Dark Side Of The Ring - Blood & Wire: Onita’s FMW FULL RECAP
This week, it’s the epic rise and tragic fall of FMW, a pioneering Japanese promotion infamous for its grand spectacles of violence. Read the full recap of Dark Side of the Ring’s Blood & Wire: Onita’s FMW episode.
The Intro
Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW) was founded in 1989 by revolutionary pioneer, Atsushi Onita.
Mick Foley describes Onita and his promotion as pioneers and noted they took it to a whole other level compared to WWF and WCW, which were fairly tame and watered down in the late ’80s, early ‘90s.
Sabu noted that Onita would bleed to death every night.
Ricky Fuji stated that other wrestlers have more good moves, or a nice body or something. But Onita has something inside. Like a fighting spirit.
By putting his roster of talent in increasingly dangerous situations, Onita filled stadiums with die-hard fans and became a global icon of hardcore wrestling.
Mick pointed out that as much as they were known for their brutality, it was really the imagination that made FMW click.
Jericho points out the no rope barb-wired match, exploding ropes, exploding rings and the electrified pool. It just got crazier with every match and event.
Terry Funk jokingly says you’ve got to be nuttier than a fruit cake to get into one of those matches.
FMW’s meteoric rise was followed by an equally spectacular crash that left their top star (Hayabusa) paralyzed and their new CEO dead. Some, place the downfall of the promotion on their founder, who sacrificed everything for fame and fortune.
The Episode
Atsushi Onita, founder of FMW makes his first introduction by stating his name and saying, “Nice to meet you.”
He mentions there was a comic book called Giant Typhoon, based on Giant Baba. When he read it he thought, Wow! Pro wrestling is awesome. He thought how amazing that a Japanese person can fight in Madison Square Garden. He thought pro wrestling is it! The only way for him to see the world.
Japan’s vibrant wrestling culture was popularized by Giant Baba’s All Japan Pro Wrestling and Antonio Inoki’s New Japan Pro Wrestling. Both championed an authentic hard-hitting style. When Dory and Terry Funk came over to perform, their over-the-top Western personas captivated Japanese audiences.
Onita points out how Dory and Terry were extremely popular in Japan back then. They were adored.
Terry Funk, who makes his official introduction said that for someone reason the people took to him.
Meaner than a rattlesnake, tougher than shoe leather, middle-aged and crazy, crazy like a fox. You know who that is, asked Terry. “That is me. The best there ever was and the best there ever will be, Terry Funk.”
Chris Jericho brings up how Terry Funk was one of the most respected wrestlers in Japanese history. He worked All Japan and New Japan as a top star and is known as an all-time great. Jericho worked two tours for FMW.
Onita started out in All Japan as more of a high flyer and a young disciple of Giant Baba. He came up through the Dojo system and would be sent to American to learn his craft and the style of the west.
Mick Foley makes his official introduction and provides some context that Japanese wrestlers would often be sent to the different wrestling territories to further learn their trade. Foley notes that he was the King of the Deathmatch and for a few years, the American Onita.
Onita would head to Amarillo, Texas because he idolized Terry Funk and wanted to be him. Terry joked, “What a horrible thing to want to be.”
Onita brought up how there was a community among wrestlers and they would talk amongst each other, so he trusted Terry the most.
Onita would arrive to see Terry with a broken leg that occurred in Puerto Rico when he refused to lose to an inferior wrestler and was taught a painful lesson by the performer.
Terry’s first impression of Onita is that he was nuts.
They both were lost in the other’s languages, but they got along. Terry was there for him and even bought him a used car.
When Onita recovered, he teamed up with fellow protege Masa Fuchi where they travelled to Memphis to face Eddie Gilbert and Ricky Morton. This was the infamous Tupelo Concession Stand Brawl.
Onita believes that the origin of hardcore wrestling for him was in Tennessee. He felt the audience got more into it than a normal wrestling match.
One time, the audience got too excited and a young woman kicked Onita in the face with her heels. This caused him to receive a huge gash and blood gushed from his nose. At that moment, he realized hardcore wrestling triggers people’s excitement.
Onita would make a return to All-Japan with a fresh mindset. On the cusp of main event stardom, a devastating freak injury occurred when he hopped out of the ring. When he landed, he saw a bone sticking out of his knee through the skin. His kneecap was shattered. Onita was informed that there would be no coming back. He was totally lost and couldn’t see which way to go.
