FMW Wrestling Entertainment Super Live 11/20/98 DirecTV PPV

Yokohama Bunka Gymnasium
Attendance: 3,933 (announced as 5,900)

Previously In FMW…

Not every show FMW have put on this year has been important, but this one sure as hell is.

I love that they’re still concerned about people not knowing about the change in direction so they’ve included it in the name of the PPV. Imagine WWF presenting a PPV called “Attitude Era 1998.”

Lots of pyro to start the show with the lights revealing how few people are here so they get dimmed immediately.

Rey Buccanero Jr. (CMLL) vs. Flying Kid Ichihara

Both of these men are pirates: Rey’s a Luchadore, and Ichihara steals every time he receives a pay cheque HOW BOUT IT.

Simple Lucha things start us off with Kid keeping up until he sends Rey out the ring for a Mysterio style splat on the floor. Kid follows and bounces off the ropes on the outside to deliver a headscissors into the darkness. Crowd claps politely. Kid works Rey’s leg but it must be wooden as he ignores it to come off the top with a twisting senton. Rey lazily applies a hold so Kid decides to fight dull with dull as he lands a decent Asai Moonsault to more mild applause. Kid kicks out of a sit-out powerbomb, Rey kicks out of a La Magistral and then Rey blocks a top rope Frankensteiner to win with a second rope Powerbomb at 8:36. Passable opener even if Rey couldn’t hide his lack of enthusiasm.

Hido & Go Ito (Team No Respect) vs. Ricky Fuji (FMW) & Kaori Nakayama (women)

The pre-match video packages thankfully let everyone know why this is happening: Ito is a perv and has been trying to kidnap Arai’s niece, leading to Kaori showing up to defend all of womenkind. Fuji is here because he’s beefing with Team No Respect (like everyone in the company with nothing going on.)

Hido and Fuji feel each other out before Ito tags in to show how agile he is. He takes several of those Curt Hennig bumps where he grabs the ropes and flips over after getting kicked. Hido tags in but both men hear the lack of pop so decide to slow things down on the mat. Fuji takes out Hido with a Moxley Tope so Kaori can finally get in with Ito. Ito flexes and shows he’s a MAN so he’s instantly taken down. Ito sends himself balls-first into the ring post (aka 1/3 of Justin Credible’s offence) but it’s only when Hido sneak attacks Kaori that the crowd start reacting. Fuji moves in the way of a chair shot to defend Kaori and crowd doesn’t care because their relationship is as unconvincing as Neelix and Alixia’s.

The goodies land stereo Finlay Rolls but it doesn’t end the match. Ito throws coke powder into Fuji’s face so he can Powerbomb Kaori but she kicks out. Ito takes too long posing on the top rope so Kaori attempts a top rope Frankensteiner but AHHH FUCK she lands directly on her head doing so. She completely ignores it which is amazing, unlike this match which refuses to end. Hido eventually lays out Kaori with a piledriver so Ito can get the pin at 14:15.

Crowd only cared about Kaori so naturally she was only a small part of the match. And then she lost. Would have been better if they’d trimmed the fat and also if this feud had more than one show to build it up. Waste of time.

Koji Nakagawa (Team No Respect) vs. Hisakatsu Oya

Another match with no build other than “Team No Respect are bad.” We start with some lovely mat wrestling, won by Oya despite Koji’s Greco-Roman hair pulls. Koji gets fed up and tries to break a bottle over Oya but he ducks and the bottle goes “BINK” as it bounces off the ring post. Koji blades anyway. Oya takes Koji’s bit of string (?) from him and chokes him with it. Oya seems annoyed at the lack of crowd love so he lobs Koji into the barricades and kicks him in the dick. Oya sticks Koji in the Octopus Stretch and loads up a bunch of enziguris before Koji throws his bandana into the ref’s eyes so he can use the fork on Oya to win with a jack knife pin at 13:59.

Weird booking here as Koji’s gimmick is that he’s a dickhead who needs help to beat people, and he was booked to beat Oya The Really Good Wrestler all by himself. Weapons or no weapons, this was a nothing match because Oya can do literally nothing with Koji. Great start to the show.

