On December 3, 2012, Noah released Kenta Kobashi from his contract, reportedly leading to Atsushi Aoki, Go Shiozaki, Jun Akiyama, Kotaro Suzuki and Yoshinobu Kanemaru all announcing that they were not going to re-sign with the promotion after their own contracts expired in January 2013.[5][6] On December 19, Noah confirmed that the five men had indeed refused to re-sign with the promotion and would be wrestling their final matches for the promotion on December 23 and 24.[7] The following month, all five men joined AJPW.[8] Kobashi returned to wrestle his retirement match in a Noah ring on May 11, 2013, at Final Burning in Budokan.[9][10]