R.I.P. Bison Smith

On November 22, 2011 Bison Smith died in Puerto Rico at the age of 38. A few months ago Colt Cabana did an interview with Smith his Art of Wrestling podcast. To hear that podcast click here.
Though from the U.S.A. Smith wrestled mostly in Japan. On October 9th, 2004 I was at Korakuen Hall to see Smith tag with Mike Awesome & Trevor Rhodes (AKA Trevor Murdock) to wrestle against Akitoshi Saito, Masao Inoue & Takashi Sugiura for Pro Wrestling Noah.

R.I.P. Alex Whybrow AKA "Sweet & Sour" Larry Sweeney

Various pro wrestling news sites reported today that Alex Whybrow, AKA "Sweet & Sour" Larry Sweeney died today at the age of 29. Sweeney trained at the Chikara Wrestle Factory and went on to wrestle and manage for Ring of Honor.

I first saw Larry Sweeney back in April of 2005 when he came to Midwest Pro Wrestling.  He was there with other members of Chikara to take on MPW in the "World Series of Wrestling". This was a best of seven match series pitting wrestlers from MPW against wrestlers from Chikara. Sweeney won his match against The Punisher (now known as Rob James).

Sweeney retuned to Minnesota in June 2006, this time for Northern Impact Wrestling's Impact Invitational. In the first round of the tournament Sweeney lost his ICW-ICWA Texarkana TV title to Darin Corbin. Corbin then lost the title to Cody O'Neill at intermission as the ICW-ICWA Texarkana TV title is defended under 24/7 rules. O'Neill then lost the belt to referee Bryce Rumsberg seconds later. The title changed hands a few more times that weekend but Sweeney won the belt back before leaving the Midwest. Sweeney was a very entertaining performer.

R.I.P. Ted Tanabe

Japanese pro wrestling referee Ted Tanabe died on June 15th, 2009 after he had a heart attack while refereeing a match for Osaka Pro Wrestling in Japan.

On February 8th, 2004 I was ring side at Blue Field in Ciba Japan for a Kaientai Dojo show where Tanabe was one of the referees. Tanabe was the first one I met at Blue Field as he was the one who got me my press pass. In the photo above Tanabe is raising Tsubo Genjin's hand to award him the match.

Tanabe was one of the most well know refs in Japan. There is even a referee in the Fire Pro wrestling video game that looks just like Tanabe.

Mitsuharu Misawa 6/18/62 - 6/13/2009

Pro Wrestling Noah president and wrestling great Mitsuhara Misawa died last Saturday night during a tag team match in Hiroshima, Japan. I was at ring side back in October of 2004 when I got to photograph Misawa as he took part in a 6 man match. At the time he was the GHC Tag team champion with Yoshinari Ogawa.