Takeshi Caesar

Tomofumi Murata (村田 友文 , Murata Tomofumi ) (born August 17, 1955), better known by his ring name Takeshi Caesar (シーザー武志 , Shīzā Takeshi ) , is a Japanese actor, retired kickboxer and the founder of shoot boxing.

Murata started competing in kickboxing at age of 16, being trained in the Nishio Gym. He adopted the name of Takeshi Caesar and won the Asia Pacific Kickboxing Federation Welterweight Championship, making a name for himself. In 1984, he became interested in professional wrestling and was introduced to Satoru Sayama, who trained him in shoot-style at his Super Tiger Gym. Caesar then was contacted by Karl Gotch and Akira Maeda and was part of the Universal Wrestling Federation. After the fall of UWF, his experiences with its wrestling style induced him to creating a similarly mixed style of kickboxing, which he called shootboxing. His company had his first event in 1985, and had working agreements with Newborn UWF and later with Fighting Network RINGS and Pancrase.