Profession: Wrestler
Real name: Tamio Takahashi (高橋民雄)
Professional names: Daigoro Ogiyama
Life: 3/27/1938-
Born: Kurihara, Miyagi, Japan
Career: 1969-1970
Height/Weight: 178cm/105kg (5’10”/231lbs.)
Signature moves: unknown
Promotions: International Wrestling Enterprise
Titles: none

Former rikishi Daigoro Ogiyama wrestled a short stint for the IWE.

Tamio Takahashi was a teenage baker scouted for sumo. From his debut in 1955, he wrestled for the Tokitsukaze stable for thirteen years. Takahashi, who would take on the shikona of Ogiyama (with various first names) in 1957, was a smaller rikishi who compensated for his frame with agility and technical skill and was particularly noted for his left-hand upper throws and komata-sukui (leg-scooping throws). A narrow defeat in the January 1958 tournament’s sandanme division earned him a promotion to makushita. Three years later, Ogiyama won that division in the last tournament of 1961, and was promoted to juryo. Most of the rest of his career was spent in this division, although he clawed his way up to the top makuuchi division for nearly a year starting in autumn 1962. He would reach that rank two more times in his career. However, as Ogiyama reached his thirties, he fell back down to makushita, and would retire in the fall of 1968. Ogiyama was managing a Chinese restaurant when he was scouted by Toyonobori in early 1969. While Ogiyama was hardly the first man with a sumo history to join the International Wrestling Enterprise, no new recruit had had nearly as much experience as him. Perhaps that mileage on his body was his downfall, as Ogiyama would barely spend a year with the company. His recruitment did garner some attention, and his name was considered for a European excursion, but Ogiyama retired in early 1970. The timing suggests that it may have been connected to Toyonobori’s own retirement. As Mighty Inoue recalled in a 2016 interview with the Showa Puroresu fanzine, Ogiyama was a gentle and kind man, albeit with a weak temperament and a love of gambling, and not a very good wrestler.

Real name: Donald Leow Seng Boo
Professional names: Donald Takeshi
Life: 4/25/1950-
Born: Singapore
Career: 1968-1975
Height/Weight: 186cm/105kg (6'1"/220lbs.)
Signature moves: Dropkick
Promotions: Japan Pro Wrestling/JWA, New Japan Pro Wrestling
Titles: none

Donald Takeshi was puroresu's first "exchange student", a second-generation Singaporean wrestler.

Donald Leow Seng Boo was the son of Singaporean wrestler Leow Kong Seng, whose career seems to have spanned from the late forties through the late sixties. At 17, he was encouraged by his father to drop out of the country’s oldest and most prestigious secondary school, the Raffles Institution, and wrestle in Japan. He joined the JWA during Karl Gotch’s year as coach and debuted in a battle royal on May 26, 1968. According to Mitsuo Momota, Donald quickly adapted to the setting, and he learned Japanese quickly by conversing with the young female receptionists at the ryokan where they stayed. After winning his first match against Tatsumi Fujinami on June 30, 1971, he had proclaimed that he wanted to be as famous as Donald Duck. He also stated his ideal as a wrestler, which was to be a cross between Michiaki Yoshimura and the Destroyer. Donald was conscripted into the Singapore Army two months later, but newspaper ads for early 1973 shows at the Gay World Stadium indicate that he wrestled during this time. By the time his service was done, the JWA was gone, so he joined New Japan, where he wrestled for eighteen months starting at the beginning of 1974. Most notably, he participated in the first Karl Gotch Cup on the last tour of the year, where he only managed a single win against Daigoro Oshiro. He brought a Chinese-Singaporean friend along with him, “Bruce”, who never wrestled but trained with the company for a time. Killer Khan recalled that Donald had held aspirations to become a promoter in Singapore, but these never materialized. According to a 2013 Tokyo Sports column by Kagehiro Osano, Donald found work back home as a travel guide.

