46 Facts About Kiyoshi Tamura

Kiyoshi Tamura is a Japanese retired professional wrestler and mixed martial artist.

Once a student of legendary professional wrestlers Billy Robinson, Lou Thesz and Akira Maeda, Tamura was known for his skills in catch wrestling and is considered to be one of the greatest shoot wrestlers of all time.

Kiyoshi Tamura is a two-time RINGS Openweight Champion and holds notable wins over Renzo Gracie, former UFC Welterweight Champion Pat Miletich, former UFC Middleweight Champion Dave Menne, former Pancrase Super Heavyweight Champion Tsuyoshi Kosaka, former Pancrase Openweight Champion Masakatsu Funaki, Olympic judo gold medallist Makoto Takimoto, three-time sambo champion Volk Han, and Kazushi Sakuraba.

Kiyoshi Tamura currently serves as an executive director for LIDET Entertainment's professional wrestling promotion GLEAT.

Kiyoshi Tamura took an entire year to return, and he only had time to work in one event before UWF closed.

In 1992, after making his shootfighting debut before boxer Matthew Saad Muhammad, submitting him with a rear naked choke, Kiyoshi Tamura was sent to United States for a few months to learn catch wrestling under Lou Thesz, who helped refine Kiyoshi Tamura's submission skills and ground game.

Only some months after, on February 14,1993, Kiyoshi Tamura had a high level match with Nobuhiko Takada, after which many pundits compared him to Takada himself and considered him as a candidate for the future ace of the company.

The next year, Kiyoshi Tamura took part in the Best Of The World 1994 Tournament, advancing through the rounds by beating Bad News Allen and Naoki Sano, but being eliminated himself by eventual winner Super Vader at the semi-finals.

Kiyoshi Tamura went to lose the match for the second place to main eventer Gary Albright, and never challenged Vader for the title.

Unsatisfied with the symbolic return of UWF to gimmicky puroresu with the victory of Vader, and further inspired by the recent success of Pancrase, Kiyoshi Tamura proposed to take a direction towards realistic wrestling again.

Kiyoshi Tamura would compete in a notable shoot fight against Masahito Kakihara on February 18,1995, winning by rear naked choke in 2:06.

In December 1995, Kiyoshi Tamura offered himself instead to represent UWF-i at the event K-1 Hercules, in a mixed martial arts fight against Ultimate Fighting Championship veteran Patrick Smith.

Kiyoshi Tamura returned to UWF-i to feud with Kazushi Sakuraba, but the rivalry was relegated to mid to undercard.

Kiyoshi Tamura concluded in his intention to leave the company, and asked to be released.

Kiyoshi Tamura was briefly pushed as the top star, being given the first RINGS heavyweight titles.

In 2001, Kiyoshi Tamura fought for the final time in RINGS.

Kiyoshi Tamura briefly came out of retirement for Antonio Inoki's Inoki Genome Federation, the last time being on November 8,2007, beating Montanha Silva in the latter's IGF debut.

In 2020, Kiyoshi Tamura joined LIDET Entertainment's GLEAT promotion as an executive director.

Kiyoshi Tamura had his first taste of MMA back in professional wrestling promotion Union of Wrestling Forces International, where he choked out boxer Matthew Saad Muhammad in a mixed rules bout in 1992 and in 1995 where he beat fellow UWF-i wrestler Masahito Kakihara via rear naked choke in a shoot contest.

Kiyoshi Tamura later offered to fight in the K-1 Hercules MMA event, where he made short work of Patrick Smith via heel hook.

Kiyoshi Tamura began his MMA career at Fighting Network RINGS in a series of shoot fights against his fellow RINGS Japan teammates in late 1996.

Outweighed by 25 lbs, Kiyoshi Tamura managed to take Overeem down early in the fight and fought for a kimura, however Overeem submitted Kiyoshi Tamura multiple times, the Japanese ultimately losing the match by kneebar.

In 1999, Kiyoshi Tamura faced former UWFi teammate Hiromitsu Kanehara and won the back and forth grappling affair via armbar.

Kiyoshi Tamura then faced former Pancrase star Frank Shamrock, who had defeated Kiyoshi Tamura's teammate Tsuyoshi Kohsaka years before and become his training partner in The Alliance.

Kiyoshi Tamura controlled the match, taking down Shamrock and keeping dominant position over him, but he was forced to spend a rope escape when Shamrock caught him in an armbar in his first takedown.

Shamrock attempted a Kimura lock and an ankle hold, but Kiyoshi Tamura defended them successfully and the time of the match ran out.

Kiyoshi Tamura landed several hooks, but lost the advantage upon attempting a flying armbar.

Finally, Kiyoshi Tamura knocked down Dave again and took his back, ending the match with a unanimous decision.

The Brazilian fighter got the earliest of the fight with a guillotine choke from the guard, but Kiyoshi Tamura started to dominate thanks to his superior striking and takedown defense.

Kiyoshi Tamura was awarded the unanimous decision, being the second Japanese in defeating a Gracie after Kazushi Sakuraba did it with Royler earlier in the year.

At the semifinals, Kiyoshi Tamura fought Brazilian luta livre exponent Renato Sobral, 40 pounds heavier than the Japanese.

The stronger Sobral attacked with knee strikes and took his back in some occasions while Kiyoshi Tamura landed leg kicks and looked for an opening.

The best wrestler of the two, Kiyoshi Tamura was able to take dominant position on the ground multiple times, but the rule against punches to the face on the mat, the referee's quick standups, and Yvel's own defensive grappling acumen impeded him from gaining the advantage.

Kiyoshi Tamura bounced back from his title loss representing RINGS in the Colosseum 2000 event, where he was pitted against Jeremy Horn.

Unlike the previous match, Kiyoshi Tamura controlled the striking, landing several leg kicks.

The contenders exchanged takedowns at both rounds, but Kiyoshi Tamura achieved positional control more often, thus winning a majority decision.

In October 2000, Kiyoshi Tamura partaked in the King of Kings tournament as well, eliminating Zaza Tkeshelashvili before going against another Brazilian, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira.

The jiu-jitsu expert opened the match taking Tamura down and trying to pass his guard, eventually performing an armbar which Kiyoshi countered rolling outwards and taking his back.

The action repeated itself, with Nogueira taking him down and Kiyoshi Tamura capitalizing on a kneebar attempt to get dominant position, but this time Nogueira reversed and attempted a Kimura lock for the end of the round.

Kiyoshi Tamura had his last fight for RINGS facing Gustavo Machado, losing an uneventful decision again.

Kiyoshi Tamura made his debut in PRIDE Fighting Championships in a title fight against Wanderlei Silva for the PRIDE Middleweight Championship.

In one instance, Tamura landed a punch which stunned Wanderlei, but it was short-lived, and the Brazilian fighter recovered and continued with the brutal ground and pound, bloodying Kiyoshi's face.

The match was short and shocking, and saw Sapp charging at Kiyoshi Tamura and knocking him out with looping punches at 0:11.

At PRIDE 31, Kiyoshi Tamura got a desired rematch against Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, who had bested him years before in RINGS.

At K-1 Premium 2007, Kiyoshi Tamura faced Hideo Tokoro, an apprentice of former RINGS wrestler Kenichi Yamamoto.

On July 7,2007, Kiyoshi Tamura married tarento and pro wrestling host Yumiko Sakurai.