History Wrestling / MinoruSuzuki

* BigBadWannabe: While he certainly has the ''[[TheDreaded aura]]'' of a major threat in NJPW (to the point where Wrestling/KennyOmega is legitimately terrified of him), outright ''destroyed'' Wrestling/HiroshiTanahashi, arguably ''the'' babyface of NJPW at New Beginning in Sapporo for the IWGP Intercontinental title, leaving the latter too weakened to even stand on his own power, and was effectively the company's KnightOfCerebus upon his 2017 return, his track record has been consistently lacking as far as top title results, especially compared to the {{Big Bad}}s of the other main factions. Wrestling/LosIngobernablesDeJapon leader Wrestling/TetsuyaNaito, as well as Wrestling/BulletClub aces Wrestling/AJStyles, Wrestling/JayWhite, and the aforementioned Omega, have all managed to claim victory over IWGP Heavyweight Champion Wrestling/KazuchikaOkada, and both LIJ and Bullet Club have all directly threatened the champion in several high profile programs against his CHAOS faction. In fact, before Okada became the top face of the company and turned CHAOS face with him, both he and Nakamura led the group in capturing said championship as the company's top heels, with Okada toppling Tanahashi while Nakamura knocked off Togi Makabe, his own predecessor as the BigBad. Meanwhile, for all of Suzuki-gun's aura of terror and mid-card championship success, Minoru Suzuki has had only ''one'' program with Okada, which he lost. (TV Tropes wishes it to be known that the statements made here are merely those of the individuals who write them, and do not in anyway reflect the mindsets of TV Tropes as a whole. Please don't kill us Suzuki-sama.)

* GoodCounterpart: In a loose definition of "good" (perhaps such as GoodIsNotNice), he could be considered a close one to Wrestling/{{TARU}} in AJPW. They both were wrestlers with martial arts background (MMA in Suzuki's case, karate in TARU's) who had come to reinvent themselves in mainstream pro wrestling after other tenures (Pancrase and Toryumon Japan, respectively), who led factions (GURENTAI/Partisan Forces and Voodoo Murders), had good mic skills and violent personalities (Suzuki was a charismatic bully, TARU a psychotic yakuza), famously loved J-Pop singers (Ayumi Nakahara and Misato Watanabe) and enjoyed attacking ring crewmen at random (Suzuki for being a jerk, TARU for being evil).

* RealMenWearPink: He is a fan of singer Ayumi Nakahara and uses an incredibly light and soft song of hers called "Kaze ni Nare" as entrance theme.

* SurprisinglyGoodEnglish: One of the few natives in New Japan that can hold a reasonable conversation in English.

** After leaving AJPW for NJPW, Suzuki started playing the role of Wrestling/{{TARU}} for the latter promotion, having a similar schtick of a psycho martial artist that attacked people at random and led fearsome stables. The similarities among them actually increased around this time, given that Suzuki went from a wild card in AJPW to a straight out villain in NJPW like TARU was.

** Also Manabu Yamada, a Wrestling/SatoruSayama trainee who cleanly defeated both Funaki and Suzuki in their primes. He is pretty much the only Pancraseist who has managed to out-grapple Suzuki through pure skill and not by size or strength.
** Suprisingly, despite the reputation of being a poor fighter that his unfortunate MMA career brought upon him, Wrestling/NobuhikoTakada has been cited by Suzuki as his personal bane in the UWF Newborn dojo. He and Funaki recalled how Takada was constantly defeating Suzuki in sparring, often using the same technique over and over for added mocking, and how Suzuki did not felt like he had surpassed Takada until he started training for real fights full time in Pancrase.

* BeatThemAtTheirOwnGame: Suzuki once ended up in the shorter end of his own violent antics when Wrestling/{{SUWA}}, his retiring predecessor and homologue at this field, decided to end his last match in NOAH in trademark way by attacking everybody, including those who like Suzuki were teaming up with him that night. Naturally, Suzuki wasn't amused at this, and when he recovered from the gear box shot KO he had received from SUWA, he ganged up on him and beat him up along with everybody. (It seems Suzuki didn't harbor ill feelings, however, as he still teamed up with SUWA one more time in Mexico in the latter's retirement match.)

