Toshiaki Kawada

From Freepedia

Toshiaki Kawada (川田利明; Kawada Toshiaki) is a professional wrestler who is most known for his work in All Japan Pro Wrestling. Currently in 2005 he has started wrestling in other promotions also, including Pro Wrestling NOAH and New Japan Pro Wrestling.

1 Career
2 Profile
- 2.1 Finishing and signature moves
3 Championships and accomplishments
- 3.1 All Japan Pro Wrestling
- 3.2 Tournament victories
4 References

Career

In high school he practiced amateur wrestling, becoming a national champion in his senior year, defeating Keichi Yamada in the finals. He debuted in 1982 for All Japan Pro Wrestling, in a match against Hiromichi Fuyuki. In 1987 he joined his mentor Genichiro Tenryu's faction 'Revolution', which made him a breakout star. He reigned as All Asia Tag Team champion with Fuyuki three times, who had adopted the stage name Samson. In 1990 Tenryu left for Super World of Sports, which led Kawada to join Mitsuharu Misawa's stable. Kawada ended up winning the AJPW Unified World Tag Team championships twice with him.

In 1992 he formed a tag team with his former rival Akira Taue. They ended up holding the AJPW Unified World Tag Team championships together six times. He finally won the Triple Crown in 1994, when he beat Steve Williams. This title reign only lasted one 60 minute draw against Kenta Kobashi. In his second defense he lost the title to Stan Hansen.

In 1996 he publicly criticized AJPW's policy of not having interpromotional matches. New Japan Pro Wrestling was making big business at the time by having their workers wrestle for other promotions, and vice versa. He worked only one interpromotional match for UWF International (against Yoshihiro Takayama), but AJPW decided not to continue on this nor on the publicity Kawada had suddenly drawn.

His second Triple Crown victory came when he finally defeated Misawa for the title in 1998, in AJPW's first ever Tokyo Dome show. He had challenged Misawa for the title several times unsuccessfully. He was immediately defeated by Kobashi in his first title defence. In 1999 he faced Misawa again for the Triple Crown, who had won it from Kobashi. He defeated Misawa again (using the infamous Ganso Bomb in the process), but broke his arm during the match, and vacated the title the following day. He returned to action four months later, but was out action once again in three months because of an eye injury. He returned finally in January of 2000.

In mid-2000 most of AJPW's native wrestlers left with Misawa to his new promotion Pro Wrestling NOAH. Kawada was the only top star to stay. Tenryu was brought back and AJPW signed a co-promotional deal with NJPW. This led to Kawada beating the IWGP World Heavyweight Champion Kensuke Sasaki in October 9, 2000, however the title was not on the line.

In 2003, he won the Triple Crown for the fifth time and this time it was the charm. Kawada embarked on a magnificent reign that saw him make 10 title defenses (thus breaking Misawa's record of 8 defenses during his third reign) and 2004 became only the second year when the Triple Crown did not change hands. (The first was 1993, during Misawa's first reign.) Because in Misawa's day the title was not defended during the Champion Carnival and World's Strongest Tag League tours, which were dedicated to their namesake tournaments, Kawada's reign restored dignity to the Triple Crown at the expense of the said tournaments.

Since losing the titles to Satoshi Kojima in February 2005, he's embarked on a tour of other major promotions, facing his old rival Mitsuharu Misawa in Pro Wrestling NOAH and competing in New Japan Pro Wrestling's prestigious G1 Climax tournament.