How many Tiger Masks are there?

And who were they all?

And who is Tiger King?

[CANADIAN]

There were several Tiger Masks based on the famous wrestling cartoon "Tiger Mask" by Ikki Kajiwara.

The very first one was Samson Kutsuwada, who wrestled as a heel in South Korea where the cartoon show was famous in '71.

The "original" Tiger Mask was, of course, Satoru Sayama, who wrestled under the character between 81/04/23 and 83/08/04 for New Japan. He suddenly left New Japan in the summer 83 and later wrestled for the original UWF, where he wrestled as "The Tiger" and "Super Tiger". After 95, he has been wrestling as Shodai (original, the first) Tiger Mask although he briefly used "Tiger King" name in 97.

Mitsuharu Misawa wrestled as the second Tiger Mask between 84/08/26 and 90/05/14 in All Japan. In his last match, he told his tag team partner Toshiaki Kawada to take his mask off and announced he would no longer wear the mask after the match.

The third Tiger Mask, considered rather as a failure by many fans, was Kouji Kanemoto of New Japan. He wrestled as Tiger Mask as a special attraction for New Japan's 20th anniversary card on 92/03/01 and few more matches in the same year. However, he started using the character again on 93/05/03 until 94/01/04 when he took his mask off after losing to Jushin Thunder Liger. He wore the mask several more times only for the special occasions afterwards.

The fourth and current Tiger Mask, whose identity is not yet revealed publically, was in fact trained by Satoru Sayama as a competitor of "shooto". He debut on 95/07/15 against The Great Sasuke. After losing the match, he joined Michinoku, where he wrestled until 02/12/16 when he joined New Japan.

There have been other Tiger Masks in North America, including Ken Wayne and/or Danny Davis in Central States, Ricky Fuji in Calgary, and Eddie Steinbrock in C.W.A. (Austria/Germany).

[B]This is from a message board www.puroresu.com/forums . If you want a tape w/ Tiger Mask 4 drop me an email bannabop@hotmail.com.. Anyway The "2nd Tiger Mask" as he is usually refered to as, Mitsuharu Misawa went on to great fame using his own name.

Thanks.

I'm downloading this NJPW match that's supposed to be Tiger King & Tiger Mask IV vs Tiger Mask II & Tinger Mask III from Dec. 10th, 1997.

Should be great.

[CANADIAN]

Did you like the match? Ive seen it aswell.

Originally Posted by CANADIAN Did you like the match? Ive seen it aswell.

I looked at the intro. It's a bit hard to tell 2 and 3 apart since their costumes are the most similar.

[CANADIAN]

Yeah.. I prefer seeing Tiger Mask IV in matches alone or in 6 man tags... He has an excellent Tiger Suplex.

[The Mackem]

You have Wrestling videos Funky Fly? No way!

[My Final Heaven]

If I'm not mistaken, there was also a female version of Tiger Mask named Tiger Dream in Japan. It was Candy Okutsu, A pretty famous worker who actually had a hit pop song at one time. Here's a pic:



Hope this helps

Originally Posted by My Final Heaven If I'm not mistaken, there was also a female version of Tiger Mask named Tiger Dream in Japan. It was Candy Okutsu, A pretty famous worker who actually had a hit pop song at one time. Here's a pic: Hope this helps

First of all, LOL!

Second, where can I find some of her work?

[Iceman90]

Check on KaZaa or WinMX or something for old clips.

Tape trading places could maybe help you out.

[My Final Heaven]

Candy Okutsu is probably one of my favorite 2 wrestlers of all time, young Jake Roberts being the other. I've got a couple of video clips of her work in realmedia format for you. I'm glad I've got somebody else interested in her . Her finishers she usually used were the Triple German Suplex & Moonsaults (also usually in threes). Of coarse, when she was Tiger Dream she had a BEAUTIFUL Tiger Suplex. Her suplexes rivaled Benoit in execution.

Clip 1 Rolling German Suplexes to Mikiko Futagami - Great clip, this was Candy when she was early in her carreer & took a lot of risks. That led to her having a bad back, which forced her to retire before her time. Her career led a lot of parallels to Jeff Hardy, I think.

Clip 2 Triple German to Yumi Fukawa - Yumi was her longtime partner & opponent, putting on incredible matches all over Japan. It also helped to draw in people that they were both steaming hot .

Clip 3 Series of three moonsault presses to Mikiko Futagami - What else is there to say? THREE MOONSAULTS IN A ROW. Nuff said.

Clip 4 Mikiko Futagami gives her an X Tornado followed by a Kentucky Bomb - Not only was she a marvelous technical wrestler, but she could also take some sick-ass bumps. I think some american male wrestlers would shy away from those 2 moves...

Finally, her Tiger Suplex.


Thanks for listening to me ramble, I feel better now

That is a sweet looking Tiger Suplex. I'll have to check out the clips later, though.

Thanks for all this.