Sad seeing Kawada in this shape all fat & gassed, wimpy kicks and all. 🙁 It's just like seeing Dr. Death in 2004, Ahmed Johnson in early 1998, or Greg Valentine late in his career. I know around 2005 or 2006-ish, Kawada had a serious bout of depression and alcoholism, wrestling tons of underground shows doing weird stuff becoming like the Japanese Randy "The Ram" Robinson. Kawada looked glassy-eyed often and his body language, it seemed like something was bothering him. It got even worse after Misawa died. It's hard for me to watch this era of Kawada and my girlfriend Nini (Japanese) stopped watching puro around this time. I've heard Kawada also had a hard time being recognized in public as the AJPW era was dying fast, but unlike Randy who got mad at people recognizing him, it boosted Kawada's self-esteem. Thankfully Kawada turned his life around and retired for good, living humbly as a regular guy running his own restaurant with the leftover wrestling money he had.
