One of the most legendary wrestlers of all time, Mitsuharu Misawa, passed away in Hiroshima just over 2 hours ago.

Misawa went into cardiac arrest after a freak in-ring accident. In a match for the Pro Wrestling NOAH GHC Tag Titles, Akitoshi Saito delivered a routine backdrop suplex and Misawa stayed down. The doctor tried to revive him and he was taken to hospital where he passed away, days before his 47th birthday.

My thoughts on the two great (as in ALL TIME GREAT) matches from NOAH 3/1.

NJPW vs. NOAH: Shiosaki & Sugiura vs. Nakamura & Milano
GHC Junior Title: Katsuhiko Nakajima vs. KENTA

These are my one and two for 2009 so far. I was completely and utterly losing my mind during both matches. This was Danielson vs. McGuinness in Liverpool levels of marking out and I was at that match in person. These matches didn’t have the live atmosphere going for them, yet I still managed to get so excited that I legit broke a spring in my couch by jumping to my feet on it (when Sug speared Milano into the corner and the ref jumped out of the way). I also ran around the room multiple times shouting OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! when Nakajima flipped out of a Tiger Suplex in the prettiest spot I’ve seen in forever.

Shiosaki’s killing of Milano down the stretch was among the coolest, most memorable things I’ve ever seen in wrestling. The spinning overhand chop to a kneeling Milano was BRUTAL. That so needs to be his finisher. Suigiura was out of this world on the hot tag and all prior to that when stewing on the apron and in the early stages with Nakamura. He brought the emotion to this match more than anyone, and as mentioned earlier that running spear he nailed Milano with was GODLY.

Nakamura and Milano were great heels and Milano really had his working boots on and brought some really awesome innovative stuff to the table. Nakamura once again mocking the Misawa face wipe was beautiful.

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Thanks to www.purolove.com for the lineup.

This promises to be one of the best shows of the year. NOAH’s on a roll right now with a change in booking philosophy, and several of it’s wrestlers being on fire.

The top three matches are ridiculously good on paper. The NOAH vs. NJPW tag will look to continue where the Tokyo Dome left off, with Go Shiosaki and Milano stepping in for Misawa and Goto respectively. The two stars of the 1/4 match, Nakamura and Sugiura, are still in place though and will no doubt be fired up every time they cross paths in this match.

Nakajima and KENTA just put on a MOTYC three weeks ago and that will be hard to top, but these crazy S.O.B’s will no doubt try. KENTA is pretty clearly the best wrestler in the world based on form in the last three months. He has never looked better and considering some of his prior years, that’s really saying something.

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With DVDVR ballots due soon, here’s my top 20 puro matches for the year 2008:

1. Kensuke Office vs. Burning (8/17) (KO)
2. Speed Muscle vs. Shingo/BxB (1/15) (DG)
3. Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Kohei Suwama (4/9) (AJPW)
4. Mashimo/Madoka vs. Men’s Teioh/Shinobu (5/23) (BJW)
5. Nakanishi/Nagata vs. Ohtani/Tanaka (7/7) (NJPW)
6. Naomichi Marufuji vs. Shuji Kondo (11/3) (AJPW)
7. Briscoes vs. Ibushi/Nakajima (9/6) (NOAH)
8. Speed Muscle vs. Shingo/Dragon Kid (8/28)(DG)
9. Masato Yoshino vs. Dragon Kid (11/16) (DG)
10. Kobashi/Honda/Taniguchi vs. Marufuji/Sugiura/Morishima (2/21) (NOAH)
11. Nakajima/Sasaki vs. Akiyama/Rikio (4/27) (NOAH)
12. KENTA vs. Naomichi Marufuji (10/25) (NOAH)
13. Yugi Nagata vs. Masato Tanaka (10/13) (NJPW)
14. Masato Tanaka vs. Koji Kanemoto (4/13) (NJPW)
15. Shingo/BxB Hulk vs. KENTA/Ishimori (3/20) (DG)
16. Suzuki/Kanemaru vs. KENTA/Ishimori (12/7) (NOAH)
17. Naruki Doi vs. KENTA (5/5) (DG)
18. Doi/Tanisaki vs. Cyber Kong/YAMATO (11/16) (DG)
19. Kobashi/KENTA vs. Nakajima/Sasaki (6/14) (NOAH)
20. Suwama/Kondo vs. TenKoji (11/24) (AJPW)

