Awesome / Minoru Suzuki

• Suzuki defeating Ken Shamrock by submission in Pancrase (not their worked fight, but the earlier one) with a terrifying leglock combo. He became the only fighter besides Royce Gracie in submitting Shamrock for real, and actually injured him with the feat.
• In their second fight, Suzuki miraculously escaping a fully extended cross armbar and finally submitting him. Even if this time it was worked, was also a beautiful thing to behold.
• Suzuki performing a Gotch-Style Piledriver in Ryota freaking 450 pound Hama.
  • He also did one to Shane Taylor (who's 350 pounds) at ROH Global Wars 2017.
• Despite the loss, Minoru Suzuki's match against AJ Styles during the 2014 G1 Climax tournament was a sight to behold. A highly acclaimed masterpiece of Suzuki's brutality and AJ's sheer toughness, the match earning wide praise as a five-star Match of the Year candidate—including from The Wrestling Observer Newsletter, which lets you know this was a big deal.
  • One of the high points was when AJ had Suzuki down and was doing the Bullet Club's finger gun taunt to Suzuki's head...until Suzuki grabbed his finger and bent it like he was going to snap it off, wearing a brutal mask of rage. The follow up, when he countered AJ's springboard forearm into a Fujiwara armbar and bent that same finger AGAIN, made it even better. That day, the Phenomenal One learned never to piss off Minoru Suzuki.
• January 4, 2017: He's Back!. Suzuki-gun return to NJPW and lay waste to CHAOS, capped off by Suzuki himself walking into the ring, applying a sleeper hold at lightning speed, and piledriving Kazuchika Okada, the IWGP Heavyweight Champion, like it was nothing. Then, he informs the crowd that not only are Suzuki-gun back and he's challenging Okada for the title, but they're going to take New Japan AND ALL the belts. Tetsuya Naito and Los Ingobernables de Japon, Kenny Omega and the Bullet Club, Okada and CHAOS, Hiroshi Tanahashi and Taguchi Japan, better get ready, cause Japanese wrestling's most evil villain and his crew are back, and they want ALL YOUR BLOOD.
  • If you want to know how big this is, listen to the crowd when Suzuki-gun show up. There are SHRIEKS of terror.
• After more than 13 years in New Japan, Suzuki finally captures his first singles title, the NEVER Openweight Championship, from Hirooki Goto on April 27, 2017 at Road to Wrestling Dontaku in Hiroshima.
• Suzuki coming to wrestle for Ring of Honor in 2017, the first time he has wrestled in the US in 25 years. And it started with a fantastic ROH World Championship match against Cody Rhodes.
• January 20, 2018: Suzuki and Zack Sabre Jr. defeat Moustache Mountain (Trent Seven and Tyler Bate) for the Revolution Pro Wrestling Tag Team Championships.
• January 27, 2018. Suzuki wins the IWGP Intercontinental Championship from his old nemesis Hiroshi Tanahashi at New Beginning in Sapporo 2018, where he proceeded to not only defeat, but outright dismantle the Ace of the Universe with a Gotch piledriver followed by a brutal-looking heel hook on Tanahashi’s injured leg, forcing Red Shoes Unno to stop the match after Tana refused to submit.
• In one of the greatest undreamed of match-ups of all time, Minoru Suzuki faced off against The American Dragon Bryan Danielson at the 10/15/21 Rampage Buy-In, and they wrestled what many instantly deemed to be a Match of the Year contender, and easily one of the greatest matches of both men's careers. The best part? The match was put together on the fly in response to counterprogramming by SmackDown.
  • During the match, Danielson makes the incredibly unwise decision to try and prove he's tougher than Suzuki in a strike exchange, basically the two men taking turns allowing the other one to hit them with their best shot to prove how hard they are. After exchanging a number of slaps, chops, uppercuts and kicks, Suzuki measures Danielson carefully and delivers an elbow strike that surgically removes his soul! Danielson goes down like a sniper on a grassy knoll had put a bullet in his head and doesn't move. The entire arena gasps in shock, then breaks out into a "HOLY SHIT!" chant, and if Suzuki hadn't been enjoying himself too much to want to end the match right there he could have pinned Danielson with a single finger.
• Winning his first championship in North America by defeating Rhett Titus for the RoH World Television Champion at Supercard of Honor 2022.

---