Masanori Murakawa

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Masanori Murakawa
Image:Greatsasuke.jpg
Statistics
Stage names	The Great Sasuke Masa Michinoku Ninja Sasuke SASUKE
Height	173 cm (5 ft 8 in)
Weight	82 kg (180 lb)
Born	July 18 1969
Hometown	Tokyo
Debut	March 1 1990

Masanori Murakawa (born July 18 1969 in Tokyo) is a Japanese professional wrestler who is better known by his stage name The Great Sasuke. He has wrestled in Japan and in the United States in various wrestling promotions. He is said to have an incredible tolerance for pain, mainly in reference to the injuries he has had include a cracked skull on 2 occasions.

1 Career
2 Finishing and signature moves
3 Championships and accomplishments
4 External links

Career

In his early days he used the name Masa Michinoku. Masa, from his given name Masanori, and Michinoku, after the alternate name for his Japanese home region, Tohoku. Taka Michinoku adopted a similar gimmick to parody him. Later, on a tour of Mexico, he adopted the mask, uniform and name Ninja Sasuke. This was the predecessor to the Great Sasuke gimmick he would adopt upon returning to Japan.

He is also the owner, and founder, of Michinoku Pro Wrestling in Japan, the first Japanese independent promotion not to be based around the Tokyo area.

In 2002, he briefly turned heel and started using the name "SASUKE", using blue stripes on his mask instead of the red stripes shown in the photo above. However, Jinsei Shinzaki brought him back from the dark side by "exorcising the evil out of him".

On April 13, 2003, the Great Sasuke won election to the Iwate Prefectural Assembly, making him the first actual masked legislator in history. He is the fourth Japanese wrestler to get elected to office. Antonio Inoki, Hiroshi Hase and Atsushi Onita preceded him, though all of them were elected to the Japanese Diet at the national level.