Ryan Keiji Sakoda, who had a brief run with WWE on the SmackDown roster in the mid-2000s, died earlier this month at the age of 48.
The news only came out on Monday that the former wrestler had died on September 2nd, although no cause of death was listed in his obituary.
Sakoda was a product of the Southern California scene where he started his career in 2000 and came up through Rick Bassman’s Ultimate Pro Wrestling (UPW) and later had a run with Zero-One prior to signing with WWE. Along with Samoa Joe, the two were the inaugural NWA Intercontinental Tag Champions after winning the titles in June 2001.
Sakoda was part of the XWF tapings in late 2001, which was the group spearheaded by Jimmy Hart with Hulk Hogan as the major star in the wake of WCW’s demise.
Sakoda was signed by WWE in 2003 and was assigned to the SmackDown roster alongside Akio (Jimmy Yang) and Yoshihiro Tajiri as a heel group in the style of Crazy 88 from the “Kill Bill” film that had just been released.
He did not have a prominent role throughout his run and was cut in the summer of 2004 and would bounce around various independents for the next few years and returned to Zero-One, worked shows with HUSTLE as well as MTV’s Wrestling Society X.
In the current era, his name was attached to the class action lawsuit against WWE over the long-term impact from concussions that was led by lawyer Konstantine Kyros and ultimately, thrown out by Judge Vanessa Bryant in September 2018.
We send our condolences to the friends and family of Ryan Sakoda.
