Via Meltzer:



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.

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.