Toshiaki Kawada

Toshiaki Kawada
Born (1963-12-08) December 8, 1963 (age 60)[1]
Ohira, Shimotsuga District, Tochigi (now part of Tochigi city), Japan
Professional wrestling career
Ring name(s)Black Mephisto
Hustle K
Kio Kawada
Monster K
Mr. Toshiaki
Toshiaki Kawada
Billed height1.83 m (6 ft 0 in)
Billed weight105 kg (231 lb)[1]
Trained byGiant Baba
Genichiro Tenryu
All Japan Pro Wrestling[2]
DebutOctober 4, 1982[2]
RetiredAugust 15, 2010

Toshiaki Kawada (川田 利明, Kawada Toshiaki) (born December 8, 1963) is a Japanese semi-retired professional wrestler. He is best known for his work in All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW), whom he worked for from his debut in 1982 up until 2008. In All Japan Pro Wrestling, he was a 5 time Triple Crown Heavyweight Champion, a 9 time World Tag Team Champion, three-time winner of the Real World Tag League and a two-time winner of the Champion Carnival. He was also recognised as the ace of the promotion from 2000 to 2005.

Known by fans and his contemporaries as "Dangerous K" (デンジャラス K, Denjarasu kei), he is widely considered one of the greatest wrestlers of all time. His matches against Mitsuharu Misawa, Jun Akiyama, and Kenta Kobashi in the 1990s are argued by many fans and experts in the industry as some of the greatest professional wrestling matches of all time. He is known for his extremely stiff wrestling style and martial arts strikes, which earned his nickname. He also has the distinction of having competed in 21 matches that were given a perfect 5-star rating by Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, and three Tokyo Sports Match of the Year awards, which too brought him the distinction of being nicknamed the "Best Match Machine" (名勝負製造機, Mei shōbu seizō-ki).

  1. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference PWI500-2004 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ a b "Toshiaki Kawada". Puroresu Central. Retrieved August 31, 2019.

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