Masakatsu Funaki

What I respect most about Masakatsu Funaki is his refusal to settle for one arena. Coming out of Hirosaki, he became a genuine force in both professional wrestling and mixed martial arts at a time when blending the two was rare and risky. His Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame nod tells me the global purists rate him too. There is a quiet, almost ascetic intensity to him that translates from the ring to his acting work. For me, fighters who keep questioning their own definition of strength, and reinvent themselves through retirements and comebacks, are the ones who truly last.

Name (English)

Masakatsu Funaki

Name (Japanese)

船木誠勝

Reading

ふなき まさかつ

Born

March 13, 1969 (age 57)

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Pisces / Rooster

Origin

Hirosaki, Aomori Prefecture, Japan

Height

183 cm

Occupation

professional wrestler / mixed martial arts fighter / actor

Awards & achievements

• Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame

• Official sitehttps://masa-funaki.com/
• Xhttps://x.com/masa_funaki
• Wikipedia (English)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masakatsu%20Funaki
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%88%B9%E6%9C%A8%E8%AA%A0%E5%8B%9D
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2080446

Tags

• Aomori Prefecture
• professional wrestler
• mixed martial arts fighter
• actor

Last updated

2026-06-21

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.