Keiji Muto (武藤 敬司, Mutō Keiji, born December 23, 1962)[1][2] is a Japanese professional wrestler who first gained international fame in various National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) territories. He is mostly known for his work as The Great Muta (ザ・グレート・ムタ, Za Gurēto Muta) in New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) during the 1990s, but he has also worked in the contiguous United States, Puerto Rico, Mexico, and Taiwan. He is a former president of All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW), as well as being a full-time wrestler for the promotion from 2002 to 2013.
Muto is credited as one of the first Japanese wrestlers to achieve a fan base outside of his native Japan. "The Great Muta" gimmick is one of the most influential gimmicks in puroresu, having been emulated by many wrestlers including Satoshi Kojima (as The Great Koji), Kazushi Miyamoto (as The Great Kazushi), Atsushi Onita (as The Great Nita), and Seiya Sanada (as The Great Sanada). In addition, countless other wrestlers have paid tribute to Muta through emulation and imitation.
Muto is one of three wrestlers to hold the NWA World Heavyweight Championship, the AJPW Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship, and NJPW's IWGP Heavyweight Championship (the others being Shinya Hashimoto and Satoshi Kojima). He is also a former five-time AJPW World Tag Team Champion and a six-time IWGP Tag Team Champion.
He is also famous for taking part in what is generally considered to be one of the bloodiest professional wrestling matches of all time against Hiroshi Hase, leading to the creation of the "Muta scale" (which rates the bloodiness of matches, relative to this one's 1.0 value).[6]
Muto was the owner and founder of Wrestle-1 (W-1) (formed in 2013;defunct in 2020), where he also wrestled semi-regularly; Muto previously made special appearances for American promotion Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) as part of the TNA/W-1 talent exchange partnership. Between W-1, AJPW, NJPW, and World Championship Wrestling (WCW), Muto has held a total of 22 championships.