* BrokenAce: Very much like Funaki, Suzuki was the kind of fighter who looked to be the best and never gave up no matter what, which ultimately played against him at long term. His stubbornness to keep up with the grueling Pancrase schedule through injuries that weren't healed up (including a ''herniated disk'') and against bigger opponents (it was an openweight competition, and he was one of the smallest guys in Pancrase) granted him a much worse MMA record than he would have probably had if he had fought in a more protective environment.

** Similarly, as soon as Suzuki saw his opponent Yoshiki Takahashi not wearing his shin pads (meaning he was going to fight with his hands only), he wasted no time in taking off his own pads and goading Yoshiki to a slap-boxing duel in the ring. As everybody who knew their respective fighting styles would expect, Suzuki ate overhands and uppercuts left and right and was knocked out.

* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: As the co-creator of Pancrase, he was one of the best grapplers in the promotion, and is notably the only guy with a (partially) legit win over Wrestling/KenShamrock, a feat who not even Funaki, Manabu Yamada, or Creator/BasRutten could repeat.

* AsskickingEqualsAuthority: He's the leader of and it's called Wrestling/SuzukiGun for a reason; because he's the toughest and most dangerous of the entire group. In fact the group had originally formed on its own as [[Wrestling/SatoshiKojima Kojima-gun]] until he came back from a hiatus and outright took the stable from underneath Satoshi after deciding he wanted it for himself. No one in the group's history after that, from Davey Boy Smith Jr. and Lance Archer to the All American standout Shelton Benjamin to the AxCrazy Takashi Iizuka has attempted to usurp leadership or try to betray him. In fact, he commands so much respect that ''his'' influence rubs off on ''them''.

* ArmorPiercingSlap: For what the words literally mean, his high-impact ''harite'' slaps make his opponents fall like they were hit by a shovel. Just ask Wrestling/KensukeSasaki, for example. For what the trope page describes, there was a time he tagged with and invited the "wrath" of the 57 kg AKINO...

** Maurice Smith, who defeated Suzuki in a (worked) different style fight in UWF Newborn, and later again in a (real) kickboxing bout in Pancrase. It took a third match under mixed rules (real again) for Minoru to get his revenge. The thing was so personal that Suzuki admitted that their first fight left him traumatized. He seems to have gotten over it as they were recently seen hanging out together.

* ColdBloodedTorture: Basically his entire fighting style. His match with AJ Styles is possibly the crowning example of this, with Suzuki spending at least half the match sadistically twisting AJ's limbs in ways they ''should not bend''

* EvilerThanThou:
** Generally speaking, this is Suzuki's penchant. When facing off against other heels, he will make it his personal mission to be more ruthless and dastardly than they are. ALighterShadeOfBlack applies hard when facing him; Suzuki will either make his opponent a surprisingly sympathetic figure, or exact a heavy dose of PayEvilUntoEvil against others. When it comes down to being a villain, he simply cannot be outdone. Suzuki-gun as a whole is so reviled and despicable that other heel factions such as Bullet Club and Los Ingobernables de Japon are treated as faces by default when facing them. Hell, when he and Taichi pulled this on CHAOS by singling out and beating up its champion and co-leader, "Rain Maker" Wrestling/KazuchikaOkada, this actually started CHAOS on the path to becoming a WildCard face group.

* GoodCounterpart: To Wrestling/{{TARU}} in AJPW. They both were wrestlers with martial arts background (MMA in Suzuki's case, karate in TARU's) who had come to reinvent themselves in mainstream pro wrestling after other tenures (Pancrase and Toryumon Japan, respectively), who led factions (GURENTAI/Partisan Forces and Voodoo Murders), had good mic skills and violent personalities (Suzuki was a charismatic bully, TARU a psychotic yakuza), famously loved J-Pop singers (Ayumi Nakahara and Misato Watanabe) and enjoyed attacking ring crewmen at random (Suzuki for being a jerk, TARU for being evil).

