Man, I'm a fan of Ultimo Dragon and all that, but at the same time... I can't help but feel he's extremely overrated by the IWC, and that Masato Tanaka would kick his ass. Dragon would put up a good fight, but at the end of the day, he doesn't have what it takes to defeat someone like Masato Tanaka, in my mind. I don't care if Tanaka has never had a match in WCW or not... the fact is that he's a tough motherfucker, who would throw Ultimo around that ring like a rag doll.
Masato Tanaka gets this rep that all he can do is "Hardcore" stuff in his matches, and that's completely false. If you've only watched his ECW stuff, then I can understand why you've come to that conclusion, but if you're not ignorant to his work in FMW (which, yes, did have a lot of non-violent matches), Zero-1, and NJPW, then you know good and well that Masato can have great, kick ass matches in a regular bout just as well as he could in a hardcore environment. And against Ultimo Dragon... it would be one hell of a match, but I just can't see Dragon pulling off the victory, in any circumstance.