Минору Танака: Жапон күресшісінің мансабы мен жетістіктері

Japanese professional wrestler (born 1972)
the Japanese wrestler
Known as "The Special One", Tanaka first gained prominence in Pro Wrestling Fujiwara Gumi (PWFG) and Fighting Investigation Team Battlarts (Battlarts) before moving on to New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW), where he became a four time IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion, a five time IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champion and the winner of the 2006 Best of the Super Juniors tournament. After leaving NJPW, he joined All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW), where he found continued success in the junior heavyweight and tag team ranks upon winning the World Junior Heavyweight Championship once and the All Asia Tag Team Championship twice. From 2013 to 2016, Tanaka worked for Wrestle 1. He also performed for Pro Wrestling Noah (Noah), where he held the GHC Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship twice and is a former GHC Junior Heavyweight Champion, making him the second man (after Naomichi Marufuji) to hold all three major Japanese junior heavyweight singles titles as well as the only man to hold all five major junior heavyweight titles in Japan (counting the aforementioned tag team prizes).

Minoru Tanaka was originally a shootboxer. He started his career as a wrestler in Fujiwara Gumi, trained by its owner, Yoshiaki Fujiwara. In late 1995, Tanaka and everyone else in the promotion abandoned Fujiwara and formed their own promotion, Battlarts, led by Yuki Ishikawa. Despite being a simulated shoot style professional wrestling promotion, Battlarts, like its predecessor, often cooperated with other federations and styles, such as Fighting Network Rings (where he competed in some legitimate shoot fights), Kingdom, Michinoku Pro and Big Japan Pro Wrestling. Tanaka's first championship, the UWA World Middleweight Championship (originally based in Mexico and introduced in Japan through Universal Lucha Libre and Michinoku), came in 1996. He later won Frontier Martial Arts Wrestling's Independent World Junior Heavyweight Championship (which was outsourced to Battlarts after Hiromichi Fuyuki abolished all previous FMW titles and replaced them with WEW titles).

Tanaka made his New Japan Pro Wrestling debut on April 10, 1999, and would proceed to take part in Best of the Super Juniors in block B. Tanaka would reappear for New Japan in late 1999 to early 2000 before he joined the New Japan roster as a full time competitor. His natural talent enabled him to immediately rise in the junior heavyweight ranks and win the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship in July with Koji Kanemoto, who used a similar but more ground oriented style. The Kanemoto Tanaka combination was reminiscent of the old Akira Maeda Nobuhiko Takada combination in 1987. In October, Tanaka won the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship thus becoming the first man to hold both junior titles at the same time. In March 2001, Tanaka and Kanemoto lost their titles to El Samurai and Jushin Thunder Liger, Like the game, the HEAT character often floundered in his early years with the only positive being his victory of the Naeba Cup Tag Tournament alongside Manabu Nakanishi. Heat finally began to pick up steam in 2003, and defeated Jado in December to become a three time IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion. On May 14, Minoru teamed up with new CTU recruit Hirooki Goto and defeated Koji Kanemoto and Wataru Inoue to become a three time IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champion and would lose them to El Samurai and Ryusuke Taguchi in early 2006. In early 2008, Minoru and Devitt would win the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship. 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.

On December 21, Tanaka along with Masakatsu Funaki and Masayuki Kono formed the stable Stack of Arms. The stable tried to start of strong by winning the AJPW Junior Tag League 2012, but failed in their attempt, not even getting through the starting stages. From this point, Stack of Arms have feud against Team Destruction (Kaz Hayashi, Shuji Kondo and Suwama). When Koji Kanemoto joined Stack of Arms in October 2012, their fortunes turned around, Kanemoto and Tanaka defeated Kazushi Miyamoto and Tomoaki Honma to win the vacant All Asia Tag Team Championship. On January 26, 2013, Kanemoto and Tanaka, calling themselves Junior Stars but still part of Stack of Arms, lost the titles to Hikaru Sato and Hiroshi Yamato but would regain the title less than a month later. Their second reign ended on April 25, 2013, when they were defeated by Atsushi Aoki and Kotaro Suzuki. In June 2013, Tanaka, along with the rest of Stack of Arms, announced his resignation from All Japan in the aftermath of Nobuo Shiraishi taking over as the promotion's new president. On June 30, Tanaka unsuccessfully challenged Yoshinobu Kanemaru for the World Junior Heavyweight Championship in his final All Japan match.

In the beginning of 2017, Minoru Tanaka returned to AJPW after three and a half years of being away. As Nobuo Shiraishi had long been gone from the company, his original reason for leaving is gone. He returned on the January 2nd Korakuen and soon announced his participation in the 2017 Junior Battle of Glory. Unfortunately, Tanaka would fail to advance to the final after going 1 2 1 in four matches, only achieving three points but tied with AJPW Junior Champion Keisuke Ishii. He stayed in the company after the tournament, consistently working undercards. On July 17, he challenged fellow shooter Hikaru Sato for his recently won AJPW Junior Heavyweight Championship but was unsuccessful. Tanaka worked All Japan's 45th Anniversary Show in Sumo Hall on August 27, in a brief all star tag team match in the upper mid card where he, Jun Akiyama, Koji Iwamoto, and Takao Omori got a quick victory. He would not stay much longer after this his final match came on September 19 in an unsuccessful challenge for Jun Akiyama's GAORA TV Championship. He began working for Pro Wrestling NOAH full time after this.