Jado & Gedo (Team No Respect) & TAKA Michinoku & Shoichi Funaki (Kaientai) vs. Daisuke Ikeda & Mohammed Yone & Ricky Fuji & Naohiko Yamazaki

So Daisuke Ikeda & Hayabusa are the current FMW Brass Knuckles Tag Team Champions after beating Fuyuki & Kanemura at a Fuyuki Army show, and I’m beginning to see the flaws of having everything on PPV compared to having regular TV. FMW deals with this issue by having Ikeda not wear his title to the ring. Genius.

Kaientai make their entrance using their WWF theme! Funaki yells “hey motherfucker!” as he heads out because he is evil, indeed. Hopefully they can get something interesting out of the inconsistent Battlarts guys.

Fuji starts. You know it’s a big show when Fuji is doing double duty. He struts to annoy Gedo before annoying him out of the ring. Yone lands an unimpressive knee in the corner but poses too long so Funaki lands a running bulldog while yelling “baka!” at him. Quite right. Taka tags for the big pop and an instant chinlock/eye rake combo. Taka paintbrushes Yone before crotching himself on a butt slam that the crowd doesn’t pop for. Yamazaki tags in to instantly get worked over by the bad guys. He comes back with a swinging neckbreaker so Ikeda and Yone can bust out a double jumping hammerfist like they’re Dos Caras. Cuatro Caras? This match stays in first gear until Taka gets sent outside, causing him to charge back in to dropkick Fuji and flip him off. Then Ikeda tags in as I guess this is going long for it to be staying at this unexciting pace. Taka decides to mess with Ikeda by slapping him so Ikeda throws him off the top rope causing Taka to beg off like Flair. Well women ended up undoing both their careers so I get it.

Funaki saves his mate by sticking Ikeda in a Sharpshooter, leading to Fuji breaking it up because he cosplays as a Canadian. Yamazaki tries to get offence in but Gedo NOPES him outside the ring and Jado NOPE AGAINS over the guard-rail. Crowd are still silent even with all these guest stars. Gedo kicks Yamazaki as he crawls to the good corner while laughing. This sets up the camel clutch/dropkick spot that I think originated in M-Pro. It’s a safe bet. Jado slaps Yamazaki around causing him to YAMAZAKI UP and get slapped down again. Gedo gets really cocky and allows him to strike him but he ignores it to dropkick the sorry bastard. Ref gets distracted so all the bad lads comes in to land the AWA Special because they are determined to turn Yamazaki into a pizza-stain on the mat in order for the crowd to start making noise. Jado tries to end it with a crossface chicken wing while Kaientai prevent anyone from getting in the ring. Yamazaki finally tags out leading to Fuji unleashing the fury of his nuggy rubs on everyone. Ikeda tags in to land some small clotheslines that I guess we’re supposed to pretend were big clotheslines. Taka jumps right into a Yone kick before a very high leg-drop gets so much height it almost misses Taka. Yamazaki comes in again to land some very basic offence as I’m wondering why I’m bothering typing this all up. Taka lands a lovely missile dropkick as the match falls apart with everyone ending up outside but not in an exciting way. Everyone looked at their watches and decide that their shift is over allowing Gedo to land the Superfly Splash on Yamazaki at 21:26.

Well that was a fat load of nothing. The action wasn’t bad, just basic & unexciting considering the talent involved. It didn’t help that the story was “Yamazaki gets beaten up for twenty minutes” and the crowd didn’t care about that, but the wrestlers had already decided that the was plan so they stuck with it. Not worth the time watching or reading about it (too late).

Sabu (ECW) vs. Yukihiro Kanemura (Team No Respect) vs. One Man Gang (ECW)

Bam Bam Bigelow, Chris Candido & Tammy Sytch were advertised but didn’t appear. Bigelow had signed with WCW two weeks before this so it’s out of ECW’s hands but there’s no explanation on Candido/Sytch. FMW were furious at Heyman so Sabu and One Man Gang are 11th hour replacements.

