Kazushi Sakuraba is a Japanese professional wrestler, mixed martial artist and submission wrestler, currently signed to Rizin Fighting Federation and Pro Wrestling Noah, where he was formerly one-half of the former GHC Tag Team Champions with Takashi Sugiura.
87 Facts About Kazushi Sakuraba
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Kazushi Sakuraba has competed in traditional puroresu for New Japan Pro-Wrestling and shoot-style competition for UWFi and Kingdom Pro Wrestling.
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Kazushi Sakuraba has fought in MMA competition in the Ultimate Fighting Championship, Pride Fighting Championships, Hero's and Dream.
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Kazushi Sakuraba is known as the Gracie Hunter or the Gracie Killer due to his wins over four members of the famed Gracie family: Royler Gracie, Renzo Gracie, Ryan Gracie, and Royce Gracie.
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Kazushi Sakuraba is the first of only two Japanese champions in UFC history.
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Kazushi Sakuraba is the founder of the submission wrestling promotion Quintet, where he has competed since 2018.
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Kazushi Sakuraba became a fan of Japanese professional wrestling during his childhood thanks to the Tiger Mask manga, with the eponymous New Japan Pro-Wrestling wrestler Tiger Mask being his favorite.
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Kazushi Sakuraba won the East Japan Freshman championship in his first year and served as their team captain thereafter.
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Kazushi Sakuraba received his initial instruction in both grappling and striking under main trainer Yoji Anjo, later honing his catch wrestling skills under the tutelage of Billy Robinson.
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Kazushi Sakuraba trained in muay thai under master Bovy Chowaikung, the main UWF-i striking teacher.
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In spite of his amateur pedigree, Kazushi Sakuraba was forced to work his way up from the bottom of the UWFi's rung, as it is traditional in puroresu.
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Kazushi Sakuraba lost his debut on August 13,1993, to Steve Nelson and went winless through his rookie year with the league.
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Still undeterred, Kazushi Sakuraba steadily built a working knowledge of submission holds upon his freestyle wrestling base until his efforts were at last rewarded with a win over Mark Silver in October 1994.
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The vast majority of UWF-i workers came out on the losing end of the booking to the larger and more mainstream promotion and Kazushi Sakuraba was no exception.
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Kazushi Sakuraba was defeated in high-profile bouts to Tokimitsu Ishizawa, Koji Kanemoto and Shinjiro Otani, bringing Sakuraba a new level of exposure to the public.
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On January 4,2013, at Wrestle Kingdom 7 in Tokyo Dome, Kazushi Sakuraba suffered his first defeat since his return to professional wrestling, when he unsuccessfully challenged Shinsuke Nakamura for the IWGP Intercontinental Championship.
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New Japan later announced that Kazushi Sakuraba would be sidelined for two to three months.
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Kazushi Sakuraba suffered another loss against the Gracies on May 3 at Wrestling Dontaku 2014, where he teamed with Shinsuke Nakamura.
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Kazushi Sakuraba then started a new rivalry with Minoru Suzuki, while forming a partnership with Toru Yano, who was involved in his own rivalry with Suzuki's Suzuki-gun stable.
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The partnership led to Kazushi Sakuraba becoming an associate of Yano and Nakamura's Chaos stable, eventually becoming a full-time member.
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The tournament was intended for heavyweights, but Kazushi Sakuraba who weighed 183 pounds, was nearly twenty pounds beneath the UFC's 200 pound designation for the weight class.
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Silveira then tried his own Kimura, but at that moment Kazushi Sakuraba reversed it in the same way and locked the armbar, making the Brazilian submit.
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Kazushi Sakuraba embarked on a winning streak against several foreign mixed martial arts competitors including Paul Herrera, Rene Rooze, Mark Hall and Orlando Weit.
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Eager to capitalize on Kazushi Sakuraba's shoot wrestling prowess to reverse the perception that Japanese professional wrestlers were inferior to Brazilian combatants, Kazushi Sakuraba's next three bouts were scheduled against Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belts Vitor Belfort, Allan Goes and luta livre black belt Ebenezer Fontes Braga.
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Kazushi Sakuraba was threatened by a rear naked choke several times, and in turn he almost finished Allan as well with an armbar, but none of it came to fruition.
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However, despite several big flurries by the Brazilian to open the match, Kazushi Sakuraba went unscathed and took Belfort down, proceeding to land ground and pound.
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Unlike the previous two matches, Kazushi faced in Braga a consistently aggressive opponent, with the luta livre practitioner landing effective muay thai knees and kicks until Sakuraba put him down.
