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Frontier Martial Arts Wrestling
DVD Series
Review
by : Russ
Ray
FMW prides
itself on being the true innovators of hardcore professional
wrestling. For over 10 years (and about 3 years longer than
its American cousin Extreme Championship Wrestling), this
Japanese organization originated death matches with barbed
wire, fire, explosives, and nails. Tokyopop has released four
DVDs of FMW action circa 1995.
Each DVD
is hosted by John Watanabe and Eric Geller, who have to be
the two worst commentators in the history of sports. I would
rather watch a match called by Mark Madden, Reo Rodgers, and
David McLane than watch these two boobs spout crappy one-liners
and rip off everybody else's catchphrases. Watanabe makes
Michael Cole look like a heterosexual, and Geller is more
interested in ripping on Watanabe or putting himself over
then watching the idiots in the ring bleed to death. If you
watch these, you're better off with shutting off the American
commentary in favor of the original subdued Japanese commentary
and skipping over their lame match introductions. Almost all
of these matches are heavily edited, as they were mostly 15
and 20 minute affairs cut down to 10 minutes or less.
All of
these discs feature a history of FMW section to read through,
a short history of Hayabusa, a gallery explaining 15 of the
principal wrestlers, trailers for other Tokyopop titles, and
a bonus match with Japanese commentary.
Let me
preface this by saying that I'm not a fan of hardcore, and
to term hardcore bouts as "wrestling" is something
that I believe is an inaccurate and dishonest term. Bloodletting
for the sake of bloodletting is just silly and takes no ability
or talent. If that means I'm biased, well, I guess you'll
go have to read somebody else's review that you blindly agree
with.
Total
Carnage
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 Featured
on this DVD are two women's matches involving such characters
as Sub Miss Sato (an ex-hooker), Combat" Mother in Law"
Toyoda, Bad Nurse Nakamura, and Shark Tsuchiya. The first
match is a handicap barbed wire death match that starts out
with a bunch of hardcore restholds and but eventually ends
up being decent. The second match is brief, fairly unexciting
and involves the main FMW women's hero Megumi Kodo getting
double-crossed by a tag team partner that blows fire at her
post-match.
Another
character featured on the disc is Super Leather, a Leatherface
gimmick with a chainsaw that is too comical to be really scary.
His mask is supposedly made out of the skin of people he's
murdered. Super Leather introduces us to the iron toothbrush,
a board with rows of nails that looks like a toothbrush. He
takes on Matsunaga in a lame, heavily-edited bed of nails
match. The
two truly good matches involve Mike "Gladiator"
Awesome. His match with Super Leather is a true battle of
heavyweights, and Awesome gets in some of his classic moves
that he doesn't use anymore. His FMW Brass Knuckles Champion
tournament final match with Hayabusa is the best, with him
going toe-to-toe with the FMW great in high-flying moves.
The
bonus match between Horace "CPA" Boulder and Matsunaga
is pretty good considering he's got some of Hulk Hogan's genes.
From the
box cover, I was expecting either more matches from Hayabusa
or a more exhaustive look at his history. Hayabusa takes on
Gladiator twice on this DVD in a decent singles match and
an excellent tag match with Ooya and Niiyama. The women's
matches are better than you'll see here in the States, and
the sleeper match is a tag match between Ricky Fuji &
Horace Boulder against Super Leather & Hido. Tables are
broken in this match, but not easily.
Although
this DVD had a lot less hardcore, the matches for the most
part weren't quite as good, and a match between Tanaka and
Kanemura was heavily cut down. One of the more questionable
match choices is the Matsunaga/Mr. Pogo match. It was done
in almost complete darkness, and although it involved glow-in-the-dark
knives, flaming barbed wire, and blow torches, you can't see
much of what's going on. I thought it was funny that Watanabe
takes great pains before this match to dis ECW and Paul Heyman,
yet you can spot three fans in the crowd wearing ECW T-shirts.
The
excellent bonus match in Japanese pits a very young Masato
Tanaka against Koji Nakagawa.
 This
DVD delved less into the hardcore and more into typical physical
wrestling. The two big hardcore matches are brief, but brutal.
Matsunaga takes on Mr. Pogo in a fiery barbed wire death match
where limbs and clothing are set on fire. The other match
is a barbed wire death duel between Matsunaga and Kanemura
with baseball bats and boards covered with wire. I found the
action to be acceptable despite the fact that I think these
guys are nuts. The DVD also includes a tag team death match
with Mother in Law & Sub Miss Sato against Mad Dog Nagayo
& Nagashima of Gaea Japan which I found to be really a
boring, drawn-out squash. There is also a less-than-flattering
squash of Masato Tanaka by Super Leather that I didn't really
appreciate. Tanaka is way better than that guy.
However,
the highlights of this one again are the Hayabusa and Mike
Awesome matches. The Gladiator renews his feud with Masato
Tanaka, which was something we all got a taste of during their
ECW run. One of the more surprising matches involved a strictly
technical wrestling match between Ooya and Hayabusa with a
surprise ending. The first 6 to 8 minutes of the match had
to involve the two men exchanging and reversing holds with
each other. Hayabusa also has a tough match with Kanemura
where he pulls out all the high-flying moves and a rematch
with Mike Awesome that's even better than their Championship
Final. The
bonus tag team match between Mike Awesome & Mr. Pogo vs.
Hido & Super Leather probably was very good originally,
but you only get to see 3 minutes of a 12-minute affair with
broken tables, balcony fights, and meat forks.
If you're
looking for the actual death match tournament that Mick Foley
discusses in his book, this isn't it. Cactus Jack makes only
one appearance on this DVD, and that's in a match against
Kanemura. This matches did, however, take place during the
tournament, so maybe they decided to use a little creative
license in the title. The
Japanese commentary is better in this one, because it sounds
like the guy is more into the matches. At one point, when
Shark Tsuchiya is waving around a fiery stick, the guy goes
all Jim Ross. The two big matches on the disc involve explosions,
including a tag team match involving Terry Funk where the
ring exploded after 15 minutes. If you're into hardcore, you'll
probably like this one a lot, since it's the most extreme
of the four FMW titles. This
disc also includes a bonus
match between Taka Michinoku and Koji Nakagawa.
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