10 Wrestlers Who Are Too Crazy For Their Own Good
4. Atsushi Onita
Atsushi Onita is the man credited with bringing deathmatch wrestling to Japan. Considering this is the country that would eventually make blowing up the ring a regular part of the hardcore experience, that seems like a pretty big deal. This is all despite originally retiring in 1985.
Unsurprisingly, that retirement didn’t hold and Onita is still wrestling today, even recently doing a controversy-laden tour of the US. It’s in Japan that his legend is biggest, though, as he ran Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling from 1989-1995. There, he competed in things like exploding ring, barbed wire steel cage matches which, let’s be honest, just sound like a little bit too much.
One look at Onita’s body speaks to the brutality of his career. He is laced with scars and there are some very not safe for work pictures out there of the abuse he has taken. To this day he continues to show little regard for pain, and you have to wonder how much more he can take. Just don’t bring up to his face.