Mixed Martial Arts Career
Tsuyoshi Kohsaka was an early MMA pioneer, who started his career in the RINGS Organization frequently having to fight each and every month. He won the prestigious Lumax Cup tournament, beating out the likes of Akihiro Gono and Egan Inoue. During his career at Rings, Kohsaka defeated former UFC Heavyweight Champion Maurice Smith, Gilbert Yvel, Chris Haseman, and Fedor Emelianenko.
In 1998, Kohsaka signed with the UFC and defeated Kimo Leopoldo via Unanimous decision on his debut fight. Later that year he fought and defeated Pete Williams. This win gained Kohsaka a spot in a tournament for the title which was vacated by Randy Couture. In 1999, Kosaka fought MMA legend Bas Rutten in the first round of the "Road to the Heavyweight Title", which was a four man tournament that would crown the next UFC Heavyweight Champion. The fight with Rutten was the source of some controversy because John McCarthy seemed to unfairly stand the fight back to the feet even though at some moments Kohsaka was mounted on Rutten and actively landing clean effective punches. Kohsaka dominated the majority of the fight with his ground and pound game plan, but ultimately lost by TKO in overtime. Later that year he would return to fight Tim Lajcik, where he won via TKO when Lajcik quit between rounds. He announced his intentions to retire should he lose any of his matches in 2006. On May 5, 2006, he lost to Mark Hunt at PRIDE Total Elimination Absolute and has not competed in MMA since.
Late in his career he was still able to defeat Ron Waterman and Ricardo Morais, both of whom weighed in for their contests against him in excess of 300 pounds. One of his biggest wins arrived late in his career as well, when he knocked out Brazilian Top Team coach Mario Sperry on the same day of his son's birth.
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