Even though WWE owns a virtual monopoly on professional wrestling in the United States, it does not own a monopoly on wrestling history (no matter how much Vince McMahon may try to suggest otherwise).
So to try and expose our dear readers to a wider variety of wrestling past and present, I’m introducing a new series that will focus on wrestlers from the past and present that might not have gotten as much exposure as WWE’s top stars. The goal of this series (henceforth called Superstar Spotlight), will be to show you, the reader, what exists and existed beyond WWE.
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We start this series with one of my favourite wrestlers of all time, Mitsuharu Misawa.
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To say that Misawa was a great wrestler would be an understatement. From 1990 until 2000, there was not a single wrestler on the planet that could touch him in terms of high-quality matches, though a small handful came close.
Misawa had an uncanny ability to create perfect wrestling matches that told deep stories and drew in large audiences on a regular basis.
Misawa had all the tools needed to be a tremendous star in Japan: excellent technical ability, a flawless understanding of ring psychology, unbelievable toughness and perfect timing. With these tools, Misawa managed to spearhead a main event run like no one else before or since.
From his first major win over a top Superstar in All Japan to his final singles main event match fifteen years later, Misawa was to AJPW and NOAH what John Cena has been for WWE.
Misawa debuted as a wrestler in 1981, first as a prelim wrestler. He wouldn’t get his big break until 1985, when All Japan bought the rights to the Tiger Mask gimmick. For the next five years, Misawa wrestled for AJPW as Tiger Mask II, and put on many great matches, including a rare WWE vs. AJPW match when he faced Bret Hart at a supershow in 1990.
But that gimmick was not meant to last, as AJPW was dealing with major turmoil in its upper mid-card. For years, the top Japanese wrestlers in All Japan were Jumbo Tsuruta and Genichiro Tenryu. In 1990, Tenryu, along with a small group of high-profile All Japan stars, left Baba’s promotion to form the ill-fated Super World of Sports (SWS).
This left Baba with a lack of main-eventers, so he made the choice to unmask Tiger Mask II, and Misawa was pushed to the moon. Then came coronation day, June 8th, 1990.
Misawa was set to face Tsuruta in a singles match. Prior to the match starting, it was booked that Tsuruta would win. But Baba was in the building as it was being filled, and he could hear the Japanese chanting Misawa’s name throughout the evening.
Keep in mind, this was at a time when the Japanese wrestling fans were still very quiet and respectful during matches. Loud and continuous chants like the ones we hear today were rare. Yet Baba could hear Misawa’s name being chanted all night.
So, in a rare instance of Baba making a last-minute change, he told Tsuruta that Misawa would win instead. Tsuruta accepted begrudgingly, and he and Misawa had a fantastic match. It was very exciting by 1990 standards, but what made it really poignant was the crowd reaction.
When Misawa pinned Tsuruta for the 3-count, the crowd exploded like they did when Steve Austin returned at Backlash 2000. People in the audience shed tears of joy. Misawa was a star.
That match set the tone for a spectacular decade that to this day remains unmatched in terms of high-quality wrestling. Baba kept the focus of the promotion around four top wrestlers: Misawa, Toshiaki Kawada (Misawa’s earliest tag team partner and eventual archrival), Kenta Kobashi, and Akira Taue.
These four men would soon be called ‘The Four Pillars of Heaven’ or ‘The Four Divine Emperors’, and together they had some of the greatest matches ever seen.
Throughout the 1990s, Misawa had excellent matches with one opponent after another. Apart from the above-mentioned Pillars, Misawa also had fantastic matches with Jun Akiyama, Stan Hansen, ‘Dr. Death’ Steve Williams, Vader, and even Johnny Ace. His matches throughout the 1990s were truly phenomenal wrestling bouts.
Throughout his run on top of the AJPW, it was common for Misawa to main event a show and for tickets for the next show on the tour to go on sale shortly after that match ended, and then for those tickets to be sold out before the evening was even over. Misawa was that popular and beloved by his fans, his peers, and by outside observers.
What made his matches so good was that he wrestled in a way that suggested any move he used had the potential to end a match. From his signature elbow strikes and Rolling Elbow smash to his Tiger Driver ‘91 and Tiger Suplex, to his patented Emerald Flowsion, Misawa knew how to not only make himself look like a star but also knew how to make his opponents look like stars.
For example, from 1991 until 1998, the Tiger Driver ‘91 was Misawa’s ‘super-finisher’, a move he busted out on rare occasions because his other moves weren’t cutting it. Then, in 1998, Kenta Kobashi became the first person to ever kick out of the move, which elevated Kobashi to superstar status because he was tough enough to survive this move.
Today’s wrestling audience might not know who Misawa was because his time was spent almost exclusively in All Japan until 2000. It was only thanks to widespread tape trading and the advent of YouTube that his matches can now be seen at any time.
