The Great Voyage (2015)

## Great Voyage (2015)

Promotional poster for Great Voyage in Osaka, featuring various NOAH wrestlers

**Great Voyage** was an event promoted by Pro Wrestling NOAH annually since 2000. In 2015, NOAH produced five events under the Great Voyage name that were on different days. The events featured a lot of title matches that were contested for GHC championships. These were tenth under the Great Voyage name. The event featured the storyline of Pro Wrestling Noah battling against Suzuki-gun.

## Production

### Storylines

The Great Voyage shows featured nine professional wrestling matches expect Great Voyage in Nagoya - Masashi Aoyagi Retirement Ceremony featured seven matches and each 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.

### Nagoya and Tokyo

Following NJPW's Wrestle Kingdom 9 in Tokyo Dome, Suzuki-gun declared war on Naomichi Marufuji and TMDK for them coming to Toru Yano's aid at the event. Afterwards, on January 10, the entire Suzuki-gun stable made a surprise appearance for Pro Wrestling Noah, occupying the ring after the main event where Marufuji had successfully defended his GHC Heavyweight Championship against Satoshi Kojima. 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 the new GHC Tag Team Champions TMDK and GHC Junior Heavyweight Champion Atsushi Kotoge. Afterwards, Kotoge and Marufuji got their matches.

### Yokohama

In April, Suzuki-gun and Noah entered the 2015 Global Tag League, K.E.S made it to the finals of the tournament, where, on May 4, they were defeated by the eventual winners of the tournament Dangan Yankies (Masato Tanaka and Takashi Sugiura). Afterwards Tanaka and Sugiura challenged K.E.S for the titles and was later made offcial.

### Osaka

During the year of 2015, War Machine (Hanson and Raymond Rowe) had been in a cross-promotional feud with K.E.S, afterwards on August 22, War Machine defeated K.E.S in a non-title match and challenged them to a match for the GHC Tag Team Champions, which K.E.S accepted.

After Minoru Suzuki, defended the GHC Heavyweight Championship against Yoshihiro Takayama, Takashi Sugiura, who earlier in the event had defeated Shelton X Benjamin in their personal grudge match, stepped up as Suzuki's next challenger

Through late July and early August, Suzuki-gun and Noah took part in the 2015 Global Junior Heavyweight League, wrestling in separate blocks. Although both Desperado and Michinoku managed to secure early wins, losses on the final day of the tournament prevented them from making it to the finals. The winner of the tournament, Daisuke Harada, issued a challenge to Taichi for the GHC Junior Heavyweight Championship.

### Nagoya

On August 22, Daisuke Harada and Atsushi Kotoge announced they were reuniting for the 2015 NTV G+ Cup Junior Heavyweight Tag League which would mark their first match together as a tag team in four years. On September 22, Harada and Kotoge finished their round-robin block in the NTV G+ Cup Junior Heavyweight Tag League with a record of three wins and one loss, winning their block and advancing to the finals. Meanwhile, El Desperado and Taka Michinoku made it to the finals of the 2015 NTV G+ Cup Junior Heavyweight Tag League. Later that same day, they defeated the reigning Desperado and Mchinoku in the finals to win the tournament.