| Naoya Ogawa 小川直也 | |
|---|---|
 Ogawa in 2011 | |
| Born | (1968-03-31)March 31, 1968 (age 57) Suginami,Tokyo, Japan |
| Other names | "O-chan", "Captain Hustle", "The King of Recklessness" |
| Height | 6 ft 4 in (193 cm) |
| Weight | 253 lb (115 kg; 18 st 1 lb) |
| Division | Heavyweight |
| Style | Judo |
| Years active | 1997–2005 (MMA) |
| Mixed martial arts record | |
| Total | 9 |
| Wins | 7 |
| By knockout | 2 |
| By submission | 5 |
| Losses | 2 |
| By submission | 2 |
| Other information | |
| Mixed martial arts record fromSherdog | |
| Judo career | |
| Weight class | +95 kg, Open |
| Judo achievements and titles | |
| Olympic Games |  (1992) |
| World Champ. |  (1987,1989,1989,1991) |
| Asian Champ. |  (1988) |
Medal record | |
| Profile at external judo databases | |
| IJF | 50391 |
| JudoInside.com | 2934 |
Naoya Ogawa (Japanese:小川 直也,Ogawa Naoya) (born 31 March 1968) is a Japanese world championjudoka, retiredprofessional wrestler, andmixed martial artist. He won a total of seven medals at theAll-Japan Judo Championships (second only behindYasuhiro Yamashita), and set a record of seven medals at theWorld Judo Championships. Ogawa won the silver medal in the+95 kg judo weight class at the1992 Summer Olympics.[1]
Ogawa is also known for his career in professional wrestling, where he primarily worked forNew Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), and took part in one of the promotion's most high-profilefeuds of the 1990s withShinya Hashimoto. Ogawa was also professional wrestling's two-timeNational Wrestling Alliance World's Heavyweight Champion.[2][3]
Ogawa first started injudo in his high school years. He continued on in college attendingMeiji University in 1986. In his second year at school he became a world freeclass champion, the youngest in the history of judo. He won many more championships before graduating from the College of Business Administration at Meiji University, setting a record of seven medals at theWorld Judo Championships. He also gained a total of seven medals at theAll-Japan Judo Championships in two separate winning streaks, from 1989 to 1993 and from 1995 to 96, second only toYasuhiro Yamashita's nine medals.[4] Ogawa was a silver medalist injudo of1992 Summer Olympics and fifth at the1996 Summer Olympics.[5]
He was known for his slow, cerebral style of judo, nicknamed "Three Minutes Judo" (3分間柔道,3-Funkan Judo) due to his usual strategy of investing the first three minutes in pressing on his opponent before trying to score. Due to this, Japanese specialized press often criticized him as lacking heart.[6] When finding an opening, Ogawa would favoruchi mata,kosoto gari,kosoto gake,sasae tsurikomi ashi,tai otoshi andsukui nage, sometimes using a controversial standingude gatame entry to set up sasae tsurikomi ashi andhiza guruma.[7] He was not a user ofnewaza, preferring to attempt onlyosaekomi-waza from failed throws.[8]
His performance at the 1996 Olympics would be criticized and led to Ogawa's retirement from professional judo.[9]
Ogawa's record in international judo competition was 47 wins and 9 losses from 1987 to 1996.[10]
Ogawa runs a judo school inChigasaki,Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, where he trains potential Olympians andParalympians in his network of dojos.[11]
In 1997, Ogawa was recruited byAntonio Inoki, chairman ofNew Japan Pro-Wrestling, for his UFO (Universal Fighting-Arts Organization) project. He was put to train underSatoru Sayama, legendary professional wrestler andmixed martial arts pioneer.
Ogawa made his debut in NJPW on April 12, 1997 at theTokyo Dome, replacing the stipulatedKen Shamrock as the opponent forShinya Hashimoto, then IWGP Heavyweight Championship titleholder. In a shocking upset, Ogawa defeated Hashimoto by choke, which put him in the spotlight and gained him a title shot at May 3. This time Ogawa was defeated by kick to the head, with Shinya retaining his title. This marked the beginning of their feud, which would extend for years.
