Fujitayama

[KinchStalker]

Fujitayama (藤田山)

Profession: Wrestler, Announcer
Real name: Tadayoshi Fujita (藤田忠義)
Professional names: Fujitayama
Life: 2/11/1924-5/9/1969
Born: Tagawa, Fukuoka, Japan
Career: 1955-1956 (as wrestler)
Height/Weight: 167cm/113kg (5’6”/249lbs.)
Signature moves: unknown
Promotions: Japan Wrestling Association
Titles: none

Fujitayama was one of early puroresu’s shorter-lived sumo transplants.

Tadayoshi Fujitayama entered the Kataonoha sumo stable and debuted in January 1939, shortly before his fifteenth birthday. When Kataonoha closed in 1942 after the retirement of its stablemaster, Kantaro Kaigetsu, Fujita was absorbed into Kagetsu’s former stable, Hanago. Tadayoshi received the shikona Fujitayama at that time, although he would switch his name back and forth about half a dozen times. Fujitayama continued to notch solid performances through the end of the Pacific War, as he never lost more than half of his matches in a tournament until November 1945. In 1947, he transferred again to the Takasago stable, and was promoted to the top makuuchi division. In 1951, the Takasago stable’s top wrestlers, led by stablemaster and yokozuna Maedayama, held the first exhibition tour of the United States since before the war. The tour was originally supposed to end that summer, but proved so popular that Fujitayama did not return to Japan until February 1952. He was penalized for this by a demotion to juryo, although he had been given a symbolic 5-10 record in the autumn tournament to recognize the contribution that he had made to the sport. After winning his first tournament back in the division with a 13-2 record—the only tournament win of his career—Fujitayama was promoted back to makuuchi. In 1953, the sumo schedule expanded from three to four tournaments per year, and it is evident that Fujitayama could not adapt. He officially retired at the last tournament of 1954 but had not competed since the first of the year.

Fujitayama (right) with Primo Carnera, c.1955.

Fujitayama joined the Japan Wrestling Association in 1955, contemporaneously with Azumafuji and Toyonobori. By a wide margin, his was the least notable tenure of the three. Tadayoshi began wrestling in the summer of that year and quit. During this time, the 5’6” Fujitayama teamed with the tallest man in puroresu at the time, and his former Hanago stablemate, Rashomon Tsunagoro. After just a year, Fujitayama quit wrestling, but according to the fanzine Showa Puroresu, he became a ring announcer. I do not know how long this lasted, but I presume that he had left the JWA by the end of the decade. Besides an acting career that included a bit part in Akira Kurosawa’s 1957 film The Lower Depths, I don’t have any information on Fujitayama before his death in 1969.