Line #53 Wrestling/MasaakiMochizuki


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mmochizuki.jpg]]
2	Masaaki Mochizuki (b. 1964) is a UsefulNotes/{{Japan}}ese {{Professional Wrestl\|ing}}er, best known by his work in Wrestling/{{Toryumon}} and Wrestling/DragonGate. Originally a UsefulNotes/{{Karate}} fighter, he fell in love with professional wrestling thanks to Wrestling/NobuhikoTakada, becoming a shoot-style wrestler under Wrestling/KojiKitao and debuting as part of his entourage in Wrestling/GenichiroTenryu's Wrestle Association R. After building some career in WAR, Battlarts and Wrestling/NewJapanProWrestling, he landed on Wrestling/UltimoDragon's Toryumon circuit, which soon became his home. Masaaki was initially a sore thumb in Toryumon, a stern shooter who preferred to kick people in the head rather than playing their lucharesu game, and this was his gimmick for most of the conflict between the babyfaces of the company and the heel faction Crazy MAX. However, one day Masaaki decided he was tired of everybody, so he recruited two anarchists named Yasushi Kanda and Susumu Mochizuki (no relation) and created [=M2K=], the nastiest stable in all the promotion. Their presence and wild attacks ended up turning Crazy MAX into heroes, and this gave birth to a gang war that lasted through years and eventually outlasted Toryumon itself, leading to the birth of the new company Dragon Gate. Mochizuki has remained one of the promotion's aces from then, trusting on his experience and toughness to teach respect to the new generations, and that's what he does now.
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4	!!"The Strongest Tropes"
5	* TheAce: Downplayed. In a literal sense, he is possibly the least flashy of all the Toryumon "aces", as he is a grumpy talker with a pragmatic wrestling style and a fairly grounded fashion sense. However, he has always been the promotion's top wrestler, second only to CIMA, by his own merits in wrestling and popularity.
6	* AlwaysSomeoneBetter: Has been this consistently to Wrestling/IkutoHidaka since their Battlarts days, to the point it was an upset that Hidaka could regain his ZERO-ONE title from Mochizuki in 2008. It sometimes extends to tag team field with their respective usual partners Wrestling/MinoruTanaka and Wrestling/MinoruFujita.
7	* AntiVillain: His first descent to villany was because he had got so frustrated with the war against the evil Crazy MAX that he was now willing to do everything to get revenge on them. This became subverted when he turned his newfound savagery against his former heroic allies and anybody who opposed him.
8	* TheApprentice: To Wrestling/KojiKitao.
9	* ArchEnemy: Wrestling/{{CIMA}}, Wrestling/MagnumTOKYO, Milano Collection A.T. and YAMATO.
10	* TheArtifact: His core wrestling style, called [[Wrestling/UniversalWrestlingFederation shoot-style]], could be considered an artifact from other eras of wrestling, as it was hugely popular back when Mochizuki became a pro wrestler yet is pretty much forgotten today. It also counts as a characterization trait, as Mochizuki started his career in Toryumon as part of a shoot-style stable from WAR that disappeared in less of a year.
11	* TheAtoner: After returning to the Seikigun, he tried to make up for [=M2K=]'s acts. This met some interruption, like his short-lived time in Aagan Iisou.
12	* BattleStrip: Initially wrestled in a karategi before switching to more traditional wrestling attire, but he still makes some entrances with a gi-like jacket which he takes off to wrestle.
13	* BashBrothers: With Wrestling/MinoruTanaka in Battlarts and later with Don Fujii in Dragon Gate.
14	* BecameTheirOwnAntithesis: Masaaki started as a heroic martial artist who wanted to stop the Crazy MAX gangbangers from tormenting babyfaces like him. How did he get it? By forming and leading a marauding unit eveb worse than C-MAX. He eventually realized it in his final match against CIMA.
15	* BigBad: Of Toryumon Japan for the time [=M2K=] was the main rudo stable.
16	* BigBrotherMentor:
17	** He also attempted to do this with Aagan Iisou, but it backfired on him.
18	** Became a more successful example towards Katsuhiko Nakajima, who started visiting Dragon Gate in 2004. They turned into rivals when Nakajima developed as a wrestler, but still team up in special occasions.
19	* BigGood: He is the most frequent and long-lasting of all who have occupied this place in Toryumon/Dragon Gate. It started right after being kicked out of [=M2K=], as the original BigGood of Toryumon, Magnum TOKYO, had joined Mochizuki's former henchmen, so Mochizuki was now the top face wrestler by default. Some mistrust and his failure with Shin [=M2K=] drove him to become heel again with Aagan Iisou, but he repented and returned again, and has been on/off on the job through the years since.