** According to Paul Lazenby though, during a training session Suzuki was aware that Paul had injured his arm and managed to stretch him for half an hour without hurting it. Then when Paul tried to slink off, feeling a bit defeated, Minoru made him sit and [[PetTheDog ask questions about improving his technique.]]

** He once was strangely declared victor by TKO after his opponent, Guy Mezger, accidentally kicked him in the groin. Apparently, they were forced to choose that result because downright DQ wasn't in the rules at the time, but the weird thing is that you did ''not'' lose a fight in Pancrase by a single foul (you were merely deducted a point)... unless your opponent had some influence, of course. The official result of the match nowadays is a win for Suzuki, but Mezger's personal record has it as the no contest he thinks it should have been.

* WorkedShoot: His loss against Funaki and his second win against Wrestling/KenShamrock are generally known to be works, as well as rumoredly one of his losses to Frank Shamrock. However, being Pancrase, we will probably never know for sure.

* SoundtrackDissonance: Ayumi Nakamura's "Kaze ni Nare" is hardly the tune you would expect to hear announce the arrival of a black-clad, ill-tempered, ruthless fighting shogun. At the very least you would expect the guy to be a {{Bishonen}}. Sure, it's J-rock, but it also has piano, a female singer, occasional melodic reference to "[[Music/{{Survivor}} Eye of the Tiger]]", and lyrics about being a lonely warrior and (per its title) becoming like the wind. But Minoru Suzuki, being a fan, makes it work so it just adds to how frightening he is.

Minoru Suzuki (born June 17, 1968) is a UsefulNotes/{{Japan}}ese {{Professional Wrestl|ing}}er and UsefulNotes/MixedMartialArts fighter, co-founder of the proto-MMA company Pancrase along Wrestling/MasakatsuFunaki. He debuted in 1988 for Wrestling/NewJapanProWrestling, being a Wrestling/YoshiakiFujiwara trainee along with Funaki. When Fujiwara left for the shoot-style promotion [[Wrestling/UniversalWrestlingFederation UWF Newborn]], Funaki and Suzuki got a permission to follow him, and they became part of the UWF roster. The promotion fell afterwards and his faction, led by Fujiwara, formed Pro Wrestling Fujiwara Gumi, but it was short-lived as well. Funaki and Suzuki realized that Japanese crowds really would pay for see "real" matches with non-worked outcomes and launched Pancrase, the second MMA promotion in history. Using the catch wrestling roots they had learned from Fujiwara, which they called "hybrid wrestling", the two became the aces of Pancrase and had legendary fights with names like Wrestling/KenShamrock, Creator/BasRutten and Guy Mezger, with Minoru gaining the King of Pancrase title against Shamrock. While not as famous or successful as his partner Funaki, Minoru made himself known for his brutality and aloofness in and out of the ring, an aura he would keep the rest of his career. Nonetheless considered a great wrestler, Suzuki retired due to injuries making him lose fights and returned to pro wrestling, becoming a main eventer for Wrestling/AllJapanProWrestling and later Wrestling/NewJapanProWrestling. In 2015, he'd win the GHC Heavyweight title in Wrestling/ProWrestlingNOAH and in 2022 he'd win the Wrestling/RingOfHonor Television Championship, his first title in North America.

