History Wrestling / KazuyukiFujita

* TheAce: He was the top fighter of the Inoki Dojo, along with the latecomer Lyoto Machida. Less in the conventional sense, as he wasn't neither charismatic nor a great pro wrestler.

** Fujita was also compared to Wrestling/{{Goldberg}}, which is also in-universe, given that Inoki used to bill him as the "Japanese Goldberg".

** Being mainly a freestyle wrestler, Fujita's defensive and controlling style was neither spectacular nor exciting, but his punches and knees were enough to put his opponents out or claw the decision win if his opponents made the mistake of running out of gas by trying to beat him with strikes. Similarly, he was not a great grappler, but he did have a solid submission defense and knew some effective chokes to apply on overwhelmed opponents.
** His victories in PRIDE led to Inoki meddling to change Kazuyuki's wrestling style in New Japan to a generic MMA one, filled with positioning and ground and pound. Antonio seemed to have the reasoning of "if we our wrestling moves don't work in MMA, then MMA moves will work in our wrestling".

* DeathSeeker: Not straight, but he compared walking into the MMA ring like walking to his own execution, as he was esentially marching to give everything out in front of a crowd who got excited whenever blood was shed.

* {{Determinator}}: Embodying the JapaneseSpirit of ''kakan'' or perseverance, Fujita walked to the ring with no thoughts of giving up or falling down. He did not care whether he was facing just a difficult opponent, a plainly better fighter, or even the best fighter in the world. Like the many other pro wrestlers who had turned to MMA despite knowing well they could not succeed, Fujita just went out to fight until his opponents were defeated or until the ref and/or the medics said otherwise.

** In his fight against Fedor Emelianenko (at the time considered the best fighter in all MMA), Fujita came the closest anyone up to that point ever did to knock Fedor out with a thunderous punch.

* EstablishingCharacterMoment: Being showered with strikes from Mark Kerr and ''not'' getting knocked out, and then turn the fight on his head when Kerr got tired and pummeling him in the ground.
* EvilCounterpart: Can be considered one to Wrestling/ManabuNakanishi in NJPW. They both are big, tough wrestlers with a decorated amateur background and a similar physique, but Nakanishi has been always portrayed as a New Japan loyalist, while Fujita was a part of the Inoki MMA army and got all his career success from it. Similarly, Nakanishi's nickname was "Wild Man", while Fujita's was "Wild Beast".
* {{Face}}: While Wrestling/KazushiSakuraba proved that puroresu could win fights, Fujita proved that the traditional JapaneseSpirit of determination and indomitability alone could win fights. The Japanese crowd loved every second of it, and would have elevated Fujita to the category of a national hero as they did with Saku had Fujita been charismatic enough.

* GivingSomeoneThePointerFinger: Did it to Fedor Emelianenko on the crowd of PRIDE, meaning he was his next opponent.

* HeroKiller: His wins over Kerr and Shamrock were this to UFC fans, as well as his win over Toshiaki Kawada to AJPW fans.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: In 2004, Fujita lost the IWGP Heavyweight Championship before Kensuke Sasaki when he pinned himself while choking Sasaki. It counts also as a bad petard for New Japan, because such a match finish (which was booked by Fujita himself in which he thought would be a good idea to preserve his aura) was seen by the fans as ridiculous and offensive to the puroresu tradition, and they started to throw rubbish to the ring and bashed the company.
** in 2020, he spent a good portion of his match against Go Shiozaki getting increasingly frustrated with the amount of punishment his opponent took and kicked out of, and eventually began giving him more and more time to recover after increased batterings until Go's [[HeroicResolve Fighting Spirit]] finally kicked in, at which point Fujita, a man famous for outlasting and enduring all sorts of punishment, got outlasted in the ring by a man who had deeper reserves than him.

