 Tanaka in November 2022 | |
| Personal information | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1972-11-29)November 29, 1972 (age 52)[5][6] |
Spouse | |
| Children | 2 (includingKizuna Tanaka) |
| Professional wrestling career | |
| Ring name(s) | C.T.U Ranger Pink[1] Heat Minoru Minoru Polnareff[2] Minoru Tanaka The Orange Prince Tanaka Trans-Am★Tanaka[3] Watanabe no Tsuna[4] |
| Billed height | 1.75 m (5 ft 9 in)[5][6] |
| Billed weight | 85 kg (187 lb)[6] |
| Trained by | Yoshiaki Fujiwara |
| Debut | January 24, 1994[5][6] |
Minoru Tanaka (田中稔,Tanaka Minoru; born November 29, 1972),[5][6] also known by the ring namesHeat (ヒート,Hīto) and the mononymousMinoru (稔,Minoru), is a Japaneseprofessional wrestler,shoot wrestler andmixed martial artist.[7] He is currently signed toGleat, predominantly performing in itsG Prowrestling andLidetUWF divisions; he also serves as Gleat's UWF Rules Technical Officer.
Known as "The Special One", Tanaka first gained prominence inPro Wrestling Fujiwara Gumi (PWFG) andFighting Investigation Team Battlarts (Battlarts) before moving on toNew Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), where he became afour timeIWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion, afive timeIWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champion and the winner of the2006Best of the Super Juniors tournament. After leaving NJPW, he joinedAll Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW), where he found continued success in the junior heavyweight and tag team ranks upon winning theWorld Junior Heavyweight Championshiponce and theAll Asia Tag Team Championshiptwice. From 2013 to 2016, Tanaka worked forWrestle-1. He also performed forPro Wrestling Noah (Noah), where he held theGHC Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship twice and is a formerGHC Junior Heavyweight Champion, making him the second man (afterNaomichi 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 ashootboxer. He started his career as a wrestler inFujiwara 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 asFighting Network Rings (where he competed in some legitimateshoot fights),Kingdom,Michinoku Pro andBig Japan Pro Wrestling. Tanaka's first championship, theUWA World Middleweight Championship (originally based inMexico and introduced in Japan throughUniversal Lucha Libre and Michinoku), came in 1996. He later wonFrontier Martial Arts Wrestling'sIndependent World Junior Heavyweight Championship (which was outsourced to Battlarts afterHiromichi Fuyuki abolished all previous FMW titles and replaced them with WEW titles). Tanaka made a one-night appearance for theWorld Wrestling Federation on July 28, 1998, in a dark match on Shotgun Saturday Night defeatingChristopher Daniels in San Diego, California.[8]
Tanaka made hisNew Japan Pro-Wrestling debut on April 10, 1999, and would proceed to take part inBest of the Super Juniors in block B.[9] 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 theIWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship in July withKoji Kanemoto, who used a similar but more ground-oriented style.[10] The Kanemoto-Tanaka combination was reminiscent of the oldAkira Maeda-Nobuhiko Takada combination in 1987. In October, Tanaka won theIWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship - thus becoming the first man to hold both junior titles at the same time.[11] In March 2001, Tanaka and Kanemoto lost their titles toEl Samurai andJushin Thunder Liger,[10] in June he lost in the finals of 2001'sBest of the Super Juniors to Liger and in July he lost his singles title.[11] Even with all these losses, Tanaka finished 2001 strong, winning the G1 Jr. Six Man Tag Team TournamentMasahito Kakihara andMasayuki Naruse. For a second time in his career, Tanaka held both junior titles, defeating Masahito Kakihara for the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion[11] and defeatingGedo and Jado with Jushin Thunder Liger for the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship.[10] After Koji Kanemoto defeated Tanaka in 2002'sBest of the Super Juniors, Kanemoto defeated Tanaka once again for his IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship, and a month later lost his tag team championship toTsuyoshi Kikuchi andYoshinobu Kanemaru.[11]
