Takuya Sugawara
On 21 September 2008, Akebono appeared in the Battle Royal of Dragon Gate's Storm Gate 2008 event, which was won by Akira Tozawa. Akebono made some more appearances, defeating the likes of Stalker Ichikawa, Don Fujii and Masaaki Mochizuki. That month, Akebono, Mochizuki and Fujii agreed to form a trio called Chou Zetsurins to face the team of World-1 (BxB Hulk, Masato Yoshino and PAC) for the Open the Triangle Gate Championship, but were defeated. On 14 October 2009, however, Chou Zetsurins finally won the titles, and defended them until May 2010, when they were defeated by Deep Drunkers (Kzy, Takuya Sugawara and Yasushi Kanda).