FMW Battle Creation (12.10.89) review 

 

December 10, 1989 

 

We’re in Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan for another series of antics from Atsushi Onita’s rebel promotion; Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling. FMW had sprung onto the scene mimicking UWF with ‘different style’ fights, in the shootstyle mold. To show you how quickly this changed, a mere two months later, we have this show from Tokyo. Onita abandoning the original concept of ‘different style’ and putting on three gimmick heavy main events here. A strap match, a chain match (I feel like that’s basically the same thing) and a “different style” BARBED WIRE DEATH MATCH to finish.  

 

He went from shootstyle to barbed wire in two months. This is true evolution. If Atsushi Onita was driving evolution, we’d all be flying cars around on Mars now. The average man on the street would have competed in at least a dozen exploding ring matches. This is a “quickie” as the only tape of this show is a mere 36 minutes long but it’s a fascinating 36 minutes and I am here for it. Now, so are you, gentle reader. So, razorblades at the ready, and let’s get some colour for your lord and saviour, Atsushi Onita. 

 

Video Control introduces us to the issues at stake here with Onita opening Matsunaga up hardway with headbutts and then debuting the Thunder Fire Driver.  

 

Kumiko Matsuda vs. Miwa Sato 

Sato is a cutesy wrestler who Onita abused during FMW. Here Tarzan Goto’s trainee, Matsuda, kicks the bejesus out of her. It’s brutal. The crowd chuckle along as Sato gets her ass beat. It does not last five minutes. No prizes for guessing the winner. 

 

Tiger Jackson vs. Little Devil 

Onita wasn’t afraid to show wrestling as the circus that it is. Here are the clowns; noted midget performers Jackson (Dink) and Little Louis. When the WWF got into financial trouble, they started chucking the little guys onto shows and both these two worked there extensively in the early 90s. Little Louis played “Queasy” in that one Survivor Series match. 

Jackson, with his shaved head, is very popular with the locals. There are more than a couple of comedy spots and you can tell these two have wrestled each other a bunch of times. Little Devil gets a sneaky pin after Jackson drops down on the International. From the clips, this looked like a laugh.  

 

Crusher Dennis vs. Misuteru Tokuda 

Dennis is his real name! You may know him better as Dennis Knight aka Phinneas Godwinn. He’d be in WCW by 1992, wrestling as Tex Slazenger. He’s super green and generic looking here. Short hair, black tights. He does bust out a German suplex though, which makes me wonder how his moveset deteriorated. Dennis attempts a DDT too and they fuck that up. The young Phinneas struggles to take bumps.  

Crusher Dennis goes over clean here with a running powerslam, of sorts. He had a six-date tour with FMW and went 3-3 but the three wins were all against Tokuda. I don’t think I’ll see him again until WCW. He worked Florida and North Carolina Indies in the interim before a run against Jeff Jarrett in USWA. It’s fascinating to see the young version of him here. All green in the gills department but rocking various suplexes!  

 

Masanobu Kurisu vs. Shoji Akiyoshi 

Akiyoshi is Boat People Joe, trying another gimmick. You may know him better as Jado. After this he’d switch to Coolie SZ, eventually settling on Jado after a tour of Mexico. He must have pissed Kurisu off here because he is STIFF. Like brutally stiff. He does the Randy Orton head punt, but he connects on that bitch. This is just a squash, but it’s so brutal I find myself popping Kurisu. He’s teaching Akiyoshi the goddamn business. If you like your ‘old guy brutalising rookie’ matches, this is for you! Akiyoshi goes after the old man’s back. Oh, I feel that brother. It ends up being quite the plucky display until Kurisu just punts him in the face a few more times for the win. This was legitimately great and I urge you to watch it. ***¾ 

 

I’m now sat here, buzzing, in the afterglow of such violence. It might be my favourite match of the year. Flair vs. Steamboat is just a bunch of stuff happening. It can’t compare to this level of naturally occuring generational violence. Just superb. Am I getting fonder of old men beating up rookies as I get older? Perhaps. Knowing that it’s Jado getting beaten senseless makes it all the sweeter. How did they squeeze so much perfection into just seven minutes. Elite.  

 

Fumiharu Asako vs. Monkey Magic Wakita 

Wakita is Super Delphin in one of his earliest gigs. Fumihiro Asako (it’s spelled Fumiharu on the graphic) is an FMW mainstay, perhaps better known as Sambo Asako. He’s a big fat guy in a gi. This should be a replay of the previous match, but Asako is too fat, so Wakita takes his legs and tries to tap him out. This is fun in its own way as Asako allows himself to be beaten up by a rookie. Then he just catches Wakita on a crossbody attempt and the SUPER DRIVER finishes. The Super Driver is just a powerslam but because he’s so fat, it’s superior to a standard one. This was fun! **½  

 

Indian Strap Match 

Delta Dawn vs. Despina Mantagas 

You will know Delta Dawn better as Bertha Faye, the big fat WWF champion of the mid 90s. I am not looking forward to Summerslam 1995. Despina was last seen working for the AWA and was in the battle royal match at Wrestlerock ‘86. I quickly skim back to read the review, and I put her over as “catching the eye”. It also reminds me that she married Tarzan Goto.  

