also briefly forming a trio with El Samurai, wrestling in mid-card tag team matches against teams such as Michiyoshi Ohara and Tatsutoshi Goto, Hiro Saito and Norio Honaga, Brad Armstrong and Scott Norton and others, but the team never proved to be any threat to the IWGP Tag Team titles, so they disbanded in 1996, with Nogami joining with Shiro Koshinaka's Heisei Ishingun, while Iizuka began teaming with Kazuo Yamazaki, together winning the IWGP Tag Team Championship on June 12, 1996. They held the championships for 34 days, before dropping them to Masahiro Chono and Hiroyoshi Tenzan. Name change and mid-card run (1995–2006) In October 1995, he changed his ring name from Takayuki to Takashi. In June 1996, he won his second IWGP Tag Team title, this time with another veteran, Kazuo Yamazaki. After losing the titles in July 1996 to Masahiro Chono and Hiroyoshi Tenzan, he was back in the mid-card. 2000 proved to be a great year for Iizuka: on January 4, he teamed with Shinya Hashimoto in a victorious match against Naoya Ogawa and Kazunari Murakami. On July 20, he finally received a shot at the IWGP Heavyweight Championship, despite a losing effort against Kensuke Sasaki. His successful year was capped off by winning the G1 Tag League tournament with Yuji Nagata in November. After that, Iizuka would suffer a major concussion in a match against Mitsuya Nagai on June 6, 2001, the injury would keep him out until October 6, 2002. Upon his return, he began a feud with Nagai, who by that point joined the Makai Club as Makai #5. The feud with go through the first quarter of 2003 with Iizuka eventually winning two three-match series against Nagai to end the feud. After the feud, he spent the next few years in the mid-card, as well as helping young talent in the New Japan Dojo. Friendship Tag (2008) On March 9, 2008, after Hiroyoshi Tenzan was attacked by the rest of Great Bash Heel once again just weeks after he had been kicked out of the stable, Iizuka came to his aid, clearing the ring of Tomoaki Honma, Gedo and Jado. Iizuka and Tenzan announced they would be forming a tag team to be known as "Friendship Tag". Friendship Tag proved to be successful, and they defeated Togi Makabe and a number of different partners in the lead up to April. G.B.H. and Chaos