History Wrestling / ToshiakiKawada

* EarlyBirdCameo: He took the Wrestling/NewJapanProWrestling entrance exam after he finished middle school and actually passed it, but he decided to step back and finish high school instead.

* AlternateCompanyEquivalent: Uncannily to Wrestling/ShinyaHashimoto. Wrestler with a combat sports background including karate? Check. Wrestling style composed of stiff kicks and a vertical drop brainbuster? Check. Unusual appearance but angry personality? Check. Part of a ThreeAmigos or a FourIsDeath number? Check. Trouble with their respective promotion's management due to their opposition to impopular/improductive policies? Check. Passed the last part of their careers mostly away from his home promotion, also doing HUSTLE? Check.

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

* AllAsiansKnowMartialArts: Subverted. He and Hiromichi Fuyuki were named Footloose in United States, because at the time you could not be a Japanese wrestler in the States without being showered with references to kicks, samurai, kamikaze and similar stuff. However, although certainly a trained karateka, Kawada was never a fan of portraying explicitly a martial artist on the ring (at least until HUSTLE, where he played a BruceLeeClone), while Fuyuki was not a great kicker at all (although, to be fair, he did have some kicks in his moveset).

* BruceLeeClone: Parodied in HUSTLE, where he would wear a black and yellow tracksuit in reference to Creator/BruceLee's iconic attire from ''Film/GameOfDeath''. Actually, given that Kawada has dressed in black and yellow for most of his career (although in the reverse color pattern), it might have been a reference to Lee all along.

-->"I don’t want to say it aloud in front of Ishikari's father, but I don’t want such a pathetic guy in my team."

* EarlyBirdCameo: He took the Wrestling/NewJapanProWrestling entrance exam after he finished middle school and actually passed it, but he decided to finish high school instead.
* EliteFour: Along with Wrestling/MitsuharuMisawa, Wrestling/KentaKobashi, and Akira Taue, they made up the [[PillarsOfMoralCharacter Four Pillars]] of AJPW due to them all being hardworking, self sacrificing, honorable baby faces standing against an ever constant tide of evil foreigners.

* FinishingMove: Dangerous Powerbomb (powerbomb, adopted from his mentor Tenryu), Dangerous Backdrop (high-angle belly to back suplex), Dangerous DDT (vertical drop brainbuster), Dangerous Kick/Monster PK/K of Anger (running soccer kick to a seated opponent's face), and stretch plum. He also used his jumping gamengiri as an occasional finisher, and sometimes used a cross armbar adopted from Wrestling/GaryAlbright.

** After Ogawa was pinned by Yinling, Kawada demanded to face him in a match to decide who would be the captain of the HUSTLE Army. Ogawa won, but Kawada took the fans' decision when they were asked about it... but Kawada revealed he didn't want the captain's place, but just wake him up.

* HiddenDepths: After retiring from wrestling, he opened up a ramen shop called 'Men-gerous K', a play on his Dangerous K nickname and the word 'men' which means noodles in Japanese.

* IKnowKarate: He is a Shidokan UsefulNotes/{{Karate}} practitioner, trained under the founder of the art nothing less, which explains his proficiency in kicking. However, his particular case is actually subversion of this trope: as martial arts credentials weren't usually very appreciated in AJPW (compared to NJPW, where they often led to entire characters and storylines), Kawada's karate experience wasn't an overt part of his gimmick and thus it was rarely mentioned. Instead, Kawada's better known as an accomplished amateur wrestler: he was very active at it during his high school years, and even became a national wrestling champion in his senior year after defeating Keiichi Yamada (the future Wrestling/JushinThunderLiger) in the finals. He also did SumoWrestling in middle school.
* MeaningfulName: The name of his tag team with Hiromichi Fuyuki, Footloose, was a pun referencing their kicking ability (mostly Kawada's, although Fuyuki also used to do a double spinning heel kick with him).

* TheApprentice: To Giant Baba and Wrestling/GenichiroTenryu.