Minoru Suzuki (born June 17, 1968) is a UsefulNotes/{{Japan}}ese {{Professional Wrestl|ing}}er and UsefulNotes/MixedMartialArts fighter, co-founder of the proto-MMA company Pancrase along Wrestling/MasakatsuFunaki. He debuted in 1988 for Wrestling/NewJapanProWrestling, being a Wrestling/YoshiakiFujiwara trainee along with Funaki. When Fujiwara left for the shoot-style promotion [[Wrestling/UniversalWrestlingFederation UWF Newborn]], Funaki and Suzuki got a permission to follow him, and they became part of the UWF roster. The promotion fell afterwards and his faction, led by Fujiwara, formed Pro Wrestling Fujiwara Gumi, but it was short-lived as well. Funaki and Suzuki realized that Japanese crowds really would pay for see "real" matches with non-worked outcomes and launched Pancrase, the second MMA promotion in history. Using the catch wrestling roots they had learned from Fujiwara, which they called "hybrid wrestling", the two became the aces of Pancrase and had legendary fights with names like Wrestling/KenShamrock, Creator/BasRutten and Guy Mezger, with Minoru gaining the King of Pancrase title against Shamrock. While not as famous or successful as his partner Funaki, Minoru made himself known for his brutality and aloofness in and out of the ring, an aura he would keep the rest of his career. Nonetheless considered a great wrestler, Suzuki retired due to injuries making him lose fights and returned to pro wrestling, becoming a main eventer for Wrestling/AllJapanProWrestling and later Wrestling/NewJapanProWrestling. In 2015, he'd win the GHC Heavyweight title in Wrestling/ProWrestlingNOAH.

As usual, you can find the basics at [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minoru_Suzuki The Other Wiki]].

* EgocentricTeamNaming: Wrestling/{{Suzuki-gun}} ("Suzuki's Army").

* PowerStable: Minoru Gundan, Mexican Amigos (as Ray Suzuki), GURENTAI, Partisan Forces and Wrestling/{{Suzuki-gun}}.

* AsskickingEqualsAuthority: He's the leader of and it's called Wrestling/{{Suzuki-gun}} for a reason; because he's the toughest and most dangerous of the entire group. In fact the group had originally formed on its own as [[Wrestling/SatoshiKojima Kojima-gun]] until he came back from a hiatus and outright took the stable from underneath Satoshi after deciding he wanted it for himself. No one in the group's history after that, from Davey Boy Smith Jr. and Lance Archer to the All American standout Shelton Benjamin to the AxCrazy Takashi Iizuka has attempted to usurp leadership or try to betray him. In fact, he commands so much respect that ''his'' influence rubs off on ''them''.

* WorthyOpponent: He considered [[Wrestling/DeanAmbrose Jon Moxley]] this, as he said that he is "a lot of fun" and Suzuki had been waiting for them to fight. This is probably because Moxley, despite being ''terrified'' of Suzuki and knowing he's in for a hellacious beating every time they go at it, is able to overcome him in matches more often than not for the sole reason of his unshakable willpower and fighting resolve.
* WouldHitAGirl: If a woman wants to legitimately step into the ring with him, he'll steamroll them without a second thought. Just asks Wrestling/{{Kana|koUrai}}.

* WorthyOpponent: He considered Wrestling/{{Jon Moxley}} this, as he said that he is "a lot of fun" and Suzuki had been waiting for them to fight.

* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: As the co-creator of Pancrase, he was one of the best grapplers in the promotion, and is notably the only guy with a (partially) legit win over Wrestling/KenShamrock, a feat who not even Funaki or Creator/BasRutten could repeat.

* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: As the co-creator of Pancrase, he was one of the best grapplers in the promotion, and is notably the only guy with a (partially) legit win over Wrestling/KenShamrock, a feat who not even Funaki could repeat.

* Suzuki and K.E.S. also formed a bulwark against the Wrestling/NationalWrestlingAlliance contingent that returned to Japan under new NWA owner Wrestling/BruceTharpe's leadership to invade former member NJPW.

** With in the CHAOS Suzuki-gun rivalry is Minoru Suzuki vs Toru Yano. The contrast between them being Minoru cares most about trashing his opponents, often in ways not allowed by the rule book while Yano mostly cares about finding the easiest ways out of matches, such as when he once beat Suzuki by count out after handcuffing him to a guardrail. It came to a head when both lead their groups from New Japan intent on conquering NOAH at the same time.

