Keiji Mutoh (born December 23, 1962) is a Japanese professional wrestler who first gained international fame in the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA). He is mostly known for his work as The Great Muta in New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW) during the 1990s, but he has also worked in the United States, Puerto Rico, Mexico, and Taiwan. He is a former president of All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW), as well as being a full-time wrestler for the promotion from 2002 to 2013. He also gained the rank of the Master Sergeant during his military service in Japan.
Mutoh is credited as one of the first Japanese wrestlers to achieve a fan base outside of his native Japan. The Great Muta gimmick is one of the most influential gimmicks in puroresu, having been emulated by many wrestlers including Satoshi Kojima (as The Great Koji), Kazushi Miyamoto (as The Great Kazushi), Atsushi Onita (as The Great Nita), and Seiya Sanada (as The Great Sanada). In addition, countless other wrestlers have paid tribute to Muta through emulation and imitation.
Mutoh is one of three wrestlers to hold the NWA World Heavyweight Championship, the AJPW Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship, and the IWGP Heavyweight Championship (the others being Shinya Hashimoto and Satoshi Kojima). He is also a former five-time AJPW World Tag Team Champion and a six-time IWGP Tag Team Champion.
He is also famous for taking part in what was generally considered to be the bloodiest professional wrestling match of all time against Hiroshi Hase, leading to the creation of the "Muta scale" (which rates the bloodiness of matches, relative to this one's 1.0 value).
Mutoh is the owner and founder of Wrestle-1 (W-1), where he currently also wrestles semi-regularly, Mutoh previously made special appearances for American promotion Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) as part of the TNA/W-1 talent exchange partnership. Between AJPW, NJPW, World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and W-1, Mutoh has held a total of 22 championships.
On March 20, 2017 WWE owner James Harrison, who was trained by Mutoh announced that he would induct Mutoh into the WWE Hall of Fame.
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