MISAWA/KAWADA RELATIONSHIP

When comes to his personal relationship with Toshiaki Kawada, as far the mid 1990s onward go, was it a sort of "frenemies" situation? How real or not was their dislike for each other? It's hard for me to tell when kayfabe ends and reality begins.

In the 1990s, Mitsuharu Misawa and Toshiaki Kawada appeared at an All Japan show with heavy bruising to their faces. All Japan announced that Mitsuharu Misawa's eye injury was due to a match (he later needed surgery), but fans heard rumors that he and Toshiaki Kawada got into a bar brawl. Genichiro Tenryu years later said that truth was that he and Kawada had gotten into a fight with each other. Kenta Kobashi in an interview in 2023 revealed, "now that the statute of limitations has passed, I guess" that they got drunk at Karaoke, “the reason is trivial…to sing or not to sing”. Tsuyoshi Kikuchi and he turned pale as they screamed at each other. Kobashi held Misawa back begging him to calm down, and then Kawada broke free of Kikuchi, and threw the first punch. Baba took no action on it, seeing it as "a fight between brothers", which he saw as being triggered by Kawada's jealousy of Misawa. Theirs was a volatile and complex relationship, in the ring Misawa used to provoke Kawada into losing his notoriously short temper, but outside of it, they would go drinking together in later years. After the walk out to Noah, Kawada chose to stay with All Japan, not due to any grudge against Misawa, (he said that it wasn't as if the two of them had a falling out, and "time will solve that problem" as to whether he would ever face Misawa again), but because if he had left then the name of "All Japan" would truly be gone. After Misawa died, Kawada said his heart was no longer in wrestling without Misawa. The irony was that Kawada (although his final match to date was in New Japan), like all of the Four Pillars, would spend the majority of his final career in Noah. 

Misawa/nerd

There's footage from a Japanese TV show where the host is going through what appears to be Misawa's room or office and pointing out a bunch of trinkets and, like Kamen rider figures. Was Misawa into certain shows like this, or collecting toys? Did he have typically "nerdy" hobbies other than video games?

In "Donmai Donmai" (which is your best reference) he mentions not ever going to Akihabara with Go Shiozaki and Kotaro Suzuki. 

"But, I'm not a nerd like Kotaro and Shiozaki! And no matter how much I am invited, I am not going on a tour of Akihabara. [A MENS]* is a nope!"

([A MENS]: Misawa referred to himself as this, while Kotaro was [A BOY])

"Unlike you guys, I'm not an otaku, Kotaro-kun. Also, I won't go to Akihabara with you. It wouldn't be fun to do group activities where everyone has different hobbies."

"Misawa bought a 1/350 Space Battleship Yamato Plastic Model during these off days. The plastic model is a faithful reproduction of the wave motion gun and barrel laser, and its size is 766mm. I don't have time to make it, and I don't have any more space to display it"

Donmai-Donmai is full of references to figure collecting, SFX shows, his Ultraman alarm clock (which he had because he didn't know how to work the alarm on his phone). And films such as "basically, my favorite genre is SFX, which looks far from reality. I am looking forward to the release of many interesting sequels this year, such as "Spiderman 3", "Harry Potter" and "Die Hard". I bought "Hong Kong Police Force", "Oceans 12", "Star Wars" boxsets at the end of the year"

 

Although it wasn't/hasn't been mentioned in "Donmai Donmai", Misawa also collected gacha, and even saved all the ones that his junior roster had bought back from him from overseas, all over Japan etc. His favorite TV show was about a lawyer (which he appeared on once and the theme was played at his funeral), and Final Fantasy VII memorabilia.

Misawa on his favorite show clip - https://twitter.com/i/status/1190008910742208524

Kotaro Suzuki made a courtesy call to Misawa's home after Misawa's death, and Mayumi showed him Misawa's room. This indicates that Misawa and his wife no longer shared the same bed, but I don't think this was due to any kind of marital strife, it was probably more to do with Misawa's worsening physical condition and the fact that he needed a mountain of pillows to even sleep due to the state of his neck, massive weight gain etc. Misawa makes reference to his having a separate room in 2007, so this was probably something that had been going on for a while. Whatever the reason, Kotaro recalled to "Weekly Pro", that there were so many figures in the room of various things, they were even clustered around the bed. 

