Takeshi Rikio
On June 14, reigning GHC Heavyweight Champion Jun Akiyama was forced to vacate the title due to herniated discs in his back. As a result, Shiozaki was nominated by Akiyama to wrestle for the title against the number one contender Takeshi Rikio. After a hard-fought twenty-minute match, Shiozaki managed to defeat Rikio to become the new GHC Heavyweight Champion. He then went on to successfully defend his title for the first time on September 27 against Akitoshi Saito. However his second title defense was unsuccessful as on December 6, Shiozaki lost the World Heavyweight title to Takashi Sugiura on the last date of the 2009 Winter Navigation tour. On May 23, 2010 Shiozaki teamed up with Atsushi Aoki to defeat Takeshi Morishima and Taiji Ishimori to win the AAA World Tag Team Championship during Pro Wrestling Noah's Navigation with Breeze show in Niigata, Niigata, Japan. As a result of the victory, Shiozaki and Aoki were scheduled to defend the title during AAA's Triplemania XVIII show. At TripleMania, Shiozaki and Aoki were the first team eliminated when Joe Lider pinned Shiozaki. The match and the title were ultimately won by Los Maniacos (Silver Cain and Último Gladiador). In August 2010 Shiozaki took part in New Japan Pro-Wrestling's 2010 G1 Climax tournament, where he won four out of his seven-round robin stage matches, only to narrowly miss the finals of the tournament after wrestling Shinsuke Nakamura to a 30-minute time limit draw on the final day of the tournament. The draw with Nakamura led to a No Time Limit match at a Pro Wrestling Noah show on August 22, where Shiozaki was victorious. Shiozaki and Nakamura had their third match on January 4, 2011, at New Japan's Wrestle Kingdom V in Tokyo Dome, where Nakamura was victorious. Shiozaki regained the GHC Heavyweight Title by defeating Takashi Sugiura on July 10, 2011. On January 4, 2012, Shiozaki returned to New Japan at Wrestle Kingdom VI in Tokyo Dome, where he and Naomichi Marufuji defeated CHAOS Top Team (Shinsuke Nakamura and Toru Yano) in a tag team match. On January 22, Shiozaki lost the GHC Heavyweight Championship to Takeshi Morishima. On October 26, Shiozaki and Akitoshi Saito defeated Kenta and Maybach Taniguchi to win the GHC Tag Team Championship. On December 3, 2012, it was reported that Shiozaki had threatened to not re-sign with Noah after his contract expires in January 2013, when the promotion decided to release Kenta Kobashi from his contract. Six days later, Shiozaki and Saito lost the GHC Tag Team Championship to Naomichi Marufuji and Takashi Sugiura. On December 19, Noah confirmed that Shiozaki would be leaving the promotion following December 24. On December 24, Shiozaki defeated Taiji Ishimori in his final Noah match.