History Wrestling / SatoruSayama

'''Satoru Sayama''' (b. 1957) is a UsefulNotes/{{Japan}}ese {{Professional Wrestl|ing}}er, promoter and UsefulNotes/MixedMartialArts trainer, best known for his work as '''Tiger Mask'''. He debuted in 1976 for Wrestling/NewJapanProWrestling, but he was sent abroad to Mexico, where he gained fame. Later he moved to Britain, where he learned martial arts and wrestled as "Sammy Lee", with his gimmick being a cousin of Creator/BruceLee. After his return to Japan, he was chosen to play the ''Manga/TigerMask'' character, based in a manga. He redebuted under the masked and became the founder of the junior heavyweight wrestling, introducing the lucha libre style in Japan along his own abilities. After some years of stardom, in which he had legendary feuds with Wrestling/DynamiteKid and Kuniaki Kobayashi, he left New Japan in protest for Wrestling/AntonioInoki's irregular monetary management. He founded the Tiger Gym, a martial arts dojo, and shortly after was convinced by NJPW defectors to return to wrestling and join them in Universal Wrestling Federation. There Sayama adopted the "Super Tiger" moniker and helped to create the shoot-style wrestling along names like Wrestling/AkiraMaeda and Yoshiaki Fujiwara. However, he had a falling out with Maeda and some others wrestlers and left to form Shooto, the first UsefulNotes/MixedMartialArts company in history. He acted as promoter and trained many future MMA stars, also doing a second return to pro wrestling by request of Inoki. After leaving Shooto, he freelanced in pro wrestling indies like Wrestling/MichinokuProWrestling and UWF International, and collaborated with Inoki in his Universal Fighting-Arts Organization. He ended founding a martial art, Seikendo, which derived into his own promotion, Real Japan Pro Wrestling.

* AsHimself: Subverted. He did appear in his biographic film ''Shinsetsu Tiger Mask'', but not as himself, but as his personal trainer. It was Wrestling/MasakatsuFunaki who played him.

* DramaticUnmask: Subverted for a MaskedLuchador. He nonchalantly unmasked himself in a TV show and proceeded to vilify pro wrestling, as he was tired of "fake" fighting and its politics. Unsurprisingly, he was not very popular between wrestling promoters after that.

* MultidisciplinaryScientist: Is trained in judo, amateur wrestling, sambo, kickboxing, muay thai and several styles of catch wrestling. He is simply nicknamed "Genius" for something.

* OddFriendship: Sayama was friends with sumo legend Taiho Koki, whose son Yukio is currently training in RJPW (and is thought by some to be the enigmatic Great Tiger).

* PassingTheTorch: Currently, there are three wrestlers who carry Sayama's torch: Tiger Mask IV (Yoshihiro Yamazaki), Tiger Mask V (Ikuhisa Minowa) and Super Tiger II (Yuji Sakuragi). The latter's EvilCounterpart, Tiger Shark (Kozo Urita) can be considered another torchbearer, as well as the recently debuted Great Tiger.

* TheWorfEffect: He was thrashed by one of his Real Japan students, an unknown wrestler named The Great Tiger, to show how dangerous he is.

* TheOtherDarrin: When Sayama left NJPW, the gimmick was swiftly bought by Wrestling/AllJapanProWrestling and passed to Wrestling/MitsuharuMisawa. Then it was passed to Koji Kanemoto, and finally to Yoshihiro Yamazaki. And recently, Ikuhisa Minowa has got a variation of it.

** While he has directly trained few of the most known (i.e. modern) Shooto fighters, he was the one who taught the instructors who trained them, which makes him an Old Master to Old Masters. Yuki Nakai, Noboru Asahi and Yorinaga Nakamura are his best known Shooto era apprentices. Also, combat wrestling founder Noriaki Kiguchi worked in his Gym, and shootboxing pioneer Caesar Takeshi learned grappling from Sayama as well.

