(July 22, 1937 – November 27, 1999), best known by his ring name , was a Japanese professional wrestler, trainer, and booker.
Early life
was born in Yokohama. He attended Ebara High School in the Ōta ward of Tokyo, where he was an ace pitcher on the baseball team.
Professional wrestling career
After graduating high school, Kojima joined Rikidōzan's Japan Pro Wrestling in 1957, but left in 1960 due to his dissatisfaction with the highly-hierarchical nature of the Japanese wrestling scene. Kojima then went to Peru, where he worked as Ernesto Kojima. Later, after moving to Mexico through the United States, the ring name was changed to Kojima Saito, Great Matsuda, and eventually Hiro Matsuda. He would win a second title in 1975 by defeating Ken Mantell, also later losing the belt to Hodge, whom he had a series of matches with. Matsuda wouldn't let wrestlers train with him unless they did 1,000 pushups and 1,000 squats.
In 1987, he began working with Jim Crockett Promotions as a heel to participate in a feud between his disciple Lex Luger and Dusty Rhodes. During the feud, he was billed as "The Master of the Japanese Sleeper," a sleeper hold. During a match within the feud, Matsuda locked Johnny Weaver, who was in Rhodes' corner for one of the matches, in the hold, and the prolonged application of the hold caused Weaver to bleed profusely from the mouth. His last match was against Osamu Kido at the age of 53 on December 26, 1990, in Hamamatsu, Japan, in an event that also featured Lou Thesz, who also wrestled his last professional match, and Nick Bockwinkel.
Death
Kojima died at his home in Tampa, Florida, on November 27, 1999, of colon cancer and liver cancer; he was 62 years old.
- NWA Southern Heavyweight Championship (Florida version) (4 times)
- NWA World Junior Heavyweight Championship (2 times)
- NWA World Tag Team Championship (Florida Version) (5 times) - with Duke Keomuka (4) and Dick Steinborn (1)
- Georgia Championship Wrestling
- NWA Columbus Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
- Japan Wrestling Association
- All Asia Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Michiaki Yoshimura
- New Japan Pro-Wrestling
- NWA North American Tag Team Championship (Los Angeles/Japan version) (1 time) - with Masa Saito
- Greatest 18 Club inductee
- NWA Mid-America
- NWA World Tag Team Championship (Mid-America Version) (1 time) - with Kanji Inoki
- Mid Atlantic Championship Wrestling
- NWA Mid-Atlantic Southern Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
- WWE
- WWE Hall of Fame (Class of 2018)
- Tokyo Sports
- Service Award (1999)