|
Entertainment Wrestling Live
FMW 9th Anniversary Show: Entertainment Wrestling Live was the first professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW). The event took place on April 30, 1998, at the Yokohama Cultural Gymnasium in Yokohama, Japan. This was the first FMW event to be broadcast on pay-per-view via DirecTV. The event commemorated the ninth anniversary of FMW and was the first to be broadcast on pay-per-view. There were two main event matches on the card. In the first main event, Mr. Gannosuke defended the FMW Double Championship (the unification of the FMW Brass Knuckles Heavyweight Championship and the FMW Independent Heavyweight Championship) against Hayabusa, who earned the title shot by winning a tournament. Hayabusa defeated Gannosuke to win the title. The second main event on the card featured Kodo Fuyuki defeating Atsushi Onita, the leader of ZEN in a match which stipulated that if Onita lost then ZEN must disband. Background Production FMW sign ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling
Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling is a Japanese professional wrestling promotion founded on July 28, 1989, by Atsushi Onita as (FMW). The promotion specializes in hardcore wrestling involving weapons such as barbed wire and fire. They held their first show on October 6, 1989. In the late 1990s, FMW had a brief working agreement with Extreme Championship Wrestling, and as well had 14 DVDs released in the U.S. by Tokyopop. On March 4, 2015, FMW was resurrected under the name . With the resurrected FMW not holding any events since 2018, Onita announced in 2021 that he would be starting Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling-Explosion in which the promotion would specialize in exploding death matches. The promotion was highlighted in the third season of the Vice TV's pro wrestling docuseries ''Dark Side of the Ring'' in September 2021. History FMW under Atsushi Onita (1989–1995) The Atsushi Onita era of FMW originally consisted of a promotion that featured not only professional wrestling ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
ZEN (professional Wrestling)
ZEN was a professional wrestling stable in Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW). The group was led by former FMW owner and the company's founder Atsushi Onita from late 1997 to mid 1998 and the group was based on World Championship Wrestling's New World Order (nWo). The group produced its own shows in collaboration with FMW like nWo promoted its own pay-per-view nWo Souled Out. Upon its formation, the group immediately wiped out W*ING Alliance and Funk Masters of Wrestling that had been dominating FMW for the past few years and was the lead villainous group formed by the unofficial merger of both factions. Their dominance ended when Mr. Gannosuke, Yukihiro Kanemura and Hido turned on Onita after Onita lost a WarGames match to Hayabusa. The trio formed Team No Respect and ZEN turned fan favorites and feuded with TNR. The group was forced to disband after Onita lost to Kodo Fuyuki and the group disbanded on May 5, 1998. History Feud with FMW Atsushi Onita had been feuding with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Koji Nakagawa
is a Japanese semi-retired professional wrestler best known for his work in Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW) between 1992 and 2002. He is perhaps best known for his “Hitman” character, heavily inspired by Canadian professional wrestler Bret Hart. Nakagawa also wrestled as Goemon between 2000 and 2002, a dark thief character that was eventually killed and turned into a ghost in storyline. Professional wrestling career Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling Early years (1992–1994) An amateur wrestler in his scholastic years, Nakagawa debuted for Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW) on March 20, 1992 in a losing effort against Eiji Ezaki. After two months in the lower card, he wrestled his very first main event match by teaming with Atsushi Onita to defeat Sambo Asako and Mr. Gannosuke in a tag team match on May 31. As a rookie, he was utilized in opening matches against fellow rookies during the early years of his career and would often put over major stars. The first win ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hisakatsu Oya
Kenichi Oya (大矢健一) (born July 2, 1964) is a semi-retired Japanese professional wrestler, better known by his ring name Hisakatsu Oya (大矢剛功). Although he started out for New Japan Pro-Wrestling, he is well known for his stint in Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling. Career New Japan Pro-Wrestling (1986–1989) Kenichi Oya trained at the NJPW Dojo. He made his wrestling debut in April 1986, against Masahiro Chono. During his tenure in New Japan, Oya also teamed with the likes of Kensuke Sasaki and Osamu Matsuda. However, due to injuries, he retired in 1989. Super World of Sports (1990–1992) After a hiatus, Oya joined Super World of Sports in July 1990. Oya would not only wrestle his fellow SWS comrades, he would also wrestle against stars from the World Wrestling Federation as well. In January 1992, he teamed up with Kendo Nagasaki for a tournament to determine the first SWS Tag Team Champions, which was won by Yoshiaki Yatsu and Haku. In June 1992, SWS shut down. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jado
(born September 28, 1968) is a Japanese professional wrestler, better known by the ring name . He is best known for his work in New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) as part of a tag team with his partner Gedo. Jado and Gedo's careers have largely paralleled each other, except for a brief period Jado spent in Universal Lucha Libre in 1993, a stint in Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW) in 1997 where they were on opposing sides, and Jado not having emulated Gedo's tour of North America with World Championship Wrestling. The World Class Tag team has held numerous championships in wrestling, including NJPW's IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship, the Universal Wrestling Association's UWA/UWF Intercontinental Tag Team Title, and Dragon Gate's International Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship, as well as having won NJPW's Super J Tag League once. Jado and Gedo are co-head bookers of NJPW. Professional wrestling career Early career Under his real name, Akiyoshi debuted for F ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kouhiro Kanemura
