A mixed martial arts pioneer, Suzuki is well noted for his excellence in catch wrestling, and has been praised many times by elite fighters such as Josh Barnett, Bas Rutten, and Ken Shamrock for his outstanding grappling and submission skills.
He had his debut in professional fighting on the very first card of the company, facing Katsuomi Inagaki in a bout which showed Suzuki's top grappling prowess, with Minoru winning by rear naked choke in 3:25.
He continued his beginnings with a victory over Lion's Den trainee Vernon White, in which Suzuki made him submit to a catch wrestling-inspired crooked headscissors.
During the match, celebrated in January 1994, the two fighters traded positions, with Suzuki getting overpowered by the stronger Shamrock, but he was able to turn Ken over and initiate a leglock attack.
The Japanese fighter locked a heel hook, which Ken looked to reverse, but at that moment Suzuki transitioned it into a kneebar and extended his leg further.
Shamrock reached for a rope escape as the Pancrase ruleset stipulated, but he was gravely injured by the hold and couldn't continue, thus losing the match.
His last non-worked fight for Pancrase was against a professional wrestler, Jushin Thunder Liger (who replaced his original opponent, Kensuke Sasaki, due to injury), whom Suzuki had known under his real name Keiichi Yamada in his first NJPW stint.
Suzuki witnessed the transition Pancrase made from the so-called "hybrid wrestling" style to that of regular MMA and was instrumental in paving the way for mixed martial arts in Japan.
Suzuki began competing for NJPW as a freelancer, where he aligned himself with Yoshihiro Takayama and won the IWGP Tag Team Championship from Hiroyoshi Tenzan and Osamu Nishimura on February 1, 2004.
In 2005, Suzuki began competing in Pro Wrestling Noah, and would receive a GHC Heavyweight Championship shot against then Champion Kenta Kobashi, but he was defeated.
Nonetheless, Suzuki taught Marufuji some of what he knew and they clicked, winning the GHC Tag Team Championship from 2 Cold Scorpio and Doug Williams on June 18, 2005.
After losing the belts to Muhammad Yone and Takeshi Morishima in October, Suzuki challenged for the GHC Heavyweight Championship shot against champion Jun Akiyama on March 5, 2006, but he was once again unsuccessful.
On March 10, 2006, Suzuki made a surprise appearance in All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW), attacking then Triple Crown Heavyweight Champion Satoshi Kojima after he had just defended his title against The Great Muta.
After holding the Triple Crown for just short of a year, he lost the title to Kensuke Sasaki on August 26, 2007, at AJPW's Pro Wrestling Love in Ryogoku.
On March 1, 2008, Minoru Suzuki made an appearance at the Dory Funk Jr. retirement show, providing commentary for the Triple Crown Championship main event (between Kensuke Sasaki and Satoshi Kojima), as well as pledging to participate in the upcoming Champion Carnival.
Suzuki then entered the Champion Carnival and won it for the second straight year, being the third man to do so by beating Funaki in the final – weeks removed from their cage match.
[16] Suzuki then went on a six match win streak, but losses to Strong Man and Shinsuke Nakamura on the last two days of the tournament, caused him to narrowly miss advancing to the finals.
[20] On November 12 at Power Struggle, Suzuki and Archer failed in their attempt to capture the IWGP Tag Team Championship from Bad Intentions.
[23] On February 12 at The New Beginning, Suzuki led Lance Archer, Taichi, Taka Michinoku and Yoshihiro Takayama of the Suzuki-gun to a dominant 5–1 win over Kushida, Tiger Mask, Togi Makabe, Wataru Inoue and Yuji Nagata in a ten-man elimination tag team match.
[33] From November 20 to December 1, Suzuki took part in the round-robin portion of the 2012 World Tag League, alongside Suzuki-gun's newest member Kengo Mashimo.
[36] Afterwards, Suzuki led Suzuki-gun to a war with New Japan's other villainous stable, Chaos, which built to a singles match on February 10 at The New Beginning, where he defeated Kazuchika Okada.
[77] The entire Suzuki-gun returned to NJPW on January 5, 2017, attacking the Chaos stable with Suzuki laying out IWGP Heavyweight Champion Kazuchika Okada.
between November and December 2018, Suzuki and Takashi Iizuka entered the 2018 World Tag League, where they finished with a record of 5 wins and 8 losses, failing to advance to the finals.
On January 5, 2019, Suzuki and Suzuki-Gun Stablemate Zack Sabre Jr challenged newly crowned IWGP tag team champions Evil and Sanada[90] to a match for their titles at New Beginning in Sapporo, which they were unsuccessful in doing so.
Suzuki and IWGP United States Champion Lance Archer entered the 2019 World Tag League, where they finished with a record of 9 wins and 6 losses, failing to advance to the finals.
[100] The following month on NJPW Strong, Suzuki reunited with Lance Archer to defeat the team of Jon Moxley and Eddie Kingston in a Philadelphia street fight.
[104] In February during the NJPW New Years Golden Series, Suzuki lost the Provisional KOPW 2022 trophy to Toru Yano in a Dog Cage match.
[111] The factions final match took place on December 23, where the team of Douki, Kanemaru, Sabre, and Taichi defeated Archer, Desperado, Michinoku, and Suzuki.
[117][118] The following week on Impact!, Suzuki made his in-ring debut, teaming with Moose and W. Morrissey to defeat Alexander, Eddie Edwards, and Matt Cardona.
He compensates his average size with a highly mobile, position-switching style of freestyle wrestling, specialized in capturing top position and flowing incessantly around his opponent in the search of an opening.