« Independent World MMA Rankings – June 19, 2009 | Home | MMA Live (June 18th, 2009) show recap »
Funeral for Mitsuharu Misawa
By Zach Arnold | June 18, 2009
On Thursday, the wake took place with an estimated attendance of around 100 people. The NOAH crew of wrestlers worked a house show in Nagoya, so they couldn’t make it for Thursday’s ceremony. The wake included Toshiaki Kawada, Gen’ichiro Tenryu, Yoshihiro Takayama, Minoru Suzuki, Akira Hokuto, Jun Akiyama, Tsuyoshi Kikuchi, Tamon Honda, Jun Izumida, Kishin Kawabata, Makoto Hashi, Naomichi Marufuji, and others. Motoko Baba also appeared, which drew quite a bit of attention. Kawada broke his public silence and expressed how he was still in complete shock over what happened.
On Friday (at the same facility in Nakano, Tokyo), the funeral took place at 11 AM local time. An MSN article quotes Mitsuo Momota as saying that Misawa looked very peaceful. Despite the family attempting to keep the funeral a private ceremony, there was a swarm of fans and media near the building. Misawa’s body was taken away in a hearse and fans started a “Mi-sa-wa!” call.
Nippon TV has video of the funeral proceeding on their web site. MSN has a lot of pictures from the funeral online. Daily Sports also has pictures. They estimated the funeral guests to be around 200.
The last week has been absolutely heartbreaking to watch for everyone. Mitsuo Momota, who is Rikidozan’s only living son, has seen many deaths in his life — from his brother (who worked in All Japan) to Giant Baba to Jumbo Tsuruta to Mitsuharu Misawa to Hiromichi Fuyuki, unfortunately the list of dead contemporaries is long.
Topics: Japan, Media, Pro-Wrestling, Zach Arnold | 5 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback | Share This
The latest ROH videowire is up with a great 10-bell Tribute to Misawa, one of the greatest wrestlers I’ve ever seen.?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fORdJFDrZAI
Kawada looks broken. Looks like he really cant believe whats happened.
I feel how Kawada looks. I can’t even believe this happened.
Its a huge story in Japan where the line is kinda blurred still between real fighting and fake fighting.
Anyone who doesnt think Misawa dying is relevant to the japanese fight scene is clueless.