There are few greater rivalries in wrestling than Mitsuharu Misawa vs Kenta Kobashi.
The pair both came through All Japan Pro Wrestling Dojo in the late 1980s. Misawa debuted in the promotion in 1984 and found success as the second iteration of the legendary Tiger Mask gimmick before unmasking in 1990.
Meanwhile, Kobashi graduated from the academy in 1988, losing his first 63 matches in a row as booker Giant Baba sought to promote him as the ultimate underdog with a fiery spirit that could not be contained.
After Genichiro Tenryu left All Japan to create Super World of Sports in 1990, Baba pushed Misawa as one of the main event stars in the promotion. In the years following, the other Four Pillars of Heaven (Akira Taue, Kenta Kobashi and Toshiaka Kawada) would all join him and the company found great success with them at the helm.
The matches between Mitsuharu Misawa and Kenta Kobashi would become stuff of legend. Tape traders would study their numerous encounters with glee. With each match, the jeopardy and danger increased along with the quality of the bouts.
The Japanese legends had some of the best matches of all time against one another over two decades and two promotions. However, they nearly fought in a third when Paul Heyman tried to book Misawa vs Kobashi for ECW Heatwave 1998.
Mitsuharu Misawa vs Kenta Kobashi Was Almost Booked For ECW Heatwave 1998
ECW Heatwave 1998 was an iconic show from the 1990s most innovative promotion.
Paul Heyman led a misfit locker room of talented wrestlers in a wrestling revolution. The combination of top-class wrestling across the world mixed with extreme violence directly inspired both WWE and WCW during the Attitude Era.
Heatwave 1998 was a mixture of both. Hardcore classics like Mike Awesome vs Masato Tanaka was joined by classics like Taz vs Bam Bam Bigelow. Rob Van Dam and Sabu even wrestled against Japanese imports in Hayabusa and Jinsei Shinzaki in a cross-promotion with the FMW promotion.
However, it almost had one of the greatest matches of all time to add to the legendary pay-per-view. Paul Heyman revealed that he nearly booked Misawa and Kobashi against one another in ECW at Heatwave 1998.
The former ECW boss spoke to Joey Styles on the WWE Network special ECW Exposed. He was asked which foreign talent would he have liked to have brought into the company, after the success of the likes of Masato Tanaka and Tajiri.
Heyman revealed that he almost had a deal to bring a match between the late Mitsuharu Misawa vs Kenta Kobashi at one of the greatest ECW PPV’s of all time in Heatwave 98.
The two Japanese star’s matches had been raved about in Japan but, as noted by Joey Styles later in the interview, tapes of these bouts were very hard to come by in the United States.
This would have been the only time many fans could have seen the two wrestle live in 1998 and would have certainly put on an incredible match.
“[Mitsuharu]Misawa vs [Kenta] Kobashi. I wanted Misawa vs Kobashi at an ECW Pay Per View. I almost had it for Heatwave 1998. Not that I’m complaining about this, but we had Rob Van Dam and Sabu vs Haybusa and Jinsei Shinzaki instead.” Paul Heyman said about the potential match.
He didn’t explain why the match fell through. It certainly would have been an incredible match but there is no telling if the crowd would have responded to the pair.
While ECW fans were incredibly clued in with wrestling worldwide (they gave Hayabusa a huge reaction on that same show) the Dayton crowd were not the ideal one to show this kind of match.
Not being ECW’s home in Philadelphia, they weren’t as hardcore fans as the usual crowd. That meant that they wanted to see the product ECW was known for – hardcore wrestling, not the Puroresu that Misawa and Kobashi would have put on for them.
It could have been an issue with Giant Baba not wanting to work with Paul Heyman, although that seems unlikely. Rob Van Dam spent some time with All Japan just in 1997 despite being ECW regulars, and Japanese talents were always respected when working for Heyman.
Sadly, no Misawa vs Kobashi match took place outside of Japan for international fans to enjoy. Luckily, they had numerous classics that are easily accessible online now. No more tape trading or praying ECW book Mitsuharu Misawa vs Kenta Kobashi in Dayton, Ohio.
