Toyonobori Michiharu Sadano ( March 21 , 1931 - July 1 1998 ) was a Japanese Professional wrestler . He was known as a competitor in both sumo and professional wrestling . After retiring as a rikishi as a sumo wrestler , he became a Professional Wrestler . He was born in the Kanda Tagawa District of Fukuoka Japan . Career . On December 12 , 1954 , Toyonobori became a professional wrestler , joining the Japanese Wrestling Association , which was the top wrestling promotion in Japan from 1953 until 1972 and the only male significant Japanese wrestling promotion from 1953 until 1966 , when its predominance began to be challenged by International Pro Wrestling . The top wrestler of the JWA was Rikidozan , the founder of the promotion ; he dominated the Japanese wrestling scene . As a result , few Japanese wrestlers were able to get into the spotlight . The more recognizable among them was Toyonobori himself , who dominated the tag team scene in Japan , forming a successful tag team with Rikidozan , with whom he became a four - time winner of the All Asia Tag Team Championship , which was the top tag title in Japan and which is now contested in All Japan Pro Wrestling . After Rikidozan ' s death on December 15 , 1963 , Toyonobori , along with Yoshinosato , Koukichi Endo and Michiaki Yoshimura announced their intention to continue the JWA on January 10 , 1964 . Therefore , he became the president of the JWA and its top wrestler , as he had been the second most important wrestler of the promotion during the Rikidozan era . He formed two successful tag teams with Michiaki Yoshimura and then Giant Baba , with whom he won the All Asia Tag Team Championship three more times . Yoshimura and Baba were among the young wrestlers the JWA was trying to push to the top , so they were paired with the top wrestler of the JWA , a strategy the promotion followed before pairing Toyonobori himself with the popular Rikidozan . On December 12 , 1964 , Toyonobori won the WWA ( Los Angeles ) World heavyweight Championship of the World Wrestling Association ( Los Angeles ) from The Destroyer at the Tokyo Gym ; the title was universally recognized as a world title back then and had been held by Rikidozan himself ( it has been the first world title to be held by an Asian wrestler ) . Toyonobori was therefore the first Japanese wrestler to win a world title in Professional Wrestling as Rikidozan was Korean ( although the true ethnicity of Rikidozan emerged only long after his death ) . The WWA did not recognise the title change , while the JWA recognized it . Because of this , there were two WWA world heavyweight champions , defending their titles respectively in Japan and in the United States of America . On September 20 , 1965 Toyonobori was defeated by disqualification by Luke Graham at the Los Angeles Olympic Auditorium to end the dispute over the WWA World Heavyweight title . Toyonobori began losing power in the JWA , which then started pushing Giant Baba to the top of the promotion , leading him to win its top single title , the NWA International Heavyweight Championship ( which had been held up after Rikidozan ' s death ) , in 1965 . After Rikidozan ' s death , the JWA did not have one single title ; the Japanese Heavyweight Championship , the All Asia Heavyweight Championship and the NWA International Heavyweight Championship , which were held by Rikidozan himself , were all recognized and only the last two titles were later revived ( respectively in 1968 and in 1965 ) . On January 5 , 1966 , the JWA announced the resignation and departure of Toyonobori as the company president ; he was later expelled from the JWA along with Antonio Inoki on March 21 , 1966 . On April 23 , 1966 , Toyonobori announced the formation of Tokyo Pro Wrestling ; on the same day Inoki announced his intention to join the company , as Toyonobori has privately promised Inoki to make him the promotion ' s top star . On October 12 , 1966 , Tokyo Pro had its first card at the Sumo Hall with Inoki in the main event . However , on April 6 , 1967 , the JWA announced the return of Antonio Inoki to the promotion . Therefore , Tokyo Pro folded , having lost its top star . Along with most of the former Tokyo Pro wrestlers , Toyonobori joined International Pro Wrestling , which had been founded in the meantime on October 21 , 1966 by Isao Yoshiwara and Hiro Matsuda and which had its first card in Osaka on May 5 , 1967 in conjunction with Tokyo Pro . IPW then started surpassing the dominance of the JWA in Japanese wrestling . On December 19 , 1968 , Toyonobori was defeated by Billy Robinson in a round - robin tournament to become the first IWA World Heavyweight Champion , the first Japanese - based world heavyweight championship in professional wrestling history . On May 18 , 1969 , Toyonobori and Shozo Kobayashi , nicknamed " Strong Kobayashi " , defeated Michael Nador and Ivan Strogoff in Paris , France to became the first IWA World Tag Team Champions . On February 11 , 1970 Toyonobori announced his retirement at an IPW event . Death . He died on July 1st 1998 due to heart failure .