WWE has never been shy about their interest in turning college or even professional football players into professional wrestlers, including: future WWE Hall of Famer The Rock and: Current WWE stars like Trick Williams and: Roman kingdom. But WWE has never had an athlete who is both a football player and a sumo wrestler. That has now changed because PWInsider Elite: reports that the promotion has signed 24-year-old Hidetora Hanada to a developmental contract.
Born in Wakayama, Hanada, Japan Became interested in sumo wrestling through his father, who was an amateur sumo wrestler at a young age, and began competing in high school. He would go on to have a successful career, winning gold in the heavyweight division at the 2018 and 2019 World Junior Sumo Championships held in Osaka, Japan and Taoyuan, Taiwan, respectively, before winning gold in the heavyweight division at the 2022 World Games in Birmingham, Alabama.
Despite the success, Hanada decided to pursue a career in American football, following it from a young age. After participating in the Canadian football tryout in 2023, he will enroll at Colorado State University as a defensive lineman; he would only play in two games for the school before suffering an injury in 2024, never to play again. Hanada will graduate from Colorado State in December 2025, and despite trying alternate routes to the NFL, he was ultimately unsuccessful.
Hanada’s move to pro wrestling isn’t a complete surprise, as WWE previously signed him to a NIL deal when he was at Colorado State. Earlier this year, Hanada announced that he would pursue a wrestling career with WWE if his latest attempt at the NFL didn’t work out. It’s unclear when Hanada will make his WWE debut, or if he’ll be officially announced alongside another new Performance Center class, as is usually the case.