* RedBaron: Many. "Sekaiichi Seikaku no Warui Otoko" ("The Man with the Worst Personality in the World"), "Hama no Keikaya" ("The Brawler from Hama"), "Kamisori Fighter" ("Razor Fighter"), "Seiaki Oja" ("The Ill-Natured Leader") and "[[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking Kaze]]" ("Wind"), "The Demon", the "Murder Grandpa".

* ToxicFriendInfluence: Shelton Benjamin slowly became more and more like Suzuki as he hung around him in NJPW and NOAH.

* VillainTeamUp: With the Killer Elite Squad when the Wrestling/NationalWrestlingAlliance returned to Japan under new owner Wrestling/BruceTharpe's ownership to invade former member NJPW.

* WhiteHairBlackHeart: On special occasions and big matches he'd dye his hair white for the event, he'd be just as nasty and brutal with it as he is with his usual hair color.
* WholesomeCrossdresser: His Minoru Nagayo getup, a parody of Chigusa Nagayo he did for the "Crush Girls 25th Anniversary Memorial Match" at '' NOSAWA Bom-Ba-Ye #5 Rongai One Night Stand''

** Generally speaking, this is Suzuki's penchant. When facing off against other heels, he will make it his personal mission to be more ruthless and dastardly than they are. ALighterShadeOfBlack applies hard when facing him; Suzuki will either make his opponent a surprisingly sympathetic figure, or exact a heavy dose of PayEvilUntoEvil against others. When it comes down to being a villain, he simply cannot be outdone. Suzuki-gun as a whole is so reviled and despicable that other heel factions such as Bullet Club and Los Ingobernables de Japon are treated as faces by default when facing them.
** He and Taichi pulled this on CHAOS by singling out and beating up its champion and co-leader, "Rain Maker" Wrestling/KazuchikaOkada.

** Both his gimmick and his violent antics strongly reminisce of Wrestling/{{SUWA}}, another famous AxCrazy prone to thrash his opponents around and use illegal tactics (who might have inspired Suzuki had not Suzuki had his own reputation). In fact, Suzuki and SUWA teamed up in three special occasions before the latter's first retirement in 2007.
** After leaving AJPW for NJPW, Suzuki started playing the role of Wrestling/{{TARU}} for the latter promotion, having a similar schtick of a psycho martial artist that attacks people at random and leads fearsome stables. The similarities among them actually increased around this time, given that Suzuki went from a wild card in AJPW to a straight out villain in NJPW like TARU was.

** Suprisingly, despite the reputation of being a poor fighter that his unfortunate MMA career brought upon him, Wrestling/NobuhikoTakada has been cited by Suzuki as his bane in the UWF Newborn dojo. He and Funaki told how Takada was constantly defeating Suzuki in sparring, often using the same technique over and over for added mocking, and how Suzuki did not felt like he had surpassed Takada until he started training for real fights full time in Pancrase.

** Maurice Smith, who defeated Suzuki in a different style fight in UWF Newborn, and later again in a kickboxing bout in Pancrase. It took a third match under mixed rules for Minoru to get his revenge. The thing was so personal that Suzuki admitted that their first fight left him traumatized. He seems to have gotten over it as they were recently seen hanging out together.

* AlwaysSomeoneBetter
** Every time somebody talks about Funaki and Suzuki, it's a matter of time that they mention Funaki as the best fighter of the two, which is not too illogic considering that Funaki was bigger, less injury prone and more open-minded about cross-training.

* AsskickingEqualsAuthority: He's the leader of and it's called Suzuki-gun for a reason; because he's the toughest and most dangerous of the entire group. In fact the group had originally formed on its own as [[Wrestling/SatoshiKojima Kojima-gun]] until he came back from a hiatus and outright took the stable from underneath Satoshi after deciding he wanted it for himself. No one in the group's history after that, from Davey Boy Smith Jr. and Lance Archer to the All American standout Shelton Benjamin to the AxCrazy Takashi Iizuka has attempted to usurp leadership or try to betray him. In fact, he commands so much respect that ''his'' influence rubs off on ''them''.

