Masanori Murakawa

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Masanori Murakawa [1]
Statistics
Ring name(s) The Great Sasuke
Masa Michinoku
Ninja Sasuke
SASUKE
El Gordo de Le Pooter
Height 1.8 m (5 ft 11 in)
Weight 88 kg (190 lb/13.9 st)
Billed height 1.73 m (5 ft 8 in)
Billed weight 82 kg (180 lb/12.9 st)
Born July 18, 1969
Iwate Prefecture
Trained by Satoru Sayama
Debut March 1, 1990, vs. Monkey Magic Wakita

Masanori Murakawa (村川 政徳 Murakawa Masanori?), (born July 18, 1969), is a Japanese professional wrestler who is better known by his stage name The Great Sasuke. He has wrestled in Japan and in the United States in various wrestling promotions. He is said to have an incredible tolerance for pain, mainly in reference to the injuries he has had including a cracked skull on 2 occasions.

Contents

[edit] Career

In his early days he used the name Masa Michinoku. Masa, from his given name Masanori, and Michinoku, after the alternate name for his Japanese home region, Tōhoku. Taka Michinoku adopted a similar gimmick to parody him. Later, on a tour of Mexico, he adopted the mask, uniform, and name Ninja Sasuke. This was the predecessor to the Great Sasuke gimmick he would adopt upon returning to Japan.

He is also the owner, and founder, of Michinoku Pro Wrestling in Japan, the first Japanese independent promotion not to be based around the Tokyo area.

As part of an agreement between Michinoku Pro Wrestling and the World Wrestling Federation, Sasuke was part of the tournament to crown the first WWF Light Heavyweight Champion of the modern wrestling era in 1997. Although Sasuke was heavily pushed to be the big winner of the tournament, he would later brag to the Japanese media how he would only defend the title in Japan had he won the title and would refuse to drop the title on WWF television. When the WWF caught wind of Sasuke's comments, Sasuke was fired as well as his working agreement with them dissolved, although a former member of Michinoku Pro, TAKA Michinoku, would end up winning the title.

In 1998 he and disciple Tiger Mask IV began feuding with heel clones of their respective gimmicks: Masked Tiger (Takeshi Ono) and Sasuke the Great (Masao Orihara).

In 1999, Sasuke actually performed on SASUKE, the popular Japanese obstacle course competition. In the 3rd Competition, he got stuck at the Rolling Log and timed out on the Hill Climb. When SASUKE was translated into Ninja Warrior for the United States, the translators ignored his wrestling background and called him "The Great Ninja Warrior".

In 2002, he briefly turned heel and started using the name SASUKE, using blue stripes on his mask instead of the red stripes shown in the photo above. However, Jinsei Shinzaki brought him back from the dark side by "exorcising the evil out of him".

On April 13, 2003, the Great Sasuke won election to the Iwate Prefectural Assembly, making him the first actual masked legislator in history. He is the fourth Japanese wrestler to get elected to office. Antonio Inoki, Hiroshi Hase, and Atsushi Onita preceded him, though all of them were elected to the Japanese Diet at the national level.

The Great Sasuke recently lost in his bid to become governor of Iwate in a recent election. [1]

The Great Sasuke still currently wrestles in Michinoku Pro Wrestling.

[edit] In wrestling

[edit] Finishing and signature moves

[edit] Championships and accomplishments

1This championship is promoted by Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre it was on loan to them to New Japan Pro Wrestling when he won it. Also, despite the title still using the NWA initials, it is no longer recognized or sanctioned as a world title by the National Wrestling Alliance. The same goes for the NWA World Middleweight Championship.
²Despite winning the title twice, neither of the reigns are recognized by World Wrestling Entertainment. No reigns with the title prior to December of 1997 are recognized by the WWE.[2]

[edit] References

  1. ^ The Japan Times Online Articles
  2. ^ WWE: Inside WWE > Title History > Light Heavyweight

[edit] External links

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