Mitsuharu Misawa, dead at 46

[Ancient Flounder]

;_;

He was one of my favorites during my wrestling fanatic days in high school. It's shocking to see him die in the ring, since I can't remember the last time that occurred to any other competitor.

 

[DangerousK]

Holy shit...

 

[DangerousK]

I'm stunned to even hear this...

I was just watching the Triple Crown match between him and Toshiaki Kawada from June 3, 1994 the other day which was the greatest men's singles match ever in pro wrestling.

Goddamn...he was one of the best wrestlers of the 1990s...such an immense talent from when he was Tigermask #2 all the way through June of 2000 when All Japan split.

I guess now he, Jumbo Tsuruta and Giant Baba can have 6 man tags against Bruiser Brody and the rest of the legends up there.

 

[Pink Spider]

What the fuck! Just hearing about this now...

 

[Arcademan]

Found out about it on my ComicBloc wrestling thread a moment ago. RIP Mitsuharu Misawa

I'll have some more comments on this in the wrestling thread...

 

[RAINBOW PONY]

I've seen conflicting reports due to how sudden it was, so it's still not clear.

Did he have a heartattack as first announced, or was it an illtimed move with Saito where he landed on his head that did him in?

 

[Castor Troy]

That sucks. He was one of my favorite japanese wrestlers.

RIP

 

[aria]

Heart attack, eh? That's terrible... but when you're a middle aged guy getting suplexed, its a risk --even if you're in as good shape as I assume he was in.

Sorry to hear about it, hope he kept clean.

 

[NeoDragoN]

Holy shit! Thats mad, he was just pure awesome too

 

[Hidden Character]

Definitely enjoyed his work back in the '90s with Kawada and it's extremely unfortunate that he had to go out like this.

Godspeed in the afterlife, you legendary wrestler.

 

[Arcademan]

I've seen conflicting reports due to how sudden it was, so it's still not clear.

Did he have a heartattack as first announced, or was it an illtimed move with Saito where he landed on his head that did him in?

This is what was reported and posted in the Official WWE Thread

Mitsuharu Misawa, one of the greatest pro wrestlers of all-time, was declared dead at 10:10 p.m. Saturday night at a hospital in Hiroshima from an apparent heart attack after being being given a back suplex in a tag team title match.

Misawa would have turned 47 on June 18th.

Misawa, the president of Pro Wrestling NOAH, was teaming with Go Shiozaki in a match challenging Bison Smith & Akitoshi Saito for the GHC tag team championship in Hiroshima. Misawa was given the move at about 8:45 p.m. and knocked unconscious.

According to eye witness reports, Saito gave Misawa a "routine" back suplex that was described as a "7" in danger on a scale of one-to-ten. He did not get up. It was chaos in the ring as they attempted to revive him using CPR and the crowd was hushed for a while, and began a "Misawa" chant. He turned purple in the ring and was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance.

His heart stopped beating in the ring.

The wrestlers were told on the bus that he had passed away.

While it is being reported that he passed away at the hospital, he may have actually passed away in the ring.

 

[Kaioh]

Damn this is such sad news. It's hard to believe he's dead. I hope I don't see Kobashi's name in a headline like this anytime soon.

 

[DangerousK]

Heart attack, eh? That's terrible... but when you're a middle aged guy getting suplexed, its a risk --even if you're in as good shape as I assume he was in.

Sorry to hear about it, hope he kept clean.

The word was that on the danger scale of 1 to 10, the suplex rated as a 7 so I'm guessing it was one of the high angle suplexes that Misawa was notorious for being on the receiving end during his prime.

It was reported the official cause of death will not be released because his family does not want it put out there.

I would guess that whatever happened during the suplex resulted in some sort of massive shock to his body hence the heart attack.

 

[bloodhokuto]

Absolutely no disrespect intended, it is obviously sad news, but was this proper wrestling or acting wrestling?

I presume it is acting wrestling like WWE, but is there real wresting that goes on - apart from the Olympics?

I know that there is UFC stuff MMA or something which is like a no holds barred (kinda) fighting - do they ever pull that kind of stuff off there, I mean if they do, they would probably kill someone every time they do it?

I don't like any kind of fighting, ok maybe boxing because to me it's like gentlemanly in a way (Tyson ear biting excluded).

I never really understand the desire to see someone really hurt either in a pro-fighting match or whereever.

Don't get me wrong I get completey psycho after the football sometimes, so I have my faults too.

 

[DangerousK]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SwVAdZydjk&feature=related

That's video footage from after the move was performed. I haven't been able to find any actual footage yet of the move itself being done to Misawa. It starts off with some words from the newscaster before you see Misawa laying in the ring, and the subsequent revival efforts.

 

[RAINBOW PONY]

Hokuto, it's acting wrestling, but they wrestle differently in most Japanese federations than say a Sports entertainment like WWE/TNA.

Japanese wrestlers train themselves to take neck and head drops everyday, they build their muscles up for that.