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Gracie opened the fight aggressively, raining punches from Kazushi's back while the Japanese fighter worked an armlock from standing, but Sakuraba kept calm, knowing Royce had no knockout power and expecting him to waste his energy; he even came to the point of smiling to the cameras during the attack.
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Towards the end of the round, Sakuraba nearly ended the match with a kneebar, while Gracie came back with a guillotine choke at the second, but Kazushi again joked to show he was out of danger by simulating to pull down Royce's gi pants.
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Kazushi Sakuraba switched to attack at the third round, dominating the stand up and making Royce lie repeatedly on the ground to avoid him.
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Kazushi Sakuraba was actually leading the fight past the 10-minute mark, but near the end Igor was able to reverse a takedown and draw the first round even with ground strikes.
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At the time of his bout with Kazushi Sakuraba, Renzo's only loss in 10 bouts was a closely contested decision to Kazushi Sakuraba's former UWFi stablemate and rival, Kiyoshi Tamura while Maurice Smith, Oleg Taktarov and Abu Dhabi champion Sanae Kikuta numbered amongst his victims.
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Kazushi Sakuraba responded in kind, and the striking seemed to go to a stalemate.
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Renzo took the microphone and, before the 35,000 fans assembled at the Seibu Dome, stated that Kazushi Sakuraba was "the Japanese version of the Gracie family".
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Vitor Belfort demanded a rematch, although Kazushi Sakuraba had stated not to be interested in rematches due to his interest in facing Frank Shamrock, Tito Ortiz and Dan Henderson.
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Kazushi Sakuraba was a heavy favorite to win, but he was fighting through a significant weight disadvantage.
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Kazushi Sakuraba then shocked the audience further by giving Silva his belt with Saku engraved on it.
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At the sound of the bell, Kazushi Sakuraba immediately took the bigger man to the canvas with a low single-leg takedown.
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Usually prone to humorous entrances, it was a somber and focused Kazushi Sakuraba that came down the aisle for his rematch with Silva.
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Kazushi Sakuraba started to control the fight, avoiding Silva's strikes and threatening him with clinches and takedown attempts.
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Kazushi Sakuraba took time off to let his shoulder heal, briefly training basic Brazilian jiu-jitsu with Sergio Penha at Takada Dojo.
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Kazushi Sakuraba then returned against heavyweight kickboxer Mirko Cro Cop.
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Kazushi Sakuraba was proposed a special ruleset of no strikes on the ground as part of the "K-1 vs Pride theme", but he rejected the offer, not wanting any special rule for him.
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Finally assenting to place him in competition against fighters of his own weight class, Pride management put him against French jiu-jitsu champion Gilles Arsene in a bout Kazushi Sakuraba dominated and then against Rickson Gracie protege Antonio Schembri.
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Kazushi Sakuraba controlled the fight initially, landing plenty of hits and breaking Antonio's nose, but when he was going for one of his trademark Mongolian chops, Schembri stunned him with a series of knee strikes, winning by TKO.
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However, nothing of this was realized, and instead Kazushi Sakuraba faced Wanderlei Silva for the third time at Pride Total Elimination.
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The bout reminisced their first encounter, as Kazushi Sakuraba flashed again a comical entrance and traded strikes with Silva in his own field of specialty.
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Kazushi Sakuraba escaped and kept trading hits, but despite his best efforts to match his opponent's striking acumen, Wanderlei knocked him out with a jab-cross combination.
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Kazushi Sakuraba had a notable victory over Kevin Randleman, a former UFC Heavyweight Champion, widely remembered due to his ring entrance as Mario, a pun intended to reflect the Japanese media referring to Randleman as Donkey Kong.
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The Brazilian, having promised to knock out the Japanese, opened the match lunging at him with punches, but Kazushi Sakuraba answered in kind and opened a cut on Nogueira's eye which almost stopped the bout.
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The action resumed, both men battled for several minutes, with Rogerio gaining the upper hand in striking and Kazushi Sakuraba in wrestling, allowing him to get in Nogueira's guard and inflict significant damage again.
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The Brazilian's toenail accidentally slashed open the skin over Kazushi Sakuraba's left eye, which Ricardo then capitalized on by squeezing the cut and digging his finger into it in order to force the doctor stoppage.
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However, instead of moving down in weight, Kazushi Sakuraba began training at Chute Boxe Academy in Brazil alongside his one-time rival Wanderlei Silva.
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Three minutes into the bout, Kazushi Sakuraba struck through Shamrock's guard with a left hand.
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Kazushi Sakuraba rushed in to follow up but before any meaningful offense could be launched, the fight was halted by referee Yuji Shimada.
