is a Japanese gold-medalist judoka and retired mixed martial artist. He is a longtime veteran of Japan's PRIDE Fighting Championships, competing in the middleweight (93kg) and heavyweight divisions. He won gold at the 1992 Summer Olympic Games at 78 kg. Yoshida also had two famous fights with MMA pioneer Royce Gracie that resulted in a win by technical knockout and a time-limit draw.
Judo career Yoshida first came onto the judo scene at the 1991 World Judo Championships in Barcelona, taking third place at 78 kg. He then took gold in the 1991 All Japan Judo Championships and 1992 A-Tournament in Sofia before entering the 1992 Summer Olympic Games. He swept the competition in Barcelona, winning all six matches by Ippon en route to his first Olympic gold medal. He went on to medal in the 1993, 1995 and 1999 World Championships, but didn't win gold at the Olympics again. He finished in fifth place at the 1996 Summer Games and ninth at the 2000 Summer Games. He retired from Judo after the 2000 Summer Games.
Mixed martial arts career In 2002, Yoshida turned fully his attention to the world of mixed martial arts, where he had already worked as a color commentator, and signed up with Pride Fighting Championship to become a fighter. He accepted the premise of having to fight high level opponents, wanting to avoid implications that he was transitioning to MMA for not being competitive enough for judo anymore.吉田勝った！！ホイスを失神KO！！/復刻 He also vowed to compete in a judogi in order to draw interest to judo as a martial art. Yoshida later founded the team Yoshida Dojo, which focuses both in judo and MMA.
PRIDE Fighting Championships Bout with Gracie
Yoshida had his first appearance in Pride in a special grappling match against UFC pioneer Royce Gracie at PRIDE Shockwave. The rules of the match would feature limited striking to the body while standing and no judges decision, and would require both to use a gi. This ruleset had been proposed by Royce due to the 50th anniversary of the Masahiko Kimura vs. Hélio Gracie fight, and as such the bout was touted as another "judo vs. Brazilian jiu-jitsu" contest.. Global Training Report. Retrieved 2017-01-03.. Global Training Report. Retrieved 2017-01-03. As Yoshida wasn't a ne-waza expert, he prepared his submission skills with close friend and fellow judoka Tsuyoshi Kohsaka. Odds were stacked against him in popular perception, and Mário Sperry predicted Royce would not have a problem with Yoshida on the ground.
Started the fight, Royce immediately pulled guard in order to avoid Yoshida's powerful nage-waza, frustrating his initial gameplan of entering the ground through a throw. The Brazilian fighter attempted an armbar from his back, but Hidehiko blocked it and looked for a gi choke, so Gracie switched to a heel hook. After a stagnant leglock exchange between the two grapplers, action was restarted on the feet. Gracie pulled guard again, but Yoshida turned the action into a daki age, advanced to Royce's half guard and tried a Kimura lock. Although the Brazilian managed to hold off the technique, the Japanese passed his guard with a brief struggle and gained side control. Finally, the judoka fully mounted Gracie and executed a sode guruma jime. A moment of inactivity passed, and then Yoshida asked referee Daisuke Noguchi if Royce was unconscious, as he couldn't see his face. Believing it to be so, Noguchi stopped the match and gave the victory to Yoshida.Keith Vargo, Courage and Controversy reign at Shockwave event, Black Belt Magazine, January 2003
Getting up at the moment, Royce protested the decision and went to physically assault the referee, causing a brief brawl between the contenders' cornermen on the ring. After the event, the Gracie family apologized but argued not only that Royce had not passed out, but also that the referee had not authority to stop the match anyway, and demanded the fight result to be changed to no contest. Slo-motion footage of the stoppage shows Gracie's chin out and his neck free from the choke resulting in both Stephen Quadros and Bas Rutten, longtime PRIDE FC commentators agreeing Gracie had not been choked out.
Regular competition Yoshida's first true MMA bout came at PRIDE 23 against former UFC 8 Tournament Champion and UFC Ultimate Ultimate 1996 Tournament Champion Don Frye. During the match, Yoshida threw Frye down with ouchi gari and attempted again the sode guruma jime, but Frye escaped, so then Hidehiko executed an armbar, breaking Frye's arm when he refused to tap out. It marked the first time in six years that Frye had been defeated. Secondly, Yoshida submitted former world karate champion Masaaki Satake by neck crank at Inoki Bom-Ba-Ye.
At PRIDE Total Elimination 2003, Yoshida faced shoot-style ace Kiyoshi Tamura in the first round of the Middleweight Grand Prix Tournament. Yoshida was dominated for most of the first round, receiving leg kicks and punches from the veteran Tamura and having his back taken on the ground, but he eventually managed to throw down Tamura with harai goshi and performed a sode guruma jime for the tap out.
Yoshida's first loss was to the PRIDE Middleweight Champion Wanderlei Silva via unanimous decision at PRIDE Final Conflict 2003. Wanderlei had already knocked out Japanese fighters like Tamura and Kazushi Sakuraba, but Yoshida broke expectations when he gave a back-and-forth against Silva.
