JADO & GEDO
1989 - Present
IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champions
Written by Adam Zimmerman
Jado and Gedo are perhaps not the most well-known tag team to North American wrestling fans, but are nonetheless two of the all-time greats. Also known as The World Class Tag Team, they began their careers in 1989 in New Japan Pro Wrestling under the ring names of Punish and Crush. Neither team member is what you'd consider a "big guy" so those nicknames always seemed a little out of place to me... but that's what they went with.In New Japan, the duo was a part of the Takeshi Puroresu Gundan stable which was a parody of the WWF's Rock n Wrestling Connection era.
Once the stable split up, they left NJPW to work in Gran Hamada's Universal Lucha Libre promotion. Here, they won that promotion's Intercontinental Tag Team Championship from Silver King and El Texano. When Universal Lucha Libre closed its doors in 1993, Jado and Gedo decided to travel to the W*ING promotion. This was also short-lived as W*ING shut in early 1994 but not before Punish (Jado) could win the W*ING recognized, WWC Caribbean Heavyweight Championship.
After W*ING, the boys decided to go to Genichiro Tenryu's Wrestle And Romance promotion. Here they started to go by their more famous names of Jado and Gedo and joined up with Ricky Fuyuki and formed a stable called Fuyuki-Gun. The trio dominated the six-man tag division before losing the belts to the "odd squad" of Bob Backlund, Scott Putski, and The Warlord.
On a side note... I stood next to The Warlord once at an indy show at Waynesboro High School. I was standing in the hallway because they oversold the show so there wasn't enough room in the gym. He walked out of the locker room and stood next to me to watch Magnum TA address the crowd, I believe. Giant of a man. I didn't actually say anything to him and he never said a word either. He intimidated me just by standing there.
During this time, the team took some time off and Gedo wrestled in the all-star 1995 Super J Cup. Seriously, if you haven't seen it, you should watch it. It features a who's who of "cruiserweight" wrestlers at the time, many of which became legends. Watching this tournament was my first experience seeing Gedo wrestle.
Once the tournament was done, the duo caught up with Fuyuki once again and spent a few years with him in Atsushi Onita's FMW where they once again captured six-man tag team gold. They also wrestled a few shows for ECW due to their working relationship with FMW at the time.
In 2001, Jado and Gedo decided to go back to their roots and once again started wrestling for New Japan where they remain a top tag team to this day. Hopefully, they will continue to have great matches for years to come. Even back in the days when tag teams were considered a "long-term investment," I'm hard-pressed to think of any team that has been together as long as these guys. Nearly thirty years!
They truly deserve their spotlight during Tag Team Appreciation Month.