(ALL JAPAN) This month's issue: Ringside Interview with ring announcer Nakata, Mitsuharu Misawa (June 1983)
Weekly Pro
June 1983 (Issue 6)
The preface is Ryu Nakata selecting some pictures of Mitsuharu Misawa (who was in his early twenties at about twenty or twenty-one), and commenting on them. This is the earliest interview, or rather article, I can find with Misawa (so far) as there are no issues of Weekly Pro available at the time of writing, from the time he entered All Japan and his debut.
Name: Mitsuharu Misawa
Born: June 28th 1962, Saitama*
Height: 183cm
Weight: 92kg
Chest: 105cm
Special move: Flying body attack
Notes
Nakata: Ryu Nakata. Nakata had an interesting career, he started off as Baba's driver and later progressed to being a ring announcer. As part of the walkout to Noah, he became the general manager of Noah. After Misawa's death, he was implicated in the ticket scandal, and demoted to general employee. One day he was reported missing, and found dead in his car a few days later outside a rural gas station. The cause of death was given as "Heart Attack", which interestingly the other people who were caught up in the scandal (Haruka Eigen and Junji Izumida) also died of, but unlike them, Nakata did not have the sumo background.
Saitama: Although he billed himself from Saitama, having moved here when he was a few months old with his parents, he was in fact born in Hokkaido.
Notes from the photo captions
- "High speed body slam on Fuyuki. Being fast is what makes him good at everything."
- The belt Misawa is with is the AWA Championship. He never held the belt (his first championship was as Tiger Mask II), so this picture may have been something informal done backstage. Nakata wondered if one day he may hold a championship...
Nakata-kun's Ringside Interview: Mitsuharu Misawa
This months guest is the promising Mitsuharu Misawa, who lost to his senior Shiro Koshinaka, in the much anticipated Lou Thesz Cup, but he took second place and earned a ticket to the US. As usual, we will start off with some soft talk, and then get straight to the point.
MISAWA: Ryu-san, please stop calling me "kun". Just call me "Misawa", like you always do.
NAKATA: No problem. It's not very well known, but you are originally from Hokkaido.
MISAWA: Yes, that's right. I'm from Yubari, a town of coal mines and melons. But we moved to Koshigaya in Saitama when I was four years old*. I don't remember much about my time in Yubari, but I'd like to go there someday.
NAKATA: You went to Elementary and Junior High school in Koshigaya, right? What kind of child were you?
MISAWA: You might not believe it, but I was a shy, timid child.
NAKATA: Did you work hard?
MISAWA: Of course not. But maybe because I did gymnastics, I did well in P.E. class.
NAKATA: And then you went to Ashikaga Institute of Technology High School.
MISAWA: I really wanted to become a professional wrestler, and so I wanted to do amateur wrestling as a stepping stone. So I enrolled in Ashikaga Institute of Technology High School, which has a strong amateur wrestling team.
NAKATA: So you wanted to be a pro wrestler from then on?
MISAWA: That's right. I've never told anyone this story, but I ran away from home when I was a freshman in High School.
NAKATA: You ran away from home? Where did you go?
MISAWA: The All Japan Pro Wrestling office in Roppongi. Jumbo Tsuruta and Yoshihiro Momota* where there, and I asked them if I could join as their trainee, but they flatly refused. They told me, "It's not too late to come back after you graduate from High School. Come back after you graduate!"*
NAKATA: But if you had joined then, you wouldn't have had any success in amateur wrestling.
MISAWA: Yes, but amateur wrestling isn't that interesting. In my case, it was just a step towards becoming a professional wrestler. That's why I did amateur wrestling...but I was really happy when I went on a tour of the US and won the National Athletic Meet.
NAKATA: And then you finally entered professional wrestling?
MISAWA: Yes, but there are a lot of difficult issues to overcome when getting started in professional wrestling...
NAKATA: What issues?
MISAWA: My coaches and my teachers told me to go to college, and didn't approve of me entering wrestling. I was approached by various universities, but the most difficult thing was my picture. The Head of The Sports School came all the way to the school, to try and persuade my mother and I. We refused again and again, but he kept coming back, so it was really bad. And when Misawa* came and said he wanted to join, he even got All Japan Pro Wrestling involved and asked them not to allow him to join, and the JSDF* were a real pain.
NAKATA: And so you finally joined?
MISAWA: No, there's more. Around that time, Yatsu-san*, who joined New Japan, was my predecessor, and he told me, "If you want to do Pro Wrestling, come to New Japan!" But I had already decided to join All Japan.
NAKATA: Why did you join All Japan?
