Masato Tanaka

[Grimmas]

Discuss here.

[goodhelmet]

No chance at my list. I think he is charismatic and fun to watch but I hate the 20 chairs to the head style he had in ECW with Mike Awesome. Maybe his FMW work is better but I don't think it will overcome the factors I don't like.

[BillThompson]

Has an outside chance at making the bottom of my list. He's a worker I've always enjoyed, but I'm not sure if there's enough consistent greatness for him to end up slotted on the list.

[benjaminkicks]

Maybe I'm overrating Tanaka because he was pretty much my first exposure to Japanese wrestling, but I think he's pretty fucking great, and I'll almost definitely find a place for him on my ballot.

 

I enjoy a lot of his ECW and FMW stuff, but even if you're not into that, Tanaka has been delivering great (non-deathmatch/hardcore) performances and matches for like 15 years now in a bunch of different promotions like Zero1, NOAH, New Japan, and Big Japan.

 

Every time I watch a Tanaka match I know I'm going to get a fast-paced, exciting, and hard hitting modern puro match. He's a total asskicker who always seems just so jacked up to be out there hitting guys.

 

And his Dangan Yankees team with Sugiura right now is definitely padding his resume. Pretty much all of their matches are must watch for me.

[El-P]

No chance at my list. I think he is charismatic and fun to watch but I hate the 20 chairs to the head style he had in ECW with Mike Awesome. Maybe his FMW work is better but I don't think it will overcome the factors I don't like.

 

Judging Tanaka's 20 years career on a bunch of matches he worked in ECW which cattered to the worst instincts of the time (and style) is kinda like judging Jerry Lawer based on the kiss-my-foot match in WWF and "Puppies!".

 

He was never as good as Gannosuke at his peak, but I think I'll have no issue putting him as the second best FMW worker ever (yeah, better than Hayabusa on average although he had a few annoying tendencies). I mostly draw a blank on his post 00's years, but from what I've seen from time to time, he was still a hell of a worker.

[GOTNW]

You can fault Tanaka for excess in nearfalls, no-selling and a bunch of other modern puro tropes but he was charismatic and authentic enough to make them work. Him grabbing Hayabusa by the mask during a pin after hitting a Powerbomb as an exclamation point after previously failing to put him down with the same move is a great organic moment that you won't see in matches of workers that try to replicate the style.

[benjaminkicks]

Joe Lanza had some words of praise for Tanaka on the latest Voices of Wrestling podcast that I totally agree with.

 

He basically talks about Tanaka being a guy who always delivers and has an awesome body of work. Joe also claims that Tanaka would most likely be close to or in his top 20 if he made a ballot. I'm right there with him on all that, and if Joe doesn't end up spending in a ballot I will most likely be the high vote for Tanaka. He's at least a top 30 guy for me at this point.

 

(You can listen to Joe talk about it here: http://www.voicesofwrestling.com/2015/07/22/wwe-battleground-kobe-world-g1-climax-more/ at around 41:30)

[W2BTD]

He's a guy who has reinvented himself to where it;s like he's had multiple great careers. Not only has he not lost a step, he's arguably better than ever and is among the best wrestlers in the world right now. He really doesn't even have a good comp. One of the most unique wrestlers around in terms of the size, scope, and trajectory of his career.

[Jetlag]

I like this dude but it feels like he's been having the same two or three matches for his entire career and they're not getting better. Great offense alone doesn't cut it for me.

[benjaminkicks]

I like this dude but it feels like he's been having the same two or three matches for his entire career and they're not getting better. Great offense alone doesn't cut it for me.

That's interesting. I've seen quite a bit Tanaka matches over the years and I've never really considered him to be a particularly formulaic wrestler.

[Jetlag]

Tanaka has heavyweight spotfests and garbage brawls. Which are also spotfests usually, but I think I prefer stuff like him vs. Gannosuke where he's playing a sympathetic face over his stuff this decade. Stuff like the matches against Sekimoto all go pointless opening mat fooling around -> strike exchanges -> pointless limb work -> super overkill finish. I think the formula was little more subtle before the Sekimoto series happened, i.e. he would finish all his big matches with the Sliding D, but then Sekimoto suddenly kicks out of 3 of em etc. I think the last Tanaka match I actively liked/cared for was vs. Necro Butcher and that was all Necro. I also recall a really dire brawl with Makabe in NJPW.

[Ma Stump Puller]

I do wish I could put him on a top 100 if only for the sheer scale of longevity he has at this point; guy has been through it all and he still keeps trucking.

I think the issue is that Tanaka's really been someone who was exposed a long time ago for having really bit for bit formulas for his matches. As Jetlag said he's had essentially the same two/three matches (hardcore mess/super stiff/combination of both) for a good majority of his career. Not to say he's not had REALLY good matches with that in mind, far from it, it's just that it gets pretty old pretty fast when you're going through them all at once.

He's one of those guys that wows you if you see a watch now and then but just doesn't hold up once you're having to measure up his matches next to each other. Not a lot to really spread them apart outside of who he's wrestling and that in turn kinda shows a lack of agency (or creativity, really) to change things up much