During his second year of high school, Honma initially had aspirations of joining the New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) dojo and took part in a tryout, but was unsuccessful and sought training elsewhere.

On September 24, 2006, Tomoaki Honma and Jun Kasai won Apache Pro-Wrestling Army's WEW World Tag Team Championship from Takashi Sasaki and Badboy Hido.

In April 2009, Honma showed his loyalty to Makabe by remaining in GBH after the other members of the group left to form the Chaos faction with Shinsuke Nakamura.

[10] From July 21 to August 8, 2014, Honma took part in his first G1 Climax as a late replacement for an injured Kota Ibushi,[11] losing all ten of his matches and finishing last in his block.

[17] On February 14 at The New Beginning in Sendai, Honma replaced an ill Togi Makabe in a match for the now vacant NEVER Openweight Championship, but was defeated by Tomohiro Ishii.

[22] In December, Honma and Makabe won their block in the 2015 World Tag League with a record of four wins and two losses, advancing to the finals of the tournament.

[23] On December 9, Honma and Makabe defeated Los Ingobernables de Japón (Evil and Tetsuya Naito) in the finals to win the 2015 World Tag League.

[24] On January 4, 2016, at Wrestle Kingdom 10 in Tokyo Dome, Honma won his first title in NJPW, when he and Makabe defeated Bullet Club's Doc Gallows and Karl Anderson for the IWGP Tag Team Championship.

[28] Honma and Makabe lost the IWGP Tag Team Championship to Guerrillas of Destiny (Tama Tonga and Tanga Loa) on April 10 at Invasion Attack 2016.

[36] On January 4, 2017, at Wrestle Kingdom 11 in Tokyo Dome, Honma and Makabe took part in a three-way match for the IWGP Tag Team Championship, which was won by Tomohiro Ishii and Toru Yano.

[45] Honma returned on June 23, teaming with Hiroshi Tanahashi, Togi Makabe, Ryusuke Taguchi, and Toa Henare to defeat Los Ingobernables de Japón (Tetsuya Naito, Evil, Hiromu Takahashi, Sanada, and Bushi).

[46] On March 19, 2019, he appeared in the first match of the New Japan Cup in a team consisting of Yota Tsuji, Ren Narita, and Shota Umino.

[47] On October 28, 2020, Honma scored his first victory since returning from injury in 2018 when he pinned Gedo in a six-man tag team match after a Kokeshi.

Honma's characteristically hoarse voice is the result of crushed vocal chords, a problem also suffered by fellow wrestlers Shachihoko Boy, Kohei Sato and Genichiro Tenryu.