Naoya Ogawa

**Naoya Ogawa (小川 直也, *Ogawa Naoya*)** (born 31 March 1968) is a Japanese Olympic and world champion judoka, retired professional wrestler, and mixed martial artist. He won a total of seven medals at the All-Japan Judo Championships (second only behind Yasuhiro Yamashita), and set a record of seven medals at the World Judo Championships. Ogawa won the silver medal in the +95 kg judo weight class at the 1992 Summer Olympics.

Ogawa is also known for his career in professional wrestling, where he primarily worked for New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW), and took part in one of the promotion's most high-profile feuds of the 1990s with Shinya Hashimoto. In professional wrestling, Ogawa was a two-time National Wrestling Alliance world heavyweight champion.

## Professional wrestling career

In 1997, Ogawa was recruited by Antonio Inoki, chairman of New Japan Pro Wrestling, for his UFO (Universal Fighting-Arts Organization) project. He was put to train under Satoru Sayama, legendary professional wrestler and mixed martial arts pioneer.

### New Japan Pro Wrestling (1997-2001)

Ogawa made his debut in NJPW on April 12, 1997 at the Tokyo Dome, replacing the stipulated Ken Shamrock as the opponent for Shinya Hashimoto, then IWGP Heavyweight Championship titleholder. In a shocking upset, Ogawa defeated Hashimoto by choke, which put him in the spotlight and gained him a title shot at May 3. This time Ogawa was defeated by kick to the head, with Shinya retaining his title. This marked the beginning of their feud, which would extend for years.

Through 1997 and 1998, Ogawa wrestled for NJPW as part of "Different Style Fights", meeting wrestlers with legit backgrounds like Ogawa and Hashimoto themselves. He defeated shoot-style wrestler Kazuo Yamazaki, arm wrestler Scott Norton, Ultimate Fighting Championship exponents Brian Johnston and Don Frye, and Dutch martial artist Erwin Vreeker. His only loss came from The Great Muta, via Muta's signature Asian mist dirty trick. In March 1998, Ogawa took part in the Inoki Final Tournament, but he was eliminated by Frye at the finals after beating Johnston and Dave Beneteau. In order to bounce back from the defeat, he started a special training, and ditched his trusted judogi for black tights, boots and fingerless gloves.

On January 4, 1999, Ogawa was involved with one of the most controversial moments in NJPW history. During his anticipated rubber match with Shinya Hashimoto, Ogawa broke kayfabe and shot on Hashimoto, attacking him for real and leaving him downed and bloodied with kicks and stomps. The NJPW and UFO crews flooded the ring and a legitimate fracas erupted, with Ogawa's cornerman Kazunari Murakami having to be hospitalized by a beatdown by Takashi Iizuka and Naoya himself being slapped by NJPW executive Riki Choshu. During all the brawl, Ogawa taunted the crowd and the wrestlers, having to be accompanied out of the arena by his bodyguard Gerard Gordeau. It was never cleared out how of the incident was real and how it was scripted, but it's believed that Ogawa was ordered by Antonio Inoki to attack Hashimoto in order to hijack the match and increase his popularity.

In May, Ogawa traveled to United States and defeated Gary Steele to win the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. Hashimoto followed him to the country and attacked him (kayfabe this time) in a press conference, challenging him to a title match in Japan with Tatsumi Fujinami as special referee. Naoya toured through United States, retaining the title before Dan Severn, Doug Gilbert and Biggie Biggs, trading it with Steele in a three-way match that also involved Brian Anthony on September 25, 1999, and finally coming back to Japan to meet Hashimoto. They faced on October 10 at the Tokyo Dome, with Ogawa winning the bout.

On January 4, 2000, one year after their incident, Ogawa and Murakami faced off against Hashimoto and Takashi Iizuka in a special match. Unfortunately, it became a real fight again when Murakami knocked Iizuka out legitimately with a stiff head kick, causing the teams to brawl in the ring again. Under Antonio Inoki's eye, the match was restarted, with Ogawa's team losing when Iizuka choked out Murakami.

After a tense alliance between them formed for the Rikidozan Memorial, Hashimoto challenged Ogawa to a last match, in which Hashimoto would retire from professional wrestling if he lost. Ogawa and Hashimoto fought the last time of their careers on April 7 at the Tokyo Dome, where Naoya defeated Hashimoto by KO after several iterations of his Space Tornado Ogawa technique. His opponent carried out and performed a retirement ceremony, while Inoki and other tried to convince him not to do it; even Ogawa declared in a segment that he repented having finished off the career of his rival.

Ogawa vacated the NWA title on July 2, 2000 in order to focus on training for his fight against Rickson Gracie, which never took place.

