8 Greatest Karate Dudes in pro wrestling history

When it comes to performing in the squared circle, there are so many different types of styles. I mean, so many, you guys. Some guys are brawlers, some are high fliers, while others use technical wizardry (or, in the case of Phantasio, actual wizardry).

(In the video above: Phantasio. He is not a Karate Dude.)

One of my favorite types of styles and performers, however, is that of the "Karate Dude". You know the type: he usually comes to the ring in a martial arts outfit, like a gi or whatever that robe they wear in karate tournaments. Or they wear baggy karate pants and don't wear a shirt, because Bruce Lee did that once.

Once they hit the ring, they usually jump around and do some kicks and they "hiii-yah!" really loud. When the match starts, they do that again, but this time they hit their opponent with said kicks. Sometimes, they would hit their opponent with a palm strike or a punch, and then they would hold that pose for, like, two hours, and look all intense.

Now, let's be clear: this isn't a list of pro wrestlers who also know martial arts. There's, like, a ton of those, especially with so many wrestlers getting MMA training, too. Oh, that's another thing. I'm not counting guys who have an MMA gimmick or something, like Ken Shamrock or Brock Lesnar or Ronda Rousey. No, this is strictly "Karate Dudes" only.

Also, just to be clear, I realize that not every Asian wrestler has or had a karate/martial arts gimmick. However, if you feel that someone on this list isn't a "Karate Dude", please know that I didn't just put them on here because they're Asian - I put them on here because I thought they were a "Karate Dude" and I think they're awesome.

Also, to be clear, this is all just in good fun. But, if you can think of any other "Karate Dudes" I didn't think of, well, be sure to bring it up in the comments section, as well, and shame me in front of my friends and family.

#8 The Orient Express - Pat Tanaka and Akio Sato/Paul Diamond

The only reason I have these guys so low on the list is because they're probably the least "Karate Dude" out of all the "Karate Dudes" here. Especially when Akio Sato decided to return to Japan and the WWF put Paul Diamond in a mask and called him Kato.

For those unaware, Tanaka and Diamond were known as Badd Company in the AWA and were that promotion's tag team champions a number of times. So, both versions of the team were awesome.

The reason I have them on the list at all is because, as a kid, I was totally into ninjas and martial arts movies and things of that nature growing up. The Orient Express may not have used a distinct martial arts based offense (especially once Diamond came on board), but I thought they were the coolest tag team in the company.

Yes, even cooler than The Rockers.

Still, they were "Karate Dude" enough to warrant a spot on this list so here you are. Congratulations to the Orient Express, I guess?

#7 Glacier

Glacier

In 1996, during the height of the nWo angle, World Championship Wrestling suddenly remembered that everything on Monday Nitro didn't, technically, have to revolve around the heel faction. That's when these vignettes began to appear on WCW programming.

Blood Runs Cold, WCW announced, and soon the man known as Glacier would arrive.

Now, if you're thinking "huh, that gentleman reminds me quite a bit of the character Sub Zero from the Mortal Kombat franchise of video games", you would not be out of line.

"Glacier" was the name given to Ray Lloyd by the instructors of the fighting style he travelled to Japan to learn - a fighting style that combined various forms of martial arts as well as wrestling moves. At least, this was according to WCW Magazine at the time. Apparently, mastering this also gave him control of the elements somehow, thus the name.

That all sounds dumb - but only in the context you look at it in. Pro Wrestling has always been kind of stupid abd ridiculous - that's part of its charm - but WCW in 1996 was taking a more realistic "what's real/what's storyline?" approach to booking, and Glacier (and eventually his arch-enemies Wrath and Mortis) just sort of clashed with that aesthetic.

But, just look at that ring gear. Look at the falling snows coming from the rafters. And Ray Lloyd is legitimately good at these martial arts moves. Is this any goofier than anything else done in pro wrestling over the years?

Speaking of over the years, it seems Lloyd has had plenty of fun with the character. Most recently, he appeared in Ring of Honor's Honor Rumble in 2017, as well as part of the Casino Battle Royal for AEW's Double or Nothing PPV earlier this year.

#6 "The Lethal Weapon" Steve Blackman

Karate Dudes don't necessarily make for great professional wrestlers. Don't get me wrong, Steve Blackman was a really good professional wrestler. But, he was a great Karate Dude. Like, a guy you would not want to run afoul of in real life. In fact, Chuck Norris had to apologize to Steve Blackman, because it turns out all those stupid joke "facts" about Norris were actually about Blackman.

