 Tomohiko Hashimoto

Being a former judoka, Kono was trained by Koichiro Kimura for a professional wrestling career and made his wrestling debut under the ring name Tomohiko Hashimoto on April 14, 2000, by defeating Tom Burton at a JPWA event.He then joined Dramatic Dream Team (DDT) and received his further training at the DDT dojo, where he debuted at the "Y2D Core" event on May 28 by defeating Cannonball KAZU.