Hikaru Sato
Despite the storyline, Takanashi did not miss a single event held by DDT as in January 2009, he began making appearances for the promotion as Louis Takanashi XIV. On May 21, Takanashi earned his way back into DDT by defeating Sanshiro Takagi in a singles match. During the summer of 2009, Takanashi won four different titles, the DJ Nira World and History's Strongest Championship, the GAY World Anal Championship, the J.E.T. World Jet Championship and the World Mid Breath Championship, all made up by different DDT wrestlers and none of which were officially recognized by the promotion. This built to a nine championship match between Takanashi and Danshoku Dino on August 23, which Dino won to retain his five titles and win Takanashi's four titles. Before the end of the year, Takanashi and Dino reformed the Belt Hunter×Hunter stable. On November 29, Takanashi, Dino and Hikaru Sato defeated the Italian Four Horsemen (Antonio Honda, Francesco Togo and Piza Michinoku) to become the first DDT-promoted UWA World Trios Champions. On January 24, 2010, they lost the title to Tokyo Gurentai (Fujita, Mazada and Nosawa Rongai). On March 14, Takanashi won a fifteen-man battle royal to become the number one contender to DDT's top title, the KO-D Openweight Championship. At the following event on March 21, Takanashi defeated Munenori Sawa to win the Ironman Heavymetalweight Championship for the fifth time. He would lose the title to Danshoku Dino six days later in a four-way match, which also included fellow Belt Hunter×Hunter members Hikaru Sato and Keisuke Ishii. Takanashi received his shot at the KO-D Openweight Championship on April 4, but was defeated by defending champion Daisuke Sekimoto, who outweighed him by . The match was recognized as one of the best matches on the Japanese independent circuit in all of 2010 and is considered Takanashi's breakthrough performance. On May 12, DDT announced that Takanashi would be sidelined from in-ring action indefinitely after dislocating his right knee, tearing his anterior cruciate ligament and damaging his medial collateral ligament.