At the first round, the two fighters exchanged attacks both from and against the guard, with Silva landing knees on the feet and Yoshida pressing with a neck crank, while at the second, Wanderlei blocked Yoshida's takedown attempts and scored violent head kicks and knees, only for Yoshida to absorb most of the most punishment and even stay at punching range in order to trade with him. The match ended with Silva knocking down Yoshida and getting swept in return for a final assault. The judges gave the decision to the Brazilian fighter, and the match itself earned Fight of the Year honors from Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
In less than two months after his match with Wanderlei, still carrying injuries from the bout, Yoshida got in the rematch against Royce Gracie at PRIDE Shockwave 2003. The fight was this time under modified PRIDE rules, with a special referee in Matt Hume, two rounds of 10 minutes each, and no judges, meaning any indecisive ending would end on a draw. Royce, who fought this time without his gi top, caused controversy when he aimed three consecutive low blows on Yoshida, eventually scoring one that stopped the match for minutes. Finally able to continue fighting, Yoshida knocked down Royce with a combination and attacked him on the ground, besieging his half guard and coming to capture his back once. The Brazilian answered capitalizing on an armlock attempt to gain top position, ultimately taking back mount while hitting repeatedly the judoka with hammerfists.January 2004 News Part 1, Onzuka.com The second round saw an initial battle for an ankle lock, but it quickly returned to the last position, with Royce straddling a turtled down Yoshida and scoring strikes in the search of a submission. The match ended up and was ruled a draw as stipulated.
At PRIDE Critical Countdown 2004, Yoshida faced the debuting Mark Hunt, kickboxing champion and K-1 veteran, and a much heavier opponent. Yoshida almost finished the fight early with an armbar from the bottom, but Hunt blocked it by pressing on Hidehiko's throat with his knee. For the rest of the fight, Hidehiko tried leglocks, triangle chokes and armbars, with the kickboxer blocking all of them via raw strength and a makeshift submission defense, until Yoshida finally locked an armbar and won.
In 2004, after promoters failed at getting a rubber match with Royce Gracie as Yoshida wished,(レポ&写真) [PRIDE男祭り] 12.31 さいたま：吉田、ホイスに大苦戦ドロー the judoka was left to face the similarly debuting Rulon Gardner. Gardner, Olympic gold medalist in Greco-Roman wrestling and much heavier than Hidehiko, performed unexpectedly and dominated Yoshida with stand-up for a unanimous decision.
In April 2005, Yoshida got a rematch against Wanderlei Silva in PRIDE Total Elimination. The fight was even closer than its first iteration, as Yoshida won the first round to the judges and kept himself mostly out of danger until the third round, but he lost again by decision. Yoshida recovered from the defeat submitting Tank Abbott at the next event with the judo technique known as kata-ha-jime.
At the end of the same year, Yoshida faced fellow Japanese judoka Naoya Ogawa and won by an armbar in a highly anticipated MMA bout at PRIDE Shockwave 2005 with each fighter receiving a payment of US$2 million, which remains one of the most expensive fights in MMA history. Yoshida and Ogawa had already clashed at the World Judo Championship, a contest which was won by Hidehiko in an upset, and a theme of revenge was played in this match. This time without their gis, Yoshida started the match throwing punches and taking Ogawa down, and then a long and aggressive exchange of reversions and ground and pound happened. At the end, Ogawa looked to have dominant position, but Yoshida locked an armbar from the guard by surprise, making his judo rival submit.
The next year, Yoshida took part in the PRIDE 2006 Heavyweight Grand Prix, being pitted first against boxing champion Yosuke Nishijima. As expected, the judo champion threw him down and mounted him, and when Nishijima attempted to sweep, he locked a triangle choke for the win. Hidehiko advanced round and faced master kickboxer and eventual winner Mirko Cro Cop. In a classic striker vs. grappler fashion, Yoshida attempted to throw Mirko to the mat, almost scoring a uchi mata off the corner in an instance, but the Croatian powered out of it and kept landing leg kicks. Though Yoshida avoided being knocked out as per Mirko's trademark, he eventually fell to accumulated damage to his legs, losing by TKO. Yoshida was helped out of the arena by Cro Cop himself.
Yoshida's last match in PRIDE was against James Thompson at the Shockwave 2006 event. Yoshida outboxed the much heavier British fighter and threatened him with several throw to armbar attempts, as well as some leglocks, but Thompson then featured a controversial moment for pushing Hidehiko between the ropes of the ring to the outside. Yoshida chose to return to the fight, but the fall had taken its toll on him, and Thompson overwhelmed him with punches and knees until knocking him out. The bout would have yet another controversial moment, as the referee didn't stop the match, and allowed James to strike further a barely conscious Yoshida for a late stoppage.
World Victory Road In March 2008, Yoshida made his debut in World Victory Road at its inaugural show Sengoku against catch wrestling specialist and former training partner Josh Barnett. The bout saw highlights like Barnett scoring a suplex on Yoshida and Hidehiko returning the favour with a flying Kimura, but it also featured intensive ground action, as the two grappling experts exchanged submission attempts on the ground. Come the third round, when Hidehiko dropped to his knees to avoid another suplex, Barnett gained top position and performed a heel hook, making Yoshida tap out.
Yoshida also faced former UFC Heavyweight Champion Maurice Smith in the first round of Sengoku: Third Battle in June. It was a short affair, with Yoshida taking the fight to the ground, gaining a kesa-gatame position and performing a neck crank to submit the UFC champion.