Mitsuharu Misawa

[JerryvonKramer]

My sense with Misawa right now is that more than any other candidate, he is the Great Match Theory flag-bearer.

 

There's something a bit icy and inaccessible about him -- he doesn't have the crowd-pleasing largesse or massive over-the-topness of Kobashi, he doesn't have the heelish dick fallback character stuff of Kawada. This makes him a bit "harder" to relate to, to feel close to, to understand, etc.

 

As a result of that quality vs. the metric ton of great matches, I wonder if Misawa might suffer a bit in people's final votes, falling to 6-10 range simply be virtue of the fact that he feels more remote than the others. I'm not saying that will happen, I'm just recognising the possibiltiy that it might.

[ohtani's jacket]

When I first got info Japanese wrestling I felt the same way about Misawa. I generally saw the Misawa/Kawada feud from Kawada's POV and thought Misawa and Akiyama were like Batman and Robin. Then I moved to Japan and discovered that culturally Misawa was far, far more of an ideal than Kawada and my thinking changed. But you don't need to live in Japan to change your thinking on Kawada/Misawa. Instead of viewing Kawada as some sort of sympathetic babyface and wondering whether he'll ever be able to beat this guy, it's better to view him as an Owen Hart type character who knows he'll never be as good as his senpai.

[JerryvonKramer]

It's interesting OJ, because I typically think of Kawada as a heel.

[ohtani's jacket]

I don't think that people who were super into Kawada in say 2001, which was really the lead up to the first GWE poll, saw him as a heel. His narrative was always that he was a bit of a hard luck kid. The entire narative surrounding Kawada when I first became aware of him was here is the match where he finally pinned Misawa and here is the match where he beat him to win the Tag League, etc. And to an extent, Baba did book it that way. But never to the point where his ace looked like a douche.

[JerryvonKramer]

Does the dynamic change a bit later on? Remember I'm up to 1995 only. Hard not to watch his 95 output without thinking of him as a total dick heel (in my view). Total opportunist, sneaky, sly, cheap, plays dirty (within bounds of AJ) while Kobashi and Misawa play "fair".

[soup23]

I don't think the dynamic changes to make Kawada more sympathetic. If anything, he gets more over on Misawa in the latter half of the decade than in the first half.

[ohtani's jacket]

I can't remember anyone who was super into Kawada viewing him as a heel. Akira Hokuto, who was technically a heel, had a similar fanbase built up around her.

[Childs]

I see Kawada as kind of a poignant heel.

[Jingus]

I'm not sure how you couldn't see Kawada as a heel in the mid-90s. His super dickish behavior during most of the Misawa/Kobashi tag matches? He and Taue would repeatedly do every single bit of cheating that Baba's booking at the time would allow. And what about him repeatedly using poor Akiyama as a target for bitchslapping practice? Hard to see repeatedly slapping a helpless opponent across the face as being anything but the most contemptuous show of disrespect.

[Jetlag]

Then I moved to Japan and discovered that culturally Misawa was far, far more of an ideal than Kawada and my thinking changed.

 

I wonder to how many other wrestlers this would apply. The closest thing I imagine would be Bret Hart's popularity in germany. I guess the popularity of certain british wrestlers too.

[benjaminkicks]

In terms of wrestling conventions of course Kawada is the heel. But throughout the overarching narrative that is 90's All Japan, I tend to view him more as an antihero. But that's probably because Kawada is my favorite.

 

Misawa is amazing, but he was The Man. I like the story of the guy fighting and rebelling against The Man, so I naturally look at it through the POV of whoever he's facing. I love watching the arcs of Kawada, Taue, Kobashi, and Akiyama struggling to eventually overcome the Final Boss that is Misawa.

 

But I hope that doesn't discount how perfect Misawa was in that role. His work speaks for itself.

[Dylan Waco]

My sense with Misawa right now is that more than any other candidate, he is the Great Match Theory flag-bearer.

