Kushida (wrestler)

Yujiro Kushida (櫛田 雄二郎, Kushida Yūjirō; born May 12, 1983) is a Japanese professional wrestler and former mixed martial artist, better known by his mononymous ring name Kushida (stylized as KUSHIDA). He is signed to New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), and also makes appearances for Major League Wrestling (MLW), where he is a member of Contra Unit. He is best known for his tenures with NJPW, where he is a former six-time IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion and a four-time IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champion (twice with Time Splitters teammate Alex Shelley and twice with Kevin Knight). He was the winner of the 2015 and 2017 Best of the Super Juniors tournaments, the 2016 Super J-Cup, and the 2017 Pro Wrestling World Cup, a tournament co-promoted by NJPW with What Culture Pro Wrestling (WCPW) and Revolution Pro Wrestling (RevPro). Kushida previously made appearances for NJPW's American partner Ring of Honor (ROH), where he is a former ROH World Television Champion. In 2019, Kushida signed with WWE, who assigned him to perform on the 205 Live and NXT brands. In WWE, he is a former one-time NXT Cruiserweight Champion. In 2022, he departed from WWE and returned to NJPW; he signed with TNA (then known as Impact Wrestling) in December of that same year. Kushida began training for a mixed martial arts (MMA) career at Nobuhiko Takada's Takada Dojo while in junior high school. He made his professional MMA debut in 2003 for the ZST promotion, winning the following year's ZST Genesis Lightweight Tournament. In 2005, he retired from MMA, ending his career with an undefeated record.