Ulka Sasaki is a Pro Wrestler. 

I’d also argue he’s a damn good one, even just 8 months into his career. In addition, he is (almost simultaneously) a successful MMA fighter. Not everyone makes the transition between those worlds successfully, or earns acceptance in their new career. The intense scrutiny that comes from changing professional arenas, accompanied with a physical and mental retraining, means that there can be harsh judgements made about whether someone is ‘successful’. 

But Ulka Sasaki is a Pro Wrestler. He has been accepted as such almost from the moment he stepped into a NOAH ring. There are no question marks over whether he is ‘trying out’ a role, ‘playing’ at being a wrestler. He just is.

For me, nothing sums up Ulka being a wrestler more than a seemingly throwaway statement he made in an interview as he reflected on his GHC National Championship victory and how far he had come. 

What were ‘points’ have now become a ‘line’…

He gave the example of having won the GHC National Championship in the Budokan, the same place where, a year and a half previously, he had watched the Great Muta’s retirement match and decided to become a professional wrestler. Two points in time were now connected, perhaps even to the extent that this could be ‘fate’. 

Ulka makes connections. For me, that’s a huge part of what it means to be a professional wrestler. Whether it’s connecting with fans, with a legacy or company identity, or connecting the pieces to make a story, connection matters. Being able to see how connections can be made matters. To me. And apparently, at least in the moment of this interview, to Ulka. 

Ulka’s ability to successfully (albeit with the resources behind him) link ideas, emotions, and imagery to his in-ring persona and matches, is compelling and, I think, a crucial part of his fan appeal. Just in case you haven’t ‘joined the dots’ yourself, here’s my attempt at explaining why some of those connections have worked for me. 

The Tengu

‘Ulka’ is a ring name taken from the sanskrit for tengu, the red-faced, long-nosed legendary creature found in Shinto beliefs. Tengu are the patron spirit of martial arts and renowned mischief makers. It’s a fitting name chosen for a fighter – even Ulka’s opponent in his debut match, Takashi Suguira, likes it. It’s a powerful image with, for those familiar with the tengu, a recognisable identity. Even for those who don’t know the tengu’s connection with martial arts or its stories, the use of a consistent motif and visual identity is an expected pattern in pro wrestling and something often only granted to rookies once they have proved themselves worthy of the attention. 

The image and tengu name is something Sasaki brought with him from his MMA career, where he adopted red in his hair and clothing to match the tengu’s red face, and wore priestly-style robes that are the usual dress of the tengu. However much Sasaki might frame himself as a rookie wrestler, he brought with him the hallmarks of someone far more developed. His debut featured a full entrance, complete with smoke, lighting, suspenseful music, and a short performance that made it appear as if he was awakened from a peaceful meditation. The tengu had arrived!

For some wrestlers, this might be as simple as a cool name and mask, even a colour scheme – things I would argue are the ‘dots’ that can form part of the tengu image. Ulka goes beyond this. The tengu is a motif he calls on repeatedly, including to explain his character and motivations. In describing his attraction to the GHC National Championship, its red colour provides an obvious link, but Ulka also references the title being openweight and the freedom of this, describing this as a commonality with the freedom of the form of the tengu. Tengu are described in stories as both being and not being in different physical forms – a dog but not a dog, a bird but not a bird. They are their own thing, almost shapeshifters who are able to draw on different qualities and powers to make their mark on the world without restriction of a category. Arguably there are parallels here too with Ulka’s journey into wrestling, moving from wrestler to fighter and making a physical transition that has involved him gaining 50kg and attempting to shape his body for both a different image and strength. 

There are other parallels between the tengu and Ulka’s character that also feel worth noting. The tengu, like many gods and spirits, is neither good nor bad. It depends on circumstance. Ulka too, has shown himself to be both humble and ambitious, sweet and yet vicious. There are moments in his ring work where it is clear that he is here to win, not just to compete. He talks about shrugging off defeat easily, but that doesn’t mean he won’t do what he needs to in order to prevent it. Ulka and the mischievous and dangerous tengu can feel very similar at times.

At its most complete, the tengu feels like a thread. It connects his old and new careers, and provides inspiration for his ideas, his costumes and his character. At its most basic, it is a starting point of the kind that all rookies get to work with. The fact that there are few, if any, questions about whether his character ‘suits’ him or his style is probably a good indication that he’s at least managed to move beyond the starting line. 

