FMW - The First Grand Slam World Brass Knuckles Champion Decision League Match Part 1

FMW - The First Grand Slam World Brass Knuckles Champion Decision League Match Part 1

This tape is a compilation of the immediate post-Onita era of FMW. FMW was in transitioning stage here in every sense of the word. They were trying to get Hayabusa over as the new star and were doing better quality matches while still keeping the violence.

This tape covers some of the FMW league to crown their new world champion amongst other matches. 

The logos from the respective factions of the time.

They showed some highlights of the Hayabusa vs Mike Awesome feud and the Mr. Pogo vs Matsunaga feud to start.

Mr.Pogo lights up Matsunaga like the 4th of July

8/29/95 Shiga Azumigawa Sports Center
No Rope Yuushitessen Fire Death Match: Mr. Pogo vs. Mitsuhiro Matsunaga.

Matsunaga won with a facebuster into a torch. Violent and sick match. Matsunaga got the torch put on him multiple times and bled like crazy. I bet he still hasn't regrown some of his skin that he lost from this one. They only showed about 5 minutes of this.

A shot of the FMW World Brass Knuckles Championship

 We got some quick profiles on the people in the league for the title:

"Okay, Gladiator. What do you think about everybody in this tournament?" - Ricky Fuji

"I think I'm gonna kick everyone's ass." - Mike Awesome

8/25/95 Tokyo Korakuen Hall
Grand Slam Sekai Brass Knuckle Oza Kettei Koshikleaguesen: Masato Tanaka vs. The Gladiator.

"Tanaka, you're standing between me and that championship belt, so that means I'm going to have to rip your G** D*** head off." - Awesome

Mike Awesome beat Masato Tanaka with a stiff ligerbomb to win. Good looking match here in the 6:05 that was shown. Awesome was at his best during this time as his knees were totally shot yet and the Awesome/Tanaka pairing always produces good results. Rating:***

Grand Slam Sekai Brass Knuckle Oza Kettei Koshikleaguesen: Hayabusa vs. W*ING Kanemura 10:57.

From my experiences with Korakuen Hall's floors, this was nothing but a bad idea.

 Hayabusa got the win with a Phoenix Splash. Fun match here. They were stiff, they bumped everywhere and Kanemura flew around like a lightweight. Add in the hardcore stuff and this was pretty ideal. Rating:***1/2

8/29/95 Shiga Azumigawa Sports Center
Grand Slam Sekai Brass Knuckle Oza Kettei Koshikleaguesen: Masato Tanaka vs. Super Leather.

 Super Leather won with a Superplex. Little was shown of this.

They showed some clips of the women in action.

 They showed some interviews.

Clips from Bad Nurse Nakamura vs Chigusa Nagayo

8/25/95 Tokyo Korakuen Hall
Chigusa Nagayo & Chikayo Nagashima vs. Shark Tsuchiya & Miwa Sato.

 Chigusa got the win with a running Razor's Edge.  The match picked up near the end when all hell broke loose and we had a chair vs baseball bat duel. Nagashima took a couple of hard bumps on her head and Chigusa was oozing charisma.

8/31/95 Osaka Furitsu Taiikukaikan 2
Joshi Street Fight Handicap Captain Fall Match: Megumi Kudo & Combat Toyoda & Kaori Nakayama & Yukari Ishikura vs. Shark Tsuchiya & Bad Nurse Nakamura & Miwa Sato. 6:46 shown.

 Shark got the win over Kudoh with a stiff powerbomb. The match was mostly controlled by the heels but the little offense the faces got looked good.

Mach Hayato vs. Tetsuhiro Kuroda. :57 shown

Kuroda won with a lariat. I can't figure out why Hayato never got more of a push. He always looks great.

Katsutoshi Niiyama vs. Hideki Hosaka. 1:59 shown

Niiyama won with an exploder. Niiyama looked pretty good here flying around and stiffing Hosaka.

Grand Slam Sekai Brass Knuckle Oza Kettei Koshikleaguesen Barbed Wire Bat & Barbed Wire
Board Bunkhouse Death Match: Mitsuhiro Matsunaga vs. W*ING Kanemura 4:13 of 11:13.

 Matsunaga won with a ligerbomb. They didn't show that much but it was quick and had lots of bumps on barbwire.

Grand Slam Sekai Brass Knuckle Oza Kettei Koshikleaguesen: Hayabusa vs. Hisakatsu Oya 30:00.

They went to a 30 minute draw. The match was good but it was kind of obvious they were killing time near the end when they had about a million near falls. What I liked about it is that Oya got a bunch of offense in and he got Hayabusa to slow down. The early portion of the match was all Oya working Hayabusa with different arm holds. The middle had Hayabusa making his comeback and the end had both guys hitting lariats and throws to try to win. This would have been better with half the time but they did a good job with it. Rating:***

9/5/95 Sapporo Nakajima Taiiku Center
Grand Slam Sekai Brass Knuckle Oza Kettei Koshikleaguesen: Hayabusa vs.The Gladiator 14:18.

"Next time, I'm gonna beat ya, cuz you will feel the wrath of the Kamikaze Awesome Bomb." - Mike Awesome

Hayabusa won with a springboard hurricanrana. The match had some good stuff in it but Hayabusa is the definition of a guy who "has to get his spots in". Awesome was pretty stiff with him and Hayabusa did good flying, but the finish was random. Rating:***

Overall thoughts: This was a good tape. The clipping sucked but the matches were still good with it. There's a nice mix of stuff and this is pretty good FMW. Check it out.