| Mr. Pogo | |
|---|---|
| Ring name(s) | Mr. Pogo The Great Pogo Mr. Sekigawa Ninja The Ninja Warrior Tetsuo Pogo King Pogo Mr. Togo |
| Billed height | 1.83 m (6 ft 0 in) |
| Billed weight | 129 kg (280 lb) |
| Born | May 2, 1951 Isesaki, Gunma, Japan |
| Trained by | Joo Sekigawa |
| Debut | March 20, 1972 |
Tetsuo Sekigawa (born May 2, 1951 in Japan) is a Japanese professional wrestler who is very well known for his hardcore matches, competing in his most popular gimmick, Mr. Pogo.
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He was originally a decent amateur, having a pre-professional dispute with the future Jumbo Tsuruta over team representation in the Japanese collegiate championships. He joined Japan Pro Wrestling Alliance but did not debut there, instead joining the new New Japan Pro Wrestling promotion's dojo and debuting in 1973. Quickly frustrated with NJPW's rigid norms, he quit and began wandering the wrestling circuits in North America. It was in North America where his gimmick was given: Mr. Togo, originally a generic Japanese surname, evolved into Mr. Pogo due to misspellings and miscommunication on the part of promoters who booked him. During the 1980s, Mr. Pogo would team with Kendo Nagasaki as the Ninja Express, traveling through Japan, United States, and Puerto Rico.
By 1990 he was back in Japan. In the mid-1990s he joined BJPW and won the BJPW Death Match Heavyweight Title once, and the Barbed Wire Street Fight 6-Man Tag Team Title. He wanted more interesting matches to compete in, and moved to W*ING. He faced such legends as Terry Funk and Mick Foley in some most brutal matches. His last promotions were WWC, FMW and NWA. Sekigawa retired in 1997.
Several of Sekigawa's hardcore matches include:
In the match that nearly ended Mr Pogo's career, Mr. Pogo fought Terry Funk in a Barbed Wire Spider Net and Barbed Wire Pit match where both the barbed wire substituting for the ring ropes and the barbed wire of the two pits that were outside the ring were rigged to explode. After Mr Pogo took a bump into one of the exploding spider wires and had his pants briefly set on fire by Funk's burning chair, Terry Funk forced Mr Pogo to fall into one of the barbed wire pits by blowing a gigantic fireball off his flaming branding iron at Mr Pogo. This turned into a catastrophe when the combination of the explosion and Mr. Pogo's head getting caught in one of the wires caused Mr. Pogo to break his neck. Not knowing that Mr. Pogo was hurt and not being able to understand the referee's Japanese, Terry Funk continued to beat on Mr. Pogo until he realized that Pogo could not continue with the match (which probably still had a way to go since they had still had an unexploded pit and an unexploded spider wire). Terry Funk wound up covering up for Mr. Pogo by chasing people around the ring side area with flaming branding iron and acting demented.
His retirement didn't last, as he returned to wrestling in 1997 for various promotions, including Big Japan Pro Wrestling.
Sekigawa, as the gimmick of Mr. Pogo, came out during the end of the match where Onita and The Great Sasuke fought for a second time in a exploding deathmatch where at the end he blew a fireball to Onita's face, giving Sasuke the win.
Sekigawa was rushed to a hospital in February 2007 with a bleeding gastric ulcer where he ended up spending three weeks in the hospital.
His Mr. Pogo character was referenced on the April 23, 2009 episode of TNA Impact on the cable channel SpikeTV. Jeff Jarrett and Scott Steiner were competing in a hardcore weapons match dubbed a "Cactus Jack Smack Attack" by Mick Foley who per the storyline had booked the match and chosen what weapons would be available for the wrestlers to use. One of the weapons was a pogo stick. At one point Scott Steiner began hopping on the pogo stick. Foley, who was a guest commentator, called Steiner "Mr. Pogo". Moments later, after Steiner was clotheslined off the pogo stick, Foley commented that the name was already taken.
As of 2009, he is still active, as part of the Shin-W*ING promotion.