Pro wrestling LOVE

Nearly all wrestlers have a good ‘origin story’. It’s a way that they can explain how they have committed to wrestling and helps them to connect with fans who may see a little of themselves in their love of a promotion, style or other wrestler. Ulka’s origin story, and the stories he has built around it, are ideal for an MMA fighter turned pro wrestler, and for a wrestler entering NOAH at this time. They connect us from Ulka, the young pro-wrestling fan, to Ulka the champion. 

Ulka was a pro wrestling fan before he was a fight fan. Through his older brother, he developed a love of wrestling and, notably, of one important wrestler in particular – Keiji Muto. It was a desire to see the Great Muta’s retirement in January 2023 that brought Ulka to NOAH and ultimately to life as a pro wrestler. Watching Muta face Shinsuke Nakamura, also a wrestler with an MMA past, Ulka made the commitment to become a wrestler. One month after that decision, Ulka and some friends opened a time capsule they had buried in elementary school. The note he wrote his older self asked if he was a professional wrestler yet. Not yet, but soon. In another echo of fate, the note also said that he would be sad if Muto retired. 

As a Muto fan, it is likely that the young Ulka Sasaki was not, like the young Kaito Kiyomiya, closely following NOAH and its wrestlers. By the time NOAH was founded, he may well have already moved on to watching Pride and the promotions that took him towards starting to train in martial arts from age 15. He does not have anything approaching Kaito’s claim of inspiration by Misawa. However, Muto is an important figure, not only for Japanese wrestling but for NOAH in particular. Whatever you might feel about his influence, the highlights and shape of modern NOAH owes much to Keiji Muto. Ulka Sasaki could do far worse than drawing the line between him and Muto’s Pro Wrestling LOVE. 

Ulka’s origin story is not just about being a child fan though, it’s about a very specific match, and it is in the other competitor in that match, Shinsuke Nakamura, that we can see more obvious parallels. Shinsuke and Ulka are connected through both being in the same MMA group and training together, such that Ulka can refer to Shinsuke as a senpai, albeit a distant one. Shinsuke’s dramatic entrances and costumes though, and their similar interests in arts and creativity, make for a much closer connection. Ulka has been understandably cautious about alluding to any connection to Shinsuke himself, and a direct line here isn’t needed – Ulka has the match, and all the drama that entailed, that started his pro wrestling journey.

As Ulka’s career progresses, his origin story will matter less. He’s already completed two connections to it by debuting almost exactly a year later and winning his first title in the same venue as that match. He’ll have new connections to make going forward. It will be interesting to see how many of them form a line with those first moments of choosing a pro wrestling life. 

Rivals, friends, others

There are many wrestlers who make the point that what happens in the ring is not about one person, but is a dance or conversation involving (sometimes several) wrestlers working together. A wrestler’s career can be made up of the connections they can make within the ring and also how they build meaningful stories that work both in and outside it. In short, relationships matter. 

Over a few short months Ulka has already built up a web of important relationships out of very little. As a wrestler less than a year into his career and without a faction, he can find himself teammate one match and opponent the next. Even so, he still tries to make even a temporary role feel meaningful. For each match, Ulka tries to explain his connections to his opponents through the comments he makes on camera, and on notes he writes for fans on LINE. As he comments on future matches he recalls each opponent he will be facing, referencing his record against them, whether he owes them something by way of return. He connects each moment in time, making each match feel more like a fight with real consequences for his record, his pride, his development as a wrestler. He explicitly connects the dots to make each opponent and teammate his rival, ally, or teacher. He takes this casting into the match, treating them as such, even if such roles are most likely temporary. Post-match, he reflects on what he has learned, leaving open potential for future connections with teammates or opponents. 

Without making any long-term alliances, he has made connections to NOAH’s history, its senior figures, and its future through these comments. Kenoh is a core example, though their connections offer Ulka a lot to play with. He was Ulka’s first teammate, fighting alongside him in Ulka’s exhibition match. He has also been a key opponent, first leading rookie Owada to victory over Ulka in the Victory Challenge tag league, and then managing to frustrate Ulka in singles competition. 

