Open the Dream Gate Championship
Kobayashi trained for his professional wrestling career in the Japanese promotion Dragon Gate's wrestling school called "Dragon Gate Nex" and made his debut on January 26, 2011 at Dragon Gate Nex's "Sanctuary.71" show in Kobe, Hyogo, Japan, wrestling to a draw against fellow trainee Yosuke Watanabe. He later "graduated" to the main Dragon Gate shows as a low ranking rookie. On February 20, 2012 he was one of 10 wrestlers fighting to become the number one contender for the Open the Dream Gate Championship, but saw himself defeated by Pac. A few weeks later he was involved it yet another number one contenders match for the Dream Gate title, but this time the match was won by Cyber Kong. While Kobayashi did not win a lot of matches he made a name for himself with his ability to execute the knife edge chop on opponents with such force that it makes a very loud sound on impact, partially by actually hitting opponents with full force instead of the normal, more "theatrical" version used in professional wrestling. His Chopping prowess and that of other Dragon Gate wrestlers led Dragon Gate to hold a "King of Chop" tournament, which was not a wrestling tournament but a tournament where two wrestlers used the knife edge chop on each other and the fans determined the winner of each match up. Kobayashi defeated Mondai Ruy, Cyber Kong and Don Fujii on his way to the finals where he also overcame Tomahawk T.T. to become Dragon Gate's "King of Chop". As a result of his victory Eita Kobayashi was allowed to compete in Dragon Gate's annual "King of Gate" tournament, where he was eliminated in the second round by Masaaki Mochizuki. On May 27, 2012 Eita Kobayashi teamed up with Don Fujii to lose to "Akatsuki", the team of Shingo Takagi and Yamato in what turned out to be his last Dragon Gate match of 2012.