Kiyoshi Tamura

Kiyoshi Tamura (田村潔司, Tamura Kiyoshi; born December 17, 1969 in Okayama, Okayama) is a Japanese retired professional wrestler and mixed martial artist. Once a student of legendary professional wrestlers Billy Robinson, Lou Thesz and Akira Maeda, Tamura was known for his skills in catch wrestling and is considered to be one of the greatest shoot wrestlers of all time. Competing exclusively in shoot style wrestling, Tamura began his career with UWF Newborn and later joined its successor group UWF International before transitioning to mixed martial arts.

A professional MMA fighter from 1995 until 2008, he competed for the PRIDE Fighting Championships, RINGS, DEEP, DREAM, and fought at K-1's 2007 and 2008 Dynamite!! events. He is a two-time RINGS Openweight Champion and holds notable wins over Renzo Gracie, former UFC Welterweight Champion Pat Miletich, former UFC Middleweight Champion Dave Menne, former Pancrase Super Heavyweight Champion Tsuyoshi Kosaka, former Pancrase Openweight Champion Masakatsu Funaki, Olympic judo gold medallist Makoto Takimoto, three-time sambo champion Volk Han, and Kazushi Sakuraba. Tamura currently serves as an executive director for LIDET Entertainment's professional wrestling promotion GLEAT.

A former sumo wrestler for the Okayama University of Science High School, Tamura debuted in 1989 in the UWF Newborn in a losing effort against Minoru Suzuki. He soon revealed himself as a promising rookie, but he was forced to put his career in a long hiatus after a match with Akira Maeda on October 25, in which Maeda hit him with a full force knee strike and fractured his orbital bone. Tamura took an entire year to return, and he only had time to work in one event before UWF closed.

After UWF's demise, Tamura followed to its main successor group, UWF International, where he was put under the tutelage of Nobuhiko Takada. Debuting with a victory against Masahito Kakihara, Tamura was spunky and could even demand respect from older veterans, as demonstrated during a bout against Yoji Anjo where Tamura broke a hold, delivered several kicks to Anjo's head and kicked him out of the ring.

In 1992, after making his shootfighting debut before boxer Matthew Saad Muhammad, submitting him with a rear naked choke, Tamura was sent to United States for a few months to learn catch wrestling under Lou Thesz, who helped refine Tamura's submission skills and ground game. He returned to Japan with a new, polished grappling style, defeating Kazuo Yamazaki in a match without shin guards on October 23. Only some months after, on February 14, 1993, Tamura had a high level match with Nobuhiko Takada, after which many pundits (such as Pro Wrestling Illustrated) compared him to Takada himself and considered him as a candidate for the future ace of the company. By this time, however, Tamura had witnessed the birth of mixed martial arts promotion Pancrase and had become interested by real fighting, like the bout he had fought against Saad.

The next year, Tamura took part in the Best Of The World 1994 Tournament, advancing through the rounds by beating Bad News Allen and Naoki Sano, but being eliminated himself by eventual winner Super Vader at the semi-finals. He also went to lose the match for the second place to main eventer Gary Albright, and never challenged Vader for the title.

Unsatisfied with the symbolic return of UWF to gimmicky puroresu with the victory of Vader, and further inspired by the recent success of Pancrase, Tamura proposed to take a direction towards realistic wrestling again. He would compete in a notable shoot fight against Masahito Kakihara on February 18, 1995, winning by rear naked choke in 2:06. Later, he was granted a victorious rematch against Gary Albright, but the match became infamous for Albright's unwillingness to cooperate, which ruined Tamura's win to the point of having him in tears. The same night, Nobuhiko Takada announced his decision to retire from pro wrestling to pursue a politic career, which was met with harsh words by Tamura. After a new rematch with Albright on August, Tamura addressed the returning Takada and challenged him to a mixed martial arts fight, to no avail.

The same year, UWF International was forced by financial issues into an interpromotional feud against New Japan Pro-Wrestling, but Tamura refused to participate. As a consequence, he was subjected to cold treatment backstage and found himself training alone often. In December 1995, Kiyoshi offered himself instead to represent UWF-i at the event K-1 Hercules, in a mixed martial arts fight against Ultimate Fighting Championship veteran Patrick Smith. It was his first match of any kind in months, and he claimed he would retire if he lost his match to in said event. However, he won the fight.