Adopting the shinguards and trunks typical of shoot style wrestlers, Sano had more opportunities to face actual heavyweights.
Nevertheless, during the 1995-96 feud against NJPW, Sano participated on UWFI's side, beating old rival Liger one more time but losing to Shinya Hashimoto.
In the feud against the WAR promotion, which had been born out of the ashes of SWS, Sano lost to old patron Genichiro Tenryu in a singles match.
As part of the faction led by Akira Taue and also composed of Daisuke Ikeda, Sano had opportunities for the GHC Heavyweight Championship held by Kenta Kobashi and later, Mitsuharu Misawa, but failed both times.
[9] On September 18, 2010, Sano and Takayama defeated Akitoshi Saito and Bison Smith to win the vacant GHC Tag Team Championship.
They would lose the title to New Japan Pro-Wrestling's Giant Bernard and Karl Anderson on June 18, 2011, at Dominion 6.18 in a match contested also for the IWGP Tag Team Championship.
The Brazilian opened the fight by taking Yuhi down and mounting him, only to Sano to sweep him aside and block a triangle choke attempt before returning to standing position.
Sano blocked a takedown, but was swept by Royler and the jiu-jitsu expert gained top position, though he was unable to finish him due to Yuhi's defensive skills.
[11][12] In October of that year at Pride 4, Sano faced a striker instead of a grappler, in the shape of Shooto's karate stylist Satoshi Honma.