This is the pro wrestling installment of our 2009 year end awards. Later in the week, we’ll give out awards in MMA and pro boxing.
Pro Wrestling
Wrestler Of The Year Big D – Christopher Daniels
Consistent tremendous matches and great promos in a company which is usually ridiculous and proving that he belongs in the main event by having two match of the year candidates back to back makes Chris Daniels my pick for the Wrestler of 2009.
Alan – KENTA
Fairly simple reasoning. No other wrestler has entertained me as much as this man did before he got injured in October. An absolutely stunning year from not only my Wrestler Of The Year, but my Wrestler Of The Decade.
Duan – Chris Jericho
It was a blessing having Jericho on both shows for the last several months, and his series of matches with Mysterio earlier in the year was my favourite thing in WWE.
GG – Chris Jericho
He didn’t need any world title to be significant, was the most entertaining wrestler in the company so they stuck him on two shows, and single-handedly made the tag belts meaningful again.
The DC Sniper came on last Wednesday’s episode of my podcast, Superfriends, and confidently cemented what I knew was going to happen soon, but certainly not this soon.
Well it’s done.
According to Ring Of Honor’s website, Nigel McGuinness has agreed in principle to a contract with World Wrestling Entertainment.
Nigel, a trainee of Les Thatcher and the Heartland Wrestling Association (a former WWE farm system company), has been on the independent circuits for about a decade or so and is one of the most improved acts ever. A guy who Bryan Alvarez once said was “horrible” went from that to being one of the most beloved and versatile workers in pro wrestling. He was ROH champ for about 16 months and has been on injury reserve for most of 2009. Now he will get the biggest break of his career in WWE.
Danielson, Nigel – who’s next?
P.S. You can stream Superfriends 031 – ROH: Endgame here.
In this unusual clip we find the cast of NOAH doing a parody of Super Sentai (Power Rangers in Japan). The Evil Ranger, played by Kenta Kobashi, is terrorizing people in the park. It’s up to Mitsuharu Misawa and his band of Pro Wrestling NOAH transforming heroes to save the day. Jun Akiyama, Akira Taue, KENTA, Tamon Honda, and Naomichi Marifuji also star. They are the NOAH Rangers. I don’t know the origin of this clip or why they did it, so don’t ask.
Yeah it’s weird, but it’s JAPAN! Did you expect anything less than pro wrestlers playing power rangers?
Today I thought I’d share some of the late Mitsuharu Misawa’s legendary moments in pro wrestling. I know that a lot of North American readers who read FGB might not be that familiar with Mitsuharu Misawa’s body of work, so this is a good chance to catch up on some of the legend’s great matches and moments. (My apologies to Alan for doing your gimmick lately.)
This first clip is from 1990 during a big tag team match on All Japan Pro Wrestling TV from Budokan Hall. Yoshiaki Yatsu and Samson Fuyuki battled Toshiaki Kawada and Tiger Mask II (aka Misawa). This was the infamous match where Misawa actually unmasked himself (something almost unheard of at the time) during the match. Normally when a masked wrestler unmasks, it is the beginning of the end of that worker (see Mexico). However in this case, this was the rebirth of a career, as unmasking himself was the first step in Misawa becoming the torchbearer for AJPW. After this match he challenged Jumbo Tsuruta to a match.
Yoshiaki Yatsu and Samson Fuyuki vs. Toshiaki Kawada and Tiger Mask II
On June 8th, 1990, Misawa battled Jumbo Tsuruta in Budokan Hall in what would be, to this day, the most legendary encounter of his career. Tsuruta found out mere moments before the opening bell that he would be dropping a fall to Misawa, something that didn’t quite happen very often. You see, in that era, the tippy-top guys never lost. You didn’t see the champions get jobbed out to punks like Randy Orton does on WWE PPVs. Tsuruta losing at Budokan was a big deal as he symbolically passed the torch to the man who would carry All Japan for the rest of the decade and turn the entire company around. Dave Meltzer gave this match 5 Stars and described the atmosphere as being like no other show he’d ever attended. Continue Reading »
So yesterday as I was preparing for UFC 99, I was told, “Hey did you hear about that Japanese wrestler who died?” I was unable to use the internet for pretty much the entire day so naturally I had not heard about anybody dying. Now there are hundreds of Japanese workers, so I immediately assumed it was a lesser known talent, possibly somebody from Big Japan. The biggest star that popped into my head was Atsushi Onita.
Words cannot describe how horrified I was when I learned that it was Mitsuharu Misawa who died.
Misawa’s final entrance the night he died (courtesy of Alan Counihan):
Of all of the workers in Japan, of every single soul who has ever made a small or a big impact in puroresu, why was Mitsuharu Misawa taken from us? I will admit that it was rather difficult to pay attention to UFC 99 with the lingering thought that I’d never see another Misawa match again. Continue Reading »
Two weeks ago on 
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