* ExtremityExtremist: While Misawa had his elbows, Kobashi had his chops, and Taue had his chokeslams, Kawada had his kicks. Subverted because he didn't use solely kicks; it's just thy were his most characteristic move.

* FinishingMove: Dangerous Powerbomb (powerbomb, adopted from his mentor Tenryu), Dangerous Backdrop (high-angle belly to back suplex), Dangerous DDT (vertical drop brainbuster), Dangerous Kick (running soccer kick to a seated opponent's face), and stretch plum. He also used his jumping gamengiri as an occasional finisher, and sometimes used a cross armbar adopted from Wrestling/GaryAlbright.

* HiddenDepths: After retiring from wrestling, he opened up a ramen shop called 'Men-gerous K', a play on his Dangerous K nickname and the word 'men' means noodles in Japanese.
* IdenticalStranger: Stylistically speaking, his stiff wrestling style was quite similar to the UWF shoot style wrestling.

* ExtremityExtremist: While Misawa had his elbows, Kobashi had his chops, and Taue had his chokeslams, Kawada had his kicks.

* BluntHonesty: When Takada forced him to team up with Kawada's long suffering apprentice Ishikari.
-->"I don’t want to say it in front of Ishikari's father, but I don’t want such a pathetic guy in my team."

* GetAHoldOfYourselfMan: Defeated Wrestling/WataruSakata in his Monster Assessment Match, rendering him unable to join the Takada Monster Army, and told him he could return to the HUSTLE Army whenever he wanted. However, it didn't work, at least quickly.

* SadistTeacher: His character in HUSTLE, where he would kick his apprentice Taichi Ishikari around for petty reasons. Rumoredly to be his real life self in the old AJPW dojo, although that's hardly a rare thing in Japanese pro wrestling.

* WrestlingPsychology: He knew how to make every move he made important. Every strike served a purpose in a larger, over-arching story, and he knew exactly how to make his strikes look devastating. Part of this was through the selling and the psychology used by his opponents when they took his moves, but the biggest part was that Kawada was stiff.

* AllAsiansKnowMartialArts: Subverted. He and Hiromichi Fuyuki were named Footloose in United States, because at the time you could not be a Japanese wrestler in the States without being showered with references to kicks, samurai, kamikaze and similar stuff. However, although certainly a trained karateka, Kawada was never a fan of portraying a martial artist on the ring (at least until HUSTLE, where he played a BruceLeeClone), while Fuyuki was not a great kicker at all.

* IKnowKarate: He is a Shidokan UsefulNotes/{{Karate}} practitioner, trained under the founder of the art nothing less, which explains his proficiency in kicking. However, his particular case is actually subversion of this trope: as martial arts credentials weren't usually very appreciated in AJPW (compared to NJPW, where they often led to entire characters and storylines), Kawada's karate experience wasn't an overt part of his gimmick and thus it was rarely mentioned. Instead, Kawada's better known as an accomplished amateur wrestler. He was very active during his high school years, and even became a national wrestling champion in his senior year after defeating Keiichi Yamada (the future Wrestling/JushinThunderLiger) in the finals. He also did SumoWrestling in middle school.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tkawada.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:The dangerous man.]]

* IKnowKarate: He is a Shidokan UsefulNotes/{{Karate}} practitioner, trained under the founder of the art nothing less, which explains his proficiency in kicking. However, his particular case is actually subversion of this trope: as martial arts credentials weren't usually very appreciated in AJPW (compared to NJPW, where they often led to entire characters and storylines), Kawada's karate experience wasn't an overt part of his gimmick and thus it was rarely mentioned. Instead, Kawada's better known as an accomplished amateur wrestler. He was very active during his high school years, and even became a national wrestling champion in his senior year after defeating Keiichi Yamada (the future Wrestling/JushinThunderLiger) in the finals.

* GuestFighter: From Wrestling/AllJapanProWrestling.

