| The Great Sasuke |
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| The Great Sasuke
Height: 173 cm (5 ft 8 in) Weight: 82 kg (180 lb) Real name: Masanori Murakawa Hometown: Iwate Prefecture, Japan Pro debut: March 1, 1990, vs. Monkey Magic Wakita Finishing move: Thunder Fire Powerbomb Other aliases: Masa Michinoku, Ninja Sasuke, SASUKE Career highlights: FMW Independent World Junior Heavyweight Champion, Michinoku Pro Tohoku Junior Heavyweight Champion (2), Michinoku Pro Tohoku Tag Team Champion (w/Dick Togo), IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion, IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champion (w/Jushin Liger), NWA World Junior Heavyweight Champion, NWA World Middleweight Champion, NWA World Welterweight Champion, UWA World Light Heavyweight Champion, UWA/UWF Intercontinental Tag Team Champion (2), WWE World Light Heavyweight Champion (2), WWA World Junior Light Heavyweight Champion, WWA World Middleweight Champion, British Commonwealth Junior Heavyweight Champion (2) Trained by: Satoru Sayama 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, T?hoku. 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 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. |