Tokyo Gurentai
Now free, Sakata teamed up with other unaligned wrestlers like Mark Coleman, Takehiro Murahama and Ryoji Sai, which he called unofficially "Sakata Army". His team grew stronger, winning the Hustle Tag Team Championship from Genichiro Tenryu and Tadao Yasuda and later adding Tenryu himself when Sakata lost a match to him and asked him to be the stable's advisor. Wataru also gained the support of Yuko Aoki as his valet for a time after saving her from a beatdown by general manager Hiroko Suzuki. However, his momentum came to an end after Sakata received a knee injury (kayfabe) by Kawada, which stunted his performance; this made them lose the titles against Erika and Margaret, as well as the finals of the Hustle King Memorial tournament. Enraged for the loss, Tenryu turned against him and left Sakata Army to join Monster Army, leaving the stable further depowered. In order to recover from those failures, Wataru introduced himself as a candidate to the new general manager job, which he shockingly won after a fan poll, and also enlisted the help of former GM assistant RG. However, Sakata was then challenged by Tokyo Gurentai and their associate Minoru Suzuki, who defeated Wataru and his group in Hustlemania 2006. Again, the loss made Sakata and RG break up, and they feuded with each other for some time with the help of Suzuki. In early 2007, after being repeatedly beaten down by Tiger Jeet Singh, Wataru finally came to his senses and re-joined the Hustle Army, bringing Ryoji Sai with him.