Found Footage Friday: 1990 FMW~!

FMW 3/10/90

Kumiko Matsuda vs. Crusher Maedomari 

MD: Crusher isn't Crusher yet. This was pre-show and you could tell they were working things out, but they had good aggression, Matsuda with strikes and Maedomari with throws and holds. Lots of shoot pin escapes. Matsuda could be pretty relentless with the kicks and knees. At one point, they had a funny bit where she missed on a spin kick in the corner and got the ref. Maedomari wanted in on the fun and turned to nail the ref too. It was funny but added to the sense of wild aggression from these two. Matsuda finally got a series of dropkick in the corner which let her hit a double underhook suplex and follow with a jackknife pin for the win. This was rough around the edges but had good energy for what FMW was trying to be at this point, which was definitely a little bit of everything.

ER: Strong Opener, great energy. Matsuda does her leveraged throws and kicks with intent and can believably back Maedomari up with palm strikes. I loved the bit with her spin kicks in the corner swinging wide into the referee's ribs. Her dropkicks down the finishing stretch could use some steam but I also like the raggedness of someone 10 matches into her career guiding someone through their first ever match. Actually that feels like the exact situation where you'd expect someone to be murdered by dropkicks. 

Miwa Sato vs. Drake Morimatsu 

MD: DVDVR stalwart Gordi had been at a party recently with Morimatsu, so I was hoping to get this match back out there after seeing the listing, but it's a non match. Thanks to BAHU's history of FMW, I know this was the debut of Kudo with two fellow non-active AJW Class of 86 alums (Reibun Amada and Noriyo Toyoda) as the The Outbreakers. They come out of nowhere and destroy Miwa (including with a spike kneeling pile driver), setting up a tag and then singles match later in the month (we have the 3/30 singles and Kudo dominates). There is a clear sense of chaos to all of this though and it helps the overall feel compared to what else is happening in Japan at the time. Like any other unexpected surprise, this had a big buzz from the crowd.

ER: This angle made me so excited for tag matches we're never going to see. Miwa Sato takes a great beating at the hands of the AJW veterans. The kneeling stuff piledriver was disgusting, just a full head drop. Sato comes off like an underdog babyface star and it sucks to hear a Kudo singles match was one sided. 1997 Kudo would have had the most memorable match on the card with her. 

MD: After this, they played Final Countdown and had everyone come down to the ring. I've seen enough AJPW and NJPW house shows to think they didn't do that for those in this era, but they did for UWF in a big ceremony. This sort of aped that but you have such a misfit bunch of people out here that it has a completely different effect. 

Yukihide Ueno vs. Shooter #1 

MD: Shooter 1 is sort of credible, I guess. He had debuted earlier in the year as a "discipline of Tiger Mask" and had been over enough for it. This is all over the place at times, but Shooter has just enough presence to press an advantage and he has solid strikes and can bully Ueno around on size alone. He's constantly fixing his mask which is not something that usually bugs me, so that gives you a sense of how often he does it. He hits big stuff but can't always follow up because it's all a bit too disjointed. Ueno has the crowd (who are primarily happy to be there I think). He gets one big comeback with a gutshot, a German, and a kick out of the ring (and does get one big dive) but Shooter takes back over with a great press slam where he takes him off the top but slams him out of the ring instead of into it. Beautiful visual. It meanders a bit to the finish and there are a few times where the thing probably had an offramp to end and they should have taken it, but I'd say the trainwreck feel adds more than diminishes given the setting.

ER: Ueno would go on to be Choden Senshi Battle Ranger, one of those sick ass undercard FMW guys who didn't get as much acclaim as the more violent guys he shared rosters with. He became a gifted flier with great glue, and seeing him work a Different Style match like this you can see where all his stickiest glue came from. He debuted earlier in 1990 and is quickly tasked with working a long shootstyle fight against a guy who seems less familiar with the concept. 

