Satoru Sayama's amateur wrestling career

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It isn't talked about much, but Tiger Mask was a pretty good amateur wrestling in junior high and high school. But for some reason, I was just curious if anyone knew of any specific details regarding his amateur wrestling background? I know he wasn't a national champion and that he did pretty well for himself, but that's about it. Its funny that Sayama, having an amateur wrestling background, supposedly want the UWF to focus more on strikes, whereas Maeda, who had a prior background in kempo and karate, wanted it to be more about the wrestling.
 
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From everything I've read, he was a judoka and wrestler, but never really advanced past the domestic level. He joined up with Inoki when he was 17, so there's a really good chance he really never put in enough time to advance to the upper echelons.

It almost assuredly fueled his competitive fire that would end up being Shooto though. And I know his judo background was why he took to Sambo so well.
 
I guess it says he lost in the 3rd round of the national tournament in his Japanese Wikipedia page, from what I can tell. I don't know if that means he medaled or not.

On the subject of Sayama, here's a pretty interesting interview between him and Mil Mascaras:

https://www.puroresu.com/articles/sayama-mascaras.html

Mascaras actually says that he was trained in jiu jitsu by a student of "Konde Koma," aka Mitsuyo Maeda. Wonder who that was.
 
I guess it says he lost in the 3rd round of the national tournament in his Japanese Wikipedia page, from what I can tell. I don't know if that means he medaled or not.

On the subject of Sayama, here's a pretty interesting interview between him and Mil Mascaras:

https://www.puroresu.com/articles/sayama-mascaras.html

Mascaras actually says that he was trained in jiu jitsu by a student of "Konde Koma," aka Mitsuyo Maeda. Wonder who that was.

Wow, Mascaras comes across as a chill guy, the opposite of the no-selling jerk guys like Mick Foley complained about. Though I have seen matches where he sold for wrestlers particularly The Destroyer.
 
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Was Mascaras comes across as a chill guy, the opposite of the no-selling jerk guys like Mick Foley complained about. Though I have seen matches where he sold for wrestlers particularly The Destroyer.

That's funny, that's literally exactly what I was thinking. Maybe he was just having a bad day with Foley. I was just watching him and yeah, he doesn't seem to have an issue selling to me. I wonder if it was some issue with not understanding Foley's style. Or, on the other hand, maybe he had the same prejudice against Foley that a Ric Flair had, just looking at him and not seeing a wrestler...? Bruiser Brody apparently told Luger he was just having a bad night when he didn't sell for him and maybe that's what it was with Miscaras. I'm sure in a career of 1,000's of matches, you're bound to have a day when you don't feel like doing your job.
 
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