History Wrestling / SatoruSayama

* ForWantOfANail: Consciously or not, Sayama was the original cause of the MMA boom and is indirectly responsible for its upswing today. Explanation: when he brought Rickson Gracie to Japan, the pro wrestling circuit was forced to challenge him in order to keep its hegemony and failed miserably when Wrestling/NobuhikoTakada lost to him, giving birth to PRIDE Fighting Championships which introduced MMA in Japan and carved its niche between puroresu and K-1. The success of PRIDE introduced a long gallery of great fighters to the world, forced RINGS and other promotions to adapt their ventures to MMA, and made Wrestling/AntonioInoki go nuts with the concept and start the Inoki-ism syndrome. Finally, this activity made the Fertitta brothers and Dana White realize that MMA was something that deserved a dime, so they bought and revitalized UsefulNotes/UltimateFightingChampionship to turn it into what it is today. Surprising, isn't?

** Currently, there are three wrestlers who carry Sayama's torch: Tiger Mask IV (Yoshihiro Yamazaki), Tiger Mask V (Ikuhisa Minowa) and Super Tiger II (Yuji Sakuragi). The latter's EvilCounterpart, Tiger Shark (Kozo Urita) can be considered another torchbearer, as well as Great Tiger (his actual identity is not known, but it is believed to have been played by both Yukio Naya and Takatoriki).

* FromClonesToGenre: His aerial moves were initially used only by incarnations of Tiger Mask, but then spread to all cruiserweight wrestling. Until then, junior heavyweights in Japan had been esentially miniature heavyweights with extra agility or downright pureblood luchadores.

* ColorCodedForYourConvenience: [[PurpleIsPowerful Purple]] as Super Tiger, golden as Tiger King, and black under his real name.

* HardboiledDetective: He played this kind of character in the 1995 film ''Roppongi Soldier''.

* StartMyOwn: Shooto, Seiken Shinkage-Ryu and Real Japan Pro Wrestling.

* TheAce: He excelled in lucha libre, martial arts, catch wrestling and high-flying, was not a bad talker, and had an unique style to carry himself on the ring. As a result, and thanks to a smart booking, only Inoki was above him in popularity in the NJPW. Even Maeda and Fujiwara, who were solid draws in UWF, were in second place when Super Tiger was on the ring.

* OddFriendship: Sayama was friends with SumoWrestling legends Taiho Koki, whose son Yukio works currently in RJPW, and Wrestling/{{Akebono}}, whom he taught UsefulNotes/{{Kickboxing}} for his K-1 career.

* UrExample: Innovated or popularized several moves. He is even rumored to have devised the Phoenix Splash (corkscrew 450° splash) before his retirement from NJPW.

** Wrestling/DynamiteKid, Kuniaki Kobayashi and Black Tiger. More recently, Wrestling/MinoruSuzuki and Atsushi Onita.
** In real life, Wrestling/AkiraMaeda. Their hostility started in 1985, when Maeda shot on Sayama during a match and caused the fall of the original UWF. They continued badmouthing each other during years until 2006, when they were reunited in an interview by Hisao Maki and acknowledged (rather grudgingly, but with sincerity) each other's accomplishments. Currently, they seem to have regained some measure of respect for each other.

* BrokenPedestal: He was forced to leave Shooto in 1996 after a literal vote of no confidence by the board. According to recent revelations, reasons were multiple, yet all orbiting around this trope: Sayama had rekindled his relationship with professional wrestling the same year, which was not liked by shootists who had joined his cause thanks to his previous defenestration of wrestling; Shooto's two representatives had been just defeated in the Vale Tudo Japan 96, which cemented the opinion that Sayama's leadership was not giving them wins (without discounting that VTJ, Sayama's own brainchild, had been a pain in the ass for the Shooto fighters to adapt from the very beginning); and finally, there were standard accusations that Sayama was ilegally pocketing money (which were apparently untrue, and quite ironic given that the new chairman Taro Wakabayashi and other board members would end up busted for this very reason in 2011).

** He also has "Kamen Shooter" Super Rider (Yuichi Watanabe) as perhaps his first mask gimmicked trainee, though [[MyFriendsAndZoidberg he isn't mentioned along the same lines as the others]] and [[SomethingCompletelyDifferent is not a Tiger-related gimmick]].

* TheAce: He exceled in lucha libre, martial arts, catch wrestling and high-flying, and had an unique style to carry himself on the ring. As a result, and thanks to a smart booking, only Inoki was above him in NJPW. Even Maeda and Fujiwara, who were solid draws in UWF, were in second place when Super Tiger was on the ring.