Real name: Akio Murasaki (村崎昭男)
Professional names: Akio Murasaki, Onizo Murasaki, Great Saki, Kosuke Murasaki, Devil Murasaki
Life: 4/30/1942-10/23/2017
Born: Osaka, Osaka, Japan
Career: 1968-1980
Height/Weight: 178cm/100kg (5’10”/220lbs.)
Signature moves: Elbow drop
Promotions: International Wrestling Enterprise, All Japan Pro Wrestling
Titles: International Tag Team [Stampede] (1x, w/Tokyo Joe)

Devil Murasaki is most notable for adopting one of puroresu’s first long-term masked gimmicks.

Akio Murasaki enlisted in the JSDF after high school but dreamt of becoming a pro wrestler. After three years of service, he was discharged, and he would be referred to the young IWE through his gym. Murasaki was trained by Tadaharu Tanaka and assigned as the valet of Thunder Sugiyama. He debuted on January 5, 1968, wrestling Tetsunosuke Daigo. In his early years, he wrestled under various stage names conceived by Toyonobori; this was encouraged by Isao Yoshiwara, who promised a raise if he changed his character. Finally, he settled on Devil Murasaki, which he came up with himself.

Although finding his voice through a “rough” style (essentially, this is a catchall term for native Japanese wrestlers who wrestle in a heellike manner but aren’t booked as heels), Murasaki was passed over for a training excursion. In the autumn of 1972, though, Murasaki was temporarily loaned to All Japan Pro Wrestling alongside Goro Tsurumi. It has been claimed that the Babas were fond enough of Murasaki to offer to hire him outright, but that Murasaki declined. Around this time, Dick the Bruiser worked the last IWE tour of the year, and Murasaki was assigned as his valet. Dick invited Murasaki to come back with him to Indianapolis. Murasaki booked a flight there in December. Some of the money was borrowed from IWE front manager Shigeo Nukui, while some came in the form of a parting gift from Motoko Baba.

Murasaki found immediate work in the WWA, which needed a Japanese wrestler after Animal Hamaguchi’s return home. Often in a team with Mitsu Arakawa, he wrestled the likes of Wilbur Snyder, Crusher Lisowski, Moose Cholak, and even Giant Baba. In 1974, Murasaki traveled to Calgary to work for Stampede Wrestling, where he reunited with Daigo. While the two had not been friends during their time in the IWE, they were glad to see each other, and they teamed up as Great Saki and Tokyo Joe. The two worked a program with the Kiwis, the future Sheepherders/Bushwhackers, which saw both men win the only title of their life. That program changed the course of Daigo’s life forever, as he lost his leg in a car accident. Murasaki stayed for a time to look after his partner, but he was shaken by the experience, and he left for EMLL that summer. There, he reunited with Tsurumi, and the two bunked together with Mitsuo Momota, then working as Rikidozan II. Murasaki became fascinated by the masks of lucha libre, and when he and Tsurumi left to find work in Europe, he donned a mask in Germany. It was while working in Europe that Murasaki won roughly ¥700,000 in a lottery, which emboldened him to return home in October 1976.

Yoshiwara wasn’t enthused to have him back, as the IWE was already well into the financial turbulence of its Tokyo 12 Channel years. With the mediation of his old friend Nukui, though, Murasaki was brought back into the fold, donning his mask. Booker Great Kusatsu had no intent of pushing Murasaki, so he would spend the rest of his career in the under and midcard, but Murasaki was grateful to have a job back home. His greatest opportunity was likely his shot at Isamu Teranishi’s IWA World Mid-Heavyweight title in 1977, which was the last defense of that title before the company essentially forgot its existence. That year was Murasaki’s last in the ring, as he retired in May after a match against Mighty Inoue. He transferred into the sales department at Yoshiwara’s recommendation, but by this point, the promotion had entered its death spiral, and most of the tickets that Kokusai was selling were being bought by gangsters. In the promotion’s last days, Murasaki hustled on the side by selling handmade masks and pamphlets. He temporarily returned to the ring as a referee after the IWE’s star ref, bodybuilder Mitsuo Endo, was let go to cut costs. When Kokusai went under, he left the business for good. Murasaki used his experience in the military and pro wrestling to get a security job after he married. He did not appear in public again until a G Spirits interview, which led to a 2015 television appearance in his mask. Two years later, Murasaki died of esophageal cancer at 75.

In 2021, another wrestler appeared under the Devil Murasaki name, in All Japan Pro Wrestling.

[This profile was adapted from a 2021 Igapro article.]