Toru Yano

In April 2001 Yano entered New Japan Pro-Wrestling's amateur wrestling section, the Toukon Club, in order to become a professional wrestler.

He formally joined New Japan in January 2002 and began training full-time for his debut.

He would make his debut on May 18, 2002, coincidentally on his 24th birthday, in a match, where he was defeated by his classmate Blue Wolf.

On August 31, 2003, Yano ventured into the world of mixed martial arts, when he competed in a match for Pancrase.

Yano lost his to date only MMA fight to Osami Shibuya via submission to an armbar in the second round.

After steadily climbing the ranks in New Japan for nearly two years, Yano turned heel in early 2004 and changed his look by dying his hair blonde.

From April to July 2004, Yano went on a long streak of losing matches via disqualification.

After a learning excursion to the United States in early 2005, Yano joined Masahiro Chono's Black New Japan stable and formed a tag team with Tomohiro Ishii.

In June Yano made it to the finals of a tournament for the vacant IWGP U-30 Openweight Championship, but was defeated by Hiroshi Tanahashi.

After a disappointing performance in the 2005 G1 Climax, Yano traveled to Germany in October 2005 to compete for European Wrestling Promotion, where he would win his first professional wrestling championship, the EWP Tag Team Championship, teaming with Kendo Kashin.

When Yano returned to Japan the following month, he was a changed man, becoming a more serious competitor no longer seeking to break rules.

However, when this change failed to bring him any success, Yano reverted to his cheating ways in early 2006 and, together with Ishii, Togi Makabe, Shiro Koshinaka and Tomoaki Honma joined Hiroyoshi Tenzan to form the Great Bash Heel (G.B.H.) stable in December.

In the summer of 2006 Yano took part in New Japan's invasion of Apache Pro-Wrestling Army and on July 29, he defeated Kintaro Kanemura to win the promotion's main title, the WEW Heavyweight Championship, his first title in Japan.

The following month Yano took part in the 2007 G1 Climax, this time picking up victories over Manabu Nakanishi and Shiro Koshinaka, but missed the finals of the tournament by a single point after drawing with Hiroshi Tanahashi.

After the tournament Yano lost the WEW Heavyweight Championship to Mammoth Sasaki on September 23, 2007.

In October Yano entered the 2007 G1 Tag League, teaming with Togi Makabe, who had overthrown Tenzan as the leader of G.B.H., instead of regular tag team partner Ishii.

The two of them would go on to win four out of their seven matches in the round-robin stage of the tournament and thus made it to the semifinals, where they would be defeated by the eventual winners of the entire tournament, Giant Bernard and Travis Tomko.

After the tournament Yano and Makabe remained together as a tag team, naming their team The Most Violent Players.

On January 4, 2008, at Wrestle Kingdom II in Tokyo Dome, Yano and Makabe were defeated by Team 3D (Brother Devon and Brother Ray), representing American promotion Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA).

However, Yano and Makabe bounced back quickly and on February 17 they defeated Giant Bernard and Travis Tomko to win the IWGP Tag Team Championship for the first time.

They would successfully defend the titles against the teams of Giant Bernard and Shinsuke Nakamura, Hiroyoshi Tenzan and Takashi Iizuka, Giant Bernard and Rick Fuller, Shinsuke Nakamura and Hirooki Goto and Manabu Nakanishi and Yutaka Yoshie, before entering the 2008 G1 Tag League in October.

After four victories out of five in the round-robin stage, Yano and Makabe advanced to the semifinals, where they defeated the team of Shinsuke Nakamura and Hirooki Goto.

However, on November 5, Yano and Makabe were defeated in the final match by Satoshi Kojima and Hiroyoshi Tenzan.

Yano and Makabe's IWGP title reign of 322 days came to an end on January 4, 2009, when they were defeated by Team 3D for the second year in a row at Wrestle Kingdom III in Tokyo Dome.

In April 2009, Yano turned on Makabe and together with the rest of G.B.H., excluding Tomoaki Honma, left the stable to join Shinsuke Nakamura and form the new heel stable Chaos, with Nakamura as the leader.

When Makabe returned from his injury, suffered at the hands of Yano, he was looking for revenge on his former tag team partner.

After several tag team matches, Yano and Makabe were finally booked in a singles match on June 20, where Yano would come out victorious.

In the 2010 G1 Tag League Yano teamed up with Shinsuke Nakamura and together the two of them would make it to the semifinals before suffering an upset loss against the Junior Heavyweight tag team Apollo 55 (Prince Devitt and Ryusuke Taguchi).

In early 2010 Yano began feuding with Hiroshi Tanahashi, starting on January 30, when he pinned Tanahashi in tag team match.

Tanahashi would avenge his loss in a singles match on February 14, but was after the match jumped by Yano and Masato Tanaka, who then proceeded to cut off some of his hair.

On May 3 Yano took arguably the biggest victory of his career by defeating the former four-time IWGP Heavyweight Champion Tanahashi in a singles match, after which the two of them were booked in a final Hair vs. Hair match for June 19.

On June 19 at Dominion 6.19, Tanahashi defeated Yano, but despite his loss, Yano and his Chaos ally Takashi Iizuka attacked Tanahashi after the match and went to cut his hair, before being stopped by Tajiri, who took care of Iizuka and helped Tanahashi shave Yano's hair to end their feud.

Yano then moved on to feuding with Tajiri.

Tajiri, Kushida and Tanahashi eliminated Yano and his Chaos partners Iizuka and Gedo from the J Sports Crown Openweight 6 Man Tag Tournament on June 28, 2010, but on July 19 Yano defeated Tajiri via submission in a singles match in less than six minutes to seemingly end their feud.

Toru Yano (矢野 通), is a Japanese professional wrestler, trained by and currently signed to New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), where he was the KOPW 2020 and the KOPW 2021.

He is a four time NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Champion.

He is also a three-time IWGP Tag Team Champion and two-time GHC Tag Team Champion.

He is mainly known as a comic relief wrestler, often cheating in an attempt to secure quick wins in his matches.

Though often positioned below NJPW's top wrestlers, Yano has gained a reputation as a spoiler, occasionally scoring upset wins over bigger names and feuding with other elite wrestlers.

Yano was a decorated Greco-Roman wrestler, while studying in Nihon University, winning several amateur titles.