Takashi Sasaki

Takashi Sasaki (佐々木貴) is a Japanese professional wrestler and the owner of Pro Wrestling Freedoms (Freedoms).

Whilst studying media at Bunkyo University, Sasaki joined the IWA Kakutō Shijuku dojo and made his professional wrestling debut on September 15, 1996 against Tokai Bushido X. After graduating from university in March 1997, he joined Dramatic Dream Team.

Sasaki debuted for Dramatic Dream Team (DDT; now known as DDT Pro-Wrestling) on January 31, 1997, where he teamed up with Yusaku Shimoda in a losing effort to Super Uchuu Power and Wild Sheik.

He joined DDT after graduating from university in March.

He was a regular on Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL) tours of Japan in the late 90s and made several appearances for Wrestle Association-R (WAR) during its dying days.

After a few short years, Sasaki had risen to upper mid-card status within DDT, just below wrestlers such as Exciting Yoshida, Poison Julie Sawada and Sanshiro Takagi.

On June 2, 2001, Sasaki and Nosawa became the inaugural KO-D Tag Team Champions when they defeated Starman and Vertigo at a CMLL event in Mexico.

The first title reign would not last long, however, as they lost the titles to Mikami and Super Uchuu Power on July 5.

Sasaki would regain the titles with Mikami on December 12, defeating defending champions Gentaro and Yoshiya.

The duo made two successful title defences before having the title vacated after Mikami suffered an injury on April 25, 2002.

From July to August, Sasaki teamed with Gentaro to participate in the KO-D Tag League 2002.

They won four matches and drew one, giving them 13 points and progressed onto the semi-finals.

On August 23, Sasaki and Gentaro won the vacant WEW Tag Team Championship by defeating Hi69 and Taka Michinoku.

The following day, they would lose their semi final matchup vs. Mikami and Tanomusaku Toba and finished third place in the tournament after defeating Miyuki Maeda and Sanshiro Takagi on August 25.

Sasaki and Gentaro, now known as Aka Rangers (アカレンジャーズ, Akarenjāzu), avenged their semi final loss on October 24 when they defeated Mikami and Toba for the KO-D Tag Team Championship.

They lost the KO-D titles to Takagi and Tomohiko Hashimoto on January 31, 2003 and later the WEW titles on March 11 to Kintaro Kanemura and Tetsuhiro Kuroda.

Gentaro would leave DDT in May but Sasaki's success continued.

He won the KO-D Tag Team Championship with Tanomusaku Toba from Seiya Morohashi and Shoichi Ichimiya on May 22 and followed this up by winning the KO-D Openweight Championship from Mikami on July 17.

Riding high, Sasaki entered the KO-D Tag League 2003 with Toba but suffered a tournament loss to Super Uchuu Power and Super Uchuu Power Omega, leading the team to vacate the tag titles.

They reached the finals on September 28 but were unable to regain the titles, losing to Seiya Morohashi and Tomohiko Hashimoto.

On October 15, Sasaki won the Ironman Heavymetalweight Championship.

This would be a blessing in disguise, however, as he would be forced to defend both his championships at the upcoming Dead Or Alive event.

On October 26, he lost the Ironman Heavymetalweight Championship to Danshoku Dino and the KO-D Openweight Championship to Ichimiya Gintaro.

The Aka Rangers reformed in 2004, winning the KO-D Tag Team Championship for a second time, defeating Hero! and Kudo on February 11.

They lost the titles to Ryuji Ito and Takagi on July 1 and soon after resigned from the promotion.

Following from their departure from DDT, the Aka Rangers joined Apache Pro-Wrestling Army (Apache Pro).

At the promotions first event, they lost to Daisuke Sekimoto and Ryuji Ito.

The split with DDT was amicable and they returned to the promotion to participate in the KO-D Tag League 2004 but were eliminated before the semi-finals.

As Apache Pro ran infrequently, Sasaki was free to wrestle for other companies such as Kaientai Dojo, Pro Wrestling Zero1 and most notably Big Japan Pro Wrestling (BJW).

On November 28, the Aka Rangers won the BJW Tag Team Championship from Abdullah Kobayashi and Jaki Numazawa.

They successfully defended the titles on January 23 against Daisaku Shimoda and Tetsuhiro Kuroda but would eventually vacate the titles on September 13 due to lack of title defences.

A regular on the Japanese independent circuit for over 25 years, Sasaki began his career with IWA Kakutō Shijuku and Dramatic Dream Team before transitioning into the deathmatch wrestling scene in 2005 with Apache Pro-Wrestling Army and Big Japan Pro Wrestling.

In 2005, Sasaki began transitioning into a deathmatch wrestler.

He teamed with Kintaro Kanemura in his first deathmatch on January 2 in a losing effort against Ryuji Ito and Shadow WX.

He wrestled in progressively bloody matches which included barbed wire and fluorescent light tubes on his way to challenging for the BJW Deathmatch Heavyweight Championship.

On June 8, he unsuccessfully challenged Ito for the deathmatch title in a 300 Fluorescent Light Tubes Deathmatch.

Now established as a deathmatch specialist, he would split his time between Apache Pro and BJW.

Following the closure of Apache Pro, Sasaki formed Pro Wrestling Freedoms in 2009.

Sasaki has held the KO-D Openweight Championship once, the BJW Deathmatch Heavyweight Championship twice and the King of Freedom World Championship once.

He is also known for his tag team with Gentaro, the Aka Rangers (アカレンジャーズ, Akarenjāzu), and have held the KO-D Tag Team Championship twice, the WEW Tag Team Championship once and the BJW Tag Team Championship once.