Yoshiaki Yatsu is a Japanese professional wrestler, amateur wrestler and mixed martial artist.
16 Facts About Yoshiaki Yatsu
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Yoshiaki Yatsu is known for being one-half of the first-ever All Japan Pro Wrestling World Tag Team Champions with Jumbo Tsuruta, having won the NWA International Tag Team Championship and the PWF Tag Team Championship, and unifying the two titles.
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At the age of 20, Yatsu competed in freestyle wrestling at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal.
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Yoshiaki Yatsu would have participated in the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, but Japan chose to follow the American-led boycott.
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In 1986 Yoshiaki Yatsu took a hiatus from professional wrestling in order to one last time chase his Olympic dream.
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However, after winning a Japanese National Championship in the super heavyweight division in 1986 and while training for the 1987 Asian Wrestling Championships, the International Olympic Committee declared that Yoshiaki Yatsu was a professional athlete and banned him from not only that competition, but from the 1988 Summer Olympics.
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In 1980, after Japan decided not to send their athletes to take part in the Summer Olympics in Moscow, Yoshi "The Yak" Yoshiaki Yatsu garnered a great deal of national attention, when he announced his intention of becoming a professional wrestler.
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Yoshiaki Yatsu worked for the World Wrestling Federation as the Great Yoshiaki Yatsu from 1980 to 1981.
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In 1990 the team broke up when Yoshiaki Yatsu jumped to Super World of Sports.
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In 1991, while working for the promotion, Yoshiaki Yatsu unsuccessfully challenged Hulk Hogan for the WWF Championship.
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When Super World of Sports folded in 1992, Yoshiaki Yatsu formed his own promotion Social Pro Wrestling Federation, but would wrestle himself only semi-regularly.
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In recent years, Yoshiaki Yatsu has been the president of a transportation company.
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In September 2015, Yoshiaki Yatsu came out of retirement to team with his son Teriyaki Yoshiaki Yatsu and began competing for smaller promotions.
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On October 31,2000, Yoshiaki Yatsu faced Gary Goodridge in Osaka.
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In 1991, at the age of 35, Yoshiaki Yatsu was diagnosed with diabetes.
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On June 25,2019, Yoshiaki Yatsu underwent an operation to amputate his right leg below the knee, as bacteria had entered his bloodstream and his right toe was progressively necrotic.