In the early 1990s, Misawa gained fame alongside Toshiaki Kawada, Kenta Kobashi, and Akira Taue, who came to be nicknamed AJPW's "Four Pillars of Heaven",[7][nb 1] and whose matches developed the ōdō (王道, "King's Road") style of puroresu and received significant critical acclaim.

[13] Noah was successful in the first half of the decade, but as business declined and top star Kobashi left in 2006 for cancer treatment, Misawa continued to work a full-time schedule, despite mounting injuries,[6][14] for the company's survival.

[18] Misawa was named Wrestler of the Year by the Wrestling Observer Newsletter on three occasions (1995, 1997 and 1999), and at the time of his death held the record for most WON five star matches, with 25, including one as Tiger Mask.

[3][25] Misawa had wanted to pursue a vocation as a professional wrestler since he was 12,[2] and planned to do so after completing junior high, but his mother and teacher persuaded him to continue his studies so that he could attend a school with a good amateur wrestling program.

[3] On July 3, Misawa and Tsuruta won the PWF World Tag Team Championship from Ted DiBiase and Stan Hansen by count-out, which they held for eight days before dropping them back to the previous champions.

NJPW president Seiji Sakaguchi asked Baba to help the company with their second Tokyo Dome show after plans with WCW fell through,[53] and he agreed under the condition that the AJPW wrestlers would not be beaten or made to look weak.

[8] Tenryu received a lucrative offer from Hachiro Tanaka, executive of eyewear company Megane Super, who had been interested in building his own wrestling promotion (and had almost signed Keiji Mutoh instead, but was blocked by Sakaguchi).

[8] This was initially under the auspices of becoming an ambassador for the brand, but the actual intentions of this deal were made clear months later by the formation of wrestling promotion Super World of Sports (and a resultant exodus of talent in its wake).

[58] The tour built up to the Misawa-Tsuruta match through a series of six-man tags in which Misawa and fellow young stars, later to be known under the faction name of the Super Generation Army (超世代軍, Chosedaigun),[59] wrestled Tsuruta's stable.

[2] This victory also marked the beginning of a feud between the Super Generation Army, with Misawa, Kawada, Kobashi, and Tsuyoshi Kikuchi, and the Tsuruta-gun stable, a mix of veterans and younger talent.

[69] Misawa challenged Tsuruta for the Triple Crown on April 18, in the main event of a Budokan show that set an attendance record, but lost to him for the second consecutive time in singles competition.

[72] The pair made their first defense against Tsuruta and Taue on September 4 at Nippon Budokan, with Misawa historically forcing Jumbo to submit to a standing variation of the crossface to end the match.

[93] Due to the void this left in the All Japan product, and Taue's specific need for a tag partner, Baba split Kawada from Misawa in the spring of 1993 to become his premier native rival in singles competition.

[158] In an effort to increase All Japan Pro Wrestling's visibility amidst unsatisfactory sales and television viewership numbers, Baba decided after years of refusal to book the Tokyo Dome for a belated AJPW 25th Anniversary show on May 1, despite the reservations of Misawa and Kobashi.

[159] Plans to use this as a "soft reset" for the company product, including an FMW-style exploding ring deathmatch with Atsushi Onita and a potential partnership with the WWF, were vetoed by Baba, who believed that "if [they] were to do this, it would have to be as service to [their] fans".

[161] Misawa returned on August 22 to work the first main event of the Summer Action Series II tour, a six-man match with Akiyama and Satoru Asako against Kobashi, Ace, and Johnny Smith.

Misawa had not been aware of the severity of his condition,[173] which was only known by Baba's innermost circle: his wife Motoko, older sister, and daughter, as well as referee Kyohei Wada and secretary Ryu Nakata.

[188][55] While Misawa became company president in 1999, and had been head booker for several months before that, Shohei Baba's widow Motoko held eighty-five percent of AJPW's shares with Nippon TV holding the other fifteen.

[165] Misawa's wish to change the AJPW product, and to modernize its presentation, to address their box office troubles ran in direct opposition to Baba's intent to maintain her late husband's booking philosophy.

[189] Adding to the situation was that, as of the end of the fiscal year on March 31, 2000, all the promotion's talent were working as free agents, since Misawa was not authorized to give the raises he intended to award all native workers.

[216] In the second, the main-event of the inaugural show of Hashimoto-cofounded promotion Pro Wrestling Zero1, March 2's Truth Century Creation, Misawa and Akiyama defeated Hashimoto and Yuji Nagata in the sold-out Ryōgoku Kokugikan.

[2] The match was noted for its brutality,[231] and it caused Takayama to suffer a dislocated AC joint, torn shoulder ligaments, and a broken eye socket bone (the latter was the same injury he received during the Frye bout).

[239] At Great Voyage 2004 on January 10, in the sold-out Budokan, Misawa and Ogawa began their second GHC Tag Team Championship reign when they defeated NJPW stars Yuji Nagata and Hiroshi Tanahashi.

[240] Alongside Naomichi Marufuji and Kenta Kobayashi winning the GHC Junior Heavyweight Tag Team championships from El Samurai and Wataru Inoue in the semi-main event, this was a victory for Noah as they had lost their last four interpromotional matches with NJPW talent.

After successful defenses on March 6 against Ikeda and Muhammad Yone,[241] and on April 25 against Kobayashi and Marufuji,[242] Misawa and Ogawa appeared for American independent promotion Pro Wrestling IRON, defending the belts against Nigel McGuinness and Bart Blaxson on June 11 in San Leandro, California.

When Misawa decided to break tradition further, and hold a Budokan show on October 29 wherein Marufuji defended the title against fellow junior Kobayashi, only 5,000 people of the 11,500 reportedly in attendance paid to see the event.

[2] His injuries were accumulating, including osteophytes on his neck which caused pain during simple tasks, such as brushing his teeth and touching the collar of his gown,[39] and a visual impairment in his right eye which was discovered in 2007.

[299] However, highbrow newspapers and mainstream sources gave the event little coverage (NHK only devoted one minute to the story on their primetime newscast), since older editors did not consider wrestling major news due to its great decline in overall popularity.

[2] Vice President Momota did not reveal Misawa's cause of death, as was requested by his family (this was before the Hiroshima police released their report), and Akiyama, who was set to defend the title that night against Rikio, vacated the championship.

[306] The power struggle in the wake of his death caused demoted Vice President Mitsuo Momota, who had co-founded AJPW alongside his brother Yoshihiro and Giant Baba when they left the JWA and had gone with Misawa during the Noah exodus, to quit.