Ben-K

Futa Nakamura (中村風太, Nakamura Futa, born October 10, 1991) is a Japanese

Less than a month after Ben-K joined, Antias was renamed to R.E.D. with Eita taking over as the leader, and on September 24, Ben-K challenged his former friend and MaxiMuM stablemate Masato Yoshino to a match for his Open the Dream Gate Championship, which Yoshino accepted. In his second shot at the title, Ben was defeated by Yoshino at The Gate of Destiny on November 4.^[28][29] On December 23 at Final Gate, Big Ben won the vacant Twin Gate titles in a four-way match.^[30][31] In January, Shimizu accidentally attacked Ben-K during a match and almost cost his team the victory in their match against MaxiMuM.^[32] This led to tension between Shimizu and Eita, with the rest of the group siding with Eita and turning their back on Shimizu.^[33] On February 10, Big Ben were wrestling against Kai and U-T when Eita cost them the match by hitting Ben-K with a chair.^[34] This led to Ben-K being the only R.E.D. member to side with Shimizu. On March 3, Big Ben defeated U-T and Kai in a rematch, this time with the Twin Gate titles on the line.^[35][36] On March 7, Ben accidentally caused R.E.D. to lose a four-way sixteen-man tag team elimination match by attacking Yasushi Kanda. With Dead or Alive coming up, general manager Takayuki Yagi announced that there would be a series of tag team matches putting members of every unit against each other, with the member who earned the pinfall representing their team in the Dead or Alive steel cage match. On April 10, Big Ben defeated Eita and Takashi Yoshida, with Shimizu pinning Eita and earning his way into Dead or Alive.^[37][38] In the lead up to Dead or Alive, Big Ben would finally drop the Twin Gate titles after Eita once again cost them the match by hitting Ben with a chair on April 28.^[39] At Dead or Alive on May 6, Eita and Ben attempted to put their differences aside and co-exist in a tag match against MaxiMuM's Kaito Ishida and Masato Yoshino, however, Ben finally had enough and speared Eita during the match, purposefully costing them the win.^[40][41] Later in the night, Big R was defeated in Dead or Alive, and by stipulation was forced to kick a member out of R.E.D. Expecting him to pick Eita, Ben was blindsided when the rest of the group attacked him and kicked him out of the group, revealing all tensions between Shimizu and Eita had been an elaborate ruse to get Ben, whom they viewed as the "weak link", kicked out of R.E.D. This subsequently turned Ben face.^[41]

Open the Dream Gate Champion (2019–present)

After being kicked out of R.E.D., Ben-K declared himself a lone wolf, and chose not to join any other stables. He entered the King of Gate for the third time and dominated, going undefeated in all his block matches and beating

• Dragon Gate
  • 1 time)^[48]
  • Open the Triangle Gate Championship (3 times, current) – with Big R Shimizu and Naruki Doi (1),^[49] with Strong Machine J and Dragon Dia (1), and BxB Hulk and Kota Minoura (1, current)
  • Open the Twin Gate Championship (2 times) – with Big R Shimizu (2)^[50]
  • King of Gate (2019)^[51]
• Pro Wrestling Illustrated
  • Ranked No. 273 of the top 500 singles wrestlers in the PWI 500 in 2019^[52]

References