FMW 5th Anniversary Show 5/5/1994

FMW 5th Anniversary Show 5/5/1994

I did a podcast on this show here:

This is Part 1 of my review. It's split up strictly due to size.

This is FMW's yearly 5/5 Anniversary show. Much like NJPW's 1/4 Tokyo Dome, FMW ran on 5/5 at Kawasaki Stadium yearly. It was always the biggest show of the year and usually had an exploding ring match of some sort.

Due to FMW being a smaller company, they usually would get a lot of outside talent for these shows, which led to some interesting match-ups and tons of big names. This show contains tons of other promotions wrestlers such as All Japan Women, Wrestle Association R, Ladies Legend Pro Wrestling and Michinoku Pro.

Tetsuhiro Kuroda vs. Gosaku Goshogowara
Kuroda would stay with FMW until its demise while Gosaku would be a no name lower card wrestler for the rest of his FMW career.

Kuroda got the win with a single leg boston crab in 9:28. Only a few minutes were shown. The crowd was dead and the work wasn't very good.

FMW vs Michinoku Pro - Battle Ranger Z & Koji Nakagawa & Masato Tanaka vs. The Great Sasuke & Hanzo Nakajima & Shiryu
This is your typical M-Pro trios match with FMW guys. Sasuke had started M-Pro a bit prior with Hanzo and Shiryu being two of his trainees. Shiryu is Kaz Hayashi who had a pretty good career and Hanzo just faded off into smaller indies. Tanaka ended up becoming an international star and Nakagawa ended up as an FMW midcarder who never really got his due.

Hanzo Nakajima - I loved his look.

Battle Ranger Z vs Shiryu

A young Masato Tanaka looks on

Shiryu Rules!

The Great Sasuke is ready to take flight

The finish

Battle Ranger Z got the win by um powerbombing himself and rolling it into a pin at 18:49. This was very clipped but the clips made the match look amazing and made you want more. Shiryu was a beast here as was Sasuke and they really carried this with their highflying. This was a total lucha spotfest but it was very fun and this is a match I wish I had the full version of. Rating:***1/2

FMW vs LLPW - Combat Toyoda & Crusher Maedomari & Shark Tsuchiya vs. Noriyo Tateno & Eagle Sawai & Mizuki Endo
Toyoda would retire two years later and I think open up her own restaurant. Maedomari would kind of fade off with FMW and Tsuchiya had a decent late career heel resurgence with Eagle Sawai and Lioness Asuka. Tateno would keep wrestling until her retirement in the mid-2000's and now owns a bar with Harley Saito, Eagle would retire as well in the mid-2000's and fade away and Endo didn't do anything of note. This likely happened due to all of the women's promotions working together around this time with the Dreamslam and Big Egg shows.

Check out Toyoda's cool haircut - yes, that's an animal's face of some sort

The finish

Crusher Maedomori got the win on Mizuki Endo with a top rope chokeslam at 14:44. This was really clipped but it didn't look bad at all, especially considering who was in it. Toyoda in particular looked to be carrying this match.


Crusher and Tateno argued after the match with Tateno responding like this:

We then had a Sawai/Eagle pull apart to end the festivities.

Sambo Asako & Mr. Gannosuke vs. Goro Tsurumi & Hideki Hosaka 
Goro and Sambo were 80's AJPW midcarders while Gannosuke would become an FMW main eventer and Hosaka never really got past the midcard, despite being a good hand.

Mr. Gannosuke got the win here with a Gannosuke clutch. This was all clipped of course. It looked to be mostly all brawling and cheating. Asako looked good despite being very overweight.

Kickboxer vs. Wrestler Mixed Match: Katsuji Ueda vs. Katsutoshi Niiyama 
Ueda did a bunch of worked shoot FMW matches, but I honestly know nothing about either of these guys.

Ueda won in the 3rd Round with punches in a very clipped match. If this was a shoot, they did a bad job with it. If this was a work, it made no sense to have one of their guys get owned by a 40+ year old kickboxer. The less said about this the better.

Sabu & Damien 666 vs. Dr. Luther & Yone Genjin
Genjin works a comedy caveman gimmick while Damien changed from his usual heel ways to comedy in FMW. I don't know anything about Luther and we all know Sabu.

Damien 666 does Hulk Hogan and Sabu impressions!

"Choshu! Choshu!" - Damien doing Riki Choshu

Damien 666 got the win over Yone Genjin with a Great Muta moonsault. Damien was fun to watch here and Sabu was a wreck, and that's about it. I was entertained but more of in a so bad it's good way. Damien looked good though charisma wise.

After the match, in his brilliance, Sabu tried to moonsault through a table. He hurt himself the first time, then got stuck and hurt himself on the second succesful try while Damien did Onita impersonations.

FMW vs AJW - WWA World Women's & Independent World World Women's Double Title Match - Megumi Kudo vs Yumiko Hotta
Kudo was on her way to becoming one of the top Japanese female stars while Hotta was already an established main eventer and would continue to be so even now.

Yumiko Hotta

Megumi Kudo

Kudo(Pink) vs Hotta (Red)

Kudo botches and Hotta makes her pay

Kudo won with a roll-through pin on a powerbomb reversal. This was not good at all. Kudo botched too many moves and everything she did looked weak. Hotta isn't exactly the person you want carrying a match or a lesser worker either, so this wasn't that good. The crowd got into it near the end and some of Kudo's underdog stuff was okay but it was a big disaster for the most part.

FMW vs W.A.R. - Big Titan & The Gladiator Mike Awesome & Ricky Fuji vs. Hiromichi Fuyuki & Jado & Gedo
Jado and Gedo now book NJPW while Fuyuki has passed away as has Gladiator. Fuji runs a gym and Titan would have a career low in a few years after this as the fake Razor Ramon. This was set up likely with FMW and WAR working together to build up the Tenryu/Onita main event.

Big Titan sizes up Gedo

"We gonna kick you ass then get out of here." - Ricky Fuji

Gedo - Fuyuki - Jado

Mike Awesome pinned Gedo after two powerbombs. This was a fun match. It was clipped and had a lot of little guys getting destroyed by the bigger guys. They really took a whopping and the crowds popped big for Fuyuki. Not a super great match by any means but I did enjoy it and it was basically a long squash. Awesome was the man here with his awesome frogsplash and tope. My only complaint is that they were a bit rough on Jado and Gedo and Awesome was literally yelling out spots and moves. Rating:***

Terry Funk vs The Shiek
Hey, a match where Terry Funk isn't the oldest guy in the ring!

"Shiek! Shiek!" - Terry Funk

Terry Funk won by KO in 5:56. He got burnt then threw something in Shiek's face and won. This was a wild brawl with Shiek not taking one bump. Terry sold like only he can which was absolutely awesome. No one sells like the Funker. He also bled all over the place and really made this one fun. While I wouldn't want to see this regularly, as a one-time legends brawl, it definitely worked. Shiek also didn't get overexposed at all due to the length. Funk got into with Sabu after and got his hand burnt.

Terry then went wild after and climbed the dugout fence.

Part 2 of my review is here: http://prowresblog.blogspot.com/2014/12/fmw-5th-anniversary-show-551994_22.html