The injury permanently hindered Onita’s athleticism, which destroyed his dreams of becoming a high-flying star.
Chris Jericho points out that Onita created something that had never been done before.
After years of working odd jobs, Onita’s thirst for stardom drove him to device a bold stunt. He publically challenged real-life Karate champion Masashi Aoyagi. This pitted a wrestler against a martial artist.
Onita notes that to bring people in, you need some kind of attraction. Rather than just a match, the fans started clashing with each other in the stands. This chaos made pro wrestling compelling.
The rivalry between these two drew massive crowds and tons of attention while also providing Onita with confidence that FMW could work.
By the time Onita claimed victory in their final bout, his Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling promotion was officially born.
Mick Foley believes that FMW provided audiences with a full course meal since they featured technical wrestlers, high-flyers, incredible women, but the hallmark was always blood and guts. It was a buffet of brutality.
People got bored with one thing, an important thing to remember in entertainment is to always push further, says Onita.
Foley notes that the thinking of replacing ropes with barbed wire is that the audience always comes first.
When Onita was a kid, he went into a place that had barbed wire and he got hurt, so he learned that it was scary. He figured the audience watching would have the same impression.
When asked to describe a typical FMW hardcore match, Terry Funk would say, “A lot of guys that would go to no end to self-annihilation of their bodies to have a better match than the opposition did.”
When barbed wire wasn’t enough, they rigged up electrical shocks to it. Foley notes, “This was insane".
Things that Baba or Inoki wouldn’t think of doing, Onita definitely wanted to do.
To compete with All-Japan and New Japan, FMW matches featured increasingly dangerous stunts that resulted in legitimate bloodshed.
Mick was at an FMW show where one of the female wrestlers got hit with a fireball and the fabric was burnt into her skin. As he was getting ready for his match, he overheard otherworldly sounds of suffering, with tears streaming down her face. It was a steep price to pay and he had to block that out of his mind and go about with his main event match.
FMW’s roster included Tarzan Goto, Mr. Pogo, Masato Tanaka and The Gladiator (Mike Awesome).
Ricky Fuji gets introduced and notes that people in the crowd would be treated to bloody wrestlers fighting right beside them. This got attendees excited.
Fuji had spent some time in Calgary and was able to bring some guys over to FMW, which included Lance Storm and Chris Jericho. In fact, Jericho’s first appearance was in the main event, which was hilarious to him since he was merely 20 years old. He faced a karate expert to kicked the shit out of him, hitting Chris as hard as he possibly could.
Sabu was never invited, but it was complete luck. He appeared in FMW for three years, New Japan for a year and independents the rest of his life. His uncle was The Shiek, who he described as a nice guy and a mean guy. Whenever The Shiek and Abdullah the Butcher were in Japan, it was Onita and Tarzan Goto who would take care of them. Fast forward 20 years later and it was Onita called The Shiek and invited him to a tag-team tournament. Onita noted, bring anyone you want and The Shiek brought with him his nephew, Sabu.
When asked what it’s like to work with barbed wire, Sabu notes that it sucks. He was taken to the hospital in his first barbed wire match and received stitches all evening. Following this experience, he taped his cuts as receiving stitches took too long. This would be the origin of his scars.
Mick Foley jokes that the scars Sabu has all over his body, makes him look like a pre-schooler in comparison.
While many put their bodies on the line, no one could connect to the audience quite like Onita. The audience could feel his pain.
Onita notes that every day he would spill his blood and it was rough.
Jericho points out how the conclusion of an Onita match would essentially be him crying in front of the fans. He had given it his all and the fans stood behind him. Joan Jett’s Wild Thing would play as he poured water over his head and cry.
Ricky Fuji jokes that Onita would be carted off into an ambulance and already thinking about what’s next.
Using explosions, matches at the harbour, fights in pools and such, those were all Onita’s ideas.
Mick Foley believed there was a reasonably good chance Onita was going to die in that ring.
