Kohei Sato
In March 2009, Akebono appeared in Pro Wrestling Zero1 defeating Kohei Sato. Later, Akebono joined the Sword Army stable, led by Masato Tanaka. Akebono also participated in the Fire Festival 2009 defeating several other wrestlers, but failed to win in the end. After that, he formed an irregular team with Shinjiro Otani called Kazan, which defeated Masaaki Mochizuki &amp; Masato Tanaka in the final round of the Furinkazan tournament, as well winning the NWA Intercontinental Tag Team Championship on 24 January 2010 before vacating them on December of that year. On 3 February 2013, Akebono teamed with Daisuke Sekimoto to win the vacant titles by defeating Kohei Sato and Zeus.