BAHU's FREEDOMS & FMW Misc. News 2018

Added: 12/27

Atsushi Onita held a Talk Event for fans on December 25, 2018 at the Shinjuku Loft. Onita spoke about his plans next year about his upcoming foreign tours. Onita stated that the plan next year is for a full scale overseas expansion. He stated that he will compete on a show in January for a UK promotion but the local promoters are aspiring to have a exploding death match for Onita and are struggling to find the right venues that is why the promotion has not announced Onita yet. Onita stated he will work on the April 5th show at Game Changer Wrestling in New York (really New Jersey) and told the crowd how even though the lineup for the show had not been announced that the show sold out the same day tickets went on sale showing the popularity of villains like him are in wrestling.

Besides that, oversea offers were flooded and he also confirmed he will be going to Mexico to compete as well. He also got a call from Australia and the promoters are visiting Japan next month and they will see if they can come to an agreement. Melbourne City Wrestling representatives will be going to Japan for the New Year and reached out to Onita about attending his next Talk Event on January 3rd which will be about Onita's relationship with Giant Baba. They got a response asking if Onita was over in Australia which they responded he was because of the hardcore wrestling scene over there and they will meet up with him to talk about him coming after the Talk Event on January 3rd. Onita stated that he did not belong to an organization and that individualism is important and that he is thinking about going around the world as an individual and taking the Japanese Explosion gimmick with him as he wants to blow up all over the world and spread hardcore wrestling to the fans because he is bad like that. Onita concluded that the dream he has is to promote a voluntary box office show in the US in the Summer of 2019 and do a big explosion match as he is currently talking to a US promoter about trying to make it happen. Onita concluded by stating that this would be the first of any kind as New Japan promotes overseas but Onita would be the first individual to promote in the United States and this would innovative.

Atsushi Onita's second match back from retirement would take place on December 2, 2018 at the Stardom Idols promotion at the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring announcing a crowd of 260 fans for the show. Stardom had ran earlier in the day so they already had a set of fans in the area for this show. The show was focused around a group of girls singing and dancing in the ring. This show was bad as Rossy Ogawa stated afterwards that he is thinking of having the next Stardom Idol show just be about the girls singing and dancing in the ring and to eliminate the wrestling. Ogawa who was a big FMW fan during the Onita era as well as the early Hayabusa era and reached out to me last year and told me he enjoyed my work showing that he still has a fondness for FMW. The main event was switched right before the show as Japanese Choreographer Lucky Ikeda who was originally going to be on the heel team switched over to the babyface side without an announcement to why giving the babyface side the man advantage in a handicap match. The match was Atsushi Onita, Lucky Ikeda in a Pandita mask going by the name the Angry Panda, Tomohiko Hashimoto, HASEGAWA, and Raiden taking on Tarzan Yamamoto, Kim Duk, NOSAWA Rongai, and Chainsaw Tony in a Barbed wire Street Fight Death Match with Onita going after former Pro-Wrestling Weekly Editor Tarzan Yamamoto at 72 years old as they would brawl in the crowd before Onita would bring him back in the ring with a table and piledrive Yamamoto through the table. Onita would then throw Yamamoto into the barbed wire board and Ikeda would cover Yamamoto to get the win at 13 minutes, 5 seconds in a very bad match. Onita afterwards would state how crazy Yamamoto was to be 72 years old and be willing to be piledriven through a table and thrown into a barbed wire board.

Atsushi Onita returned to the United States for the first time in 16 months to appear for the CZW Cage of Death 20 show at the former ECW Arena now 2300 Arena in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was the first time since June 1998 that Onita had been in the building. Onita was much happier with how his plane ticket situation was then the previous time. Onita took a Delta Flight from Tokyo to Detroit where he had a lay over for a couple of hours before flying in to Philadelphia on December 8th. Onita would team up with Matt Tremont on December 9, 2018 against the team of DJ Hyde and MASADA in a Scramble Bunkhouse Street
Fight Exploding Baseball Bat Death Match.

Atsushi Onita would go after MASADA right away by throwing his jacket at him followed by delivering a chair shot to him with Tremont following with a shot to Hyde's head. Onita would then grab a barbed wire bat and smash MASADA across the stomach with it. Onita and Tremont would then pick up MASADA and send him through a table without the table breaking. Onita would then spit red mist in Hyde's face followed by Tremont spitting the mist in Hyde's face as well. Onita would then throw Hyde through a table without the table breaking again. Onita would grab a chair and begin brawling Hyde outside with a chair. Onita and MASADA would meet up in the ring with Onita smashing a chair over his head. Tremont would then grab MASADA as Onita would grab a guitar and as he would go to swing it MASADA would move out of the way and Onita would smash the guitar over Tremont's head. MASADA would then grab the barbed wire bat and press it up against Onita's head which would result in Onita to begin blooding although it would be seen on camera Onita take a blood packet out of his mouth and place it over his face instead of actually using a blade. Onita would then pick up the blood packet on camera. MASADA would then take the skewers and begin driving it into Onita's head although not actually sticking in them to remain on Onita's forehead. MASADA would then throw Onita in the crowd which they were told they could not do as they would brawl for a little bit before making it back in the ring. MASADA and Onita would make it back in the ring when Tremont would come over and MASADA would shove the skewers in his forehead with them actually sticking to him. MASADA would then knee Tremont in the face as the blood would begin pouring down Tremont's head. Tremont and Hyde would then both grab a bat and swing at each other with both bats exploding with smoke still nothing like the exploding bats done in Japan. MASADA would then grab more skewers but as he was about to use them on Onita again, Onita would fight back and hit MASADA with the skewers before delivering a Piledriver on MASADA on a chair. Hyde would then hit Onita with a lariat with Onita kicking out. Hyde would then go over to Onita with Onita setting a fireball near Hyde's face and Tremont would hit Hyde in the head with a cinderblock and would cover Hyde at 13 minutes, 23 seconds to give the Onita and Tremont team the win. Onita would get on the mic and thank the crowd and tell the crowd that he was a death match legend and that Tremont was his death match brother and tell the crowd that they were his brother also as he would go to hug Tremont. Onita would then grab the mic and state that last time that Onita showed him Japanese Explosion Matches and that he would show the people a real explosion match.

FREEDOMS returned to Shin-Kiba 1st Ring on December 6, 2018 and announced a crowd of 208 fans for the show. This was to determine the number one contender for Masashi Takeda's King of Freedom World Championship on December 25th in a one night tournament. The opening match had Takashi Sasaki take on Tomoya Hirata in a Hardcore Match with Hirata climbing the top rope but Sasaki would throw a chair at him and then deliver a suplex to Hirata on a stack of chairs off the top rope before hitting a D-Geist on a stack of chairs to get the win at 10 minutes, 49 seconds to advance. Jun Kasai would take on Daisuke Masaoka in the other qualifying Hardcore Match and Kasai would end up winning the bloody match against Masaoka at 14 minutes, 30 seconds to advance. Non-tournament matches saw Gunso and Dragon Libre defeat Yuya Susumu and Shunsuke Sayama when Libre used a Cocalero at 10 minutes, 10 seconds to get the win over Sayama. GENTARO, Kenichiro Arai, and Chikara would defeat the Unchain team of Masashi Takeda, Kenji Fukimoto, and Minoru Fujita when GENTARO would pick up the win at 12 minutes, 39 seconds with a Japanese Leg Roll on Fukimoto for the win. Los Nomadas returned as Violento Jack, Miedo Extremo, and Ciclope defeat Mammoth Sasaki, Toru Sugiura, and Kamui in the semi-main event when Ciclope would pick up the win at 14 minute, 10 seconds with a Frog Splash. The main event saw Jun Kasai take on Takashi Sasaki in a Fluorescent Light Tubes Death Match with the winner getting a shot Takeda's title. Sasaki would take a stack of light tubes and begin kicking them across Kasai's body before eventually Kasai would move out of the way and Sasaki would miss a kick allowing Kasai free to deliver a German Suplex followed by a clothesline to Sasaki. Kasai would then hit a Pearl Harbor Splash on a stack of light tubes but Sasaki would manage to kick out. Kasai would then hit a Modified Piledriver on the stack of light tubes to pick up the win over Sasaki at 15 minutes, 29 seconds to challenge for the King of Freedom Title at Bloody Christmas. Takeda would come out afterwards with the belt as Kasai would get on the mic and cut a promo stating that he was going to win the King of Freedom World Championship once again from Takeda and get revenge on him for losing to him back in August.

FREEDOMS would run on December 16, 2018 at the Osaka Oyodo Community Center drawing an announced 248 fans for the show. The main event would be a Japanese-Mexico Weapons Death Match between Jun Kasai and Kenji Fukimoto going up against Violento Jack and Miedo Extremo. Daisuke Masaoka would end up interfering on behalf of Los Nomadas as he would attempt to deliver a Rokkura Kai on Fukimoto with Jack holding him but Fukimoto would end up moving out og the way resulting in Masaoka hitting the Rokkura Kai on Jack. Kasai would then clothesline Masaoka and deliver a Pearl Harbor Splash on Extremo followed by Fukimoto finishing off Extremo at 16 minutes, 26 seconds with a Package Piledriver. The semi-main event would be Daisuke Masaoka and Ciclope teaming up against Mammoth Sasaki and Toru Sugiura as Ciclope would be in the match a majority of the time for his team first by delivering a Shining Wizard to Sugiura but Mammoth would end up throwing Ciclope out of the ring and then deliver a dive off the apron outside and crash into both Ciclope and Masaoka. Mammoth would then pick up Sugiura and drop him on Ciclope and make the cover when Masaoka would rush in the ring and attack the referee with a chair. Masaoka would then begin attacking Mammoth and Sugiura with the chair as the referee would DQ Masaoka at 16 minutes, 5 seconds to give Mammoth and Sugiura the win although after Mammoth and Sugiura would exit the ring to get away from Masaoka that would lead Ciclope to dive outside the ring onto Mammoth and Sugiura. Masashi Takeda and Gunso would defeat Kamui and Shota Nakagawa in a Hardcore Match after Takeda would deliver a Swanton Bomb off a ladder followed by finishing off Nakagawa at 13 minutes, 11 seconds with a Reverse U Crash. Dyna Mido would win a Three Way Match against Takashi Sasaki and Idea at 5 minutes, 11 seconds when Mido would pin Idea for the victory. GENTARO would defeat Dragon Libre at 9 minutes, 19 seconds with a Backdrop with Libre separating his shoulder during the match and will be out of action for a couple of months. The opening match had Yuya Susumu and Shunsuke Sayama defeat brother YASSHI and Kohei Kinoshita when Susumu would make Kinoshita tap out at 10 minutes, 46 seconds with a Cross Facelock.

