Mitsuharu Misawa

Mitsuharu Misawa has died.
It's been a couple of weeks since his death, but the impact is still there. Coping with the death of a true wrestling legend will, sadly, be easier than a normal celebrity death. Even so, Misawa was a wrestling GOD plain and simple. There were rarely finer performers in the ring who were able to sustain such a long, industry impacting career. Misawa WAS Puroresu (Japanese wrestling). He took the reigns of All Japan Pro Wrestling as a young man and revolutionized the style of wrestling. His emphasis on exciting matches full of big, dangerous moves was fresh back in the 90s. Fueds with Kenta Kobashi, Toshiaki Kawada and Akira Taue led to some of the greatest matches in the history of wrestling. He innovated what are now some of the most basic moves of wrestling. Tiger drivers, Emerald Fusion and its knock-offs, and flashy elbow based offensives.

Leaving AJPW in the 2000s Misawa founded Pro Wrestling NOAH. Consistently voted promotion of the year, and several times putting on the highest attended wrestling show in the world for a particular year. The company he created was based on his principles of wrestling. NOAH puts on the best shows yearly. The marquee matches are truly spectacular showcasing the granduer of the 'epic' match. Misawa had his fair share of epic matches. Three Kobashi vs Misawa matches were in the top 10 of all time. Misawa vs Kawada, Misawa vs Akiyama, Misawa vs Taue. He was a man who put on the best shows, and made sure his men did too.

Simply put, Mitsuharu Misawa was magic in the ring. Every time he went out there he put on a brilliant performance. I had the great fortune to see Misawa wrestle in person. I went with two friends on a road trip to Philadelphia to watch what was Mitsuharu Misawa's only US excursion in many years. The atmosphere was, well, magic. There was something special in the air. When his music hit and his banners were marched in, I was instantly a little bubbling child. I was giddy. The match could've been awful, it wasn't, and I couldn't have cared. He was right there, mere feet away. It was the experience of a liftime.

It seems his magic came at a heavy toll, physcially and mentally. He put on matches 9 months a year for 20 years. Wear and tear on his body took it out of him. His heart gave out in the ring and he died in the same place he had entertained millions. He never stopped, he kept going to the very end.

As a (former) fan of wrestling the past couple of years have desensitized me to performer deaths. Dozens and dozens of wrestlers have died in just the past 10 years. Not just old guys whose glory days were the 70s. It's young guys in their prime dying untimely deaths. Its ridiculous how workers in the industry die! Not even the barely significant no-name guys. It's the names. One day a wrestler will be in the ring entertaining a crowd of folks with questionable IQs, a week later he'll die of some heart related disease. It should make wrestling fans extremely angry at the businessmen running the industry. Their "burn 'em up when their young" style of managment, forcing them to be out there 300 days a year is killing these guys. But the fans don't care. They move on and keep those who came before in their memory. The fans should DEMAND more from the management of these companies. The WWE, for instance, seems to only do enough to cover its own ass. This is not the case so much in Japan, where the companies legit look after and care about their wrestlers. They treat their wrestlers decent.

Sadly Mitsuharu Misawa has left the world. Yet his matches and memory will live on, honored forever as an eternal wrestling legend.