Акиyama: Путь борца и возвращение в AJPW

Japanese professional wrestler (born 1969)
the video game designer
Akiyama is noted for his serious in ring style and demeanor, innovating the Blue Thunder Driver and the wrist–clutch exploder suplex maneuvers. Considered an outstanding tag team wrestler, Akiyama is a three time winner of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Tag Team of the Year award.

In junior high school, Akiyama participated in swimming and in senior high school he competed in freestyle amateur wrestling and judo. After high school, he attended Senshu University in Tokyo, where he joined an amateur wrestling team that produced other professional wrestlers like Riki Choshu, Hiroshi Hase, and Manabu Nakanishi. Akiyama is close friends with fellow AJPW and NOAH alumni Kenta Kobashi, with whom he has a sarcastic backstage relationship.

Akiyama had great success as an amateur wrestler and was eventually scouted by All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW). He made his professional wrestling debut in September 1992 in a match against Kenta Kobashi, which he lost. On October 23, 2011, Akiyama defeated Suwama to finally win All Japan's Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship, the belt he could not win during his eight year run with the promotion before leaving for Pro Wrestling NOAH. Shortly after winning the Triple Crown, Akiyama adopted a new look as he shaved his head bald. On January 22, Akiyama and Saito defeated Bad Intentions (Giant Bernard and Karl Anderson) to win the GHC Tag Team Championship. He has successfully defended the Triple Crown against Taiyō Kea (twice), Takao Omori and Keiji Mutoh. Akiyama lost the Triple Crown to Masakatsu Funaki on August 26, 2012, in a match that lasted less than five minutes. On December 3, 2012, it was reported that Akiyama had threatened to not re sign with Noah after his contract expires in January 2013, when the promotion released Kenta Kobashi from his contract. On December 19, Noah confirmed that Akiyama would leave the promotion on December 24. On December 24, Akiyama, working as "Mr. Christmas", defeated his trainee Atsushi Aoki in both men's final Noah match.

