Kensuke Sasaki

Kensuke Sasaki (佐々木 健介) is a Japanese retired professional wrestler, mixed martial artist, and founder of the now-defunct wrestling promotion Diamond Ring.

Sasaki is the first of five men ever to hold all three of puroresu's major heavyweight titles (the IWGP Heavyweight Championship, the Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship, and the GHC Heavyweight Championship), the others being Yoshihiro Takayama, Keiji Muto, Satoshi Kojima, and Yuji Nagata - totalling seven world championship reigns.

Sasaki also competed in MMA and won both fights by submission, remaining undefeated in mixed martial arts competition.

Sasaki debuted in Riki Choshu's Japan Pro-Wrestling, a satellite of All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW), in February 1986.

On February 16, 1986, he made his debut against Shinji Sasazaki in a losing effort.

Shortly afterwards, Sasaki became a regular in AJPW for over a year.

He defected to rival promotion New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), following Choshu, who returned to NJPW in 1987.

During his time with NJPW, Sasaki teamed up with the likes of Osamu Matsuda and Kenichi Oya.

In January 1989, Sasaki embarked on an excursion to North America.

He first started wrestling there in Puerto Rico in World Wrestling Council (WWC), where he held his very first championship, the WWC Caribbean Tag Team Championship, with Mr. Pogo twice between January 14, 1989 and April 1, 1989.

He also wrestled for Stu Hart's Stampede Wrestling promotion in Canada, where he wrestled under the name Benkei Sasaki and was trained by Hart in the Hart Dungeon.

During his time in Canada, he won the Stampede International Tag Team Championship in August 1989, with All Japan loyalist Sumo Hara.

He also wrestled for Otto Wanz's Catch Wrestling Association (CWA) in tours of Austria and Germany under the name Kendo Sasaki.

In December 1989, Stampede Wrestling closed its doors, and Sasaki wrestled for the Canadian National Wrestling Alliance (CNWA), until March 1990 when he was fired by Ed Whalen for kicking Mike Lozanski too stiff.

Sasaki returned to NJPW in March 1990, and formed a popular tag team with Hiroshi Hase, with whom he would have a long on-off tag team partnership.

They quickly won the IWGP Tag Team Championships on November 11, 1990, defeating the team of Keiji Muto & Masahiro Chono.

Holding the titles for only a month facing teams like Super Strong Machine & Tatsutoshi Goto, The Dragon Bombers (Shiro Koshinaka & Takayuki Iizuka) before eventually falling to Hiro Saito & Super Strong Machine on December 26 that same year.

He would only win one more title with Hiroshi Hase a few months later, however that was very brief, lasting only 15 days.

The pair would have two reigns as IWGP Tag Team Champions, and had memorable matches with The Steiner Brothers.

Two more tag title reigns followed when in late 1992, Sasaki assumed the name "Power Warrior" and teamed with Road Warrior Hawk.

As The Hell Raisers, they dominated the tag team scene in New Japan.

In October 1992, he also started wrestling periodically for World Championship Wrestling (WCW), and would wrestle there on and off until December 1996.

Sasaki dropped the Power Warrior persona in 1995 (as he only revives the persona on special occasions, such as teaming with Hawk and Animal in six-man tag team matches) and began climbing the ranks in singles competition.

He won his first major title, the WCW United States Heavyweight Championship on November 13, 1995, defeating Sting at a NJPW Event.

This was the title's first title change outside of the United States.

He soon lost the title to dubious circumstances however, losing to One Man Gang which was later claimed to be an official title match.

August 1997 skyrocketed Sasaki's rise to superstardom.

On August 3, he won the G1 Climax tournament by defeating Hiroyoshi Tenzan in the final.

A week later, he captured the IWGP Tag Team Championship with Kazuo Yamazaki.

Finally at the end of the month, he captured the IWGP Heavyweight Championship by defeating long reigning champion Shinya Hashimoto, winning three major honors in a one-month span.

Sasaki solidified his dominance in the heavyweight division by defeating both Masahiro Chono and Keiji Mutoh in his first two title defenses, thus defeating The Three Musketeers in three straight title matches.

In April 1998, he lost the title to Tatsumi Fujinami.

In March 1999, he won another IWGP Tag Team Championship with Shiro Koshinaka.

Sasaki won his second IWGP Heavyweight Championship from Genichiro Tenryu while wrestling with a 39 °C (102.2 °F) fever.

He won the G1 Climax for the second time in August 2000 with a victory over last year's winner Manabu Nakanishi in the final, now holding both of New Japan's two heavyweight singles crowns.

On October 9, 2000, Sasaki surrendered the IWGP title after he lost to Toshiaki Kawada in a non-title match at an All Japan vs. New Japan event called Do Judge.

In a tournament final, Sasaki regained the title, defeating Kawada, at the January 4, 2001, Tokyo Dome show.

In March 2001, Sasaki lost the IWGP Heavyweight Title to Scott Norton and in late 2002 he resigned from the promotion after a falling out with company management.

In the beginning of 2003, Sasaki joined his mentor, Riki Choshu, in his new Fighting of World Japan Pro Wrestling (World Japan) promotion.

He became the only WMG Heavyweight Champion; however, tensions between him and Choshu over financial issues caused Sasaki to withdraw and the company to die a slow death.