* RedBaron: "Yon Jigen Yaho" ("The Four-Dimensional One", sometimes translated as "The Four-Dimensional Wrestler"), "Densetsu no Tora" ("The Tiger of Legend") and "Tensai" ("Genius").

* SadistTeacher: Is considered a cruel and harsh trainer even to Japanese standards, to the extent that there are clips of him beating students with a shinai cane. In fact, it's said that Sayama trainees literally get hit harder in training than in the ring. Karl Gotch (who once spoke of Sayama as his greatest student ever) supposedly remarked that Satoru was conceited and a gym bully.

'''Satoru Sayama''' (b. 1957) is a UsefulNotes/{{Japan}}ese {{Professional Wrestl|ing}}er, promoter and UsefulNotes/MixedMartialArts trainer, best known for his work as '''Tiger Mask'''. He debuted in 1976 for Wrestling/NewJapanProWrestling, but he was sent abroad to Mexico, where he gained fame. Later he moved to Britain, where he learned martial arts and wrestled as "Sammy Lee", with his gimmick being a cousin of Creator/BruceLee. After his return to Japan, he was chosen to play the Manga/TigerMask character, based in a manga. He redebuted under the masked and became the founder of the junior heavyweight wrestling, introducing the lucha libre style in Japan along his own abilities. After some years of stardom, in which he had legendary feuds with Wrestling/DynamiteKid and Kuniaki Kobayashi, he left New Japan in protest for Wrestling/AntonioInoki's irregular monetary management. He founded the Tiger Gym, a martial arts dojo, and joined Universal Wrestling Federation, where he helped to create the shoot-style wrestling along names like Wrestling/AkiraMaeda and Yoshiaki Fujiwara. However, he had a falling out with Maeda and some others wrestlers and left to form Shooto, the first UsefulNotes/MixedMartialArts company in history. He acted as promoter and trained many future MMA stars, until he returned to pro wrestling by request of Inoki. After leaving Shooto, he freelanced in pro wrestling indies like Wrestling/MichinokuProWrestling and UWF International, and collaborated with Inoki in his Universal Fighting-Arts Organization. He ended founding a martial art, Seikendo, which derived into his own promotion, Real Japan Pro Wrestling.

** In real life, Wrestling/AkiraMaeda. Their hosility started in 1985, when Maeda shot on Sayama during a match and caused the fall of the original UWF. They have continued badmouthing each other during years until 2006, when they were reunited in an interview by Hisao Maki and acknowledged (rather grudgingly) each other's accomplishments. Currently, they seem to have regained a degree of respect between them.

* BadBoss: Supposedly the reason his fellow wrestlers ousted him from Universal Wrestling Federation, which is funny considering that they were who convinced him to lead UWF in first place.

* ColorCodedForYourConvenience: Black, only under his real name. He used to fight his Shooto exhibition fights in full-body black tights.

* {{Face}}: One of the greatest of his time.
* FinishingMove: Tiger Suplex, Tiger Driver (a predecessor to the DDT), Crossface Chickenwing, and others.

* JapaneseSpirit: Has a preference for traditional Japanese martial imagery and ideals, as evidenced for his Seikendo style and the ceremonials used in RJPW.

* KidAppealCharacter: Started as one, as the junior heavyweight star was Tatsumi Fujinami. Then Fujiname ascended to heavyweight and Tiger Mask got the spotlight.