 

There's something a bit icy and inaccessible about him -- he doesn't have the crowd-pleasing largesse or massive over-the-topness of Kobashi, he doesn't have the heelish dick fallback character stuff of Kawada. This makes him a bit "harder" to relate to, to feel close to, to understand, etc.

 

As a result of that quality vs. the metric ton of great matches, I wonder if Misawa might suffer a bit in people's final votes, falling to 6-10 range simply be virtue of the fact that he feels more remote than the others. I'm not saying that will happen, I'm just recognising the possibiltiy that it might.

 

This interests me because I think Misawa embodies the ace role more than anyone else, but it is a different sort of ace than what you see out of post-Dory Funk Jr. NWA touring champions.

 

I would also note that your second paragraph here tracks very closely to how I feel about Jumbo.

[Parties]

I can buy that for 70s/80s Jumbo, but 90-92 when he's a borderline heel desperately staving off the new generation feels like a more dynamic character.

 

I think Misawa's inaccessibility makes him a great character. The idea that both in and out of the ring he came off as a chain smoker hiking up his pants and scowling is compelling. I honestly find someone like Kobashi less accessible, in that Kobashi feels like a Kurt Angle-style lunatic obsessive. Kobashi hulking up and screaming to the sky gets old, esp. in larger doses.

 

Many of the best athletes are grimacing guys with a lot of grit and a general apathy toward bright lights and spectacle. They aren't necessarily pissed off, but they're not warm and their stoicism is central to their persona. Misawa feels a Bjorn Borg, Tim Duncan. Cal Ripken, etc. Thus in the matches where he does express more, it means more.

[GOTNW]

Thus in the matches where he does express more, it means more.

Misawa simply rolling out of the ring to express weakness and peril was my favourite part of 6/9/95 just because it was so out of character.

[JerryvonKramer]

 

My sense with Misawa right now is that more than any other candidate, he is the Great Match Theory flag-bearer.

 

There's something a bit icy and inaccessible about him -- he doesn't have the crowd-pleasing largesse or massive over-the-topness of Kobashi, he doesn't have the heelish dick fallback character stuff of Kawada. This makes him a bit "harder" to relate to, to feel close to, to understand, etc.

 

As a result of that quality vs. the metric ton of great matches, I wonder if Misawa might suffer a bit in people's final votes, falling to 6-10 range simply be virtue of the fact that he feels more remote than the others. I'm not saying that will happen, I'm just recognising the possibiltiy that it might.

This interests me because I think Misawa embodies the ace role more than anyone else, but it is a different sort of ace than what you see out of post-Dory Funk Jr. NWA touring champions.

 

I would also note that your second paragraph here tracks very closely to how I feel about Jumbo.

 

Interesting. Note, I don't really feel that way about Misawa, but I can see why some people might feel distance or coldness towards him.

 

Jumbo, I think, has three distinct phases of his career: in the 1970s he was spunkier and more explosive, in the early-mid 80s, he was more stoical and also seemed to slow down and work longer mat-based matches; then from about 1986 on, we get the evolution of grumpy Jumbo who has a real "what? you? fuck no! do you know who I am?!" vibe about him. 80-85 is a transitional period where he was becoming true Ace. Didn't feel like "THE MAN" really until 85 at the earliest, even if functionally he was earlier than that. And I'm lower on 80-85 Jumbo than I am 73-79 Jumbo or him from 85 to 93.

[fxnj]

Instead of viewing Kawada as some sort of sympathetic babyface and wondering whether he'll ever be able to beat this guy, it's better to view him as an Owen Hart type character who knows he'll never be as good as his senpai.

That's exactly why Misawa comes across as a dick at points, though. Whereas Misawa was pretty much the golden boy getting pushed as a star attraction dating back to his Tiger Mask debut, Kawada spent years toiling away on the undercard and, no matter what he did, could never step out of Misawa's shadow. I don't think it's a US only thing to relate to the underdog in that scenario. I can't speak for sure since 1) I don't live in Japan and 2) wrestling is so unpopular I have no idea where I'd go to ask people, but watching matches like 6/9/95 or 1998 Tokyo Dome, you can clearly hear Kawada getting some big cheers as fans realize he's actually going to win. Yes, Kawadw and Taue were clearly booked as the top heels and I'm surprised people once thought otherwise, but I still think there was an element of sympathy underlying things as well.