Onita and Tarzan Goto vs Sabu and the Shiek (65 years old at the time) from FMW in 1992 went terribly wrong. The barbed wire ropes were lit on fire with Sabu noting it got way too hot, way too fast. The flames kept getting higher and they were losing air in the ring. Sabu got out of the ring and threw a bucket of water then Tarzan Goto got out. Onita managed to escape, but regrets to say that only The Shiek missed his chance to escape. They couldn’t help Shiek as he was left behind. He was surrounded by fire and it was impossible to rescue him. Eventually, Shiek made it out but had burns to 60% of his body. The fight continued outside of the ring and when Sabu threw water on The Shiek’s back, the skin came off.
Sabu was mostly just angry that the plan was poor, but wasn’t angry at Onita.
Onita started as a scrappy underdog but soon became the king and was treated as such.
Onita admits that his success had side effects and that’s due to getting a big head. He got himself a four-bedroom house, owned five cars and during the peak of his success, he was making about two million a year.
Not only was the money gained from FMW, but also by lines with the underworld known as the Yakuza, the Japanese mob.
Terry points out how the Yakuza were in control of the arenas. Jericho notes it was almost a money-laundering scheme, holding shows the mafia would kind of sponsor and put on.
Mick would go out to dinner at times with “sponsors” and many of these individuals were missing their pinky fingers because of the line of business they were in. He wasn’t comfortable with it but accepted it was part of the scene.
Sabu and others were instructed to avoid a certain section because it was the mafia section. There would be 10 people there and 50 chairs empty. Sabu recalls a time he went by time and got knocked into the crowd. Rather than move, the mafia just stood there. After the match, they chased him down in the locker room and repeatedly kicked him on the ground. Mike Awesome intervened and started throwing mafia members off of Sabu. Ultimately, Mike saved his life.
In four short years, Onita overcame his injury to build a successful promotion that rivalled his competitors.
To celebrate, Onita invited Terry Funk, his mentor from America, to participate in FMW’s most spectacular stunt to date, an exploding ring deathmatch.
The first time Terry Funk came to FMW, Onita wanted to show him their success wasn’t about money. Onita wanted Terry to hear from a lot of people that he and his promotion were a success. Funk recalls a stadium of 30 - 40,000 fans packed in a stadium.
When asked if he knew where the explosives were located, Terry said, “Hell no.”
Onita described the feeling, “I felt like, I am God.”
Chris Jericho describes that the siren starts going off and at the end of the time clock, the ring will explode. Onita would pick up the victory and leave the ring. As he realizes that his mentor is left the ring, Onita dives back in and tries to wake Funk up, but can’t. Instead, Onita shields Terry Funk was his body. Explosions and fireworks go off and with all the smoke, no one can see anything in the ring. Jericho described this as the greatest babyface act he’s ever seen in his life.
Jericho points out that what FMW did the best was to create a spectacle. Funk survives as he walks out holding Onita, which the two of them crying. Chris believes this was a 5-star match just matched on the drama alone since you were hooked into it. He hails Onita as a genius.
When asked what he was paid for that match, Terry Funk says, “Hell no, I wouldn’t say I was paid. I never saw Onita after a match either until I came back the next time. I think he ran and hid.”
At the time, Onita was one of the most popular wrestlers and entertainers in the country and crossed over in pop culture on talk shows, singing shows and game shows.
In just five short years of creating FMW, Onita would announce his retirement in 1994, which came as a shock to his fans.
Onita would continue to main event for a full year as a groomed a proper successor to his spot, Hayabusa.
Mick notes that Hayabusa was the heir apparent to Onita. Hayabusa was elegant, but also willing to enter the realm of hardcore too.
Chris Jericho works with Hayabusa (Eiji Ezaki) quite a bit. In fact, Jericho’s second tour in 1992 featured a match against Ezaki.
Ayabe Ezaki, daughter of Hayabusa, notes that her father didn’t start off with a body for wrestling, but put in the work to create one. He mentions her father was an exceptional person, who did what he wanted and fit in with the hardcore wrestling group.
At FMW’s 6th Anniversary Show in 1995, Onita faced Hayabusa in his retirement match. Onita felt bad for Hayabusa since he was out of his element in a hardcore match.
Jericho speculates that since Onita was synonymous with FMW that his void would be impossible to fill.
Ring announcer Shoichi Arai would suddenly take on the reigns as CEO.
Arai really didn’t know what to do. Shoichi’s daughter Shell doesn’t know why her dad was trying to get into the company.
