Minoru Tanaka (wrestler)

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Minoru Tanaka (wrestler) : biography

November 29, 1972 –

In 2006, Minoru joined the American Total Nonstop Action Wrestling promotion as a member of Team Japan (consisting of Hirooki Goto, Jushin "Thunder" Liger, Black Tiger IV and Minoru), one of the four teams competing in the TNA 2006 World X-Cup Tournament. He debuted in TNA on April 23, 2006 at TNA Lockdown 2006, where he teamed with Hirooki Goto against Team USA members Sonjay Dutt, Jay Lethal and Alex Shelley. Team Japan defeated USA when Black Tiger pinned Lethal. On the April 27, 2006 episode of TNA iMPACT!, Goto and Minoru lost to Dutt and Shelley, giving a first round victory and two points to Team USA.

Returning from TNA not victorious, Minoru bounced back straight away winning the 2006 Best of the Super Juniors defeated long time rival Tiger Mask in the finals. Minoru lost his chance at the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship in October but would be granted another one at "Battle Xmas! Catch the Victory" where he would defeated another long time rival Koji Kanemoto for the title, making him a four time IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion. He would hold the title until he was defeated by Ryusuke Taguchi. After this loss, C.T.U. would take a turn for the worse and eventually disbanded on August 8 where all members would wrestle under their Masked C.T.U. personas.

RISE (2007-2009)

In late 2007, after the break up of C.T.U, some of the former members, which included Prince Devitt, Hirooki Goto and Minoru along with Shinsuke Nakamura, formed the stable RISE.http://www.cagematch.net/?id=29&nr=20&name=RISE In early 2008, Minoru and Devitt would win the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship. However, they would lose the title not even a month later to members of the Legend stable, AKIRA and Jushin Liger. Minoru and Devitt defeated AKIRA and Liger in their return match for the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship, making the pair two time champions together and Minoru’s fifth overall. They lost the titles in October to No Limit (Tetsuya Naito and Yujiro Takahashi). Minoru stayed out of the lime light during late 2008 and early 2009 making him unhappy with his status in the company. Along with Minoru becoming unable to come to terms on a new contract, he left New Japan after nearly a decade with the company January 31, 2009.

All Japan Pro Wrestling

VooDoo Murders (2009-2011)

After leaving New Japan on January 31, 2009, in a shocking move, Tanaka quickly signed with rival promotion All Japan Pro Wrestling in late February & made his presence felt by joining the hated "VooDoo Murders" stable, replacing the recently retired brother YASSHI in the group. In his first All Japan pay-per-view, he took on Kaz Hayashi for the AJPW World Junior Heavyweight Championship and lost. Moving on from this loss, he teamed up with Toshizo to take part in 2009’s AJPW Junior Tag League, where they defeated Kaz Hayashi and Shuji Kondo. After finishing top in Junior League 2009 he was defeated by Super Crazy in the semi finals. In 2010, he participated in that years junior tournaments failing to win any of them but did come close in the Junior League where he lost to Jimmy Yang. In late 2010, he won an All Asia Tag Team Championship contendership tournament with KONO but failed to win the titles on the next night.

On January 2, 2011, Minoru won the AJPW World Junior Heavyweight Championship from Kaz Hayashi. On June 3, 2011, in the aftermath of a backstage fight between Yoshikazu Taru and Nobukazu Hirai, which resulted in Hirai suffering a stroke, All Japan Pro Wrestling disbanded Voodoo Murders, suspended all of its Japanese members, including Minoru, and vacated the World Junior Heavyweight Championship. Minoru was suspended specifically for not attempting to stop Taru’s assault on Hirai. Minoru’s suspension was lifted on June 30. In October 2011, Minoru began once again wrestling under his full name. In an interview on All Japan’s official website, Tanaka explained that by using his full name he wanted to pay tribute to his original home promotion BattlARTS, which closed its doors on November 5, 2011, and where he originally made his breakthrough under his full name.