Tetsunosuke Daigo

[KinchStalker]

Tetsunosuke Daigo (大剛鉄之助)/Joe Daigo (ジョー大剛)

Profession: Wrestler, Trainer, Booker
Real name: Yukihiro Sakeda (栄田幸弘)
Professional names: Tsuyoshi Sendai, Tetsunosuke Daigo, Tokyo Joe, Joe Daigo
Life: 3/10/1942-11/4/2017
Born: Sendai, Miyagi, Japan
Career: 1966-1974
Height/Weight: 174cm/95kg (5’9”/209 lbs.)
Signature moves: Diving body press
Promotions: Tokyo Pro Wrestling, International Wrestling Enterprise
Titles: none

Tetsunosuke Daigo’s career was taken from him in an accident, but he remained involved in the business for decades as Calgary-based booker and trainer Joe Daigo.

Yukihiro Sakeda entered the Nisshonoseki sumo stable and debuted in May 1959. He remained in the sport for seven years until he quit to join Tokyo Pro Wrestling. Sakeda was one of Tokyo Pro’s ex-sumo recruits, alongside Haruka Eigen, Katsuhisa Shibata, Takeji Suruzaki, and Isamu Teranishi. As TPW’s funds had been severely misappropriated by both founder Toyonobori and Tadaharu Tanaka, they had no dojo or ring to train in, so Sakeda and the others were forced to learn the basics on a beach in Ito. Toyonobori rechristened him Tsuyoshi Sendai, taken from the name of his godfather and hometown. While Eigen and Shibata joined Inoki in his return to the JWA as a package deal, Sakeda was among those left behind and absorbed into the IWE. Debuting for Kokusai in their August 1967 Osaka show, Sakeda took the new ring name Tetsunosuke Daigo. Daigo remained an under-to-midcarder afterwards (or a “front and middle player”), wrestling in a ‘rough’, heelish style. A 2017 G Spirits interview with Goro Tsurumi and Katsuzo Ōiyama saw both claim that Daigo had been a bully in this period, with Oiyama recalling an incident that arose from Daigo’s jealousy that Oiyama would get to wrestle overseas before him. Mighty Inoue was less forthright in a 2016 interview with Showa Puroresu, while admitting that Daigo had “a strong personality” and a drinking problem. One of Daigo’s late-life students, Harry Smith, would likely concur: “Tokyo Joe was crazy, stubborn, a psychic or second sighted, pushy, inspiring, tough as shit, funny, a trash talker, heavy drinker and a warrior with an insane work ethic.”

Daigo finally got to go overseas in 1973, when Mad Dog Vachon took note of him and invited him to work for Grand Prix Wrestling in Montreal. Vachon later praised Daigo as “adaptable” and “very smart”, while noting his remarkable conditioning. He was booked as top heel Tokyo Joe. Daigo was scheduled to return in March 1974, with his first match being booked in his hometown of Sendai. Vachon initially rejected this, but Daigo smoothed things over by securing the substitution of Devil Murasaki, who had been working in Indianapolis for Dick the Bruiser. The two hadn’t been close in Kokusai, but they were glad to see each other again. Before Daigo’s return, he worked alongside Murasaki in a three-week program for Stampede to wrestle the Kiwis. The teams traded the Stampede tag titles back and forth, and the Japanese team had them on March 18, when they drove to a show in—depending on the source—either Lethbridge or High River during a severe snowstorm. They passed by Archie Gouldie on the road, who told them the show was canceled, but on their way back to Calgary they slid on some black ice into a ditch. When the tow truck arrived, Daigo was assisting with the cable when a 19-year old driver slid down the road and hit him, severing his right leg into multiple pieces. 

After a proper amputation, Daigo remained in Calgary to negotiate for damages. The driver responsible died in another automobile accident while negotiations were underway, which made dealing with the insurance company difficult. Daigo later said that the three-year ordeal provided useful experience for his next job. At some point in the year, Daigo began to book talent for the IWE. In 1975, starting with the Dynamite Series tour, the IWE terminated their relationship with the AWA for financial reasons and switched to Daigo as their booker. This route expanded over time with contacts in Tennessee and Puerto Rico. Daigo held considerable animosity towards Mr. Hito for working as a competing booker in his territory beginning in 1979, and the two allegedly never met face-to-face while working as bookers. After the IWE’s demise, while running a gas station in Calgary, Daigo was responsible for booking Gerry Morrow (aka former IWE ‘exchange student’ Jiro Inazuma) for All Japan, as well as bringing fellow IWE alumnus Ichimasa Wakamatsu to Canada to begin work as manager Shogun KY Wakamatsu. 

Left: Daigo with student Tyson Kidd.

In 1984, NJPW began using Joe Daigo’s services due to a financial dispute with Hito. (The British Bulldogs transferred to All Japan in response.) According to a 2017 obituary by Greg Oliver, Daigo would hear about wrestlers with potential from Bruce or Ross Hart and scout them from there. His New Japan bookings gave big breaks to the likes of Owen Hart, Chris Benoit, Sid Vicious, Yokozuna, and the Undertaker. Numerous wrestlers from NJPW’s second and third generations of talent came to the territory for work and further training under Daigo, who would also book them for Otto Wanz’s Germany and Austria-based Catch Wrestling Association. Later, a new generation of Canadian wrestlers trained under Joe: Natalya Neidhart (the only woman he trained), Davey Boy Smith Jr., and Tyson Kidd. Kidd has said that he owes Daigo his life, as the neck conditioning that Joe incorporated into his training had made his 2015 injury after a botched muscle buster merely a career-ending one, instead of one that left him paralyzed or worse. Daigo eventually squashed his beef with his greatest adversary when he was invited to eat at Hito’s okonomiyaki restaurant. While Hito returned to Japan after his retirement, Daigo would remain in Calgary until his death in 2017, from complications during a surgery to treat his colon cancer.

Miscellaneous

• Daigo and Genichiro Tenryu were in the same stable (which had been Rikidozan’s stable before them), with Tenryu joining midway through Daigo’s sumo career.