Great Voyage 2016 in Yokohama Vol. 2: WrestleFile Historical Verdict

Yoshinari Ogawa, Mohammed Yone and Quiet Storm against Akitoshi Saito, Maybach Taniguchi and Shiro Tomoyose is a compact opener designed to establish the home roster before the title-heavy second half. Yone scores the fall on Tomoyose in 5:45, protecting the more established veterans while giving the 50 Funky Powers side an easy entry point. The match is useful period texture rather than destination viewing, but its short runtime keeps the event moving.

Daisuke Harada and Hitoshi Kumano defeating Taichi and El Desperado gives NOAH an early win over Suzuki-gun and puts Harada in a useful role after the faction rivalry had dominated much of 2015 and 2016. Harada pins Desperado in 5:40, while Kumano benefits from sharing a win over established junior antagonists. The bout is brief, yet the personnel make it a clear bridge between the invasion story and NOAH's changing junior hierarchy.

Masa Kitamiya defeating Takashi Iizuka is another concise NOAH-versus-Suzuki-gun result, but it carries more developmental value because Kitamiya is positioned as the younger heavyweight who gets the decisive singles win. He beats Iizuka in 6:45 with the Saito Suplex. The match is not elaborate, but it gives Kitamiya a meaningful victory over a veteran heel and helps the first half build toward the larger generational shift represented by the main event.

Minoru Suzuki against Kaito Kiyomiya is historically interesting because it places a very young Kiyomiya opposite the former GHC Heavyweight Champion during the closing phase of Suzuki-gun's NOAH run. Suzuki wins in 11:33 with the Gotch-style piledriver, as expected, but Kiyomiya gains value simply from being trusted in the singles position. In hindsight the matchup reads as an early look at a future NOAH ace testing himself against one of the era's defining outsiders.

Jado and Gedo defending the GHC Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship against Kenoh and Hajime Ohara is a long, deliberate junior tag title match at 19:49. The champions retain when Jado submits Kenoh, giving their reign a first successful defense while preserving the division's NJPW crossover. The match also captures Kenoh before his full heavyweight ascent, which adds retrospective interest even though the title does not change hands.

Atsushi Kotoge defending the GHC Junior Heavyweight Championship against Yoshinobu Kanemaru gives the event a rematch rooted directly in the Suzuki-gun era. Kotoge retains in 15:44 with the Killswitch, making his first successful defense and reinforcing the idea that NOAH's junior division was moving out from under the invading faction's control. Kanemaru remains a credible former champion, so the result gives Kotoge more weight than a routine first defense would have carried.

Katsuyori Shibata versus Go Shiozaki is the card's strongest non-title singles attraction. Shibata wins in 18:01 with the PK, giving NJPW a major victory over one of NOAH's most important heavyweights. The result is notable because Shiozaki had only recently returned to NOAH's center after time away, while Shibata was at a career peak before his 2017 injury. Their physical styles make the match one of the event's clearest standalone recommendations.

Naomichi Marufuji and Toru Yano entered Great Voyage 2016 in Yokohama as an unlikely but successful GHC Tag Team pairing. Their challengers, Togi Makabe and Tomoaki Honma, also crossed over from New Japan, turning the sixth defense into a prominent example of the NJPW-NOAH connection running through the heavyweight tag division. Marufuji and Yano had very different ring personalities, but their title run had generated repeated results rather than depending on novelty alone. The champions retained in 21:21 when Marufuji pinned Honma, making this an actual sustained title defense against established heavyweight opponents.

Yano's involvement adds a complication for anyone treating the match only as a home-versus-visitor promotion contest. Both teams contained New Japan personnel or direct connections, while the NOAH championship belonged to Marufuji and his partner. The successful defense preserved a reign that had become one of the year's visible crossover threads. The A- grade belongs to the tag title match itself, not to an imagined singles confrontation between the promotions.

Katsuhiko Nakajima captured his first GHC Heavyweight Championship by defeating Takashi Sugiura in the Great Voyage 2016 Yokohama main event. The match lasted 33:45 and ended with Nakajima's Vertical Spike, giving the new champion an emphatic finish against an experienced titleholder. This was the culmination of a long ascent. Nakajima had already become closely associated with NOAH and proved himself in important matches, but he had not yet occupied the leading championship position in the company. Beating Sugiura moved him into that role without relying on an outsider to establish the next phase of the division.

That generational element is why the result has value beyond the specific title change. Sugiura remained a formidable opponent, and the length of the main event emphasized the difficulty of taking the belt from him. Nakajima's first reign created possibilities for new championship defenses and rivalries with NOAH wrestlers who had known him as a challenger. The A grade reflects a hard-won and historically meaningful transition at the top of the heavyweight roster.