20	* BoringButPractical: Mochizuki is a shoot-style wrestler, which means most of his moveset is composed of kicks and submissions, along with a couple basic brainbusters - nothing flashy, but surely very effective, especially against lucharesu wrestlers like everybody in Toryumon/Dragon Gate is. However, some of kicks ''can'' be flashy (like his Sankakugeri, which is basically an enzuigiri from the top rope), and he has also adopted a more lucharesu-inspired approach to fit with the rest of the promotion over the years, although he is still a shoot-stylist at the core.
21	* BullyingADragon: During his early career in Kitao Dojo in a match with Wrestling/AlSnow. Mochizuki was supposed to do a kick to Al's chest (and he'd done it flawlessly several times while working out). Well, Mochizuki decided to change things a bit and nailed him in the jaw. Al rolled out of the ring and barely made it back in by the twenty count. He was legitimately dazed and when he got back up, he was pissed. Al finished the match by german suplexing Mochizuki on his head and then really cranked on the armbar and later stated that Mochizuki couldn't move his neck for a few days afterwards.
22	* CanonImmigrant: He was trained in the Wrestling/KojiKitao's Buko Dojo and came to Toryumon as a freelancer before becoming a permanent member.
23	* CoolShades: As part of [=M2K=], possibly in a reference to his rival CIMA.
24	* TheDarkSideWillMakeYouForget: Initially it looked like Mochizuki was being NecessarilyEvil with [=M2K=] to stop Crazy MAX's thug antics, but it soon became obvious that he had got lost in his own thirst for revenge and would not listen to his good side anymore. His defeat to CIMA's hands made him finally snap, but by then it was too late to stop his own henchmen from rejecting his authority and creating another nasty gang with Magnum TOKYO.
25	* DefeatMeansRespect: Being defeated by CIMA in El Número Uno 2001 and losing his hair to him finally made him stop hating Crazy MAX and realize the latter had already stopped being Toryumon's bane. Unfortunately, this only pitted against his own [=M2K=] friends, who didn't share his sense of honor and ability for introspection.
26	* FallenHero: He started as a defender of the heroic Toryumon Seikigun, but their inability to dispose of Crazy MAX turned him into a brutal crusader bent on getting revenge.
27	* EvilCannotComprehendGood: Although the heel Mochizuki was more of a disenchanted hero than a cackling villain, he was still unable to notice that the Crazy MAX guys were TrueCompanions who would follow each other to any direction of their moral compass, while in contrast his own [=M2K=] wrestlers were essentially power-hungry mercenaries without any real loyalty to him. This came back to bite him on his ass when he underwent an epiphany and tried to turn his group into a new face unit like his own actions had made Crazy MAX.
28	* EvilCostumeSwitch: His Yokosuka Jumper jacket, which all the members of [=M2K=] wore.
29	* EvilIsNotAToy: He discovered it himself after Kanda, Susumu and Darkness Dragon, the three wrestlers he had personally recruited to counter Crazy MAX specifically because they were even more wicked than CIMA and company, turned on him when he vowed to drop his beef and become more heroic.
30	* ExtremityExtremist: Downplayed. His offense consists primarily, though not at all exclusively, of karate-style kicks.
31	* GetAHoldOfYourselfMan: Kenichiro Arai had to defeat Mochizuki in a match to force him into stopping trying to recreate his old glory days with cheap [=M2K=] replacements. Mochizuki eventually accepted it and disbanded Shin [=M2K=].
32	* GoneHorriblyRight: In his bitter enmity with Crazy MAX, Mochizuki resolved to utilize wrestlers and tactics so brutal that they made his enemies look heroic underdogs in comparison, and he put it into practice by forming [=M2K=]. The only thing is that they turned on him at the moment he lost this resolve.
33	* GrumpyOldMan: Has become a bit so, especially when facing younger talent.
34	* HewhofightsMonsters: With his campaign of terror against Crazy MAX, Mochizuki effectively turned them into heroes trying to defend themselves against a band of thugs, just like Mochizuki and the Seikigun were before he founded [=M2K=]. It took time for him to realize.
