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Agatupu Rodney Anoaʻi (October 2, 1966 – October 23, 2000) was an American professional wrestler. He was best known for his time with the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), where he wrestled under the ring name Yokozuna, a reference to the highest rank in professional sumo wrestling in Japan. He was a two-time world champion.
Although the Yokozuna character was portrayed as a champion sumo wrestler, Anoaʻi never competed as an actual sumotori. Though he wrestled as a representative of Japan, in real life he was a Samoan American and was accordingly billed as hailing from Polynesia. However, he was managed by the Japanese character Mr. Fuji (in reality a Japanese American) who would follow Anoaʻi to the ring with a wooden bucket of salt while waving a Japanese flag.[1]
In the WWF, Anoaʻi was a two-time WWF World Heavyweight Champion[4] and two-time WWF Tag Team Champion (with Owen Hart),[5] as well as the winner of the 1993 Royal Rumble.[6] He was the first wrestler of Samoan descent to hold the WWF World Heavyweight Championship, as well as the first Royal Rumble winner who (as a result of a direct stipulation) received a WWF world championship title shot at WrestleMania. He defeated WWE Hall of Famers Bret Hart and Hulk Hogan, in consecutive pay-per-view victories in the main event of WrestleMania IX and the 1993 King of the Ring, to win his two WWF World Heavyweight Championships, and also headlined WrestleMania X against Hart. He was the third-fastest newcomer (after Brock Lesnar and Sheamus) to win the WWF/E Championship after his debut. He was posthumously inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2012.
