The Great Voyage (2011)

## Great Voyage (2011)

The poster of Great Voyage 2011 in Tokyo, featuring various NOAH wrestlers

**Great Voyage** was a event promoted by Pro Wrestling NOAH annually since 2000. In 2011, NOAH produced five events under the Great Voyage name; **Great Voyage in Tokyo** on March 12, **Great Voyage in Fukuoka** on March 28, **Great Voyage in Tokyo Vol. 2** on May 16, **Great Voyage in Tokyo Vol. 3** on July 14 and **Great Voyage in Osaka** on July 23. The events featured a lot of title matches that were contested for championships. These were five under the Great Voyage name.

## Production

### Background

Great Voyage 2011 featured eight matches in the Tokyo's events and the Fukuoka event feautred 10 and the Osaka event feautred 9 that involved different wrestlers from pre-existing scripted feuds and storylines. Wrestlers portrayed villains, heroes, or less distinguishable characters in the scripted events that built tension and culminated in a wrestling match or series of matches.

## Events

### Great Voyage in Tokyo

In the first title match of the show, Atsushi Aoki and Naomichi Marufuji defended the GHC Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champions against Ricky Marvin and Yoshinari Ogawa. During the event KENTA and rest of Disobey turn thier leader Muhammad Yone and KENTA later renamed the stable to No Mercy.

In the main event of the show, Sugiura made his nineth defense of the GHC Heavyweight Championship against Giant Bernard and he tied himself with Mitsuharu Misawa with defenses he made and following the match after joking that he didn’t think that Bernard was going to be really that heavy he said a that is aming to reach Kenta Kobashi defenses record.

### Great Voyage in Fukuoka

The first title match of Great Voyage in Fukuoka saw Takashi Sugiura made his tenth defense against Trevor Murdock. After the match he called out Minoru Suzuki and Kotaro Suzuki made his fourth title defense against Taiji Ishimori and Yone started to feud with No Mercy.

### Great Voyage in Tokyo Vol.2

During the saw Yone taking beating form No Mercy but they quickly go to GHC Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship title picture which had been vacated in April due to Marufuji sufering an injury and Aoki replaced him with his new tag team partner Kotaro Suzuki and they go to the title picture too. The semifinal saw Yoshihiro Takayama and Takuma Sano defending the belts against Jun Akiyama and Akitoshi Saito. After the match Takayama mentioned about the IWGP Tag Team Champions and them looking for more challengers.In the main event saw Takashi Sugiura defending the GHC Heavyweight Championship against Minoru Suzuki after the match Sugiura and Suzuki showed respect with each other and Sugiura mentioned that he may put his belt on the line during the European Navigation tour for his 12 defense.

### Great Voyage in Tokyo Vol.3

During the show saw Yone making union with Akitoshi Saito and Takuma Sano to battle the No Mercy faction and during the six-man tag team match between Sano, Ishimori and Atsushi Aoki and Yoshihiro Takayama KENTA and Genba Hirayanagi, Ishimori injured himself during the match and also Kotaro Suzuki made his seventh title defense against Yoshinobu Kanemaru and also in the main event Go Shiozaki defeated Sugiura to regain the GHC Heavyweight Championship.

### Great Voyage in Osaka

The show featured the return of Kenta Kobashi after three years of hiatus and three matches of the NTV G+ Cup Junior Heavyweight Tag League and NJPW's Bad Intentions (Karl Anderson and Giant Bernard) defended the GHC Tag belts against Takeshi Morishima and Yutaka Yoshie.