Real name: Keiko Nakano
Previous Name: Keiko Nakano (Pro wrestling debut: - 1985), Bull Nakano (1985 - retirement)
Born: January 8th, 1968 in Saitama Prefecture, Japan
Pro wrestling debut: September 23rd, 1983 - Toda, Saitama, Japan
Height: 5'7"/170 cms
Weight: 198 lbs/90 kg
Signature Wrestling Moves: Diving Guillotine Drop, Rolling Guillotine Drop, Moonsault, Powerbomb, Lariat, Bull's Angelito Stretch, Pendulum Swing
Titles: AJW All Japan Junior Wrestling Title, AJW All-Japan Singles Wrestling title, WWWA World Tag Team Womens Wrestling titles (three times with Dump Matsumuto, Condor Saito, Grizzly Iwamoto), AJW All-Pacific Title, WWWA World Singles Wrestling title, CMLL World Women's Title, WWF World Women's Title
Bull Nakano (Keiko Nakano) is a former Japanese female pro wrestler.
At the age of 15, Keiko Nakano began her career as a pro wrestler in her homeland of Japan. She trained and performed with the All Japan Women's Pro-Wrestling wrestling promotion (AJW), and quickly became one of the greatest heels in the history of Japanese women's pro wrestling.
After winning the AJW Junior Championship under her real name, her identity was changed to Bull Nakano and she teamed with the legendary Dump Matsumoto to feud with the popular Crush Gals (Chigusa Nagayo and Lioness Asuka). With Matsumoto as her partner, Nakano won the WWWA Tag Team championship. She would win the title a second time with Condor Saito as her partner.
Nakano briefly wrestled for the WWF in 1986 teaming again with Dump Matsumoto known as the Devils of Japan.
In 1990, Nakano won a tournament to win the vacant WWWA World Heavyweight Championship, and would go on to hold the title for nearly three years, before dropping it to Aja Kong.
Nakano also travelled to Mexico where she captured the CMLL Women's title, becoming the first person to hold that belt. She then made her way to the United States and competed for the World Wrestling Federation. Brought in by Luna Vachon, Nakano dominated the WWF Women's champion, Alundra Blayze, in a series of matches and won the WWF Women's Championship on November 20, 1994 in Tokyo, Japan. Thus, Bull Nakano is the only person to have held both the WWWA World Heavyweight Chamionship and the WWF Women's Championship, both of which have a historic lineage, dating back to 1937 and 1956 respectively. Consequently, she is also the first female of Asian descent to win the WWF/WWE Women's Championship.
Nakano held the title for five months, until losing the title back to Blayze on April 3, 1995 in Poughkeepsie, New York. The WWF had planned on bringing in Bertha Faye to feud with Nakano while Blayze got a nose and breast job, but Nakano was found in possession of cocaine and quickly fired from the company.
Nakano returned to Japan, where she continued to compete in AJW, then went back to the United States in 1996 to feud with Blayze, now going by her original ring name, Madusa, in World Championship Wrestling (WCW).
That was the last time Bull Nakano was seen on North American television. She continued to wrestle in Japan, but retired in 1997 to pursue a career in professional golf.
In the years following her retirement, Nakano began to diet and gradually lose much of the weight she had to maintain to stay in her role as one of AJW's monster heels, going from a peak of 250 pounds down to 143 pounds. In 1998, Nakano released a book about her weight loss called Bull Nakano no Diet Nikki: 19-gou Size no Watashi ga 9-gou Size ni (Translated: Bull Nakano's Diet Journal: How I went from a Size 19 to a Size 9).
In January 2006, Nakano, still pursuing her pro golf career, joined the Duramed Futures Tour on the Ladies Professional Golf Assocation. She is currently based in Orlando, Florida, USA.
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