Toshiaki Kawada (b. 1963) is a UsefulNotes/{{Japan}}ese {{Professional Wrestl|ing}}er, famous for his work in Wrestling/AllJapanProWrestling and other many enterprises. He started his career as a highschool amateur wrestler, sport whose success allowed him free pass in AJPW. After a foreign excursion in United States, he returned as a member of his mentor Wrestling/GenichiroTenryu's Revolution faction, but it was for a short time, as Tenryu left AJPW with other wrestlers to form SWS. The promotion capitalized on this to build new stars, and Kawada and his three greatest rivals, Wrestling/MitsuharuMisawa, Wrestling/KentaKobashi and Akira Taue, ended up becoming the Four Heavenly Kings of AJPW in the next years. Kawada stood out as possibly the four's nastiest member, a stoic, almost aristocratic wrestler with no front teeth, always clad in black and yellow, who loved to kick people in the skull and drop them on their heads. His push wavered because his opposition to the promotion's isolationist policy, but when the other three Kings and almost the entire roster left to form Wrestling/ProWrestlingNOAH, Kawada was left as the promotion's only hope. After years rebuilding AJPW along with a returning Tenryu, Kawada became a freelancer and had participations on Wrestling/FightingOperaHUSTLE, Wrestling/NewJapanProWrestling and even NOAH for the rest of his career. Unlike most major Japanese wrestlers, Kawada chose not to host any retirement ceremony, and left quietly the sport for other business.

!!! "Dangerous Tropes":

* AlternateCompanyEquivalent: Uncannily to Wrestling/ShinyaHashimoto. Wrestler with combat sports background, particularly karate? Check. Wrestling style composed of stiff kicks and a vertical drop brainbuster? Check. Unusual appearance but angry personality? Check. Part of a ThreeAmigos or a FourIsDeath number? Check. Trouble with their respective promotion's management due to their opposition to impopular/improductive policies? Check. Passed the last part of their careers mostly away from his home promotion, also doing HUSTLE? Check.

* CoolTeacher: Trained wrestlers like Kazushi Miyamoto, Taichi and Yuto Aijima.

* IKnowKarate: He is stated to be a Shidokan karate practitioner which explains his proficiency in kicking, but he is better known as an amateur wrestler and was very active during his high school years, becoming a national champion in his senior year after defeating Keiichi Yamada (who later became Wrestling/JushinThunderLiger) in the finals.
* RedBaron: "Dangerous K", "Hustle K", "Monster K".

* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: Averted, when Wrestling/MitsuharuMisawa and 95% of AJPW’s roster and non-wrestling employees staged a mass exodus from the company to form Wrestling/ProWrestlingNoah, only Kawada and Masanobu Fuchi stayed behind.

Toshiaki Kawada (b. 1963) is a UsefulNotes/{{Japan}}ese {{Professional Wrestl|ing}}er, famous for his work in Wrestling/AllJapanProWrestling and other many enterprises. He started his career as a highschool amateur wrestler, sport whose success allowed him free pass in AJPW. After a foreign excursion in United States, he returned as a member of his mentor Wrestling/GenichiroTenryu's Revolution faction, but it was for a short time, as Tenryu left AJPW with other wrestlers to form SWS. The promotion capitalized on this to build new stars, and Kawada and his three greatest rivals, Wrestling/MitsuharuMisawa, Kenta Kobashi and Akira Taue, ended up becoming the Four Heavenly Kings of AJPW in the next years. Kawada stood out as possibly the four's nastiest member, a stoic, almost aristocratic wrestler with no front teeth, always clad in black and yellow, who loved to kick people in the skull and drop them on their heads. His push wavered because his opposition to the promotion's isolationist policy, but when the other three Kings and almost the entire roster left to form Wrestling/ProWrestling/NOAH, Kawada was left as the promotion's only hope. After years rebuilding AJPW along with a returning Tenryu, Kawada became a freelancer and had participations on Wrestling/FightingOperaHUSTLE, Wrestling/NewJapanProWrestling and even NOAH for the rest of his career. Unlike most major Japanese wrestlers, Kawada chose not to host any retirement ceremony, and left quietly the sport for other business.