Yoji Anjo

Yoji Anjo
Born (1969-12-31) December 31, 1969
Suginami, Tokyo, Japan
Other names Mr. 200%
Nationality Japanese
Height 1.80 m (5 ft 11 in)
Weight 90 kg (200 lb)
Division Light Heavyweight
Team Team Kingdom
Teacher(s) Yoshiaki Fujiwara
Nobuhiko Takada
Akira Maeda
Years active 1985–2015
Mixed martial arts record
Total 6
Wins 0
Losses 5
By knockout 1
By submission 3
By decision 1
Draws 1
Other information
Mixed martial arts record from Sherdog

Yoji Anjo (安生 洋二 Anjō Yōji), is a retired Japanese professional wrestler and mixed martial artist. He was born in Suginami, Japan on December 31, 1969.[1]

Professional wrestling career

Anjo debuted as a professional wrestler in the first incarnation of the Japanese UWF, on July 6, 1985 against Osamu Hoshina. UWF's collapse later in the year led him into New Japan Pro Wrestling along with Akira Maeda, Nobuhiko Takada and the rest of the roster. He competed in the NJPW junior heavyweight division but did not have success at all. In 1988 he moved to the second version of the UWF and adopted a more eccentric image for himself, wearing zebra tights and bondage gear and using heelish sneaky tactics in the ring.

In 1991 he joined UWF International and had success as the top native heel. He feuded with Takada and Kazuo Yamazaki, and had also a match with The Iron Sheik. It was Anjo who had the idea of co-promoting events with NJPW in 1995, and earned a victory over Masahiro Chono in an interpromotional match. He and young wrestlers Yoshihiro Takayama and Kenichi Yamamoto formed a stable called the "Golden Cups" to feud in tag team and six-man matches against Super Strong Machine as the masked 200% Machines. They also forayed into WAR to feud with Genichiro Tenryu and others.

In a bid to regain credibility, Anjo travelled to California to challenge Rickson Gracie in the latter's own dojo, only to be swiftly and brutally defeated before the assembled Japanese press that had followed him there. With the UWFi's formerly fearsome reputation in tatters, its attendance numbers swiftly decreased, with the federation closing its doors once and for all in December 1996. In their final show it was Kazushi Sakuraba who at long last headlined, defeating Anjo by submission.

Following UWFI's collapse he joined Kingdom but then wandered into independent promotions and also began competing in MMA matches (see below). In 2000 he resurfaced to help out All Japan Pro Wrestling's rebuilding, and won the World Tag Team Championship with old foe Genichiro Tenryu. After a failed team with Mitsuya Nagai, he quit All Japan and wandered again, joining HUSTLE run by old comrade Takada for a few gimmick matches.

On March 19, 2015, Anjo retired from professional wrestling, putting on a small interpromotional card where he reformed his "Golden Cups" stable with Takayama and Yamamoto, to take on former UWF and New Japan foes Masakatsu Funaki, Minoru Suzuki and Sanae Kikuta in a best-of-three-falls six-man match. Anjo was forced to submit by Funaki in two straight falls, but Anjo demanded the match go to a third fall and was pinned by Suzuki.

Mixed martial arts career

Yoji's first shootfight was in UWF Newborn, after offering himself to fight muay thai champion Changpuek Kiatsongrit in the 1989 event U-Cosmos. Under mixed rules, Changpuek chose to wear gloves while Anjo did not. Started the fight, Yoji immediately clinched Changpuek to avoid his striking and repeteadly tried to take him down, but the Thai fighter kept holding the ring ropes in order to avoid it. After rounds, they traded kicks and Yoji cornered him in the turnbuckle several times, with Kiatsongrit never releasing the ropes. The Japanese wrestler managed to threaten him with submissions at the final round, but he couldn't lock them due to the rope escape rule, so the fight ended in a draw.

He had his official MMA debut at U-Japan, facing famed grappler Sean Alvarez in a half-hour losing effort. In 1997, he took part in Ultimate Fighting Championship's UFC Japan tournament representing Kingdom along with Kazushi Sakuraba, and was pitted against the much bigger and experienced David "Tank" Abbott. The American took advantage of his own wrestling superiority to take repeteadly Anjo down and use ground and pound, while Yoji answered with multiple submission attempts and leg kicks whenever he could. At the end of the fight, judges gave the decision to Abbot for keeping control during the fight. However, he had got a hand injury and had to retire from the tournament. Anjo's partner Sakuraba ended winning the tournament instead.

At the second UFC event in Japan, UFC 25, Anjo fought an even more dangerous grappler, Murilo Bustamante, considered as one of the best in the world. The Japanese wrestler was immediately taken down and mounted, but he managed to perform a rolling reversal off the cage and fend off an armbar attempt, and for a time seemd to have secured a guillotine choke, but it didn't work. At the second round, Anjo was taken down and submitted with an arm triangle choke. Anjo kept facing high level opponentes in the form of Olympic wrestler Matt Lindland, in UFC 29. This time was Anjo who initiated the takedown, but Lindland used the fence to avoid it and maneuver to mount, from which he executed intense ground and pound until the referee stopped the fight.

Three years after getting a draw with Seikendo fighter Gia Chirragishvili in Deep, Anjo was invited to Pride Fighting Championships to fight Ryan Gracie, in remembrance of Anjo's past challenge to Rickson. The young Brazilian took Anjo down, but couldn't get the choke, and even shoved the referee away after the restart, earning a yellow card. Again Ryan got a takedown and gained half guard, taking Anjo's back, but Yoji defended it and they struggled for position until he fell in an armbar and had to tap out. This was Anjo's last MMA fight, although he still helped to train fighters like Daiju Takase and Kenichi Yamamoto.

In wrestling

Championships and accomplishments

Mixed martial arts record

Res. Record Opponent Method Event Date Round Time Location Notes
Loss 0-5-1 Ryan Gracie Submission (armbar) Pride Shockwave 2004 December 31, 2004 1 8:33 Saitama, Japan
Draw 0-4-1 Gia Chirragishvili Draw Deep - 1st Impact January 8, 2001 3 5:00 Nagoya, Japan
Loss 0-4 Matt Lindland TKO (strikes) UFC 29 December 16, 2000 1 2:58 Tokyo, Japan
Loss 0-3 Murilo Bustamante Submission (arm triangle choke) UFC 25 April 14, 2000 2 0:31 Tokyo, Japan
Loss 0-2 David Abbott Decision UFC Japan December 21, 1997 1 15:00 Yokohama, Japan
Loss 0-1 Sean Alvarez Submission (punches) U - Japan November 17, 1996 1 34:26 Japan

Mixed rules

Res. Record Opponent Method Event Date Round Time Location Notes
Draw 0–0-1 Changpuek Kiatsongrit Draw UWF U-Cosmos November 29, 1989 5 3:00 Tokyo, Japan

Kickboxing record

Kickboxing record

Legend:       Win       Loss       Draw/No contest

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Profile at Puroresu Central". Puroresu Central. Retrieved 2014-05-14.
  2. ↑ "HUSTLE Results: 2004" (in German). PuroLove.com. Retrieved 2012-12-31.
  3. ↑ "All Japan Pro Wrestling - "October Giant Series 2001"" (in German). PuroLove.com. Retrieved 2014-05-14.
  4. ↑ "All Japan Pro Wrestling Results: 2002" (in German). PuroLove.com. Retrieved 2014-05-14.

External links


This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Monday, February 22, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.