Manabu Nakanishi Opens Up About Slimming Down After Retirement

Nakanishi speaks about his transformation.

There’s a lengthy feature that Sports Graphic Number rolled out about former IWGP World Heavyweight Champion Manabu Nakanishi.

Nakanishi wrapped up his in-ring career in February 2020 when New Japan Pro-Wrestling hosted his retirement match. Since retiring, Nakanishi has slimmed down, and he opened up about his transformation.

He normally weighed around 260 pounds when he was active in the ring, and there were times when he’d be over 300 pounds. Nakanishi is currently in the 195-200 pound range.

“I usually weighed around 120 kg. Back in my active days, when we’d tour places like Hokkaido, I’d happily get treated to feasts almost every day, and sometimes my weight went up to around 140kg.” Nakanishi was asked what he weighs now, and he replied, “Probably around the mid-90s. I’m not really training or anything these days.” Following up on that, Nakanishi said he did not intentionally lose weight after retirement, but just did not consume as much food. “No, it’s just a matter of how much I eat. Back then, I ate like crazy. I made sure to eat a lot, especially in the morning, so that I could perform well in matches. I’d get all the nutrients I needed right then. Especially vegetables and fruit. You can get carbs and meat at lunch or dinner, but if you load up on veggies and fruit in the morning, you’re set for the day. So I was in pretty good health.”

Elsewhere in the chat, he spoke candidly about the reality of life after wrestling. He said that when he made the transition to civilian life, he realized he did not know how to do much.

“No, I didn’t really think about it that seriously,” he responded when asked if he often thought about life after wrestling while he was active. “But once I actually entered the general workforce, I realized I couldn’t do anything. Seriously. I’d been doing pro wrestling my whole life, and I had this feeling like, I’ve survived in a tough world. But when I left the industry I was familiar with and entered a completely different world, it wasn’t so much that it was difficult, it was that I couldn’t do it. I thought, I can’t even do this much…”

Nakanishi had a wrestling career that spanned 27 years. He held the IWGP Heavyweight, NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team, and IWGP Tag Team Titles.