In late 2002 Tanaka began wearing a mask and calling himself "HEAT" (ヒート) in reference to theGame Boy Advance video gameToukon Heat. In only his second match under the persona, Tanaka faced on Kanemoto in an attempt to regain the title but failed.[12] 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 alongsideManabu Nakanishi. Heat finally began to pick up steam in 2003, and defeatedJado in December to become a three-time IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion.[11] In September 2004, Heat returned to his birth name and reunited with Kanemoto to challengeGedo andJado for the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship. Before the match could end, however, Minoru turned on Kanemoto and helped Gedo and Jado win, turning heel and joining CTU in the process. Heat's true success came after turning heel, though he competed as both Heat and simply Minoru Tanaka after joining CTU. After losing toTiger Mask in the semi-final of the 2004Best of the Super Juniors, he found his new rival and defeated Tiger Mask. Their rivalry continued over the year and culminated atToukon Festival: Wrestling World where Heat lost his IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship to Tiger Mask.[11] After this loss, he officially dropped the mask and began wrestling as Minoru Tanaka once again until dropping his surname, calling himself Minoru (稔,Minoru). He also competed as Masked CTU-J sporadically from this point forward.[13] On May 14, Minoru teamed up with new CTU recruitHirooki Goto and defeated Koji Kanemoto andWataru Inoue to become a three-time IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champion and would lose them to El Samurai andRyusuke Taguchi in early 2006.[10]
In 2006, Minoru joined the AmericanTotal Nonstop Action Wrestling promotion as a member ofTeam Japan (consisting ofHirooki Goto, Jushin Thunder Liger,Black Tiger and Minoru), one of the four teams competing in theTNA 2006 World X-Cup Tournament. He debuted in TNA on April 23, 2006, atLockdown, where he teamed withHirooki Goto against Team USA membersSonjay Dutt,Jay Lethal andAlex Shelley.Team Japan defeated USA when Black Tiger pinned Lethal. On the April 27 episode ofImpact!, Goto and Minoru lost to Dutt and Shelley, giving a first round victory and two points toTeam USA.
Following his stint in TNA, Minoru managed to find success upon returning to Japan, as he won the 2006Best of the Super Juniors after defeating 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 defeated Koji Kanemoto for the title, making him a four-time IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion.[11] He would hold the title until he was defeated by Ryusuke Taguchi.[11] After this loss, CTU would take a turn for the worse and eventually disbanded on August 8 where all members would wrestle under their Masked CTU personas.[13]
In late 2007, after the break up of CTU, some of the former members, which included Prince Devitt, Hirooki Goto and Minoru along withShinsuke Nakamura, formed the stable RISE.[14] In early 2008, Minoru and Devitt would win the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship.[10] However, they would lose the title not even a month later to members of the Legend stable,AKIRA and Jushin Thunder 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.[10] They lost the titles in October toNo Limit (Tetsuya Naito andYujiro 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.
After leaving New Japan on January 31, 2009, in a shocking move, Tanaka quickly signed with rival promotionAll Japan Pro Wrestling in late February and made his presence felt by joining the hatedVoodoo Murders stable, replacing the recently retired brother YASSHI in the group. In his first All Japan pay-per-view, he took onKaz Hayashi for theWorld Junior Heavyweight Championship and lost. Moving on from this loss, he teamed up withToshizo to take part in 2009'sAJPW Junior Tag League, where they defeated Kaz Hayashi andShuji Kondo. After finishing top inJunior League 2009 he was defeated bySuper 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 theJunior League where he lost toJimmy Yang. In late 2010, he won anAll Asia Tag Team Championship contendership tournament withKONO but failed to win the titles on the next night.