The Youngdoms sub-promotion would run prior to the A-Team show on December 23, 2018 at the Tokyo Kitasenju Theater where they would announce a crowd of 67 fans for the show. The main event had ZERO1's Tatsuhito Takaiwa defeat Tomoya Hirata at 15 minutes, 15 seconds with a Super Dragon Lariat. Yuya Susumu would defeat NOAH's Junta Miyawaki at 12 minutes, 21 seconds with a Front Crash. Kengo would defeat Jun Masaoka at 10 minutes, 51 seconds with a Hilux. Violento Jack and Miedo Extremo would defeat Shota Nakagawa and Akiyori Takizawa when Jack would get the win at 9 minutes, 50 seconds with a Violent Break on Takizawa. Toru Sugiura and Shunsuke Sayama would defeat Syouki Kitamura and Takahiro Katori when Sugiura would use a Camel Clutch to get the win at 13 minutes, 11 seconds over Katori. The opening match would be a Exhibition between Ciclope and Naoki Kamada going by Trainee K for the final time as Ciclope would pick up the win at 6 minutes, 2 seconds with a Diving Body Press.

Jun Kasai would promote his 11th annual and 12th overall Bloody Christmas show on December 25, 2018 and for the 8th straight year it would take place at Korakuen Hall where they would announce 1,376 fans becoming the fourth highest attendance number in FREEDOMS behind Kasai 8/28/18 that drew 1,654 fans, FREEDOMS 9/9/12 that drew 1,382 fans in Iwate, and Kasai 8/27/17 that drew 1,378 fans. This was the 4th time that Jun Kasai and Masashi Takeda have competed on Christmas going back to their 2009 match at Shin-Kiba which Takeda told me back in 2012 was his favorite match at the time as well as their 2014 and 2015 matches where they traded the King of Freedom World Championship.

Masashi Takeda would put up his King of Freedom World Championship for the third time in the main event against Jun Kasai in a Surface Sleeve Glass Board Self Board Death Match. Kasai would start early as he would end taking a stapler and stapling a piece of paper to Takeda's mouth. Takeda would get revenge by grabbing a pair of scissors and stabbing Kasai in the forehead with them. They would then setup a glass board on a stack of chairs with Takeda delivering a German Suplex to Kasai sending him through the glass board. Takeda would then climb up the top rope but Kasai would grab a fork from a fork board set up in the ring and begin stabbing Takeda in the forehead with it. Kasai would then climb the top rope and deliver a piledriver sending Takeda through the fork board. They would then setup the other glass board on a stack of chairs with Takeda trying to suplex Kasai off a ladder through the board. Kasai would fight back and deliver a head butt that would end up knocking Takeda off the ladder sending him through the glass board which would be followed by Kasai delivering a Pearl Harbor Splash off the ladder on to Takeda with Takeda instantly getting up and picking up Kasai and delivering a Brainbuster. Takeda would then deliver a knee strike but Kasai would follow that up by delivering a clothesline. Kasai would then hit a Reverse Tiger Driver with Takeda managing to kick out. Kasai would then deliver his new finisher called Stimulation which is a Tiger Driver on the board of forks to put away Takeda at 19 minutes, 37 seconds as Kasai would win the King of Freedom World Championship for the fourth time. Takashi Sasaki would come to the ring to celebrate with Kasai for the win.

The semi-main event would be a non title match between Violento Jack and Daisuke Masaoka against Miedo Extremo and Ciclope in a Barbed wire Fluorescent Light Tubes Death Match. Ciclope would hit a Frog Splash on a light tube on Jack but Masaoka would manage make the save for him. Ciclope would go for a kick but Jack would catch his leg and deliver a lariat before Jack would finish off Ciclope at 15 minutes, 28 seconds with Amatalan. Daisuke Masaoka would get on the mic and proclaim that since there were no worthy challengers that Jack and him were going to vacated the King of Freedom Tag Team Titles as he laid the belts down in the ring before leaving.

Minoru Fujita, Gunso, and Chainsaw Tony making his FREEDOMS debut would team up to take on Takashi Sasaki, Mammoth Sasaki, and Tomoya Hirata in a Scramble Bunkhouse Death Match with Gunso picking up the win at 11 minutes after hitting Hirata with a Diving Guillotine Drop for the pinfall.

Kenji Fukimoto would defeat Big Japan's Toshiyuki Sakuda at 10 minutes, 40 seconds with a Package Piledriver in a Weapons Death Match that would see both Fukimoto and Sakuda shove a needle through each others mouth as well as Fukimoto use a fishing hook on Sakuda's mouth as Sakuda transitions into a regular Death Match wrestler in Big Japan.

GENTARO, Kamui, and Kenichiro Arai taking the injured Dragon Libre's place would team up to defeat Yuya Susumu, Kazma Sakamoto, and Chikara in a match that would see the wrestlers brawl in the crowd before GENTARO would get the win at 9 minutes, 16 seconds with a Ippon Seoi. The opening match would Naoki Kamada's debut match against Toru Sugiura with Kamada getting a couple of early strikes in and delivering some high kicks to Sugiura's chest before Sugiura would grab Kamada's leg and place in the Boston Crab and at 9 minutes, 32 seconds Kamada would end up tapping out for the Sugiura win.

The next FREEDOMS show will be on January 3, 2019 at the Tokyo Shin-Kiba 1st Ring. It will be a one night 8 team tournament to decide the new King of Freedom Tag Team Champions after Violento Jack and Daisuke Masaoka vacated the titles after their match on December 25th. The teams will probably be announced in the next day or so. Violento Jack will continue to stay in Japan as unlike most years he leaves for the first three months of the start of the year to go back to Mexico. No word yet if Miedo Extremo and Ciclope will be in the tournament as they are not booked for the January 27th show that FREEDOMS is putting on in Osaka so that would make it seem unlikely that they remain in Japan at the start of 2019.

Takashi Sasaki will promote his Pro-Wrestling Sengoku which for the past 16 months has been FREEDOMS working with smaller independent companies across Japan and giving them a chance to work Korakuen Hall which they most likely would not be able to otherwise. The shows have not been doing well but Sasaki's next show will be on January 15, 2019 on the Front Stage of the Tokyo Dome to allow these wrestlers to work in the Tokyo Dome for the first and most likely only time. The Tokyo Dome is having a festival called the Furusato Matsuri Tokyo between January 11th to the 20th where they allow bands and other performance acts that could not actually financially run the Tokyo Dome themselves to come on stage and perform in front of people willing to spend around 15 dollars. Takashi Sasaki jumped at the chance at getting booked for this as although they will not actually make a profit on this show it allows smaller independent wrestlers the chance to run the Tokyo Dome instead of running a near empty Korakuen Hall like the last couple of shows have done.

I mentioned in the previous update that with GCW making such a profit on their Spring Break show on April 5th and now having another Spring Break show the following day that has also sold out that GCW is interested in putting back a lot of the money they are making in bringing in Japanese wrestlers and that begins on January 12, 2019 in Summit, Illinois as they have announced that Daisuke Masaoka would be returning to the promotion at the Summit Park District Building. They have also booked Jun Kasai for their February 16, 2019 show in Atlantic City, New Jersey although they have not announced a building that the show will take place in yet but it looks like Kasai will be taking on Markus Crane. They are also working with ZERO1 as Masato Tanaka will be appearing on December 29th for them in Asbury Park, New Jersey at the HOI against PCO as well as Shinjiro Otani will wrestle on at least one of the Spring Break shows in New Jersey. GCW DVD's were given out to fans at the FREEDOMS show on December 25th as an attempt to get the fans familiar with their product as they look into expanding their working relationship with FREEDOMS and having their guys come over and appear in Japan in 2019.

The A-Team ran their final show of the year on December 23, 2018 at the Tokyo Kitasenju Theater 1010 where they announced 150 fans for the show. The show had the conclusion of the 5 month WEW Tag Team Battle League Tournament. Daisuke Ikeda and HASEGAWA who had been undefeated in the tournament and had two matches still scheduled left had to bow out of the tournament after HASEGAWA suffered an injury. Tournament matches included Tomohiko Hashimoto and Nobutaka Moribe winning their first match after defeating Keisuke Okuda and Yosuke Enomoto at 6 minutes, 45 seconds when Moribe would pin Enomoto with a Futari Sezon with Okuda and Enomoto finishing the tournament with zero points. Akira Jo and Raiden would defeat Kim Duk and Randy Preyer to advance to the finals of the tournament after Raiden would pin Duk at 8 minutes, 30 seconds after rolling him up with a Small Package giving the team of Raiden and Jo a total of 9 points and the team of Duk and Preyer a total of 8 points. Daisaku Shimoda would and Takumi Sakurai would also advance to the finals with 9 points after defeating Hashimoto and Moribe after Sakurai would pin Hashimoto at 10 minutes, 41 seconds with a Cradle as Hashimoto and Moribe would only finish with 6 points. This would result in the finals and main event of the show of Raiden and Akira Jo defeating Daisaku Shimoda and Takumi Sakurai when Jo would hit the Cross Roads on Sakurai at 12 minutes, 46 seconds to win the tournament and become the new WEW Tag Team Champions. Non tournament matches saw old UWF fighter Tatsuo Nakano team up with Kazushi Miyamoto and Rion Mizuki defeat Daisuke Ikeda, Gajo, and Takahiro Tababa when Nakano would deliver a Right Kick to Tababa at 14 minutes, 13 seconds to get the win via KO. NOAH's Hi69 would defeat Hazard at 7 minutes, 42 seconds with a Stuka Splash. Keiichi Sato would defeat Kazuki Enosawa at 9 seconds and then again at 1 minute, 1 second before Enosawa would challenge referee Masahiro Sase who would end pinning Enosawa at 32 seconds after delivering a Shining Wizard to open the show.

The A-Team will be running a lot more at the Tokyo Oji Base Mon*Star building where their first show will be on January 19, 2019 with Kim Duk defending his WEW World Title against Daisaku Shimoda and Raiden will defend his WEW Jr. Heavyweight Title against Nobutaka Moribe.

