 | This article needs to beupdated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(October 2019) |
| Personal information | |
|---|---|
| Born | Osamu Matsuda (1966-04-19)April 19, 1966 (age 59)[1] Hanamaki, Iwate, Japan |
| Professional wrestling career | |
| Ring name(s) | El Samurai[1] Osamu Matsuda Edo Samurai |
| Billed height | 1.80 m (5 ft 11 in)[1] |
| Billed weight | 92 kg (203 lb)[1] |
| Trained by | NJPW Dojo |
| Debut | July 24, 1986[1] |
| Retired | 2013 |
Osamu Matsuda (松田 納,Matsuda Osamu) (born April 19, 1966) is a Japanese professional wrestler who is best known for his work inNew Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), and is better known by his stage nameEl Samurai.
Osamu Matsuda graduated from high school in 1985, and joined theNJPW Dojo. He debuted on July 24, 1986 in a losing effort againstMasaharu Funaki, and spent a few years working at the bottom of the card, wrestling with the likes ofKensuke Sasaki,Kenichi Oya, andTakayuki Iizuka. In March 1991 he went on a learning excursion toMexico, and while working for theUWA promotion, adopted a mask and the El Samurai stage name.[2]
El Samurai returned to NJPW in March 1992. A month later, he made it to the finals of theBest of the Super Juniors tournament, in which he lost toJushin Thunder Liger. Two months later, he defeated Liger for theIWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship. He would lose the title toUltimo Dragon in November 1992. During that time, he would constantly team with Takayuki Iizuka andAkira Nogami in multi-man tag team matches, naming themselves the "Toukon Trio".
In April 1994, El Samurai took part in the1994 Super J-Cup tournament; he defeatedMasayoshi Motegi in the first round, before losing to TheGreat Sasuke in the quarterfinals. In December 1995, he entered into the second Super J-Cup tournament, but he didn't fare as well as the year before, as he lost toDos Caras in the first round. In August 1996, he took part in a tournament to determine the firstJ-Crown champion. At the time, El Samurai was the WWF World Light Heavyweight Champion. He defeatedGran Hamada in the first round, before losing to eventual winner The Great Sasuke in the quarterfinals.
In 1997, El Samurai adopted a new attire and won the Best of the Super Junior tournament, defeatingKoji Kanemoto in the final match, during which his mask was torn completely off his face. The match was later givenfive stars by Wrestling Observer'sDave Meltzer. One month later, he defeated Liger to win theJ-Crown, which at that time consisted of seven unified junior heavyweight championships due to Liger losing one of the eight titles (theWAR International Junior Heavyweight Championship) before the title match with El Samurai. In March 2001, he and Liger won theIWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship.
In April 2004 El Samurai unmasked willingly for the first time since adopting the character, going by his real name, Osamu Matsuda, for a match againstOsamu Nishimura, but it was for one night only. Up until at the end of January 2005, he was unmasked again in aMUGA-style match againstShinsuke Nakamura. Samurai began to slow down in the mid-late 2000s, however, still managed to win the IWGP Junior Heavyweight tag team titles once again, this time with rookieRyusuke Taguchi.
On February 1, 2008, NJPW agreed to let El Samurai leave the company after his contract expired, due to him suffering from many injuries that limited his appearances in late 2007 and early 2008.
On February 17, El Samurai appeared in All Japan Pro Wrestling, aidingKaz Hayashi andShuji Kondo by fending offNOSAWA Rongai and MAZADA. On May 8, 2010, El Samurai returned to New Japan to take part in the tournament contested for the vacant IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship. El Samurai and his partner, former rival Koji Kanemoto, advanced to the finals of the tournament, where they defeated the team ofPrince Devitt and Ryusuke Taguchi to win the titles.[3] On July 19, Kanemoto and El Samurai lost the Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship to Devitt and Taguchi.[4]
1No reign prior to December 1997 is officially recognized byWWE.
,Wrestlingdata,Internet Wrestling Database