Pat Tanaka

Patrick Tanaka (born August 5, 1963) is an American professional wrestler best known for his work in the American Wrestling Association (AWA) as one half of Badd Company and the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) as one half of The Orient Express.

He is the son of Duke Keomuka.

In his career, which has spanned more than three decades, Tanaka has worked for the American Wrestling Association (AWA), the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), World Championship Wrestling (WCW), Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW), the Continental Wrestling Association (CWA) and New Japan Pro-Wrestling.

Trained by his father, Duke Keomuka, Hiro Matsuda, and the New Japan Pro-Wrestling Dojo, Pat Tanaka debuted in 1984 for NJPW.

During his time there, he wrestled the likes of Keiichi Yamada, Shunji Kosugi, Black Cat, Naoki Sano, Tatsutoshi Goto, Shinichi Nakano, and Hirokazu Hata.

After a year in New Japan, Tanaka started wrestling as a jobber in Jim Crockett Promotions in 1985.

In 1986, Tanaka moved to Memphis, Tennessee where he worked for Jerry Lawler and Jerry Jarrett’s Continental Wrestling Association.

Early on Tanaka teamed with Jeff Jarrett to win the AWA Southern Tag Team Championship.

In late 1986 the tag-team specialist Tanaka was teamed up with Paul Diamond, who was also seen as a tag-team specialist, to form Badd Company, a move that paid off pretty soon as the two won the CWA/AWA International Tag Team Championship, beating Tarzan Goto and Akio Sato on December 15, 1986.

The first reign was short lived as The Sheepherders (Luke Williams and Butch Miller) defeated the duo on January 10, 1987.

Badd Company quickly regained the titles only to lose them to Tarzan Goto and Akio Sato on February 5, 1987.

The third reign with the tag-team titles came on May 9, 1987 when the team beat Mark Starr in a handicap match, but lost them back to Starr and his new tag team partner Billy Joe Travis.

Badd Company had one last run with the International tag team titles as they won the vacant titles on May 25, 1987 and held them until July 6, 1987 where they lost the titles to Bill Dundee and Rocky Johnson (who were the last International tag team champions).

While in Memphis Badd Company also won the CWA's main tag team title, the AWA Southern Tag Team Championship, defeating Jeff Jarrett and Billy Joe Travis on August 8, 1987.

They lost the titles to The Nasty Boys just over a month later.

After working as a team for almost a year Badd Company moved on from the CWA to the American Wrestling Association.

In the AWA they were given identical ring gear, and were accompanied by flamboyant manager Diamond Dallas Page, who always had a number of valets, known as the Diamond Dolls, with him.

The team's first feud was against the Midnight Rockers, whom they defeated for the AWA World Tag Team Championship on March 19, 1988.

During their year-long title reign Badd Company would feud heavily with Chavo and Mando Guerrero and the team known as the Top Guns (Ricky Rice and Derrick Dukes).

They teamed with Madusa Miceli to face the team of the Top Guns and Wendi Richter at the only AWA pay-per-view SuperClash III.

Both Badd Company's Tag Team Title and Wendi Richter's AWA World Women's Championship were on the line, but since Richter pinned Miceli, Badd Company remained the Tag Team champions.

Diamond and Tanaka's reign ended on March 25, 1989 as they lost to the Olympians (Brad Rheingans and Ken Patera).

Shortly after losing their titles they split from Page, and had a short feud against each other before wrestling in singles competition until early 1990.

Tanaka signed with the World Wrestling Federation in 1990, where he formed another tag team called The Orient Express with Akio Sato, managed by Mr. Fuji.

While the Orient Express was supposed to represent Japan, both Tanaka and Mr Fuji were born in Hawaii.

The Orient Express kicked off a prolonged feud with The Rockers that started at WrestleMania VI, where Sato and Tanaka were victorious via countout, and continued off and on for well over a year.

The Orient Express got involved in the Legion of Doom / Demolition feud as Mr. Fuji managed Demolition as well.

Demolition was being phased out and the Orient Express began taking on the Legion of Doom instead.

The Legion of Doom / Orient Express feud was extremely onesided due to the Legion of Doom's massive size advantage.

After WrestleMania VI, Tanaka and Sato only made two pay-per-view appearances while in the WWF.

Firstly at SummerSlam 1990 where the team were defeated by "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan and Nikolai Volkoff.

At Survivor Series, they were then a part of the Sgt. Slaughter led team The Mercenaries (that also included Boris Zhukov).

Sato was pinned by Bushwhacker Butch 1:46 into the match and Tanaka was pinned by Tito Santana only moments later, at 2:13 into the match.

When Akio Sato decided leave the U.S. wrestling scene in the latter days of 1990, the WWF decided to reunite the team known as Badd Company, only this time with Paul Diamond wearing a mask to hide the fact that he was not Asian and using the name of Kato.

During this time the team had a very well received match with their old enemies the Rockers at the 1991 Royal Rumble and another against the New Foundation at the 1992 Royal Rumble, which were the only two PPV appearances for the New Orient Express.

Sato briefly rejoined the team in 1991 to team with Tanaka and Kato for a series of 6-man tag-team matches on WWF house shows, but Sato left the WWF after only a handful of matches together.

Tanaka missed a number of appearances in 1991 due to the death of his father, Duke Keomuka, although he returned to finish out his WWF contract (which ended in February 1992) by losing a series of singles squash matches.

While doing work for other organizations, Tanaka would make several appearances for the WWF in late 1993 with his martial arts gimmick, losing to the likes of the 1-2-3 Kid, Marty Jannetty, and Razor Ramon.

After Paul Diamond also left the WWF the two reunited as Badd Company to work for Eastern Championship Wrestling (the forerunner to Extreme Championship Wrestling) in 1993.

He then made a single appearance in November 1994, losing to Doink the Clown.