Footloose was a

professional wrestling Professional wrestling is a form of theater that revolves around staged wrestling matches. The mock combat is performed in a ring similar to the kind used in boxing, and the dramatic aspects of pro wrestling may be performed both in the ring or ...

tag team Tag team wrestling is a type of professional wrestling in which matches are contested between teams of multiple wrestlers. Tag teams may be made up of wrestlers who normally wrestle in singles competition, but more commonly are made of establish ...

consisting of

Toshiaki Kawada (born December 8, 1963) is a Japanese semi-retired professional wrestler best known for his work in All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW), whom he worked for from his debut in 1982 up until 2008. In All Japan, he was a 5 time Triple Crown Heavyweight ...

and Ricky/Samson Fuyuki.

Career

Toshiaki Kawada and Samson Fuyuki started teaming up in 1985, while on an excursion in San Antonio, wrestling for

Texas All-Star Wrestling Texas All-Star Wrestling (TASW) is a professional wrestling promotion that was established by Bob Murphy in Humble, Texas in 1994. It is the oldest independent promotion in the state of Texas and one of three based in the Greater Houston area a ...

. Kawada and Fuyuki, who by then went under the name Ricky Fuyuki, went under the team name Japanese Force and they feuded with American Force ( Paul Diamond and Shawn Michaels). They were managed by Gary Hart. In 1987, Kawada and Fuyuki, now going by the name Samson Fuyuki, joined Genichiro Tenryu's

Revolution In political science, a revolution (Latin: ''revolutio'', "a turn around") is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolts against the government, typically due ...

. In January 1988, they began wearing matching ring attire and named their team Footloose. On March 9, 1988, Footloose won the

All Asia Tag Team Championship The is a professional wrestling tag team title in Japanese promotion All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW). It was created on November 16, 1955, in the Japan Wrestling Association (JWA) when King Kong Czaya and Tiger Joginder Singh defeated JWA fou ...

, defeating Mighty Inoue and

Takashi Ishikawa is a former professional wrestler and sumo wrestler from Fujishima, Higashitagawa District, Yamagata Prefecture, Japan. Sumo wrestling career He played baseball up to junior high school, but at Sakata Minami High School he switched to sumo an ...

. They would hold the titles for exactly six months before losing the belts to Shinichi Nakano and Shunji Takano on September 9, 1988. However, Footloose rebounded by defeating Nakano and Takano to reclaim the titles six days later, on September 15, 1988. After the feud with Nakano and Takano died down, Footloose went into a heated rivalry with The Can-Am Express (

Doug Furnas Dwight Douglas Furnas (December 11, 1959 – March 2, 2012) was an American professional wrestler and powerlifter. He was an APF National and World Powerlifting Champion, who set multiple world records in the 275 pound weight class. As a wrestler, ...

and

Dan Kroffat Daniel Kroffat (born June 14, 1945) is a Canadian retired professional wrestler. He is best known for his appearances with Stampede Wrestling in the 1960s and 1970s, where he invented the ladder match. Professional wrestling career Stampede ...

). On June 5, 1989, Furnas and Kroffat defeated them for the All Asia Tag Team titles. Four months later, on October 20, 1989, Footloose defeated the Express to win back the titles for the third time. Their third reign would be their last, before losing the titles back to the Express on March 2, 1990. Soon after the title loss in April 1990, Footloose disbanded, as Kawada would form a team with friend Tiger Mask II, who would later unmask, revealing himself as

Mitsuharu Misawa was a Japanese amateur and professional wrestler and promoter. He is primarily known for his time in All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW), and also for forming the Pro Wrestling Noah promotion in 2000. In the early 1990s, Misawa gained fame alongside ...

. Fuyuki followed Tenryu into the new

Super World of Sports Super World of Sports, more commonly known as SWS, was a Japanese professional wrestling promotion from 1990 to 1992. Its motto was "Straight and Strong". History Formation In April 1990, Genichiro Tenryu, one of the top stars of All Japan Pro Wr ...

promotion. On October 27, 2001, Kawada defeated Fuyuki in a singles match in AJPW.

The New Footloose

In 1998, Samson (now Kodo) Fuyuki formed The New Footloose with

Yukihiro 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 Jap ...

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 f ...

Championships and accomplishments

All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW/AJP) or simply All Japan is a Japanese professional wrestling promotion established on October 21, 1972 when Giant Baba split away from the Japanese Wrestling Association and created his own promotion. Many wrestlers had left with Baba ...

( 3 times) {{FMW Brass Knuckles Tag Team Championship All Japan Pro Wrestling teams and stables Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling teams and stables