Kaito Ishida

Ishida in December 2021

###

Oita-shi, Osaka, Japan

**Kaito Ishida** (石田凱士, *Ishida Kaito*, born December 19, 1995) is a Japanese professional wrestler who currently works for GLEAT, where he is a former one-time G-REX Champion. He is also the leader of the Black Generation stable.

Ishida formerly worked for Dragon Gate (DG), where he is a former three-time Open The Triangle Gate Champion, a former one-time Open The Brave Gate Champion and a former one-time Open The Twin Gate Champion.

Ishida was trained in the Dragon Gate Dojo alongside Takehiro Yamamura. The two would become part of the formation of Over Generation. While Yamamura managed to break out in singles competition, Ishida continued to wrestle on the undercard until Yamamura and several other wrestlers left Dragon Gate. As part of MaxiMuM, Ishida started being pushed before winning the Open The Brave Gate Championship in November. The following month, Ishida turned heel for the first time in his career joining R.E.D, this lead to his breakthrough as a singles competitor. After a year, Ishida lost the Open The Brave Gate Championship to Keisuke Okuda. At the end of 2021, Ishida held the Open The Twin and Open The Triangle Gate Championships. In July 2022, Ishida left the promotion.

Upon leaving Dragon Gate, Ishida made his debut in GLEAT on August 24, confronting G-REX Champion El Lindaman, Ishida began pursuing the G-REX Championship, winning it from Lindaman in January 2023, thus winning his first major championship. He would hold the title for three months before losing it on April.

## Early life

At the junior high school, he practiced baseball and at the High School Ishida went into Kickboxing gym while he had a part-time job. At first, he was on wrestling. He had an interest in wrestling and he used to watch Dragon Gate on the Gaora television after Ishida saw the main event of the Kobe Pro-Wrestling Festival 2010 it had a profound impact on him, and he soon began to dream of being a professional wrestler he wanted to become known as a powerful kicker like Masaaki Mochizuki and his father saw him graduate to wrestling.

## Professional Wrestling Career

### Dragon Gate (2015–2022)

#### Early career (2015–2018)

Ishida trained for his professional wrestling career in the Japanese promotion Dragon Gate's wrestling school called "Dragon Gate Nex", wrestling several exhibition bouts before officially debuting against fellow rookie Takehiro Yamamura on September 11, 2015 in a losing effort. Afterwards, Ishida began losing most of his matches to other, more experienced wrestlers, which would help put him over other wrestlers while at the same time give him some in-ring, televised, experience as is customary for most professional wrestlers. Throughout the year, Ishida often faced off against Yamamura, with both men trading victories in both singles and tag team competitions, before teaming together on a regular basis. On October 8, Ishida and Yamamura, formed a stable with CIMA, Eita, Gamma, El Lindaman, and Punch Tominaga, which was named Over Generation on November 1. Later that month, Ishida, CIMA and Yamamura took part in a tournament to crown the new Open the Triangle Gate Champions, eventually losing to VerserK (Naruki Doi, Shingo Takagi, and YAMATO) at the semifinals on December 5. In August 2016, Ishida and Yamamura took part in the 2016 Summer Adventure Tag League, finishing the tournament with a record of one win and five losses, failling to advance to the semifinals. On July 5, 2018, Over Generation was forced to disband after losing to ANTIAS in a Losing Unit Disbands Naniwa Elimination Rules Match.

#### MaxiMuM (2018–2019)

After the disbanding of Over Generation, Ishida aligned himself with former Over Generation stablemate Dragon Kid, beginning to campaign to join MaxiMuM, but were turned down, despite wearing their own MaxiMuM ring gear, buying their merchandise, and being in their corner for their matches. This led to them on October 7, being accepted as official members of MaxiMuM. In May 2019, Ishida took part in the 2019 King of Gate, finishing the tournament with a record of two wins and three losses, failing to advance to the semifinals tournament. On June 9, Ishida and Doi faced Tribe Vanguard (YAMATO and KAI) for the Open The Twin Gate Championship. During the match, Eita and Big R Shimizu, interfered in the match, causing the end in a no contest, while also claiming to be the next challengers. Tribe Vanguard and MaxiMuM weren't satisfied with the conclusion of the match and all teams wanted to face each other in a rematch, leading General Manager Takayuki Yagi making the match official of the event. On July 21, at Kobe Pro-Wrestling Festival, Ishida and Doi failed to capture the Open The Twin Gate Championship against YAMATO and KAI, in a match also invloving Eita and Shimizu.