'''Satoru Sayama''' (b. 1957) is a UsefulNotes/{{Japan}}ese {{Professional Wrestl|ing}}er, promoter and UsefulNotes/MixedMartialArts trainer, best known for his work as '''Tiger Mask'''. He debuted in 1976 for Wrestling/NewJapanProWrestling, but he was sent abroad to Mexico, where he gained fame. Later he moved to Britain, where he learned martial arts and wrestled as "Sammy Lee", with his gimmick being a cousin of Creator/BruceLee. After his return to Japan, he was chosen to play the Manga/TigerMask character, based in a manga. He redebuted under the masked and became the founder of the junior heavyweight wrestling, introducing the lucha libre style in Japan along his own abilities. After some years of stardom, in which he had legendary feuds with Wrestling/DynamiteKid and Kuniaki Kobayashi, he left New Japan in protest for Wrestling/AntonioInoki's irregular monetary management. He founded the Tiger Gym, a martial arts dojo, and joined Universal Wrestling Federation, where he helped to create the shoot-style wrestling along names like Wrestling/AkiraMaeda and Yoshiaki Fujiwara. However, he had a falling out with Maeda and some others wrestlers and left to form Shooto, the first UsefulNotes/MixedMartialArts company in history. He acted as promoter and trained many future MMA stars, until he returned to pro wrestling by request of Inoki. After leaving Shooto, he freelanced in pro wrestling indies like Wrestling/MichinokuProWrestling and UWF International, and collaborated with Inoki in his Universal Fighting-Arts Organization. He ended founding a martial art, Seikendo, which derive into his own promotion, Real Japan Pro Wrestling.

* StartMyOwn: Shooto, Seikendo and Real Japan Pro Wrestling.

* TheAce: Absolutely.

* ColourCodedForYourConvenience: Black, only under his real name. He used to fight his Shooto exhibition fights in full-body black tights.

* IHaveTheHighGround: His wrestling style involved high acrobatics.
* [[IKnowKarate I Know Many Martial Arts]]: Was trained in judo, amateur wrestling, sambo, kickboxing, muay thai and several styles of catch wrestling.
** He is currently the first and only red belt in seikendo, the martial art he created in 1999.

* [[KickChick Kick Dude]]: Combined lucha libre with his martial arts kicks.

* LegacyCharacter: The most known one in pro wrestling.
* LightningBruiser: Good in kicks, suplexes and submissions, and one of the first high-flyers.

* NonActionGuy: As Shooto leader. Unlike his fellow wrestlers Akira Maeda and Nobuhiko Takada, he was GenreSavvy enough to realize that he didn't have the youth and gifts to be a credible legit fighter facing the MMA wave, and thus he never tried to made himself the big star of his promotion after the UWF split.
** A fun fact is that "Sayama" can be translated as "sitting on a mountain".

* OvershadowedByAwesome: After the UWF split, the greatest shoot-style exponents to Japanese eyes were Nobuhiko Takada from UWF International, Akira Maeda from RINGS and Masakatsu Funaki from Pancrase. Sayama was never counted as another one, due to Shooto being far less known and to him not having an active career.

'''Satoru Sayama''' (b. 1957) is a UsefulNotes/{{Japan}}ese {{Professional Wrestl|ing}}er, promoter and UsefulNotes/MixedMartialArts trainer, best known for his work as '''Tiger Mask'''. He debuted in 1976 for Wrestling/NewJapanProWrestling, but he was sent abroad to Mexico, where he gained fame. Later he moved to Britain, where he learned martial arts and wrestled as "Sammy Lee", with his gimmick being a cousin of Creator/BruceLee. After his return to Japan, he was chosen to play the Manga/TigerMask character, based in a manga. He redebuted under the masked and became the founder of the junior heavyweight wrestling, introducing the lucha libre style in Japan along his own abilities. After some years of stardom, in which he had legendary feuds with Wrestling/DynamiteKid and Kuniaki Kobayashi, he left New Japan in protest for Antonio Inoki's irregular monetary management. He founded the Tiger Gym, a martial arts dojo, and joined Universal Wrestling Federation, where he helped to create the shoot-style wrestling along names like Wrestling/AkiraMaeda and Yoshiaki Fujiwara. However, he had a falling out with Maeda and some others wrestlers and left to form Shooto, the first UsefulNotes/MixedMartialArts company in history. He acted as promoter and trained many future MMA stars, until he returned to pro wrestling by request of Inoki. After leaving Shooto, he freelanced in pro wrestling indies like Wrestling/MichinokuProWrestling and UWF International, and collaborated with Inoki in his Universal Fighting-Arts Organization. He ended founding a martial art, Seikendo, which derive into his own promotion, Real Japan Pro Wrestling.

