I was super surprised to see Kiyoshi Tamura was Meltzer's last cut on his ballot. Here's the Gordy List I wrote for Tamura last year. I made a very few edits here and there for clarity.
Gordy List: Kiyoshi Tamura
1.Was he ever regarded as the best draw in the world? Was he ever regarded as the best draw in his country or his promotion?
He was never regarded as the best draw in the world or in his country.
He was never the biggest draw in UWFi.
He would likely be considered the biggest draw in RINGS in 1998 and 1999. However, of the 4 biggest shows in RINGS in 1998 and 1999, Akira Maeda was in the main event of 3 of them. The 4th was Tamura vs Mikhail Illioukhine only managing to sell 9,200 tickets to a Budokan Hall main event, a building that holds 16,000+.
Calling Tamura the “best draw in RINGS” is akin to calling Curt Hennig the best draw in 1987 AWA or Sting in early 90s WCW. RINGS wasn’t that bad as far as drawing, but the numbers were down from the glory days, and there were a lot of cards where they could only fill roughly half of mid-sized buildings. Plus, in the case of the Tamura/Sting comparison, the period immediately following their time period as ace saw the company’s attendance increase after a shift in direction (WCW went to Hogan, RINGS went to Shoots).
This isn’t a perfect comparison. RINGS tickets were much more expensive than late 80s AWA or early 90s WCW and was promoted as a more “High Brow” form of entertainment catering to a wealthier fan base. However, I use that comparison more to illustrate that Tamura’s time on top of RINGS came during the company’s low point.
2. Was he an international draw, national draw and/or regional draw?
No, no and no. Based on the evidence we have, I think it is fair to say that Tamura is not someone who moved noticeably moved the needle from a financial point of view.
3. How many years did he have as a top draw?
No years as a top draw.
4. Was he ever regarded as the best worker in the world? Was he ever regarded as the best worker in his country or in his promotion?
Regarded is the key word here. Since the late 90s, Tamura has generally been pointed to as the best wrestler in the world during 1998 and 1999. It is possible 1997 would be included in this, but All Japan was still highly regarded in 1997 as were juniors like Liger, Ohtani, Guerrero, Rey Jr and Benoit. However, I think it is fair to say that Tamura has generally been considered the best wrestler in the world in 98 and 99 by folks who watched a lot of wrestling from all over the world.
1998 and 1999 were interesting years in the wrestling business as All Japan was falling apart, people stopped giving a shit about New Japan Juniors, M-Pro died, AJW died, UWFi died, WCW and WWE were at their lowpoint as far as in ring work, this is pre-indy boom, and lucha guys have never really been able to get any sort of traction as “best in the world” because it is less watched and the booking doesn’t always lend itself to creating best in the world candidates (at least not in the way most wrestling fans view wrestling). HOWEVER, with wrestling quality falling off a cliff in the late 90s, Kiyoshi Tamura was pointed to as the guy still capable of having all time classic matches.
I think it would be fair to say he was generally considered the best wrestler in Japan in 1998 and 1999 by people who watched more than just the big All Japan matches at the time.
Promotion is a little tricky. Hardcore fans at the time LOVED them some Takada and most people at the time would have regarded him as the best worker in UWFi from the beginning of the promotion to the end. In RINGS, either Tamura or Volk Han was considered the best wrestler in the promotion when Tamura jumped in 6/96 through 1997. Tamura worked more than twice as many matches as Han in 1998 so I feel it would be fair to say Tamura surpassed Han officially in 1998 if he hadn’t at some point from 6/96-12/97.
The most conservative point of view would likely be that Tamura was either the best or second best wrestler in his promotion from 6/96-12/99.
5. Was he ever the best worker in his class (sex or weight)? Was he ever one of the top workers in his class?
This is also kind of tricky. Tamura was a small guy with google telling me he’s 5’11 and 185lbs. So you’d think to classify him as a junior heavyweight. It’s weird to think of him as a junior heavyweight. If you classify him that way his peers would be Liger, Eddy, Benoit, Rey, etc. And you really wouldn’t call him the best worker in his class until that late 90s period. It would also be hard to place him as a “top worker” (defined as a top 10 worker) in his class if you consider him a “junior” and are comparing him to the Ligers and Reys of the world. Those wrestlers were way more visible and talked about than Tamura.
