Satoru Sayama
Japanese professional wrestler, the first Tiger Mask, who founded Shooto, one of the first MMA organisations, in 1983–1984 and later the Seikendo system.
Quick Facts
JapanBiography
Satoru Sayama is a Japanese professional wrestler, the first Tiger Mask and the founder of Shooto. He was born on 27 November 1957 in Shimonoseki in Yamaguchi Prefecture. He began judo in the second grade of elementary school and wrestled at the fisheries high school in Yamaguchi.
He entered the New Japan Pro Wrestling dojo in July 1975 and debuted on 28 May 1976. He trained under Antonio Inoki, Karl Gotch, Kotetsu Yamamoto, Yoshiaki Fujiwara and Diablo Velasco, kickboxing at Mejiro Gym with Kenkichi Kurosaki and sambo with Victor Koga. As Tiger Mask, inspired by the manga of Ikki Kajiwara, he debuted on 23 April 1981 against Dynamite Kid. He twice held the WWF and NWA World Junior Heavyweight titles at the same time and in 1982 received the Tokyo Sports MVP award.
In August 1983 he left NJPW and founded Shooto; some sources give the year 1983, others 1984. The Shooto curriculum combines punches from boxing, Muay Thai and karate with grappling from wrestling, judo and sambo; for Shooto he designed gloves with open fingers. His students included Yuichi Watanabe, Yuki Nakai and Noboru Asahi. He left Shooto in 1996, the year he was also inducted into the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame. He published the books Super Tiger Shooting (1984) and Introduction to Shooto (1986).
In 1999 he created the fighting system Seikendo, according to Japanese sources at first called Seichuando, and in 2005 he founded Real Japan Pro-Wrestling, later Strong Style Pro-Wrestling. He last wrestled on 7 December 2016.
Associated Martial Arts
Achievements and honours
- Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of FameHall of Fame · 1996