That last part isn't true. But it should be.

"Let me tell you something. That whole thing with that Brawl For All, [Blackman] was dead serious about hurting people. I mean, this guy, I kid you not, Steve, he isn't anybody to mess with... I wasn't about to push him over that edge where I was going to come up missing because I'm serious - Steve is no joke. I'd put him in the same class as Meng, basically. Steve's dangerous. He's dangerous. I talked to him actually probably about five [or] six weeks ago for the first time in years. [Steve]'s a good dude, funny, one of the nicest people you'd ever meet, but he's just somebody that's dangerous. He's flat dangerous." - Hardcore Holly, The Steve Austin Show

However, that doesn't always translate to a great entertaining ring presence. Steve, for all his great qualities (numerous backstage stories have painted him as a genuinely nice and funny guy out of the ring), really didn't have the charisma needed to be a, you know, "sports entertainer."

The cool thing about Blackman, though, is that he understood this, and use it to his advantage. He played up his "legit tough guy" reputation, and played that up for laughs when he was put into situations that clashed with that. His Head Cheese team with Al Snow is a prime example of that.

It's also inspiring how he came back from two years of suffering from malaria after a wrestling trip to South Africa to reach the level of success he did.

Steve Blackman might not have been a spectacular pro wrestler, but he was - and is - a great guy and an amazing Karate Dude.

#5 Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat

Ricky Steamboat in 1991, when he was just "The Dragon"

Here's a fun fact to tell at parties you may have probably already known but I'm going to tell you anyway: Ricky Steamboat's actual given name is Richard Blood.

Now, I'm not saying that Ricky Steamboat isn't a cool name - it is. And, it fits the family man/good guy-but-still-formidable persona he cultivated over the years better (the man who gave him the name, Eddie Graham, correctly identified that "Blood" is a better bad guy name), but... man. Blood. "Richard Blood" sounds like the secret identity of a really spooky comic book superhero.

ln researching this article, I was almost tempted to take Steamboat off this list - only because I couldn't find any indication that he received any actual martial arts training over his life. That doesn't mean he didn't - maybe I just suck at researching? That's entirely plausible.

However, whether I'm wrong or not, the fact of the matter was that martial arts were an integral part of Steamboat's character. He certainly looked the part - and, no, not just because he had Asian ancestry. His physique resembled that of legendary actor and martial artist Bruce Lee - Steamboat competed in some bodybuilding competitions in the late 1970s, even winning the title of Mr. North Carolina in 1978.

His moveset didn't just involve chops, kicks, and strikes, either. His moves were extremely fast, yet fluid - like he and his opponent were suspended in time for just a moment. Look at his armdrag, often called the best version of the move ever done in the business.

Whereas Steve Blackman was a great Karate Dude who was also a good pro wrestler, Steamboat was a great pro wrestler who turned out to be a pretty good karate dude. Better than most. That's why he gets a slight nod over Blackman, although it's close.

#4 Rob Van Dam

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Former WWE Champion Rob Van Dam ranks this high on the list for a number of reasons, but for one in particular. Every style has various sub-styles, and "Karate Dude" is no exception. Rob Van Dam created his own sub-style of "Karate Dude", and until Matt Riddle came along, he's kind of been the only one of significance in it. A "One Of a Kind", as his WWE theme music would say.

Now, of course, he's been described as simply "laid back" when working for companies such as WWE who have wanted to maintain a slightly more publically acceptable image than the original ECW did. But, we all know it. And it's part of why he's so great. His persona, I mean, not the... OK, I'm just going to move on.

Van Dam studied kickboxing and other martial arts growing up, and he's incorporated that into his wrestling style ever since. Even his ring name is a reference to actor Jean-Claude Van Damme, as he... kind of looks like him? Anyway, that's why he goes by that. Except for when he worked as "enhancement talent" in early 1990s WCW, where he went by Robbie V, which is still a pretty cool name if you think about it.

Rob is still doing his thing, nearly thirty years after his debut, working for Impact Wrestling

#3 Ernest "The Cat" Miller

Ernest Miller and James Brown

Ernest Miller is awesome.

