Booked as a resilient jobber by AJPW founder Giant Baba, he became a key major figure in the shift between old wrestlers to younger ones in the turn of the Super World of Sports exodus.

He became successful as a singles wrestling star later on, usually by his determination and performance in highly acclaimed matches, usually for the Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship or in the Champion Carnival tournament.

Kobashi continues to make sporadic appearances in Noah, as well as DDT Pro-Wrestling, whilst also promoting his own shows under the Fortune Dream banner.

The match featured the then-rising star Jumbo Tsuruta versus Mexican luchador enmascarado Mil Mascaras at the Denen Coliseum in August 1977, shown on the pro wrestling block on NTV.

To practice for pro wrestling, Eiji and Kenta constructed a custom-made can replica of the NWA World's Heavyweight Championship belt to use for their exhibition "title" matches.

After being in contact with International Wrestling Enterprise referee Mitsuo Endo, he was set up to do an interview at the Shiga Prefectural Gymnasium in Otsu on May 26, which happened to be with Shohei "Giant" Baba, the founder and then-head booker and chief executive officer of AJPW.

Sonoda died on South African Airways Flight 295 on November 28, and after having an argument with Baba, was sworn under pressure to be trained exclusively for a time by Fuchi.

It was all part of Baba's master plan: even in defeat, the fiery, charismatic Kobashi shined and his gutsy, never-say-die efforts earned him Rookie of the Year awards from the Japanese media, especially Tokyo Sports.

Kobashi won his first singles match on May 16, 1989, against Jim Crockett Promotions jobber Mitch Snow, and on June 6, he picked up a win over established Stampede Wrestling rising star Johnny Smith.

Baba gave all of them an official group to assign themselves with, and they'd form the Super Generation Army (超世代軍, Chou Sedai-gun) in August 1990 (the name of which was coined by AJPW commentator Kenji Wakabayashi).

Once a loved babyface now turned to a tweener role, Tsuruta now wanted to declare himself superior over the Super Generation Army in spite of his age.

The match, and the subsequent ones also featuring the three other company "Heavenly Pillars" (Misawa, Kawada and Taue) against their foreign foes (Hansen, Steve Williams and Dan Spivey respectively), marked a shift in the guard for AJPW and their main event scene.

The separation left Kobashi without a real tag partner for most of the year, mostly having partnerships between The Patriot and Johnny Ace, where the trio was given the name G.E.T ("Global, Energetic & Tough").

In October that year, Kobashi won his first World Tag title without Misawa, when he and Johnny Ace defeated Triangle of Power members Gary Albright and Steve Williams.

Drawing inspiration from another popular move of that time, the Etsuko Mita-innovated Death Valley bomb, Kobashi would, to the shock of the crowd, use an Argentine rack dropped into a head-lock driver to win the match.

In January 1999, Kobashi was kicking off new rivalries against former NJPW and WWF star Vader, Misawa's new tag team with Yoshinari Ogawa, and the Holy Demon Army and No Fear units.

His return match was on February 24, 2002, and featured Kobashi reforming his pairing with Misawa to face the now-GHC Heavyweight Champion Akiyama and New Japan Pro-Wrestling's Yuji Nagata.

The first stated pick for the challenge would've been Dark Agents leader and Sternness member Akitoshi Saito, but he had lost a tournament final to crown the next contender against Honda.

He and Tamon Honda were paired together as part of the Burning stable, which had reformed in Noah, and they went ahead to challenge Dark Agent Akitoshi Saito and Jun Akiyama for the GHC Tag Team Championships.

Kobashi defeated Bison Smith to retain the Heavyweight title the next month in Nagoya, and later set up an inter-promotional feud with invader heel Yuji Nagata.

At this point, some talks were made to make a champion-versus-champion non-title bout between Kobashi and the now IWGP Heavyweight Champion Hiroyoshi Tenzan, who had beaten Takayama at the Yokohama Dead Out show that November, although it would not occur.

Despite the loss of his title Kobashi remained Noah's top wrestler, and the rest of the year was highlighted by matches with outsiders such as Genichiro Tenryu and Kensuke Sasaki.

On September 8, 2007, news broke that Kobashi would make his return on the December 2, 2007, Budokan Hall event where he would team up with Takayama to face Akiyama and Misawa.

He teamed with Pro Wrestling Noah younger talents KENTA, Atsushi Aoki and Akihiko Ito, losing to Nakajima, Sasaki, Kento Miyahara and Takashi Okita.

Mitsuharu Misawa died on June 13, 2009, in a show in Hiroshima, leaving Akira Taue to fill the role as head of Noah's booking team and presidency.

On August 27, 2011, he debuted his new temporary charity ring gear, mixing his later-stage black and early-stage orange at the inaugural All Together show at Nippon Budokan, teaming up with Keiji Mutoh to defeat Chaos members Takashi Iizuka and Toru Yano.

[11] The news sparked shockwaves in Japan, as Atsushi Aoki, Shiozaki, Jun Akiyama, Kotaro Suzuki, and Yoshinobu Kanemaru spoke out, declaring their intent of not signing with Noah after their contracts expire in January, out of loyalty to Kobashi.

Before the main event, Hiroshi Hase announced that he would be resigning as Pacific Wrestling Federation (PWF) chairman to focus on the National Diet and that Kobashi would be replacing him, after his retirement on May 11.

[24] On May 10, 2015, Kobashi returned to Noah to serve as a "special witness" for a GHC Heavyweight Championship match between champion Minoru Suzuki and challenger Naomichi Marufuji.

Showing that he'd never give up in his career, Kobashi's presence in the ring was always noted for his determination to endure and deal damage, as seen evidently in his championship matches against his fellow Four Heavenly Pillars: Misawa, Kawada and Taue.