[Mecca]

The actual injury was a shattered C-1 and C-2 vertebrae, essentially meaning his head and spine were no longer connected, which led to him suffering cardiopulmonary arrest. It was roughly the same injury that actor Christopher Reeve suffered in 1995 when he was thrown off by a horse he was riding. Reeve would have died in that accident without the immediate medical care he received. Even if Misawa had survived, and it would have taken a miracle for that to happen, he would have likely been a paraplegic.

Most likely, if he had gone to a doctor in the U.S., like Steve Austin or DDP did when they had serious neck injuries, his level of his neck damage would have been discovered. It’s very possible, if not likely, he’d have been told, like Austin, DDP and Ted DiBiase had, that one more bad bump could leave him as a paraplegic. DiBiase retired at that point, although in the last year has talked of coming back for one last match. Austin and DDP wrestled a few times after that diagnosis, but got out for good, in the case of Austin, spurning some huge offers to come back, and at times considering them.

Misawa never got that medical opinion, even though he was diagnosed two years ago with a cervical sprain in a match he suffered a concussion in. Even the Japanese media reported after his death that he should not have been wrestling at this point.

To the shock of many people, the tour continued with a show the next night in Fukuoka, where Akiyama was scheduled to defend the GHC heavyweight title against Takeshi Rikio. Tons of fans came to the NOAH offices in Tokyo leaving flowers. In Fukuoka, a huge walk-up crowd came to the Hakata Star Lanes, a 2,600-seat converted bowling alley that is now, because wrestling is no longer drawing big crowds, the home for most of the promotions in Japan when they come to the city. A large throng was milling around the arena long before the show was scheduled to start, and selling it out.

It was surreal as everyone involved tried to act like it was just another day and another show, almost as if pretending would take everyone’s minds off what obviously everyone was thinking. Going out of your way to do what you would normally do was making it so obvious that it reminded everyone that this was no normal day, and this was no normal show.

And it couldn’t be. All Misawa merchandise that they had brought to last the entire tour sold out before the show started. They opened the show with a ten count for Misawa, as shows did all over the world on that day (of major promotions running around the world the next day, only WWE and TNA failed to acknowledge it at their house shows, although both did post messages on their web site. WWE did not acknowledge it during Raw, but C.M. Punk did manage to sneak a mention in, writing his name in huge letters on the tape on his wrists and forearms). They played his music one last time and fans chanted his name.

The death got the expected huge coverage in Japan, on network news and talk shows, lead stories in sports sections. At least one sports newspaper got the word late Saturday night, and stopped the presses for the Sunday edition to redo its front page. It was the lead story in every sports newspaper in the country, and top story on the Google and Yahoo Japan web sites.

Reaction to the death was worldwide. There was even a loud “Misawa!” chant the next day that started out of nowhere at a major fireworks show in Dusseldorf, Germany, a city with a large Japanese population, where transplanted Japanese talked about seeing his matches with Tsuruta, Kawada and Kobashi on television.

But there were high-brow papers in Japan that gave it very little coverage, limited to a few graphs. NHK television’s news, considered the most authoritative in the country, infuriated wrestling fans by making the decision that the death was not major news, with only one minute of coverage on the prime time newscast. To older editors, wrestling was something huge in the days of Rikidozan, and certainly Baba and Inoki were household names. Tsuruta’s death was covered huge, as were deaths of people like Lou Thesz, Karl Gotch and Fred Blassie. The country practically went into mourning when Baba died, and from a sports standpoint, Bruiser Brody’s death got nearly two months worth of regular coverage, yet Terry Gordy’s death got minimal coverage.

The leading English language newspaper, the Japan Times, had a seven-paragraph Japanese wire service story buried in the “In brief” section. Aside from mentioning him in the lead as one of the most popular wrestlers in Japan, the article talked almost exclusively about the circumstances of his death that night in Sapporo, and coverage of his entire career came down to two sentences: “Making his professional debut in 1981, Misawa became popular partly for wearing his trademark mask designed to look like a tiger’s head. He set up wrestling organization Pro Wrestling NOAH in 2000 and became its president.”

On the NTV morning show hosted by Kazuo Tokumitsu, something of a Japanese version of Walter Cronkite, he devoted 20 minutes the next morning to coverage of Misawa’s death. Tokumitsu, a powerful player in NTV, was friends with Misawa and was said to be one of the key guys at the network arguing against cutting the wrestling show a few months ago. Tokumitsu got his first national exposure as the lead wrestling announcer on the network in the Rikidozan era, and he was a player on the popular 70s network comedy show that The Destroyer was on.

NTV announced that the day after his public funeral, on 7/5, they would air a 90-minute special on his life, replaying his most famous matches. Special commemorative magazines were being rushed to hit the newsstands. It was even a front page story in the U.S. on the ESPN web site and was covered in the sports section in Australia in the Sydney Morning Herald.

After the moment of silence to start the show in Fukuoka, Akiyama, 39, then came out and announced he had a herniated the disc between his L-4 and L-5 vertebrae, and would be out of action indefinitely. He had been working through a lot of pain, with the usual Japanese athlete mentality that you deny pain because admitting it is considered a weakness, really not appreciably different than the attitude of American athletes except that trait is, as a rule, stronger in Japanese because of being taught never to complain. After what happened the night before, he looked at his own situation got himself examined. In fact, this was a wake up call for many in the industry who routinely did their job and ignored their discomfort because that’s what you do in the wrestling business. Akiyama said he would have to vacate the championship and it was announced that Shiozaki would face Rikio for the title.

Akiyama himself is under a lot of pressure, because the company is expecting him to take over Misawa’s front office duties. Vice president Momota said they would be having a meeting on 6/23, the day after the current tour ends, and discuss the direction of the company, and expect to announce a new president within three months.

27-year-old Shiozaki pinned Rikio in 22:37 with the Go flasher to win the championship. Shiozaki has the talent to be the top star of the promotion, but with the television situation as it is, he’s never going to have the exposure to be a major star. The reality of the business today is no matter how talented or charismatic the young talent is, the television vehicle isn’t there to create a new Misawa, Kobashi, Keiji Muto or Riki Choshu.