Beautifully Bloomed: Farewell to Misaki Ohata

On December 29, 2018 one of my favorite wrestlers said goodbye to the ring after twelve years. Here I’d like to take a personal look back on the career of Misaki Ohata.

 

 

My first exposure to Misaki was via Shimmer DVDs, starting with her debut for the company on Volume 29 in April 2010. She showed a high energy, exciting moveset that took advantage of her small size in interesting ways, like with her trademark crossbody to an opponent seated in the corner. Misaki had been wrestling a little under four years at the time, yet already wrestled and came across like a well established professional. It was extremely interesting to see both her ring style and character evolve over the years, from the exuberant babyface character she had at this point to the additional variety of personas she developed later on to use as needed depending on match, company, and story. Her time in Shimmer was highlighted by a tag team championship reign with fellow regular Hiroyo Matsumoto as 3S (the Seven Star Sisters).

 

 

Misaki stopped coming to Shimmer before I started attending (in 2013), so I didn’t see her wrestle live for the first time until her special one weekend return for Tomoka Nakagawa’s retirement weekend in April 2015.  It was a nice spotlight weekend for Misaki with great singles matches against Nicole Savoy, Heidi Lovelace (now WWE’s Ruby Riot), and Lufisto, as well as being part of a fantastic Joshi 8-woman tag in Tomoka’s second to last match reforming 3S (with Hiroyo Matsumoto) and teaming with 3G (Kellie Skater and Tomoka herself) against Joshi legends Aja Kong, Dynamite Kansai, Kyoko Kimura, & Mayumi Ozaki.

 

 

As it turns out later that same year I’d make my first trip to Japan, and among all the excellent wrestling and promotions I experienced for the first time, I was thrilled to see Misaki and others I was familiar with from Shimmer wrestle in their home promotions (and in some cases against each other).

During that trip Misaki and her Avid Rival partner Ryo Mizunami challenged Best Friends (Tsukasa Fujimoto & Arisa Nakajima) for Ice Ribbon’s International Ribbon Tag Team Championships at Ribbonmania 2015 in what ended up one of one of my favorite matches of all time. All four were masters of their craft, and this and every subsequent time they faced each other was magic. A year and a half later I’d make a special trip to Japan planned largely around seeing two of the three fantastic rematches they had.

I truly believe Avid Rival was one of the best tag teams in the world, with incredible chemistry as partners and an enthralling, evolving moveset that they seamlessly integrated into well built, captivating matches.

 

 

I was also lucky enough to see glimpses of some of Misaki’s championship runs and other accomplishments live, including being crowned Wave’s Zan-1 fan voted champion at the end of 2016, an excellent defense of her and Mizunami’s International Tag Ribbon Championships against the Lovely Butchers at Ribbonmania 2016 just days later (while they also held Wave’s tag team championships), and defending Wave’s top singles belt against Yumi Ohka at their biggest show of the year to end 2017.

 

 

There was a careful precision to everything Misaki did in the ring, with her incredible body control making her crossbodies, bridges, and numerous other key elements of her trademark moves particularly crisp and beautiful, greatly adding to the level of immersion of her matches. She was incredibly versatile, both in character and ring style. Misaki played comedy and intensity with equally adeptness, from hyper babyface to more crafty and controlled veteran, from a certain masked character in a certain promotion to often being the “straight man” of Avid Rival to Mizunami’s antics (or perhaps participating in said antics as need be), and so on.

 

 

It was really just a footnote in Misaki’s twelve year career, but a personal highlight for me as it wound down were her interactions with Ice Ribbon’s sub promotion P’s Party and specifically their rookie Asahi this year. Seeing what the newer generation can do in with an experienced wrestler can be quite interesting, and is also a great opportunity for them to learn and grow.

Asahi is an extremely promising young wrestler and Misaki clearly had fun in the both the singles contest I saw between them  in April and their teaming against Arisa Nakajima & Karen DATE in October. Misaki’s  final P’s Party appearance saw her face three opponents she had never previously wrestled in subsequent matches, and it was fun to see back to back matches with different styles from her against P’s Party’s producer Tequila Saya, Totoro Satsuki, and Maika Ozaki a little over a week before her career ended.

 

 

Misaki retired at Wave’s year end show for 2018 on December 29th. Her final match against regular partner Ryo Mizunami was phenomenal, as well as a bit different. Since it was for Mizunami’s recently won Regina di Wave title, it was (appropriately) a straight up, competitive title match missing a lot the “normal” retirement match touches (like non-participants splashing the retiree in the corner, for example). They clearly still had some fun with things though, such as when they brawled to the time keeper’s table and Misaki rang the bell directly in Ryo’s ear (ouch!). But it was all in the context of a match befitting the prestige of Wave’s top title.

As to be expected from two wrestlers of this caliber that know each other so well this was an excellent, hard hitting, back and forth encounter. Misaki eventually busted out a rolling variation of her Sky Blue Suplex (!!) and just wore the champion down until a final Sky Blue Suplex with bridge gave her the win and saw Misaki retire as Regina di Wave champion. Fantastic match and a well deserved honor Misaki on her way out.

 

 

Misaki was in good spirits and joking around a bit during her retirement ceremony (even while her poor partner cried goodbye), a nice sign of her being satisfied with her career and ready to proceed to whatever’s next.

 

 

This was the third retirement show for the year for me after Mika Iida’s in May and Aoi Kizuki’s in October, and although it was a bit sad to say goodbye to them all I was extremely lucky to be able to attend their farewells.

I wish Misaki all the best in whatever life holds for her after wrestling.