Yoshihiro Akiyama

Yoshihiro Akiyama a.k.a. Choo Sung-Hoon in both Korean and Japan, is a fourth-generation Korean-Japanese MMA (Mixed Martial Artist), television celebrity and actor in both South Korea and his home country of Japan. Born to Korean-Japanese "zainichi" parents in Osaka, Japan in 1975, he was raised in the traditional martial arts from the age of 3 as his father was a judo instructor and his mother was a champion swimmer. His paternal great-grandfather, Choo Jeong-Won, was originally from Jeju County, on Jeju Island, now known as Jeju City. Choo, was born in Osaka in 1975, and starting from the age of three, began training in the martial arts under his father's tutelage, who himself was a Judo Champion too. As a middleweight Judoka, he climbed the ranks of the judoka system in Japan to become a Third-Dan Black Belt in Judo, later acquiring a black belt in gaidojutsu too.