#3 Masato Tanaka
A thorough-bred product of Frontier Martial Arts Wrestling in Japan, Masato Tanaka made all the waves when he made his foray into professional wrestling, choosing Extreme Championship Wrestling as his new abode.
He rose to prominence in Paul Heyman’s ECW when he became involved in a rivalry with Mike Awesome. Despite not being a behemoth compared to Mike Awesome (who stood at 6’7), Tanaka attracted attention courtesy of his in-ring skills that spawned out of his ‘Japanese schooling’.
His lack of size did not deter him from locking horns with the beast that Awesome was. Tanaka’s repertoire included using the turnbuckles to his advantage and some of his most devastating moves included the tornado DDT and the Diamond Dust.
Yet the most devastating move in his arsenal was the ‘roaring elbow’, which he used to his advantage in winning matches. His execution of the move was perhaps the best in the business.
Inside the octagon, this Japanese stalwart would have been a lethal combination of hard-knocks and technical ability, allowing him to quickly ascend to the top.
