cactus_matt's Full Review: FMW: King of the Death Match
Being an obvious fan of Mick Foley/Cactus Jack, I was mysteriously drawn into the world of Japanese 'garbage' wrestling, where wrestlers compete with everything from broken glass to barbed wire to exploding rings. Is it a deep appreciation for the skill and dedication of these fine workers? Or is it the sort of sick fascination that possesses us to watch 'reality television'? I figured that purchasing this title would at least help me decide.
A small distributor called 'Tokyopop' secured a license to market the product of an independent wrestling promotion in Japan called FMW, or Frontier Martial Arts Wrestling. Don't ask me about the name, because it doesn't really make sense. 'King of the Death Match' offers the majority of the matches from a card that took place in roughly '95-'96. Tokyopop would have you believe it's all brand new.
'King of the Death Match' is meant to lead consumers into confusing it with IWA Japan's King of the Death Match Tournament, the brutal event that Mick Foley went into great detail about in his first book. To make it clear, Foley is only defending his unofficial title of 'Death Match King' in this event.
Eric Geller and John Watanbe, the commentators added in by Tokyopop, are quite possibly the two most annoying individuals to ever walk the face of the planet. When they’re not busy trying to shill the product, they spend most of their time overreacting and making up things about the wrestlers. It’s painful to watch when they put so much insincere melodrama into storylines that happened six years ago. Between each match they give us some shallow insight and occasionally step into a nearby wrestling ring to perform submission holds on frail young girls. Luckily, the DVD version has an alternate audio track where you can listen to the original Japanese commentators over the matches. Somehow, hearing them constantly echo ‘hai’ is just more entertaining.
And now that I’ve gotten that part out of the way…
Match 1 – Nanjyo VS Jason the Terrible
There’s something funny about Japan in that they tend to make the antagonists of a lot of American horror films into wrestling superstars. Jason the Terrible looks the part in his hockey mask and all, but apparently the ‘terrible’ was necessary to get his point across. Nanjyo is a scrawny little jobber with no mask and no identifying adjective. Is it really a big tossup? Jason works really stiffly and absolutely destroys Nanjyo. Nanjyo’s offense is meager and short-lived. Jason executes a modified piledriver and Nanjyo dies. Geller gives us a ‘ha-ha-ha-ch-ch-ch’ in celebration of Jason’s victory. A complete squash.
1 out of 5 stars.
Match 2 – Mad Dog Nagayo VS Shark Tsuchiya
These are some pretty rough-looking women. Nagayo shows up wearing a cowboy hat and toting a bull rope. Tsuchiya is basically a female version of Mr. Pogo, who we’ll see later on. Nagayo begins whipping Tsuchiya with the bull rope, but Tsuchiya retaliates by cutting the rope in half with a scythe. A bunch of Tsuchiya groupies intervene, and Tsuchiya takes the upper hand, using the scythe to dig into Nagayo’s back. Tsuchiya gets set to blow fire, but Nagayo knocks the kerosene bottle out of her hands. For some reason, a large portion of the match is suddenly cut out. Nagayo forces Tsuchiya to submit to an armbar in an anticlimactic finish. Absolutely worthless – a total dud.
0 out of 5 stars.
Match 3 – Horace Boulder, Mike Awesome, and Ooya VS Super Leather and the Headhunter Twins
Apparently for some sort of 6-man street fight title. Yeehaw. Super Leather is not just a sad clone of Leatherface, he’s a SUPER sad clone! Horace sounds frighteningly like his uncle in the pre-match interview. Geller and Watanbe have a ball fabricating all sorts of stories about Mike Awesome saving young children from burning wreckage and Horace’s adventures as a mob accountant. The Headhunter Twins waddle around the ring and sweat profusely as usual. This match has a few parts taken out of it as well. Horace the mob accountant gets pinned by a Super Leather powerbomb. Not bad, but not good, either.
2 ½ out of 5 stars.
Match 4 – Cactus Jack VS Kanemura – Barbed Wire, Broken Glass Death Match
Foley looks to be in the early stages of the Mankind character, as indicated by the splotches shaved out of his head. Geller and Watanbe keep referring to Kanemura as ‘Doughboy’, and I can’t decide if that’s his real nickname or not. Some surprisingly solid action with both men taking an equal share of falls into the glass and barbed wire. Geller and Watanbe seem to think that there’s nails somewhere in the mix, but I sure don’t see any. Foley executes the double-armed DDT over a pile of broken glass and gets the pin over Doughboy. Good, well-paced match with a lot of close falls.
4 out of 5 stars.
Match 5 – Combat Toyoda VS Megumi Kudo – Electrified Barbed Wire Death Match
Another woman’s match. Toyoda is big and butch and will retire afterwards, win, lose, or draw. The smaller Kudo gets manhandled early on. Lots of dramatic spots as both come close to falling into the electrified barbed wire. Geller and Watanbe name the referee ‘Larry’. The whole thing gets pretty rough, with either woman getting zapped and then both at once. Lots of stiff powerbomb moves lead to lots of close pinfalls. Kudo plants Toyoda with some crazy over-the-back piledriver for the pin. Very long match. Lots of overplayed emotion as both women cry and sell their injuries in the back room and we’re forced to listen to a bad rendition of ‘Wild Thing’ loop over and over and over. Excellent for a woman’s match, and even better for a death match.
4 ½ out of 5 stars.
Match 6 – Hayabusa and Masato Tanaka VS Terry Funk and Mr. Pogo – Electrified Barbed Wire, C-4 Explosive, Exploding Ring Death Match
Good ol’ Terry gives a nonsensical pre-match interview and mispronounces Hayabusa’s name a lot of times. The stipulations for this match seem a bit over the top. Hayabusa and Tanaka are legitimately talented, but their opponents are both pretty old and tend to set the pace for a less-interesting match. Pogo spends a lot of time carving Tanaka with knives and scythes. Terry stumbles around a lot. Sirens and flashing lights announce the eminent ‘explosion’ of the ring. Not a real breathtaking sight – just a bunch of fancy fireworks at most. After the smoke clears, all the men get back up and continue fighting. Terry and Pogo keep throwing Tanaka out of the ring. Hayabusa gets pinned after being battered by the two old men for while. After the match, Terry’s funny music plays and they have a very difficult time cutting Hayabusa’s mask off with Pogo’s scythe. Hayabusa cries in the back like the women before him. A brutal match, but it came across looking like crap.
1 ½ out of 5 stars.
But wait, there’s more! Just a little…If you’re so fortunate as to purchase the DVD edition, then you’ll be treated to yet another match, a directory of FMW personalities, and some Hayabusa promos. The extra match, or what they show of it, isn’t really worth reviewing. Taka Michinoku VS Koji Nakagawa. What we see is good, but they cut out most of the pivotal points. Taka wins with his Michinoku driver. The directory of FMW personalities has a lot to offer, if only the text wasn’t so small. The Hayabusa promos consist mostly of footage of him performing aerial maneuvers set to a rock soundtrack. The DVD also includes navigation to help you skip to a particular match. There’s Spanish subtitles, too, but, unfortunately, they only translate what Geller and Watanbe have to say.
All in all, this isn’t an outstanding selection. Despite being toted as ‘uncensored’, a lot of the matches were chopped up into little pieces. I don't think keeping it whole would've helped otherwise, though. If I had to recommend this, it would be to satisfy your curiosities about this type of wrestling, but not much further than that. Personally, ‘garbage’ wrestling simply failed to show me any true merits.
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