Following the event, Ishida began to be more pushed up the card, leading on October 12, Ishida along with MaxiMuM stablemate Masato Yoshino faced Ben-K and Shun Skywalker, with Ishida scoring the win for the team after pinning Skywalker. Afterwards, Ishida challenged Susumu Yokosuka to a match for the Open The Brave Gate Championship, leading him to defeat Susumu Yokosuka to win the Open The Brave Gate Championship on November 4 at Gate of Destiny.

#### Heel turn (2019–2022)

On October 8, Eita announced that R.E.D would be joined by two new members, with their identity being kept in secret under the disguise of Dr. Muscle, known as the Green and Red Masked Demons, respectively. On December 4, Ishida revealed himself to be the Green Masked Demon, after being forced to take part in a match between MaxiMuM and Ultimo Drágon and R.E.D, blaming his former stablemates Naruki Doi and Masato Yoshino for trying to get revenge on R.E.D for Drágon. Afterwards, Ishida was attacked by his former stablemate Jason Lee, leading General Manager Takayuki Yagi to announced that Ishida would defend his title against Lee at Final Gate on December 15. At the event on December 15, Ishida defeated Lee, with the help of his R.E.D stablemates to make his first successful title defense. From May 16 until June 6, Ishida took part in the 2020 King of Gate. Despite defeating Open The Dream Gate Champion Naruki Doi in the quarterfinals, after Doi won a battle royal to return to the tournament, Ishida was defeated by Doi in the semifinals on June 6, eliminating him from the tournament. On November 3, at Gate of Destiny, Ishida lost the Open The Brave Championship to Keisuke Okuda, ending his reign at 364 days. Following the match, in a post-match interview, Ishida who was not satisfied with the referee stopping the match, confronted and challenged Okuda to a rematch, leading Okuda to accept under the condition that their match would the first match of the show, due to Ishida previously disrepcting Okuda's Dragon Gate stablemate Yosuke♡Santa Maria, claiming the he was only worthy of the opening match. On November 15 at Kobe Pro-Wrestling Festival, Ishida unsucessfully challenged Okuda for the Open The Brave Gate Championship.

In January 2021, through R.E.D's rivalry with the Masquerade stable, Ishida began feuding with Shun Skywalker. After working exclusively against each other in multi-man tag team matches for the last part of January, on January 31, Ishida announced that he wouldn't compete in the Open the Twin Gate #1 Contender's One Night Tournament in order to focuss his sights on the Open The Dream Gate Championship. Later that night, following a six-man tag team match between Masquerade and R.E.D, Ishida challenged Skywalker to a title match, dubbing him as a "Paper champion". Afterwards, Dragon Gate's General Manager Takayuki Yagi announced that the title match would take place on March 7 at Champion Gate in Osaka. On March 7 at Champions Gate in Osaka, Ishida unsucessfully challenged Skywalker for the Open The Dream Gate Championship. On May 5 at Dead or Alive, Ishida and his R.E.D stablemate Kazma Sakamoto defeated Masaaki Mochizuki and Takashi Yoshida to win the Open The Twin Gate Championship. They lost the titles to Natural Vibes (King Shimizu and Susumu Yokosuka). on July 31, at Kobe Pro-Wrestling Festival.

On September 20 at Dangerous Gate, Ishida and his R.E.D stablemates Eita and H.Y.O defeated Masquerade's Dragon Dia, Jason Lee and La Estrella to win the Open The Triangle Gate Championship. They lost the titles to Shun Skywalker, Jason Lee and Kota Minoura on December 15. Afterwards, H.Y.O began having a rift with Eita and Ishida, mostly due to Eita's appearances in other promotions.