I’d feel more comfortable defining his class as “shoot style.” That makes more sense to me than saying he’s better than El Samurai or Hayabusa.
If we define his class as “shoot style” then he would have been considered at worst the 2nd best in the style as early as 6/96 when he jumped to RINGS and the best from 1/98-12/99.
In terms of being a “top worker” in the class, it gets a little trickier because of how these guys were “regarded.” Takada would have been “regarded” as better from the moment Tamura debuted until Tamura left for RINGS and Takada started doing Pride stuff. Volk Han would have been regarded as better from the moment Han debuted in 12/91 until at least 6/96 and probably further into 1997. Kazuo Yamazaki is tough because he’s among the most underappreciated wrestlers in history. My gut feeling is that people at the time would have considered him better than Tamura until at least 1994 or 95. Maybe jdw can shed some light on how Yamazaki was regarded at the time period vs Tamura.
From there it gets tricky. Fujiwara love is not only revisionist and niche. I don’t know what to do about the Pancrase guys like Suzuki or Funaki. Guys like Yoji Anjoh and Naoki Sano were great workers but even more under the radar than Yamazaki. I can’t imagine Kakihara getting a bunch of love if Tamura wasn’t getting it. Trying to be conservative, I think Tamura was probably considered a top 10 shoot stylist no later than 1994 and remained that way until the end of the decade.
6. How many years did he have as a top worker?
Worldwide covering all styles, he is generally considered a top worker (as defined as top 10) from 1997-1999.
As a top worker in his class (shoot style) probably from 1994-1999.
7. Was he a good worker before his prime? Was he a good worker after his prime?
I think most people would point to RINGS era Tamura as his “prime years.” Assuming that, Tamura was an excellent worker before his prime. He showed a lot of potential in his very first match in 1989 and was having legit great matches before he even had 15 matches to his name.
Post prime would have to be considered “U-Style” for reasons that are pretty silly to me, but anyway because of that I would say he was absolutely an excellent worker after his prime. When he stopped doing shoots and formed U-Style he looked every bit as good as he was in RINGS in the late 90s so I’d almost be tempted to call U-Style part of his prime. But I get why it would have to be considered post prime.
8. Did he have a large body of excellent matches? Did he have a excellent matches against a variety of opponents?
This is where it gets kind of batshit insane. Because of the nature of shoot style only working around a show a month, Tamura has barely over 100 matches in his career from 1989-1999 plus 2003-2004. But in spite of that he has a pretty staggering amount of excellent matches.
At a minimum he had excellent matches against:
Yoji Anjoh (multiple), Masahito Kakihara (multiple), Kazuo Yamazaki (multiple), Volk Han (multiple), Tsyuoshi Kohsaka (multiple), Yoshihisa Yamamoto (multiple), Naoki Sano (multiple), Nobuhiko Takada, Vader, Gary Albright, Nikolai Zouev, Bitsadze Tariel, Mikahil Ilioukhine, Wataru Sakata, Hiroyuki Ito, Dokonjonosuke Mishima, and Josh Barnett.
And that’s not even it! I’m leaving off more “controversial” great matches like multiples against Yuko Miyato, Dick Leon-Vrij, Willie Peeters, and Alexander Otsuka that others probably aren’t going to be as high on as I am. I’m also ignoring tags which would include dudes like Tom Burton, Mark Fleming, Mark Silver, Steve Nelson, and Yoshihiro Takayama.
So not only does Tamura have a shit ton of great matches in a very niche/narrow style, he managed to do it against a wide variety of opponents with varying degrees of skill over a 15 year time period.
9. Did he ever anchor his promotion(s)?
He anchored post Maeda/pre shoots RINGS in 98 and 99 and he anchored U-Style. The first would be a slightly more impressive version of Sting anchoring mid 90s WCW and the 2nd would be a slightly more impressive version of Mike Quackenbush headlining Chikara if Chikara shut down after a year.