Through 1997 and 1998, Ogawa wrestled for NJPW as part of "Different Style Fights", meeting wrestlers with legit backgrounds like Ogawa and Hashimoto themselves. He defeatedshoot-style wrestlerKazuo Yamazaki,arm wrestlerScott Norton,Ultimate Fighting Championship exponentsBrian Johnston andDon Frye, and Dutch martial artist Erwin Vreeker. His only loss came fromThe Great Muta, via Muta's signature Asian mist dirty trick. In March 1998, Ogawa took part in the Inoki Final Tournament, but he was eliminated by Frye at the finals after beating Johnston andDave Beneteau. In order to bounce back from the defeat, he started a special training, and ditched his trustedjudogi for black tights, boots andfingerless gloves.
On January 4, 1999, Ogawa was involved with one of the most controversial moments in NJPW history. During his anticipated rubber match with Shinya Hashimoto, Ogawa brokekayfabe andshot on Hashimoto, attacking him for real and leaving him downed and bloodied with kicks and stomps. The NJPW and UFO crews flooded the ring and a legitimate fracas erupted, with Ogawa'scornermanKazunari Murakami having to be hospitalized by a beatdown byTakashi Iizuka and Naoya himself being slapped by NJPW executiveRiki Choshu. During all the brawl, Ogawa taunted the crowd and the wrestlers, having to be accompanied out of the arena by his bodyguardGerard Gordeau. Many years later, in August 2021, Ogawa confessed he had been pressed byAntonio Inoki into shooting on Hashimoto in order to hijack the match and increase his popularity.[12]
In May, Ogawa traveled to United States and defeatedGary Steele to win theNWA World Heavyweight Championship. Hashimoto followed him to the country and attacked him (kayfabe this time) in a press conference, challenging him to a title match in Japan withTatsumi Fujinami as special referee. Naoya toured through United States, retaining the title beforeDan Severn,Doug Gilbert and Biggie Biggs, trading it with Steele in a three-way match that also involved Brian Anthony on September 25, 1999, and finally coming back to Japan to meet Hashimoto. They faced on October 10 at the Tokyo Dome, with Ogawa winning the bout.
On January 4, 2000, one year after their incident, Ogawa and Murakami faced off against Hashimoto and Takashi Iizuka in a special match. Unfortunately, it became a real fight again when Murakami knocked Iizuka out legitimately with astiff head kick, causing the teams to brawl in the ring again. Under Antonio Inoki's eye, the match was restarted, with Ogawa's team losing when Iizuka choked out Murakami.
After a tense alliance between them formed for the Rikidozan Memorial, Hashimoto challenged Ogawa to a last match, in which Hashimoto would retire from professional wrestling if he lost. Ogawa and Hashimoto fought the last time of their careers on April 7 at the Tokyo Dome, where Naoya defeated Hashimoto by KO after several iterations of hisSpace Tornado Ogawa technique. His opponent carried out and performed a retirement ceremony, while Inoki and other tried to convince him not to do it; even Ogawa declared in a segment that he repented having finished off the career of his rival.
Ogawa vacated the NWA title on July 2, 2000 in order to focus on training for his fight againstRickson Gracie, which never took place.
In 2001, after Shinya Hashimoto foundedPro Wrestling Zero-One, Ogawa left NJPW and moved in, forming a tag team with his former rival which was called "OH Gun". Their beginning together was harsh, but they eventually got along and won theNWA Intercontinental Tag Team Championship from the UPW team ofJon Heidenreich andNathan Jones. Ogawa and Hashimoto, along with the rest of native wrestlers of Zero-One, entered in a feud with the foreign wrestlers, led byTom Howard andSteve Corino.
In 2004, Ogawa took part in the foundation of thesports entertainment promotionHustle, a combined effort between Zero-One andmixed martial arts leaguePride Fighting Championships. Ogawa opened the storyline of Hustle during a staged press conference with Pride chairmanNobuyuki Sakakibara. During the interview, Sakakibara criticized professional wrestling and declared it inferior to MMA, which turned Ogawa furious. WithNobuhiko Takada acting on behalf of Sakakibara and Shinya Hashimoto backing Ogawa, it was decided they would prove their postures in an event where MMA fighters would face professional wrestling representatives. Ogawa himself would be slated to wrestleBill Goldberg, who had been introduced by Takada as his champion. However, the night of the event turned sour as, although Ogawa managed to overpower Goldberg, Takada orderedGiant Silva to attack Ogawa and distract him to be finished off by Goldberg.
