(NOAH) KENTA shares a memory of Ryu Nakata

This is a small translation from an article that KENTA wrote in 2014 soon after Ryu Nakata had died.

To give you a brief background into Ryu Nakata, he had been part of All Japan for years starting to when he had left High School, first helping to put up the ring. He had known Misawa as a rookie (at first they did not get along, Misawa's initial impressions were that he was not good, which is ironic as things turned out), but they eventually got to know and like each other after a drinking club was formed between himself, Misawa, Shiro Koshinaka and Kodo Fuyuki (of FMW fame). He had always had big plans for the production of All Japan, and after seeing a concert, he took the idea for lights, camera, action, smoke, music etc to Baba, was but told that for All Japan, this was not appropriate.
In 1988 he was appointed Baba's driver, and also his private secretary. He walked out with Misawa in 2000, worked as ring announcer in the early days and then took a general management position, and was planning to retire in 2008 when his contract ran out. It seemed that round about this time, Misawa was also planning to retire, and asked that he come back to announce his final match. However, sadly, Misawa died in the ring in June 2009. He (along with Haruka Eigen) was discovered to have ties to organised crime and was demoted within the company.

He died of a heart attack in the Aichi prefecture on February 15, 2014 at a service station; his family had been searching for him for three days.

Despite his actions that caused such repercussions to Noah, Nakata is remembered for his kindness. Always concerned about what would happen to the younger members of the roster when they realized they wouldn't be young forever, or else unable to wrestle because of injuries, he would tell them that they needed to "be sure to think about when you retire, as you need to eat properly", and it became habitual for him to talk to them about this. Jun Akiyama, in particular, took this to heart and for a while had his own mineral water company. 

EXCERPT FROM KENTA'S COLUMN

"On February 15th, I was told that Ryu Nakada had died from a heart attack. I am here to talk about that, and I will tell you about the fun times.
I need to put things in order in my head, these days there is an impression that the experience of conflicting opinions and the discrepancy in them, doesn't conflict too much with expedition in 2006 to Europe, America and South America, I think?
In the March of that year we went on expedition to Mexico, and there were very few opportunities to talk to each other. Since we were both born in March (I am the 12th, and Nakata was on the 14th), the staff at the TV station we went with, held a birthday party for us on each day. A cake was prepared for either of us, and honestly I was jealous when Nakata's cake was bigger than mine.
But, when I remember that the two of us cannot meet or talk again, I get a desolate feeling. It suddenly struck me yesterday when I was at the venue that it was so, I couldn't believe it.

From the time I was a rookie, Nakata had always taken care of me.
Before I returned from injury, Kobashi took me abroad for the first time to the training camp in Hawaii, when Nakata came out there, I asked him to take me to various places, and I remember having a talk about an story about Baba. I cherish the photos taken inside the plane at that time by Weekly Pro. I feel the experience was fleeting and precious.
However, I did not know Nakata as a person and on that occasion, we got acquainted with each other. However, I knew that Nakata when we went to America, liked Walmart a little too much, and as soon as I looked away he would be in there (even if there was one near the venue before the match)." 

The next part doesn't really translate well, but when they were in Mexico, Nakata used to unexpectedly leave during matches to go shopping, and I think KENTA wasn't too pleased about it, and there was a clash of opinions.

"I daresay my cheekiness has become a good memory now, but I want to reiterate, my cheekiness was only in truth once, and it was about honoring pro-wrestling when we were together."

KENTA then says he asked him something like "do you keep intentionally not seeing me?", and says he had a feeling that he really liked shopping.
Nakata, was not impressed, but KENTA wanted to talk about the way he saw the situation, and his thoughts on it. He wanted to do his best for Noah after all.

The next part doesn't really translate well, but KENTA mentions both the deaths of Misawa and Nakata, and says that it is time to rebuild and repaint Noah (I think he hints of the anger that Nakata caused), and how there was sometimes conflicts with Nakata, but there were no actual collisions.