  The low-mass X-ray binary microquasar GRO J1655-40 is observed to have a
misalignment between the jets and the binary orbital plane. Since the current
black hole spin axis is likely to be parallel to the jets, this implies a
misalignment between the spin axis of the black hole and the binary orbital
plane. It is likely the black holes formed with an asymmetric supernova which
caused the orbital axis to misalign with the spin of the stars. We ask whether
the null hypothesis that the supernova explosion did not affect the spin axis
of the black hole can be ruled out by what can be deduced about the properties
of the explosion from the known system parameters. We find that this null
hypothesis cannot be disproved but we find that the most likely requirements to
form the system include a small natal black hole kick (of a few tens of km/s)
and a relatively wide pre-supernova binary. In such cases the observed close
binary system could have formed by tidal circularisation without a common
envelope phase.