10. Was he effective when pushed at the top of cards?
Yes and no. You look at something like his first main event at Budokan where he faced Takada at a sold out show in 1993 and you can say “that’s Tamura being effective.” But I’m not sure Tamura had much to do with that number. His ascension to the top of RINGS came at that company’s lowest point. Granted, company founder and biggest star Akira Maeda retired which is what made Tamura the ace so losing your #1 guy in history is always going to hurt, but Tamura’s drawing record at the top of the card in RINGS is not very good. When he had the opportunity to main event shows for UWFi in 1995 when the company was collapsing, there were a number of “this is the lowest attendance figure UWFi has ever had in this building.”
There are some sporadic instances in RINGS where Tamura was on a show that did better than they had done in the building in years. But they were few and far between .
U-Style he was pushed to the top because it was his vanity promotion. They mostly ran Korakuen Hall and other small buildings so its hard to say he was an effective draw at the top of the cards for such a small promotion. I’m not sure it matters as part of a HOF case.
Now, as a worker, yes. Tamura was effective when pushed to the top of the cards. He could always been counted on to bust his ass and put on the best performances that he could. From an artistic standpoint, he was a blow away success but from a financial standpoint, he wasn’t ever really effective.
I get that anyone voting for Tamura is probably going to take shootfighting into account for his career. Perhaps someone could talk about that as I’m not the guy for it. But I’ve never been under the impression that Tamura was a massive draw in MMA like Sakuraba or whoever else.
11. Was he valuable to his promotion before his prime? Was he still valuable to his promotion after his prime?
Tamura’s UWFi career is widely considered before he reached his prime. So, I would say, yes, he was valuable to his promotion before his prime as an up & coming super worker. He is a direct peer to Kenta Kobashi in terms of age, debut and role in the promotion. As a young worker, he was often the hardest worker in addition to being one of the top workers in the promotion able to go out and have good-great matches in any position on the card against any opponent. Tamura probably meant less to UWFi in terms of drawing than Kobashi did to All Japan, but on very few instances where Tamura was in featured matches as a young wrestler, he delivered in the ring.
His “post prime” would be U-Style and he was the top star and best worker in the company for its duration so he would definitely be considered valuable to U-Style after his prime. What that means as far as a HOF case is up to the voter.
11.Did he have an impact on a number of strong promotional runs?
No. Takada was the driving force behind UWFi and by the time Tamura progressed enough in his career to start getting regular-ish featured matches in UWFi, the bloom was off the rose. His time in RINGS coincided with RINGS’ lowest point in company history and in fact RINGS started to do a little better when they moved to all shoots and Tamura became a less featured player.
13. Was he involved in a number of memorable rivalries, feuds or storylines?
Because of the nature of the style and promotions he worked in, Tamura really never worked storylines and he worked so few matches that there aren’t many opportunities to establish memorable feuds and rivalries. However, Tamura vs Volk Han is regarded as the best rivalry in shoot style history by many people. His rivalries with Tsyuoshi Kohsaka and Yoshihisa Yamamoto are often considered to be right on or right below the level of the Han feud. His early career rivalry against Yoji Anjoh has been completely forgotten in time but was an excellent rivalry looking back.
14. Was he effective working on the mic, working storylines or working angles?
This doesn’t apply to Tamura. His most memorable “angle” was the uncooperative match against Gary Albright leading to the infamous “Break, Gary, BREAK!” moment.
15. Did he play his role(s) effectively during his career? He was a tremendous working young up and comer. He actually worked for about 2 years playing the role of a guy who didn’t wear kickpads and borderline refused to strike so he would focus entirely on grappling and submissions. I’m not sure if people would consider this a “role” but it was an interesting part of young Tamura’s career. As the Ace of U-Style he was excellent in the ring.
Really any role Tamura played you’re going to see artistic excellence paired with usually disappointing financial gains. So this is sort of a catch 22 category for Tamura. In terms of working in the ring, he was great at whatever roles he was playing.