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The bout was a competitive one, with Kazushi Sakuraba choosing to fight from the bottom and using both men's submission attempts to force scrambles.
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On 3 May 2006, Kazushi Sakuraba surprisingly appeared with Hero's head Akira Maeda at a Hero's event wearing his street clothes and a pro wrestling mask in the style of one of his childhood heroes, Tiger Mask.
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Kazushi Sakuraba did not reveal himself, but it was apparent that it was a masked Sakuraba and that he signed with K-1 and FEG.
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Kazushi Sakuraba's defection to Hero's was a culmination of several signs that suggested he was leaving Pride.
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Kazushi Sakuraba was then scheduled to compete in Hero's Light Heavyweight Tournament.
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Kazushi Sakuraba opened the fight striking aggressively, even flooring Smirnovas with a kick, but as he was coming in to follow up he was caught and knocked down to his knees and hands.
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Kazushi Sakuraba then turned over, sliding beneath the bottom rope, and Smirnovas unleashed repeated blows to his head.
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Kazushi Sakuraba then accomplished an armbar, forcing his opponent to give up.
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However, during a hard sparring session for the upcoming bout Kazushi Sakuraba began vomiting and fainted.
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Royce won by unanimous decision, which many viewers and MMA sites disputed immediately on the feeling that Kazushi Sakuraba won the fight.
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Kazushi Sakuraba returned to the ring on 17 September 2007 at K-1 Hero's 10 against former NJPW pro wrestler Katsuyori Shibata.
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Shibata unleashed a torrent of blows off his back, but the more experienced Kazushi Sakuraba responded with strikes of his own before transitioning into an armbar and finishing the bout.
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Much like Kazushi Sakuraba, Funaki was trained in shoot wrestling and emerged into the world of mixed martial arts on the heels of a career in the UWF.
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Once in the match, Kazushi Sakuraba was able to sneak in a double leg takedown after Funaki committed heavily to a missed right cross.
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Kazushi Sakuraba then maneuvered to Funaki's back, only for the Pancrase founder to roll back into the guard position.
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Kazushi then returned himself to the ground, where Funaki immediately attempted to sweep him, but Sakuraba blocked the attempt and secured a Kimura lock or double wristlock, eventually forcing Funaki to submit.
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In 2008, it was announced that Kazushi Sakuraba would compete in the Middleweight Grand Prix of the new MMA promotion, Dream.
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On 29 April 2008, Kazushi Sakuraba defeated Andrews Nakahara in the main event at Dream 2: Middle Weight Grandprix 2008 1st Round.
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Tamura held on at the second, controlling much of the action and consistently kicking Kazushi Sakuraba's injured legs; he was taken down in the final minute by Kazushi Sakuraba, who immediately launched a barrage of punches, only for the bell to end his attacks again.
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Kazushi Sakuraba took Galesic to the ground via single leg takedown and he immediately transitioned to a leg lock.
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Kazushi Sakuraba absorbed the punches and held on to Galesic's leg until he successfully made the Croatian tap out due to a kneebar.
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The pause allowed the Brazilian to come back with an armbar, which Kazushi Sakuraba escaped to meet a unanimous decision win for Gracie.
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Kazushi Sakuraba fought against undefeated Brazilian jiu-jitsu Black Belt Yan Cabral at Dream 17, losing via head arm triangle.
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Kazushi Sakuraba lost the fight via TKO at 5:56 in the first round, after being taken down and receiving ground and pound.
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On November 22,2014, Sakuraba fought Renzo Gracie in a grappling match in Metamoris V Renzo played defensive closed guard earlier in the match, with the two exchanging guillotine choke attempts, but he eventually flipped Sakuraba over and pinned him.
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However, Kazushi Sakuraba resisted all of his submission attempts, and with 90 seconds left he scrambled and tried to lock a Kimura, which was unsuccessful.
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Kazushi Sakuraba competed in the inaugural event, but his team was eliminated in the semi-final round.
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Kazushi Sakuraba used cartwheels to pass guard and several kinds of confusing, often comical tricks to gain advantage over his opponent.
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Kazushi Sakuraba submitted important grapplers of his time like Royler Gracie, Renzo Gracie and Masakatsu Funaki by using his signature double top wrist lock, a technique he opened both from standing and on the ground.
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Kazushi Sakuraba has never cared much about diet and admits to drinking alcohol and being a smoker.
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About his proneness to fight outside his weight class, Kazushi Sakuraba declared "the more impossible the fights got, the more willing to accept them I became".
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In June 2021, Kazushi Sakuraba was a torch bearer for the 2020 Summer Olympics.