[ohtani's jacket]

I'm sure there were people who were sympathetic towards Kawada for the simple reason that they liked him or they wanted to see him overcome Misawa. After all, a huge part of the Japanese psyche is in appreciating the fight in the underdog or the guy who is hopelessly outmatched. But at no point do I think people thought Misawa was a dick the way people dislike Man United, the Lakers, Duke or the Giants in Japan. The audience that went nuts for Misawa upsetting the apple cart against Jumbo didn't suddenly turn on him because he had a rival in the form of Kawada. Misawa may have been a dick at points. From all accounts, he didn't really like Kawada, but the narrative that was spun around Kawada when I first got into Japanese wrestling was that his feud against Misawa was a chase and I don't think that's quite true.

[jdw]

I don't think that people who were super into Kawada in say 2001, which was really the lead up to the first GWE poll, saw him as a heel. His narrative was always that he was a bit of a hard luck kid. The entire narative surrounding Kawada when I first became aware of him was here is the match where he finally pinned Misawa and here is the match where he beat him to win the Tag League, etc. And to an extent, Baba did book it that way. But never to the point where his ace looked like a douche.

 

People always knew Kawada was the heel from 5/93 on. We talked about it all the time online, that Misawa and Kobashi and Jun were the faces, and that Kawada and Taue were the heels.

 

In turn, prior to that in the Jumbo & Co vs Misawa & Co feud that Kawada was on the face side.

 

These were talking points online before 2001, and certainly were out there in 1996 when I came online. I sure as hell pushed the notion, and I kind of was the primary person talking about All Japan on a serious level at that point.

 

* * * * *

 

People were slow to come around to Misawa as Champ. In 1993 people were looking forward to Kobashi being the Ace, and frankly impatient. That was a pretty common vibe among hardcores.

 

I recall when Yohe, Hoback and I did our "draft" in 1993 with me ending up with pretty much all of the good puroresu wrestlers of that (Misawa's) generation, and then I pushed Misawa as my Baba-style Champ/Ace, they scratched their head on why I didn't push Kawada or Goofy Mutoh or Kobashi into that role.

 

By 1994 and certainly in 1995, the notion flipped. People got Misawa as the Champ. The 1995 & 1997 WON Wrestler of the Year awards kind of gets that across, especially in contrast to looking at who finished #2 in 1993.

 

Kobashi is accessible. Kawada is too. Misawa took some time for folks, even those who "got" him opposite Jumbo.

 

On the flip side, hardcores appreciating Misawa was a common enough thing by 1996 that I met little resistance to putting him over when I got online. Nor was there any resistance to it in the Torch when I pushed it that year. Dylan can confirm that I sure as hell pushed Misawa, his role and his character harder in the Torch than I did Kobashi's. Part of that was to try to get him across to people, and part of was simply because Misawa was so great by that point while Kobashi (to me) was stagnating.

[jdw]

I'm sure there were people who were sympathetic towards Kawada for the simple reason that they liked him or they wanted to see him overcome Misawa. After all, a huge part of the Japanese psyche is in appreciating the fight in the underdog or the guy who is hopelessly outmatched. But at no point do I think people thought Misawa was a dick the way people dislike Man United, the Lakers, Duke or the Giants in Japan. The audience that went nuts for Misawa upsetting the apple cart against Jumbo didn't suddenly turn on him because he had a rival in the form of Kawada. Misawa may have been a dick at points. From all accounts, he didn't really like Kawada, but the narrative that was spun around Kawada when I first got into Japanese wrestling was that his feud against Misawa was a chase and I don't think that's quite true.