** Sayama is a puroresu legend and one of the biggest contributors to the combat sports, but his fame as a bordering {{sadist}} in the dojo and his role in exposing pro wrestling's inner secrets have shadowed his figure to many eyes. He is a solid fan favorite nonetheless, but still not your usual pro wrestling hero, and his modern wrestling persona doesn't try to hide it.
* APupilOfMineUntilHeTurnedToEvil: Roughly how Wrestling/KarlGotch saw Sayama. Gotch initially called Satoru his greatest student ever, but he always considered him to be too much of a bully, and later in his life he changed his opinion and claimed Satoru only trained with him to get his knowledge and connections. He ended up appointing Fujiwara as his official heir and stating he was his best student instead of Sayama. Ironically, Sayama and Fujiwara have been close friends for years and are frequent coworkers.

* BadBoss: The reason his colleagues ousted Sayama from UWF was his egotistical, zealous creative control. Contrary to popular belief, it was not because Sayama was booking himself as an InvincibleHero (he was a main star, but he still lost matches like everybody else and rarely gave a bout that was not great), but because the changes of ruleset and format he was imposing; the other wrestlers felt Sayama was using the promotion as a laboratory and making its shoot-style theme evolve too quickly for the audience to get familiar with it, and given that Sayama was also operating his Super Tiger Gym at the time, there was the feeling that he didn't care about UWF because he had his own economical stability ensured. The yakuza scandal of executive Noboru Urata, who was Sayama's manager, was just the final straw.
* BewareTheSillyOnes: Sayama first met Wrestling/AkiraMaeda when he was coming from a pro wrestling training and saw Maeda and his karate coach training in a park. A perennial martial arts fan, Satoru went {{Squee}} upon seeing a particularly neat kick and rushed to introduce himself to them. They trained together for a couple of days, and while Maeda thought this wacky, chubby guy who claimed to be a pro wrestler didn't look very dangerous, Satoru demonstrated his skill in their first open rules sparring: he immediately got a single leg and threw Akira on his ass.

* BrokenPedestal: He was forced to leave Shooto in 1996 after a literal vote of no confidence by the board. According to recent revelations, reasons were multiple, yet all orbiting around this trope: Sayama had rekindled his relationship with professional wrestling the same year, which was not liked by shootists who had joined his cause thanks to his famous defenestration of wrestling; Shooto's two representatives had been just defeated in the Vale Tudo Japan 96, which cemented the opinion that Sayama's leadership was not giving them wins (without discounting that VTJ, Sayama's own brainchild, had been a pain in the ass for the Shooto fighters from the beginning, as their success there had been very meager); and finally, there were standard accusations that Sayama was ilegally pocketing money (which became ironic in 2011 after new chairman Taro Wakabayashi and other board members were similarly busted for this).

* InstantExpert: Downplayed in his kickboxing debut against Marc Costello. Sayama only had undergone a crash course in the Mejiro Gym some days before, while Costello was a national karate champion with a larger range. The result was naturally Costello's victory, but Sayama managed to fend him off during the entire fight and was never KO'ed, just outscored for the decision. (He also used illegal takedowns to halt the course of the bout, but that is another story.)

* LetsGetDangerous: In his MMA exhibition match with Yoshinori Nishi, Sayama was being bullied around by the bigger and more aggresive Nishi until he had enough and showed his sambo skills.

* MasterOfAll: Lucha libre, Western high-flying, shoot-style and recently even garbage wrestling. There are few wrestling styles in which Sayama cannot perform excellently.
* MotherRussiaMakesYouStrong: Sayama believed there might be great fighters waiting to be discovered in Russia, and it is said he held several kumites and tryouts there during his seikendo starting.

* MyGreatestFailure: Losing the kickboxing match against Marc Costello deeply hurt Sayama, who was supposed to be the company's promising new shooter and was being watched by Inoki, Willem Ruska and Kotetsu Yamamoto.

** He has recently begun dedicating his time to MMA coaching again with his new Sayama Dojo. Students include his own son Seito Sayama (a former basketball player of all things), Taiyo Nakahara (a veteran MMA fighter), Yamato Hiranuma (a national ranked judoka), and Takeru Wada (son of Ryogaku Wada and amateur kickboxer).
* OpposingCombatPhilosophies: His Seikendo martial art banned submissions. It assumes that in a real fight the floor will be hard as in most places in real life, it is thought that a person is at an overwhelming disadvantage if a person is taken to the ground and is at the bottom position. This is reflected in its FactionMotto ("Be Above") and is why Seikendo students are mostly trained in submission defense instead of offense with a focus on getting back to their feet as quickly as possible.

* PantheraAwesome: Yeah.

* PintSizedPowerhouse: At least in his original career, an example is at the 1975 New Japan year-end party, where he proceeded to beat everyone who challenged him to arm wrestling matches. He is not pint-sized anymore.

