Hidetora Hanada

Hidetora Hanada (Japanese: 花田 秀虎, Hepburn: Hanada Hidetora), born October 30, 2001) is a Japanese gridiron football defensive tackle for the Colorado State Rams and former amateur sumo wrestler.

Hidetora Hanada

Personal information
Nationality	Japanese
Born	(2001-10-30) October 30, 2001 (age 23) Wakayama, Japan
College football career
Colorado State Rams – No. 93
Position	Defensive tackle
Class	Redshirt Senior
Personal information
Height	6 ft 1 in (1.85 m)
Weight	280 lb (127 kg)
Career history
College	Colorado State (2023–present)
High school	Wakayama Commercial High School (Wakayama)
Stats at ESPN
Medal record Representing  Japan Men's sumo World Games 2022 Birmingham Heavyweight

Early life

Hanada was born in Wakayama Prefecture. Influenced by his father, who won a national wrestling tournament in college, and his mother, a judo instructor, he has experienced a variety of martial arts since his childhood and has been devoted to sumo. He won the local wantaku sumo when he was in the second grade of elementary school.^[1]

Amateur sumo career

While attending Wakayama Commercial High School, Hanada achieved consecutive championships in the indiscriminate level at the World Junior Sumo Championships in 2018 and 2019.^[1]

After graduating from high school, he went to Nippon Sport Science University and won the 2020 All Japan Sumo Championship.^[2] He became the second amateur yokozuna in a freshman in 36 years since Hisashi Keita in 1984.^[2]

At the 2022 World Games, he won the heavyweight final, defeating Daiki Nakamura, who later became professional sumo's 75th yokozuna, when he was a first-year senior at university.^[3]

College career

Hanada has been interested in American football and the NFL since his junior high school days, and in March 2022 he participated in a joint X-League tryout despite having no experience in American football.^[4]

Initially, Hanada was hoping to become a yokozuna in sumo and then try to join the NFL, but in September 2022, he announced that he would give up sumo and focus on American football and his wish to join the NFL, stating that he wanted to challenge himself to see how much he could do when he was young and in his prime.^[1][5] He remained in the sumo club of Nippon Sport Science University but was effectively left off, and sumo practice was completed for the time being. In the future, he aims to become a "dual-wielding style" between the NFL and the yokozuna.^[1][6]

In January 2023, Hanada was selected for the All-Japan Selection for the Dream Bowl, a friendly game against the Ivy League, but he did not participate in the game.^[7] In February of the same year, he participated in the CFL combine held in Japan and in March in Canada.^[8][9]

It was decided that he took a leave of absence from Nippon Sport Science University in July 2023 and transferred to Colorado State University, playing as a defensive lineman for the Rams football team.^[10][11][12]

In 2025 he received an offer from the WWE NIL program. ^[10]

Personal life

Although Hanada has a similar name and background to Masaru Hanada, a professional sumo wrestler who competed as Wakanohana Masaru and has experience in American football, he is not related to him.^[1] However, Hanada revealed that he met Wakanohana in 2022 and received advice.^[13]

In February 2025, Hanada himself announced on Instagram that he had signed a NIL contract with WWE.^[14][15]