Kenta Kobashi's Cageside Evaluation

What you loved:

1. Burning Hammer - More wrestlers need to have rare "last resort" type moves like this one.
2. Ring Psychology - Knew how to get crowd yelling and clapping with just a taunt, shout, or simple facial expression. His pacing of matches was extremely well done.
   
3. Babyface - One of the greatest babyfaces ever in wrestling. Kobashi never turned his back on the crowd.
4. Misawa - An amazing feud (and eventually tag team) that produced multiple 5-star matches.
5. Samoa Joe Match - They battled in Ring of Honor in yet another 5-star match. Samoa Joe's chest was destroyed in this one.

Best comment comes via Phil X:

"Versatility. As mentioned previously, Kobashi had all the tools. His arsenal ranged from leg drops to various suplexes (the sleeper suplex and half-nelson suplex especially), to a moonsault. Not to mention the Orange Crush and the Burning Hammer."

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What you loathed:

1. U.S Exposure - Unfortunately fans in the U.S. had little to no knowledge of Kobashi and his talents. Tape trading was how people learned of him in the past, but today we are lucky enough to have YouTube to see just how great he was.
2. Stiff Style - While it's entertaining as hell, it sure took a toll on his body.
3. Missed Him - A few of you wished you made it to his U.S. shows, as one Cagesider put it; "it's like seeing The Beatles."
4. Cancer - He had to battle with cancer in 2006, and of course, Kobashi kicked it's ass.

Best comment comes via The Unmasked Superstar:

"That there isn’t more exposure and awareness in America of more of the Japanese greats. Aside from a brief NWA/WCW crossover in the late 80s which brought a few guys over and an occasional appearance here and there with smaller promotions, we’ve been missing out. God bless YouTube, though. Hopefully "Hideo Itami" is a positive sign of things to come."

On to the poll! With 191 votes, Kenta Kobashi's average score is 4.6.

Thanks, Cagesiders! Tomorrow's pick was the "World's Strongest Man."

Until then!