https://x.com/noah_ghc/status/1823207884857221529

No special retirement match, event, or even a press conference despite having nearly wrestled 40 whole years. Very in-character for one of the most underrated wrestlers of all time that he'd remain modest until the end. As someone who was always excited for the few times a year he'd forgo the neck injury and actually put on a clinic (like with the Kaito/Ridgeway matches) it's gonna feel weird not having that around now.

 

 

His neck must have been taken a pretty bad turn. You'd think there'd be more fanfare around one of the last names to debut in the 80's retiring.

3 hours ago, fxnj said:

His neck must have been taken a pretty bad turn. You'd think there'd be more fanfare around one of the last names to debut in the 80's retiring.

His neck was always on borrowed time since he almost got paralysed in 2011. His ring style drastically changed afterwards to be a lot safer, it's the whole reason why he stopped facing heavyweights since it put him at more risk than otherwise. Watching the matches after that point he clearly focused less on the stooge-bumping and more on being a smart vet with a lot of tricky technical work, it's actually where most of his more ring-generalish stuff comes from (and what I'm currently throwing write-ups on, etc etc)

Ogawa was one of those types that smarks tended to hate more often than not; either saying he was pushed because of friend-nepotism, his style was "boring" or that he sucked because he wasn't doing a thousand neck-drops every minute. I'm not shocked that his buzz was relatively small, but I'm also happy that he at least got his flowers with the Kaito matches with a modern audience before bowing out. His influence continues on with the NOAH Dojo and all those out of it.

 

 

Thanks for sharing this info. Seems like a good time & place to ask - any top 5-10 match recommendations for Ogawa singles matches? When watching 2000-2002 NOAH, he actually became one of my favorites and really loved his title run & lead up to it.

12 hours ago, G. Badger said:

Thanks for sharing this info. Seems like a good time & place to ask - any top 5-10 match recommendations for Ogawa singles matches? When watching 2000-2002 NOAH, he actually became one of my favorites and really loved his title run & lead up to it.

Thanks for asking.

For me, it would be the following:

vs Danny Kroffat (09/10/1995)

vs Akiyama matches (09/11/1998, also try to find their 07/16/1999 overlooked rematch, also fun)

vs Masahito Kakihara (01/15/1999)

vs Mitsuharu Misawa (12/07/2002)

vs Kenta Kobashi (11/01/2003)

vs Doug Williams (03/04/2007)

vs Naomichi Marufuji (12/23/2014)

vs Minoru Suzuki (07/01/2015)

vs Zack Sabre Jr. (11/26/2015)

vs Dick Togo (01/30/2020)

Kaito Kiyomiya Trilogy (06/13/2021, 10/21/2021 & 02/12/2022)

Probably the best 11 or so singles I could pick out with a insane variety of wrestlers. Anyone who just goes through these by themselves I think would understand why he's regarded so highly. The Kaito stuff is paired since each match kinda connects with the others. 

 

Some more eccentric picks:

vs KENTA (03/13/2004)

vs Takeshi Rikio (03/05/2006)

vs Hajime Ohara (27/02/2015)

vs Jay White (02/25/2016)

Vs Chris Ridgeway (03/09/2023)

 

 

 

I don’t have any Ogawa singles matches to recommend, but as soon as I heard he had retired, my first thoughts went to a lot of the great tag team matches he was involved in.

I haven’t watched it in years, but at the time I absolutely loved Misawa & Ogawa (who were defending the GHC Tag Titles) vs. KENTA & Marufuji (who were the Jr. Heavyweight Tag Champs at the time.) I believe the date was 04/24/04. If I recall correctly, there was one particular spot where KENTA gave Misawa a bunch of Kawada kicks, and I still remember Misawa and the crowd’s reaction. I know that Marufuji isn’t the most popular guy in the world in these parts because of his flippiness, but I don’t know what to tell you, this was one of my all-time favourite tag matches.

I followed NOAH religiously for years…right up until Misawa’s death, actually, and his team with Ogawa produced a bunch of solid matches, in my opinion. Let’s also not forget that Ogawa had a role in what a lot of people considered the greatest 6 man tag match of the classic King’s Road era: Misawa, Kobashi and Akiyama vs. Kawada, Taue and Ogawa on 07/04/93.

Ogawa was definitely a great talent.

I would add the Takayama match (9/7/02) to that list above. I also remember people raving about Ogawa's first match against Doug Williams (11/14/03). Ogawa, I think, was a mark for British wrestling and always seemed extra motivated when he faced Williams (e.g. in six man tags).

2 hours ago, Robert S said:

I would add the Takayama match (9/7/02) to that list above. I also remember people raving about Ogawa's first match against Doug Williams (11/14/03). Ogawa, I think, was a mark for British wrestling and always seemed extra motivated when he faced Williams (e.g. in six man tags).

This is VERY true from watching certain matches of his with guys like Johnny Smith in AJPW or mentoring Sabre Jr. in NOAH. Guy seemed to be a open fan of that kind of methodical WoS-lite British wrestling, makes sense with his style in general.

I similarly heard great things about their 2003 match, but like with many mid 2000's NOAH stuff it seems to have been lost to time. Very much a shame.

 

The March 5th, 2006 match against Takeshi Rikio fucking rules. It's really, really fun and lasts about 10 minutes.

On 8/17/2024 at 2:16 AM, KawadaSmile said:

The March 5th, 2006 match against Takeshi Rikio fucking rules. It's really, really fun and lasts about 10 minutes.

Great example of the rare inverted David/Goliath dynamic, even rarer example of it actually working lol

 

 

 

On 8/17/2024 at 2:34 AM, Ma Stump Puller said:

This is VERY true from watching certain matches of his with guys like Johnny Smith in AJPW or mentoring Sabre Jr. in NOAH. Guy seemed to be a open fan of that kind of methodical WoS-lite British wrestling, makes sense with his style in general.

I similarly heard great things about their 2003 match, but like with many mid 2000's NOAH stuff it seems to have been lost to time. Very much a shame.

 

Found it

2 hours ago, Jetlag said:

Found it

very cool, thank you for your service