The 666 promotion concluded their own tournament to decide the 666 Chaos Undecided Freedom Championship. The tournament started back up on February 23rd and has gone through out the year in 666 like fashion a very confusing way although as far as I know they ran a tag team tournament in 2016 with no winner ever being declared and the round robin tournament just ended so this was an improvement over that. Yuko Miyamoto who made it to the finals by losing a 1st Round match in a tag match but still got to advance on would take on Onryo on December 23, 2018 at the Tokyo Shin-Kiba 1st Ring in the finals with Miyamoto getting the win at 12 minutes, 35 seconds with a Moonsault to become the first 666 Undecided Chaos Freedom Champion. The first belt for the promotion in the 15 years it has been around. Miyamoto was the one that came up with the idea of having a belt for the promotion as he felt it would added legitimacy to the promotion and he is the one that came up with the design of the belt and help it be created.

The Ray Memorial show took place on November 30, 2018 at the Tokyo Shin-Kiba 1st Ring where they announced a crowd of 238 fans for the show. They setup a mannequin with Ray's attire on the entrance ramp to watch the matches. Super Battle FMW which has not ran a show since May 25th and with no show in the future had a match on the show with Raijin Yaguchi and Miss Mongol defeating Ricky Fuji and NENE mugen D.a.i with Mongol pinning NENE in their match. Command Bolshoi who will be retiring soon came out dressed up as Ray for her match. They set up the mannequin in the ring and had a 10 bell memorial salute in Ray's honor with fans throwing red streamers in the ring afterwards. All the wrestlers at the end of the show got in the ring with the mannequin and held up Ray's signature gesture to the camera in memory of their lost friend.

Mr. Gannosuke who now lives in Yatsuhiro Kumamoto where Hayabusa was born and raised sent out a tweet on September 14, 2018 stating the white Hayabusa mask on display at Hayabusa's mothers hotel to be exhibited at the entrance had been stolen. It was a mask that Hayabusa had worn in the ring and Ms. Ezaki has embraced that many Hayabusa fans come stay at the hotel because of her son. The mask still has not been found after three months. Yatsuka Nakazawa who is a guitarist for the Dragon Gate Music Company who also half the time would do guitar work for Hayabusa's concerts traveled to Ms. Ezaki's Hinagu Hot Springs Inn and presented her with another mask that Hayabusa wore towards the end of his life while doing concerts. He stayed at the inn for the night and took this picture of Hayabusa's urn and framed picture of him that is on display.

Last month I conducted an interview with Kintaro Kanemura that I have posted on YouTube you can see by clicking the link Kintaro 'W*ING' Kanemura Interview as well as on my Media section. This was something special I wanted to do for the site for its 20th Anniversary this year and to give back to you guys that have followed this site for years. It was a very interesting interview although obviously there were issues. Not only was it going to be difficult to have a conversation with someone who only spoke in broken English, but you also have to factor in that he has taken more shots to the head than just about any wrestler. His memory about his early parts of his career was actually good but the more recent you got he seemed to either struggle with remembering or just not understanding what I was saying. I spoke with him for 2 hours but I had to edit it down to almost 1 hour 15 minutes because of all the him not understanding me or me not understanding his answers.

The one thing I took away was that his issue with Mr. Gannosuke back around 2004 before they made up in 2008 was something bad. He was willing to talk about everything including getting into a physical fight with Gannosuke in FMW, but he was not willing to talk about this specific issue with Gannosuke. All he would respond with was multiple times saying that Mr. Gannosuke's marriage this past year only lasted one week. I have asked anyone that could possibly know and never could get an answer. I asked Gannosuke originally 5 years ago and he just stated he was good with Kanemura now and then when I asked him again recently in a interview he said there never was an issue with Kanemura. This obviously shows that was not the case, but it does not seem like the real answer will ever come out. Kanemura was very blunt in this interview about who he likes and does not like which you don't get to hear very much from a Japanese wrestler in English.

Added: 11/24

Atsushi Onita would come out of retirement for the 7th time on October 28, 2018 just 362 days since his retirement match at Korakuen Hall. The storyline was that a young boy who attended last years show in Odaiba that Onita was in and he had such a great time seeing Onita wrestle with his parents and told all his Kindergarten friends about it. The boy ended up moving to Okayama in April and then the mudslides in July ended up destroying their new home leaving the boy and his family homeless. The boy and his family had to move back to Yokohama with family. The boy wrote a letter to the A-Team promotion asking for Onita to come back as his parents told him if he got all A's they would take him to this years A-Team show. Kazutaka Hasegawa and Tetsuya Machida traveled to Onita's new home town of Kanizaki and gave them the letter the boy had wrote. Onita read the letter and decided that he would come out retirement for this young boy to see him live again. The show announced a sell out of 450 fans for the A-Team promotion at the Yokohama Tsurumi Fruit Market. The main event would be Atsushi Onita, Kendo Kashin, and HASEGAWA against Kim Duk, Tomohiko Hashimoto, and Raiden in a Exploding barbed wire Baseball Bat Street Fight Falls Count Anywhere Double Hell Death Match. Onita would throw his jacket at Kim Duk and begin brawling with him right away. Chainsaw Tony would appear during the match and begin attacking Onita outside the ring. Kim Duk would turn on the exploding barbed wire bat and try to hit HASEGAWA with it but would miss and hit the turnbuckle as a result causing an explosion right near his face. Onita would bring Chainsaw Tony to the ring and kick him out of the ring into the exploding barbed wire board with a huge flame going up in the air as a result. Hashimoto would turn on the exploding bat and set Onita up on the chair although Onita made the call before hand that he was not taking any explosion bump on this day and at the last second Raiden would grab the referee and place him on Onita's lap on the chair and Hashimoto would swing the bat and the explosion would go off on the referee as Onita would fall off the chair. Hashimoto would cover Onita but the referee would be too injured at first to make a cover. Onita would turn turn on the exploding bat and hit Raiden across the chest with it and score the win at 13 minutes, 9 seconds after Raiden could not get up from the explosion. Onita would bring the child who wrote the letter to him into the ring and he would do his Onita Theater to everyone screaming 1,2,3, Fire! to end the show. Onita would go outside following the show and would be presented with a 61 years old birthday cake which he had turned three days earlier.

Keigo Takamori who is a Judo Fighter who had competed in Pancrase, DEEP, HEROS, and K-1 would have his retirement match against Kiyoshi Ayai and Takamori would end up getting the win in his last match in the first round at 2 minutes, 32 seconds with a Osotogairi take down. The WEW Tag Team Tournament would continue as Daisaku Shimoda and Takumi Sakurai would end up going to a thirty minute time limit draw against Raiden and Akira Jo. The Erase team of Daisuke Ikeda and HASEGAWA would continue their undefeated streak going at 4 in the tournament as they would defeat the Bustas Tomohiko Hashimoto and Nobutaka Moribe when HASEGAWA would get the win over Hashimoto at 11 minutes, 11 seconds with a forward roll up. Tetsuhiro Kuroda would return to the A-Team as he would defeat Naoshi Sano at 7 minutes, 20 seconds with a Lariat and because of a stipulation after the match Naoshi Sano must now change his ring name. The opening match was a WEW Tag Team Tournament Match with Rion Mizuki and Rionne Fujiwara getting the win over the winless team of Keisuke Okuda and Yosuke Enomoto when Fujiwara would get the win at 6 minutes, 49 seconds by making Enomoto tap out to a Wakikatame.

Atsushi Onita made news almost immediately following his return match as it was announced by Game Changer Wrestling that Onita would be returning to America to work Joey Janela's Spring Break show on April 5, 2019 at the Jersey City White Eagle Hall in New Jersey during WrestleMania weekend. GCW co-owner Brett Lauderdale is willing to bring in anyone that will help the show financially and match quality wise and thus Daisuke Masaoka, Masashi Takeda, and Isami Kodaka have all came in over the last couple of years. The idea to bring in Onita was most likely came through Janela who was a fan of his as a kid being a VHS tape trader back in the day. Janela also had a ton of people asking him to bring Onita in for the show after I mentioned on Twitter about Onita announcing about coming back in September that he would be coming out of retirement. Onita was reached about appearing on the Spring Break show and he agreed to it with his fee was much cheaper than it had been to come into CZW back in August 2017. GCW and Onita made the agreement and not too much later it was announced that he would be on the show with tickets going on sale and were sold out almost immediately. Onita was the only name announced and will get credit for the instant sell out but there were other factors in going into it which include the White Eagle Hall being a small concert building that seats about 700 although can include standing room only as well on top of the just the Spring Break name being a draw at this point as well as just the show being during WrestleMania weekend in the New Jersey region does not hurt as well. The sell out with high ticket prices meant about a $90,000 dollar gate which GCW will use to bring in more wrestlers from Japan for the show as well as a show on January 12th in Chicago.

Onita had agreed with GCW that because of the small building for the show that there would be no explosions on the show or during his match. Onita agreed to this and then followed it up by requesting on Twitter that he wants his match on the show to have explosions and for GCW to make it happen. GCW has responded by saying "there would be explosives" on the show despite originally it being believed that the small building would not allow them. It is believe that will be the only show Onita will wrestle that weekend as the plan is for him to appear at WrestleCon during the weekend and pretty much have the same schedule that The Great Sasuke did in New Orleans this past year. It is known that GCW would be interested in having Onita come back again for them in the future.

Because of the announcement of Onita coming into GCW in April that lead to Combat Zone Wrestling making the call to Onita for him to appear much earlier for them with Onita agreeing to come in for the December 9th show at the former ECW Arena now the 2300 Arena in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for their Cage of Death show. This would be his second time appearing at the ECW Arena when he was the mystery partner for The Sandman and Tommy Dreamer against The Dudleys in June 1998 and then proceeded to turn on Dreamer and Sandman and left and never appeared again for the promotion. Onita agreed and although CZW has not announce anything for the match, that did not stop Onita from doing an interview that he would be teaming up with his old rival Matt Tremont (the same mindset he had when he returned in 1996 and teamed up with rival Mr. Pogo) against a Mystery Team which one of the guys will most likely be DJ Hyde in a Scramble Bunkhouse Street Fight Death Match.

