The Great Sasuke

Masanori Murakawa (村川 政徳), best known under his ring name The Great Sasuke (ザ・グレート・サスケ), is a Japanese professional wrestler, professional wrestling promoter and politician.

He is the founder of Michinoku Pro Wrestling (MPW).

Aside from professional wrestling, he is also a former Iwate Prefectural Assembly legislator.

He has wrestled in Japan and in the United States in various professional wrestling promotions.

He is said to have an incredible tolerance for pain, mainly in reference to the injuries he has had including a cracked skull on two occasions.

Although the tournament was promoted by Ultimo's Toryumon Japan promotion, Sasuke took the title to his base at Michinoku and styled himself a "traveling world champion" in the style of NWA World Heavyweight Champions from the 1960-80s.

After failing the entrance exams to New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), Murakawa joined Universal Lucha Libre and had his debut on March 1, 1990, against Monkey Magic Wakita.

He later adopted the name "Masa Michinoku", derived from his own given name and the alternate name for his Japanese home region of Tōhoku, Michinoku.

He portrayed a Japanese folkloric gimmick who wore a cloak and a sandogasa hat in his ring entrance, which he traded for a white ōendan gakuran every time he wrestled abroad.

His underling Taka Michinoku would receive a similar character.

During a tour in Mexico for Universal Wrestling Association, Murakawa adopted the character of Ninja Sasuke, a ninja gimmick inspired by the legendary Sarutobi Sasuke.

He started wearing a black bodysuit with a matching lucha libre mask, and utilized a wrestling style set between lucha libre and martial arts.

Upon returning to Japan after a second Mexico tour, he finally tweaked his name to "The Great Sasuke", and adopted a red, black, and white mask patterned after kumadori makeup, reminiscent of the one worn by fellow Japanese wrestler Mach Hayato.

Shortly after, Sasuke proclaimed he was going to found a professional wrestling promotion in Tohoku, initially thought as an Universal Lucha Libre branch, and left the promotion with a large group of wrestlers.

He would found Michinoku Pro Wrestling, the first Japanese independent promotion not to be based around the Tokyo area.

MPW kicked off in March 1993, when Sasuke and the rest of babyface wrestlers entered an intense feud against the villainous Super Delfin and his Delfín Corps.

This rivalry would last many years.

In 1994, New Japan Pro-Wrestling celebrated the first Super J Cup, a junior heavyweight tournament for wrestlers from all over the world.

Sasuke was drafted and reached the finals after beating NJPW favourites Jushin Thunder Liger and El Samurai, but fell to Wild Pegasus at the end.

Despite his loss, Sasuke represented Michinoku Pro excellently and allowed for it to receive national coverage, and he himself became one of the most popular junior wrestlers in Japan.

The same year, Sasuke competed in the similar NJPW Super Grade Jr. Heavyweight Tag League, where he teamed up with Black Tiger.

As with the previous, Sasuke and Tiger amassed a high number of wins and came to the finals, but were eliminated there by Wild Pegasus and Shinjiro Otani.

Sasuke also participated in the first Fukumen World League, hosted by Michinoku Pro Wrestling in 1995 and admitting only masked wrestlers.

Sasuke was defeated in the final round by Dos Caras.

In April 1996, Sasuke returned to NJPW and defeated Liger for the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship, which he defended five times at both NJPW and MPW.

His reign, along with his next title win over NWA World Junior Heavyweight Champion Masayoshi Motegi and WWF Light Heavyweight and WWA World Junior Light Heavyweight double champion El Samurai, would lead to the creation of the J Crown title, with Sasuke winning it in the final of a tournament against Último Dragón on August.

For two months, Sasuke was one of the most decorated wrestlers in history, until he lost all of it to Dragón in Wrestle Association R in October 1996.

In February 1997, Sasuke and several of his MPW teammates made a pair of appearances for Extreme Championship Wrestling in United States.

In July, he and Taka Michinoku also wrestled two matches for the World Wrestling Federation, one of them at In Your House 16: Canadian Stampede.

It was apparent that Sasuke would sign up with WWF, but it was Michinoku who ended up being signed on his place for unknown reasons.

Upon returning to Japan, Sasuke and Tiger Mask IV began feuding with two heel doppelgängers, Sasuke the Great and Masked Tiger (played respectively by Masao Orihara and Takeshi Ono), aside from usual villain Super Delfin.

Around this time, however, Sasuke would take repeated hiatuses in order to have time to heal injuries, which led him to clash against other wrestlers, most particularly Delfin, who accused him of being unfit to lead the promotion.

This dissension would end up switching their respective alignment, with Delfín joining the home army and turning into the promotion's ace while Sasuke turned heel for the first time on his career and became an egotistical overlord.

He would even change his mask, replacing its red stripes for blue stripes, as well as his name, leaving it as just "Sasuke" written in all caps.

Sasuke would create his personal villainous stable, Sasuke Group, by allying with resident heels and summoning Crazy Max (Shiima Nobunaga's punk faction) from Toryumon.

The battle between the Sasuke Group and the rest of Michinoku wrestlers would have the effect of fracturing the promotion, as Dick Togo and Super Delfin had their own feud about the latter's role in the babyface team.

After Togo humiliated Delfín by forcing him to crawl between his legs and later caused a riot by abusing him further, Sasuke adopted the same approach against Delfín in their battles, which eventually led to his departure from MPW to form Osaka Pro Wrestling due to both kayfabe and real dissatisfaction with the angle.

Sasuke continued his war on MPW until 1999, when he was forcefully turned face again after Jinsei Shinzaki "exorcized the evil out of him."

Now devoid of talent due to the absence of wrestlers who had left with Delfín and other ventures, MPW was left in ruins, a situation the now heroic Sasuke vowed to mend.

In 1999 he won the NWA World Middleweight Championship vacated by old rival Ultimo Dragon.