RIP Mitsuharu Misawa

[thecc]

from pwinsider

I am extremely saddened to report that one of the greatest in-ring workers of the modern age and the founder of Pro Wrestling NOAH, Mitsuhau Misawa, just a few days short of his 47th birthday, died earlier this morning (tonight in Japan) following an in-ring accident stemming from a suplex. Misawa was wrestling in a tag team bout at the Hiroshima Green Arena, teaming with Go Shiozaki to challenge Bison Smith and Akitoshi Saito for NOAH's Global Honored Crown Tag Team championships Around 15-17 minutes in, Saito delivered with what was described to me as looking like a "routine" suplex. Misawa went over for the bump but didn't get back up. It is believed he may have suffered a heart attack as he immediately stopped breathing. EMTS attempted to revive him in the ring via AED in the ring and he was rushed out to an ambulance. In the wake of the Misawa incident, the show was immediately halted. The NOAH roster were told Misawa had passed away a short time later. Yomuri Online in Japan reported that Misawa passed away en route to the hospital at 10:10 PM Japanese time. When All Japan Pro Wrestling owner Shohei "Giant" Baba passed away in 1999, issues with Baba's widow eventually led to Misawa leading an exodus of most of the core All Japan talents from the company, forming Pro Wrestling NOAH. NOAH, almost immediately, became one of the top in-ring products anywhere in the world, with Misawa as one of the key figures in and out of the ring. Stateside, Misawa made very few trips to the United States to perform, working a pair of shows for Ring of Honor and Harley Race's WLW last year as well as appearing for California's Pro Wrestling Iron, an American satellite promotion for NOAH a few years prior. In Japan, he was one of the all-time greatest in-ring performers and in many ways, was carrying the torch for the style that Baba and All Japan, in their prime, excelled at. I can't even begin to express what an awesome performer Misawa in his prime was. In many ways, the style that he, Kenta Kobashi and Toshiaki Kawada, among others, popularized in the United States via tape traders helped inspire the entire "strong style" phase of wrestling on the independent level.

This is terrible. RIP