Onita in the interview stated that he had a bad taste in his mouth after working with CZW due to the travel situation as CZW booked him through China Air which meant he had to fly from Japan to China first. The flight was delayed 4 hours so they had to wait at the airport lounge before finally getting on the plane to go to Beijing. Then because the flight was 4 hours delayed they ended up missing their original flight to JFK from Beijing. This resulted in them having to get in line and because China is such a huge country the line to get a new ticket was another 4 hours which they were notified that there no more flights going to New York that night so they had to wait until the next morning so they had to stay at a hotel while in China before being to get on a 12 hour flight to New York the next day. Because of all these issues Onita made sure that his ticket to America would be through Delta meaning he would be going straight from Tokyo to the U.S. this time around. Onita also made the statement that he did not expect to be contacted by any foreign promotion and then joked he might have to be based out of America instead of Japan so that it would be easier to travel to his matches. Onita also mentioned that although he would be a volunteer wrestler he had to be paid regularly to wrestle in other countries because of extraterritorial jurisdiction pretty much saying it would be illegal for him to go to another country which would require a work visa for him to get into the country and then not get paid for his work although as stated earlier his fee is much lower than in 2017. Onita also mentioned that he had been contacted by a UK promotion to work in January although nothing else has came out about that yet.

I won't be able to go to either show sadly. I would love to go to a show at the former ECW Arena but I already have plans to be in Houston that day and then after going to the last three WrestleMania's and having been in New York back in 2017, I have no interest in going to a WrestleMania in New York/New Jersey so sadly I will not be able to go to either.

Atsushi Onita's next scheduled match will be on December 2, 2018 at the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring for the brand new sub-promotion Stardom Idols which Tam Nakano will be the focus of the new group. Onita had made mention that he would help the promotion out anyway he could back when he was in Tokyo back in July which makes me believe he knew he was coming back then. Onita prior to his return match had a Interview Battle on October 27, 2018 at Toudoukan in Sugamo, Tokyo with Tarzan Yamamoto. Yamamoto was the editor for Pro-Wrestling Weekly the number one wrestling magazine in Japan through out the 80's and 90's. So he pretty much would be considered the Japanese Bill Apter. Yamamoto who was fired by Pro-Wrestling Weekly in 2000's and as someone who has has over 500 Pro-Wrestling Weekly's I can say the magazines declined afterward he left but he is known to be a little crazy and outside the box. Onita made a comment during the talk battle that both him and Yamamoto were fired by the companies that they started and helped build so they were a lot of like. Yamamoto would challenge Onita to another talk battle at Toudoukan for December 1st but also to a match at the Stardom Idols show in a Street Fight Barbed wire Board Death Match. Onita accepted the challenge and stated he was only looking for 10 dollars from the promotion to wrestle for his travel to Shin-Kiba. The match will be a 4 vs. 5 match as Onita will team up with Tomohiko Hashimoto and HASEGAWA as well as someone else against Tarzan Yamamoto and Lucky Ikeda who is a 59 year old choreographer who is best known for coming up with dance sequences for TV and movie shows. He has an English IMDB so he isn't a nobody. He will be wearing a wrestling mask during the match. There will be three more mystery partners to go up against Onita announced prior to the show.

Atsushi Onita coming out of retirement and being a volunteer wrestler has shown that he obviously missed being a rock star in the ring but this time he is going to do just what he wants to do. He is not going to be having the same matches he had the last couple of years where he teams with Ichiro Yaguchi and Hideki Hosaka in ZERO1 or Super Battle FMW and works against the likes of NOSAWA. He won't be as available anyway because he will continue to live four hours away from Tokyo in Kanizaki as he awaits the next mayoral election in 2022. He wants to have matches against people that he did not get to work with that much or ever before his retirement. Having a match against a former wrestling magazine editor goes to show that he is looking for something different this time around. That is why he is more willing to work for different promotions in the U.S. or U.K. as it is something different for him and expect more of that from him coming up in 2019.

FREEDOMS returned to the Tokyo Shin-Kiba 1st Ring drawing an announced 199 fans for the show. The main event was a number one contendership match for the King of Freedom Tag Team Championship with Mammoth Sasaki and Kazma Sakamoto teaming up to take on Mammoth's former partners Toru Sugiura and Kamui. Sakamoto would charge at Kamui right away, but Kamui would meet Sakamoto by spitting mist in his face. Kamui would set up Sakamoto and deliver a Firebird 450 Splash but Mammoth would grab Kamui and deliver a 29 Years Old as Kamui was trying to make the pin attempt on Sakamoto. Sakamoto would deliver a Michinoku Driver to Kamui followed by a Package Piledriver for the win at 17 minutes, 58 seconds to earn Mammoth and Sakamoto a shot at the King of Freedom Tag Team Titles. Mammoth and Sakamoto would then get on the mic and call out Jack and Masaoka and it would be announced that they would challenge for the titles at the next show. Violento Jack would finish off GENTARO at 14 minutes, 38 seconds with a Amatouran in the semi-main event singles match.

Jun Kasai would team up with Takashi Sasaki and Tomoya Hirata against the team of Masashi Takeda, Kenji Fukimoto, and Minoru Fujita in a Fluorescent Light Tubes Death Match. Kasai and Takeda would begin by swinging light tubes at each other with both managing to duck before both would smash each other over the head with them at the same time. Takeda would grab a stack of light tubes and charge Takashi Sasaki but Sasaki would move out of the way and kick the light tubes that Takeda was holding causing them to break across his body. Takeda would tag in Fujita who Sasaki would deliver a D-Geist followed by setting up light tubes to Fujita's head and delivering a right leg kick to the light tubes breaking across Fujita's head as Sasaki would get the win. Sasaki would then get on the mic and challenge Takeda for a title shot. Takeda would then grab the mic and state that Sasaki, Kasai, Masaoka, and Hirata would all have to fight each other first in a tournament to get a shot at his title.

Shuichiro Katsumara and Shunsuke Sayama would defeat Yuya Susumu and Masamune when Katsumara would end up making Susumu tap out at 11 minutes, 11 seconds to a Ninja Choke. Katsumara would end up challenging Susumu for his UWA World Jr. Heavyweight Title at the VKF show on october 31st afterwards. Gunso and Dragon Libre would team up to defeat Brahman Shu, Brahman Kei, and Karate Brahman after Libre would pin Karate at 9 minutes, 21 seconds after spitting black ink mist in his face. The opening match would have Daisuke Masaoka get the win at 8 minutes, 50 seconds with a roll up over Chikara.

Jun Kasai would run his annual Bloody Halloween show on October 28, 2018 at the Osaka Oyodo Community Center drawing an announced 354 fans for the show. The main event would be Jun Kasai and Gunso taking on the team of Masashi Takeda and Kenji Fukimoto in a Unchain vs. Unchain Fluorescent Light Tubes Razor Cross Board Death Match. Kasai would be the first one to go through the razor cross board cutting up his back after already being busted open in the forehead. Kasai would come back with a stack of light tubes but Takeda would deliver a drop kick breaking the light tubes across Kasai's body. Takeda would then climb the top rope but Kasai would manage to get up and deliver a piledriver off the top turnbuckle and Takeda would land head first. Takeda would follow that by grabbing a bunch of skewers but Gunso would grab them from him and shove them in his forehead instead. Kasai would then setup Fukimoto on a table on the outside and climb up the top turnbuckle and send him through the table. Kasai would then try to hit a Tiger Driver but Fukimoto would make it back in the ring and smash two light tubes over Kasai's head and deliver a Package Piledriver. Takeda would then grab two light tubes and deliver a kick to them as they would break across Gunso's body followed by a Reverse U Crash to get the pinfall at 16 minutes, 58 seconds for the Takeda and Fukimoto victory.

The semi-main event would be Violento Jack and Daisuke Masaoka going up against Kamui and Toru Sugiura in a non title match. Kamui and Sugiura would have the early control on Jack including Sugiura using a sledgehammer as a weapon on Jack Kamui would then grab a bucket of thumbtacks and do Masaoka's signature spot and dump on the thumbtacks over his head and body and deliver a Falcon Arrow on Masaoka on to the thumbtacks. Kamui would then grab a ladder and deliver a Swanton Bomb on Masaoka but would only end up getting a two count. Masaoka would come back and hit his Rokkura-kai on Kamui off the ladder and make the cover but Sugiura would make the save for his partner. Jack would then grab Kamui and deliver a a AMATLAN on Kamui and get the win at 16 minutes, 4 seconds for Jack and Masaoka win.

Mammoth Sasaki and Minoru Fujita would face each other in a singles match for the first time since February 27, 2013 when Fujita got the upset win over Mammoth. This match would be a Scramble Bunkhouse Death Match with Fujita would controlling a majority of the match and making Mammoth bleed using the barbed wire bat as a weapon several times on him. Mammoth would eventually grab Fujita and chokeslam him on a chair and follow it up by the 29 Years Old on the chair at 13 minutes, 3 seconds for the Mammoth win. Takashi Sasaki would defeat Osaka based Idea at 9 minutes, 57 seconds with a D-Geist. Drake Morimatsu and Kengo Takai as Drake Takai would defeat GENTARO going by his BENTEN gimmick and Toru Sugiura going by his MIDOTEN gimmick when Morimatsu would finish off MIDOTEN at 9 minutes, 8 seconds with a Lariat. Chikara and Tomoya Hirata would win the opening match as they would defeat Yuya Susumu and Dragon Libre at 12 minutes, 1 seconds when Chikara would get the win with a Backdrop over Libre.

FREEDOMS ran their sub brand Youngdoms show on November 5, 2018 at the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring where they announced a crowd of 84 fans. The main event was a FREEDOMS vs. ZERO1 match with Tomoya Hirata once again defeating Syouki Kitamura this time time in a singles match at 11 minutes, 46 seconds when Hirata cradled Kitamura up for the win. Naoki Tanizaki defeated Dragon Libre in the semi-main event at 11 minutes, 38 seconds with a Shining Wizard. Kaientai Dojo's Ayato Yoshida defeated Ryukyu Dragon's Ultra Soki at 10 minutes, 9 seconds with a Backdrop. Yuya Susumu and Toru Sugiura defeated NOAH's young boy Junta Miyawaki and Asuka Project's Shunsuke Sayama when Susumu made Miyawaki tap out at 12 minutes, 30 seconds with a Crossface Lock. Violento Jack and Masamune defeated Asuka and Kohei Kinoshita when Jack pinned Kinoshita at 11 minutes, 4 seconds with the Violento Breaker. Naoki Kamada got to use his actual name instead of Trainee K in a Trainee Exhibition match where Kamada would lost at 7 minutes to Kamui from a Yurikamome.

