Matt Bloom - Professional Wrestling Career - New Japan Pro Wrestling - Bad Intentions (2009–2012)

Bad Intentions (2009–2012)

In 2009, after betraying Togi Makabe, Bernard and the rest of GBH left the stable to join Shinsuke Nakamura and form the new stable known as CHAOS. Bernard formed the tag team Bad Intentions with CHAOS partner Karl Anderson and together the two of them went on to win the 2009 G1 Climax Tag League, defeating Apollo 55 (Prince Devitt and Ryusuke Taguchi) in the finals of the tournament on November 1. They went on to challenge for the IWGP Tag Team Championship, but their match with the defending champions Team 3D (Brother Ray and Brother Devon) ended in a double countout. In April 2010 both Bernard and Anderson left CHAOS, when the stable turned on them.

Through New Japan's working agreement with Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre, Bloom did his first tour of Mexico in May 2010 under the ring name Gigante Bernard. He managed to win six successive Two-out-of-Three Falls Tag Team matches in two straight falls, before losing his final match of the tour on June 11 via disqualification. Upon his return to Japan, Bernard and Anderson defeated the teams of Blue Justice Army (Yuji Nagata and Wataru Inoue) and No Limit (Tetsuya Naitō and Yujiro Takahashi) in a three-way elimination match on June 19 to win the IWGP Tag Team Championship. Bad Intentions made their first successful defense of the IWGP Tag Team Championship on July 19, defeating the Blue Justice Army and No Limit in a three-way "Dogfight". In late October Bad Intentions entered the 2010 G1 Climax Tag League, where, after three wins and two losses, they finished second in their block. This put them in the semi-finals where, on November 7, they were defeated by eventual winners Yuji Nagata and Wataru Inoue. On January 4, 2011 at Wrestle Kingdom V in Tokyo Dome, Bad Intentions successfully defended the IWGP Tag Team Championship in a three–way match against Beer Money, Inc. (James Storm and Robert Roode) and Muscle Orchestra (Manabu Nakanishi and Strong Man). On May 3, Bad Intentions defeated No Limit to make their seventh successful IWGP Tag Team Championship defense, tying the record for most defenses, set by Hiroyoshi Tenzan and Masahiro Chono.

Bad Intentions made their record breaking eight successful IWGP Tag Team Championship defense on June 18 against Pro Wrestling Noah's Takuma Sano and Yoshihiro Takayama, and in the process also became the new GHC Tag Team Champions. After the main event of the show, Bernard challenged Hiroshi Tanahashi for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship, but Tanahashi would only accept the challenge if Bad Intentions could beat him in a match for the IWGP Tag Team Championship, alongside the man he just defeated - Hirooki Goto. On July 3 Bernard and Anderson successfully defended the IWGP Tag Team Championship against Tanahashi and Goto. By winning, Bernard earned an IWGP Heavyweight Championship match against Tanahashi on July 18, but failed.

On July 23, Bad Intentions made an appearance for Pro Wrestling Noah, making their first successful defense of the GHC Tag Team Championship against the team of Takeshi Morishima and Yutaka Yoshie. On September 9, Bad Intentions became the longest reigning IWGP Tag Team Champions, breaking the previous record of 446 days set by Tenzan and Chono in 2003. Bad Intentions made their second GHC Tag Team Championship defense on October 31, defeating Go Shiozaki and Shuhei Taniguchi at a Pro Wrestling Noah event. During New Japan's 2011 G1 Climax Tag League, Bad Intentions suffered their first tag team loss in a year, when they were defeated by the Complete Players (Masato Tanaka and Yujiro Takahashi), but still managed to win their four other matches and advance to the semifinals of the tournament. On November 6, after defeating the Billion Powers (Hirooki Goto and Hiroshi Tanahashi) in the semifinals, Bad Intentions was defeated in the final of the 2011 G1 Climax by the Suzukigun (Minoru Suzuki and Lance Archer). On November 12, Bad Intentions made their tenth successful IWGP Tag Team Championship defense against Archer and Suzuki.

On January 4, 2012 at Wrestle Kingdom VI in Tokyo Dome, Bad Intentions lost the IWGP Tag Team Championship to Ten-Koji (Hiroyoshi Tenzan and Satoshi Kojima), ending their record-setting reign at 564 days. They followed suit with their other title on January 22, losing the GHC Tag Team Championship to Akitoshi Saito and Jun Akiyama.