Taka Michinoku
| Takao Yoshida | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | October 26, 1973 Morioka, Iwate, Japan |
| Professional wrestling career | |
| Ring name(s) | TAKA Michinoku TAKA The Great TAKA BLUE-K PEPE Michinoku |
| Billed height | 175 cm (5 ft 9 in) |
| Billed weight | 84 kg (185 lb) |
| Trained by | The Great Sasuke |
| Debut | 1991 |
Takao Yoshida (吉田 貴男, Yoshida Takao, born October 26, 1973) better known by his stage name TAKA Michinoku (TAKA is written in all caps in Japanese script), is a professional wrestler who has wrestled all over the world. Michinoku is skilled in high-flying, lucha libre, martial arts and technical wrestling. He has revolutionized the cruiserweight divisions of many promotions. Michinoku is most famously known in North America for his work for the WWF where he had the first ever WWF Light Heavyweight Championship reign.
Career
TAKA Michinoku took his name as a sign of respect for his mentor The Great Sasuke, who was the owner of Michinoku Pro Wrestling. He debuted in North America with Extreme Championship Wrestling in a six-man tag team match at ECW's first pay-per-view, Barely Legal. He made his WWF debut on July 6, 1997 at a WWF Pay-Per-View entitled "Canadian Stampede." On December 7, 1997, Michinoku defeated Brian Christopher to become the first WWF Light Heavyweight Champion in the WWF (although the title was held by several wrestlers, mostly in Mexico and Japan, before Michinoku won the belt, but WWE does not recognize any champions prior to Michinoku). TAKA ended up entering a feud with the Kai En Tai faction that he was once a part of in Japan, until he betrayed Val Venis in a tag team match and rejoined his friends against Venis. When all the members of Kai En Tai left the Federation except for TAKA and Shoichi Funaki, the two teamed up as Kai En Tai. Taka even challenged Triple H for the then WWF Championship on the April 10th, 2000 edition of RAW, coming up short despite interference on his behalf from Funaki and the APA. However, they were mostly limited to being comical jobbers for the rest of TAKA's time in WWE, during which many internet smarks felt he was not being used to his full potential.
After departing from the WWE in early 2002, Michinoku returned to Japan to rehabilitate a serious shoulder injury. He now promotes his own promotion, Kaientai Dojo (often shortened to K-DOJO) in small venues around the Tokyo area and often appears in All Japan Pro Wrestling cards, where he and Taiyō Kea lead the foreign-oriented faction Roughly Obsess & Destroy.
In wrestling
- Finishing and signature moves
- Michinoku Driver II (Sitout scoop slam or sitout scoop slam piledriver)
- Michinoku Driver II-B (Inverted facelock into sitout scoop slam piledriver)
- Michinoku Driver I (Double underhook brainbuster)
- Just Facelock (Side camel clutch)
- Dick Killer (Arm trap bridging cobra clutch)
- Pyramid Driver (Cross-arm sitout powerbomb)
- Spaceman Plancha (Running no-hands springboard plancha)
- Spaceman Quebrada (Twisting moonsault plancha suicida)
- Overhead belly to belly suplex
- Asai Moonsault
- Springboard missile dropkick
- Springboard knee drop
- Huracanrana
- Superkick
- Tornado DDT
TAKA Michinoku is the inventor of the Michinoku Driver II as well as the Michinoku Driver II-B. Contrary to popular belief, the Michinoku Driver I (which TAKA rarely uses) was invented by The Great Sasuke.
- Managers
Trivia
- "Takao"(東北) means North-East in English.
- The first English words he said on WWF TV were "You, Jackass!" to Jerry Lawler.
- TAKA has held titles in Japan, North America, Mexico and Europe.
- TAKA is known for his long title reigns. He held the FMW Independent World Junior Heavyweight Title for a combined duration of more than 15 months, the WWF Light Heavyweight Title for a then record-setting 10 months and the WEW Six-Man Tag Team Title for almost a year.
- TAKA has held the AJPW World Junior Heavyweight Title, Michinoku Pro Tohoku Junior Heavyweight Title and Kaientai Dojo Strongest-K Title simultaneously for almost 10 months. During his reign, he has defended his titles against both AJPW and independent circuit talent to increase his base of opponents, and thus has increased the reach of the AJPW World Junior Heavyweight Title which was closed off to outside competition in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s.
- TAKA published his diary of his WWE days in December of 2002. In it, he detailed his thoughts on every important match he had in the organization, his gimmicks, as well as giving his opinions of many WWE stars.[citation needed]
- TAKA successfully defended the WWF Light Heavyweight Title at WrestleMania XIV against Aguila.
Championships and accomplishments
- FMW Independent World Junior Heavyweight Championship (2 times)
- Independent Wrestling World
- IWW Junior Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
- Strongest-K Championship (1 time)
- WEW Hardcore Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Tomoka Nakagawa
- Michinoku Pro Wrestling
- Tohoku Junior Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
- Universal Wrestling Association/Universal Wrestling Federation
- UWA/UWF Intercontinental Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Ryota Chikuzen
- World Entertainment Wrestling
- WEW Six Man Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Tetsuhiro Kuroda and Gosaku Goshogawara
- Very first WWF Light Heavyweight Champion (1 time)
- PWI ranked him # 191 of the 500 best singles wrestlers during the "PWI Years" in 2003.
- Tokyo Sports Grand Prix
- Best Technical Wrestler of 2005