The open secret is finally made public! With Konosuke Takeshita about to turn 30 years old later this week, he posted on his Instagram account today that he is indeed married to Yuka Sakazaki. Following that announcement, Sakazaki posted a similar message on her own Instagram. The two also revealed that they have a pet dog named Kenshiro. To quote DDT’s congratulatory message to the pair: “We hope that your dreams will forever remain dramatic!”
So this has been an open secret for quite a while. Although the fun thing about open secrets is they are still secrets to some people. I’ve been entertained by the general response to the news today because half of it is people saying finally it’s been confirmed and the other half is people saying they never had a clue the two of them were ever together in the first place.
Neither Takeshita nor Sakazaki said in their messages when they got married or how long they have been together for but there’s been some careless evidence left out there about Takeshita’s relationship status over the years. There was one time years ago (I want to say pre-pandemic but I’m not certain) when Konosuke’s mother Keiko Takeshita showed a photograph of Konosuke where he had a wedding ring visible on his finger. It had to be edited out but I can’t remember if it was from video footage for something or a social media post that got deleted.
Then two years ago there was a podcast dedicated to another puroresu company that had a conversation over the growing trend of Japanese wrestlers moving their careers to America. The guest listed a bunch of wrestlers during the conversation who had left Japan and mentioned “Takeshita and his wife” among them. I’m omitting the podcast and guest’s names simply to spare them from getting further grief over the subject. They were stunned at the time because to them it was just a throwaway comment but they ended up getting so many inquiries about it afterwards, far more than for any of the actual content on their episode.
But the loudest hints came from the couple’s co-workers in AEW. If there is any lesson to learn about this story it’s this. Should you ever want to know the family status of a Japanese wrestler just wait for a foreign wrestler to tweet about how great they are behind the scenes. When Takeshita tweeted about moving to America in 2022, Dax Harwood let it slip in his response that Takeshita had a wife. Also Sammy Guevara & Tay Melo weren’t shy about sharing photos online of their baby meeting Takeshita & Sakazaki together a while ago. It’s kind of like how we all found out Asuka is a mother because other women in WWE always bring it up whenever they get the chance to talk about her in interviews.
But anyway, congratulations to the happy couple. They certainly made this the most romantic Dragon Quest Day ever.
Dramatic DDT 