Terry Funk said excuse my language, but Onita gave jack shit to the ring announcer. He gave nothing to him.
When Onita ran FMW, there were packed arenas, but after he left, the promotion start running nearly empty arenas.
Just one year after his retirement, Onita unexpectedly returned to FMW to work for his former ring-announcer. This time, he desired to come back as a heel. Onita figured a clash between the old and the new FMW would be entertaining.
One of the producers asked Sabu, When Arai was running the company, he kinda wanted to move away from deathmatches, right? Sabu said, yes. The deathmatches only aired on specials because they were too violent. Arai hired veteran star Hiromichi Fuyuki to oversee the new creative direction. Fuyuki wanted to do some more entertainment-oriented matches. He had a belt called, World Entertainment Wrestling and the deathmatches were a thing of the past.
Arai arranged a meeting with Onita and Hiromichi Fuyuki, but lied. Instead, wrestlers lined up and asked Onita to quit. Arai wanted Onita to leave and then place Hayabusa on top to become the face of the company.
Therefore, Onita was kicked out of the promotion he created.
While Hayabusa struggled to draw the crowds of his predecessor, his athletic style was winning over new fans and realizing success for FMW. This was all up until tragedy struck on October 22, 2001. In a match against Mammoth Sasaki. Hayabusa attempted a springboard moonsault, but slipped on the ropes and fell directly on his forehead, breaking it and paralyzing him.
Ricky Fuji notes that if Hayabusa missed, he would always get back up, but not this time. He never got up. Fuji notes that Hayabusa was like a brother to him, so entered the ring and he was able to talk, but couldn’t move.
Sabu notes that he would have rather have died than become paralyzed as it was worse for a professional wrestler.
A somber Chris Jericho brings up how it was such a tragic accident to occur with such a great and talented individual who was destined to become a future legend. All the boxes that need to be checked, Hayabusa had them.
Hayabusa’s daughters shared that her father was depressed right after the injury. He couldn’t wrestle anymore and professional wrestling was the job he loved. He was worried about his future.
Mick Foley believes that the future of FMW went down with Hayabusa’s career. They never found anyone to replace him.
Hayabusa’s injury has set in motion a financial disaster. With no star attraction, Arai struggled to keep the promotion afloat.
Arai was borrowing money from loan sharks. Onita speculates that Arai was likely too proud to ask him for help.
Arai’s phone rang constantly, which also led to the divorce from his wife.
In Sabu’s final match, he didn’t get paid with Arai promising to send it to him Tragically, Arai killed himself the next day by hanging himself in a schoolyard.
Arai’s death triggered a life insurance payment, but it sadly wouldn’t be enough to cover his family’s newly inherited debt.
Onita doesn’t want to talk ill of the dead, but Arai failed in business.
Shell, Arai’s daughter, felt that perhaps Onita used her father and that Arai is gone because he was too pure.
Onita speculates that the shock of Arai’s family leaving is likely what led him to commit suicide and not the Yakuza or the loan sharks that killed him.
A decade later, FMW was briefly raised from the ashes in 2015 with Onita back in the ring and Hayabusa acting as an Executive Producer while in his wheelchair. Less than a year later, tragedy struck again when Hayabusa collapsed in his home and died at the age of 47.
Hayabusa’s daughter brings up how his dedication to pro wrestling was amazing. He never let his injury stop him from taking on new challenges. Even after he got injured, when he was going through rehab, Hayabusa kept a brave face.
Mick Foley brings up the moment in 2002 where Hayabusa walks again while considering it one of the most emotional moments you will ever see.
Mick considers FMW the wild, wild west of professional wrestling. If you could think it, you could do it. The spectacle always came first and is a big part of wrestling history that is still borrowed from.
Onita believes that he created real hardcore wrestling and that he spread it around the world.
What Sabu learned in FMW, he brought to ECW.
Producers asked Terry, “If you could say anything to Onita right now, what would you say?” Terry flipped his middle fingers. “Is there any reason you want to flip him off?” Terry smiles and says, “No, I love him.”
Onita concludes the episode by saying, “Hulk Hogan is Hulk Hogan and no one can replace him. Antonio Inoki is Antonio Inoki. Giant Baba is Giant Baba. Onita Atsushi can only be Onitai Atsushi. One generation, no successor.