Misawa/lewd

Sounds like also had a bit of a lewd sense of humour too, you've mentioned on social media and podcasts before that he jokingly told an interviewer he'd been reading pornography while recovering from an injury as Tiger Mask. Do any other examples come to mind?

"If you ask me to give a speech, you need to be prepared. After all, I rarely give praise. At a wedding, other people will fight to give praise, and basically it's in the way of lowering the bar. The lowering of the bar rate is about 80%.
Everyone beware."

Open the floodgates....

Donmai-Donmai

"Basically, I love hot springs. It's nice to just go to the hot springs, but it's even better if the room has a bath. If you go to a large communal bath when there is no bath in the room, you may feel a slight gaze at your crotch" 

"And now a question for Kobashi. It's been hot and warm lately, and the temperature has been fluctuating a lot, so how does Kobashi sleep? Tell me....by the way, before you ask me, I am wearing a negligee."

That, however, is mild compared to...

Said on TV, “Every man wants to be thick and long” and had his own word for male genitalia…

Had plans for a tribute to Shinya Hashimoto which was to write a book of rude stories
He once asked a couple who asked him for his autograph if they had "done it yet", and told Kotaro Suzuki's mother that her son had gone to a strip club...
Said that he was a boob man on TV, making one of the guests admonish him! 

All this (and more) got him the nickname of "The Ero-President" (Erotic President), and as he was so blue, Noah's then General Manager, became concerned that Misawa was tarnishing his serious image and forbade him from doing television appearances.

Misawa/Kobashi

Misawa had a stoic persona in the ring, but it sounds like he was a bit of a jokester behind the scenes. I read that he liked to playfully mess with Kobashi a little bit -- know anything about that? 

In "Donmai Donmai", Misawa and Kobashi (before Kobashi's illness) used to ask each other questions, Misawa's questions included

"So, I asked Kobashi "Have you ever been crazy about anything other than training?" (By the way, Kobashi, his favorite Shochu is "Downtown Napoleon". I wonder if this was the answer I was expecting...what is more elaborate than training is "Fashion?" It's what??? (laughs) The last question to Kobashi is, "How much money do you have?")"

"Firstly, there was a special program recorded for NTV for New Year, which specified wearing suits. Normally, when talent appears on TV, I think the TV station will usually prepare costumes, but as there is no such thing as our sizes, most of them are our own. This time, Kobashi wore his own suit too. When I saw Kobashi in a shirt, I had the idea of short sleeves. Even though this is the end of year, when is he with the season? Besides, I was sweating just by changing clothes. Well, if I put on a jacket you can't see the short-sleeved shirt. I think I took measures considering the heat in the studio. So, in the waiting room I was asked "Boss*, where do you buy your clothes?". I recalled Kobashi's fashion check. As expected, this is the man who answered, "My hobby other than practice is "fashion"."

"Lastly I have a question for Kobashi. The photobook is on sale now, but which photo would you recommend for an "mature woman"?"

However, this was pretty mild compared to the infamous time when he (possibly in March 1997) called Kobashi from a late night radio show. Kobashi, who was woken by the phone, ran to answer. 

Misawa asked him why he was panting...had he been jerking off? 

Kobashi said no, he had run for the phone as he had been woken up by it.

Misawa didn't believe him.

Sometimes Kawada could join in the teasing...

*Kobashi, Kawada and Misawa were on a roundtable, and Kobashi talked about knee pads*

Misawa: So, how do you use it as an ordinary person? (Grins)

Kawada: Because his knees are bad, he uses it during...

Kobashi: Cut! Cut! Cut!

Misawa said the elbow was not good for such times.