However, I’m not going to write about Kenoh. Not because Kenoh isn’t brilliant but rather that, for this purpose, he’s a little too brilliant. Building a connection and storyline linked to Kenoh is, well, hardly unexpected. Kenoh may not exactly be a wrestler who could get a good match out of a broom, but I’m pretty certain he could get a believable long-term feud out of one. Nor am I going to write about Marufuji or Sugiura, important as they are to NOAH and therefore Ulka’s future. Instead I’m going to write about a far less obvious example and my personal favourite Ulka dots to line relationship – the one he developed with Shuhei Taniguchi. 

Full disclosure: I love Taniguchi a bit. A national level amateur wrestler who did not lose in his debut match as a professional wrestler (caveat: it was a tag match on a Christmas show), Taniguchi is a six time GHC tag champion with an assortment of NOAH’s best and also Yuji Hino. His victory and 18 day title reign with Sugiura in 2023 was an expression of true joy, as a character who has been relegated primarily to an old guy in black trunks summoned up the energy and fortitude to lift and slam Takashi Suguira onto his opponents and then run around the ring with the enthusiasm of a puppy. Though it might not be apparent to recent fans or evident through his singles record, Taniguchi is important to NOAH. His amateur wrestling background (also Ulka’s base) and his veteran status also make him an ideal opponent for someone like Ulka Sasaki. 

And so, Taniguchi was Ulka’s second ever match as a wrestler. Naturally, Ulka lost, but how he lost is more interesting. Despite it being abundantly clear that one man in the ring knew far more about wrestling than the other, it was not in any way a veteran vs rookie match. Each man was a threat to the other. Taniguchi won with an inside cradle, just at the point that it looked like Ulka might be about to generate some serious offence. Taniguchi left the ring clutching his arm, the result of a lucky but vicious armbar from Ulka. Ulka lost, not like an MMA fighter, but like a pro wrestler. An inexperienced one. Taniguchi nearly lost to experience he can’t match, despite Ulka’s junior status. Both men left nursing some hurt, and unfulfilled. The perfect start to a beautiful relationship.

They faced each other on opposite sides on a further six occasions, before making peace enough to work as a team. For half of these, whoever was on the team of Daiki Inaba took the loss as Inaba found himself suplexed, stomped and slammed into defeat. The remaining tally was two wins for Ulka, by triangle choke and TKO, and a 15 minute time-out draw.  Each one of those matches could have existed in its own right just as one of the many stepping stones on Ulka’s journey, but throughout there remained a thread of something unfinished for them both. Repeatedly, they kept returning to one small sequence and to this theme of Ulka the MMA fighter vs Taniguchi the pro wrestling veteran. 

In the finish to their first match, Ulka hit a cutter on Taniguchi and got a two count. As both stood and Ulka went to wrap his arm over Taniguchi’s neck, Taniguchi rolled through with an inside cradle and picked up the win. In the closing stages of their second match, they repeated this exact sequence with Ulka kicking out. As Taniguchi went for a chokeslam moments later, Sasaki managed to secure a triangle choke that had Taniguchi tapping almost immediately. They came back to it again in their 15 minute draw. This time Ulka followed up the pin with a knee, then a schoolboy-triangle choke combination that he had found success with elsewhere. Taniguchi escaped not once but twice, mostly by kicking and punching Ulka in the head. It was not pretty but it was effective. The match ended with Taniguchi in a leg lock, the only time in the match he seemed far enough from the ropes that it might work, but time expired. They both left quickly, barely looking at the other. Still not quite resolved. Their sixth match was entirely different – a martial arts rules tag match where neither of them were even attempting to win as a pro wrestler. Ulka’s experience here won out and he knocked Taniguchi out with a high kick. By their seventh match, Taniguchi had enough of this cutter-pin-cradle sequence and decided to just headbutt Ulka in the neck after getting up from the pin. Maybe that’s closure, who knows? For Taniguchi it might just be. 

Of course, repeated sequences in wrestling aren’t unusual, they are integral. But how many wrestlers six months into their career are using a sequence from their second ever wrestling match to tell a story of progression with someone that they then knock out with a kick to the head? The point is not that Ulka has mastered callbacks, the point is that he understood and mastered them enough in three and a half months to have me shouting at my screen during a scrappy opening match with no winner. Ulka v Taniguchi is a line. One of many.

So yes, Ulka Sasaki is a pro wrestler. The dots he has connected so far create a believable outline of a character, with the substance and artistry to fill in any gaps. The picture is not yet complete – Ulka by his own admittance still has a lot more to learn about pro wrestling – but there’s more than enough for me to connect with, and his growing number of fans around the world.

Tengu!