Koji Kitao

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Kōji Kitao (born August 12th 1963) is a former sumo wrestler and professional wrestler.

In his sumo career he competed under the shikona Futahaguro and was able to reach the highest rank, yokozuna, at the tender age of 23. His promotion was extremely controversial and proved to be a great embarrassment to the Sumo establishment. He lasted just eight tournaments at this rank and became the only Yokozuna in sumo history ever to retire without ever winning a yusho (tournament title). After a couple of serious behavioral mishaps, Kitao also became the first Yokozuna ever to be expelled from the Sumo Association by a panel of sumo elders.

Upon being dismissed by the Sumo Association, Kitao was linked with a move to America's NFL, but instead turned to professional wrestling. To mollify the association, he dropped the shikona and used his real name.

Trained at New Japan Pro Wrestling dojo, he debuted as a wrestler in 1990, and soon left the promotion to go to SWS. He teamed with fellow former sumo Genichiro Tenryu in an appearance at the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE)'s Wrestlemania VII event. Nevertheless, he was fired in 1991 for making an "inappropriate comment" using a microphone (actually may have been a shoot on how puroresu was pre-staged) during a match with John Tenta.

He then wandered in martial arts, but in 1993 he returned to wrestling by challenging UWF International top star Nobuhiko Takada to a (worked) mixed martial arts match. Takada won, but the importance of the match was that Kitao was truly back into puroresu. Kitao would later make two more MMA appearances - these times not worked - a loss to Pedro Otavio at the first Universal Vale Tudo Fighting event, and at UFC 9, losing to Mark Hall on a referee's stoppage. At PRIDE 1, he defeated future WWE superstar Nathan Jones with an armlock; the match was worked, but gave Kitao his only MMA victory.

In 1996, he had an appearance in the Jean Claude Van Damme movie The Quest as the fighting representative of Japan.

In the following years he formed his own promotion called Kitao Pro Wrestling, later a stable of the WAR promotion under the name Bukō Dōjō. Among the wrestlers that came out of the dojo were Masaaki Mochizuki and Takashi Okamura, who later became business partners of Ultimo Dragon in his junior heavyweight ventures.

Kitao won his only title, the WAR 6-Man Tag Team Championship, with Mochizuki and WAR rookie Nobukazu Hirai in 1998, but retired from pro wrestling altogether later in the year.

In September 2003, Kitao Koji sensationally returned to the world of sumo after being offered a job as a coach at his former training stable.