Hey remember when One Man Gang was in ECW for a few months? No? Oh. Well Spike Dudley beat him in 48 seconds on TV one time. Last time Sabu was in FMW was December 1997 where he defeated The Sandman.

Sabu gets a hero’s welcome which is nearly drowned out by Gang yelling “hey hey hey” like he’s ready for the chorus to Macho Man. Both lads oversell Gang because there’d be no match otherwise. Everyone brawls outside with Gang really selling the excitement by stopping to pull his pants up. Gang teases a dive to the outside but stops to go under the ropes which the crowd laugh at. Gang clotheslines Kanemura over the guardrail so they can get into position for an impressive Sabu triple jump into the nether. Kanemura and Gang brawl over who gets to pin Sabu which results in Gang taking a double dropkick as he’s sat on a chair for a bump my Nana could have taken. Gang’s interactions and slow motions have turned this into a comedy match so Kanemura takes a delayed Flair front bump after taking Air Sabu. Gang tries to pin both men over and over again to more crowd laughter. Match turns into “Sabu does his trademark moves to Kanemura while Gang looks for something to do.” The other wrestlers can’t even be arsed breaking up any of Gang’s pin attempts. Gang slowly walks towards the pair of them with a chair so they can both kick it into his face/tits before the lads sunset flip him to get rid of the walking obstruction at 8:45.

Great, now the match can start. Kanemura suplexes a table in Sabu’s direction to send him to the outside. Kanemura tries his top rope splash but Sabu lobs him off the top through it instead to completely smash it. Sabu starts stabbing Kanemura with his spike before smashing some balsa wood table fragments over him, which only powers up Kanemura into delivering a decent airplane spin. It’s not Sid vs. Lee Scott, but then again nothing is. Kanemura’s fat back senton gets two and a solid crowd reaction. Kanemura grabs a load of chairs from the crowd to throw into the ring, luckily there’s plenty available. Sabu decides to throw some at some of the ring crew on the outside so he’s not standing there gawping. Kanemura dumps Sabu on sixteen chairs but he treats it like a Hall of Fame induction and no-shows it to Frankensteiner Kanemura onto them instead. Triple Jump Moonsault using a row of chairs sadly doesn’t do three times the damage as Kanemura is able to kick out. Sabu puts Kanemura on a table outside that partially breaks but Sabu’s not in the mood and slingshots a legdrop over the top anyway. Crowd barely pop but they should have done. Kanemura attempts to use the row of chairs to defend himself but Sabu uses them to finish with the Arabian Facebuster at 16:38.

Sabu vs. Kanemura should have been an instant-recommend in 1998 but Gang got in the way like Winnie The Pooh’s fat arse in Rabbit’s window. Even after he left, the action wasn’t at the high level both of these guys were capable of with Sabu generally looking unhappy to be there which is a recurring theme for the wrestlers tonight. And again, the crowd wasn’t popping even when Sabu was destroying himself.

What a show this is turning into.

Mr. Gannosuke (Team No Respect) vs. Tetsuhiro Kuroda (ZERO)

Gannosuke’s first match back after suffering a leg injury during his Double Titles match with Hayabusa. He’s dressing up as an evil version of his previous rival Shinzaki, making for a sweet entrance complete with disciples and spooky candles.

Kuroda defeated Gannosuke’s partner Kanemura last month and is quickly rising up the ranks so he can benefit from a big match like this. If anything is going to be worth watching on this show it’ll be this. Please?

Crowd is completely silent to start, hopefully because they’re in stunned silence at the cool entrance we just got. Kuroda counters a test-of-strength to show he can hang at Gannosuke’s level. Gannosuke doesn’t believe him so he goes for his leg which Kuroda deals with by choking Gannosuke until he stops. Kuroda counters the Shinzaki rope-walk by bouncing Gannosuke’s face over the ring post. Kuroda runs the entire entrance ramp to smash him with a knee before setting up the running Lariat which Gannosuke spots from a literal mile away to counter into a running falling armbreaker instead.

