Takeshi Morishima

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Takeshi Morishima
Statistics
Ring name(s)	Takeshi Morishima
Billed height	190 cm (6 ft. 3 in.)
Billed weight	145 kg (320 lb.)
Born	October 15, 1978 (1978-10-15) (age 29) Edogawa, Tokyo
Trained by	AJPW dojo
Debut	March 22, 1998 against Kentaro Shiga

Takeshi Morishima (森嶋猛 Morishima Takeshi, Takeshi Morishima^?)(October 15, 1978) is a Japanese professional wrestler. He is currently performing for Pro Wrestling NOAH in Japan and for Ring of Honor in the United States. He is the current GHC Heavyweight Champion.

1 Professional wrestling career
2 In wrestling
3 Championships and accomplishments
4 References

[edit] Professional wrestling career

Morishima regularly performs for Pro Wrestling NOAH. He frequently teams with Takeshi Rikio as Wild II^[1], and the duo have previously held the GHC Tag Team Championship ^[2].

Morshima has also wrestled in the United States and United Kingdom. He competed in Harley Race's World League Wrestling promotion in 2003, defending the WLW Heavyweight Championship, which he had won from Ron Harris while Harris toured Japan. ^[3]

Morishima returned to the United States in February 2007, wrestling four matches with Ring of Honor. He lost to Samoa Joe on February 16, 2007 before defeating Homicide for the ROH World Championship on the subsequent evening, thus becoming the first non-American to hold the title ^[4]. On February 23, 2007, Morishima defeated B.J. Whitmer in his first title defense, and on the next night he and Nigel McGuinness defeated Samoa Joe and Homicide. On March 4, 2007, he successfully defended the ROH World Championship in Japan, defeating KENTA in the Nippon Budokan in Tokyo. Morishima could not return to the United States until almost a month and a half later when he and Chris Hero took on Nigel McGuinness and Doug Williams, and the next night when he successfully defended the belt against McGuinness for the first time.

On April 21 Morishima was honored at the 42nd annual Cauliflower Alley Club banquet, being presented with the "Future Legend" award.^[5]^[6]

Back in ROH, Morishima went on a string of successful title defenses, defeating the likes of Austin Aries, Shingo, Jay Briscoe, and Roderick Strong. Morishima also competed twice on ROH's first pay-per-view Respect is Earned, defeating BJ Whitmer to retain the ROH World Championship, and later teaming with Bryan Danielson to defeat Nigel McGuinness and KENTA. At the second pay-per-view, Driven, Morishima again competed twice, retaining the title against Jimmy Rave and later Adam Pearce [1].

On July 16, 2007, Morishima wrestled in the main event of Ring of Honor's debut show in Japan and defeated Nigel McGuinness to retain the ROH World Championship ^[7]. Morishima lost the title to McGuinness at Undeniable on October 6.

On March 2, 2008, Morishima defeated Mitsuharu Misawa at the Budokan Hall Event of Pro Wrestling NOAH's Second Navigation Tour to become the 12th GHC Heavyweight Champion. Morishima has stated that while he plans on returning to ROH in the future, he has no intentions in regaining the ROH World Championship, as he will be fully focused on NOAH's heavyweight scene.