One of the great things about Atsushi Onita’s personal playground, FMW is that a lot of the craziest performers to wrestle for the organization were fine wrestlers before anything. So while a guy like The Gladiator (Mike Awesome) or Hayabusa could have some great hardcore matches they could also showcase some good, clean wrestling skills.
This match in particular makes Awesome look good. He convincingly sells punishment from a much smaller wrestler. Particularly you have to love the incredibly loud f-bomb Awesome drops when Hayabusa is working over his arm. Awesome also hits some incredible top rope moves for a guy his size! A couple more and maybe he would have pounded Hayabusa’s face into mashed potatoes after all! The match is less kind to Hayabusa who botches a shooting star press.
Usually I try to avoid reading YouTube user comments to avoid brain rot, but jmg3116 really hit the nail on the head when he wrote, “This exists? WTF awesome lol.”
The match is a bit short, but the crowd and commentators are super into it. It is a good thing that this match took place in New Japan rather than on Nitro. There Macho probably would have squashed Liger in five minutes while the commentators hyped up the NWO. All the while of course Tony Schiavone would be biting his lip trying not to let out a “this is the greatest night in the history of our sport” cliche quite yet.
Look for Jerry Stubbs to make an appearance at the finish. Also, Dirty White Boy makes a cameo at the end where the loser is giving their farewell promo wearing daisy dukes.
Here is one reason I hope that the WWE Network finally launches at some point this year. The long rumored cruiserweight show would give WWE the opportunity to showcase a genre of wrestling that hasn’t been highlighted in the company in…well just about has never been highlighted in the company. Even if the company does not end up signing a whole bunch of cruiserweight talents with their massive tape library a regular from the vault show dedicated to cruiserweight wrestling could be intriguing.
As for the match itself it is nice and tight. Also, I won’t spoil it, but I will say that there is an awesome setup to the Texas Cloverleaf at one point.
This bout proves that the key to having a truly classic match whether it is ranked by Dave Meltzer as a 5 star match or not is to have not only superior in-ring work, but high stakes as well. I remember when The Rock and John Cena’s Wrestlemania match was teased as being for the WWE Championship. At the time I saw that many online were against this as it seemed like it would be gilding the lily and make the card too thin. Hey maybe those people online were right. Yet, to quote Billy Idol “too much is never enough” and so here is Manami Toyota taking on Toshiyo Yamada not only for the IWA World Women’s Championship, but also for their hair.
When the match starts out it almost looks like it is stuck on fast forward, but surprisingly Toyota and Yamada really are that nimble. Complimenting their quickness is their expert in-ring psychology. When Yamada takes Toyota’s leg puts it behind her head and just starts wrenching it then you know Toyota’s legs are going to be in for a pounding. This is further supported about seven minutes into the bout when Yamada gives some really stiff kicks to Toyota’s leg before putting her in a beautiful looking single leg Boston crab.
As the match progresses it becomes apparent that Taz must has stolen “the human suplex machine” moniker from one of these women as they go through just about every suplex variation (except perhaps a standard vertical suplex). Aside from these moves their are also some dangerous spots thrown in such as Toyota hitting a top rope Asai moonsault to the outside.
After the match the story continues to unfold. Since the two are regular partners and friends the winner is unwilling to shave the head of the loser.
All this plus you have perhaps the worst looking referee shirt in the history of Dave Meltzer 5 star matches.
Some promising matches that could have happened never did so we are doomed to only see them on modified versions of WWF No Mercy for the N64. However, sometimes there are less talked about matches that happened between two great wrestlers that one would expect to have occurred. The problem with these matches is often the wrestlers’ peaks do not line up and one guy is either over the hill or too green.
Owen Hart facing Ultimo Dragon is exceptional as these two rarely had a time where they could have met. Owen is arguably not truly in his prime as we have New Foundation Owen (sans Neidhart). However, Owen had really refined his skills by this point. I would also throw in that his style here perhaps meshed better with Dragon than the more mat-based style he later adopted in his peak.
This match is remarkable for featuring two huge names in wrestling history while they were both still in pretty good shape. Abdullah The Butcher is still packing some back fat, but at least it doesn’t hang that much here and look! Hulk Hogan barely has any baldness at all!
As I have shown before Hulk Hogan in Japan was often a different beast than Hulk Hogan wrestling in the United States. Yet, this battle is not too different from the big man contests he had in America with the likes of Andre The Giant, King Kong Bundy and Big John Studd. Although there are some things that may surprise you such as the big splash Hogan pulls out, which just looks so out of place being performed by the Hulkster.
One of the things I like about current WWE programming is that they are finally bringing back some jobber squash matches. Here is a clip not from WWE, but serves as a reason why I love jobber squashes just the same.
Continental Championship Wrestling was often a haven for jobber squashes. Look at the gut on The Mongol! He has all the muscle tone of a garbage bag filled with Vaseline. The Mongol probably should have taken a hint from his partner The Executioner and at least covered up his gut somewhat. Of course, it helps that these guys aren’t in the best shape as they are selling for The Bullet. Now, I hate to rag on Bob Armstrong too much, but it tells you something when this guy looks way past his prime more than 25 years ago and still wrestles on occasion! Heck, this bout took place three months before this here writer was even born!
I don’t know what it is, but the first time I sat down to watch this match I just couldn’t make it through it. It is a pretty exciting meet overall though with perhaps a slightly awkward beginning. I like to pretend Ricky Steamboat is trying to hug The Great Muta, but Muta will have no part in it, hence why he is quickly choking him with a streamer. This does not last long as Steamboat lays in some stiff chops trying to start a legitimate chopfest, but Muta will have no part in it. Before long we get some classic Steamboat arm drags and Steamboat controls the match.
My favorite part of the bout is Muta working over Steamboat’s left leg starting in the second part. In a way the lame “no, no, no” selling that it starts with adds to it. It is one of those cases of something going from pretty silly to kind of awesome.
All of this plus we get a classic over the top Great Muta entrance, which I guess is one advantage of Keiji Mutoh not wrestling this match.
The most unique and often most hilarious thing about WSX is how much they tried to cram in, in such a short amount of time. Just look at the basic format of the show, a 30 minute wrestling event. This is one of the best examples of this as you have not simply an exploding cage match packed into about seven minutes, but you have things like a time bomb, outside interference and some needless referee bumps thrown in.
The match itself is made further unique by the talent involved. What other promotion that is able to secure a deal on cable television would risk booking Teddy Hart? Also, this match manages to have three Japanese wrestlers. Regardless of what you think of the talent of Team Dragon Gate, just that team alone puts the WSX ahead of WWE’s apparent quota of Asian wrestlers.
