longtime right-hand man Masayuki Uchida, in the process, which led to Muto resigning from the promotion, effective June 30, 2013. Sporadic appearances in NJPW 2004–2005 Muto returned to NJPW as a member of the All Japan roster at Wrestling World on January 4, 2004, to team with Bob Sapp to defeat Cho-Ten. Muto next appeared at Pro-Wrestlers Be Strongest by teaming with Osamu Nishimura in a loss to Hiroshi Tanahashi and Shinsuke Nakamura. Muto would wrestle only one match for NJPW in 2005 at Nexess VI, where he defeated Ron Waterman. 2007–2009 He then appeared at Wrestle Kingdom I in 2007 where he reunited with former partner and rival Masahiro Chono to defeat Tencozy in a "Super Dream Tag match" pitting NJPW and AJPW wrestlers together. On January 4, 2008, at Wrestle Kingdom II in Tokyo Dome, under the Great Muta persona, he defeated Hirooki Goto. On April 27, Muto defeated Shinsuke Nakamura to win his fourth IWGP Heavyweight Championship, this was his second appearance in 2008 for NJPW and he had not held the title for eight years and four months prior to the win. After retaining the title against Manabu Nakanishi and Togi Makabe, Muta defended the title against former champion Shinsuke Nakamura at Destruction on October 13 and retained following a Frankensteiner. He would lose the title to his former student Hiroshi Tanahashi at Wrestle Kingdom III on January 4, 2009 after Tanahashi used his signature High Fly Flow twice to get the pin. After the match, Muto said backstage that he had passed Tanahashi his sash after doing his best for over half a year to raise the worth of the title, and suggested that he would withdraw and leave New Japan to move their company forward. Muto would make his second appear in NJPW on October 12 to commemorate Masahiro Chono's twenty-fifth year in professional wrestling as Muto teamed with Chono and Kenta Kobashi to defeat Jun Akiyama, Manabu Nakanishi and Satoshi Kojima in a six-man tag team match. 2012–2014 On January 4, 2012, Muto made a return to New Japan at Wrestle Kingdom VI in Tokyo Dome, where he defeated Tetsuya Naito in a singles match. A year later at Wrestle Kingdom 7 in Tokyo Dome, Muto teamed with Shinjiro Otani, a replacement for an injured Daichi Hashimoto, in a tag team match, where they were defeated by Hiroyoshi Tenzan and Satoshi Kojima. Muto