So it's not like this was a specifically extremely dangerous move just because it was sort of a headdrop move, they take these moves all the time.

 

[DangerousK]

Some more information off of another message board...

More from OJ on the DVDVR who is reading the articles in Japan:

According to the newspaper article I just read, Misawa's neck was apparently a "time bomb" waiting to happen.

In January 2007, he apparently lost his memory during a match and went to hospital where he was diagnosed with a concussion and some type of cervical sprain, possibly a cervical facet injury.

This medical stuff is extremely difficult to translate, but basically the police said when the doctors took a look at his neck they found that the vertebrae had been dislocated and the spinal cord cut and that he suffered cardiopulmonary arrest due to a cervical spinal cord injury. Apparently, an arrest from this type of blunt trauma (high cervical spinal cord injury) has an essentially 100% mortality rate, as Dead and Restless said.

There seems to be a bit of a focus in these articles now that he shouldn't have been wrestling, but couldn't step down due to NOAH's situation and the fact he was shacho.

I'm sorry for all these posts, but there's so many different articles about this story.

One report on Mainichi says that Misawa wasn't with it during the match. He was shaking his head during the match and took the bump completely wrong.

They describe the way he landed as a "ku" shape: く

If you can't see that, check wikipedia -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiragana

Ku is:

Jesus...


John

 

[wataru330]

this is horrible news

His poor family, friends, and opponent! I saw pictures of Chris Hero holding his boots, and this is just...just wrong.

Playing some AJPW featuring Virtua tonite...and pooring some on the ground for a true Legend who will be missed.

 

[bloodhokuto]

Hokuto, it's acting wrestling, but they wrestle differently in most Japanese federations than say a Sports entertainment like WWE/TNA.

Japanese wrestlers train themselves to take neck and head drops everyday, they build their muscles up for that.

So it's not like this was a specifically extremely dangerous move just because it was sort of a headdrop move, they take these moves all the time.

Thanks for that, I have no idea about wrestling and MMA whatever it is.

Don't get me wrong, when I do see some 'entertainment' wrestling it is very impressive and I can see why people like to to a degree.

However it did get me to thinking whether they do that sort of thing in proper fighting?

I mean the WWE wrestlers, like you said train all the time for that, but what happened if someone started to do that is some MMA fight or something? That would probably kill the other person.

I am really squeamish and can't bear to watch someone getting badly hurt.

 

[RAINBOW PONY]

Most moves couldn't be done in a total shoot, real life situation because all the victim has to do is sandbag his weight and then punch/kick wriggle away.

Stuff like DDTs could be done, but damn, I think they could be fatal.

 

[norton9478]

Absolutely no disrespect intended, it is obviously sad news, but was this proper wrestling or acting wrestling?
...


Don't get me wrong I get completey psycho after the football sometimes, so I have my faults too.

Absolutely no disrespect intended, but was this proper football or pansy football?

;_;

He was one of my favorites during my wrestling fanatic days in high school. It's shocking to see him die in the ring, since I can't remember the last time that occurred to any other competitor.

Owen Hart? Or did he miss?

 

[Arcademan]

Hokuto, it's acting wrestling, but they wrestle differently in most Japanese federations than say a Sports entertainment like WWE/TNA.

Japanese wrestlers train themselves to take neck and head drops everyday, they build their muscles up for that.

So it's not like this was a specifically extremely dangerous move just because it was sort of a headdrop move, they take these moves all the time.

What he said.

WWE wrestling focuses more on the entertainment aspect of pro wrestling while Japan Pro and NOAH tends to be more physical and thus more realistic, hence the tendencies toward more severe injuries if not as this shows...even death. There are some physical moves in the WWE but Vince McMahon kind of grounded the high flyers in fear of severe injury.

Not a knock on the companies but the AAA and luche libres Mexican wrestling is built for speed but almost purely entertainment to the point of slapstick comedy. There are some very good wrestlers there however the AAA are entertainers first and atheletes second.

 

[El_Duque]

;_;

He was one of my favorites during my wrestling fanatic days in high school. It's shocking to see him die in the ring, since I can't remember the last time that occurred to any other competitor.

Sad to see anyone die doing what they love to do.

The last time a wrestler died during an actual match was Crash Holly.

 

[Maury V.]

The last time a wrestler died during an actual match was Crash Holly.

Crash died from suicide.

I've been hearing about this for days and I wasn't familiar with him but once I found out he was the owner of Pro Wrestling NOAH and Tiger Mask II, I was in shock. NOAH is my favorite company and to have this happen hits you pretty hard.

Rest in peace, broham.

 

[Pink Spider]

Sad to see anyone die doing what they love to do.

The last time a wrestler died during an actual match was Crash Holly.

Crash Holly died at Stevie Richard's house by choking on his own vomit in his sleep.

Most recent in ring deaths I can think of...
Gary Albright died in the ring in 2000
Rocco Rock died directly after a match in summer of 2002