On January 2, 2011, Minoru won the World Junior Heavyweight Championship fromKaz Hayashi.[15] On June 3, 2011, in the aftermath of a backstage fight betweenYoshikazu Taru andNobukazu 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.[16] Minoru's suspension was lifted on June 30.[17] 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.[18]
On December 21, Tanaka along withMasakatsu Funaki andMasayuki Kono formed the stable Stack of Arms. The stable tried to start of strong by winning theAJPW 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 andSuwama). WhenKoji Kanemoto joined Stack of Arms in October 2012, their fortunes turned around, Kanemoto and Tanaka defeatedKazushi Miyamoto andTomoaki Honma to win the vacantAll 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 toHikaru Sato andHiroshi Yamato but would regain the title less than a month later. Their second reign ended on April 25, 2013, when they were defeated byAtsushi Aoki andKotaro 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.[19] On June 30, Tanaka unsuccessfully challenged Yoshinobu Kanemaru for the World Junior Heavyweight Championship in his final All Japan match.[20]
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 the2017 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 shooterHikaru 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, andTakao 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'sGAORA 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 newWrestle-1 promotion.[21][22][23] During the promotion'sinaugural event on September 8, Tanaka reunited the Junior Stars with Koji Kanemoto in a tag team match, where they defeatedFujita Hayato andMasaaki Mochizuki.[24] 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).[25] In September, Tanaka took part in theWrestle-1 Championshiptournament, where he made it to the second round, before losing toKai.[26] Through Wrestle-1's working relationship with American promotionTotal Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA), Tanaka worked TNA'sBound for Glory event in Tokyo on October 12, defeatingManik.[27] On December 7, Tanaka defeated Hiroshi Yamato to win the European Wrestling Promotion (EWP) Intercontinental Championship.[28] Later that month, Tanaka traveled toHannover, Germany to successfully defend the title against Michael Kovac.[29] Through Wrestle-1's relationship withPro Wrestling Zero1, Tanaka won two more titles on March 1, 2015, when he defeated Jason Lee for theInternational Junior Heavyweight andNWA World Junior Heavyweight Championships.[30] On May 5, Tanaka won yet another title, when he defeated Kaz Hayashi in the finals of atournament to become the inauguralWrestle-1 Cruiser Division Champion.[31] Tanaka lost the first of his four titles on May 16, whenTajiri defeated him for the EWP Intercontinental Championship.[32] He regained the title on May 30 in a match also contested for the Wrestle-1 Cruiser Division Championship.[33] On September 12, Tanaka lost the EWP Intercontinental Championship toRobbie Dynamite in Hannover, Germany.[34] On September 23, Tanaka lost the Wrestle-1 Cruiser Division Championship toAndy Wu in his sixth defense.[35] On October 11, Tanaka lost his final two titles, the Zero1 junior heavyweight championships, toShinjiro Otani.[36] On January 31, 2016, Tanaka, Kaz Hayashi and Tajiri won the vacantUWA World Trios Championship.[37] On June 28, Tanaka announced he was leaving Wrestle-1 due to his contract with the company expiring.[38] On July 29, Tanaka, Hayashi and Tajiri lost the UWA World Trios Championship to Andy Wu, Daiki Inaba andSeiki Yoshioka in their fifth defense.[39]
Tanaka made his first appearance in NOAH after 15 years on September 5, 2017, and called for a shot at theGHC Junior Heavyweight Championship, but first defeatedHitoshi Kumano on October 1. He would eventually get his shot on December 22, but was defeated by the defending championDaisuke Harada. On March 11, 2018, he andYoshinari Ogawa defeated XX (Hi69 andTaiji Ishimori) to win theGHC 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) andYo-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 againstTadasuke 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 defeatedIkuto Hidaka andTakuya 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 partnerHiroshi 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 and 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 wrestlerYumi Fukawa soon after her retirement.[40] The couple have two children. Their eldest daughterKizuna is a fellow professional wrestler and has been working inDream Star Fighting Marigold since July 2024.[41]
| 2 matches | 0 wins | 2 losses |
| By knockout | 0 | 2 |
| Res. | Record | Opponent | Method | Event | Date | Round | Time | Location | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Loss | 0–2 | Takuya Wada | TKO (punches and elbows) | Gleat MMA Ver.0 | December 14, 2022 | 1 | 1:37 | Tokyo, Japan | Openweight bout. |
| Loss | 0–1 | Sanae Kikuta | Submission (guillotine choke) | RINGS - Rings Battle Genesis II | October 14, 1997 | 2 | 3:08 | Korakuen HallTokyo, Japan | Openweight bout. |
