matches between members of Suzuki-gun and Noah and a main event, where K.E.S. defeated Haste and Nicholls with help from El Desperado to win the GHC Tag Team Championship. Noah's March 15 event saw Suzuki-gun featured in matches for all four of the promotion's titles. In the first two, Suzuki-gun captured both of Noah's junior heavyweight titles with El Desperado and Taka Michinoku defeating Choukibou-gun's Hajime Ohara and Kenoh and No Mercy's Daisuke Harada and Genba Hirayanagi for the GHC Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship and Taichi defeating Atsushi Kotoge, with help from El Desperado and Michinoku, for the GHC Junior Heavyweight Championship. The third saw K.E.S. defeat TMDK in a rematch to make their first successful defense of the GHC Tag Team Championship. Finally, in the main event, Suzuki completed Suzuki-gun's clean sweep by defeating Naomichi Marufuji to become the new GHC Heavyweight Champion.
  Suzuki-gun's dominance led to a storyline, where all of Noah's stables, villainous ones included, came together in order to reclaim the titles. As part of the storyline, Yoshihiro Takayama officially broke off his affiliation with Suzuki-gun by announcing his loyalty to Noah on March 28. In April, Suzuki-gun entered the 2015 Global Tag League with two teams; Suzuki and Iizuka and K.E.S. Benjamin also took part in the tournament, teaming with Brian Breaker. K.E.S. eventually made it to the finals of the tournament, where, on May 4, they were defeated by Dangan Yankies (Masato Tanaka and Takashi Sugiura). All four of Suzuki-gun's titles were put on the line on May 10 and all were defended successfully. First El Desperado and Michinoku successfully defended the GHC Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship against Yoshinari Ogawa and Zack Sabre Jr. and then helped Taichi defeat Atsushi Kotoge to retain the GHC Junior Heavyweight Championship. In the semi-main event, K.E.S. avenged their Global Tag League loss against Dangan Yankies by defeating them to retain the GHC Tag Team Championship, albeit following outside interference from Benjamin. The main event featured Kenta Kobashi making sure that the rest of Suzuki-gun did not interfere in the match, but nonetheless Suzuki defeated Marufuji in a rematch to make his first successful defense of the GHC Heavyweight Championship.
  On June 9, Suzuki-gun produced their own show in Korakuen Hall, entitled We Are Suzuki-gun, where K.E.S. made their third successful defense of the NWA World Tag Team Championship against Tencozy. On June 15, Suzuki made his second successful defense of the GHC Heavyweight Championship against Maybach Taniguchi, after which he was attacked by former stablemate Takayama, who issued a challenge for a title match. On July 18 at Noah's 15th anniversary event, Suzuki defeated Takayama, following outside interference from El Desperado, K.E.S. and Iizuka, to make his third successful defense of the GHC Heavyweig
caption: Takashi Sugiura, who held the GHC Heavyweight Championship twice as a member of Suzuki-gun
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