I also did a top 20 for all of wrestling, but this was done under the Observer criteria (Dec2007-Nov2008)

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New Japan’s biggest show of the year goes down tomorrow and it’s set to be a HELL of a show. You’ve got a main event that is sure to pull out all the stops as the company’s biggest young star Hiroshi Tanahashi takes on one of his mentors, All Japan president and IWGP Heavyweight Champion, Keiji Mutoh. There will also be two HUGE New Japan vs. NOAH matches and a rematch of the 10/13 Sumo Hall thriller between Yugi Nagata and Zero 1′s Masato Tanaka.

NJPW “WRESTLE KINGDOM III IN TOKYO DOME”, 1/4/09 (WPW/PPV)
Tokyo Dome

0. Mitsuhide Hirasawa, Kazuchika Okada & Nobuo Yoshihashi vs. Milano Collection AT, Minoru & Taichi Ishikari
1. Wrestle Kingdom Grand Opening VIENTO DORADO: Mistico, Ryusuke Taguchi & Prince Devitt vs. Averno, Jado & Gedo
2. Jushin Thunder Liger 20th Anniversary Match: Jushin Thunder Liger & Takuma Sano Pro Wrestling NOAH vs. Wataru Inoue & Koji Kanemoto
3. IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Title ~Tread on!!~: Yujiro & Tetsuya Naito (c) vs. Alex Shelley TNA Wrestling & Chris Sabin TNA Wrestling
4. IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Title ~Ballistic interception~: Low Ki (c) vs. Tiger Mask
5. Fighting Holdings Competition: Riki Choshu, Masahiro Chono, Kurt Angle TNA Wrestling & Kevin Nash TNA Wrestling vs. Giant Bernard, Takashi Iizuka, Tomohiro Ishii & Karl Anderson
6. World Heavyweight Title ~Crusade for Justice~: Yuji Nagata (c) vs. Masato Tanaka ZERO1-MAX
7. New Japan vs. NOAH Battle Tendencies ~the invasion~: Manabu Nakanishi vs. Jun Akiyama Pro Wrestling NOAH
8. IWGP Tag Team Title – Hardcore Rules: Togi Makabe & Toru Yano (c) vs. “Team 3D” Brother Ray TNA Wrestling & Brother Devon TNA Wrestling
9. New Japan vs. NOAH Battle Tendencies ~the encounter~: Shinsuke Nakamura & Hirooki Goto vs. Mitsuharu Misawa Pro Wrestling NOAH & Takashi Sugiura Pro Wrestling NOAH
10. IWGP Heavyweight Title: Keiji Muto All Japan (c) vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi

”The Natural One” Michael Modest. Mainstream wrestling fans know him as the kid from “Beyond the Mat” who had a dark match on WWF Television during the peak of the wrestling boom. NOAH fans remember him as a hard-hitting gai-jin and a lot of his matches with tag partner Donovan Morgan. Bay Area wrestling fans, specially APW elitists, see him as a “Wrestling God”, no disrespect to JBL.

Wrestlewarehouse.com presents the first in it’s series of brand new shoot interviews, a sit down interview with “The Natural One” Michael Modest, conducted by Rubber Guard Radio host Kid Zombie. KZ and Wrestle Warehouse take Mike down memory lane, covering his entire career from A-Z up until now for two hours and forty five minutes.

Early on, Mike talks about how he got into wrestling in due part to his uncle and how he was attracted to the legendary Ray “The Crippler” Stevens up to his first match as an enhancement talent, putting over Koko B. Ware of all people, at age 18. “Playboy” Buddy Rose is revealed as the first guy Mike ever worked who actually listened to him and did the moves that he wanted, until he got punched right in the nose. And Wrestling is supposed to be fake… right?

“Your name’s not Dean mate, it’s fucking mark!”

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