### Pro Wrestling Zero-One (2001-2004)

In 2001, after Shinya Hashimoto founded Pro Wrestling Zero-One, Ogawa left NJPW and moved in, forming a tag team with his former rival which was called "OH Gun". Their beginning together was harsh, but they eventually got along and won the NWA Intercontinental Tag Team Championship from the UPW team of Jon Heidenreich and Nathan Jones. Ogawa and Hashimoto, along with the rest of native wrestlers of Zero-One, entered in a feud with the foreign wrestlers, led by Tom Howard and Steve Corino.

### Hustle (2004-2007)

In 2004, Ogawa took part in the foundation of the sports entertainment promotion Hustle, a combined effort between Zero-One and mixed martial arts league Pride Fighting Championships. Ogawa opened the storyline of Hustle during a staged press conference with Pride chairman Nobuyuki Sakakibara. During the interview, Sakakibara criticized professional wrestling and declared it inferior to MMA, which turned Ogawa furious. With Nobuhiko Takada acting on behalf of Sakakibara and Shinya Hashimoto backing Ogawa, it was decided they would prove their postures in an event where MMA fighters would face professional wrestling representatives. Ogawa himself would be slated to wrestle Bill Goldberg, who had been introduced by Takada as his champion. However, the night of the event turned sour as, although Ogawa managed to overpower Goldberg, Takada ordered Giant Silva to attack Ogawa and distract him to be finished off by Goldberg.

At the second Hustle event, when Takada proclaimed himself Generalissimo Takada, leader of the villainous Monster Army, and declared his goal was to destroy professional wrestling, Ogawa and Hashimoto founded Hustle Army, a union of professional wrestlers bent on protecting their guild. Ogawa became the leader of the army, being nicknamed "Captain Hustle" and debuting a characteristic hip thrust gesture to chant Hustle's name. Although his first match was a loss, being pinned by Matt Ghaffari with the help of several Monster Army members, he bounced back by summoning several high level wrestlers, among them Riki Choshu and Toshiaki Kawada, to help him and Hashimoto.

In September, after Ogawa lost to Fedor Emelianenko in 54 second at a Pride event, Takada started a mocking campaign against him and banned him from competing in Hustle for 54 days. In order to overcome this ban, Ogawa disguised himself as "Captain O", a masked gimmick based on Hulk Hogan's Mr. America persona, whom Ogawa claimed was the true Hogan in disguise. Deducting Captain O was really Ogawa, Takada's second-in-command Commander An Jo sent several Monster Army wrestlers to capture and tie him up, but O escaped by shedding this gimmick and adopting yet another, "Judo O", where he would wear a blue judogi along with his mask. Judo O teamed up with Hustle Rikishi to defeat Takada's slave Hakushi and an one night mercenary named Russian 54.

After Ogawa returned to the ring, Hustle co-produced a show along with Michinoku Pro Wrestling, whose star The Great Sasuke was inducted in the Hustle Army.

In 2007, Ogawa disappeared from the Hustle Army and sided shockingly with Takada. Ogawa changed his persona to an arrogant socialite gimmick and called himself "Monster Celebrity", wearing sunglasses and ornated coats. Takada explained Ogawa had been brainwashed by him to turn him in one of his henchmen, and he proved Ogawa's newfound loyalty by sending him to attack Hustle Army member Banzai Chie. This storyline was written in order to explain Ogawa's departure from Hustle, as he had signed up with Antonio Inoki's new promotion, Inoki Genome Federation.

## Personal life

His son, Yusei Ogawa, is also a judoka. He won the mixed team gold medal at the 2018 World Judo Championships, representing Japan.

## In wrestling

* **Finishing move**
	+ *STO - Space Tornado Ogawa/Osoto Otosh* - innovated

## Championships and accomplishments

* **NWA Northeast**
	+ NWA World Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
* **New Japan Pro Wrestling**
	+ NWA World Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
* **Pro Wrestling Illustrated**
	+ PWI ranked him #**152** of the top 500 singles wrestlers in the PWI 500 in 2010
	+ PWI ranked him #**302** of the 500 best singles wrestlers of the PWI Years in 2003
* **Pro Wrestling ZERO-ONE**
	+ NWA Intercontinental Tag Team Championship (2 times) – with Shinya Hashimoto
	+ ZERO-ONE United States Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
* ***Tokyo Sports***
	+ Fighting Spirit Award (1999)
	+ Topic Award (1997)

1. ↑ Naoya Ogawa profile . Online World of Wrestling. Retrieved on 2013-03-21.
2. ↑ Profile at Puroresu Central . Puroresu Central. Retrieved on 2013-03-21.
3. ↑ "PWI 500": 101–200 . *Pro Wrestling Illustrated* (2010-07-31). Retrieved on 2010-07-31.