At the second Hustle event, when Takada proclaimed himself Generalissimo Takada, leader of the villainous Monster Army, and declared his goal was to destroy professional wrestling, Ogawa and Hashimoto founded Hustle Army, a union of professional wrestlers bent on protecting their guild. Ogawa became the leader of the army, being nicknamed "Captain Hustle" and debuting a characteristichip thrust gesture to chant Hustle's name. Although his first match was a loss, being pinned byMatt Ghaffari with the help of several Monster Army members, he bounced back by summoning several high level wrestlers, among themRiki Choshu andToshiaki Kawada, to help him and Hashimoto.
In September, after Ogawa lost toFedor Emelianenko in 54 second at a Pride event, Takada started a mocking campaign against him and banned him from competing in Hustle for 54 days. In order to overcome this ban, Ogawa disguised himself as "Captain O", a maskedgimmick based onHulk Hogan's Mr. America persona, whom Ogawa claimed was the true Hogan in disguise. Deducting Captain O was really Ogawa, Takada's second-in-commandCommander An Jo sent several Monster Army wrestlers to capture and tie him up, but O escaped by shedding this gimmick and adopting yet another, "Judo O", where he would wear a bluejudogi along with his mask. Judo O teamed up withHustle Rikishi to defeat Takada's slaveHakushi and a one night mercenary namedRussian 54.
After Ogawa returned to the ring, Hustle co-produced a show along withMichinoku Pro Wrestling, whose star The Great Sasuke was inducted in the Hustle Army.
In 2007, Ogawa disappeared from the Hustle Army and sided shockingly with Takada. Ogawa changed his persona to an arrogantsocialite gimmick and called himself "Monster Celebrity", wearing sunglasses and ornated coats. Takada explained Ogawa had been brainwashed by him to turn him in one of his henchmen, and he proved Ogawa's newfound loyalty by sending him to attack Hustle Army member Banzai Chie. This storyline was written in order to explain Ogawa's departure from Hustle, as he had signed up withAntonio Inoki's new promotion,Inoki Genome Federation.
Ogawa worked forInoki Genome Federation until his retirement in 2015.
Ogawa had his first MMA fight the same year of his debut in NJPW, taking part in an event promoted byChris Dolman in Holland in which he faced Rens Vrolijk. Ogawa submitted him relatively fast, throwing him to the mat and choking him out.
His first high level match, however, would be forPride Fighting Championships at the eventPride 6 against the kickboxer andUltimate Fighting Championship veteranGary Goodridge. Naoya evidenced his lack of MMA experience when he suffered heavy blows and almost failed his firstmorote gari, but he eventually took Goodridge down and gained dominant position as expected.[13] Ogawa immediately tried several submissions, and although he didn't manage to lock them, he kept his stronger opponent busy through the round. At the second one, Ogawaswept Goodridge down and finally locked anude-garami, making him tap out.
It was rumored that Goodridge had been paid to throw the fight, but Gary himself said in an interview that, although he was effectively proposed an anonymous money bribe to let Ogawa win, he rejected it and fought for real, thus losing legitimately to Ogawa.[14] He added that PRIDE executiveNobuyuki Sakakibara had promised him "to write his own ticket" if he defeated Ogawa in order to increase his motivation.[15]
In 2000, Ogawa took part in negotiations withRickson Gracie for a match between them at the Colosseum promotion, in which Gracie had just defeatedMasakatsu Funaki. With the fight scheduled for the next year, Ogawa vacated hisNWA World Heavyweight Championship in order to focus in his fight with Gracie, but all the plans were suspended upon the news of the death of Rickson's son Rockson and the event never had place.[16]
Ogawa returned to Pride atPride 11 - Battle of the Rising Sun, facing world karate cup championMasaaki Satake in which was called a classic style vs. style matchup. Satake had recently defeatedKazunari Murakami, Naoya's former teammate, so the match sported a shade of revenge as well. During the bout, Satake opened the action with punches and kicks, avoiding Ogawa's takedowns but at the same time being unable to land decisive blows, while Ogawa threw punches as well in an attempt to keep the pace. At the second round, however, Ogawa took over, cutting the karateka's eye with a hard punch and swiftly taking him down for arear naked choke.
