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Famous New Japan Pro-Wrestling trainer Kotetsu Yamamoto dies at age 68
By Zach Arnold | August 29, 2010
Kotetsu Yamamoto (photo here), a very famous trainer of fighters and wrestlers for New Japan Pro-Wrestling, died today (6:42 AM) at the age of 68 due to (what is being announced as) hypoxic encephalopathy. He died at a local hospital in Nagano.
Yamamoto was a mid-card wrestler for New Japan Pro-Wrestling in the early 1970s as part of a tag team with Kantaro Hoshino called “The Yamaha Brothers.” After retiring from active in-ring duty, Yamamoto became the iron hand in training all the major stars to go through the organization for the next three decades. When prospects from judo or amateur wrestling entered the promotion, Yamamoto was a mentor, advisor, and teacher. He whipped the talent into shape, ran them through tests the day of shows, and was hands-on in helping so many major players in Japan become as successful as they did. When you think of names like Jushin Liger, Akira Maeda, Nobuhiko Takada, Koji Kanemoto, Hiroshi Hase, and even some of the newer Jr. Heavyweight stars like Ryusuke Taguchi and Fergal (Prince) Devitt, Yamamoto was the man who trained them through the vaunted New Japan dojo system. His reputation in Japanese circles was second-to-none. His nickname was “the hardhearted sergeant” for a reason.
While his death is not a crippling blow to New Japan, it’s certainly a death that signals another loss of the old guard that taught wrestling the old-school way. He’s as close to irreplaceable as you can get as a trainer in Japanese wrestling. He was never a giant star but he was a giant player in the development of so many great athletes that have passed through an industry that finds itself on shaky ground. An industry that sorely needed some good news lost one of its elder statesmen today.
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