Funny / Minoru Suzuki

• Suzuki's tag team grappling bout with Daiju Takase against Sanae Kikuta and Tsuyoshi Yamazaki in Contenders 2001 comes to a point in which Suzuki and Kikuta lead to a standstill in wrestling. Kikuta then lies on the ground and challenges Suzuki to meet him on the mat, Gracie style, but Minoru doesn't bite the bait and remains standing. As the Pancrase co-founder isn't going to get down, Kikuta continues taunting him and starts swinging his legs playfully up in the air, like working out bicycle crunches. Minoru's reaction to the taunt? Putting a face of "oh man, I didn't get paid enough money for this" and tagging in Takase.
  • Made even more hilarious considering that Royce Gracie himself was in ringside.
  • The situation gets turned upside down when Kikuta then tries to meet Takase standing, only for Daiju to ditch the wrestling, just like Kikuta had done with Suzuki and promptly pull guard.
• Upon Suzuki's return to New Japan Pro-Wrestling in 2003 as a special guest commentator, Josh Barnett welcomed him warmly and even offered himself to show him the dojo and introduce him to the wrestlers. That is, Barnett, who came to NJPW the same year, was telling that to a New Japan graduate from the 90's generation. Minoru thanked him, but being who he is, he was probably thinking "what an upstart."
• Suzuki's classic match with comedy robot wrestler Mecha Mummy. The very vignette that introduces them has Mummy doing a Big Entrance in a fan banquet to challenge Suzuki, with Minoru completely ignoring him while raiding the foodtable. Later Suzuki no-sells the cartoonish giant drill attacks from Mummy and defeats him by pouring water from his signature bottle in Mummy's power pack, causing him to malfunction.
• Another great comedy match in the HUSTLE promotion sees Suzuki matched up against RG or Real Gay, a Japanese comedy wrestler who at the time played a pathetic jobber. Suzuki enters the match with his right knee taped, and very early in the match he starts to limp. RG sees this and instantly goes after the knee, punishing it brutally for most of the match, until he makes his last big charge... and Suzuki stands up, rips the tape off, and hops around, because his knee was totally fine, and a beatdown on poor RG ensues by a cackling Minoru.
  • Finally, Suzuki scares RG into bowing deeply to him, which he does... and Minoru instantly grabs him for the Gotch piledriver, causing the referee to call for the bell. Suzuki puts RG down, then yanks RG's tights into a thong and piledrives him anyway.
• During a guest apparition in Michinoku Pro Wrestling teaming up with the Sato twins, Suzuki receives accidentally a cheapshot meant for Yoshitsune, so he gets angry at the brothers and proceeds to turn against them. He nails one of them with a Gotch-Style Piledriver, pushes bluffly Yoshitsune away and tells the rest of the opposing team, The Great Sasuke and Jinsei Shinzaki, to finish him. (Though not without mocking Shinzaki's praying while the is busy doing his powerbomb, however.) After the pin he celebrates with the babyface team, whose members look at him rather weirded out.
• Suzuki's post-match celebration with joshi wrestler AKINO in a 2008 OZ Academy show stands out as well. After defeating Dynamite Kansai and El Blazer, Suzuki approaches AKINO, who is celebrating in the turnbuckle, and starts taunting her. In response, she cups teasingly her breasts with her hands, and when Minoru gets naughty and tries to sneak a peek under her tights, she slaps him. AKINO then warms up, poses with him and strokes his head in appreciation. But then, before she can get down the 'buckle, Suzuki gets his revenge and slaps her in the head as well.
• Also doubles as a Heartwarming Moment. After being pinned by Suzuki in his retirement match, Yoji Anjo is collecting handshakes from everybody in the ring, but when Minoru comes to shake his hand, Yoji pushes him aside apparently to recover his breath. In a rare moment of aquiescence, Suzuki waits patiently and reaches his hand a second time, but Anjo pushes him again, this time clearly pretending to be out of breath. The game repeats itself some more time, but finally Minoru and Yoji have a very tentative hand hold, as if both were expecting the other to suddenly attack. At the end, confirmed that the act is safe, they shake hands and embrace tightly.
• YMMV, but it would appear that Suzuki is all for equal opportunities in the ring. ^note The understandable revulsion to man-on-woman violence can be mitigated somewhat by the knowledge that A) the unfortunate woman taking the shot is Kana (WWE's Asuka), one of the most terrifyingly strong women in pro wrestling, and B) Kana booked the show that night, which means she probably told Suzuki to do that, especially given that C) Kana is a huge fan of Suzuki, with him being one of her inspirations for becoming a pro wrestler in the first place.
• Were you a fan of the AEW Stadium Stampede? We present to you the DDT Empty Arena Match between Minoru Suzuki and Sanshiro Takagi. Much like the Stadium Stampede, our two wrestlers duked it out all over the Tokyo Dome, but unlike the Stadium Stampede, 1) this was done in 2017 when there was no Covid-19, 2) there was no wrestling ring in the middle of the stadium, only a baseball diamond, so the wrestlers could only do strikes or submission holds (holds could be broken by touching base) but still played to an invisible crowd and got through the 'ropes', and 3) this was more a combination of Stadium Stampede and the Final Deletion, with random cameos from other wrestlers doing weird shit, including:
  • Aja Kong singing the national anthem and having to stop Suzuki and Takagi from fighting before she finished.
  • A masked guy named Super Sasadango Machine plugging his website on a laptop.
  • A fat wrestler named Gota Ihashi who kept trying to attack Suzuki, who instead no sold everything and knocked him down the stairwell... three times.
  • Saki Akai shows up as a beer seller who boots Suzuki and Takagi in the face when they want beer from her but don't have any money (cuz they're wearing trunks).
  • Ladybeard shows up to sing a musical number with Takagi.
  • Ken Oka holding a bunch of money in his hands trying to get the officials to allow him to run a show at the Tokyo Dome. Suzuki boots him in the head and steals his money.
  • Ohka, following Suzuki and Takagi, bumps into a janitor, who turns out to be deathmatch specialist Jun Kasai, who finds a ladder and splashes on Ohka, who had been laid out on a table, which had been laid out by Suzuki and Takagi.
  • A Muay Thai fighter in a narrow corridor who for some reason terrifies Suzuki and Takagi, and they both try to get past him but seem afraid to challenge him, until Takagi tries to sneak past but gets kicked in the ass by the fighter, which allows Suzuki to tip toe past them like he was in some goddamn Looney Tunes cartoon.
  • The match ends with Suzuki doing the Gotch Piledriver on home plate.
  • And if you've read this far and have been wondering, no, we did not make a single word of that up. The first part of the match is free on DDT's YouTube page.
• Minoru Suzuki in Choco Pro. He fights girls. Girls, plural. It's... it's better if you just watch the whole thing in two parts.
• Who is the cutest in the world? Mino-chan!