* SadistTeacher: Is considered a cruel and harsh trainer even to Japanese standards, to the extent that there are clips of him beating students with a shinai cane. In fact, it's said that Sayama trainees literally get hit harder in training than in the ring. Wrestling/KarlGotch, who used to spoke of Sayama as his greatest student ever, supposedly remarked that Satoru was a glorified gym bully. Sayama openly supports corporal punishment to children, something that is actually not as accepted in Japan as their cultural image could make you think.

* SpectacularSpinning: Liked to throw spinning kicks and sweeps in pro wrestling and his exhibition bouts.
* SuplexFinisher: According to one of his biographies, when he was in his high school amateur wrestling years, he liked to try for backdrop suplexes whenever he could. He apparently got the idea from watching Wrestling/LouThesz.

* TagTeam: With fellow U-spirit shooter Yoji Anjo. This has his only solid team, as Sayama has gone predominantly solo through his career.

* UnderwearOfPower: Fought his kickboxing bout with Marc Costello in green ones.

* WritingAroundTrademarks: The Tiger Mask character was bought by Wrestling/AllJapanProWrestling after his retirement, so he renamed himself as "The Tiger", "Super Tiger", "Tiger King" and the like. He retained his name variations after adquiring the Tiger Mask trademark, as he passed it to his apprentice Yoshihiro Yamazaki.

As usual, you can find the basics at [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satoru_Sayama The Other Wiki]].

* BadBoss: The reason his colleagues ousted Sayama from UWF was his egotistical, zealous creative control. Contrary to popular belief, it was not because Sayama was booking himself as an InvincibleHero (he was a main star, but he still lost matches like everybody else and rarely gave a bout that was not great), but because the other wrestlers felt Sayama was using the promotion as a laboratory and making its shoot-style theme evolve too quickly for the audience to get familiar with it. The yakuza scandal of executive Noboru Urata, who was Sayama's manager, was just the final straw.

* SadistTeacher:
** Is considered a cruel and harsh trainer even to Japanese standards, to the extent that there are clips of him beating students with a shinai cane. In fact, it's said that Sayama trainees literally get hit harder in training than in the ring. Wrestling/KarlGotch, who used to spoke of Sayama as his greatest student ever, supposedly remarked that Satoru was a glorified gym bully.
** Sayama openly supports corporal punishment to children, something that is not as accepted in Japan as their cultural image could make you think

* IKnowKarate: and UsefulNotes/{{Judo}}, and sambo, and UsefulNotes/{{Kickboxing}}, and UsefulNotes/MuayThai, and UsefulNotes/CatchWrestling.

* MultidisciplinaryScientist: Is trained in UsefulNotes/{{Judo}}, UsefulNotes/CatchWrestling, amateur wrestling, sambo, UsefulNotes/{{Kickboxing}} and UsefulNotes/MuayThai. He is not simply nicknamed "Genius" for nothing.

** He has recently begun dedicating his time to MMA coaching again with his new Sayama Dojo. Students include his own son Seito Sayama (a former basketball player of all things), Taiyo Nakahara, Yamato Hiranuma, and Takeru Wada (son of Ryogaku Wada).

** He has recently began dedicating his time to full MMA coaching with his new Sayama Dojo. Students include his own son Seito Sayama (a former basketball player of all things), Taiyo Nakahara, Yamato Hiranuma, and Takeru Wada (son of Ryogaku Wada).

* PintSizedPowerhouse: At least in his original career. He is not pint-sized anymore.

* DistaffCounterpart: The character Tiger Dream, granted by Sayama to joshi wrestler Candy Okutsu. He also has another one in
Ayaka Miyauchi, one of his few female trainees, a kickboxer who was goes under the name "Little Tiger" granted by Sayama himself.

* DistaffCounterpart: The character Tiger Dream, granted by Sayama to joshi wrestler Candy Okutsu.

* BadassGrandpa: When he retired unofficially from active wrestling in 2016, he was 58, and still kicked people around in the ring.

* RingOldies: 'been wrestling since TheEighties.

* BadBoss: The reason his colleagues ousted Sayama from UWF was his egotistical, zealous creative control. Contrary to popular belief, it was not because Sayama was booking himself as a BoringInvincibleHero (he was a main star, but he still lost matches like everybody else and rarely gave a bout that was not great), but because the other wrestlers felt Sayama was using the promotion as a laboratory and making its shoot-style theme evolve too quickly for the audience to get familiar with it. The yakuza scandal of executive Noboru Urata, who was Sayama's manager, was just the final straw.

* EverythingsBetterWithSpinning: Liked to throw spinning kicks and sweeps in pro wrestling and his exhibition bouts.

[[caption-width-right:350:The tiger and the mask.]]

* OddFriendship: Sayama was friends with sumo legends Taiho Koki, whose son Yukio works currently in RJPW, and Wrestling/{{Akebono}}, whom he taught UsefulNotes/{{Kickboxing}} for his K-1 career.