| Yoshihiro Sakai | |
| Birth Date: | November 5, 1977[1] |
| Birth Place: | Niigata, Japan |
| Names: | Yoshihiro Sakai Muscle Sakai Muscle Lesnar Super Sasadango Machine |
| Height: | 1.86m[2] |
| Weight: | 120 kg |
| Debut: | 2002 |
is a Japanese professional wrestler, better known by his ring name and is currently working for the Japanese professional wrestling promotion DDT Pro-Wrestling (DDT).[3]
Sakai made his professional wrestling debut for Dramatic Dream Team (DDT) under his real name, Yoshihiro Sakai at a Non-Fix event on June 20, 2002, in a losing effort to Hero!.[4]
Sakai was a part of Team Midbreath alongside Sanshiro Takagi (under the name Mr. Strawberry) and Ken Ohka who went under the nickname of O.K. Revolution, and together they were the inaugural Sea Of Japan 6-Person Tag Team Champions after defeating Super Uchuu Power, Tomohiko Hashimoto and Shuji Ishikawa in a tournament final which took place at the I Shall Return event on July 20, 2003.[5] [6] In 2004, while working under the name Muscle Sakai, he was the main protagonist and producer of the DDT sub-brand which parodied the style of, a promotion created earlier that year and focused on the sports entertainment aspect of wrestling. Muscle went on to produce 26 shows between 2004 and 2012, a special event with Ken Ohka in 2015, a "Musclemania" event in 2019 and it was then revived as in 2020.[7] [8]
In 2012, he assumed a masked character by the name of Super Sasadango Machine (a parody of New Japan Pro Wrestling's Super Strong Machine).
During his tenure with DDT, he worked alongside various wrestlers and personalities such as Ken Ohka, Ladybeard, LiLiCo and Makoto Oishi with whom he won the KO-D 10-Man Tag Team Championship at Ryōgoku Peter Pan 2017 on August 20.[9] During their reign, Keisuke Ishii replaced Ladybeard in several title defenses such as the one that occurred at God Bless DDT on November 23, 2017, where thet fought Shiro Koshinaka, Sanshiro Takagi, Toru Owashi, Shigehiro Irie and Antonio Honda in a ten-man tag team match to retain the titles.[10] On September 27, 2015, at Who's Gonna Top?, Sasadango teamed up with fellow #OhkaEmpire stable members Ken Ohka and Danshoku Dino to defeat Team Dream Futures (Keisuke Ishii, Shigehiro Irie and Soma Takao) for the KO-D 6-Man Tag Team Championship.[11] At Ultimate Party 2019, Sakai teamed up with Jiro Kuroshio, Makoto Oishi, Hiroshi Yamato and Yuna Manase to battle Danshoku Dino, Asuka, Yuki Iino, Mizuki and Trans-Am★Hiroshi in a losing effort for the vacant KO-D 10-Man Tag Team Championship.[12]