In 2002, Naoya participated in the first event of Universal Fighting-Arts Organization against another Olympic medalist, the Greco-Roman wrestling championMatt Ghaffari, who had claimed he would knock Ogawa out with knee strikes. However, the match transpired quite different, as although Ghaffari did take Ogawa down in an instance, Ogawa controlled the standing exchanges. After one minute and thirty seconds, the judoka landed a right punch that made Ghaffari stumble and fall, and the wrestler decided to tap out before receiving further damage.Rickson Gracie attended the event and was invited to train with Ogawa, which led to new talks about the possibility of a match with Naoya, but it did not happen either.[17]
Two years after, Ogawa took part in the PRIDE Grand Prix tournament as a representative of his home pro wrestling promotion HUSTLE. His first opponent wasK-1 veteran and MMA debutantStefan Leko, whom Naoya shockingly knocked down with a punch before submitting him to anarm triangle choke. Ogawa's next match was against fellow HUSTLE wrestlerGiant Silva, who outweighed him by 130 pounds, but the judoka took him down and rainedground and pound for the referee stoppage. His last match in the tournament, a matchup decided by fan voting, was against then PRIDE World Heavyweight Champion and eventual tournament winnerFedor Emelianenko. Fedor overpowered Ogawa and submitted him byarmbar in just 54 seconds, giving him his first MMA loss.
Ogawa's last fight in mixed martial arts was at PRIDE Shockwave 2005 against the man who took from him the world judo championships the last time they fought,Hidehiko Yoshida. The bout was highly anticipated and became one of the most expensive fights in MMA history, with Ogawa and Yoshida being both paid US$2 million.[18] The fight was a difficult perspective for Ogawa, as he was clearly behind in training and experience: while Yoshida had focused on MMA since 2002, Ogawa had fought only occasionally aside from his work in the pro wrestling circuit.[19]
Ogawa made his entrance to the arena with thehachimaki and music theme of his late friendShinya Hashimoto as a tribute and proof of motivation, while Yoshida took off his usual gi after making his own entrance. Started the battle, they fought on theclinch before Yoshida managed to trip Ogawa down withkouchi gari. Yoshida locked anankle hold that broke Ogawa's ankle, but the Hustle wrestler escaped, and then an exchange of reversions and ground and pound took place. At the end, Ogawa looked to have dominant position, but Yoshida locked an armbar from the guard by surprise, winning the fight.[19][20]
| 9 matches | 7 wins | 2 losses |
| By knockout | 2 | 0 |
| By submission | 5 | 2 |
| Res. | Record | Opponent | Method | Event | Date | Round | Time | Location | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Loss | 7–2 | Hidehiko Yoshida | Submission (armbar) | PRIDE Shockwave 2005 | December 31, 2005 | 1 | 6:04 | Saitama, Japan | |
| Loss | 7–1 | Fedor Emelianenko | Submission (armbar) | PRIDE Final Conflict 2004 | August 15, 2004 | 1 | 0:54 | Saitama, Japan | |
| Win | 7–0 | Paulo Cesar Silva | TKO (punches) | PRIDE Critical Countdown 2004 | June 20, 2004 | 1 | 3:29 | Saitama, Japan | |
| Win | 6–0 | Stefan Leko | Submission (arm-triangle choke) | PRIDE Total Elimination 2004 | April 25, 2004 | 1 | 1:34 | Saitama, Japan | |
| Win | 5–0 | Matt Ghaffari | TKO (punches) | UFO: Legend | August 8, 2002 | 1 | 0:56 | Tokyo, Japan | |
| Win | 4–0 | Masaaki Satake | Submission (rear-naked choke) | Pride 11 - Battle of the Rising Sun | October 31, 2000 | 2 | 2:01 | Osaka, Japan | |
| Win | 3–0 | Rob Peters | Submission | UFO Europe: Free Fight Gala | November 28, 1999 | N/A | N/A | Kijkduin, Holland | |
| Win | 2–0 | Gary Goodridge | Submission (americana) | Pride 6 | July 4, 1999 | 2 | 0:36 | Yokohama, Japan | |
| Win | 1–0 | Rens Vrolijk | Submission (rear-naked choke) | Red Devil Free Fight 1 | September 27, 1997 | 1 | 2:51 | Amsterdam, Holland |
His son,Yusei Ogawa, is also a judoka. He won themixed team gold medal at the2018 World Judo Championships, representing Japan.
(in Japanese)
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