10 Reasons Kenta Kobashi Is The Greatest Wrestler Of The Modern Era

All Japan Pro Wrestling and Pro Wrestling NOAH weren’t very promo-heavy wrestling promotions, aside from post-match interviews. As such, its wrestlers, including Kobashi, showed charisma through other means, such as simple facial expressions, shouting short catchphrases in Japanese, and looking at the crowd for a second.

Amazingly, Kobashi was able to get some of the loudest crowd reactions ever through these simple actions. Mind you, these are Japanese wrestling audiences, who are known for their silence and respect; so to get them to cheer very loudly takes an exceptionally charismatic and popular wrestler.

A key part of this charisma stems from his aforementioned ‘burning spirit’ gimmick. No matter how much pain he endured, he kept going, and his facial expressions and subtle movements made the pain he was experiencing seem much worse than it was.

Eventually, he learned how to keep the audience in the palm of his hand, and could get them to jump out of their seats with his actions. From pointing to the crowd before he started chopping someone in the corner, to raising his fist before using a Burning Lariat, to looking into the camera for a split second before ascending the top turnbuckle for his Moonsault, Kobashi’s subtle charisma was so impressive that cutting a hype promo was completely unnecessary for him.

All he needed to do was yell, and the crowd would cheer for him. It takes a truly exceptional wrestler to be able to do that.