* EgocentricTeamNaming: Suzuki Gun ("Suzuki's Army").

* PowerStable: Minoru Gundan, Mexican Amigos (as Ray Suzuki), GURENTAI, Partisan Forces and Suzuki-gun.

* IKnowKarate: An Olympian amateur wrestler, who finished second nationwide and figured as an Olympic alternate (and also trained in UsefulNotes/{{kendo}}). Later learned UsefulNotes/CatchWrestling under Wrestling/YoshiakiFujiwara and Wrestling/KarlGotch and according to himself also took some sambo lessons under Victor Koga and a bit of UsefulNotes/MuayThai under Singsak Sosiripan.

* MyKungFuIsStrongerThanYours: Aside from his known dislike towards foreigners, Suzuki notoriously used to hate UsefulNotes/BrazilianJiuJitsu, to the extent he once forbade his students to learn it. He also openly criticized Funaki and Shamrock when they went to the Machado school to spar, especially after they gave a poor performance against the brothers due to their unfamiliarity with Gi grappling. He probably got this from his master Wrestling/KarlGotch.

* WorthyOpponent: He considered Wrestling/{{Jon Moxley}} this, as he said that he is " a lot of fun " and Suzuki had been waiting for them to fight.

* AchillesHeel: In MMA, striking. His kickboxing skills were very low, as he was never really interested in learning to hit and trade properly like some of his colleagues, and was also notoriously fragile overall. He often would crumble down to some well placed strikes after having dominated with his grappling up to that point.

* SadistTeacher: There are stories about Suzuki brutalizing Pancrase students just because, and while this is not an uncommon thing in Japan, he is said to have done it thoroughly.

* BigBadWannabe:
** While he certainly has the ''[[TheDreaded aura]]'' of a major threat in NJPW (to the point where Wrestling/KennyOmega is legitimately terrified of him), outright ''destroyed'' Wrestling/HiroshiTanahashi, arguably ''the'' babyface of NJPW at New Beginning in Sapporo for the IWGP Intercontinental title, leaving the latter too weakened to even stand on his own power, and was effectively the company's KnightOfCerebus upon his 2017 return, his track record has been consistently lacking as far as top title results, especially compared to the {{Big Bad}}s of the other main factions. Wrestling/LosIngobernablesDeJapon leader Wrestling/TetsuyaNaito, as well as Wrestling/BulletClub aces Wrestling/AJStyles, Wrestling/JayWhite, and the aforementioned Omega, have all managed to claim victory over IWGP Heavyweight Champion Wrestling/KazuchikaOkada, and both LIJ and Bullet Club have all directly threatened the champion in several high profile programs against his CHAOS faction. In fact, before Okada became the top face of the company and turned CHAOS face with him, both he and Nakamura led the group in capturing said championship as the company's top heels, with Okada toppling Tanahashi while Nakamura knocked off Togi Makabe, his own predecessor as the BigBad. Meanwhile, for all of Suzuki-gun's aura of terror and mid-card championship success, Minoru Suzuki has had only ''one'' program with Okada, which he lost.
** TV Tropes wishes it to be known that the statements made here are merely those of the individuals who write them, and do not in anyway reflect the mindsets of Tv Tropes as a whole. Please don't kill us Suzuki-sama.

* RedBaron: Many. "Sekaiichi Seikaku no Warui Otoko" ("The Man with the Worst Personality in the World"), "Hama no Keikaya" ("The Brawler from Hama"), "Kamisori Fighter" ("Razor Fighter"), "Seiaki Oja" ("The Ill-Natured Leader") and "[[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking Kaze]]" ("Wind"), the "Murder Grandpa".