Naoya Ogawa

Naoya Ogawa lived several athletic careers in the space of one. Born in Suginami, Tokyo in March 1968 and standing 193 cm, he first became a world-champion judoka, collecting a record seven medals at the World Judo Championships and seven at the All-Japan Championships — a haul second only to Yasuhiro Yamashita. He took silver in the over-95 kg division at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. Any one of those lines would be a complete career for most people. Instead he left the tatami for professional wrestling and mixed martial arts, which purists found close to sacrilege and which made him one of the most argued-about figures in Japanese combat sports. I find that refusal interesting. A world champion has every incentive to retire undefeated in reputation, take the coaching job, and let the record book do the talking. He kept stepping into arenas where he could plainly be beaten, in front of crowds that were not always on his side. You do not have to like the choice to admit it took something.

Name (English)

Naoya Ogawa

Name (Japanese)

小川直也

Reading

おがわ なおや

Born

March 31, 1968 (age 58)

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Aries / Monkey

Origin

Suginami, Tokyo, Japan

Height

193 cm

Occupation

judoka / mixed martial arts fighter / professional wrestler

High school

Hachioji High School

University

University of Tsukuba

• Official sitehttp://ogawanaoya.com/
• Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/ogawanaoya_ch/
• Wikipedia (English)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naoya%20Ogawa
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%B0%8F%E5%B7%9D%E7%9B%B4%E4%B9%9F
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1376088

Tags

• Tokyo
• judoka
• mixed martial arts fighter
• professional wrestler

Last updated

2026-08-07

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.