FREEDOMS would hold their annual "Heel don't think" show in November this time at the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring where they would announce 180 fans on November 21, 2018. The main event would be Violento Jack and Daisuke Masaoka defending their King of Freedom Tag Team Titles against Mammoth Sasaki and Kazma Sakamoto. Masaoka and Mammoth would go at it first by exchanging forearms that Masaoka would quickly learn was a mistake. Masaoka would focus on Sakamoto instead and would begin brawling with him on the outside and grab the bell keepers gavel and hit Sakamoto over the head with it busting him open. Sakamoto would fight back by delivering multiple superkicks to Masaoka followed by putting a chair on Masaoka's head as both Mammoth and Sakamoto would deliver a Mammoth Home Run to Masaoka at the same time. Mammoth would charge at Masaoka with a lariat but Masaoka would move out of the way and Mammoth's arm would end up getting kicked by Sakamoto due to the miscommunication. Jack would come in and take advantage as he would deliver a Swanton Bomb to Sakamoto before finishing him off at 16 minutes, 8 seconds with a Amatouran to successfully defend the King of Freedom Tag Team Titles for the second time.

The Akrangers team of Takashi Sasaki and GENTARO would return wearing their old outfits that they wore as a regular tag team around 2002 as they would take on Masashi Takeda and Kenji Fukimoto with Takeda getting the win at 14 minutes, 11 seconds with a Megaraba 14 over GENTARO. Jun Kasai would face off against Kamui in a Hardcore Match. Kasai would take a ladder and slam Kamui in it before delivering a suplex off the ladder into a stack of chairs. Kasai would end up injuring his knee while delivering a Reverse Tiger Driver this would allow Kamui to take control of the match as he would deliver a Pele Kick and deliver a Tiger Driver on Kasai. Kamui would stack chairs on Kasai's knee and then deliver a Swanton Bomb on to the chairs landing directly on Kasai's knee. Kamui would go for a Figure Four Leglock but Kasai would roll him up for the win at 12 minutes, 48 seconds with a inside cradle. Yuya Susumu, Toru Sugiura, and Shunsuke Sayama would defeat Gunso, brother YASSHI, and Dragon Libre when Sugiura would get the victory over Libre at 11 minutes, 32 seconds with an Elbow Smash. Minoru Fujita and Kenichiro Arai would go to a Draw at 10 minutes, 23 seconds after both would end up pinning each other. The opening match would have Tomoya Hirata go to a 10 minute time limit draw with Chikara to show his slow process on his way up the roster as he is now no longer a rookie.

The A-Team ran their November 18, 2018 show at the Tokyo Kitasenju Theater 1010 where they announced a sell out crowd of 150 fans for the show. The main event was HASEGAWA's 5th Anniversary Match as he would take on a special opponent in The Great Sasuke who had just gotten back in from working in Los Angeles two days prior. The match would be made into a Barbed wire Board Death Match as they would start by brawling all over the building up onto the second floor before coming back down to the ring where they would both end up sending each other through the barbed wire board and coming away with cuts all over their back until Sasuke would pick up the win at 23 minutes, 4 seconds using the Sasuke Special X Version 10.2 which impersonation moves are prohibited because he is sick of everyone stealing his moves. The WEW Tag Team Tournament would continue as the Bustas team of Tomohiko Hashimoto and Nobutaka Moribe would defeat Raiden and Akira Jo when Moribe pinned Raiden at 12 minutes, 43 seconds with a Futari Sezon. Moribe would challenge Raiden to a WEW Jr. Heavyweight Title Match afterwards. Daisaku Shimoda and Takumi Sakurai would defeat the winless Keisuke Okuda and Yosuke Enomoto when Shimoda would pin Enomoto at 13 minutes, 42 seconds with a roll up. Kim Duk and Randy Preyer would beat Rion Mizuki and Keiichi Sato when Duk would get the win at 10 minutes, 15 seconds pinning Sato with a reverse roll up. The opening match had Daisuke Ikeda defeating Kazutaka USA Enosawa at 11 minutes, 34 seconds with a Daichan Bomber.

Masato Tanaka who lost his World Heavyweight Championship at ZERO1's Shin-Kiba 1st Ring show on November 24, 2018 to Daisuke Sekimoto will be taking several trips outside the country in December. His first show will be in Ireland on December 2nd for OTT Wrestling at the The National Stadium in Dublin. He will then travel to America for AIW on December 28th at the Ohio Nets Sports Complex in Parma, Ohio.

This week marks the 20th Anniversary of my site that started up following FMW running their big November 20th Yokohama Bunka Gym show. I started the site on an AOL page as well around the same time that I moderated an FMW message board that was ran by Bill Simmons which lasted until the end of 1998. I actually spent a good amount of time trying to find the original logo of this website to put up here but sadly the Internet Way Back Machine does not register old Art files anymore. I believe this is the longest run fan website ran wrestling website that is still updated at this point. I know this site looks like it is still from 1998 but I have always felt that was a part of its charm. I have started doing a lot of side projects including the podcast but this will always be my child. I am hoping to have a surprise on here soon at least before the next update in December. Thanks to all of you that still visit this site though! I love hearing feedback, as it makes me know I have not wasted the last 20 years of my life loving this stuff way more than anyone should love a company that closed 16 years ago which when that happened I didn't even know if I could continue with the site ironically enough.

Added: 10/22

The A-Team promotion held a press conference on September 28, 2018 at the Toudoukan store in Sugamo, Tokyo to announce that Atsushi Onita would be coming out of retirement for the 7th time and will be participating in his first match in 362 days as he will compete on the A-Team's big show at the Yokohama Tsurumi Fruit Market on October 28, 2018. Atsushi Onita sat with the A-Team's HASEGAWA and Tetsuya Machida when someone in a Pandita wanted to ask Onita a question but it would turn out to be Kendo Kashin after he would pull the Pandita mask off. Kashin would ask to team with Onita with Onita accepting the offer from his former rival. The match was made as Atsushi Onita, Kendo Kashin, and HASEGAWA going up against Tomohiko Hashimoto, Kim Duk who worked for W*ING so this would be their first match against one another, and Raiden in a Exploding Barbed wire Baseball Bat Street Falls Count Anywhere Barbed Death Match.

Jimmy Suzuki who is best known in Japan as someone who traveled across America through out the 80's and 90's taking photographers for Pro-Wrestling Weekly in Japan promoted the debut show for Tokyo Championship Wrestling on September 27, 2018 at the Shinjuku FACE in Tokyo where they would announce a crowd of 511 fans. Atsushi Onita agreed to participate on the show as a referee, but it would be The Great Nita making his first appearance since vanishing into the Shin-Kiba river back on August 27, 2017 after his final match under the gimmick. It would be the Joker Great Nita look that Nita had came up for the gimmick back in 2016. He would referee Three Way Match between Masato Tanaka, Sabu, and Yuko Miyamoto. Nita and another referee would be assign the match which would upset Nita right away as he would spit green mist in the other referee's face as the match would start.

Tanaka and Miyamoto would brawl in the crowd with Tanaka delivering a snap suplex on the floor to Miyamoto. Sabu would then grab a chair and throw it in the face of Tanaka and then Miyamoto. Sabu and Tanaka would make it back in the ring where Sabu would lay Tanaka head first on a chair and Sabu would deliver an Arabian Facebuster sending Tanaka through the table. Miyamoto would then pick up Sabu and deliver a Fire Thunder to Sabu but as soon as Miyamoto would get up he would be met with red mist to the face by Nita. Tanaka would use that to take advantage and would deliver a Sliding D to Sabu and the other referee would count the fall at 8 minutes, 26 seconds for the Tanaka win. Nita regardless would raise Sabu's hand as if he had won due to Nita being a heelish character and wanting the heel in the match to win.

Atsushi Onita did an interview with Kenji Matsuoka of Sportiva following his announcement about his return to wrestling and covered many different aspects of his career. Onita mentioned that he ran for the Japanese Diet in July 2001 after completing his goal of having a exploding barbed wire death match with Riki Choshu a year earlier. He was told after winning "what can a pro wrestler do?" and Onita talks about how on September 27, 2002 he was able to bring professional wrestling to Kabul, Afghanistan. Onita mentioned how back then the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the U.S. had happened the year prior and how Afghanistan was deepening with confusion. He wanted to cheer up the local children and so he reached out to Kenichi Komano who was the ambassador then and Onita and Raijin Yaguchi went there and had a tag team match. There was no ring, so they used mats and gymnastic poles. There was also no referee so he asked a Tokyo Sports reporter who came with him to cover the story to be the referee. They would end up having three matches that day and would change their costumes each time per match. Onita then brings up in February 2002 there was the news that FMW which he created went bankrupt. He stated how in October of the previous year after Hayabusa's injury he contacted Shoichi Arai about working together with Onita returning to FMW although Arai did not not accept Onita's offer. Arai stated that no matter how painful what FMW was going through, he did not want to borrow the strength of Atsushi Onita. Onita mentions how Arai was the first employee that he recruited when he created FMW and he served as the ring announcer and tells the story about Arai's microphone breaking on the first show and Arai improvising by raising his voice to continue the ring introductions which impressed Onita. Onita mentions that Arai was a hard and sincere man and how he lost his life three months after the bankruptcy but published a book prior to his passing and criticized Onita in the book. Onita mentions how some people blame him for FMW going bankrupt, but Onita states that is impossible because he had been expelled from FMW four years before FMW went bankrupt. Onita mentions how President Arai sometimes goes through his head and he believes he had become unreasonable for what he said about Onita in his book, but he wishes he had not taken his own life.

Onita then talks about how he has been criticized for his repeated retirements and returns since he finished being a politician (5 of the 7 retirements come in the last 15 years) and how his teacher Giant Baba told him to just focus on one major thing in your life. Onita then says regardless he has a desire to live life as he wishes. Onita then mentions that on October 31, 2017 for his 7th retirement at Korakuen Hall he intended to seriously quit that time as he was 60 years old and that was always the plan for several years as due to his age and the wear and tear he did not feel he had the physical strength to continue doing explosion matches as what is expected from him. He felt there was a limit to his body and he needed to move on and retire. He mentions at that show his mother Mrs. Habakaou Matsubara came to the ring for the first time on this show and how he apologized to her on the show for being a bad soon but thanking her for continuing to support him regardless. Also, how many former FMW wrestlers participated on the show and he thanked them for giving him that feeling of fulfillment. Onita does not regret retiring last year and stated he had a new dream of improving a community after seeing many of the rural areas need help while touring around Japan. He wanted to help the elderly, help children's education, and information and communication technology. He decided to run for mayor or Kanizaki in Saga because that was where his mother's hometown was. He had a short time to prepare and he was considered a "stranger who suddenly came from Tokyo" but he was welcomed by a lot of new friends. He lost by just 977 votes and although he is sad he did not win he is glad so many citizens trusted him to run their town. He thought after the loss that he promised himself that he would look at himself and reconsider his life and that's when he realized he enough strength to go back into the ring.

