Talk about it here.

Aside from a couple of big highspots, this was really basic, snug, mat-based match, and reminded me of Mid South. FMW continues to be something that I really like on this set, and something I can see myself getting into more. I guess I'm semi-surprised that there was actual good wrestling at times alongside the brawling, or sometimes even mixed in with the brawling. I want to make a Steve Williams/Buzz Sawyer comparison, as this match reminded me of that one on the DVDVR set, but I don't remember that match standing out to most people for whatever reason, so instead I'll compare it to Murdoch/DiBiase (something I'm not a huge fan of, but a match where most people will get my point) with a few bigger highspots.

The feud with Mike Awesome always gets the most love but to me Kanemura was always Tanaka's best opponent hands down (Love the Awesome matches but I wouldn't even have him top 5 for fav oppoentns of Tanaka actually). They've had every kind of match you could imagine, from the craziest of brawls to mat based technical stuff like this and always delivered.

 

FMW continues to be something that I really like on this set, and something I can see myself getting into more.

You'd probably dig a lot of FMW stuff from about 95 thru 99

This was a pretty solid match live. I recall the card for three other things:

 

* TAKA has a really mediocre match against someone... so forgetable that I'd have to look up the opponent

 

* Terry-Pogo main event that was just awful, made worse by Pogo injuring himself

 

* after the card Funk in all seriousness telling us that Tanaka was better than the "All Japan Boys", my inability to choke down a laugh at that, and Dave having to talk Terry off that Ledge of Stupidity

 

One of my favorite "This is why what wrestlers think about work means nothing to me" moments.

 

John

This was a pretty solid match live. I recall the card for three other things:

 

* TAKA has a really mediocre match against someone... so forgetable that I'd have to look up the opponent

 

* Terry-Pogo main event that was just awful, made worse by Pogo injuring himself

 

* after the card Funk in all seriousness telling us that Tanaka was better than the "All Japan Boys", my inability to choke down a laugh at that, and Dave having to talk Terry off that Ledge of Stupidity

 

One of my favorite "This is why what wrestlers think about work means nothing to me" moments.

 

John

I knew John was gonna tell the infamous Terry Funk story.

Wasn't TAKA working with Nakagawa ? Or was that Hayabusa vs Nakagawa that went like 30 minutes and was pretty terrible ?

I like Terry telling Lano Stories over beers much better than Terry trying to pimp Tanaka and then realizing he was exagerating.

 

John

Decent match that went a way I didn't expect it to. Tanaka's Mullet is just great.

Tanaka isn't THAT good, but damned if he wouldn't look out of place in an AJPW setting the way he works here. This was really fundamentally sound on top of the big bombs, which surprises me even if I'm not sure that it should--if that makes sense. There's some good big vs. little psychology, some heel work by Kanemura, and good underdog selling by Tanaka, who keeps W*ING off guard with some cool roll-ups and reversals, not to mention the big rolling elbows. Really fun match, probably the best I've seen out of Kanemura.

 

Let the record show, years later, that Michinoku's opponent was Hayato Nanjo.

After seeing some the FMW from later years, this was a great intro to the style which would come to make FMW one of my favorite promotions overall. We have a fundamental style of wrestling that escalates into bombs with some weapons and blood mixed in. Fun stuff all around. ***1/4

I liked this match a good bit, more than some of the better regarded workrate-focused FMW matches from the 1999 set. These guys got into the action pretty quick and worked a lot of cool spots. Really well-executed match.