At the mixed martial arts event “RIZIN.35” held at Musashino Forest Sport Plaza Main Arena on April 17, Tsuyoshi Kosaka, who turned 52 last month, is the world of ultra-vacuum hands. Play against 26-year-old Mikio Ueda, the winner of the tournament and this time his MMA debut. Takasaka has announced that this match will be his retirement match.
“World TK” Tsuyoshi Kosaka’s life as a fighter
After experiencing judo from junior high school to high school, university, and working people, Kosaka made his professional debut in 1994 with the introduction to Rings, which is presided over by Akira Maeda. The following October, 1995, he participated in the mixed martial arts open tournament “The Tournament of J ’95” wearing a dogi, defeating Egan Inoue in the final and winning the championship. He became the first Japanese fighter to stand out by defeating Gracie Jiu-Jitsu.
From 1998, he moved to the United States and regularly participated in the world’s highest peak UFC in mixed martial arts, defeating Kimo and Pete Williams. From here he became known as the “TK of the World”. To date, Takasaka is the only heavyweight Japanese MMA fighter who has regularly participated in the UFC.
In 2004, he defeated Ron Waterman to become a super heavyweight King of Pancrase, and in 2006, he participated in the “PRIDE Indiscriminate Grand Prix 2006” with the determination to “retire if he loses.” In the first round, he was defeated by K-1GP champion Mark Hunt, who weighs 130 kg, after a fierce battle and retired once.
After that, he was a coach for younger players and a temporary coach for the Japan national rugby team, but in 2015 he returned to active duty at the age of 45 with the launch of RIZIN. His return match was a brilliant TKO victory over James Thompson, but then lost to former Ozeki Baltic (Baruto Kaito) and Mirko Cro Cop. The last match was in the “HEAT” ring in January 2020 against Croatia’s Sasha Milinkovic. During the match, he injured Sune and lost a doctor stop.
This is the first match in 2 years and 3 months, and the last match for mixed martial arts. What was the reason why the legend, who has been active in the world for 28 years and has been a leader in the martial arts world, decided to retire? And what kind of battle are you trying to show with Mikio Ueda, a new heavyweight talent who will bear the era? I asked Tsuyoshi Kosaka about his thoughts.
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――First of all, please tell us the reason why you decided to retire again this time.
TakasakaIt would be a long time to talk about the background. I returned to active duty at RIZIN at the end of 2015, and after losing to Mirko Cro Cop (at TKO) on New Year’s Eve 2017, I had the goal of constantly playing a match and “returning to RIZIN”. .. In the end, I lost the match against Mirko because I couldn’t do anything, so I wanted to win more stars in other rings and then go up to RIZIN, the best stage in Japan.
However, because of my injuries, I couldn’t play the match easily, and finally in January 2020, I was able to play the match at HEAT for the first time in two years. In that match, the sneaker broke in the middle and I lost the doctor stop, but from there I wanted to play the match at a pace of about twice a year, get results, and return to RIZIN. However, the situation changed drastically due to the Corona disaster, and the plan collapsed.
