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?

 

[Ma Stump Puller]

Tanaka is a weird case for myself. He has some brilliant atheticism and the guy has been a consistent perennial force when it comes to guys who do not age. I've seen him in his late 40's do 450 splashes and bounce around the ring like he totally hasn't had 20+ years of wear and tear on him, tending to have the better performances on a card than many far younger. He also has one of Kendo Kashin's best ever matches (if that means anything)

On the other hand the guy has some of the WORST wrestling instincts I've ever seen from someone in GWE consideration; he will repeatedly sell big for a attacked arm or leg before immediately dropping it to do moves with the same limb, doing kicks with a leg that he wasn't able to put any weight on a minute prior. Yoshinari Ogawa gives this man a million lead-ins for him to sell the head or work something explosive but he doesn't do anything and just settles for the usual leg holds/no contact kicks. He really struggles in complex, elaborate settings that require him to do more than just his regular flashy routine which is bizarre for a guy who started in PWFG and had a multi-year stint in Battlarts. He also has some of the weakest performances in company history there as well which is a HUGE - for me since that company was stacked in the 90s. I really struggle to rank him on any top 100 because you only really ever get a certain amount of depth with him.