Hajime Ohara
After Smash closed, in 2012 StarBuck became part of the Smash's follow-up promotion Wrestling New Classic (WNC). He joined with Akira and Syuri under the name of "Synapse", feuding with Hajime Ohara. On July 16, StarBuck main evented his first WNC event, defeating Ohara. After several trios victories, StarBuck returned to singles action on August 6, losing to Tajiri in the main event. StarBuck also participated in the WNC Championship tournament, but was defeated in his first round match by Hajime Ohara, following interference from his Kabushiki gaisha DQN stablemates Jiro Kuroshio and Nagisa Nozaki.