Professional Wrestling Career
In 1980, after Japan decided not to send their athletes to take part in the Summer Olympics in Moscow, Yatsu garnered a great deal of national attention, when he announced his intention of becoming a professional wrestler. Within just a few years, Yatsu became a regular headliner for New Japan Pro Wrestling, before joining Riki Chōshū, when he left the promotion for All Japan Pro Wrestling at the end of 1984. In All Japan Yatsu and Chōshū formed a tag team, which would go on to win the NWA International Tag Team Championship.
In 1986 Yatsu took a hiatus from professional wrestling in order to one last time chase his Olympic dream. However, after winning a Japanese National Championship in the super heavyweight division in 1986 and while training for the 1987 Asian Wrestling Championships, the International Olympic Committee declared that Yatsu was a professional athlete and banned him from not only that competition, but also from the 1988 Summer Olympics. The decision stunned many people, but Yatsu didn't file an appeal.
While Yatsu was training for his Olympic dream, Chōshū left All Japan and returned to New Japan. Upon his return to professional wrestling, Yatsu decided not to join his tag team partner in New Japan, but to stay in All Japan. Afterwards, All Japan broke up the tag team of Genichiro Tenryu and Jumbo Tsuruta and made Tsuruta Yatsu's new tag team partner. The tag team, known as "The Olympics", would go on to win the AJPW Unified World Tag Team Championship five times, the PWF World Tag Team Championship once and in 1987 the team also won the World's Strongest Tag Team League. In 1990 the team broke up when Yatsu jumped to Super World of Sports. In 1991, while working for the promotion, Yatsu unsuccessfully challenged Hulk Hogan for the WWF Championship. When Super World of Sports folded in 1992, Yatsu formed his own promotion Social Pro Wrestling Federation (SPWF), but would wrestle himself only semi-regularly. In 1994 he returned to New Japan to take part in the G1 Climax tournament.
In recent years, Yatsu has been the president of a transportation company. On November 30, 2010, he returned to the professional wrestling ring to wrestle his retirement match. The match took place in front of 500 fans at Shinjuku Face in Tokyo, and saw Yatsu and Koji Ishinriki losing to Tatsumi Fujinami and Tiger Mask, when Yatsu submitted to Fujinami.
Read more about this topic: Yoshiaki Yatsu
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