Masato Onodera - Career - Dragon Gate

Dragon Gate

The 5th graduate of the Dragon Gate dojo, Onodera had previous professional fighting experience competing under his real name in Pancrase and was recruited into Final M2K directly after his debut. Yasushi Kanda gave him his "Gekokujoh" character, and inherited a lot of the Gekokujoh-era moves that Kanda had used during his own career. He later chose to leave Final M2K so he could grow along his own path, which was one of the reasons for the M2K break-up.

He won the first NEX-1 tournament, which earned him the right to travel to the U.S. His stay was brief, at under three months. He returned in May, aligning with his generation peers Shingo Takagi, BxB Hulk & Cyber Kong in New Hazard, dropping the Gekokujoh lineage completely and renaming himself to YAMATO.

He appeared in Ring Of Honor's All Star Extravaganza III and Super Card of Honor II. He defeated Pelle Primeau and was beaten by Claudio Castagnoli during a U.S. tour.

On April 17, 2008, YAMATO betrayed New Hazard and sided with the Muscle Outlaw'z after he attacked his partner Naoki Tanisaki in a tag match against Gamma and Genki Horiguchi. However, the betrayal was a ruse, for on May 14, Takagi and Kong betrayed Hulk before the trio were scheduled to defend their Open the Triangle Gate titles against YAMATO, Gamma & Horiguchi. New Hazard was ended, and Takagi and Kong joined up with YAMATO and company to form the new super-heel group Real Hazard. Then, he, Gamma, and Takagi won the newly-vacant Open the Triangle Gate titles in an impromptu match against Hulk, Naruki Doi & Masato Yoshino. Their title reign lasted until June 28, when they were defeated by Keni'chiro Arai, Taku Iwasa & Shinobu. However, he would win them back from them on July 12, along with Yasushi Kanda & Gamma, and the trio would lose the titles to Masaaki Mochizuki, Don Fujii & Magnitude Kishiwada on September 28. But, YAMATO would not be without a championship for long, for a week later, he teamed with Cyber Kong to defeat Naruki Doi & Masato Yoshino for the Open the Twin Gate Titles.

When Gamma and Yasushi Kanda began to have serious problems with each other, he helped organize a match between them where the loser would be kicked out of Real Hazard. Even though Kanda lost, Gamma ended up being the one ousted from the unit, after Keni'chiro Arai joined the group's ranks and assisted them in beating down Gamma. YAMATO then took over Gamma's role as leader.

On March 1, he and Cyber Kong would lose the Open the Twin Gate titles to Susumu Yokosuka & Gamma after stablemate KAGETORA interfered and turned on them. He then began to provoke BxB Hulk, and even offered him to join Real Hazard under his Black Hulk persona. Hulk responded by randomly attacking members of Real Hazard as Black Hulk, dominating each attack until April 15, when Real Hazard got the better of him and laid him out. YAMATO then challenged him to a match, and said he did not care whether Hulk fought him as Black Hulk or his normal self. The match, held on May 5, saw BxB Hulk as Black Hulk beat him by referee stoppage.

Shortly after this, a lot of friendly fire began to occur between Real Hazard in their matches. On May 23, YAMATO told the group not to interfere in his match the next day against Shingo Takagi. However, Kanda still hits Takagi with a blue box and then tossed the box to YAMATO. A disappointed YAMATO refused to use the blue box and even gave Takagi a free shot on him due to the interference. In the end, YAMATO lost the match. The refusal of help from his stable caused Genki Horiguchi to question his reasoning. He then went to New Japan Pro Wrestling to compete in their annual Best Of The Super Juniors tournament, hoping tensions would've cooled down by the time he returned to Dragon Gate. Though he was eliminated from contention in the round-robin portion of the tournament, only winning two of six matches, his two wins came against junior heavyweight greats Jushin Liger and eventual winner Koji Kanemoto. When he returned to Dragon Gate, he continually refused to team with his Real Hazard stablemates, and finally quit the group altogether on June 26.

He joined up with KAMIKAZE and re-formed his team with Shingo Takagi, and they made a challenge for Ryo Saito & Genki Horiguchi's Open the Twin Gate Titles on July 19. They failed to capture the titles due to him being blinded by a protein powder attack from Keni'chiro Arai. However, they would gain another title shot in August, after winning the annual Summer Adventure Tag League Tournament, and they would win the titles a month later. They would lose the titles to CIMA & Gamma on December 27.

On March 22, 2010, YAMATO defeated Naruki Doi via Gallaria to become the 11th Open the Dream Gate Champion at Compilation Gate 2010 in Tokyo. Following this match, YAMATO enjoyed three successful title defenses against Susumu Yokosuka, Shingo Takagi and Masaaki Mochizuki. On July 11, 2010, YAMATO lost the Open the Dream Gate Championship to Masato Yoshino at Kobe World 2010. On May 13, 2011, Takagi disbanded KAMIKAZE and the following day both him and YAMATO joined Masaaki Mochizuki's new stable, Junction Three, to battle CIMA's Blood Warriors. On June 18, YAMATO, Gamma and Yoshino defeated the Blood Warriors team of CIMA, Naruki Doi and BxB Hulk to win the vacant Open the Triangle Gate Championship. They would go on to lose the title to the Blood Warriors team of Kzy, Naoki Tanisaki and Naruki Doi on September 2. On October 16, YAMATO lost his hair to Cyber Kong in a six-way steel cage Hair vs. Hair match. On February 9, 2012, Junction Three was forced to disband, after losing a fourteen man elimination tag team match to Blood Warriors. On April 19, 2012, YAMATO, alongside Shingo Takagi joined with Dragon Gate NEX Member Chihiro Tominaga, and the debuting Super Shenlong III and formed -akatsuki-. On July 22, 2012, YAMATO and Shingo Takagi defeated Jimmy KAGETORA and Jimmy Susumu to become the 22nd Open the Twin Gate Champions. They lost the title to Don Fujii and Masaaki Mochizuki on September 23, 2012.