That got a polite pop. Jesus, the crowd didn’t pop for Sabu and now they’re barely reacting for the returning Gannosuke? The fuckers at Collision In Korea made more noise than this and they had rifles pointed at them. Gannosuke works Kuroda’s Lariating arm which doesn’t prevent him from trying them again and again, which Gannosuke expertly dodges and converts into holds. Kuroda dropkicks the just-injured knee to start work on that particular part of the body. Gannosuke attempts a Lariat but Kuroda attempts his own Gannosuke Clutch which is blocked, leading to both men throwing Lariats at the same time until Gannosuke connects with his own Gannosuke Clutch for two. Gannosuke blocks a Lariat with a sweet-arse fast back elbow before getting two from a Northern Lights. A ridiculous head-first German Suplex is shrugged off by Kuroda so he can finally land a Lariat in Gannosuke’s face. Hey if Tanaka’s not here might as well borrow his stuff.

Kuroda lands the rolling Germans before changing gears and sticking Gannosuke with a Dragon Suplex for two. Kuroda just-about manages a Fire Thunder Driver without killing Gannosuke in the process but he still kicks out. Gannosuke does his best to avoid several Lariats being thrown his way but Kuroda’s a Lariat Machine so he can only avoid them for so long. Gannosuke flips a Tombstone attempt into a Fire Thunder Driver as the crowd are still silent for this, the best action we’ve had all fucking night.

Kuroda kicks out and won’t stop Lariating though which results in both men slowly making it to their feet so Gannosuke can lariat Kuroda…which keeps him down for two seconds before he pops up again with another one. This is turning into a game of who can mash the pad the fastest as Gannosuke decides to land his own big damn lariat Kuroda’s way but he kicks out of a pin attempt, leading to Gannosuke borrowing Shinzaki’s Praying Powerbomb.

But Kuroda kicks out of THAT, leading to Gannosuke to bend Kuroda nearly 90 degrees in the Nirvana Clutch to end this with a quick tap-out at 16:02. Oh man he bent him in bastard shitting half with that hold.

By far and away the best thing on the show so far with the crowd cruelly rewarding the stiff bastards with absolutely nothing. There were even a few moments where you thought Kuroda might actually win even if in reality that was never happening. Worth a watch but have the audio of your favourite NBA Finals playing in the background to give this encounter the respect it deserved.

Kanemura shows up after the match to ask Gannosuke to re-join Team No Respect after he ignored him last time. Gannosuke ignores him again and leaves the ring. At least he’s consistent.

While the crowd enjoy intermission, we get replays of Hayabusa and Ikeda winning the FMW Brass Knuckles Tag Titles from Fuyuki and Kanemura to prove they do have them, honest. You just can’t see them.

This is followed by clips of Team No Respect winning the 6 Man Street Fight Tag Team Titles and then declaring the titles dead. Hell of a way to build up to this big event.

It could be worse though it could be:

Atsushi Onita (ZERO) vs. Mr. Pogo

Here we go, Onita’s last match for the company he created.

After continuing to be a pain in the arse through the entire year, Onita had started making plans for his USO spin-off promotion. Onita had decided he’d inform FMW talent that they were wrestling on this show without asking permission from Irai or the wrestlers themselves first. This combined with the discovery that Onita had been contacting FMW sponsors and trying to get them to sponsor his USO shows instead was the absolute final straw.

Mr. Pogo returned to FMW after bloody ages because Onita needed someone not named “Fuyuki” to work with. Pogo was under contract to BJW but he simply left in order to do this one show because Pogo doesn’t give a fuck about leaving company’s high-and-dry (see: W*ING). Danger Man Nakamaki is Pogo’s second, someone who also left BJW and basically became Onita’s real-life dogsbody after this.

You’d think surely the crowd would be making noise for Onita but no. If the rest of the night has been a 0, they’re at a 1 as Onita drags Pogo outside and into the seats. There’s no way there’s under 4,000 here for this show, you can hear the echo when a table bounces off of Pogo’s head and lands on the floor. Onita sets up his piledriver through a table onto Pogo but somehow misses the damn thing in the highlight of the night.

