Isami Kodaka

Isami Kodaka (木高 イサミ) is a Japanese professional wrestler, currently signed to Pro-Wrestling Basara (Basara).

He originally started his career in the Kaientai Dojo (K-Dojo) promotion in July 2002, but later left the promotion to become a freelancer, before signing with Union Pro Wrestling (Union Pro) in 2005.

Through Union Pro's working relationship, Kodaka also began working for Big Japan Pro Wrestling (BJW), where he adopted his current, hardcore wrestling-based style.

Kodaka, using only his given name as his ring name, made his professional wrestling debut for the promotion on July 18, 2002, facing Daisuke Matsumoto.

Kodaka left Kaientai Dojo shortly afterwards to become a freelancer.

In 2005, Isami ended his freelancing days, when he signed a contract with the Union Pro Wrestling (Union Pro) promotion.

Through Union Pro's working relationship with the Big Japan Pro Wrestling (BJW) promotion, Isami also made appearances for BJW, where he started a storyline with Jaki Numazawa and Mad Man Pondo, which led to him evolving his mixed martial arts-based wrestling style into a more deathmatch-based style.

He was trained in the deathmatch style by Numazawa and Jun Kasai at their BJW affiliated School of Death training school.

He made his deathmatch debut in 2006 and has retained the style ever since.

In the deathmatch circles, Isami found himself a generational rival in Yuko Miyamoto.

In June 2007, Kodaka suffered a cervical disc herniation, which would sideline him for eleven months.

Upon his return to the ring, Kodaka, now working under his full name, won his first professional wrestling title, when he and Masashi Takeda defeated Takashi Sasaki and Yuko Miyamoto on May 28 to win BJW's 2009 Saikyo Tag League and become the new BJW Tag Team Champions.

The duo held the title for two months, before losing it to Daisuke Sekimoto and Yuji Okabayashi, after which Kodaka formed a new tag team named "Deathmatch Nichokenju", later renamed "Yankii Nichokenju", with longtime rival Yuko Miyamoto.

In 2010, Kodaka made several appearances for women's wrestling promotion Ice Ribbon, where he and Chii Tomiya won the International Ribbon Tag Team Championship by defeating Jun Kasai and Miyako Matsumoto on August 7.

On June 25, Kodaka also made an appearance for Smash, losing to Kushida in a "World Tryout" match.

On January 3, 2011, Kodaka won his first singles title and his first title in his home promotion of Union Pro, when he defeated Kim Nan Pun for the DDT Extreme Championship in a six-man tag team captain's fall match, where he, Keita Yano and Survival Tobita faced Nan Pun, Cao Zhang and Choun Shiryu.

On May 5, Yankii Nichokenju won their first title together, when they defeated Jaki Numazawa and Jun Kasai for the BJW Tag Team Championship.

After an eight-month reign, Kodaka lost the DDT Extreme Championship to El Generico on September 19.

Kodaka regained the title from El Generico on January 3, 2012, only to lose it to his own tag team partner, Yuko Miyamoto, on March 29 as part of an interpromotional rivalry between Union Pro and BJW.

On April 1, Kodaka and Miyamoto also lost the BJW Tag Team Championship to Shinobu and Yoshihito Sasaki.

The two bounced back on November 22 by winning the 2012 Saikyo Tag League and becoming the new BJW Tag Team Champions.

On January 14, 2013, Kodaka won the DDT Extreme Championship for the third time, after defeating Keisuke Ishii.

However, his reign lasted only thirteen days, before losing the title to Kenny Omega in a match also contested for Union Pro's parent promotion DDT Pro-Wrestling's top title, the KO-D Openweight Championship.

On August 18 at Ryōgoku Peter Pan 2013, DDT's biggest event of the year, Kodaka and Miyamoto defeated Hikaru Sato and Yukio Sakaguchi to win the KO-D Tag Team Championship for the first time and become double tag team champions.

Following their win, Kodaka and Miyamoto vowed to successfully defend their double crown hundred times.

Yankii Nichokenju went undefeated for most of 2013, before losing to Speed of Sounds (Hercules Senga and Tsutomu Oosugi) in a non-title match on October 18.

On November 4, Kodaka defeated Shuji Ishikawa to win BJW's top title, the BJW Deathmatch Heavyweight Championship, becoming the lightest champion in the title's history.

On November 22, Yankii Nichokenju avenged their loss against the Speed of Sounds in the finals of the 2013 Saikyo Tag League to retain the BJW Tag Team Championship and become the first team to win the tournament twice in a row.

Kodaka dominated Samurai TV's year-end independent wrestling awards ceremony, winning the Best Unit Award with Yuko Miyamoto, the Best Bout Award with Shuji Ishikawa and the MVP Award.

Yankii Nichokenju's reign as double tag team champions came to an end on January 26, 2014, when they lost the KO-D Tag Team Championship to the Golden☆Lovers (Kenny Omega and Kota Ibushi) in a three-way match, also involving the team of Konosuke Takeshita and Tetsuya Endo.

On March 23, Kodaka defeated Ivan Markov to become the second Union Max Champion.

On May 5, Yankii Nichokenju faced off in a 300 fluorescent light tube TLC deathmatch for the BJW Deathmatch Heavyweight Championship.

Kodaka won the match, making his fourth successful title defense.

On May 18, Kodaka lost the Union Max Championship to Hikaru Sato in his first defense.

Kodaka remained affiliated with Union Pro until the promotion folded in October 2015, after which he became a founding member of Pro-Wrestling Basara (Basara).

Kodaka is currently in his fourth reign as the Union Max Champion, and his second reign as BJW Deathmatch Heavyweight Champion, while also being a former one-time KO-D Openweight Champion and three-time DDT Extreme Champion.

He is also known as one half of the tag team Yankii Nichokenju (ヤンキー二丁拳銃) with Yuko Miyamoto.

The two are former one-time All Asia Tag Team Champions, two-time BJW Tag Team Champions, one-time KO-D Tag Team Champions and one-time Wave Tag Team Champions and have also won the Saikyo Tag League three times.

Kodaka has also won both the BJW Tag Team Championship and the Saikyo Tag League once with Masashi Takeda.

Kodaka was trained in professional wrestling by Taka Michinoku at his Kaientai Dojo (K-Dojo) promotion's training school.