MISAWA: Because I liked it, the atmosphere was good.
NAKATA: You finally joined, I remember that there were a lot of trainees then.
MISAWA: Yes, but they all quit, and the only new trainees left were Goto-san* and myself.
NAKATA: There were some who were even competing in matches. Why did they quit?
MISAWA: Hmmm, maybe being a pro wrestler just isn't suited to them.
MISAWA: It was over before I even knew what was going on. Of course, I lost.
NAKATA: What was your first win?
MISAWA: I beat Sugawara*, who had just moved from International. At that time, Sugawara hadn't fought for nearly half a year, and so he must have been out of shape.
NAKATA: Recently, you have been competing more against foreign wrestlers, and were the runner up in the Lou Thesz Cup. Talks of going overseas are also becoming more concrete.
MISAWA: No, not yet. I haven't heard anything about it...
NAKATA: How is life at the training camp?
MISAWA: Until recently it was tough being at the bottom, but now we have the hardworking Kawada.
NAKATA: Who are you close with?
MISAWA: All the youngsters get along well, and then there are the people in the sales department, who really dote on us. Oh. Mr Arai, the sales manager, thank you for the steak the other day.
NAKATA: Your room used to be full of pictures of Ikue-chan*, but how is it now?
MISAWA: Same as always. I'm all for Ikue-chan. I'm not going around like a certain guy saying, "Mako-chan is good, but then Hiroko-chan is good too" (Note, this refers to Tarzan Goto)
NAKATA: Now, lets move get to the serious questions
MISAWA: Okay.
NAKATA: Who is your role model as a wrestler?
MISAWA: In the past it was Mascaras, but now it's Ricky Steamboat. I like that kind of wrestling.
NAKATA: Who is your rival?
MISAWA: Well, like Koshinaka-san said, I also think of all the young people as my rivals.
NAKATA: Finally, please give a message to your fans.
MISAWA: Thank you for your continued support. I will continue to do my best, so please continue to support me.
NAKATA: Stay strong
MISAWA: Yes
Notes
Misawa & Nakata: Both their sons are now referees, I don't think either have ever come to Noah, but both have certainly worked for DDT.
Yubari: Usually it's assumed that Misawa's family moved soon after he was born as the dates have been vague, but tgis confirms this was not the case
Yoshihiro Momota: Eldest son of Rikidozan, died in 2000 soon after joining Noah
"Come back after you graduate": Some articles say it was Baba who told Misawa this, but as both Misawa first person (and Yuji Tsuruta) confirm that it was Jumbo Tsuruta, this can most certainly be considered to be the canon version.
Misawa: Misawa had this habit throughout his life, of sometimes referring to himself in the third person.
JSDF: Japan Self Defense Force. The Japanese have not been allowed to have a national army since WW2, but they do have the JSDF, who are kind of like the equivalent of the Territorial Army or the US Army Reserve. Misawa was not a member, but Takashi Sugiura, Shuhei Taniguchi and Atsushi Aoki were.
Yatsu: Yoshiaki Yatsu
Goto-san: Tarzan Goto.
Urawa Racecourse: Saitama.
Apollo Sugawara: He came to All Japan in 1981 from International Pro Wrestling (the promotion that had been one the causes of Baba's split from Japan Pro), and left All Japan in 1986. There were two versions of why he left, the first says he was let go due to personnel cuts due to the flood of wrestlers coming in from Japan Pro (not the Rikidozan promotion). However, it has been alleged that he was let go after angering Giant Baba during a meal by talking back to him, which Sugawara denies. After that he bounced around on the Japanese indies, before opening a sports bar, "Apollo Kitchen" in the early 2000s.
Ikue-chan: Ikue Sakakibara. Japanese actress, singer, presenter and former idol. In the late 1970s, she was a bikini girl (and a somewhat risqué one for the time, place and society), plus she was recognized as a "pioneer of the large breasted idol genre". By 1983 she had transitioned to the stage, appearing in a Peter Pan musical. This marked the first time a musical was successful in Japan.
Notes from blurbs
Unlike his later years, and the blurb earlier in the article, his short bio states he was born in Hokkaido. However, as Donmai Donmai shows, Hokkaido was never something Misawa airbrushed from his memory, although he himself was always billed from Saitama.
Finally, this picture isn't from the article, but I thought I would put it here as its pretty apt from the interview. The picture, which was taken in June 1981 by Tokyo Sports, shows a young Mitsuharu Misawa, with Shiro Koshinaka and Tarzan Goto. Sadly, Misawa would die in 2009, and Goto (of liver cancer) in 2022, Koshinaka has outlived them.
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