He was a classic heel, reviled for dirty tricks in the ring, included rubbing salt in his opponent's eyes.

[1] He also worked as Dr. Moto, holding the American Wrestling Association's AWA World Tag Team Championship with Mitsu Arakawa.

One of his signature moves, the "judo chop" became a popular phrase for all types of martial arts strikes in the 1960s, even being mentioned by Snoopy in the comic strip Peanuts (21 December 1964, 14 January 1967).

In the first, Kamata threw salt into Backlund's eyes, which set the stage for a televised Texas Death match, aired May 7, 1977.

At the time, Superstar Billy Graham had just defeated Bruno Sammartino for the championship and Backlund was being built up as the number one contender.