Masato Tanaka gave an interview to Yoshinori Yamaguchi of Pro-Wrestling Today on September 21, 2018 to promote his 25th Anniversary show on September 30, 2018 at Korakuen Hall. Tanaka stated he joined the FMW Dojo because he attended an FMW show in Wakayama and after seeing the promotion live he decided he wanted to join this promotion as there were not many other promotions to choose from back then. Tanaka was not use to seeing the bloodshed live and it was such a shock to him like seeing Tiger Mask for the first time as from then on he stated he became an Onita believer. Tanaka stated that he represented Wakayama for the first few years in a rugby organization after graduating high school as there was no Osaka based wrestling back then so he had to wait awhile before he could come up with enough money to move to Tokyo so he had to get a job first so he got a job at making metal first. Tanaka practiced doing 1000 squats before joining the FMW Dojo so he knew he would have the physical strength upon entering. Tanaka mentions how awful it was in the FMW Dojo, but he is glad he came from it. Tanaka mentions that being Onita's attendant was an easy task and he was told it was serious business to be Onita's attendant but it never stressed Tanaka out. One of the issues with being Onita's attendant was that Onita loved to go out and fish which Tanaka hated. Tanaka was too impatient and could not handle just sitting there for more than 20 minutes waiting for a fish but Onita loved it so it was something he just had to do with him.

Tanaka was asked about his memories of Hayabusa and he told a story how when he was in America wrestling for 1998 he was single and had only brought one erotic magazine with him so when Hayabusa was booked on the ECW Heatwave 1998 PPV he made sure to ask Hayabusa to bring more erotic magazines for him which Hayabusa obliged. He mentioned how that showed Ezaki was very kind as was Mr. Gannosuke and he was taught by them in the FMW Dojo to not bully younger wrestlers. Tanaka does not remember his debut match against Ricky Fuji on July 23, 1993 other than he was not ready to debut but Sambo Asako was out with an injury so Tanaka was a fill in. Tanaka mentions that the reason he asked to be a part of ECW was because Paul Heyman had watched his match with The Gladiator at Kawasaki Stadium and wanted that match to take place in ECW. He came in and had a normal match with Doug Furnas that was not what Heyman wanted and Tanaka figured he would not be asked back to ECW but then he was asked to call him 6 months (it would have been 3 months) and Heyman apologized to Tanaka for booking the wrong match against Furnas. Tanaka responded that he was the one in the match, so it was his fault the match was bad. Heyman responded that he had a guy Balls Mahoney that would be a much better suitable opponent if he came back to ECW and a new gimmick for Tanaka. Heyman came up with the gimmick of him getting hit over the head with a chair and still standing up from it. Tanaka mentioned how in Japan the bottom would come out of the chair, so he was not use to the steel of the chair that he felt in America as getting hit by it several time was more painful. Tanaka felt he had no choice to do it as his first match was useless, so if he did not do it he would not be accepted by the ECW wrestlers. Tanaka mentioned that even though it hurts, he gets the adrenaline and he did not fall until three shots to the head and the fans were really excited about it. Tanaka stated that he became world famous because of ECW as he was in Australia for two weeks and even though he never wrestled in Australia in ECW he still he was getting ECW chants.

Masato Tanaka's 25th Anniversary show took place on September 30, 2018 at Korakuen Hall for ZERO1. The main event would have Masato Tanaka teaming up with his Dangan Yankee partner Takashi Sugiura as they would defeat the team of Yuji Hino and Daisuke Sekimoto in the main event after Tanaka would finish off Sekimoto at 25 minutes, 29 seconds with a Sliding D. Tanaka afterwards would get on the mic and announce that not only had he recently gotten married but that his newly wed was expecting their first child in early 2019.

FREEDOMS ran their 9th Anniversary show on September 17, 2018 at Korakuen Hall announcing 717 fans for the show. The main event was Jun Kasai going up against Daisuke Masaoka in a Hell inside and Outside Hell Death Match which consisted of boards of cut up cans, knives, and thumbtacks with the winner getting a shot Masashi Takeda's King of Freedom World Championship at the Christmas Death Match show.

Masaoka would end up shaving Kasai's head during the match and sticking a knife in Kasai's forehead as a playback to their May 2, 2016 match where they did the same spot. Masaoka would then end up setting up a board of cut up cans and setting up outside the ring as Masaoka would deliver a suplex sending Kasai through the board of cut up cans. Masaoka would then deliver a Spanish Fly on Kasai with them landing on a board of thumbtacks. Masaoka would then stack the board of thumbtacks on two chairs and send Kasai through the board. Masaoka would then follow up with a Rokkura-Kai with Kasai kicking out. Masaoka would then take a board with knives attached to it and place it over Kasai's body. Masaoka would then take Kasai's goggles and begin to go up for the Pearl Harbor Splash to mock Kasai when Kasai would get up and climb the turnbuckle and deliver a piledriver off the turnbuckle sending Masaoka head first into the board with knives attached to it. Kasai would then take skewers and stick them in Masaoka's back and then place the board of knives on top of Masaoka and deliver the Pearl Harbor Splash smashing the board into Masaoka with Masaoka kicking out. Kasai would then deliver a Reverse Tiger Driver on the knives and finally would get the pin at 24 minutes, 39 seconds for the win as Kasai would earn his rematch against Masashi Takeda for December 25th.

The semi-main event had Takashi Sasaki, Mammoth Sasaki, and Tomoya Hirata going up against Shinjiro Otani, Tatsuhito Takaiwa, and Syouki Kitamura in a FREEDOMS vs. ZERO1 match. Hirata would go after the old veterans as he would at first get into a chopping fight with Otani and face off against Takaiwa with Takaiwa charging at Hirata with a lariat and Hirata ducking to deliver a spear instead. Mammoth would come in and would end up eating a lariat by Takaiwa. Otani would get tagged in and clear the ring of Mammoth and Takashi but Hirata would hit another a spear this time on Otani but would end up getting met with a spear by Kitamura instead. Hirata and Kitamura would end up going at it with Hirata getting a Crab Hold on Kitamura to make him tap out to give the FREEDOMS team the win. Kitamura afterwards would attack Hirata out of embarrassment with both teams having to separate them.

The Los Nomadas as a group would wrestle their last match for awhile as Miedo Extremo and Ciclope would head back to Mexico after the match as they would team up with Violento Jack against Masashi Takeda, Kenji Fukimoto, and Minoru Fujita in a Los Nomadas vs. Unchain match with Jack getting the win at 15 minutes, 32 seconds with a Amararun over Fukimoto in a Fluorescent Light Tubes Death Match. Yuya Susumu would end up winning the UWA Jr. Heavyweight Championship from brother YASSHI at 10 minutes, 21 seconds after delivering a Falcon Arrow on YASSHI for the win. Kamui would defeat Kazma Sakamoto at 8 minutes, 38 seconds via count out. Gunso and Kenshin Chikano would defeat Toru Sugiura and Dragon Libre after Gunso would hit a Diving Guillotine Drop at 9 minutes, 22 seconds on Libre for the win and afterwards Gunso would steal Libre's mask. GENTARO would open the show by defeating Chikara at 9 minutes, 2 seconds by holding Chikara's shoulders to the mat for the win.

A different type of FREEDOMS show would take place as it would actually be promoted by Odate Pro but would use the FREEDOMS name to help promote the show on September 22, 2018 at the Odate Citizen Gym where they would announce 679 fans for the show although the building was rather big and this building looked to be about half full if that. Jun Kasai would go up against Violento Jack in the main event in a Razor Cross Death Match for their first singles match since December 25, 2017 when Jack defeated Kasai at Korakuen Hall. Kasai and Jack would waste no time going to the outside of the ring as Kasai would setup Jack on a table and tape him up and climb up to the second floor of the arena and deliver a balcony dive sending Jack through the table. Kasai would then deliver a Pearl Harbor Splash but Jack would catch him and deliver a Brainbuster to Kasai. Jack would then send Kasai through the board of cut up cans. Jack would then charge at Kasai with a stack of light tubes but Kasai would duck and then hit a clothesline causing the light tubes to break in Jack's face. Kasai would then pick up the win at 14 minutes, 45 seconds with a Reverse Tiger Driver for the Kasai win over Jack for the first time since August 2017.

The semi-main event of the show would be Masashi Takeda and Kenji Fukimoto going up against Daisuke Masaoka and Ryuichi Sekine in a Barbed wire Board Death Match. Takeda would send Sekine through the barbed wire board first and then set the board on top of Sekine and would do a flip on it but it would end up being the barbed wire side that he would land on leaving Takeda walking around in pain. Fukimoto and Masaoka would come in and they would end up facing off against each other before Fukimoto would deliver a powerbomb on Masaoka on the barbed wire board followed by a Package Piledriver on Masaoka for the win at 13 minutes even for Unchain victory. Other matches on the show saw a mixed tag between Takashi Sasaki and Saki taking on Shiro Koshinaka and Moeka Kasuga as Koshinaka would hit his Diving Hip Attack to get the win at 14 minutes, 58 seconds over Takashi Sasaki. Koji Kanemoto and Kamui would team up to defeat Yuya Susumu and Masamune with Kanemoto getting the win at 13 minutes, 57 seconds after hitting a Moonsault onto Masamune for the win. One of the women's match on the show had Yuna Manabu and Mari defeated Naho Kakuda and Hikari Shimizu when Mari pinned Shimizu at 9 minutes, 11 seconds with a Buzzsaw Kick. The other women's match had Makoto defeat Shiori Akiba at 9 minutes, 42 seconds with a Japanese Leg Roll. The opening match had GENTARO, Tomoya Hirata, and Chikara defeat Mammoth Sasaki, Toru Sugiura, and Dragon Libre when GENTARO woukl make Libre tap out at 11 minutes, 10 seconds to an Octopus Hold.

