Pro Wrestling Ponderings

As I was in the process of working on the comeback edition of “Stating My Case,” a column that was featured weekly on the old Cool Kids Table website, I learned of the untimely death of Mitsuharu Misawa while perusing the news updates at the Dragon Gate USA website. Initially, I attempted to work my feelings about Misawa’s passing into that column. But the more I wrote, the more I realized I had quite a lot to say about the subject. This is not “Stating My Case.” I have no case to state, and I have no need to limit myself to the amount of words necessary to sum up my feelings. In the end, I decided to dedicate a complete column to arguably the greatest wrestler in the history of Japan, Mitsuharu Misawa.

A wrestling tragedy.

To me, there’s something incredibly redundant about that statement. As a fan of the sport, I’ve come to accept the fact that wrestling and tragedy make frequent bedfellows. It doesn’t seem like we can go long enough for the scars to heal properly before we suffer fresh wounds. Between the pressure on young stars to perform at a much more accelerated rate and time catching up with the heroes of yesteryear, time has proven to be less kind to the world of professional wrestling. This isn’t just another one of those wrestling tragedies. An upper echelon mainstay for the past twenty years and elder statesman who was an ambassador for the sport has left us, and it happened under tragic circumstances.

Mitsuharu Misawa may not have deeply impacted my personal life the way Bret Hart or Chris Benoit did, but I take this loss to heart just as much as any other. He played an integral part in the development of my wrestling fandom, as the name Misawa became synonymous to me with Puroesu. But to the Japanese fans, he was more than just a wrestler. He was wrestling period. In fact I would go so far as to say that he is a cornerstone in the history of the Land of the Rising Sun. This is a loss in the vein of Rikidozan, Jumbo Tsuruta, and Giant Baba, but perhaps even more so because of how Misawa helped to bring All Japan to the forefront of pro-wrestling in the early 1990s and continued that tradition when he founded Pro Wrestling NOAH in 2000.

Watching Misawa wrestle is unlike anything I have ever seen as a wrestling fan - truly what I would call a one of a kind experience. There was nothing graceful about Misawa’s style, it was just sheer brutality. Even in the later years when his body had visibly begun to break down on him, he took the hardest hits and gave back twice as hard. Watching him waylay opponents with that cylinder block-like roaring elbow or drop his opponents with a Tiger Driver ‘91 was cringe-inducing. I had the privilege of seeing him live in person at Glory By Honor VI Night 2 at the Hammerstein Ballroom when he defended the GHC Title against KENTA in what was a respectable showing - a moment I will cherish even more now that he has passed on.

This is a double-edged sword of a situation, in that Misawa’s death could and couldn’t have been avoided. People always made comments in passing or at length in various articles about how broken down Misawa’s body had become. In late 2008, I did a piece on how Kurt Angle needed to retire not just for the sake of legacy, which was being tarnished by TNA, but for the sake of his personal well-being. The same could have been said for Misawa. Perhaps the saddest news to come forth in the wake of Misawa’s death is word from the front office that he had planned to retire sometime at the end of the year to focus on his entrepreneurial endeavors.

There’s something surreal about the notion of Misawa dying in the ring. In so many ways it’s tragic and kind of eery, but at the same time, it seems almost appropriate. It has something of a mythic quality to it, which in itself is tragic and eery. The parallelism between Misawa and the story of Randy “the Ram” Robinson in the movie “The Wrestler” is odd because it’s a case of life imitating art imitating life. It almost seems redundant (particularly in such a high contact sport such as this) to ask “how many more do we have to lose,” but you can’t help but ponder such a question.

It’s sad to think that Misawa will never get a hero’s sendoff. He will never wrestle one last singles match against Kobashi or Akiyama, or have the chance to truly pass the torch to Morishima or Shiozaki. It’s sad, I think most of all, because it’s anticlimactic. It was a career and, in this case, a life cut tragically short. Like Bret Hart or Eddie Guerrero, we as fans will never have the good fortune of witnessing one last dance, the kind of sendoff a hero and legend like Misawa was so deserving of. But obviously, the most important thing is that a life has been lost, and it didn’t have to end in such a fashion.

There are many things I will miss about Misawa. His ever-present stoicism. Hearing “Spartan X” and the explosive chant of “Mis-a-wa! Mis-a-wa! Mis-a-wa!” that always accompanied it. The pageantry of his ring entrance and the adoration shown night after night by his legions of fans. The roaring elbow. The Tiger Driver. Emerald Frosion. All those things are the kind of elements that define what wrestling is all about, but Misawa was truly a one of a kind figure who many the world over have since tried to imitate, but will never duplicate.

My thoughts are with the family of Mitsuharu Misawa in this time of mourning. My thoughts are also with the staff of Pro Wrestling NOAH, especially Akitoshi Saito - I hope you are at peace despite this terrible tragedy. I want to send a very special thank you to RD for running Green Destiny, which kept me abreast of the goings-on in NOAH for the three or so years that I followed the promotion. I know Misawa won’t be just another one of those wrestlers who died and will drift into obscurity, because he was just too big of a man for that to happen. But I hope we all continue to pay homage to him by watching his matches and remembering how much he gave to the sport.

The Matches
These, in my somewhat limited knowledge of Puro, are five of the essential Misawa matches. Of course, a list of twenty matches would still be an incomplete list, but these are five that stick out in my mind that anyone and everyone who considers his or herself a fan of wrestling should see before they die.

vs. Jumbo Tsuruta, June 8th, 1990 - This is the match where young Misawa became a superstar (the All Japan equivalent of Hart vs. Austin from Wrestlemania 13). The torch was passed this night as the smaller Misawa put up an incredible fight against Tsuruta and came out on top in a tremendous effort from both.

vs. Toshiaki Kawada, June 3rd, 1994 - This is the one match that people who know nothing about Puro talk about. It is generally looked upon as the greatest match in the history of Japan and one can easily see why. One of the stiffest, most hard-hitting matches you will ever see.

with Kenta Kobashi vs. Kawada & Akira Taue, June 9th, 1995 - Four legends of wrestling. Two iconic teams. One title. Any words I can conjure up wouldn’t adequately describe such an unrequited classic. I can safely say in all my years of watching wrestling and all of the matches I have seen that this is not only the greatest tag team match of all time, but one of the greatest matches ever.

vs. Kobashi, June 11th, 1999 - My favorite of all their title matches, and the last (at least until their match in NOAH) in a string of annual title matches between the two that left my absolutely breathless. If Misawa hitting the Emerald Frosion on Kobashi at the end of this epic marathon to retain the title doesn’t make you pop, nothing will.

vs. Kobashi, March 3rd, 2003 - The start of Kobashi’s legendary two year title run, this was the last of their one on one matches, though this time for the GHC Title. If you thought Misawa and Kobashi were too old and broken down at this point, wait until you see what they do to each other off the entrance ramp.

Domo Arigato Misawa-san, and may you live on forever in our memories and our hearts.

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