Gold Medalist No More? Aaron Wolf Declares Pride and Titles Won’t Hold Him Back

A spectacular career change to professional wrestling

From the world of real fights to the world of entertainment—Tokyo Olympic judo men’s 100kg gold medalist Aaron Wolf (29) has made a dazzling transition to professional wrestling. On June 23, he signed a multi-year contract with New Japan Pro-Wrestling and announced that he, a judoka born to an American father and Japanese mother who was already on the tatami mats from a young age, would also enter the pro wrestling ring under his real name.

“Well, my real name already sounds like a ring name.”

With that, he gave the press a laugh, and after the press conference, he sat down for an exclusive interview.

“Around 2016, when I was a student at Tokai University, I started recording ‘World Pro Wrestling’ on TV Asahi (which broadcasts New Japan matches) and watching it on Sundays. By then, Antonio Inoki, Riki Choshu, and Shinsuke Nakamura had already left New Japan, but I came to love professional wrestling not just as a competition fought with bare bodies, but also as a sport where you could express yourself with words before and after matches.”

As a judoka, Wolf’s eyes were firmly set on the Olympics. After winning through the domestic races and representing Japan at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, he used his specialty, the ouchi-gari, to win a gold medal, achieving the triple crown as the eighth person in history to win the World Championships, the All-Japan Championships, and the Olympics.

However, in the team event, he was defeated by France’s Teddy Riner and finished in second place. If winning the gold medal was the greatest moment of his judo career, the team loss two days later was his most frustrating memory. At the same time, his dream of stepping into the world of pro wrestling gradually grew.

“I had decided that if I competed in the 2024 Paris Olympics and felt that I had no regrets left in judo, I would become a professional wrestler. There were even rumors of rigged matchups in the team competition roulette (laughs), and although I couldn’t achieve the goal of becoming world champions in the team event, I have no unfinished business in the world of judo. I personally asked New Japan Pro-Wrestling if I could join them. The length of the contract? That’s a secret (laughs).”

Until the press conference announcing his retirement from judo in early June, he belonged to Park24, where head coach Hidetoshi Yoshida himself once made the transition from judo to MMA. Other former judokas, like Seiji Sakaguchi and Naoya Ogawa, also earned immense popularity in the world of pro wrestling. Nevertheless, transitioning to pro wrestling is something that can draw considerable backlash from the judo community.

“I don’t draw a line between real fighting and entertainment. I don’t separate judo and pro wrestling in my mind. I think backlash toward athletes who leave judo comes because they speak badly of it after they leave. In the case of Satoshi Ishii (who turned to MMA after the Beijing Olympics), I think he criticized the judo world as a way of cutting off his escape route to focus on the next stage.

I’m discarding the title and pride of being a gold medalist and starting from zero in the world of pro wrestling, but I’m not throwing away judo as my backbone. Judo is something absolutely essential in shaping who I am as a person.”

He has already begun pro wrestling training and is keenly feeling the difficulty of taking falls.

“People think I can take falls because I did judo, but pro wrestling breakfalls are completely different. If you can’t take a move well, you can’t execute one well either. As a pro wrestler, I’m still at the trainee stage.

During my judo days, ouchi-gari was my specialty, but in pro wrestling it’s kind of a plain move. As I build a foundation as a pro wrestler, I want to create a move of my own, like Ogawa-san’s ‘STO’ (a wrestling move adapted from the osoto-gari).”

His debut match is set for January 4 next year at the Tokyo Dome. Imagining himself walking toward the ring under the spotlight in front of a huge crowd, he is preparing for that day.

From “FRIDAY”, July 11, 2025, issue