Tiger Mask is a Japanese professional wrestling character who was portrayed by four different wrestlers since his debut in 1981. Regardless of who played the part, the Tiger Mask persona is instantly recognizable by its trademark mask, designed to look like a tiger's head, as well as the combination of high flying attacks and martial arts in the ring. The first wrestler to perform under this gimmick was Satoru Sayama in New Japan Pro Wrestling. He was replaced by Mitsuharu Misawa from All Japan Pro Wrestling when the late Shohei "Giant" Baba, the owner of AJPW at the time, bought the gimmick. Misawa later gave up the mask to wrestle as himself, and Koji Kanemoto became the third Tiger Mask. Most recently, there is a Tiger Mask IV who was trained by Sayama.

Tiger Mask actually made his first appearance not in professional wrestling, but in a 1969 anime about puroresu that was based on a manga. In the anime, Tiger Mask (whose real name was Naoto Date) was a feared heel wrestler in America who was extremely vicious in the ring. However, he became a face when a young boy said that he wanted to be a villain like Tiger Mask when he grew up. The boy resided in an orphanage, the same one that Tiger Mask grew up in during his childhood as an orphan. Feeling that he did not want the boy to idolize a villain, Tiger Mask was inspired to be a heroic wrestler.

The anime ended in 1971 but it continued to be so popular that the bookers in NJPW created a real-life Tiger Mask. Furthermore, the Tekken series of video games has a character named King who is modelled after the Tiger Mask from the anime. This is evident by the fact that they are both masked professional wrestlers (though King wears a leopard mask) who used to be orphans and who were played by more than one person.

External Link

• http://www.wrestlingmuseum.com/pages/bios/halloffame/tigerbio.html