Onita tries it again but Pogo cuts him off so he can start stabbing like a bored Londoner. Onita has made sure to wear a white NFL jersey so the blood from his arm and shoulder can uhh…barely be visible, so Pogo rips a hole off it to get at the arm. You know why wrestlers blade their heads? Because everyone can see it when it bleeds. Sorry to explain this to Onita, I know he’s not used to bleeding.

Pogo sticks a stick into the wound which is at Luger ’88 levels of claret. Nakamaki and Mammoth Sasaki brawl out the ring and out to the back and that’s the end of both wrestler’s seconds’ involvement. Thanks for coming lads. Pogo lands a really lazy piledriver onto some chairs before an even lazier facebuster gets two. I know Pogo wasn’t exactly Linford Christie after 1996 but c’mon man. Pogo prepares some fire but then doesn’t but then does while Onita simply lays there. Onita blocks the fire with a chairshot and then lands a lame facebuster for two. Onita lands another one because he was proud of it before a third just-as-rubbish facebuster connects. Onita breaks a stick over Pogo before landing a fourth terrible facebuster onto the chairs for the pin and a stunned “wait, that was the finish??” negative pop from the crowd at 12:24.

A giant bomb that wouldn’t stop exploding. Onita’s music drowns out the confused boos but a polite cough would have done the same. Pogo vs. Onita without barbed wire or explosions always sucked but Onita was absolutely not arsed at all here, maybe because he heard the noise and realised FMW fans had stopped caring about him so he stopped caring about FMW.

Onita yells his usual post-match promo which doesn’t get much of a reaction so a frustrated Onita yells a second time, making sure to yell louder and louder until the crowd gives him something. Onita spits into his ZERO team-mates faces and stamps on the mat while the crowd sit on their hands. Onita can’t accept the crowd not making noise so he yells some more before heading into the fans to presumably threaten them if they don’t start reacting.

Hilariously, Onita promoted this as his last match but obviously no-one believed him. But for once Mr. Liar was telling the truth.

The day after this show, Arai realised he needed to end the relationship with Onita as his behaviour had become unmanageable. Arai was so worried about telling Onita that he took out life insurance (!) as he was convinced Onita was going to try to kill him when he broke the news. Arai brought the whole FMW roster with him when he did so, with Onita calmly responding with “you didn’t need to bring everyone here y’know” and to Arai’s relief he would not try to kill anyone.

Onita was presented with 2/3 of the just-declared dead FMW 6 Man Street Fight Tag Team belts as a goodbye gift.

And that was it.

FMW Double Titles Match

Hayabusa vs. Kodo Fuyuki (Team No Respect)

Hayabusa’s fifth defence of his Double Titles.

Fuyuki heads out with all of Team No Respect but shakes Hayabusa’s hand letting the crowd know “don’t worry this is a big show we’re not doing anything screwy like the last few months” and I wonder if that worry played into the low attendance.

Fuyuki out-wrangles Hayabusa on a hammerlock and there’s notable cheers from the still-quiet crowd. Hayabusa works Fuyuki’s arm for a while until Fuyuki powers up with a meaty slap. Hayabusa attempts to tire Fuyuki out by extending a bounce-off-the-ropes sequence and armdrags him when he tries to escape. The big man sticks Hayabusa in a leg lock with only his legs which allows him to use his arms to stop his opponent from stopping him. Decent strategy in the first five minutes. Hayabusa escapes and manages a springboard clothesline but misses the baseball slide follow-up and so Fuyuki dumps him into the guard-rails. TNR notably do nothing but watch on as Fuyuki splats the champ on the ramp with a Fisherman’s Buster.