( ko, 김행호 ''Kim Hyeong-ho'') (born August 9, 1970) is a Zainichi-Korean retired professional wrestler, better known by the ring name . He is also known as W*ING Kanemura or . He is best known for his death matches in Apache Army, Big Japan Pro Wrestling (BJW), Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW), Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW), International Wrestling Association (IWA) and Wrestling International New Generations (W*ING). After beginning his career in the Japanese independent circuit in 1990, Kanemura joined W*ING in 1991 where he got his first mainstream exposure in professional wrestling and became skilled in deathmatch wrestling style as he participated in many notable deathmatches in the promotion, becoming one of the top stars of W*ING and became a one-time Caribbean Heavyweight Champion, one-time Pacific Northwest Heavyweight Champion and one-time World Tag Team Champion. He then worked briefly for IWA Japan after W*ING folded in 1994 before ultimatel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mike Awesome
Michael Lee Alfonso (January 24, 1965 – February 17, 2007) was an American professional wrestler. He was best known for his appearances with the American professional wrestling promotions Extreme Championship Wrestling, World Championship Wrestling and the World Wrestling Federation/Entertainment under the ring name Mike Awesome and for his appearances in Japan with Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling and All Japan Pro Wrestling as The Gladiator. Alfonso achieved the biggest success of his career in FMW as The Gladiator, where he became a three-time world champion, with two reigns as Brass Knuckles Heavyweight Champion and one reign as Independent Heavyweight Champion. His second Brass Knuckles Heavyweight Championship reign from 1996–1997 was the longest reign in the title's history, lasting for 489 days. During this reign, he defeated W*ING Kanemura to unify the title with the Independent Heavyweight Championship at the 1996 Year End Spectacular. He would then tour wit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Professional Wrestling Tournament
On various occasions in professional wrestling, a single-elimination tournament of varying match types are held, often to determine a championship or number-one contendership therein. It has been known for promotions to use title tournament that are fictitious in nature (that is, the title may have been simply awarded under the pretext of winning a tournament elsewhere) - notable ones include the tournaments that established the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, the WWE Intercontinental Championship, and the WWE United States Championship (the latter when it was the NWA United States Championship). In tournaments with a fixed bracket, a multiple-disqualification or a multiple-countout eliminates all parties involved, and those who are slated to face the winner of such a match simply partakes in a match with one less opponent (or simply does not wrestle, if no opponents remain). Tournaments, however, rarely have a final match where only one such finalist remain, with no others qua ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Masato Tanaka
is a Japanese professional wrestler, best known for his appearances with Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW) in Japan where he was a one-time FMW Brass Knuckles Heavyweight Champion and a one-time WEW World Heavyweight Champion and in Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) in the United States where he was a one-time ECW World Heavyweight Champion. He is currently splitting his time wrestling for both Pro Wrestling Noah (Noah) and Pro Wrestling Zero1 (Zero1). He is overall a ten-time world champion in major professional wrestling promotions. Professional wrestling career Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (1993–1999) Originally a trainee for George and Shunji Takano's Pro Wrestling Crusaders (Crusaders), Tanaka transferred to Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW), where he trained under Atsushi Onita. Tanaka debuted on July 23, 1993 in Saga City, facing Ricky Fuji. He quickly began moving up the card in FMW, widely regarded as the top hardcore professional wrestling promot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lucha Libre
Lucha libre (, meaning "freestyle wrestling" or literally translated as "free fight") is the term used in Latin America for professional wrestling. Since its introduction to Mexico in the early 20th century, it has developed into a unique form of the genre, characterized by colorful masks, rapid sequences of holds and maneuvers, and "high-flying" maneuvers, some of which have been adopted in the United States, Japan, and elsewhere. The wearing of masks has developed special significance, and matches are sometimes contested in which the loser must permanently remove his mask, which is a wager with a high degree of weight attached. Tag team wrestling is especially prevalent in lucha libre, particularly matches with three-member teams, called ''trios''. Although the term today refers exclusively to professional wrestling (staged performances with predetermined outcomes), it was originally used in the same style as the American and English term "freestyle wrestling", referring to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
International Wrestling Association Of Japan
The International Wrestling Association of Japan, more commonly known as IWA Japan, was a Japanese professional wrestling promotion operating from 1994 to 2004 and again from 2010 to 2014. It was formed by Víctor Quiñones as a successor to the W*ING promotion, which was folding at the time as a rival to Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW), the pioneer of deathmatch wrestling in Japan and the only deathmatch promotion in Japan at the time. Most of the wrestlers jumped ship to Quiñones' new IWA Japan group. He found a sponsor in Tatsukuni "Kinroku" Asano, a business man who owned several restaurants in Tokyo and had bought and run several wrestling shows prior to IWA Japan. Opening stage They had their first show in Yokosuka, Kanagawa on May 21, 1994 which was taped for television. The early shows often featured many ex-W*ING wrestlers like Yukihiro Kanemura, Shoji Nakamaki, Nobutaka Araya and The Headhunters. They also had fans to fill out questionnaires about the shows and som ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
