However, Gamma returned to Dragon Gate and MO'z a month later, and Tamaoka was mobbed and kicked out of the unit upon doing so.
After his exile from MO'z, Tamaoka briefly had an active schedule as a wrestler, but he stopped wrestling abruptly and returned to refereeing.
On March 20, 2009, Tamaoka won the Open the Owarai Gate Championship from "Hollywood" Stalker Ichikawa.
The title match was actually between Stalker and Masaaki Mochizuki, but Tamaoka won more fan support than either of them, so he became champion.
On April 5, 2011, Dragon Gate announced that they had fired Tamaoka, when it was learned that the night before he had been arrested for public drug use in a Kobe area restroom.