RIP Kendo Nagasaki (Kazuo Sakurada NOT Peter Thornley)

[paul sosnowski]

From PW Insider:   

Reports out of Japan this morning are that Kendo Nagasaki (real name Kazuo Sakurada) passed away yesterday at the age of 71.  The story that is being told is that Nagasaki’s pacemaker stopped, leading to a cardiac issue.

[Edwin]

That sucks. I'm a big Kendo fan. Was just watching some old Capital Sports last night with the Ninja Express.

Side note: Had no idea he was an All Japan dojo boy. Spotted him as a second ringside during a Steamboat/Sheik All Japan match.

[Al]

One of Bret Hart’s trainers I believe.

[Ricky Jackson]

5 minutes ago, Al said:

One of Bret Hart’s trainers I believe.

Yes, with Mr. Hito.

Maybe the title of this thread could be altered a bit because my first thought was it was the well-known English wrestler of the 60s and 70s also named Kendo Nagasaki who passed away 

[GSR]

Just now, Ricky Jackson said:

Maybe the title of this thread could be altered a bit because my first thought was it was the well-known English wrestler of the 60s and 70s also named Kendo Nagasaki who passed away 

Just done it.  I too thought it was the British Kendo until reading Paul's copy and paste job.

[SirEdger]

I remember Kendo Nagasaki (Sakurada) being my first exposure to a Japanese wrestler back in the mid-80s when I watched Lutte Internationale as a kid. His look always fascinated me and it's probably why I was always attracted more to guys like The Great Muta & The Great Kabuki as a kid, later on.

[G. Badger]

Sorry to hear this since he was one of the first non WCW/ECW Japanese wrestlers I knew back in the 90's. Started BJW as well as all of the above accolades...a "big" enough star in the mid 90's to have his own pet death match promotion after Onita's FMW took off. What's crazy is FMW is long gone as is W*ING, IWA Japan, Ishikawa's Tokyo Pro, etc. but BJW is still going strong. Even stronger than AJPW from what I gather...so, that's a pretty good legacy.

His tag street fight match as Dragon Master in 1990 FMW and a handful of fights in SWS are all worth searching out.