29 Facts About Toshiaki Kawada

Toshiaki Kawada was born on December 8,1963 and is a Japanese semi-retired professional wrestler best known for his work in All Japan Pro Wrestling, whom he worked for from his debut in 1982 up until 2008.

Toshiaki Kawada is known for his extremely stiff wrestling style and martial arts strikes, which earned him the nickname "Dangerous K".

Toshiaki Kawada has the distinction of having competed in 17 matches that were given a 5-Star Rating and one match which received a 6-Star rating by Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.

Toshiaki Kawada attended the Ashikaga University High school, which happened to be the same high school as Misawa, who was one year Toshiaki Kawada's senior.

Toshiaki Kawada was then sent to North America for a year in November 1985, where he gained experience as a professional wrestler in Fred Behrend's Texas All-Star Wrestling, Stu Hart's Stampede Wrestling and Frank Valois' International Wrestling ; despite having no Korean heritage, Toshiaki Kawada was billed as "Kio Kawata" from Seoul, South Korea in Stampede Wrestling for a very short time around June 1986.

Reportedly unhappy with his time overseas, Toshiaki Kawada has rarely spoken about his experiences in America in subsequent years.

Toshiaki Kawada was paired with Hiromichi Fuyuki, forming a tag team known as "Footloose".

When Revolution stable mate Ashura Hara was expelled from All Japan in 1988 for gambling debts, Toshiaki Kawada was promoted to team with Tenryu in that year's World's Strongest Tag Determination League, losing a memorable final match to Stan Hansen and Terry Gordy.

Toshiaki Kawada earned his first Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship opportunity on October 24,1991, unsuccessfully challenging Tsuruta, and was turned back in the following year in Triple Crown challenges to Stan Hansen and Misawa ; the match with Hansen was named Match of the Year by Tokyo Sports, and finished second behind the Misawa match in Weekly Pro Wrestling's year end fan poll for Match of the Year.

Toshiaki Kawada agreed, signalling the end of his alliance with Misawa.

Shortly afterward, they successfully defended the title against Misawa and Kenta Kobashi on June 1,1993, in a match that Baba regarded as the greatest match he'd ever seen; it was the first of nine legendary matches between the sides, and Toshiaki Kawada would hold the World Tag Team Championship with Taue six times.

Toshiaki Kawada followed by losing his third straight Triple Crown challenge against Mitsuharu Misawa in the June 3,1994.

Toshiaki Kawada pinned Misawa for the first time on June 9,1995, when he teamed with Taue to face Misawa and Kobashi, but Misawa and Kobashi came back to defeat them in the Tag League Final in the last straight tag meeting of the two teams.

Toshiaki Kawada spent much of 1996 in Giant Baba's doghouse for publicly questioning All Japan's isolationist promotional policy at a time when rival New Japan drew record business running interpromotional matches; he watched Taue and Kobashi win the Triple Crown in the place of what looked to be the time for "his push".

Toshiaki Kawada worked one interpromotional match on a major UWFi show, but All Japan chose not to follow up on either a promotional feud with UWFi nor on the sudden attention Toshiaki Kawada drew.

Toshiaki Kawada pinned Misawa for the first time in a singles match in the 1997 Carnival Finals mini-round robin, then followed up to pin Kobashi the same night to win the Carnival championship for the second time; neither win had quite the impact one would expect given the results.

The crowning moment of Toshiaki Kawada's career came on May 1,1998, as he pinned Misawa for the second time to win the Triple Crown at All Japan's first Tokyo Dome show AJPW 25th Anniversary.

Toshiaki Kawada returned in May 1999, but would revert to the sidelines due to an eye injury in August.

Toshiaki Kawada's reign restored dignity to the Triple Crown at the expense of the said tournaments.

Toshiaki Kawada made the sports entertainment based HUSTLE promotion his new home, and immediately turned heel in 2005; he turned his back on his young student Taichi Ishikari and friends Shinjiro Ohtani and Naoya Ogawa of the HUSTLE Army to join the dastardly Monster Army, led by Generalissimo Takada and swimsuit model Yinling the Erotic Terrorist.

On July 18,2005, at the Tokyo Dome, Toshiaki Kawada wrestled one final 27-minute classic against his old rival Mitsuharu Misawa.

Toshiaki Kawada immediately expressed interest to work in his home promotion , and finally made his long-awaited return on July 30,2006, defeating D'Lo Brown.

However, Toshiaki Kawada was unsuccessful, falling to his own finishing maneuver.

On June 24,2007, Satoshi Kojima turned his back on All-Japan Pro Wrestling and aligned himself with All-Japan's nemesis, the Voodoo Murders group; this angered Toshiaki Kawada, who had left Kojima to lead All-Japan when he lost the Triple Crown in 2005.

On September 16, following the conclusion of the opening show for the 2007 Flashing Tour, Toshiaki Kawada issued a challenge to Kensuke Sasaki for the Triple Crown Championship; Sasaki accepted, and Toshiaki Kawada challenged for the title at All-Japan's 35th Anniversary Pro Wrestling Love in Yoyogi show on October 18,2007.

Toshiaki Kawada teamed with Ryuji Hijikata to challenge Sasaki and Katsuhiko Nakajima on September 29,2007, at the final show of the Flashing Tour.

Toshiaki Kawada competed in Block A of the 2008 Champion Carnival in April, where he most notably wrestled Hiroshi Tanahashi to a draw, and pinned Keiji Muto in what would be his final All Japan match on April 9,2008.

Toshiaki Kawada returned to NOAH in late February 28,2010, trading victories with Takeshi Morishima.

Two weeks Later, Toshiaki Kawada would be announced as a part of NOAH's inaugural Global League.