Minoru Fujita

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Minoru Fujita (藤田ミノル, Fujita Minoru^?) is a Japanese professional wrestler, currently performing for Pro Wrestling NOAH and Pro Wrestling ZERO1-MAX, where he is the current AWA World Junior Heavyweight Champion, having won a tournament final against Takuya Sugawara.

[edit] Career

Fujita started in Big Japan Pro Wrestling as a protegé of its top junior heavyweight, Yoshihiro Tajiri. When Tajiri, who was Big Japan junior heavyweight champion, quit the company and gave up the title, Fujita had a decision match against Katsumi Usuda from the Battlarts promotion but ended up losing.

Fujita spent his time leaving Big Japan to venture into other Japanese independents, meeting Ikuto Hidaka of Battlarts along the way and making memorable tag team matches with him. The combination, however, despite their combined talent, could not have a future due to their separate schedules; Fujita tried a move to Michinoku Pro Wrestling in 2000, but despite the higher exposure, it did little for him financially and did not raise his stock as a viable junior heavyweight contender.

He thus headed for Mexico and Puerto Rico, where he won his first major title, the International Wrestling Association junior heavyweight title. Returning to Japan in 2002, he entered New Japan Pro Wrestling (to which he had been once before, in a Best of the Super Junior tournament), to challenge the heavyweight division, but nothing came out of it. He then headed to TAKA Michinoku's Kaientai Dojo promotion, but despite being promoted as a tough-to beat heel, he was never able to win titles there.

A change of pace came in 2004 when he joined Pro Wrestling ZERO-ONE, where old friend Hidaka awaited. The two began teaming more frequently and this time they clicked, collecting several tag team titles along the way. Their greatest victory came in March of 2006, when they defeated Pro Wrestling NOAH stars Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Takashi Sugiura to win the GHC Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship. Since then Fujita has been a rising star in Japan and has finally shed the "underachiever" tag he was saddled with by foreign observers of puroresu.