Back توشياكى كاوادا ARZ Toshiaki Kawada Spanish Toshiaki Kawada French Toshiaki Kawada Italian 川田利明 Japanese 川田利明 Chinese
| Toshiaki Kawada | |
|---|---|
 Kawada with the Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship in 2002 | |
| Born | December 8, 1963[1] Ohira, Shimotsuga District, Tochigi (now part of Tochigi city), Japan |
| Professional wrestling career | |
| Ring name(s) | Black Mephisto Hustle K Kio Kawada Monster K Mr. Toshiaki Toshiaki Kawada |
| Billed height | 1.83 m (6 ft 0 in) |
| Billed weight | 105 kg (231 lb)[1] |
| Trained by | Giant Baba Genichiro Tenryu All Japan Pro Wrestling[2] |
| Debut | October 4, 1982[2] |
| Retired | August 15, 2010 |
Toshiaki Kawada (川田 利明, Kawada Toshiaki) (born December 8, 1963) is a Japanese semi-retired professional wrestler. He is best known for his work in All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW), whom he worked for from his debut in 1982 up until 2008. In All Japan Pro Wrestling, he was a 5 time Triple Crown Heavyweight Champion, a 9 time World Tag Team Champion, three-time winner of the Real World Tag League and a two-time winner of the Champion Carnival. He was also recognised as the ace of the promotion from 2000 to 2005.
Known by fans and his contemporaries as "Dangerous K" (デンジャラス K, Denjarasu kei), he is widely considered one of the greatest wrestlers of all time. His matches against Mitsuharu Misawa, Jun Akiyama, and Kenta Kobashi in the 1990s are argued by many fans and experts in the industry as some of the greatest professional wrestling matches of all time. He is known for his extremely stiff wrestling style and martial arts strikes, which earned his nickname. He also has the distinction of having competed in 21 matches that were given a perfect 5-star rating by Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, and three Tokyo Sports Match of the Year awards, which too brought him the distinction of being nicknamed the "Best Match Machine" (名勝負製造機, Mei shōbu seizō-ki).