16. What titles and tournaments did he win? What was the importance of the reigns?
Tamura won the 1997 RINGS World Mega Battle Tournament by beating Mikhail Ilioukhine in the tournament finals at Budokan Hall 1/21/98 in front of 9,200 fans in a tournament that included: Tamura, Ilioukhine, Maeda, Han, Andrei Kopilov, Dick Leon-Vrij, Bitsadze Tariel, Tsuyoshi Kohsaka, Hans Nyman, and Nikolai Zouev amongst others. Tamura defeated Hans Nyman, Joop Kasteel, Akira Maeda and Mikhail Ilioukhine to win the tournament.
This is RINGS’ big annual tournament. Previous winners include: Chris Dolman, Akira Maeda x2, and Volk Han x2. Tamura lost the 1996 tournament final to Volk Han.
The 1997 tournament also crowned not just the Mega Battle Tournament winner but crowned the first ever RINGs Openweight Title Championship. Tamura held the title until dropping it to Bitsadze Tariel on 5/29/98. Tariel would hold the title until dropping it back to Tamura a year later on 5/22/99. Tamura held the title through the transition to full shoots before losing the title to Gilbert Yvel on 4/20/00. Yvel vacated the title 5/00 when he went to Pride and it was subsequently won by Fedor Emelianenko who held the title until RINGS closed in 2/02.
So Tamura was the first ever RINGS champion, but that reign was the shortest in the title’s 4 year existence, but he then won it back and held it until the shift to full shoots.
Tamura’s initial win of the title was the company’s worst drawing show ever at Budokan Hall by more than 1,000 fans.
In U-Style, Tamura won the U-Style tournament over the course of 3 shows (2 at Korakuen Hall) from 8/7/04-8/18/04. The promotion ran 6 total shows over the course of 4 years after the tournament so it would be hard to say it had any meaning at all.
17. Did he win many honors and awards?
Someone will have to help me out with any Japanese awards and honors. But looking through mookie’s WON Awards results:
1997 – Placed 7th overall Best Technical Wrestler
1998 – Honorable Mention Readers Favorite Wrestler (One point behind Kobashi, 3 points above Rey Jr)
1998 – 3rd Place Match of the Year vs Tsuyoshi Kohsaka 6/27
1998 – 6th Place Most Outstanding Wrestler
1998 – Honorable Mention Wrestler of the Year (Behind Tsuyoshi Kohsaka which I think is very interesting)
1999 – 9th Place Worked Match of the Year vs Yoshihisa Yamamoto 6/24
1999 – 3rd Place Best Technical Wrestler
2000 – 8th Place Shoot Match of the Year vs Antonio Nogueira 10/9
2003 – 6th Place Shoot Match of the Year vs Hidehiko Yoshida 8/10
2003 – Honorable Mention Best Technical Wrestler
2006 – Ranked 63rd Overall on the Smarkschoice GWE Poll placing on 23 of 49 Ballots with 2 Top 10 Votes
2016 – Ranked 62nd Overall on the PWO GWE Poll appearing on 55 of 152 Ballots with one 2nd place vote and an overall ranking of 31.1
18. Did he get mainstream exposure due to his wrestling fame? Did he get a heavily featured by the wrestling media? I would need assistance on this. I couldn’t see him ranking in the top 20 in terms of mainstream exposure due to wrestling fame even from his own era.
19. Was he a top tag team wrestler? Tag team wrestling isn’t an important part of shoot wrestling. He participated in tag team matches in UWFi and tended to have excellent performances in tag matches. But I wouldn’t call him a top tag team wrestler due to the nature of the style and promotions he worked.
20. Was he innovative?
Sort of. Tamura, along with Volk Han, really pushed the boundaries of what was capable not only just in shoot style but in a wrestling ring. Tamura seems innovative because of his speed, athleticism and technique and the fact that when you combined all of this nobody could do what he was capable of in the ring. However, I don’t really view him as innovative in the way that Volk Han was. If Fujiwara & Takada are Buddy Rogers & Ray Stevens, then Tamura was Ric Flair taking their ideas and pushing them as far as possible. I see Tamura as a worker in the tradition of the shoot style founding fathers. Volk Han to me, was the more innovative wrestler within the niche of shootstyle. Outside of quality of work, I don’t see much difference between Tamura, Takada, Yamazaki, Kohsaka and Yamamoto. Volk Han was certainly more unique character.
