Won the UFC Japan heavyweight tournament in 1997 and became the Gracie Hunter of the PRIDE era.
Kazushi Sakuraba is a Japanese professional wrestler, submission wrestler and former mixed martial artist. He is performing as a freelancer, primarily appearing for Pro Wrestling Noah, where he was formerly one-half of the former GHC Tag Team Champions with Takashi Sugiura. He has also competed in traditional puroresu for New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) and shoot-style competition for UWFi and Kingdom Pro Wrestling (KPW). He has fought in MMA competition in the Ultimate Fighting Championship, Pride Fighting Championships, Hero's, Dream and most recently Rizin Fighting Federation. He is known as the Gracie Hunter or the Gracie Killer due to his wins over four members of the famed Gracie family: Royler Gracie, Renzo Gracie, Ryan Gracie, and Royce Gracie. Sakuraba is famous for beating 15 champions of different top MMA organizations; opponents who were often many weight-classes above him.
Fighters whose careers began before the Unified Rules era (debut before November 17, 2000).
Won the UFC Japan heavyweight tournament in 1997 and became the Gracie Hunter of the PRIDE era.
Portrait: ゾーヒョー · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons · file page ↗
This inductee does not yet have a canonical row in the PropBetEdge fighter archive, so no archive profile is linked. Recorded as a backfill candidate; no fighter record was created.
Independent PropBetEdge tribute. Hall of Fame membership, wing assignment and induction class are credited to the UFC Hall of Fame; fields without a confident source are left blank rather than guessed. PropBetEdge is not affiliated with or endorsed by UFC.
