Matty Matsuda (b. 1887 Yatsushiro City, Japan, d. August 15, 1929, Battle Creek, Michigan) was the ring name of judoka Manjiro Matsuda 松田万次郎 (Matsuda Manjirō), who became a noted professional wrestler in the early 20th century. Matsuda moved to America as a teenager, giving judo exhibitions on athletic cards in British Columbia. He took up training in pro wrestling after being inspired by a wrestling match between Frank Gotch and Dan McLeod in Vancouver. After wrestling professionally around the Northwest, Matsuda moved to Minneapolis, wrestling around the Midwest and into the Southeast through the 1910s. He wrestled a four-hour continuous match with rival Johnny Billeter in April, 1912 in Toledo that ended in a draw. A rematch with Billeter that June gave Matsuda a claim to the lightweight wrestling championship. In the 1920s, he moved to Texas mainly wrestled there and Kansas. In 1920, he laid claim to the welterweight title by defeating rival Jack Reynolds in El Paso. Matsuda died after a brief illness in 1929.
References
- "Wrestlingdata.com - The World's Largest Wrestling Database". www.wrestlingdata.com.
- "The Immigrant Experience: Asian Martial Arts in the United States and Canada, by Joseph R. Svinth". November 29, 2019.
- ^ Long, Trish. "El Paso wrestler Matty Matsuda was undefeated at Liberty Hall in 1920s". El Paso Times.
- Green, Thomas A. (June 9, 2010). Martial Arts of the World: An Encyclopedia of History and Innovation. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 9781598842432 – via Google Books.
- Japanese male judoka
- Japanese catch wrestlers
- Japanese male mixed martial artists
- Mixed martial artists utilizing judo
- Mixed martial artists utilizing jujutsu
- Mixed martial artists utilizing catch wrestling
- 20th-century deaths
- Japanese jujutsuka
- 20th-century male professional wrestlers
- American male professional wrestlers
- Japanese male professional wrestlers