On July 10, 2013, Tanaka was announced as part of Keiji Mutoh's new Wrestle 1 promotion. During the promotion's inaugural event on September 8, Tanaka reunited the Junior Stars with Koji Kanemoto in a tag team match, where they defeated Fujita Hayato and Masaaki Mochizuki. On January 31, 2014, Tanaka celebrated his 20th anniversary in professional wrestling, teaming with Kanemoto and the debuting Jushin Thunder Liger and Yoshiaki Fujiwara in an eight man tag team main event, where they defeated Desperado (Kazma Sakamoto, Masayuki Kono, René Duprée and Ryoji Sai). In September, Tanaka took part in the Wrestle 1 Championship tournament, where he made it to the second round, before losing to Kai. Through Wrestle 1's working relationship with American promotion Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA), Tanaka worked TNA's Bound for Glory event in Tokyo on October 12, defeating Manik. On December 7, Tanaka defeated Hiroshi Yamato to win the European Wrestling Promotion (EWP) Intercontinental Championship. Later that month, Tanaka traveled to Hannover, Germany to successfully defend the title against Michael Kovac. Through Wrestle 1's relationship with Pro Wrestling Zero1, Tanaka won two more titles on March 1, 2015, when he defeated Jason Lee for the International Junior Heavyweight and NWA World Junior Heavyweight Championships. On May 5, Tanaka won yet another title, when he defeated Kaz Hayashi in the finals of a tournament to become the inaugural Wrestle 1 Cruiser Division Champion. Tanaka lost the first of his four titles on May 16, when Tajiri defeated him for the EWP Intercontinental Championship. He regained the title on May 30 in a match also contested for the Wrestle 1 Cruiser Division Championship. On September 12, Tanaka lost the EWP Intercontinental Championship to Robbie Dynamite in Hannover, Germany. On September 23, Tanaka lost the Wrestle 1 Cruiser Division Championship to Andy Wu in his sixth defense. On October 11, Tanaka lost his final two titles, the Zero1 junior heavyweight championships, to Shinjiro Otani. On January 31, 2016, Tanaka, Kaz Hayashi and Tajiri won the vacant UWA World Trios Championship. On June 28, Tanaka announced he was leaving Wrestle 1 due to his contract with the company expiring. On July 29, Tanaka, Hayashi and Tajiri lost the UWA World Trios Championship to Andy Wu, Daiki Inaba and Seiki Yoshioka in their fifth defense.

Tanaka made his first appearance in NOAH after 15 years on September 5, 2017, and called for a shot at the GHC Junior Heavyweight Championship, but first defeated Hitoshi Kumano on October 1. He'd eventually get his shot on December 22, but was defeated by the defending champion Daisuke Harada. On March 11, 2018, he and Yoshinari Ogawa defeated XX (Hi69 and Taiji Ishimori) to win the GHC Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship, but, as Ishimori announced his departure the very next day, Ogawa opted to vacate the titles as he would not accept a title victory over someone focused mentally on leaving rather than focused on the match. This led to a tournament being set up to crown new champions, where Tanaka and new partner Hi69 defeated Ratel's (Hayata (wrestler) and Yo Hey) in the finals on April 15 to regain the titles. On May 29, the two continued their battle against the stable by successfully defending the titles against Tadasuke and Daisuke Harada. On August 18, they successfully defended the titles by defeating Hayata and Yo Hey once again. The pair continued their dominating run in a series of matches against some of Tanaka's regular career rivals on September 2, the duo defeated Ikuto Hidaka and Takuya Sugawara from Zero1, the former of whom came up with Minoru as a rival in Battlearts. On November 25, Minoru and Hi69 won their fourth and final defense of the Junior Tag Titles, taking on Tanaka's 20 year partner and enemy, Koji Kanemoto, and his partner Hiroshi Yamato. At Great Voyage on December 16, the duo's reign came to an end as they were defeated by The Back Breakers (Hajime Ohara & Hitoshi Kumano). On March 10, 2019, Tanaka finally defeated Harada to win the GHC Junior Heavyweight Championship and complete his wins of the top three junior heavyweight championships in Japan (New Japan's IWGP, Noah's GHC, and All Japan's PWF) as well as Zero1's and Wrestle 1's titles.

In 2002, Tanaka married former professional wrestler Yumi Fukawa soon after her retirement. The couple have two children. Their eldest daughter Kizuna is a fellow professional wrestler and has been working in Pro Wrestling Wave since March 2023.