 

The masses didn't think Misawa was a dick, and they kind of got that Kawada and Taue were the dicks.

 

On the other hand...

 

I had a Japanese co-worker who thought Misawa was a dick, that the promotion favored him, and that Kawada was getting screwed. Of course he was a Kawada fan, and before that a Tenryu fan, and before that a Choshu fan. He liked the rebels, and hated the establishment guys like Inoki and Fujinami and Jumbo.

 

He wasn't unique. Plenty of people cheered Choshu and Tenryu even when they were technically the heels and more-than-a-bit dicks. Kawada got the same thing.

 

But there also were also more people who liked Misawa.

[ohtani's jacket]

 

I don't think that people who were super into Kawada in say 2001, which was really the lead up to the first GWE poll, saw him as a heel. His narrative was always that he was a bit of a hard luck kid. The entire narative surrounding Kawada when I first became aware of him was here is the match where he finally pinned Misawa and here is the match where he beat him to win the Tag League, etc. And to an extent, Baba did book it that way. But never to the point where his ace looked like a douche.

 

People always knew Kawada was the heel from 5/93 on. We talked about it all the time online, that Misawa and Kobashi and Jun were the faces, and that Kawada and Taue were the heels.

 

Knowing he's the heel and viewing him as one are two different things. Kawada was an internet darling the same way Benoit was. People watched the big AJPW matches from his POV. They didn't (at least in my experience) watch the matches from the POV of Misawa, or Misawa and Kobashi, overcoming the dastardly heels. It was viewed more along the lines of a sporting rivalry such as Borg/McEnroe, Sampras/Agassi, or what have you, and I stress ]i]what have you]/i] as I don't want to go round and round in circles about analogies. One of the talking points about AJPW used to be whether the heel/face roles were the same as in US wrestling. MJH argued many times in the past that there were clearly defined heel/face roles. Others didn't see that as they were caught up in the chase narrative. That's the way I remember it. I may be wrong, but I think there's a history of internet fans not really viewing Japanese workers as heels but rather as favourites whether it's Akira Hokuto, Mayumi Ozaki, Genichiro Tenryu or indeed Toshiaki Kawada. All of those workers were heroes to online fans and whatever heel/face dynamic there was in Japan or in the matches was meaningless.

[El-P]

Seriously, I always loved Oz, but I always considered her a heel, even against Dynamite. Same for Tenryu or Kawada/Taue, who were grumpy assholes kicking you in the face. And again, Hokuto was only a babyface once she represented true joshi and Zenjo against that evil shootstyle bitch from LLPW Kandori. The LCO was a total heel faction from the start. Don't overplay the whole "workrate hungry generation". Many of us (I guess, since I was part of it) were fans of cool heels too, and this is probably why all these workers were pimped the way they were (Shimoda, Takako, Suzuki were all pimped more as bitchy heels then they were when they worked babyfaces, when they did).

 

At the same time, an FMW fan like me couldn't ignore the heel/face dynamics over there, and Onita and Kudo were the two überbabyfaces this side of 80's Chiggy. And it was not hard to get behind Kudo as a babyface, seeing how awful the heel side was and how great she was at making them look passable and make herself look like the greatest overcoming though girl babyface ever at the same time (not a small feat).

 

I don't buy for a second the heel/face dynamic was meaningless. It never was to me. But I always was mostly a heel fan. How could anyone deny the heelishness of grumpy Jumbo anyway ?

[WingedEagle]

Seriously, I always loved Oz, but I always considered her a heel, even against Dynamite. Same for Tenryu or Kawada/Taue, who were grumpy assholes kicking you in the face. And again, Hokuto was only a babyface once she represented true johsi and Zenjo against that evil shootstyle bitch from LLPW Kandori. The LCO was a total heel faction from the start. Don't overplay the whole "workrate hungry generation". Many of us (I guess, since I was part of it) were fans of cool heels too, and this is probably why all these workers were pimped the way they were (Shimoda, Takako, Suzuki were all pimped more as bitchy heels then they were when they worked babyfaces, when they did).

