The Great Sasuke

Masanori Murakawa
File:Greatsasuke.jpg
Born	July 18, 1969 Iwate Prefecture
Professional wrestling career
Ring name(s)	The Great Sasuke Masa Michinoku Ninja Sasuke SASUKE
Billed height	173 cm (5 ft 8 in)
Billed weight	82 kg (180 lb)
Trained by	Satoru Sayama
Debut	March 1, 1990, vs. Monkey Magic Wakita

Masanori Murakawa (村川 政徳, Murakawa Masanori), born July 18 1969, is a Japanese professional wrestler who is better known by his stage name The Great Sasuke. He has wrestled in Japan and in the United States in various wrestling promotions. He is said to have an incredible tolerance for pain, mainly in reference to the injuries he has had including a cracked skull on 2 occasions.

Career

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, Tōhoku. 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.

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 announced his plans to run for governor of Iwate in an upcoming election. [1]

Finishing and signature moves

• Thunder Fire Powerbomb
• Michinoku Driver I (Double underhook brainbuster)
• Sasuke Senton / Atomic Senton (High angle senton bomb)
• Sasuke Special (Cartwheel into over the top rope corkscrew suicide senton or suicide plancha)
• Sasuke Special II (Cartwheel into over the top rope corkscrew moonsault)
• Asai Moonsault
• Rider Kick

Championships and accomplishments

• Frontier Martial Arts Wrestling
  • 1-Time FMW Independent World Junior Heavyweight Champion

• Michinoku Pro Wrestling
  • 2-Time Michinoku Pro Tohoku Junior Heavyweight Champion
  • 1-Time Michinoku Pro Tohoku Tag Team Champion (with Dick Togo)

• National Wrestling Alliance
  • 1-Time NWA World Junior Heavyweight Champion
  • 1-Time NWA World Middleweight Champion
  • 1-Time NWA World Welterweight Champion

• New Japan Pro Wrestling
  • 1-Time IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion
  • 1-Time IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champion (with Jushin "Thunder" Liger)

• Universal Wrestling Association/Universal Wrestling Federation
  • 1-Time UWA World Light Heavyweight Champion
  • 2-Time UWA/UWF Intercontinental Tag Team Champion (with Gran Hamada ; with Sasuke the Great)

• World Wrestling Association
  • 1-Time WWA World Junior Light Heavyweight Champion
  • 1-Time WWA World Middleweight Champion

• World Wrestling Federation
  • 2-Time WWF World Light Heavyweight Champion

• Others
  • 2-Time British Commonwealth Junior Heavyweight Champion

• Pro Wrestling Illustrated
  • Pro Wrestling Illustrated (PWI) ranked him # 93 of the 500 best singles wrestlers during the "PWI Years" in 2003.

• Wrestling Observer Newsletter
  • 1994 Best Flying Wrestler
  • 5 Star Match vs. Chris Benoit (Super J Cup 1994)

External links

• - Biography
• - Biography