Despite his teasing of Kobashi, and his aesthetic life devoted to training and not much else, Misawa knew when to keep Kobashi from himself. Despite telling the roster not to bring him exercise equipment in the hospital, but to bring him porn instead, Misawa made sure that Kobashi when he was able to return to the ring was only booked in Tokyo to start with (and around Tokyo in the bigger cities) as he was on a special diet, which would have been hard to accommodate (back then) outside of the big cities, and medical help wasn't so easily got should anything go wrong. Kobashi himself was known to play the odd prank call on Misawa, and after Misawa's passing said that he felt that he was watching over him, and made a promise to both he and Baba, that he wouldn't break his word and return to the ring.

Misawa/drinking

I've heard Misawa liked to drink, and I believe you said on a podcast that he and Hayabusa became drinking buddies. Do we know anything else about his drinking habits, like how much he would consume? Drink of choice? Favorite brand? 

In his All Japan days, Misawa was compelled to drink by his seniors. Genichiro Tenryu (who is most often credited with teaching Misawa how to drink), said that he felt kind of bad, because here was Misawa newly married, and he was whisked away by Tenryu to drink. As Mayumi Misawa states in "The Last Bump", " As a junior, the senior wrestlers got him drunk, but when he was in that position, he never compelled his own juniors. He would sit at the end of the bar, with his back to the wall, and laugh at their views as they were boasting about their overwhelming track record in the ring, the Triple Crown Heavyweight championship, which is the apex of All Japan wrestling." However, Kenta Kobashi does recall that Misawa thought it would be funny to get him drunk, and he sometimes would lie on his futon, the world spinning and wondering what day it was, when Misawa would appear and take him out again. I don't know about his having a favorite drink brand, but he seemed to like spirits more than beer

 

Mitsuharu Misawa, Naomichi Marufuji, Yoshinari Ogawa and Kotaro Suzuki (c.2003) - this was taken from a skit on a variety show, not a picture of a night out.

(although he did undoubtedly drink beer). 

Naomichi Marufuji recalls going to a sushi restaurant in Sapporo (Misawa was born in Hokkaido, like Marufuji's parents interestingly), which Misawa used to take him to when he was his attendant. Even though this was not somewhere local to Noah, they always kept a bottle of Sake for Misawa, and the manager would prepare it for him personally. After his passing, (7th year), Go Shiozaki and Kotaro Suzuki were in Hokkaido (this was during their AJPW era), and they found an Izakaya (kind of like a Japanese pub or tavern), took a table for three, and put his favorite cigarettes and Shochu in his place. So, I would probably say that given the references to it, and the fact that Shiozaki and Kotaro chose it, Shochu was probably his favorite. 

From "Donmai Donmai"

"I am not a big fan of Japanese sake, but I've always wanted to drink it at a hot spring or inn, but it was delicious. Wine is actually the worst of all alcoholic beverages. Wine may be the alcohol most distant from our lifestyle, where we often go out to eat late at night after the match is over"

"I'll answer Kobashi's question promptly. If I had to choose between tea and coffee, I would be more of a tea person, but I drink cafe au lait the most."

"I often end up eating yakiniku or going to a Izakaya. So, on that day I didn't want to eat much, and so I had yakiniku as a side dish for drinking. Towards the end, I remember suddenly thinking, "The Shochu has gotten darker". I think I was drunk before I knew it. On the 3rd, the matches started at 4pm, so compared to the pattern of going out drinking after the event, which usually starts at 6:30pm, I got off to an early start, and although I don't remember much, I think I probably got home around 2:00. 

It seems that Ogawa, Kotaro, and Ippei went out drinking again after that.

Later on, Misawa thought, "I wish I had been invited too."

Then, in the evening of the next day, Ippei sent me a mail saying "Sorry I couldn't answer the phone. I was going to change my cell phone." "I didn't call you, and I wonder why Ippei went to change his phone?" As I thought about it, my memories gradually came back. Come to think of it, I might have put Ippei's phone in the Shochu when I was drunk"

See Donmai Donmai for drinking references, nights out etc