On January 4, 2009, Sabin and Shelley defeated No Limit (Tetsuya Naito and Yujiro) at New Japan Pro Wrestling's Wrestle Kingdom III to win the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship. After three successful title defenses, two of which took place in TNA, Sabin and Shelley lost the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Titles to Apollo 55 (Prince Devitt and Ryusuke Taguchi) on July 5, 2009, at New Japan Pro Wrestling's "Circuit 2009 New Japan Soul". On November 8, 2010, New Japan Pro Wrestling announced that the Motor City Machine Guns would be returning to the promotion the following month, competing at events on December 11 and 12. On December 11 the Motor City Machine Guns were defeated by No Limit in their New Japan return match. The following day they defeated Apollo 55 in the fourth match between the two teams.