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GUEST EDITORIAL
By Nick Vincent of Round Rock, Tex., PWTorch.com reader

Despite being a pro wrestling fan for nearly 27 years, I knew virtually nothing about Japanese wrestling or Mitsuharu Misawa. In fact, my only knowledge of him was seeing his name in headlines on PWTorch (headlines that I routinely skipped on my way to WWE and WCW news).

This past weekend I kept reading phrases like "arguably the best performer of the '90s ... or ever" or "popularity in Japan comparable to Hulk Hogan or The Rock" or "perhaps the greatest match of all time." So I decided to pull up some videos, to see what all the fuss was about.

It didn't take too long to figure out why Misawa is so highly regarded. I learned pretty quickly who Kobashi and Kawada were, and why fans both here and in Japan rave over their rivalries with Misawa. I also saw the matches against Steve Williams, Vader, and Stan Hansen. I even watched some of the Tiger Mask era, including a great contest against NWA Champion Ricky Steamboat.

And so it won't come as any surprise to you long-time Misawa fans when I tell you that one of my first reactions was "Man, these guys are working pretty stiff!" Every match seemed to have one high impact move after another, all ending in somebody smacking the mat or the ground really, really hard. I watched Misawa get repeatedly power-bombed, dumped on his head and neck at very awkward angles, slammed hard onto the concrete, propelling out of the ring, and crashing into the guard rails and tables. Like any fan, I found it all pretty entertaining.

That is, until the news came of how Misawa most likely died. Cervical spine injury. Ooh. Not good.

I'm no expert in human physiology, but it probably isn't a stretch to conclude that if he put his body through that amount of sick punishment for 20 years, then maybe just one more jolt in the right spot could be the fatal blow to a likely weakened, brittle frame.

It caused me to think about how Misawa was now the first major Japanese star to make it onto that notorious "list," except that unlike his American counterparts, it had nothing to do with his heart giving out due to some mix of steroids and pills. It's frightening to consider that two decades of routine physical battering most likely culminated in his spine quite literally snapping. Yeah, I know, we can split hairs over what exactly was broken, and how severe, but I think you get the point. It was severe enough, obviously.

Some of you will probably think what I'm about to say is too far a reach, but I think it needs to be said: we have probably just seen the first of a new kind of pro wrestling death. Instead of steroids or painkillers, we can label this one death by a thousand high-risk moves over an extended period of time.

Perhaps it's the second – if you subscribe to the belief that repeated concussions brought Chris Benoit to the state that caused him to do what he did.

I have this theory, which frankly I hope I'm wrong about. I'd say that from about the late 1990s to the present pro wrestling has evolved (or perhaps devolved is a better word) into something where dangerous, high-risk, daredevil-like stunts are the rage.

Whereas 1980s wrestling favored bulky, freakish monsters, the '90s brought lighter and faster performers who went to greater extremes to entertain. They started jumping and falling from greater heights – off the top turnbuckle, off a ladder, off the top of a cage. Extreme wrestling normalized crashing through tables and getting clobbered by steel chairs and garbage cans. The harder a hit a body took – and preferably against an unforgiving object like a concrete floor or steel steps – the better.

I would further say that much like the rash of deaths of stars from the 1980s that started in the 1990s until recently, perhaps we're only now about to start seeing the cumulative impact of what happens to 1990s wrestlers who spent their careers enduring the most bone-jarring collisions they could conjure up.

Consider this: how many wrestlers from the '70s or '80s can you name that were sidelined for that neck fusion surgery? Now, how many from the '90s can you name?

I wonder how guys like Mick Foley and Sabu feel when they roll out of bed in the morning.

Misawa was 46. Who's to say that we won't see a tragic repeat here in America the next time 40-something Shawn Michaels decides to do a back flip off the top turnbuckle and plow into the ringside announce table? Or when Edge takes a dive off a ladder from 15 feet up? Or the next time that Jeff Hardy does ... well ... anything?

Is someone just one wrong move away from the same fate?

I recall reading someone's comments in the last several days that he's surprised this kind of thing doesn't happen more often. But you know what? We've had some hints that it's never far away. How about Stone Cold going numb in that match against Owen Hart? Paul Orndorff temporarily losing movement in the ring? Brock Lesnar's injury at WrestleMania against Kurt Angle? Droz?

I really do hope my theory is proven wrong over time. Sadly, I suspect I'm right.

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