Before becoming a professional wrestler, Ernest "The Cat" Miller was a karate instructor for WCW President Eric Bischoff's son, Garrett. Before that, he was a three-time Karate World Champion. Think about that: Eric Bischoff was able to hire the guy who was the best guy in the world at Karate three times to teach it to his kid. Bischoff had some serious swing back in the late 1990s, let me tell you.

Miller started in WCW when he arrived to help Glacier (another one of our karate dudes) fight off the aforementioned Mortis and Wrath (who had cool costumes but were decidedly not Karate Dudes). Eventually, though, he became the dancing, trash-talking, ruby show wearing he is the greatest somebody call his mama son of a gun we all came to know and love in both WCW and WWE.

The man even did a dance-off with The Godfather of Soul himself, James Brown, at a WCW pay-per-view once.

Granted, this was when Brown was really old and kind of broke and pretty out of it, but still. James Brown! Have you ever danced with James Brown live on PPV? I didn't think so.

"The Cat" keeps busy these days. He had an important role in Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler in 2008. In 2012, WWE reused his theme music and gave it to Brodus Clay, which Miller was none to happy about.

And he retweeted me on Twitter the other day.

I told you he was awesome.

#2 Tajiri

Tajiri

"The Japanese Buzzsaw" follows in the great tradition of other Japanese stars, that of completely scaring the bejesus out of fans and opponents alike simply from reputation alone. Much like Asuka (well, at least when she was in NXT) and - well, I don't want to spoil it but he's next - once you heard the name "Taijiri", you knew his opponent was going to be in big trouble.

Yoshihiro Tajiri first rose to prominence, like you do, in Extreme Championship Wrestling. A trained kickboxer, Taijiri used that knowledge and combined it with wrestling training - hey, maybe he went to the same guys that Glacier did! - to create a deranged lunatic of a character who was hell-bent on not just defeating his opponents, but destroying them.

He had a hunched-over stride to the ring - you could say he "stalked" his way there - and would attack his opponents with flurries of kicks befitting of his "buzzsaw" nickname.

He certainly had his comedic side - especially in his role as WWF Commissioner William Regal's assistant - and even won the WWF Tag Team Championship with his boss at one time. But, at his core, Taijiri was - and still is - a fearless (and fearsome) martial arts machine. He still works in Japan, mostly for All Japan Pro Wrestling

#1 The Great Muta

Keiji Mutoh was a black belt in judo before being trained in the world of pro wrestling by Hiro Matsuda - the same man who trained Hulk Hogan, Scott Hall, and Ron Simmons. He's held a number of different personas since his debut in 1984, but it's as The Great Muta that he's most widely known for. It's interesting to note that, in the video above, Muta was originally billed as the "Great Muto" in his NWA debut, but commentator Jim Ross mispronounced it as "Muta" and they just ran with it.

So, how cool was The Great Muta in the 1980s and 90s? Dude was cooler than Sting. Than Sting. That's how cool. And he still is.

He's probably in the top five of the most influential wrestlers to come from Japan. He's a former NWA World Heavyweight Champion. And he was involved in a match with Hiroshi Hase was that was bloody, that the blood content of all other matches are compared to it.

Yeah, that's what "the Muta Scale" means.

He invented the Shining Wizard knee strike and popularized the Moonsault. He popularized the use of face paint in wrestling as much as contemporaries like Sting and the Road Warriors did. He never technically wrestled for WWE during his career, although he did work for WCW during the Monday Night Wars, and was a prominent member of nWo Japan.

Granted, the fake Sting was also a prominent member of nWo Japan for a while, too, but its Japan so... I dunno. He's still cool, shut up.

Muta is still around these days, mostly working part-time in his own promotion, Wrestle-1. He's had some roles in movies in Japan, including a starring role in the Japanese thriller Yajuu Densetsu: Dragon Blue. He's also appeared alonside Genichiro Tenryu, Masahiro Chono, Riki Choshu and Tatsumi Fujinami as a gang member (all using their real names) in the PlayStation 4 game Yakuza Kiwami 2. He even has his own clothing line based on a gimmick he only used for, like, a year.

He's the Karate Dude that all other wrestling Karate Dudes aspire to be. He also belongs in the WWE Hall of Fame - how great would it be to see him accept in full face paint and then shoot a spray of green mist into the air to end his speech? So cool, you guys. That's how cool.

Here's Muta winning WCW's BattleBowl at Starrcade 1992: