Mitsuharu Misawa had one of the greatest careers in wrestling history and the most tragic death anyone could have imagined.
On June 13, 2009, the wrestling world was shaken by the untimely death of Mitsuharu Misawa, one of Japan’s most celebrated and influential wrestlers. He lay down in the ring as the crowd chanted his name, willing for him to get up one final time.
Sadly, he never did.
Misawa’s death is a warning to all wrestlers and an example of how one man put others over his own health, even when doing so cost him everything during one fateful match.
Mitsuharu Misawa Should Not Have Been Wrestling In 2009
By 2009, Mistaharu Misawa was living on borrowed time. His body was falling apart, and he should have been nowhere near the wrestling ring. Despite this, he was one of the biggest stars in Pro Wrestling NOAH and was carrying the company on his back.
It had been a long road to that point. Misawa debuted in 1981 after entering the All Japan Pro Wrestling training camp and worked mainly as a jobber for the promotion for the next three years. He then went to Mexico on an excursion before returning to become the second man to wrestle as the legendary Tiger Mask.
He found success under the mask, which included winning the NWA International Junior Heavyweight. Misawa remained a star in the Junior Heavyweight division, although injuries caused by the high-flying style fans expected from Tiger Mask caused him numerous injuries, especially to his knees.
He unmasked on May 14th 1990 and was immediately pushed as the next rising star in AJPW. He did just that and has gone down as one of the best wrestlers in history. His matches with the rest of the Four Pillars of Heaven (Kenta Kobashi, Akira Taue and Toshiaki Kawada) are regarded as all-time great matches even today.
Jumping forward to 2000, then-AJPW president Mitshuaru Misawa led an excursion from the company and formed their own wrestling promotion, Pro Wrestling NOAH. The power struggle between Misawa and the widow of Giant Baba became too much to bear, and he took the bulk of the roster and their TV deal with him.
Taking three of the four pillars with him (Kawada remained with All Japan), NOAH became the most exciting wrestling promotion in the world. Misawa won the inaugural GHC Heavyweight Championship in NOAH and remained a key part of the main event scene until his death.
However, he really shouldn’t have been. Misawa’s injuries piled up throughout the 2000s and despite his incredible matches with Kenta Kobashi he was in horrendous shape. His neck in particular was a constant source of pain, even in the late 1990s.
The “Young Boys” (trainee wrestlers who would help set up the ring and watch from ringside) in AJPW and NOAH would have to crank Misawa’s neck before each match. He needed it wrenched at every show to get it loose enough to wrestle, which should have been a sign that he needed to slow down.
He knew this and carried on, but for a noble cause – the future of Pro Wrestling NOAH.
Kenta Kobashi’s Cancer Meant That Mitsuharu Misawa Felt The Need To Keep Wrestling
In September 2006 Kenta Kobashi announced that he had cancer. The ace of Pro Wrestling NOAH was the best wrestler in the world and viewed as a wrestling God in Japan and within tape trading circles all across the globe, along with Misawa.
The two men were the undisputed top stars of Pro Wrestling NOAH, although their unwillingness to build young stars was a huge detriment to the promotion.
Explore an in-depth look at Kenta Kobashi’s cancer battle and his epic return.
While they made NOAH one of the most exciting companies in wrestling, the refusal to put over young junior heavyweight wrestlers like KENTA and Naomichi Marufuji left the roster very top-heavy and lacking big stars.
This meant that when Kenta Kobashi was away battling cancer, Misawa felt more of a burden to stay on and carry the promotion.
Losing their top star was bad enough, so if Misawa walked away or lessened his time in the promotion, then it could have spelt the end for the whole company.
Even when Kobashi came back after his cancer, numerous injuries plagued him. This added even more burden to Misawa, who was in his forties and had decades of wear and tear on his body to deal with.
He was visibly slowing down in the ring, even though he was still managing great matches against the likes of Marufuji and Kobashi during this period.
Misawa’s wife even commented that he was heavily reliant on painkillers in his day-to-day life and wanted to quit to run a restaurant with his wife. He attempted to make Go Shiozaki the next Ace of NOAH but still felt the need to keep on wrestling to keep the company in business.
Misawa did slow down a bit in his final year in wrestling. He only wrestled two singles matches in 2009 and featured almost exclusively in multi-man tag team matches to lessen his load.
He even challenged for the GHC Tag Team titles in his final outing, although it didn’t end as anybody expected.
Mitsuharu Misawa Died In The Ring During His Last Match
On June 13th, 2009, Mitsuhiru Misawa teamed with Go Shiozaki against GHC Tag Team Champions Akitoshi Saito and Bison Smith. Reports indicate that the match was going well, with the 46-year-old legend performing well as he teamed with his protégé in his last match.