This would have been a more noteworthy spot if the crowd made any noise other than the occasional high-pitched “hayabusaaAAHH” scream. A second Fisherman’s Buster in the ring lands high on Hayabusa’s neck but can’t put him away. Fuyuki’s Northern Lights also has the same effect so Fuyuki pulls out Masato Tanaka’s Reverse Superplex which looks cool but doesn’t work. Fuyuki’s Fire Thunder Powerbomb hits much harder than usual, which sets up a Yelling Lariat followed by the Stretch Plumb submission. That’s all of Fuyuki’s finishers so the crowd are the loudest all night (so like a 3 or 4 on the scale) as Hayabusa manages to get the ropes and carry on. Fuyuki misses a Patera Charge so Hayabusa dumps him outside and lands an Asai Moonsault. Hayabusa lands a springboard dropkick aimed directly at Fuyuki’s arm so he can resume his arm-based mat work. Hayabusa nails his own Fisherman’s Buster to set up a 450 Splash…for two. Crowd are like 5 on the scale now proving there are people in attendance.

Fuyuki tries a waistlock but Hayabusa goes low with a mule kick to a big pop and a tremendous “fuck you” for the dozen or so times it’s happened to him these past few months. A rolling armbar takes Fuyuki down but no-one thinks this is ending via submission so fans quiet down. A quick Tombstone sets up Fuyuki for more high-flying but the big man cuts off Hayabusa and debuts his own Muscle Buster to the shock of the crowd and announcers. Hayabusa…kicks out at two to the shock of me. Fuyuki charges up another Yelling Lariat but Hayabusa blocks it by slapping Fuyuki in his fucking face. The shock of it sends Fuyuki rolling outside so Hayabusa takes him out with a beautiful swan dive over the ropes.

When both men recover, Fuyuki heads back inside so Hayabusa attempts to leg drop him off the top guillotine-style but Fuyuki simply moves so he can head up top himself. Fuyuki tries a crossbody but Hayabusa dropkicks the easiest target in the world right out the air before snapping Fuyuki in half with a giant German Suplex. Hayabusa just-about manages a crazy Butterfly Suplex and the crowd are all at a solid 5-6 now. Fuyuki is able to roll-up Hayabusa anyway because he’s a fleshy tank so Hayabusa tries a Snapdragon which didn’t look great so Fuyuki lariats him immediately afterwards anyway. These big arse moves have got the crowd into it now, so of course Fuyuki nearly falls off the ropes while setting up Hayabusa for an Awesome Bomb off the top to take them down a notch. The eventual move connects wonderfully however but Hayabusa kicks out yet again. There’s now crowd chants by God. Hayabusa counters a Falcon Arrow into a Diamond Cutter which didn’t quite connect fully, followed by a Tiger Suplex that didn’t quite connect fully. Neither put Fuyuki away so Hayabusa pulls out his ultimate finish the Phoenix Splash but Fuyuki rolls out the way and lands a well-timed Yelling Lariat…for two.

Fuyuki, all sweat and pain, tries another but Hayabusa ducks which allows Fuyuki to kinda-dump Hayabusa on the top rope with a release powerbomb. Better in theory that one. Hayabusa kicks out of another lariat so Fuyuki lands another to finally end it and become the new Double Champ at 25:11.

I’m torn on this one. One of the few reasons to watch the show for sure but it’s far from the usual greatness these two have (and will go on to have). Some sloppiness and insisting on doing every idea even if it wasn’t a good one got in the way of the overall enjoyment. But if you have to watch something from this show then yeah make it this.

In the post-match, Fuyuki declares the titles he’s just won “ugly” and demands better ones. This was FMW’s way of establishing the new era by changing the title belts themselves. Of course because it’s FMW, the new belts wouldn’t be ready for another six months so Fuyuki had to hold the belts he just declared ugly for half a year. Fuck me ragged.

Overall: More like “Entertainment Wrestling Super Dead.”

At least the “One Company, Two Aces” dilemma has been resolved with Onita finally thrown over the metaphorical top rope. If only they could solve the issue of having a crap undercard the same way.

Sadly as good as two of the matches were, there is still the issue that even with Onita and all the special guests FMW can brag about only drawing under 4,000 when last year their biggest show drew 30,000. And even the claimed 4,000 is doubtful.

Puro is changing and FMW is going to have to change even more to adapt, otherwise Fuyuki will be King for a Day (and Fat for a Lifetime).

Recommend you watch the Gannosuke and Fuyuki matches but don’t worry about it if you can’t, life’s too short.

Next week: ECW invades!

I’ve been Maffew