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In the summer of 2011, he went on an excursion to North America and was subsequently signed to a developmental contract by WWE and assigned to their developmental territory Florida Championship Wrestling under the name Sakamoto. Sakamoto made his FCW debut on 4 December 2011 alongside fellow K-Dojo alum Jiro in a loss against the team of Big E Langston and Nick Rogers. Sakamoto went on to lose every televised FCW match he participated in, including defeats to Dean Ambrose and Mike Dalton.