Gran Hamada on arvau

Wikipedia / Gran Hamada

, better known by his ring name , was a Japanese professional wrestler, the first to adopt the high-flying Mexican lucha libre style. He wrestled for New Japan Pro-Wrestling, the Universal Wrestling Federation, Michinoku Pro, and All Japan Pro Wrestling and was the founder of Universal Lucha Libre. He also had stints with the World Wrestling Federation and Extreme Championship Wrestling in the United States. His daughters Xóchitl Hamada and Ayako Hamada are professional Japanese-Mexican wrestlers.

Professional wrestling career

Hamada was one of the first dojo trainees at New Japan Pro-Wrestling, being known as Little Hamada in the beginning. He was sent to Mexico's Universal Wrestling Association because of his lack of size and he found a lot of success there - so much so that Mexican fans and promoters began calling him Gran Hamada (Great Hamada). He also competed in Empresa Mexicana de Lucha Libre, which added El (The) to the front of his name: El Gran Hamada.

In 1984, he became a member of the initial roster of the original Japanese UWF, but found that his flamboyantly acrobatic style clashed with the martial arts-inspired style and focus on realism of the UWF and soon left for All Japan Pro Wrestling. He eventually broke off from AJPW to form his own promotion in 1990: Universal Lucha Libre. However, wrestlers began to leave the group in 1993 and in 1995 Hamada closed the promotion to join Michinoku Pro, which had been formed by former Universal Lucha Libre wrestlers. On April 13, 1997, Hamada teamed with Great Sasuke and Masato Yakushiji (who substituted for Gran Naniwa, who was injured) to defeat Taka Michinoku, Dick Togo and Mens Teioh (AKA "Terry Boy") at ECW Barely Legal.

In 2001, he began competing for All Japan again, this time as a free agent. He briefly was part of the "Love Machines" stable under a mask as "Mini Love Machine" with "Super Love Machine" (Junji Hirata of New Japan, reprising his old role as "Super Strong Machine") and "Love Machine Storm" (Arashi, whose stage name literally means "storm"). They used Morning Musume's hit song "Love Machine" as their entrance theme. He would also briefly work for New Japan Pro-Wrestling's Wrestle Land brand as Makai Masked Hurricane but only wrestled two shows under that name.