On January 26, 2013, Akiyama, Atsushi Aoki, Go Shiozaki, Kotaro Suzuki and Yoshinobu Kanemaru, all of whom had quit Noah at the same time, announced that they had joined All Japan Pro Wrestling, reforming the "Burning" stable, which he previously formed with Kenta Kobashi in the late 1990s. On March 17, Akiyama and Shiozaki defeated Get Wild (Manabu Soya and Takao Omori) to win the World Tag Team Championship. On April 29, Akiyama defeated Kai in the finals to win the 2013 Champion Carnival. On May 11, Akiyama made a one night return to Noah to take part in Kenta Kobashi's retirement match at Final Burning in Budokan, where he, Kobashi, Keiji Mutoh and Kensuke Sasaki defeated Go Shiozaki, Kenta, Maybach Taniguchi and Yoshinobu Kanemaru. On June 30, Akiyama received his shot at the Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship, which he had earned by winning the Champion Carnival, but was defeated by the defending champion, Suwama. On July 5, following a mass exodus led by Keiji Mutoh, it was announced that Akiyama, along with the rest of Burning, had signed an exclusive contract with All Japan. On October 22, Akiyama and Shiozaki lost the World Tag Team Championship to Evolution (Joe Doering and Suwama). During the next week, Burning was hit hard with Shiozaki, Aoki and Suzuki all announcing that they were quitting the stable. On January 26, 2014, Akiyama and Kanemaru defeated former stablemates Aoki and Suzuki to win the All Asia Tag Team Championship. Following the win, Akiyama, attempting to become the first wrestler in 15 years to hold the All Asia and the World Tag Team Championships simultaneously, formed another tag team named "Wild Burning" with Takao Omori. Akiyama and Omori received their title shot on February 8, but were defeated by the defending champions, Joe Doering and Suwama. On April 29, Akiyama and Kanemaru lost the All Asia Tag Team Championship to Keisuke Ishii and Shigehiro Irie at a Dramatic Dream Team event. Later that same event, Akiyama "accidentally" won the Ironman Heavymetalweight Championship, after laying his arm on it during a backstage interview. On June 4, it was reported that Akiyama was taking over as the new president of All Japan, effective July 1. All Japan confirmed the report with an official announcement the following day. Akiyama runs the new All Japan Pro Wrestling through a company named Zen Nihon Puroresu Innovation, while also serving as the promotion's representative director. On June 15, Akiyama was placed in a decision match to determine a new Triple Crown Heavyweight Champion, but was defeated by Takao Omori. On June 28, Akiyama and Omori defeated Joe Doering and Suwama to win the World Tag Team Championship. After successfully defending the World Tag Team Championship against Akebono and Yutaka Yoshie on October 22, Akiyama and Omori vacated the title the following day in time for the 2014 World's Strongest Tag Determination League. They regained the title by winning the tournament on December 6, defeating Go Shiozaki and Kento Miyahara in the finals. Wild Burning's second reign ended on March 22, 2015, when they were defeated by Akebono and Yutaka Yoshie. On September 26, Akiyama defeated Akebono in the finals to win the 2015 Ōdō Tournament. On November 1, Akyama defeated Akebono to win the Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship for the second time. He lost the title to Suwama on January 2, 2016. On August 11, Akiyama made a rare appearance outside of AJPW, when he took part in an event held by its splinter promotion Wrestle 1. Akiyama teamed with fellow AJPW wrestlers Naoya Nomura and Yuma Aoyagi to defeat the Wrestle 1 trio of Keiji Mutoh, Koji Doi and Kumagoro in an interpromotional six man tag team match. On March 12, 2017, Akiyama defeated Kenso to win the Gaora TV Championship for the first time. His Gaora TV Title reign was mostly be the midcard in comedy or gimmick heavy matches as he wanted to settle down into a midcard role. During this run, he teamed with Takao Omori to again win the AJPW World Tag Team Championship in October 2017, celebrating both men's 25th anniversaries in wrestling. The match, which was originally supposed to be against reigning champions Strong BJ (Daisuke Sekimoto and Yuji Okabayashi) of Big Japan Pro Wrestling, was changed before the show due to Okabayashi suffering a major shoulder injury and being forced to vacate. Big Japan's Ryuji Ito filled in for Okabayashi. Wild Burning lost the tag title on January 3, 2018, to 2017 World's Strongest Tag Determination League winners, Suwama and Shuji Ishikawa. With Takao Omori going down injured around this time, Akiyama revived his old partnership with Yuji Nagata to challenge for the All Asia Tag Team Championship, held by NEXTREAM's Naoya Nomura and Yuma Aoyagi. The match, scheduled for February 3, was changed due to Yuma suffering a broken ankle and vacating the title. Ryoji Sai filled in as Naoya Nomura's partner in a losing effort to Nagata and Akiyama. When Takao Omori returned from injury he too chose to revisit an old partnership – teaming with Manabu Nakanishi in a Wild Child reunion to unsuccessfully challenge both men's regular partners on March 25. Despite saying in 2017 he wanted to take a step back from tournaments and main event titles, Akiyama participated in the 2018 Champion Carnival, presumably because of the large amount of injuries the rest of the roster was facing. In the B Block, Akiyama went 4–3 in the Champion Carnival, with a loss on the final block night to NOAH representative Naomichi Marufuji costing him the chance to advance to the finals. On July 15, Akiyama's 490 day reign as Gaora TV Champion came to an end in a technical bout against Tajiri who cheated to win. On July 29, he and Nagata lost the All Asia Tag Team Championship to Nomura and a healed Aoyagi. In February 2021, he let his contract with All Japan expire.

In June 2020, it was announced that Akiyama would transfer to DDT Pro Wrestling (DDT) for the remainder of the year. On December 27, he won the D Oh Grand Prix 2021, thus earning a title match for the KO D Openweight Championship. In February 2021 it was announced that Akiyama had let his contract with AJPW expire and was a free agent. He then won the KO D Openweight Championship at Kawasaki Strong 2021 from Tetsuya Endo. On February 15, 2021, it was announced that he had signed a one year contract with DDT. On December 7, DDT announced that, at the request of Akiyama and Tetsuya Endo, Kenta Kobashi had endorsed the reformation of Burning for its fourth incarnation. Akiyama and Endo were immediately joined by Yusuke Okada and Yuya Koroku. On December 26, at Never Mind 2021 in Yoyogi, this new stable debuted by defeating The37Kamiina (Shunma Katsumata, Yuki Ueno, Mao and Toui Kojima). On December 4, Akiyama defeated Joey Janela in a Tables, ladders, and chairs match to win the DDT Extreme Championship.

Through a working relationship between DDT and American professional wrestling company All Elite Wrestling, Akiyama made his AEW debut, on the November 18, 2022 episode of Rampage, teaming with fellow DDT wrestler Konosuke Takeshita, to defeat the team of Ortiz and Eddie Kingston. After the match, Kingston demanded a singles match between himself and Akiyama, which AEW President Tony Khan scheduled for the Zero Hour of Full Gear. On November 19 at the event, Kingston defeated Akiyama, as the two bowed and embraced, showing their respect for one another after the match. Akiyama made his return to AEW on the February 24, 2024 episode of Collision, where he was defeated by Bryan Danielson. After the match, Danielson attacked Akiyama but was thwarted by Kingston who was doing commentary for the match.