Minoru Tanaka

[Grimmas]

Discuss here.

[El-P]

I really liked him until he married Yumi Fukawa. Wait, no, that's not it. I really liked him until he became Heat, which was a shitty gimmick and hurt his work. No idea what he became afterward.

[W2BTD]

Still going strong, if you can stomach watching Wrestle-1.

 

You know, as I sit here and think about it, he's one of the more underrated wrestlers of the post millennium era. He's pretty damn good and hardly ever gets talked about since leaving NJPW. Working for AJPW in the "barely has a pulse" era and now W1 is an easy way to be forgotten about, I guess.

[El-P]

Are the couple still married ? I wonder how Fukawa looks these days, that cute little shoot-style demon. I guess she hasn't aged a bit in 15 years.

[InYourCase]

Have to take a real close look at Tanaka. Alan is really high on him and it appears Joe is also. I've seen bits and pieces of Tanaka and always like what I see, but I don't put myself through W1 so I'm not seeing him on a regular basis. Has a shot to make my list.

[...TG]

I nominated him as he was definitely one of my favorites in my early puroresu fandom. But that was 15 years ago - there's a bunch of guys I need to do some re-watch on before voting, Tanaka is one of them. I'm slowly watching the yearbooks now, and the NJ junior style I loved back then doesn't really match my taste now.

[Alan4L]

Unbelievable longevity for this guy.

 

some of my fave Tanaka matches that are online:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRLqK_4cocw

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOV4UEvIM0U

 

 

 

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x375ksz_minoru-tanaka-vs-katsuyori-shibata-njpw_sport

 

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x37rpvc_tanaka-hidaka_sport

[Quentin Skinner]

Always have liked what I've seen of Tanaka, even some of his current Wrestle-1 stuff. I don't think he'll make my list, but he's a severely underrated guy people should take a closer look at.

[BohsJohnny]

Here's a better quality version of that GREAT Murahama match seeing as it looks like the version Alan uploaded to his youtube page a while ago got taken down.

 

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2zgj0j_tanaka-vs-murahama-4-20-2001_sport

[dawho5]

That is one of the better juniors matches I have seen. The six man that precedes it is pretty great too.

[Jetlag]

I absolutely hate Minoru Tanaka. Absolutely one of the worst guys in the old BattlARTS stuff. Not that his junior shit is bad, but as a shootstylist he is insanely dull. Interesting moveset, but mostly he is just plain uninteresting with his silky soft kicks and light matwork.

[The Man in Blak]

I haven’t caught any of Tanaka’s work in GLEAT other than this Twitter clip, but he was in the 120s on my list before. How have the intervening years treated Tanaka? Any new footage?