#### Gold Class (2022)

On Janaury 12, 2022, Ishida and Eita began distacing themselves from H.Y.O, before winning the Open Triangle Gate Championship after defeating Masquerade's Jason Lee, Kota Minoura and Shun Skywalker. Following the match, Skywalker quit Masquerade, which in turn, led to H.Y.O to invite him to stable, with Skywalker accepting. However, Ishida and Eita were against his addition and Eita attempted to expel H.Y.O, leading the rest of R.E.D to turn on them

The following day, Ishida and Eita began proclaiming themselves as the real members of R.E.D, with the rest of stable being a fake version of R.E.D, before being joined by Yosuke♡Santa Maria. On February 4, Ishida formed a new stable with Naruki Doi and Kota Minoura, with the aim of reclaiming Dragon Gate's female fan demographic. On March 3, the stable was named "Gold Class", with the addition of a new member - Minorita, a repackage of rookie Takumi Hayakawa, meant to be a smaller and lighter version of Minoura. On March 5 at Champion Gate in Osaka, Ishida, Doi and Minoura defeated Natural Vibes (Kzy, U-T and Jacky "Funky" Kamei) to win the Open The Triangle Gate Championship. They lost the titles to Eita, Nosawa Rongai and Kotaro Suzuki on May 5 at Dead or Alive. Later that month, Ishida took part in the 2022 King of Gate, being eliminated in the quarterfinals by Shuji Kondo.

On July 24, Dragon Gate announced that Ishida had requested to leave the promotion. The following day, despite attempting to convince him to stay, Dragon Gate confirmed that Ishida would leaving Dragon Gate effective immediately.

### GLEAT (2022–Present)

On August 24, after El Lindaman retained the G-REX Championship against DOUKI, Ishida made his debut confronting El Lindaman. On January 8, at GLEAT Ver. 5, Ishida defeated Lindaman to win the G-REX Championship, thus winning his first world champion. He would lose the title to T-Hawk on April 12 at GLEAT Ver. 49 - Invader.

## In wrestling

* **Finishing moves**
	+ Ankle lock
	+ Bridging tiger suplex
* **Signature moves**
	+ *1sec* (Tilt-a-whirl headscissors transitioned into a wheelbarrow victory roll)
	+ German suplex
	+ Half tiger suplex
	+ Multiple kick variations
		- Buzzsaw
		- Calf
		- Drop, sometimes from the top rope
		- Enzuigiri
		- High
		- *Gamengiri* (Jumping high)
		- Low
		- Middle
		- Roundhouse
		- Rolling savate
		- Soccer
		- Super
		- Spinning heel
		- Spinning low
		- *Tornado Effect* (Jumping corkscrew roundhouse)
* **Nicknames**
	+ **"Just a Kick Boy"**
* **Entrance themes**
	+ "Dragon Storm 2007 (Instrumental Version)" by JAM Project
	+ "7 Seas World" by YATSUKA (used while part of Over Generation)
	+ "Just a Kick Boy" by KOLDRYDE
	+ **"Never Stop Kicking"** by Kota Aoki
	+ "1st FINGER" by 21g (used while part of MaxiMuM)
	+ "Delight Extra Realize" (2nd version) by YO-HEI (used while part of R.E.D)

## Championships and Accomplishments

* **All Japan Pro Wrestling**
	+ Jr. Tag Battle Of Glory (2023) – with Kotaro Suzuki
* **Dragon Gate**
	+ Open The Brave Gate Championship (1 time)
	+ Open The Twin Gate Championship (1 time) – with Kazma Sakamoto
	+ Open The Triangle Gate Championship (3 times) – with Eita and H.Y.O (2) and Kota Minoura with Minorita and Naruki Doi (1)
	+ Ashiyanikki Cup 6 Man Tag Team Tournament (2019) – with Naruki Doi and Masato Yoshino
	+ Rookie Ranking Tournament: Second place
	+ Best Bout Award (2020) R.E.D vs. Toryumon Generation on December 20
* **GLEAT**
	+ G-REX Championship (1 time)
* **Wrestling Observer Newsletter**
	+ 4½ Star Match (2020) R.E.D vs. Toryumon Generation on December 20