* SadistTeacher: Was a considered cruel and harsh trainer even to Japanese standards, to the extent that there are clips of him beating students with a shinai cane. In fact, Karl Gotch (who once spoke of Sayama as his greatest student ever) supposedly remarked that Satoru was conceited and a gym bully.

* WrestlingPsychology: His one has been praised for decades.

'''Satoru Sayama''' (b. 1957) is a UsefulNotes/{{Japan}}ese {{Professional Wrestl|ing}}er, promoter and UsefulNotes/MixedMartialArts trainer, best known for his work as '''Tiger Mask'''. He debuted in 1976 for Wrestling/NewJapanProWrestling, but he was sent abroad to Mexico, where he gained fame. Later he moved to Britain, where he learned martial arts and wrestled as "Sammy Lee", with his gimmick being a cousin of Creator/BruceLee. After his return to Japan, he was chosen to play the Manga/TigerMask character, based in a manga. He redebuted under the masked and became the founder of the junior heavyweight wrestling, introducing the lucha libre style in Japan along his own abilities. After some years of stardom, in which he had legendary feuds with Wrestling/DynamiteKid and Kuniaki Kobayashi, he left New Japan in protest for Antonio Inoki's irregular monetary management. He founded the Tiger Gym, a martial arts dojo, and joined Universal Wrestling Federation, where he helped to create the shoot-style wrestling along names like Akira Maeda and Yoshiaki Fujiwara. However, he had a falling out with Maeda and some others wrestlers and left to form Shooto, the first UsefulNotes/MixedMartialArts company in history. He acted as promoter and trained many future MMA stars, until he returned to pro wrestling by request of Inoki. After leaving Shooto, he freelanced in pro wrestling indies like Wrestling/MichinokuProWrestling and UWF International, and collaborated with Inoki in his Universal Fighting-Arts Organization. He ended founding a martial art, Seikendo, which derive into his own promotion, Real Japan Pro Wrestling.

** In real life, Akira Maeda. Their hosility started in 1985, when Maeda shot on Sayama during a match and caused the fall of the original UWF. They have continued badmouthing each other during years until 2006, when they were reunited in an interview by Hisao Maki and acknowledged (rather grudgingly) each other's accomplishments. Currently, they seem to have regained a degree of respect between them.

** While he has directly trained few of the most known (i.e. modern) Shooto fighters, he was who taught the instructors who trained them, which makes him an Old Master to Old Masters. Yuki Nakai, Noboru Asahi and Yorinaga Nakamura are his best known Shooto era apprentices. Also, combat wrestling founder Noriaki Kiguchi worked in his Gym, and shootboxing pope Caesar Takeshi learned grappling from Sayama as well.

* PassingTheTorch: Currently, there are three wrestlers who carry Sayama's torch: Tiger Mask IV (Yoshihiro Yamazaki), Tiger Mask V (Ikuhisa Minowa) and Super Tiger II (Yuji Sakuragi). The latter's EvilCounterpart, Tiger Shark (Kozo Urita) can be considered another torchbearer.

** In real life, Akira Maeda. Their hosility started in 1985, when Maeda shot on Sayama during a match and caused the fall of the original UWF. They have continued badmouthing each other during years until 2006, when they were reunited in an interview by Hisao Maki and acknowledged (rather grudgingly) each other's accomplishments. Currently, they seem to have a degree of respect between them.

* DistaffCounterpart: The character Tiger Dream, granted by Sayama to joshi wrestlers Candy Okutsu.
* DramaticUnmask: Subverted for a MaskedLuchador. He nonchalantly unmasked himself in a TV show and proceeded to vilify pro wrestling, as he was tired of "fake" fighting. Unsurprisingly, he was not very popular between wrestling promoters after that.

* HardboiledDetective: His character in the 1995 film ''Roppongi Soldier''.