 

Masanobu Kurisu vs. Shooter #2 

MD: Shooter #2 is not nearly as credible. He tries for an ambush but obviously that's a terrible idea. There are no good ideas against Kurisu, except for maybe to run. Kurisu headbutts him out of the corner and doesn't really look back. He headbutts him again, stomps and kicks him, hits him with a chair on the outside, and it's all top 5% ever pro wrestling brutality. Just another day in the office for Kurisu. Shooter gets a miracle clothesline and tries to get a hold out of it. Kurisu reverses the hold and kicks and headbutts and slams and clotheslines and chicken wings this poor jerk. Shooter doesn't quit (he should). Instead he gets a miracle belly to belly but Kurisu just rolls him over and gets the double wristlock for the win. Almost a mercy.

Tarzan Goto vs. Toshi Imaizumi

MD: Not sure why Goto had back to back gimmick matches but here we go. This was more of a judo gi mixed styles deal (Goto did have a gi too). FMW was still transitioning towards death matches as more the norm and there was still so much of the early martial arts feel here. I think it worked better in the main event than it did here though. At least the people around the camera were into all the judo throws. Goto would try some more pro wrestling, things like kicks and clotheslines. Imaizumi got his knees up on a Vader Bomb attempt and almost won it with a cross arm breaker but Goto came back for a choke. Not a ton here but it's fun to see him go from one gimmick to the other in subsequent matches. 

Tarzan Goto vs. Beast the Barbarian

MD: This was far more interesting than the judo jacket match. I always joke that Beast could be a time traveling Mad Dog Connelly, by looks and gimmick but he didn't have the intensity or presence. He was set up to succeed with this match gimmick though and this was a perfectly acceptable dog collar match. He's able to use the chain as a weapon and clubber Goto down and he laid it in. Goto would come back hitting just as hard. There were a few transitions with one or the other getting a little tangled up with the rope and the chain and I do wonder if this wouldn't have been better with a slightly shorter chain which kept them a little closer together without some of those apron bits. Goto bled. Beast asserted himself pretty well overall especially relative to his Onita match a couple of months before. And cleverly enough, after each man meted out a sufficient amount of punishment, Goto won with a backslide of all things. Beast didn't think his shoulders were down which led to a post-match fit.

Atsushi Onita & Sambo Asako vs. Kim Sung Ho & Lee Gak Soo

MD: The story of this one was that Asako or Onita would get one of the taekwondo guys down and in a hold and again and again and again, the other would come in to break it up. That lasted until Onita finally got fed up and hit his deadly over the shoulder power bomb. Even that wasn't good enough but then Asako got the message and cut off the ring for so he could hit a second one. That was the basic story but the devil's in the details and Lee Gak Soo is one of the most dynamic pro wrestling kickers I've ever seen. 

He somehow manages to throw kicks from every angle, sometimes flying around with them, and obviously Asako is a great canvas, but Onita would get knocked out of the ring like it was nothing too and the fans loved it. Kim had some fun charging ones too. Basically Onita would run at people with lariats or trips, cutting the distance however he could, and Asako had all these cool throws if people got close enough to him, but then the subsequent holds would get broken up and Kim and Lee would just take right over with the meanest stomps and kicks imaginable. 

Right until Asako (also fed up) dragged Lee over to the corner and the power bombs happened. Crazy, enjoyable stuff.

Battle Royal

MD: This was all about the taekwondo guys just throwing flying kicks everywhere in the middle of a battle royal. Even more fun than that sounds. What you need to know is that Onita and Kurisu were working together but Onita accidentally chopped Kurisu which went about as well as you'd expect. Onita eliminated him but Lee and Asako immediately eliminated Onita afterwards. I imagine he and Kurisu are still fighting to the back today. This is one of those battle royals were people get pinned by everyone in the ring piling on them. I think that was Imaizumi's fate. It ended up Asako, Shooter, and Lee and then was an entertaining mess of guys kicking and then immediately falling over. Asako shoved Lee into the ropes and he came right off on him for the pin. Then he followed up with a kick off the top on Shooter. Stupid amounts of fun. 

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