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Hiroshima police comment on Misawa’s death

By Zach Arnold | June 14, 2009

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According to an article by Jiji Press (one of Japan’s largest news wire services), Hiroshima Prefectural police have stated that the cause of death for Mitsuharu Misawa (age 46) on Saturday night was cervical spinal cord damage.

Famous Japanese referee Ted Tanabe dies at age 46

Independent promotion Osaka Pro Wrestling announced that referee Tetsuo “Ted” Tanabe, who became a fixture in W*ING, FMW, Michinoku Pro, and other top pro-wrestling promotions due to his short stature and large frame combined with exaggerated mannerisms, reportedly lost consciousness after officiating a match for Osaka Pro on the 14th. CPR was given, along with AED (defibrillator) treatment, but Tanabe could not be revived while being transported to the emergency room at an Osaka city hospital.

Topics: Japan, Media, Pro-Wrestling, Zach Arnold | 17 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

17 Responses to “Hiroshima police comment on Misawa’s death”

  1. liger05 says:

    What a weekend of tragedy.

  2. liger05 says:

    We havent seen the suplex or the way misawa landed but reports say it wasnt that bad. Is this cause of death just down to years and years of head drops, kings road style wrestling with little rest and recovery time?

  3. Dave says:

    Repeated trauma on the same old injuries, basically.

  4. Mark says:

    Yeah, Japanese Wrestling gets praised for the relaxed schedules compared to WWE’s old 300 dates a year and now 180 dates a year. But Misawa wasn’t one of the wrestlers to take the 3 week vacations that often. Especially when he went back to a full-time schedule a few years ago when NOAH started sagging.

  5. liger05 says:

    I dont think he ever took that much time off even in the All Japan golden days. No doubt he worked hurt its more than likely his neck was in a pretty bad way by now. Unlike some who cling onto to the top sport misawa didnt do that. He tried to pass the ball to others but it didnt work. Baba tried to put the belt on others but in way or another many a time he had to go back to Misawa.

  6. Ditch says:

    Misawa rarely worked between tours, so yes he did take 3 weeks off regularly. The issue is more that by ’98 he needed to get heavy-duty knee surgery and probably had some spinal damage, but he never had more than one or two tours off in his career. We don’t know what Misawa or his doctors knew, or when they knew it. It seems doubtful to me that Misawa thought everything was fine, but he had an attitude such that as long as he could wrestle he was going to. Kobashi all but crippled himself before getting extensive knee surgery, then all but crippled himself after returning, then all but crippled himself in a completely different way after re-returning.

    Call it pride or call it stupidity, the end result is the same.

  7. Dave says:

    By all means people who knew him in the last few months said he was essentially a veggie; despondant, staring off into space, having memory lapses. There is a good chance that he suffered so many concussions in his career, as well as repeated spinal/cranial injuries from the style.

    He was the glue that was holding NOAH together throughout the years, no matter how broken down he was. When Kobashi was injured, it had to be Misawa to step up, the same when anybody else was injured. When he got injured? He just kept going. Even if not being the main attraction, he was always the sub-attraction.

    Of late the pressure must of been crazy, Akiyama was “the guy” and goes out for an injury, they lost their TV deal, business was down and from what I understand, NOAH’s debts were piling up.

  8. Chuck says:

    Jesus Christ, first Misawa now Tanabe of Osaka Pro? And during a show too! You know what NOAH has to do now…..they have to get Toshiaki Kawada. They have to.

  9. Dave says:

    No, Kawada needs to retire before he dies in the ring.

  10. Zach Arnold says:

    Kawada’s looking smarter by the day…

  11. The Gaijin says:

    Zach (or anyone with puro knowledge),

    How did guys like Misawa, Kawada, Kobashi who were insanly huge in the 90’s manage to stay out of an mma ring? Were they not infinitely more popular than Takada, Nagata, Otsuka et al and seen a legit tough guys with good amateur creds?

    I assume they were either (a) just a bit too old, (b) too smart, (c) making enough money to not risk their auras or (d) a little bit of all of those.

  12. Zach Arnold says:

    How did guys like Misawa, Kawada, Kobashi who were insanly huge in the 90’s manage to stay out of an mma ring? Were they not infinitely more popular than Takada, Nagata, Otsuka et al and seen a legit tough guys with good amateur creds?

    I assume they were either (a) just a bit too old, (b) too smart, (c) making enough money to not risk their auras or (d) a little bit of all of those.

    By late 1997 when PRIDE first started, those guys had too much physical damage to really make it into MMA. Out of all those, however, Kawada could have been the one guy to do it and probably do OK at it.

    Remember, Kawada worked for UWF International against Takayama in September of 1996, and he fit that UWF-Inter style the best (along with Albright).

    I remember a conversation I had with Gary (Albright) in 1999 when money was starting to shrink and he was asking me whether or not he should jump to UFC at the time.

  13. liger05 says:

    I dont think Baba would of ever allowed it if Pride came asking. Albright in mma would of rocked. Takada by 97 was hot after his uwfi and iwgp reigns. Also takada unlike the all japan guys didnt work such a hard hitting style night in night out.

    was sakuraba close to misawa?

  14. The Gaijin says:

    Did Albright not also unfortunately die in the ring? Correct me if I’m wrong, but his was due to other health-related complications (i.e. diabetes? but still likely part of a toll exacted by a very demanding career) rather than in-ring trauma.

  15. Dave says:

    I think Kawada was smart enough to understand that he ‘worked’ the style but that it might not work out in reality and could destroy his stock as a fake fighter.

  16. Chuck says:

    Everybody (except liger05) is forgetting that AJPW and NOAH never bothered with MMA or the “shoot style” and as liger05 said Baba would never allow that.

    Gaijin, Albright died of a heart attack in the ring during a match for WXW (the Samoan family fed in Allentown, Pa). And does Kawda still wrestle? Last I checked he was a free-lancer who primarily did HUSTLE. Hell, is HUSTLE still around?

  17. The Gaijin says:

    Well I know that AJPW/NOAH guys didn’t get involved, I just didn’t know if there was a particular reason since it seemed like they were just as big, if not bigger *stars* than the UWF-i or NJPW guys (e.g. Sasaki, Fujita).

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