* [[IKnowKarate I Know Many Martial Arts]]: Was trained in judo, amateur wrestling, sambo, kickboxing, muay thai and catch wrestling.

** While he has directly trained few of the most known (i.e. modern) Shooto fighters, he taught the instructors who trained them, which makes him an Old Master to Old Masters. Yuki Nakai, Noboru Asahi and Yorinaga Nakamura are his best known Shooto era apprentices. Combat wrestling founder Noriaki Kiguchi also worked in his Gym.

* SadistTeacher: Was a considered cruel and harsh trainer even to Japanese standards, to the extent that there are clips of him beating students with a shinai cane. In fact, Karl Gotch supposedly remarked that Sayama was a great trainer and an equally great gym bully.

** While he has directly trained few of the most known (i.e. modern) Shooto fighters, he taught the instructors who trained them, which makes him an Old Master to Old Masters. Yuki Nakai, Noboru Asahi and Yorinaga Nakamura are his best known Shooto era apprentices. He has also worked with fellow master Noriaki Kiguchi.

* RedBaron: "The Four-Dimensional Wrestler".

* FreudianTrio: The [[TheSpock Superego]] to Nobuhiko Takada's [[TheKirk Ego]] to Akira Maeda's [[TheMcCoy Id]].

* DramaticUnmask: Brutally subverted for a MaskedLuchador. He nonchalantly unmasked himself in a TV show and proceeded to vilify pro wrestling, as he was tired of "fake" fighting. Unsurprisingly, he was not very popular between wrestling promotors after that.

* AlliterativeName: '''S'''atoru '''S'''ayama.

* PassingTheTorch: Currently, there are three wrestlers who carry Sayama's torch: Tiger Mask IV (Yoshihiro Yamazaki), Tiger Mask V (Ikuhisa Minowa) and Super Tiger II (Yuji Sakuragi).

* EstablishingCharacterMoment: Being lifted from the apron for a vertical suplexed by Dynamite Kid, then floating over him and reversing the move into a bridging German suplex for the pin, all in his Tiger Mask debut.

* [[IKnowKarate I Know Martial Arts]]: Was trained in judo, amateur wrestling, sambo, kickboxing, muay thai and catch wrestling.

* ManInBlack: Fought his Shooto exhibition fights in full-body black tights.

* NonActionGuy: As Shooto leader. Unlike his fellow wrestlers Akira Maeda and Nobuhiko Takada, he was GenreSawy enough to realize that he didn't have the youth and gifts to be a credible legit fighter facing the MMA wave, and thus he never tried to made himself the big star of his promotion after the UWF split.
* TheOtherDarrin: When Sayama left NJPW, the gimmick was swiftly bought by Wrestling/AllJapanProWrestling and passed to Mitsuharu Misawa. Then it was passed to Koji Kanemoto, and finally to Yoshihiro Yamazaki. And recently, Ikuhisa Minowa has got a variation of it.
* OvershadowedByAwesome: After the UWF split, the greatest shoot-style exponents were Nobuhiko Takada from UWF International, Akira Maeda from RINGS and Masakatsu Funaki from Pancrase. Sayama was never counted as another one, as Shooto was less known than the three due partially to him not pushing (or being pushed) as the star of his promotion.

* ManInBlack: Fought his Shooto exhibition match in full-body black tights.

* ShoutOut[=/=]{{Homage}}: His Sammy Lee gimmick to Creator/BruceLee.

* TagTeam: With fellow shooter Yoji Anjo. This was his only team, as Sayama has went predominantly solo.

* ArchEnemy: Wrestling/DynamiteKid, Kuniaki Kobayashi and Black Tiger.

* FinishingMove: Tiger Suplex, Tiger Driver (a predecessor to the DDT), Crossface Chickenwing and others.

* Acrofatic: Gained ''a lot'' of weight after his retire in 1985, but he moves almost exactly like his former self.

* InvencibleHero: Aside than DQ or count out losses, Tiger Mask was never pinned, singles or tag team match, during his New Japan days.