Name
Akira Maeda

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Complete
60%

Born
1959 (65 years old)

Birth Place
Osaka, Japan

Position
Wrestler

Status
Active

Ethnicity
Asian

Team Number


Height
1.92 m

Weight
115 kg

Outfitter


Kit


Side


Agent


Wage Year



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Full Body Render


Sport
Fighting

Team
RINGS Japan

2nd Team


League
RINGS

Creative Commons Artwork
No



Description
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Akira Maeda (前田 日明, Maeda Akira) is a Japanese Professional Wrestler and Mixed Martial Arts promoter, best known for his role in the Japanese shoot-style wrestling chronicle and posterior MMA boom. Formerly a Kyokushin Karate competitor, he debuted in 1978 for New Japan Pro-Wrestling and revealed as a promising rookie, traveling to England to wrestle there under the name of "Kwik-Kick-Lee", in storyline Bruce Lee's cousin. Eventually he left with Satoru Sayama, Nobuhiko Takada and other wrestlers to form Universal Wrestling Federation, pioneering the realistic shoot movement. However, he caused the fall of the promotion when shot on Sayama during a match due to an early disagreement. Upon their return to New Japan, he and Takada became the young leaders of a shoot invasion, gaining the IWGP Tag Team Championship with him and fellow shooter Osamu Kido. Maeda gained extreme amounts of popularity and was even considered to replace main star Antonio Inoki, but Inoki vetoed the idea and Maeda left again, not without shooting on another wrestler. After another failed incarnation of UWF, Maeda contacted Russian sambo fighters and Dutch kickboxers and created Fighting Network RINGS, a shoot-style company who derived into full MMA over time. Maeda is currently retired from competition and figures as the head of the resurrected RINGS and an amateur MMA company called The Outsider.



Career Honours

IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Champion
1987

RINGS Japan

IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Champion
1986

RINGS Japan


Career Milestones


Former Youth Teams


Former Senior Teams

1978-1984

1984-1985

1985-1988

1988-1990

1988-1990

1991-1999


Former Club Staff


Contracts



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