BurningHamster

1995. Onita was always the star in the early days but they started building up Hayabusa in preparation for Onita's retirement in mid 1995. Hayabusa jobbed to Onita in the main event retirement not-quite-passing-the-torch match and from then until his neck injury was pretty much the star of FMW.

This sounds like a reasonable enough explanation but doesn't the entertainment industry itself come with it's own set of rules and regulations? Also, does anyone remember when I think it was Raven was trying to take WWE to court over the status of it's wrestlers being deemed "contractors" rather than employees. Does anyone know what happened with that if anything? Because it all just seems like the further WWE tries to move away from being a wrestling company and legitimize themselves within the entertainment industry the more likely it is the way they deal with talent will have to change.

Good look, boring to watch, has stereotypical ****y black wrestler act down, not much else going for him. Has WWE written all over him.

Personally I loved it. Screw the haters, Cena is the truth, kids love him, he wears purple. The Rock is a hateful D-grade actor whose schtick is 10 years out of date and his delivery is nowhere near as sharp or precise as it used to be. He needs to learn a thing or two about hustle, loyalty and respect!!!

Awesome show, I love Karl Pilkington but I am not sure if he is really dense so much as well ... just has a different way of looking at things. He can be quite inciteful in his own little way at times.

Last time you checked they probably were, I have not watched anything they've done in years but originally Dragon Gate "spotfests" had flow, smoothness, a seamless series of transitions and counters between moves at a beautiful pace which was only possible due to using workers only trained within that system and style of wrestling, as soon as they started bringing in foreigners and too much outside talent they lost what made them special. To put it in TEW terms it was like having a whole promotion where almost everyone had good chemistry with almost everyone else. Jack Evans was a major part in bringing that to a halt because his spots were so contrived, over the top and required far too much assistance to be able to work within the confines of the style. Teddy Hart worked his high flying into matches much better (which is a scary thought) plus had the advantage of being completely bat feces insane which was entertaining on many levels. It's one of my biggest disappointments in wrestling that his H2 Wrestling promotion never ran a show because that would have been superb if only because I wanted to know what "The Alienist" Alex Shelley gimmick was all about since the thought of a wrestler who is an expert on the legal aspects of mental illness seems bizarre. But, I am going way off topic now. Matt Cross, eh, lacks the insanity but I'd take him over Evans. Nothing he's done has ever bothered me hugely and he's athletic in a less annoying way.

If you feel like booking me a holiday or two at the production company's expense I'd appreciate it. It's not like there's likely to be a line producer or anyone who keeps track of where the money goes. I'm interested to see how this one turns out and how it was all filmed. I had to do a safety film for a mining company once (yeah, one of those real exciting induction video type things) and by god it was a nightmare. Cameras and damp, dark underground locations don't really get along so well so kudos to the crew for producing this one, though I imagine they were smart and spent most of their time above ground.

Oh man, you guys suck. Teddy Hart is so much better than fricken Jack Evans. Jack Evans run in Dragon Gate single handedly put me off that promotion for life and I will never forgive him for that. Seeing all those wrestlers I loved since I first saw Toryumon scrambling to make one of Evans' moronic spots work just made me sick. Die Jack Evans you annoying little toolbag, die die die die die! Okay, now that's out of my system let me just say that the Matt Cross hate baffles me almost as much as the Johnny Gargano love. What's the big deal with him? I ain't seeing it.

Sounds worth a look, I far prefer a reality show with some level of reality to it. What was your role in all of this, Remi?

You can have him, no seriously. You could probably get that schlub to wrestle in your living room. God I hated Maven. Not the biggest Matt Cross fan but he's alright.

It's a fricken combat sport, it's not like I can just say I hope he gets punched in the face because that means nothing to these guys. Quit being such a carebear

What are they going to do? Sue TV Week for defamation for saying that the WWE is a wrestling company? Ridiculous, not just for the obvious reasons but also to think they can tell a publication how to write their headlines.

I might be alone in this, but I cannot wait to see someone beat Jones. It's not that I dislike him as a fighter, but the amount of buttkissing from the announcers made me want to see him get his skull fractured just to shut them up. Seriously don't know what can be done about his speed and reach advantage though, maybe if someone took out one of his legs early but that is easier said than done. Not sure what you guys are whining about, I thought the undercard was pretty decent throughout and had a fair bit more viciousness than usual.

Story of the F stuff is pretty standard, bit of a mix of stuff but if I recall (been a while since I watched it) it's mostly bits and pieces from different shows. The White Love tape is similar, from 98 I think, pretty standard stuff of that time. If you want later (more entertainment era stuff) then maybe Backdraft or something. Thing is, if someone wants to know what FMW was about, I would almost always insist they watch a show from the early period when Onita was in his prime, a mid period one (mid 90s, Hayabusa Kudo) and a late period one (2000ish) when it was very American influenced. Oh and Linsolv, check your PMs

It's not like every single major FMW show was some kind of big bloodbath filled with hot feuds or anything, quite the opposite much of the time. But approaching FMW like it's TNA makes zero sense, much like TNA's product in general

It depends what era of FMW you are going for really. Their late entertainment era stuff was different from their middle period which in turn was different from their early period in terms of matches, the level of violence, the kinds of workers and the focus of the promotion. Also, since FMW was not really the most TV friendly promotion, most of their "middle of the road" shows would have been the shows than ran on tour which generally don't seem to be available in complete form.

Maybe she can get punched in the head again. By Everone on the roster.

And according to Paul London she is hot and 25 years old.

Yeah, I was mostly joking (mostly because there are times when I think a UFC match needs a few knees to the head to make things more interesting) but in general yeah, they are a bit much. I once kneed a guy in the head by accident while playing football and good lord did his face look a mess

Damn commission always trying to hold a playa down.

Yeah, I agree with most of this. It was a pretty good show from top to bottom and was something different compared to most recent UFC shows. Ebersole was awesome, really fun fighter who was entertaining as all hell. Bisping's illegal knee was weird but at least it was something different and it kind of made me wonder why shots like that are illegal when they would be so gosh darn effective. Main event results was disappointing, Fitch deserved the win quite clearly in my book. Not my favourite style of fighter but he was all over Penn. Didn't mind seeing Siver win either since I don't really like Sotiropolous as being the guy UFC was trying to set up as their number 1 Australian fighter. Siver's balance was unbelievable.

I would disagree so strongly it may involve violence I don't think I have seen anyone's ringwork suffer MORE than Rey's. The guy is a shadow of a shell of his former self and if I never saw him wrestle again it wouldn't bother me, which, when you consider he was possibly my favourite guy ever at one point speaks volumes as to how far he's fallen. The dude's knees prevent him doing anything, he's become pretty slow, he only does maybe 3 moves over and over again in every match and he is nowhere near as flashy, exciting or creative as he once was. And he is even worse live.

For the record, I agree with Mr. Hilton. I really don't see any lucha influence in the WWE, Del Rio is pretty much working a regular US entertainment style, Rey hasn't been a lucha style worker in forever and the overall style, atmosphere, presentation etc of the WWE is pretty far removed from Lucha in my opinion.

If you haven't seen it already track down the super bloody Mutah/Hase match from 1992. It's violence done right and something every wrestling fan should see.

I also remember a story from a few years ago when McMahon passed a monitor backstage, saw Kacey James on TV for a few minutes, figured he was one of the local job guys and said "Hire that man!" not realizing he already worked for them. To be fair though, I can fully understand McMahon not paying huge amounts of attention and leaving a lot of the booking and day to day stuff to other people and instead focusing on the overall direction of the company.