Hiro Matsuda

Kojima played an active role as an ace pitcher at baseball in Nittai Ebara High School Baseball Club in Japan, and after graduating, he joined Japan Pro Wrestling in 1957, but left in 1960. Then Matsuda went to Peru. In Peru, he worked in the name of Ernesto Kojima. Later, after moving to Mexico through the United States, the ring name was changed to Kojima Saito, Great Matsuda, and Hiro Matsuda. The name “Matsuda” was a ring name given to two Japanese wrestlers active in the mainland of America, “Sorakichi Matsuda” in the 1880s and Manjiro "Matty" Matsuda in the 1920s. He initially debuted under his real name at Rikidōzan's Japanese Wrestling Association.

When wrestling in Mexico, he had matches against the legendary luchador El Santo, and he later studied with Karl Gotch in the United States in order to learn catch-as-catch-can and submission wrestling. During this period he learned one of his finishing maneuvers, the German suplex hold.[3] Kojima adopted his Hiro Matsuda identity while competing in the southern United States, inspired by earlier wrestlers Sorakichi Matsuda and Matty Matsuda. Over this period he would also wrestle occassionally in Japan, where he formed a tag team with Antonio Inoki.

Matsuda was the first Japanese wrestler to win a National Wrestling Alliance world singles title when he won its Junior Heavyweight Championship on July 11, 1964, in Tampa, Florida by defeating Danny Hodge, which he held until dropping it to Angelo Savoldi on November 13th of the same year. He would win a second title in 1975 defeating Ken Mantell, also later losing the belt to Hodge. After issuing several challenges to the champion, Matsuda's match against NWA World Heavyweight Champion Lou Thesz on December 10, 1964 in Jacksonville, Florida, ended without a winner as a result of a time limit draw.[4]

Matsuda settled in Florida in 1962, and later trained neophytes at the old Sportatorium in Tampa, home of the Championship Wrestling from Florida television program. As a trainer, Matsuda was famous for being very stiff with his trainees to toughen them up. His most famous student was Hulk Hogan who he started training in 1976. For many years Hogan and other wrestlers told a story that Matsuda broke Hogan's leg on his first day of training, to teach him to respect professional wrestling, and see if he really wanted to be part of the business. In reality on his first day of training, Hogan sprained an ankle. He came back the next day and tried to train on it. Matsuda saw it was all black and blue and told him he'd better sit it out for a week. After a week, he was back. Hogan later embellished that Matsuda broke his leg to not only make himself look tough for continuing to train under Matsuda, but also to show the seriousness of professional wrestling.[5] Matsuda wouldn't let wrestlers train with him unless they did 1,000 pushups and 1,000 squats.[6]

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. While there, he also wrestled television matches with Four Horsemen James J Dillon acting as his manager. During the Luger-Rhodes 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. In the coming years, Matsuda worked for World Championship Wrestling as the manager in early 1989 for the Yamasaki Corporation (a renamed Four Horsemen) as well as working with Terry Funk's stable, The J-Tex Corporation, as their business agent from Japan. As a mouth-piece for various Japanese wrestlers on American television, he "introduced" wrestlers including The Great Muta. His last match professional 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.

Kojima died on November 27, 1999 in Tampa, Florida of colon cancer and liver cancer; he was 62 years old.[7][8]

• Championship Wrestling from Florida
  • NWA Florida Tag Team Championship (4 times) - with Mr. Wrestling (1), Bob Orton (1), and the Missouri Mauler (2)[9]
  • NWA Southern Heavyweight Championship (Florida version) (4 times)[10]
  • NWA World Junior Heavyweight Championship (2 times)[11]
  • NWA World Tag Team Championship (Florida Version) (5 times) - with Duke Keomuka (4) and Dick Steinborn (1)[12]
• Georgia Championship Wrestling
  • NWA Columbus Heavyweight Championship (1 time)[13]
• Japan Wrestling Association
  • All Asia Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Michiaki Yoshimura[14]
• New Japan Pro-Wrestling
  • NWA North American Tag Team Championship (Los Angeles/Japan version) (1 time) - with Masa Saito[15]
  • Greatest 18 Club inductee
• NWA Mid-America
  • NWA World Tag Team Championship (Mid-America Version) (1 time) - with Kanji Inoki[16]
• Mid Atlantic Championship Wrestling
  • NWA Mid-Atlantic Southern Heavyweight Championship (1 time)[13]
• Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame
  • Class of 2018[17]
• WWE
  • WWE Hall of Fame (Class of 2018)[18]
• Tokyo Sports
  • Service Award (1999)

• Hiro Matsuda on WWE.com
• Hiro Matsuda's profile at Cagematch.net