10 Wrestlers Who Saved Promotions From Ruin
8. Mitsuharu Misawa
All Japan Pro Wrestling was in not particularly great health at the turn of the 1990s.
Baseball preempted the flagship TV show, which, in a sign of the times, was relegated to a late-night death slot rather than the customary Saturday afternoon in 1988. Meanwhile, the politicised f*ck-finish requirement in the natives versus star foreign import battles had become an anachronism in the wake of the rise of shoot-style wrestling. Without going full Inokism, booker Giant Baba folded in a core principle of the competition without it become a risible stylistic imitation: in AJPW, by 1989, Baba implemented a clean pin-only finish policy.
Baba was heavily reliant on the Jumbo Tsuruta/Genichiro Tenryu programme, which he had to abandon upon the formation of the Super World of Sports league to which Tenryu led a mass exodus. The solution to this problem was screamed in his face outside of Budokan Hall on June 8, 1990; the fans had chosen, loudly, Mitsuharu Misawa as their hero. Baba answered the call and in an impromptu, fateful decision, ordered Tsuruta to do the job. Jumbo pleaded for a protective count-out finish. It was denied; Misawa won, cleanly, leading to an exceptional inter-generational war and the rise of the Ace.
Misawa's popularity dwarfed that of any other megastar in an era defined by them at the Weekly Pro Wrestling super-show of 1995.
Misawa's expert psychological manipulation of his Budokan public - his epic, physical battles were immaculately textured - led to a stunningly impressive record of consecutive sellouts. AJPW was on fire in the '90s.
Misawa lit the fuse.