He is currently a freelancer, working most notably for All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW), where he is a four-time World Tag Team Champion with longtime partner Zeus as "The Big Guns".

Soon, he began a long-running feud started with Zeus, which eventually led to him being outed as former professional bodybuilder Noboru Kurakawa, the winner of two Musclemania Japan competitions in 2002 and 2007.

To build heat for their feud, Kurakawa (now known as The Bodyguard) and Zeus engaged in some power battles, including an arm-wrestling contest that had no clear winner.

Zeus and Bodyguard eventually vacated all of their championships, and on April 20 wrestled their last match in OPW to date, teaming with Quiet Storm in a loss to Billyken Kid, Bull Armor Takuya and Black Buffalo.

[8] On May 16, they received an opportunity at the World Tag Team Championship, but were unable to defeat defending champions Evolution (Joe Doering and Suwama).

[12] On August 15, Zeus and Bodyguard scored a big win, defeating former World Tag Team Champions Akebono and Yutaka Yoshie.

[14] On December 23, Zeus and Bodyguard finally captured the World Tag Team Championship, defeating Wild Burning (Jun Akiyama and Takao Omori).

[15] On February 21, Zeus and Bodyguard made their first successful defence of the World Tag Team Championship, defeating Nextream (Jake Lee and Kento Miyahara).