21. Was he influential? Not really. He was one of many people in Japanese wrestling to help turn shoot style wrestling into shoots which in my mind wasn’t just a negative to Japanese pro wrestling in general, but was a negative to Tamura’s specific case as a pro wrestling Hall of Famer in my eyes.
22. Did he make the people and workers around him better? Absolutely. Tamura was an incredible wrestler and he had the best matches in the career of Volk Han, Yamamoto, Kohsaka, and Mikhail Ilioukhine at a bare minimum with arguments for the best match in the career of Gary Albright, Yoji Anjoh, Nikolai Zouev and some dudes I’m probably forgetting because I’m getting worn out.
The bottom line though was that Tamura could always be counted on to make limited workers look good and good workers look great and great workers look transcendent.
23. Did he do what was best for the promotion? Did he show a commitment to wrestling?
Well, he always worked hard and tried to put on the best match he could against anybody. I don’t know much about him refusing to job or anything like that. I do know that he refused to take part in the UWFi vs New Japan feud because he didn’t want to be a fake pro wrestler like in New Japan which led to him leaving for RINGS. That’s not really doing the best thing for his promotion. UWFi was in dire straits financially at this time period and the New Jpaan feud was just life support for them anyway. However, it was a HUGELY successful feud at the time period that Tamura didn’t take part in.
He really didn’t show a commitment to “Pro Wrestling” because he was quick to make the jump to shoots when that became a thing. But its hard to fault a guy for doing what he wants to do career wise.
24. Is there any reason to believe that he was better or worse than he appeared?
Yes. First of all, if you are a voter inclined to consider shoots, Tamura likely comes across as a better draw. I’m not sure how much better and I know he was never close to Sakuraba’s level as a star, but he probably gets some help. So there’s that.
Also, UWFi and especially RINGS tended to have very high priced tickets compared to traditional pro-wrestling shows so while the attendance numbers, especially for RINGS, aren’t very impressive, the gates tended to average higher numbers than you’d expect.
I also wanted to be as fair as I possibly could in regards work related questions in the Gordy list. I wanted to try and look at the perception and ignore my personal opinions and leave them for here. I would argue that Tamura was the best Japanese wrestler of all time and was actually the best wrestler in the world as early as 1994 until the rest of the decade. I think when he came back and opened U-Style, he instantly became the best wrestler on the planet again from 03-04 until U-Style Closed. Basically I think his case is better than it appears because his strengths are MUCH stronger than I actually presented them above. Ignoring the shooting and the year he was out from Maeda breaking his face, Tamura had a 12 year career as a pro-wrestler. In my opinion, he was the best wrestler on the planet for 8 of those years. EIGHT! That’s crazy. 75% of his career he was the best guy on earth and he had less than 15 bad matches EVER and probably less than 5 bad performances ever working probably the most difficult style to master in all of wrestling.
His case it worse than it appears because in addition to being basically a zero as a draw, he left wrestling in the middle of his prime to pursue other athletic interests. He left at the top of his game and had he worked a “normal” career of roughly 20 years, who knows how many classic matches he’d have?
His case is worse than it appears because his biggest positives as related to “influence” are outside of the pro-wrestling sphere. And even then, is Kiyoshi Tamura one of the 25 most influential people as it relates to the rise of MMA in Japan? He’d have to be behind Inoki, Sakuraba, Takada, Pancase Guys, Gracies, Bob Sapp, Maeda, Fujiwara, Takayama, etc etc etc.
His case is worse than it appears because he had roughly 100 total matches as a pro-wrestler. It is weird to think that a guy who performed less in 12 years than other guys have worked in 5 months to get in the Hall. That is a difficult idea to wrap your head around and it can be used against him (foolishly in my opinion) to downgrade his ranking as a worker/best in the world candidate.
Edit:
I've added in the spoilers below in his UWFi/RINGS results that I looked at last year in preparation for writing the Gordy List with analysis in case folks wanted to look at that as well.