35	* HorribleJudgeOfCharacter:
36	** Mochizuki was aware that he was allied to two anarchists, an evil dragon and a rogue surfer vandal when he returned to [=M2K=] from his 2001 hiatus; what he got wrong was the belief that he held enough influence over them to make them turn their moral codes upside down at his whim, when they actually only obeyed him because his experience and fighting skill made him a good leader. As it is natural, the [=M2K=] guys became appaled that he tried to make them a heroic unit, so they kicked him out and replaced him with the much eviler Wrestling/MagnumTOKYO. (However, Mochizuki ''would'' be proven right at long term, as his former friends would eventually discover some nostalgia for his leadership and helped him to form Shin [=M2K=] and Final [=M2K=].)
37	** Speaking of which, the Shin [=M2K=] project was born of Mochizuki's desire to reform [=M2K=], which led him to recruit people almost at random because the only original members who acceded to return to him were Horiguchi and a non-wrestling Kanda. The new stable was unpopular and disjointed, as their members would not do their best as a team as Mochizuki had expected, and one of his "unoriginal" members, Kenichiro Arai, eventually forced him to disband it. Mochizuki's bad decisions would pursue him to the true return of the stable, Final [=M2K=], as he decided to include some of the previous recruits, and one of them, Second Doi, betrayed him.
38	** Again, he believed the Aagan Iisou guys would look at him as a BigBrotherMentor, and was sorely wrong.
39	* HotterAndSexier: He has been reducing his attire over the years. He started wrestling in a sleeveless karategi, later changed it to just long pants, and finally adopted regular tights. Since siding with [=BxB=] Hulk, though, he went back to long pants.
40	* HurricaneKick: One of his signature moves, the Illusion, sees him throwing a roundhouse kick and transitioning it into a reverse roundhouse kick with the other leg if the opponent dodges the first.
41	* IdenticalStranger: He and former Wrestling/ProWrestlingNOAH wrestler Makoto Hashi could believably pretend to be brothers. The two had fun with it for promotional purposes after acknowledging it, and even teamed up in special occasions as a SimilarSquad before Hashi retired from pro wrestling.
42	* ImprobableWeaponUser: [=M2K=] introduced the blue plastic box that Wrestling/{{SUWA}} would make famous.
43	* IKnowKarate: An unspecified style, though he did train with Shidokan karatekas when he was training under Wrestling/KojiKitao (Kitao himself was not a Shidokan practitioner, but had a working relationship with their organization to some extent).
44	* MagneticHero: Painfully subverted in his original [=M2K=] tenure, but straight outside of Dragon Gate. Being a veteran who has wrestled in varied promotions over the years, Mochizuki has made a lot of non-DG frenemies whom he sometimes reunites with, and he even created the Mochizuki Buyuden events only to book them in. The list is pretty long and includes Minoru Tanaka, Wrestling/IkutoHidaka, Katsuhiko Nakajima, Wrestling/TAKAMichinoku, Wrestling/YujiNagata, [[Wrestling/TakuyaSugi El Blazer]] and Hayato Fujita.
45	* OneSteveLimit: He invoked this while feuding with Susumu Mochizuki following the breakup of M2K. He eventually won the match where the stipulation was that the loser couldn't use the name 'Mochizuki' anymore, forcing Susumu to spend almost 20 years wrestling as Susumu Yokosuka. Masaaki finally relented and let Susumu use the Mochizuki surname again in 2022.
46	* RedBaron: "Ontai" ("Boss"), "Saikyo" ("The Strongest", taken from Takada), "Tetsujin" ("The Iron Man"), "Tamashi no Shugeki O" ("The Spiritual King of Kicking", officially translated as [[TranslationTrainWreck "Soul of the King of the Kicker"]]).
47	* RevisitingTheRoots: He has tried to revisit past eras of his career many times, among them with the several incarnations of [=M2K=], Magnum TOKYO's Renaissance project, and the Mushozoku/Zetsurins veteran factions.
48	* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: After [=M2K=] betrayed him, Mochizuki did what he had always overlooked out of friendship: challenge Susumu Mochizuki to a match for the rights of their surname. He won, forcing his opponent to rename himself Susumu Yokosuka.
49	* RoundhouseKick: The Saikyo (left leg) and Shin Saikyo (right leg) High Kicks are among his most favored moves. As a karate-based striker he'll also throw side roundhouses, and there's also the Illusion mentioned above.
50	* SpectacularSpinning: His Twister finishing move is a spinning brainbuster. He also created an inverted brainbuster version as a counter to YAMATO's Gallaria, and has also used a spinning Falcon Arrow called the Twister II.
51	* StartMyOwn: He used to have a personal brand of events, Mochizuki Buyuden ("Mochizuki's Martial Story"), where he hosted matches with other shoot-stylists and wrestlers from other promotions.

Context Wrestling / MasaakiMochizuki