Shibata made his professional wrestling debut on October 10, 1999, facing close friend Wataru Inoue at a New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) event.

Shibata and Inoue also challenged for the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship on two occasions both against Jado & Gedo, but lost both times.

[13] One month later, he entered the 2004 G1 Climax and won his block scoring eight points and defeated several former IWGP Champions including Masahiro Chono, Shinsuke Nakamura, and Genichiro Tenryu but would lose in the semi-finals to eventual winner: Hiroyoshi Tenzan.

On December 31, 2011, Shibata returned to professional wrestling to compete on the Inoki Genome Federation's (IGF) Fight For Japan: Genki Desu Ka Omisoka 2011 year end event.

[20] Shibata and Sakuraba, collectively dubbed Laughter7,[21] continued their winning ways at the following two pay-per-views, King of Pro-Wrestling on October 8 and Power Struggle on November 11, both times defeating the team of Togi Makabe and Wataru Inoue.

[25] Shibata and Sakuraba returned to their winning ways at the following New Japan pay-per-view, The New Beginning on February 10, where they defeated Hirooki Goto and Wataru Inoue in a tag team match.

[32] On September 8, Shibata and Sakuraba took part in the Wrestle-1 promotion's inaugural event, defeating Masakatsu Funaki and Masayuki Kono in a tag team match.

[34] On January 4, 2014, at Wrestle Kingdom 8 in Tokyo Dome, Shibata was defeated by Hirooki Goto, who was returning from an injury, which had kept him sidelined for the past five months.

[36][37] The two quickly entered the IWGP Tag Team Championship picture, defeating the reigning champions, Bullet Club (Doc Gallows and Karl Anderson), in a non-title match at New Japan's 42nd anniversary event on March 6.

[38] Shibata also expressed interest in challenging for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship, but was told by the reigning champion, Kazuchika Okada, to earn his title shot at the 2014 New Japan Cup.

[39] Shibata, however, failed in his attempt to win the tournament, losing to Shelton X Benjamin in his second round match on March 22.

[40] On April 6 at Invasion Attack 2014, Shibata and Goto received a shot at the IWGP Tag Team Championship, but were defeated by Gallows and Anderson.

[50] On December 7, Shibata and Goto defeated Doc Gallows and Karl Anderson in the finals to win the 2014 World Tag League.

[61] On January 4, 2016, at Wrestle Kingdom 10, Shibata won his first singles title in NJPW, when he defeated Tomohiro Ishii for the NEVER Openweight Championship.

[65][66] Shibata made his next title defenses against NJPW veterans, defeating Satoshi Kojima on March 19 and Hiroyoshi Tenzan on April 10.

[73] Through NJPW's relationship with Ring of Honor (ROH), Shibata made his debut for the American promotion on August 19 at Death Before Dishonor XIV, where he defeated Silas Young.

[76] The following month at King of Pro-Wrestling, Shibata also successfully defended the title against Fish's tag team partner Kyle O'Reilly.

[77] After this, he made a brief return to Pro Wrestling Noah as part of their working relationship with New Japan Pro Wrestling, teaming with Juice Robinson in a victory against Go Shiozaki and Mayback Taniguchi on October 22 at Autumn Navigation 2016 Day 6, and defeating Go Shiozaki in a singles match on October 23, at Great Voyage 2016 in Yokohoma Vol.

On March 4, in the midst of his recovery, it was announced that Shibata would be the head coach for New Japan's new dojo located in Los Angeles, California, where he trained the likes of Karl Fredericks, Clark Connors and Alex Coughlin.

At Power Struggle, Shibata was once again ambushed by KENTA during the main event of Jay White and Hirooki Goto as he was attempting to aid his former tag partner.

On the final night of G1 Climax 31 on October 21, 2021, Shibata wrestled Zack Sabre Jr. in a 5-minute UWF rules exhibition which ended in a draw.

[91] In addition to the United States, through their working relationship with NJPW, he debuted for UK-based Revolution Pro Wrestling (RPW) at their Summer Sizzler 2016 event on July 10, unsuccessfully challenging Zack Sabre Jr. for the British Heavyweight Championship.

[96] Shibata made his return to RPW at the company's 11th anniversary show on August 26, 2023, teaming with El Phantasmo to defeat Bullet Club War Dogs, David Finlay and Gabriel Kidd.

[97] On June 26, 2022, Shibata appeared at AEW x NJPW: Forbidden Door to save Orange Cassidy from a post-match beatdown from United Empire.

Shibata made his televised AEW return on the June 2, 2023 edition of Rampage, defeating Lee Moriarty to retain his ROH Pure Championship.

On the May 1 episode of Dynamite, Shibata failed to win the FTW Championship from "The Learning Tree" Chris Jericho after interference from Big Bill.

"[105] Shibata returned to NJPW on January 4, 2025 at Wrestle Kingdom 19, where he came to the aid of Hiroshi Tanahashi from an attack by House of Torture.

[107] Shibata debuted in mixed martial arts on May 15, 2004, at JF Jungle Fights 2 where he defeated Webster Dauphiney by an arm triangle choke in Round 1.

In a shocking start, Shibata charged across the ring and almost fell through the ropes when Sakurai dodged him, and then unloaded all his offensive with the intention to end the fight early, but Hayato took him down and punished him methodically until the stoppage.

After going winless for two years, Shibata would score his biggest victory to date at Dream 8 when he defeated Ikuhisa Minowa by Unanimous Decision.