Toru Sugiura promoted his own FREEDOMS show on September 27, 2018 at the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring with the announced crowd of 171 fans for the show. The main event was a 14 Man Costume Battle Royal. Toru Sugiura dressed up as a basketball player and was eliminated first. Kenji Fukimoto as a volleyball player was eliminated next. Tomoya Hirata as a discuss thrower was out next. GENTARO as a ramen shop owner was tossed out next. Yuya Susumu as an amateur wrestler was then eliminated. Kamui as a Lawson Store clerk was then knocked out. Minoru Fujita as a musical artist was then tossed. Dragon Libre as a rugby was the next one to go. Jun Kasai as a police officer that brought an erotic magazine in the match and showed them to Sugiura earlier on was then tossed. Chikara as a Jedi was the next to go. Takashi Sasaki as a cake shop maid was the last one to be eliminated at 18 minutes, 39 seconds after being tossed over the top rope by Mammoth Sasaki dressed up as a sumo wrestler would win it.

A random lottery was pulled between the six wrestlers to start the show with the random Fluorescent Light Tubes Death Match consisting of Jun Kasai, Daisuke Masaoka, and Gunso taking on the team of Takashi Sasaki, Kenji Fukimoto, and Violento Jack. Jack would pick up his tag partner Masaoka and do a press slam right into his knees with Sasaki following by delivering a Right Leg Kick to Masaoka with Masaoka kicking out. Sasaki would attempt to deliver a D-Geist on Masaoka but Masaoka would manage to get out and would shove Sasaki into some light tubes. Gunso would then slam Sasaki and allow Kasai to deliver the Pearl Harbor Splash followed by Masaoka hitting the Rokkura-Kai on Sasaki to get the win at 14 minutes, 51 seconds and right after getting the win Masaoka would flip his partner Kasai off.

GENTARO would end up facing off against Rocky Kawamura in a Wrestling vs. Boxing Match with three rounds going three minutes with the match going to a draw after the three rounds were up. Ultra Soki would team up with Asuka Takizawa as they would defeat Dragon Libre and Tomoya Hirata when Soki would pin Libre at 12 minutes, 12 seconds with a Muso. Minoru Fujita would pin Chikara at 7 minutes, 55 seconds with a Samson Clutch in a Hardcore Match. Mammoth Sasaki dressed up as Big Kamui would team up with Kamui to defeat Toru Sugiura and Yuya Susumu after Kamui and Big Kamui would use the Brahman Brother's finisher No One's Perfect to get the win at 5 minutes, 7 seconds when Big Kamui would pin Sugiura.

FREEDOMS would run a free show at the Tokai College Station Shopping District Special Ring due to the show being free there was no way of knowing how many fans were at the show. The main event was a 11 Man Battle Royal with local masked wrestler Hadano Mask getting the win at 9 minutes, 20 seconds with a hurricanrana on Kenji Fukimoto. Hadano Mask had teamed with Takashi Sasaki the match previously and had lost to the team of Jun Kasai and Kenji Fukimoto at 12 minutes, 34 seconds when Fukimoto had pinned him with a Package Piledriver. Violento Jack and Daisuke Masaoka picked up the win over Mammoth Sasaki and Tomoya Hirata with the Alturan at 11 minutes, 27 seconds with Jack getting the pinfall over Hirata. GENTARO would make Kamui tap out at 12 minutes, 51 seconds with a Octopus Hold. The opening match would have Yuya Susumu defeat Dragon Libre at 7 minutes, 34 seconds with a Front Crash.

FREEDOMS returned to Okinawa for their annual show on the island at the Okinawa Naval Kadena Arena the home of the Ryukyu Dragon promotion on October 21, 2018 where they would announce a crowd of 151 fans for the show. The main event had Jun Kasai and Takashi Sasaki defeat Masashi Takeda and Kenji Fukimoto in a Fluorescent Light Tubes when Sasaki would get the pin at 15 minutes, 17 seconds after delivering a right kick to a light tube to the head of Fukimoto for the win. Violento Jack, Daisuke Masaoka, and Ryukyu Dog Dingo defeated Mammoth Sasaki, Toru Sugiura, and Ultra Soki when Jack would get the win over Soki at 15 minutes, 48 seconds with his Amatouran finisher. Aisawa # 1 would team up with Yuya Susumu going by the name Yuya # 2 as they would take on the team of Kamui and Hibiscus Mii with Mii getting the win at 12 minutes, 5 seconds after she would deliver a Torpedo that would get the pinfall over Aisawa. There would be a three match series between FREEDOMS and Ryukyu Dragon with the third and deciding match being Guruken Mask defeating Tomoya Hirata at 10 minutes, 6 seconds with a Guruken Driver. GENTARO had earlier tied it up when he defeated Shuri Joe at 10 minutes, 12 seconds with a Backdrop. Ryukyu Dragon got the first win in the opening match as Churaumi Saber defeated Dragon Libre at 8 minutes with a Coral.

FREEDOMS returns to the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring on October 24, 2018 with a main event of Mammoth Sasaki and Kazma Sakamoto taking on Toru Sugiura and Kamui with the winner getting a shot at the King of Freedom Tag Team Titles. Violento Jack will go up against GENTARO in a singles match. Jun Kasai, Takashi Sasaki, and Tomoya Hirata will take on Masashi Takeda, Kenji Fukimoto, and Minoru Fujita in a Death Match. Yuya Susumu and Masamune will go up against shoot fighters Shuchiro Katsumara and Shunsuke Sayama. Gunso who stole Dragon Libre's mask a month ago will team up with him as they take on Brahman Shu and Brahman Kei. Daisuke Masaoka will have a easy night on his body compared to most recent shows as he will go up against Chikara in the opening match.

Jun Kasai will promote his Halloween Death Match show on October 28, 2018 at the Osaka Odo Community Center with the main event being a Unchain Death Match of Jun Kasai and Gunso taking on Masashi Takeda and Kenji Fukimoto in a Death Match. Violento Jack and Daisuke Masaoka will take on Kamui and Toru Sugiura in a Hardcore Match with Kamui and Sugiura getting a shot at Jack and Masaoka's King of Freedom Tag Team Titles on this show if they are to defeat Mammoth and Sakamoto on the 24th in Shin-Kiba. Mammoth Sasaki will take on Minoru Fujita in a singles match for the first time since 2013 when Fujita upset Mammoth in the 1st round of the King of Freedom World Championship Tournament. Takashi Sasaki will take on local Osaka wrestler Rapid. Drake Morimatsu will team up with Kengo Takai going by the Drake Takai name as they take on GENTARO and Dyna Mido. Yuya Susumu and Dragon Libre will team up against Chikara and Tomoya Hirata in the opening match.

Youngdoms will return for their own individual show on November 5, 2018 at the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring. The main event will be Tomoya Hirata going up against ZERO1's Syouki Kitamura which was setup after Kitamura attacked Hirata following Hirata's win at the FREEDOMS show on September 17th at Korakuen Hall. Naoki Tanizaki will take on Dragon Libre in a highflying match. Kaientai Dojo's Ayato Yoshida will go up against Ryukyu Dragon's Ultra Soki. Yuya Susumu and Toru Sugiura will take on NOAH's Junta Miyawaki and Shunsuke Sayama. Violento Jack and Masamune will team up against Shunma Katsumasa and Kouhei Kinoshita. The opening match will be Kamui taking on Trainee K.

FREEDOMS announced a bunch of shows for 2019 including their return to Korakuen Hall on March 31, 2019 which will then most likely set up the next show on May 2, 2019. The Jun Kasai Death Match Carnival will begin on July 3, 2019 and end on August 28, 2019 with shows at Korakuen Hall and the end of the year show will be the annual December 25th show at the building. The one exception is that there has been no show booked for September which would be their 10th Anniversary month. I am expecting a big show to be booked at a big building like the Yokohama Bunka Gym for this show but nothing has been announced yet.

The A-Team would return to the Tokyo Kitasenju Theater 1010 on September 30, 2018 and announce a crowd of 140 fans for the show with the continue of the FREEDOMS vs. A-Team feud. The main event would be the FREEDOMS team of Takashi Sasaki, GENTARO, and Toru Sugiura getting the win over Tomohiko Hashimoto, Daisaku Shimoda, and Nobutaka Moribe at 14 minutes, 57 seconds when GENTARO would use the Samson Clutch as a symbol of Kodo Fuyuki who without his WEW promotion both FREEDOMS and A-Team promotions would not be around on Moribe for the win. The semi-main event would be a WEW Tag Team Championship League Battle Tournament Match with Daisuke Ikeda and HASEGAWA earning their 6th point as they would defeat Rion Mizuki and Lion Fujiwara who were stuck at 0 when Ikeda would finish off Fujiwara at 17 minutes, 59 seconds with a Muscle Buster. Raiden would defend his WEW Jr. Heavyweight Title against FREEDOMS' Dragon Libre at 9 minutes, 27 seconds with a Tiger Driver to successfully defend the title for the third time. Kim Duk and Randy Preyer would earn their 4th point in the WEW Tag Team Championship League Battle Tournament Match as they would defeat Keisuke Okuda and Yosuke Enomoto who would stay stuck at 0 after Enomoto was DQ'd at 7 minutes, 32 seconds for again attacking the referee. Akira Jo would defeat Kazuki Enosawa at 4 minutes, 19 seconds with a European Clutch and the opening match would have NOAH's Hi69 return to defeat Takumi Sakurai at 14 minutes, 37 seconds after making him submit to a Cross Armbreaker.

A-Team would then run a show on October 21, 2018 at the Nara Nishiwa Distribution Center Special Ring although because of the weather this show would be held indoors unlike other shows in that location this year as they would announce the standard 270 fans for the show. The main event would be a WEW Tag Team Championship Battle League Tournament Match with Tomohiko Hashimoto and Nobutaka Moribe earning their first two points as they would defeat Rion Mizuki and Lion Fujiwara who would stay at zero points after Moribe would get the win at 15 minutes, 12 seconds with a Futari Sezon. Raiden would defend his WEW Jr. Heavyweight Title in the semi-main event as he would defeat Takeshi Mabayu at 8 minutes, 1 seconds with a Tiger Driver for his fourth successful title defense. The other WEW Tag Team Championship Tournament Battle League Match saw Daisaku Shimoda and Takumi Sakurai earn their first two points in the tournament after defeating Kim Duk and Randy Preyer who would stay at four points after Sakurai would get the pin at 11 minutes, 32 seconds over Preyer. Daisuke Ikeda and HASEGAWA would win a non-tournament match against Tadanobu Fujisawa and Takeshi Irei when Ikeda would get the win at 21 minutes, 26 seconds over Irei after a right kick to the temple. Maoholva would defeat Kazuki Enosawa at 8 minutes, 16 seconds with a Moholobuster. Koharu Hinata would get the win over Yuma at 9 minutes, 48 seconds in the opening match.

