8. Mitsaharu Misawa
Arguably one of the wrestlers most widely associated with All Japan's "strong style" wrestling movement of the late-1980s and early 1990s, by 2009 Mitsaharu Misawa was 46 years old and a cornerstone of All Japan offspring promotion Pro Wrestling NOAH alongside fellow "strong style" advocate Kenta Kobashi. A style of wrestling built upon suplexes and drivers that dropped wrestlers directly on their head or necks, the fact that Misawa passed in the ring on June 13, 2009 during a match in which he was teamed with Go Shiozaki against GHC Tag Team Champions Akitoshi Saito and Bison Smith is intriguing when the speculated coroner's report is discussed. Citing a cervical spinal cord injury that caused cardiac arrest after taking a belly-to-back suplex from Saito as the cause of death, that move's link to Misawa's "strong style" past seems quite obvious. Taking bumps in professional wrestling is a part of the industry, and given the inability of someone to assume that 100% of all bumps in a wrestling match will be taken safely, any bump is potentially fatal. However, when compounded by nearly three decades of high-impact bumps on a human body, Misawa's untimely demise could have been staved off had his high-impact style not been so, well, high-impact.