Via Meltzer:

 

Shinya Hashimoto passed away at approximately 9:30 a.m. Monday morning in Yokohama, Japan. No other details are available at this moment. He was 40. Hashimoto, a many time IWGP champion and Hall of Famer, had, along with Hulk Hogan, headlined more successful huge live pro wrestling events than any wrestlers in the history of the business. He had been out of action for several months after shoulder surgery. We have no details on the cause of death.

I'm speechless right now. I don't know what to say.

Seeing everyone's reaction to this makes me wish I had a clue who this is.

Shinya Hashimoto bio & list

Yeah, I'm not really sure either on how to react. The deaths like these just creep up on you.

Yeah, it's a surprising death.

WTF?

 

Man, RIP to a wrestler that intrigued me moreso than any of my favorites. With Hash, I never knew what kind of match I was going to get but I always looked forward to it. Damn.

Yeah, he was always a lottery as far as matches go. I think his best match was probably the finals of the 95 G-1 Climax.

One of the few IWGP wrestlers I had the pleasure of seeing wrestle live. When I saw the title of the thread I was shocked because, despite being a wrestler, I thought to myself, "No way, he's way too young."

 

I guess it doesn't matter. I'm interested to hear the cause. In any case...

 

RIP

Holy shit. I knew he'd put back on the weight he'd attempted to lose a couple of years ago but this is surprising.

Talk about stunned! This is the last thing I expected to read.

Hashimoto was awesome. I have a Lynch Comp of his matches and many of them are just off the charts.

 

1) 01/15/94: Hashimoto vs. Chono

2) 03/05/94: Hashimoto vs. Liger

3) 04/16/94: Fujinami vs. Hashimoto

4) 08/27/94: Hashimoto vs. Power Warrior

5) 09/03/94: Hashimoto vs. Koshinaka

6) 12/24/94: Hashimoto vs. Hase

7) 01/14/95: Hashimoto vs. Sasaki

8) 02/25/95: Hashimoto vs. Tenzan

9) 04/29/95: Hashimoto vs. Regal

10) 05/20/95: Muto vs. Hashimoto

11) 07/08/95: Hashimoto vs. Nakanishi

12) 07/08/95: Chono & Tenzan vs. Hashimoto & Hirata

13) 08/19/95: Hashimoto vs. Norton

14) 08/26/95: Sasaki vs. Hashimoto

15) 09/02/95: Hashimoto vs. Tenzan

16) 09/09/95: Hashimoto vs. Chono

17) 09/16/95: Muto vs. Hashimoto

18) 05/06/96: Hashimoto vs. Takada

19) 05/25/96: Hashimoto vs. Nagata

20) 06/22/96: Hashimoto vs. Kojima

21) 07/01/96: Yamazaki & Iizuka vs. Hirata & Hashimoto

22) 08/10/96: Choshu vs. Hashimoto

23) 08/17/96: Tenzan vs. Hashimoto

24) 09/21/96: Hashimoto vs. Chono

25) 10/12/96: Koshinaka vs. Hashimoto

26) 12/28/96: Hashimoto vs. Nakanishi

27) 01/05/97: Hashimoto vs. Choshu

28) 03/08/97: Hashimoto vs. Yamazaki

29) 05/10/97: Hashimoto vs. Ogawa

30) 06/21/97: Hashimoto vs. Muto

31) 08/17/97: Hashimoto vs. Tenzan

32) 08/30/97: Hashimoto vs. Chono

33) 09/06/97: Tenzan vs. Hashimoto

34) 12/20/97: Muto & Chono vs. Hashimoto & Nakanishi

35) 06/05/98: Shinya Hashimoto vs. Tatsumi Fujinami

36) 08/02/98: Shinya Hashimoto vs. Satoshi Kojima

37) 08/02/98: Shinya Hashimoto vs. Kazuo Yamazaki

38) 01/04/99: Shinya Hashimoto vs. Naoya Ogawa

39) 09/13/99: Shinya Hashimoto vs. Kazuo Yamazaki

40) 09/14/99: Shiro Koshinaka vs. Shinya Hashimoto

41) 10/11/99: Shinya Hashimoto vs. Naoya Ogawa

42) 02/20/00: Shinya Hashimoto vs. Scott Norton

43) 04/07/00: Shinya Hashimoto vs. Naoya Ogawa

44) 10/09/00: Shinya Hashimoto vs. Tatsumi Fujinami

45) 01/04/01: Riki Choshu vs.Shinya Hashimoto

46) 1/13/01: Misawa & Ogawa vs.Shinya Hashimoto & Otsuka

47) 03/02/01: Misawa & Akiyama vs. Shinya Hashimoto & Yuji Nagata

48) 08/30/01: Shinya Hashimoto & Fujiwara vs. Mark Kerr & The Predator

49) 10/25/01: Shinya Hashimoto vs. Gerard Gordeau

50) 12/09/01: Hashimoto & Naoya Ogawa vs. Tom Howard & Mark Kerr

51) 03/02/02: Shinya Hashimoto vs. Masato Tanaka

52) 1/19/03: Shinya Hashimoto vs. Joe Son

53) 2/23/03: Shinya Hashimoto vs. Great Muta

54) 03/02/03: Shinya Hashimoto & Shinjiro Ohtani vs. Keiji Muto & Arashi

55) 4/12/03: Shinya Hashimoto vs. Arashi

56) 05/02/03: Shinya Hashimoto & Naoya Ogawa vs. Muto & Satoshi Kojima

57) 6/13/03: Shinya Hashimoto vs. Satoshi Kojima

58) 07/06/03: Shinya Hashimoto & Naoya Ogawa vs. Keiji Mutoh & Kawada

59) 11/07/03: Shinya Hashimoto vs. Masato Tanaka

60) 12/24/03: Shinya Hashimoto vs. Ohtani

 

Check them out, you won't be sorry.

 

Wrestling lost an all time great, I'm just in shock.

 

(By the way...the Joe Son match is not a great one...but it is funny as hell.)

Very sad and unexpected news. RIP Hashimoto

 

Just watched Hashimoto-Tanaka from 2/3/02. Oh man what an ass-kicking.

Seeing everyone's reaction to this makes me wish I had a clue who this is.

I've avoided this post because I don't know who he is either. I didn't want to offend anyone. Glad to know that at least I'm not the only person sitting in this boat.

There's a really good bio linked above. He was one of the "Three Musketeers" (along with Muto and Chono) that received a massive push in New Japan in the 90s. My favorite match of his has to be his match against Liger in 02/94. It's probably better than any match I've seen as far as putting a heavyweight against a junior and Hash giving just the right amounts to Liger at just the right times. I also love his match against Takada in 04/96, which was one of the headlining matches of what was probably the biggest and most successful angle in the history of New Japan. He's already in the Observer Hall of Fame, and deservedly so.

Shinya's death has major coverage from all of the major news outlets. This has been a crazy week so far.