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Pat Tanaka


Grimmas

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Pat Tanaka is a total dude. I mean, the guy is just cool and oozes cool.

 

He also has a lot of good matches to his name.

 

I gave this one four-stars on the AWA set: Mando Guerrero vs. Pat Tanaka (6/12/88) and this one ***1/2: Ken Patera & Brad Rheingans vs. Badd Company (3/25/89)

 

There are also the Orient Express vs. Rockers matches to consider. And Tanaka was arguable "the worker" in any iteration of the Orient Express.

 

I have not seen the Memphis stuff yet, but the idea of Tanaka against Tarzan Goto sounds awesome. There's also the ECW run.

 

He could be a guy who might sneak on some ballots, and I'm kinda surprised he wasn't nominated already.

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I loved Tanaka as a kid, and still love him any time I see him pop up on something I'm watching. Smooth and flashy worker, who was a good heel while also having cool offense for the era.

 

That said he comes across as a guy who's aesthetic and wrestling style serve to obscure the fact that he really didn't do that much of note. For a guy with his talents and ability I'd regard him as a clear underachiever. An underachiever can my ballot, but not without a strong body of work. Tanaka doesn't really have that.

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i wonder if his lack of buzz around here doesn't have to do with his general negative rep among hardcore sheet readers these days. the scuzzy stories of him claiming he'd book guys in Michinoku Pro, that kind of stuff

 

"Pat Tanaka is a special kind of fuckup" - Bix

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  • 6 years later...

He's kind of got a cool vibe but I wish he had an output of better matches or just more stuff where he stands out as something special. We all love the Royal Rumble 91 match but that's really more of a great Rockers performance. The only match in the little list below where I thought he was the best performer was the one with Jannetty. There's a zero percent chance that Pat Tanaka ends up on my list.

What I watched for this so far and my match ratings
Pat Tanaka & Jeff Jarrett vs Memphis Vice (27/09/86) *½ 
Badd Company vs Midnight Rockers (19/02/88) **¼ 
Badd Company vs Brad Rheingans & Ken Patera (25/03/89) ***
Pat Tanaka vs Marty Jannetty (17/10/93) **¾ 
Pat Tanaka vs Steve Austin (02/04/94) **

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