* [[IKnowKarate I Know Freestyle Wrestling]]: An accomplished freestyle wrestler. As said above, he missed the Olympics for one mere point (which was for Greco-Roman Wrestling, in which he was also a national champion at).
* TheJuggernaut: One of the few examples which qualify both in pro wrestling and MMA. His master Sayama just described him as a "monster".
* KickTheDog: Literally, with Wrestling/ShinsukeNakamura. At the 2004 Toukon Festival, Inoki ordered Fujita to shoot on Nakamura in a tag team match, kicking him in the face and hurting him badly. Only to Inoki to came personally to the ring and beat him even more.

* StoneWall: In MMA. His striking output was rudimentary and he usually found himself outgunned by his opponents, but they always got tired before being able to knock him out or submit him, which allowed him to finish them.

* UnbuiltTrope: It is believed that the infamous "lay and pray" term was coined by Stephen Quadros during the fight between Fujita and Gilbert Yvel, after Kaz spent almost all the match on top of him not doing nothing more than some random armbar attemps. However, it was not the lay and pray itself what won the fight for Fujita because the ruleset of PRIDE valued finishing attempts over control or positioning. What won the fight for him were the mentioned armbar attempts; the lay and pray just served to impede Yvel from doing anything more notable than those. So Fujita basically only innovated the "lay" part of the expression.
* UnskilledButStrong: Aside from an admittedly excellent freestyle wrestling acumen, Fujita had little other abilities aside from his freaking natural toughness and strength. He later gained some heavy striking to it.

* BaldOfAwesome: At his beginnings, because his skull was enough. He later sported blond-dyed hair.

As usual, you can find the basics at [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazuyuki_Fujita The Other Wiki]]. As said above in the quoting, Seanbaby has a less serious recap of his more known MMA fights.

'''Kazuyuki Fujita''' (b. 1970) is a UsefulNotes/{{Japan}}ese {{Professional Wrestl|ing}}er and UsefulNotes/MixedMartialArts fighter, best known for his work in Wrestling/NewJapanProWrestling and PRIDE Fighting Championships. He was originally a decorated amateur wrestler who missed the Olympics for one point, later turning to pro wrestling in NJPW. Starting traditionally as a jobber, he was busy climbing his way to low-card when he volunteered to take part in the blossoming MMA, a field which Wrestling/AntonioInoki was endorsing among the New Japan wrestlers, but unlike most of them, Fujita was succesful and became the spearhead of the Inoki fighters. By beating names like Mark Kerr, Wrestling/KenShamrock and Gilbert Yvel through pure toughness and a barely not preternatural measure of HardHead, he turned into one of the main Japanese players in PRIDE and once came as close as anyone to beat the invincible Fedor Emelianenko. After PRIDE's fall, he fought briefly for Sengoku and returned to Inoki in his company Inoki Genome Federation, where he currently wrestles.

!!! "The Last Tropes of the Inoki-ism":

* ManInWhite: Often wore white tights.

* TheApprentice: To Wrestling/AntonioInoki. He personally trained Fujita in catch wrestling, although he was GenreSavvy enough to send him to train with vale tudo expert Marco Ruas (who, as a luta livre practitioner, was a catch wrestler too - all in the family). Fujita also trained with Wrestling/SatoruSayama, Gerard Gordeau and other members of Inoki's entourage.

* [[IKnowKarate I Know Freestyle Wrestling]]: An accomplished freestyle wrestler. As said above, he missed the Olympics for one mere point.

** Fujita was also compared to Wrestling/BillGoldberg, which is also in-universe, given that Inoki used to bill him as the "Japanese Goldberg".

-->''"That guy can take a baseball bat to the side of the head!"''
--->--'''Eddie Bravo''' after witnessing Fujita's toughness.

* BashBrothers: With Team JAPAN, especially Kendo Kashin.

* TimeToUnlockMorePotential: He trained with Japanese boxing champion Yoshiaki Numata in order to improve his striking after his Grand Prix tenure.

* EvilCounterpart: Can be considered one to Manabu Nakanishi in NJPW. They both are big, tough wrestlers with a decorated amateur background and a similar physique, but Nakanishi has been always portrayed as a New Japan loyalist, while Fujita was a part of the Inoki MMA army and got all his career success from it. Similarly, Nakanishi's nickname was "Wild Man", while Fujita's was "Wild Beast".