 

At the same time, an FMW fan like me couldn't ignore the heel/face dynamics over there, and Onita and Kudo were the two überbabyfaces this side of 80's Chiggy. And it was not hard to get behind Kudo as a babyface, seeing how awful the heel side was and how great she was at making them look passable and make herself look like the greatest overcoming though girl babyface ever at the same time (not a small feat).

 

I don't buy for a second the heel/face dynamic was meaningless. It never was to me. But I always was mostly a heel fan. How could anyone deny the heelishness of grumpy Jumbo anyway ?

 

Granted, I didn't watch this in real time but going back through the tapes years later Oz always felt like someone who was actively working as a heel whereas Kawada just seemed slotted there more and wasn't outwardly a babyface like Kobashi. He'd have clearly been the face against Oz.

[ohtani's jacket]

Many of us (I guess, since I was part of it) were fans of cool heels too, and this is probably why all these workers were pimped the way they were (Shimoda, Takako, Suzuki were all pimped more as bitchy heels then they were when they worked babyfaces, when they did).

 

I'm sure there was an element of digging the cool heels, but when you find a heel worker so sympathetic that you watch matches from their POV that is not standard pro-wrestling storytelling. Maybe heel fans do it all the time, but I can't remember seeing it when people discuss US wrestling, for example. Have you ever seen anybody talk about Tully vs. Magnum from the POV of Tully, or Dibiase vs. Duggan from the POV of Ted? It doesn't seem to happen.

[El-P]

I have no idea, and really don't care to be honest. And I don't see where the idea of watching a match from one wrestler POV comes from actually. The only POV you're watching a match from is your own.

[jdw]

 

 

I don't think that people who were super into Kawada in say 2001, which was really the lead up to the first GWE poll, saw him as a heel. His narrative was always that he was a bit of a hard luck kid. The entire narative surrounding Kawada when I first became aware of him was here is the match where he finally pinned Misawa and here is the match where he beat him to win the Tag League, etc. And to an extent, Baba did book it that way. But never to the point where his ace looked like a douche.

 

People always knew Kawada was the heel from 5/93 on. We talked about it all the time online, that Misawa and Kobashi and Jun were the faces, and that Kawada and Taue were the heels.

 

Knowing he's the heel and viewing him as one are two different things. Kawada was an internet darling the same way Benoit was. People watched the big AJPW matches from his POV. They didn't (at least in my experience) watch the matches from the POV of Misawa, or Misawa and Kobashi, overcoming the dastardly heels. It was viewed more along the lines of a sporting rivalry such as Borg/McEnroe, Sampras/Agassi, or what have you, and I stress ]i]what have you]/i] as I don't want to go round and round in circles about analogies. One of the talking points about AJPW used to be whether the heel/face roles were the same as in US wrestling. MJH argued many times in the past that there were clearly defined heel/face roles. Others didn't see that as they were caught up in the chase narrative. That's the way I remember it. I may be wrong, but I think there's a history of internet fans not really viewing Japanese workers as heels but rather as favourites whether it's Akira Hokuto, Mayumi Ozaki, Genichiro Tenryu or indeed Toshiaki Kawada. All of those workers were heroes to online fans and whatever heel/face dynamic there was in Japan or in the matches was meaningless.

 

 

Kobashi was the internet darling when I came on line. Behind him, Misawa was over at the pefect champ, which is something Meltzer started to push no later than 1995.

 

If people online saw matches from Kawada's POV, I'll take 100% of the credit for that since I was the one who started talking about things from all of their POV's rather than just Misawa and Kobashi. On the other hand... I'd disagree that everyone focused on just Kawada's POV. People sure as hell didn't all agree with me that Kawada was the best worker of the three, or the most compelling, or had the most compelling storylines.

 

You're reading too much into how things were at the time. I suspect that the Kawada fans were just more vocal, or just more so in your eyes.