(NOAH) Becoming President of Noah: There Were Plenty of "Bad Guys" Among the Inner Circle Handling Management (Akira Taue)
Tokyo Sports 16th September 2026 "Mitsuharu Misawa passed away following an in-ring accident at the Hiroshima event in June 2009. While I was naturally in deep shock, Misawa’s wife asked me to take over as Representative Director and President of Pro Wrestling Noah that July. Ideally, Kenta Kobashi could have done it, but he didn't seem to care for the business management side of things—even though he loved training. Was becoming president a good choice? It was a terrible idea! I wish I’d never done it (laughs). But then guys like Marufuji and Sugiura—the younger wrestlers—came up to me and said, "We're counting on you!" When the wrestlers put it like that, I felt like I had no choice. Damn that Misawa... (laughs). Once I actually became president (and this might sound strange), I found a lot of bad guys among the people running the business side of things. They were embezzling company funds, yet they’d actually written up IOUs to keep it from becoming a crimi...
