Shinsuke Nakamura
On January 4, 2008, at Wrestle Kingdom II in Tokyo Dome, Yano and Makabe were defeated by Team 3D (Brother Devon and Brother Ray), representing American promotion Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA). However, Yano and Makabe bounced back quickly and on February 17 they defeated Giant Bernard and Travis Tomko to win the IWGP Tag Team Championship for the first time. They would successfully defend the titles against the teams of Giant Bernard and Shinsuke Nakamura, Hiroyoshi Tenzan and Takashi Iizuka, Giant Bernard and Rick Fuller, Shinsuke Nakamura and Hirooki Goto and Manabu Nakanishi and Yutaka Yoshie, before entering the 2008 G1 Tag League in October. After four victories out of five in the round-robin stage, Yano and Makabe advanced to the semifinals, where they defeated the team of Shinsuke Nakamura and Hirooki Goto. However, on November 5, Yano and Makabe were defeated in the final match by Satoshi Kojima and Hiroyoshi Tenzan. Yano and Makabe's IWGP title reign of 322 days came to an end on January 4, 2009, when they were defeated by Team 3D for the second year in a row at Wrestle Kingdom III in Tokyo Dome.