Personally, despite his many faults (including shooting on his opponents and being a brutal trainer), always though Maeda revolutionized Puro with the clean finishes of the UWF pushing NJPW and AJPW to do the same; also, Maeda is one of the most instrumental figures for the birth of MMA through both UWF and RINGS.
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Rings King of Kings was the greatest MMA ruleset, imo.
Never really followed his pro wrestling career other than reading about it. But holy shit, all of the Rings KOK tournaments were incredible.
One of the greatest of all time I think. He’s in my top 5 personally. He was so good at his style and revolutionized the way pro wrestling was looked at in the late 1980s. UWF 2.0 was crazy popular in Tokyo with the younger generation because of him ([this video speaks for itself](https://twitter.com/purowave/status/1663581059601125385)), and they were able to sell out the Tokyo Dome. I think they were the first pro wrestling group to sell it out? He had some epic tag team battles during his run in NJPW from 1986-1988 as well.
RINGS is probably my favorite wrestling promotion of all time as well. From about 1996-1999, they rarely missed and the earlier stuff was almost as good.
Although he wasn’t part of it, the success of UWFi led to major changes for New Japan and All Japan with their finishes. It also led to the hottest New Japan angle of the 90s with the UWFi invasion angle, which directly inspired the NWO.
Obviously you can’t excuse his behavior in the ring by frequently shooting on unsuspecting opponents, but Maeda was hugely influential in New Japan in the 80s and 90s (despite not wrestling for them in the latter decade).
He’s a jerk, but I like his capture suplex
It’s weird, I don’t think Maeda was the most charismatic guy in the ring, but he had an aura to him that made his matches feel important no matter the situation.
That and the fact that he blended shoot-style with pro wrestling often and well enough to leave people guessing.
He is a great no doubt. Also Rings FC before it went full MMA was brilliant. That’s shoot style at it’s very very best!