However, at an undocumented moment in the match, disaster struck. Saito hit Misawa with a simple belly-to-back suplex, but after the impact, Misawa did not get up.
“I did a backdrop in the middle of the ring. After that, I went to the neutral corner. I was planning to do a lariat if Misawa stood up.” Saito told Hochi News.
“I was waiting for Misawa-san to stand up, so I could deliver a lariat from the corner, but he didn’t stand up. I thought, “Huh? What?” I also thought that the referee, Nishinaga, might be waiting for him to recover, but I felt that the atmosphere was clearly different”.
“In a normal match when a wrestler is injured, the referee will ask, “Are you OK?” but this time, the atmosphere was completely different. However, I couldn’t ask “Are you okay?” in the middle of the championship match”.
The Japanese wrestling icon did not move, remaining motionless as the fans and wrestlers grew concerned.
The referee was equally concerned. Shuichi Nishinaga stopped the match after noticing one of the wrestlers not moving, calling off the whole thing to try and keep Misawa safe. Misawa was worked on by paramedics in the ring as soon as the match ended, trying to save his life.
The fans grew restless, worried about their hero. Chants of “Mi-saw-wa!” rang out in the arena, but it was soon replaced by frantic cheering, begging for him to get up.
It was a touching moment as the fans willed him to show the fighting spirit that had made him such a star in the ring. Misawa lay there in the ring as the chants rose and faded as the hope drained from the building.
After failing to revive him with a defibrillator, the paramedics loaded Misawa onto a stretcher and into an ambulance, as the entire locker room emptied out and tried to help out the legendary wrestler. Fans fell silent as Misawa was wheeled away, as they waited for the inevitable to happen.
What Caused Mitsuharu Misawa’s Death?
Mitsuharu Misawa died in the ring. He passed away after the belly-to-back suplex from Akitoshi Saito, which caused a cervical spinal cord injury.
However, it likely wasn’t simply from that final move, but that the suplex was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Misawa’s neck was in no shape for wrestling, and his body was a ticking time bomb.
The family of the former GHC Champion requested that the cause of death not be released. However, this did not stop Dave Meltzer from clarifying that Misawa’s death was caused by “a separation of Misawa’s first and second cervical vertebrae”.
He was totally paralysed from the C-1/2 vertebrae, which meant that death from heart attack or respiratory disease was inevitable unless Misawa was put on life support as soon as possible.
Prior to the match, wrestlers noted that Misawa had not slept much the night before, and was noted to be looking tired and gaunt at the event. No footage of Mitsuharu Misawa’s last match has been made available. He died during the June 13th, 2009 TV taping for Pro Wrestling NOAH, so the entire ordeal was filmed.
However, out of respect for Misawa and his family, the promotion has not released the footage, and likely never will. The only thing Pro Wrestling NOAH has revealed about the incident is the moment in which Misawa is treated by paramedics after the match. This footage shows Misawa being treated in the ring by paramedics, as wrestlers surround him in the ring.
The audience began to chant for Misawa, then started yelling and shrieking frantically as they watched a man die in the ring. Takeshi Morishima tried to calm them down, saying everything would be okay.
The moment of his death was not shown, only the footage of his attempted treatment when he collapsed in the ring. This was broadcast on the Japanese news channels, reporting on the death.
YouTuber kimidori3takoyaki recorded the entire match from the arena seats with his camera. However, like NOAH, he has refused to release all the footage, instead only offering the moments before and after the fatal move that killed Mitsuharu Misawa.
He Wrote A Letter For His Opponent If He Were To Die In The Ring
It was a huge shock to the wrestling world when Mitsuharu Misawa died in the ring but it wasn’t for the man himself.
Two years prior to his death, Misawa penned a letter. The letter was to given to whoever was wrestling against him in the event that he was killed during his final match. The man who hit the final move on Misawa was Akitoshi Saito and the incident hurt him so much that he considering retirement, and even suicide.
However, seeing Misawa’s portrait at the next NOAH event drew him to tears and convinced him to keep on going and wrestle in the Emerald Warrior’s memory. This was further cemented when Saito received the “letter from heaven” from Misawa which encouraged him to continue wrestling.
Misawa even apologised in the letter to his opponent, taking any and all blame away from him. He explained how betrayed his opponent’s trust by getting in the ring when not physically able and noted that, while painful, he still wanted Saito to continue his wrestling career in the wake of this tragedy.
Akitoshi Saito kept that letter with him until his final match in 2024. He carried it in his bag to every event until his final show, keeping the spirit of Misawa with him in the decades after his death.
If you want to learn more then check out our list of other wrestlers who have died in the ring in Japan.
Alternatively, have a look at our full list of the worst wrestling injuries wrestlers have suffered over the years.
