Tatsumi Fujinami

Tatsumi Fujinami (藤波 辰巳, Fujinami Tatsumi, ring name: 藤波 辰爾) (born December 28, 1953) is a Japanese professional wrestler who is famous for his nickname as "The Dragon". He is credited for inventing the dragon sleeper and the dragon suplex. He is also the owner and founder of the Dradition wrestling promotion. In 2015, Fujinami was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, while also signing on as an ambassador for the company.

Career

Japanese Wrestling Association (1971–1972)

Fujinami started in the old Japanese Wrestling Association (JWA) under Antonio Inoki's wing at the age of 17. When Inoki was fired from JWA in 1971, Fujinami and a few others followed him in forming a new promotion, New Japan Pro Wrestling. Inoki, Fujinami, Osamu Kido and Kotetsu Yamamoto are recognized as NJPW's founding fathers.

New Japan Pro Wrestling (1972–2006)

In those early days, he served as opponent for debuting rookies, such as Mr. Pogo, Yoshiaki Fujiwara and Gran Hamada. Fujinami, Fujiwara, Hamada and three other rookies competed in the 1974 Karl Gotch Cup (a tournament for rookies, forerunner to the later Young Lions Cup).

Hall of fame

A hall of fame is a structure housing memorials to famous or illustrious individuals in a certain field, usually chosen by a group of electors. The meaning of "fame" has changed over the years, originally meaning "renown" as opposed to today's more common meaning of "celebrity".

In some cases, these halls of fame consist of actual halls or museums which enshrine the honorees with sculptures, plaques, and displays of memorabilia and general information regarding the inducted recipient/s. Sometimes, the honorees' plaques may instead be posted on a wall (hence a '"wall of fame") or inscribed on a sidewalk (as in a "walk of fame" or an "avenue of fame"). In others, the hall of fame is more figurative and just simply consists of a list of names of noteworthy individuals (or sometimes groups, for ex. Sporting groups or Rock groups) maintained by an organization or community or honouring its inducted members legacy or legend.

The English-language term was popularised in the United States by the Hall of Fame for Great Americans at Bronx Community College, in New York City, completed in 1900. Its inspiration is the Ruhmeshalle ("Hall of Fame") in Munich, Germany. The Walhalla memorial in Bavaria, Germany, is an even earlier hall of fame, conceived in 1807 and built from 1900 to 1907.

Tatsumi

Tatsumi is a Japanese name. It may refer to:

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WWE Hall of Fame

The WWE Hall of Fame is a hall of fame for professional wrestling personalities maintained by WWE. It was officially created on the March 22, 1993 episode of Monday Night Raw where André the Giant, who had died nearly two months prior, was announced as the sole inductee. The 1994 and 1995 ceremonies were held in conjunction with the annual King of the Ring pay-per-view events. In 1996, the ceremony was held with the Survivor Series event, for the first time in front of a paying audience as well as the wrestlers, after which, the Hall of Fame went on hiatus.

In 2004, WWE relaunched the Hall of Fame to coincide with WrestleMania XX. This ceremony, like its predecessors, was not broadcast on television. However, it was released on DVD on June 1, 2004. Beginning with the 2005 ceremony, an edited version of the Hall of Fame was broadcast on Spike TV (2005) and on the USA Network (2006–present); these were aired on tape delay. Since 2005, the entire Hall of Fame ceremony has been packaged as part of the annual WrestleMania DVD release, and from 2014, has been broadcast live on the WWE Network. In 2015, historical WWE Hall of Fame ceremonies became available on the WWE Network.