Masao Inoue
On October 25, 1999, Mossman and Johnny Smith unsuccessfully challenged for the vacant All Asia Tag Team Championship, losing to Masao Inoue and Tamon Honda. Following Baba's death in 1999, Mitsuharu Misawa became the new head booker of AJPW and chose to postpone Mossman's push. In 2000, Misawa and all but two native talent left All Japan in a mass exodus to form Pro Wrestling Noah. Mossman was one of the few who chose to remain in All Japan Pro Wrestling, aiding in the rebuilding process along with Toshiaki Kawada, Masanobu Fuchi, Hiroshi Hase, Stan Hansen, the returning Genichiro Tenryu, Nobutaka Araya and Shigeo Okumura. In an effort to make him more marketable to Japanese fans, Mossman stopped using his real name and was given the semi-Japanese ring name (from "taiyo", sun, and the Polynesian word "kea", also derived from the last three letters of his first name). Kea was pushed as a strong loyalist and won the World Tag Team Championship with Johnny Smith in January 2001. In April, Kea took part in the 2001 Champion Carnival, finishing with 15 points and advancing to the final where he lost to Genichiro Tenryu.