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DEROSENROLL's ROH HISTORY: Remembering Mitsuharu Misawa and his influence on wrestling in the U.S. Jun 13, 2009 - 3:15:13 PM
How sad to log on to the Torch this afternoon and learn of the tragic death of Mitsuharu Misawa, yet another wrestler death at far too young an age. Misawa was a legend in Japanese wrestling and leaves behind a tremendous body of work.
On the occasion of C.M. Punk's recent WWE World Heavyweight Title win, I was planning to devote this week's ROH classics column to Punk's short but highly eventful ROH World Title run in 2005. However, in light of today's tragic news, let's put the Punk column off for a week and instead look back at Misawa's involvement in ROH.
As the founder and owner of Pro Wrestling NOAH, arguably Japan's top promotion, Misawa was a key figure in NOAH's cooperation with Ring of Honor over the years. Several NOAH stars like KENTA, Takeshi Morishima, Naomichi Marifuji, and Go Shiozaki have had extended stays in ROH, and others have come in for short tours, including Kenta Kobashi in 2005 and Misawa himself in 2007.
Similarly, many ROH stars have worked for NOAH over the years. Misawa's greatest influence on ROH and North American wrestling in general may well be through his influence on the North American-based wrestlers who have worked for NOAH. Many already-good ROH workers have gone on tour with NOAH and come back even better than before, including Samoa Joe, Nigel McGuiness, Davey Richards, the Briscoe Brothers, and others.
ROH has also toured Japan twice and co-promoted a show with NOAH on each tour. The show they co-promoted with NOAH in Japan in 2007, Live in Tokyo, was outstanding and well worth going out of your way to get.
Misawa's only ROH tour, November 2 and 3, 2007, came during his third and final run as the GHC Heavyweight Champion, NOAH's top singles title (GHC stands for Global Honored Crown). The first show was Glory By Honor VI Night One in Philadelphia. Misawa teamed up with KENTA to take on Morishima and Marifuji. This was a very good main event with excellent tag team psychology, but not quite an all-time classic, in part because of a disappointing finish. The highlight was the Philadelphia crowd's response to Misawa; they were delighted to be seeing him in person and went crazy for him.
The next night, at Glory By Honor VI Night Two in New York, Misawa put his title on the line against KENTA. This one definitely was an all-time classic. It was the first time in the history of the GHC Heavyweight title that it was defended outside of Japan, and Misawa and KENTA rose to the occasion with a truly incredible match. The crowd again went crazy for Misawa, and the match was dramatic tour-de-force that built to an outstanding climax.
As outstanding as Misawa's performances were during his ROH tour, it was obvious that the then-forty-five-year-old's body was breaking down, and I can't help but wonder if that breakdown contributed to his death. He was not very mobile in either ROH match and limited his bump-taking to a few moments of high drama.
In the words of Kevin Nash, Misawa's opponents created most of the movement in the matches. This is not a criticism of Misawa's performances, because I do not believe the quality of a match is measured by counting athletic moves and big bumps. Misawa was still a phenomenal storyteller in the ring and he made everything that he or his opponents did mean something, especially the big bumps he took in the finishing sequence of the KENTA match.
However, the fact remains that Misawa wrestled a very stiff hard-hitting style for almost three decades until his death, and this had clearly taken a toll on his body by the time he toured ROH in 2007. We may never know for sure if this toll was a major factor in his death, but it does make it somewhat melancholy to re-watch his ROH matches and see the physical condition he was in.
PWTorch VIP members have first-look access to all of Torch ROH specialist Mike DeRosenroll's ROH-related blogs in the VIP Forum. His blogs are posted under the M2_Jay screenname.
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