Among the myriad of great matches that Misawa had during his career, was this gem of a battle with rival Toshiaki Kawada on June 3rd, 1994. This is known as ‘the other 6-Star match’, as Dave Meltzer considered this match to be far greater than 5-stars in terms of quality:
By the time his in-ring career really started winding down, Misawa had multiple championship reigns under his belt and obtained several prestigious distinctions courtesy of Pro Wrestling Illustrated, The Wrestling Observer, and Tokyo Sports. No WWE or WCW Superstar has come remotely close to the number of distinctions and the degree of praise Misawa has.
Not Bret Hart, not Shawn Michaels, not Ric Flair, not even Daniel Bryan, AJ Styles, CM Punk, or John Cena. All of them have proven themselves to be excellent wrestlers, but none of them has had such a major impact on the wrestling business or done so much good business for one promotion as Misawa.
It should come as no surprise, then, that his nickname was ‘The Standard Bearer For Future Generations’.
Misawa’s other major claim to fame, apart from being a stellar wrestler between the ropes, was that he was the founder of Pro Wrestling NOAH, a promotion that’s still around to this day.
Misawa founded NOAH after having a major falling out with Giant Baba’s widow over the direction AJPW would go in following the great promoter’s death. Upon realising that their differences couldn’t be resolved, Misawa and 95% of AJPW’s roster and backstage staff opened their own promotion.
NOAH was arguably the hottest promotion in the world during the mid-2000s, thanks in part to Misawa’s early booking of a top champion in Kenta Kobashi (who we’ll look at next time).
Unfortunately, Misawa’s wrestling style was not without its consequences. A big part of his wrestling approach was that he took insane bumps all the time. By the late 1990s, All Japan’s ‘King’s Road’ wrestling style shifted from deep symbolism and an emphasis on NWA-style striking to a glorified ‘who-can-execute-the-most-dangerous-maneuver’ contest.
By the mid-2000s, Misawa had spent over a decade getting dropped on his upper shoulders and neck with some of the most vicious moves ever seen: Burning Hammers, Ganso Bombs, High-angle German, Dragon and Backdrop suplexes. AJPW was so hell-bent on proving its stories were so realistic that they were willing to risk severe injury to their wrestlers.
All of this eventually caught up with Misawa. As a loyal and hard-working man, Misawa rarely, if ever, took time off, even when he stepped away from in-ring work to focus on Pro Wrestling NOAH’s future. By 2007, it was clear NOAH wasn’t drawing as much as he had thought, and so he made the ultimate choice to put the GHC Heavyweight Title back on himself, a decision normally saved as a last resort.
By that point, it was clear that he needed to retire, as his body (especially his neck) needed a reprieve from wrestling. But he wasn’t ready to do so, so he kept working until his final match, which took place on June 13th, 2009.
On this fateful night, Misawa took a backdrop suplex from Akitoshi Saito, and from the moment he landed, something was wrong. Witnesses said the actual suplex itself was something like a ‘7’ on the danger level, but Misawa still landed awkwardly. The referee asked him if he was ok, to which he replied ‘no’, and lost consciousness.
The match was halted instantly, and medical personnel tried to resuscitate him in the ring, while the audience, some of them with tears in their eyes, chanted his name once again, hoping their hero would get up once again like he had been doing for over two decades.
Sadly, there would be no getting up this time, as Misawa passed away at the hospital. Though there would be a handful of tributes to Misawa from around the world, no amount of condolence could save NOAH from the problems that were brewing.
The promotion was very much built around Misawa as the man behind it, and without him, the promotion fell into a slump that it has yet to recover from.
Misawa is a wrestler whose career is absolutely worth celebrating. He was a phenomenal wrestler whose abilities in the ring could rarely be matched by anyone. He was so good at telling a fantastic story in the ring that sometimes you forgot he had an opponent.
Though we may never see his like in wrestling again (especially since the wrestling industry seems to be moving away from the dangerous ‘head-drops’ that he made himself famous for), it’s important that Misawa’s memory continues for as long as possible.
Career Highlights:
-5-time Triple Crown Heavyweight Champion
-3-time GHC Heavyweight Champion
-11-time Tag Team Champion between AJPW, NOAH & NWA affiliate promotions
-26 matches rated 5-Stars by the Wrestling Observer, more than any other wrestler, alive or deceased
--1 unofficial 6-Star match (Misawa vs. Kawada, June 3rd, 1994)
-Multiple Awards by Pro Wrestling Illustrated, The Wrestling Observer & Tokyo Sports (Match of the Year, Wrestler of the Year, etc.)
Signature Moves:
Tiger Suplex, Emerald Flowsion, Tiger Driver/Tiger Driver ‘91, Elbow Smash
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