 

As for the match. There’s a lot of choking and screaming. Jos DeLuc punches Despina in the face for Delta Dawn to secure the win. Tarzan Goto takes exception and there’s a brawl in the aisle. Despina sells the shit out of that punch and is helped out.  

 

American Street Fight Chain Match 

Dick Murdoch vs. Joe LeDuc 

LeDuc was a star in the 1970s and I’ve barely seen him work. Mostly on WWF or NWA undercards doing nothing much. He’s basically retired here. Murdoch is in between spells with WCW. I used to have a Murdoch comp tape, and he had a fascinating career. He went everywhere, wrestled everyone from the top guys to the indie rookies. This is another prime example.  

Unlike the last match, which was fairly energetic, this is just two fat old men punching each other with a chain. I don’t hate it. Although, despite Murdoch’s efforts, it’s clear that LeDuc is finished as a worker. Even in clipped form the match gets tedious. Murdoch, bloodied, eventually wins. This was not good. 

 

Barbed Wire Death Match 

Atsushi Onita & Tarzan Goto vs. Mitsuhiro Matsunaga & Jerry Blayman 

Barbed wire matches were popular in the US, in the territories, but the sanitised world of the WWF removed them from the zeitgeist during the 1980s. NWA did a load of bloody matches in the mid 80s but by the end of the decade they’d become clean-cut under Ted Turner’s leadership. There was a hole in the bloodthirsty market and one Atsushi Onita was keen to fill. With blood! There was no history of barbed wire in Japan. It starts right here. This is the first barbed wire match in Japan*.  

 

*I’m going off a foot note on Cagematch that says this is the first barbed wire match in Japan. I’ve looked around elsewhere on the ‘net and I can’t see anything to suggest that’s not the case. If you google “first barbed wire match in Japan” it literally throws out Kawasaki Stadium in 1993. Which is wrong. This show is really the start of the death match fad of the 1990s. Where Onita begat a decade of ultra-violence. Taking wrestling to new levels of depravity. It all begins right here, people.  

I’m trying so hard not to laugh at Jelly Greyman. I really am, but it’s just so hard. Jerry Blayman sounds like a made-up name that a Japanese game manufacturer used for it’s baseball teams.  

Who is Jelly Greyman anyway? Well, it’s only Jerry Flynn, future WCW star and Taekwondo badass. This is his first match, ever.  

 

Jerry looks hopelessly uncoordinated. Goto and Onita, who are immensely popular, take it in turns to beat him up. The barbed wire is hanging on the posts, outside the ring, rather than replacing the ring ropes and doesn’t impact the match as much as you’d think. The idea is that if you’re thrown through the ropes, you hit the barbed wire.  

Onita seems drawn to the wire and both he and Goto spill into it whenever possible.  

Onita is keen to show that the barbed wire is dangerous and carves his arm up on it as a demonstration. He is a proper mad bastard. The crowd are very into this. They’ve been starved of violence and demand it. There is constant yelling from the crowd, who want blood. Buckets of blood and violence! Onita has little to no regard for Jerry’s safety in this and gives him a couple of vicious spots before finishing with the Thunder Fire Driver.  

An iconic scene as a bloodied Onita celebrates by leaning on the ropes, barbed wire dancing in the background. He was born to be wired, baby. A new form of wrestling is born, and Onita is the king of this shit. It’s not a good match but it didn’t need to be, and the crowd were hella invested here. Onita knew what the people wanted and was going to give it to them.  

 

The 411: 

It’s hard to underestimate the effect FMW had on mainstream wrestling. If there’s no FMW, a lot of ECW’s ideas don’t happen. Ultraviolence doesn’t take off in the USA. There’s nowhere for Cactus Jack to make a name for himself. Hardcore wrestling doesn’t get onto TV. The attitude era is lacking its meat, reduced to bad language and sexy girls. All that stems back to this. A momentous turn in the tide of pro-wrestling. It’s unfortunate it happened so quickly because the style of wrestling is already getting exciting in 1989 without the introduction of violence. It could have waited another five years before going up another level. The people were impatient though and Onita was there for them. The contrast between this and No Holds Barred was palpable. A young Arnold Furious couldn’t sit through WWF shows, knowing this violence was out there.  

 

A word on mainstream violence here as I feel that it’s less prevalent nowadays. In the late 80s violent movies were big hits. Look at Predator or Robocop, two of the biggest action films of the late 80s. One of the main strands of cinema that survived from the 80s into the 90s, and the world of Quentin Tarantino, was the violence. Look at the ear removal in Reservoir Dogs. This whole era is blood soaked and wrestling immitates art. Onita knew that.