wrestling / News
FMW, Pro Wrestling NOAH Alumnus Masashi Aoyagi Passes Away At 65
Masashi Aoyagi, who was a regular part of Pro Wrestling NOAH in the 2000s and 2010s, has passed away. PWInsider reports that Aoyagi died at the age of 65. No further details on his passing are available at this time.
Aoyagi joined the pro wrestling industry in 1989. A karate fighter, he worked his first match against Atsushi Oneida in a pro wrestling vs. karate bout at World Karate Association’s Korakuen Hall event in July of that year. Onita lost by DQ and demanded a rematch, which led to the creation of FMW and their match taking place on the first event on October 6th, 1989. Aoyagi won that bout by TKO, and Onita got his win back four days later at FMW’s Korakuen Hall show.
Aoyagi would then work for NJPW starting in 1990, exiting in 1994. He returned to FMW for a match there and made a few appearances for WWF, both in 1992 at the WAR/WWF show and then on the company’s 1994 Japanese tour. He work for a variety of promotions including Tokyo Pro Wrestling and WAR, winning the latter promotion’s International Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Titles in 1997 along with Gokuaku Umibozu.
In 2000 he joined Pro Wrestling NOAH and work primarily for them for 15 years, though he also made appearances for other companies in Japan like ZERO-1, Dradition Pro Wrestling and NJPW. He retired in 2015, but returned to work a few matches a year starting in 2018. His final match was for Onita’s Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling-Explosion at their Burn Out Osaka show on August 15, 2021 where he teamed with Isami Kodaka and Mr. Pogo to beat Onita, HASEGAWA & Tsuyoshi Okada in the main event, described as a “Barbed Wire Current Blast, Current Blast Bat, Current Blast Table & Barricade Mat Mine Blast Board Gunpowder Triple Hell Death.”
On behalf of 411, our condolences to the family, friends, and fans of Mr. Aoyagi.
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