The A-Team's full lineup for the Atsushi Onita Return show on October 28, 2018 at the Yokohama Tsurumi Fruit Market with Atsushi Onita teaming up with Kendo Kashin and HASEGAWA in a Exploding Barbed wire Baseball Bat Street Fight Falls Count Anywhere Barbed wire Death Match. The semi-main event will be a Judo Retirement Match for Keigo Takamori going up against Kiyoshi Ayai. Randy Preyer will take on Kazuki Enosawa. The WEW Tag Team Championship League Battle Tournament continues with Daisaku Shimoda and Takumi Sakurai teaming up against Raiden and Akira Jo. Another tournament match will have the undefeated in the tournament team of Daisuke Ikeda and HASEGAWA taking on Tomohiko Hashimoto and Nobutaka Moribe. Tetsuhiro Kuroda returns to the A-Team as he will take on Naoshi Sano. The opening match will be another WEW Tag Team Championship League Battle Tournament Match with Rion Mizuki and Lion Fujiwara going up against Keisuke Okuda and Yosuke Enomoto.

Many different promotions will be joining together for a Ray Memorial show in her honor on November 30, 2018 at the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring. WAVE, Ice Ribbon, Gatoh Move, PURE-J, and Ibuki, Breath, Sendai Girls, SEAdLINNNG, Marvelous, Diana, as well as wrestlers that use to wrestle for Super Battle FMW and Wrestling New Classic will appear as well. All the proceeds of the show will be going towards Ray's family.

Mr. Gannosuke recently returned to Tokyo from his home in Kumamoto to participate on October 20, 2018 for the Shinjuku Suehiro Street Association which is Guts Ishijima's small little promotion following Guts World closing down and most of the wrestlers joining HEAT UP's sub brand GOING-UP. This promotion just holds small shows in the streets of Shinjuku much like Guts World would do every so often. Mr. Gannosuke did commentary for the show as his dyed brown hair following him getting rid of his blonde hair has faded into his natural gray hair. Gannosuke also commented that he is not surprised that Atsushi Onita would come out of retirement for a seventh time, but he is surprised that he would want to come out of retirement at 60 and be in the shape he is in to look the part of a wrestler as Gannosuke is 50 years old and the main reason he retired following Guts World closing was because of how intense he had to train to stay in wrestling shape at age 50. Gannosuke also announced that his marriage that was on February 9, 2018 had ended. Gannosuke stated that the age difference between him and his wife was too much with him being 50 and her being 32. Gannosuke stated that he is still looking for love but that he would focus on someone in their 40's next time.

Sorry again for such a long time in between updates. Next update will be update sooner probably around a month. Moving into a house took quite a good deal of time as I still have so many boxes to go and buying hundreds and hundreds of magazines is great for resource and this site but it is a pain when it comes to moving them all in boxes. I also have caught up and now episodes 1-25 of the History of FMW are now up on my YouTube page with clips covering everything that we are talking about everything up to first half of 2001. We will continue to go on after FMW closes as I have been looking for every little bit of footage I can find following FMW closing down. I also have finished a Jun Kasai Career Music Video package that goes 30 minutes that I really enjoyed making as a lot of the early Big Japan footage stuff isn't stuff that I have seen a thousand times like a majority of the FMW career videos I make. All of these can be found on the Music Video/Podcast page on this site if you have not already. I hope they make up for the lack of updates on this news page as I still am putting pretty much every bit of free time I have into something related to this site or FMW for everyone.

Added: 9/2

The A-Team office which consists of Kazutaka Hasegawa and Tetsuya Machida received a letter from a first grader back on August 19, 2018. They published this two page letter that stated this boy lived in Tsurumi, Yokohama last year when he was in kindergarten and attended the Onita promoted show on October 9, 2018 in Odaiba where Onita took on Matt Tremont and the other American wrestlers in a Exploding Barbed wire Death Match. He stated how he remembered how much fun it was seeing Onita wrestle with his mother and father both cheering on Onita. He told all his friends in Kindergarten about the experience and seeing Onita live.

The letter stated the boy now in first grade had to move to Okayama in April due to his father getting a new job. The boy stated that the boy has now had to move back to Tsurumi, Yokohama already because of the Okayama mudslides that took place in early July due to all the rain that ended up destroying their new home and leaving them homeless with no water supply. The family now staying with relatives back home in Tsurumi, Yokohama have agreed to let the boy attend the A-Team show on October 28, 2018 at the Tsurumi Fruit Market if the boy is able to get all A's on his report card. The boy stated it has been very difficult because of all that has happened the past two months but he is studying really hard so he can go to the show and he really wants to see Atsushi Onita wrestle live again.

HASEGAWA and Machida traveled to Onita's home town of Kanizaki in the Saga Prefecture on August 31, 2018 to present Onita with the letter from the boy and to ask him to make this boys dream come true. They ended up finding Onita at his field farming rice and presented the letter and asked Onita to read the letter and to think about coming out of retirement once again to wrestle in front of this boy. Onita would tell them that he was glad he came but that it was not a easy decision and there is the possibility that they came all this way for nothing. Onita stated that he was going to be honest with them and that he is at a transition period in his life and would read the letter given to him and thanked them for coming. HASEGAWA would state afterwards to the reporter that came along with them to take the picture that he would not give up and as long as there is a 1% possibility that Onita will come back into the ring then this trip was worth it.

HASEGAWA and Machida would return to Onita's field the next day on September 1, 2018 to meet up with Onita. Machida would ask Onita if he had read the letter with Onita telling him he had read the letter and he was glad he did. He stated though that however if he were to wrestle for the A-Team show in Tsurumi the fans at the show would feel betrayed that Onita would once again go up against his word. Hasegawa would tell Onita there would be criticism from some but many wish for Onita to return and that the A-Team fans will understand. Hasegawa stated he will make sure that there is a lineup that is suitable for Onita to return to the ring for. Onita would thank them for coming all this way and that he would think about it.

Atsushi Onita will be in Tokyo on September 27th regardless as he has agreed to referee for Jimmy Suzuki a long time photographer for Weekly Pro Magazine who has started promoting his own promotion Tokyo Championship Wrestling. Onita will referee a Three Way Match between Sabu vs. Masato Tanaka vs. Yuko Miyamoto. There will be an A-Team show in Tokyo three days later on September 30, 2018. Onita has also announced that in October he will be releasing a t-shirt with him as The Great Nita and Tam Nakano.

Former Super Battle FMW wrestler Ray passed away on August 30, 2018 at 2:18 PM from Stage III Brain Cancer. Her real name was never publicized but her birth name was Sayaka. She made her debut as Rei on September 15, 2003 facing off against her trainer former FMW wrestler Emi Motokawa for the Gatokunyan promotion. She changed her name to Caribbean Moon in 2007 when working for the JD Star promotion. She would eventually change her name to Passion Ray in 2009 as she would join the Passion Red stable that work for promotions such as NEO Ladies, JWP, and Oz Academy. Ray would eventually begin working for Tajiri's SMASH promotion in March 2010 and early on in the promotion she was also begin dating Tajiri as well. Tajiri did not like the Ray gimmick and had her take her mask off and begin working under the name Lin Byron.

Her past as Ray was not acknowledged by SMASH and she was treated as a new wrestler from Hong Kong where she had done action movies although she was actually Japanese and not Hong Kong or Chinese like many believe. Tajiri would form a working relationship with the REINA promotion and as a result the SMASH/WNC girls would also begin working for the REINA promotion with Lin Byron wrestling for SMASH and Ray wrestling for REINA. REINA would also have a working relationship with CMLL Mexico as Ray would make her debut in Mexico in 2011. She and Kana would eventually turn heel together in 2014 after turning on fellow Wrestling New Classic women's wrestler Syuri. Lin Byron though would appear for REINA in 2014 and tag up with Syuri as a face tag team and would enter a tournament and would make it to the finals together for the REINA Tag Team Championship but would end up losing after Byron would also end up turning on Syuri after it was revealed that Kana had paid her off. Lin Byron would also become heel in Wrestling New Classic where she would begin using the name Lynn Bitch Byron where she would have a famous lingerie match with Kana before it would be announced in June 2014 that Tajiri was closing down Wrestling New Classic for not wanting to promote shows any longer.

Ray after working for JWP met Command Bolshoi and became friends through music as Bolshoi is a very talented guitarist. Bolshoi who had appeared at Hayabusa concerts to play with him introduced Ray to Hayabusa as Ray was a very talented singer which resulted in Hayabusa and Ray becoming friends with Ray appearing when she could at Hayabusa concerts for years. Ray would begin working freelance but after it would be announced that Super Battle FMW would be starting up in 2015 and had a made a deal with Hayabusa to appear on shows the relationship between Hayabusa and Ray who had become known as the female Hayabusa got her a spot as the top women's wrestler for Super Battle FMW. Ray would appear on a majority of Super Battle FMW shows and become the face of women's division and begin working against big name joshi wrestlers on the show towards the end of the year including Manami Toyota, AKINO, Leon, and finally Ayako Hamada on December 22, 2015 for the promotions first Korakuen Hall show. Her match against Hamada she would end up suffering a concussion during it. Ray and Atsushi Onita would announce on January 27, 2016 that during the MRI at the Tokyo Women's Medical University that they had found a brain tumor in Ray. They would have surgery and remove the left thalamus and tell her that the results would come back in the success of the surgery. Ray would announce that she would plan on wrestling at the February 26th show for Super Battle FMW at Korakuen Hall which her friend Hayabusa was very critical of the promotion for even thinking of allowing to wrestle while someone has a brain tumor. The horrible news would come out on February 17, 2016 for Ray as she would announce that her surgery back on January 21, 2016 had the worst possible result. The tumor had came back cancerous and that it was already at a Stage III brain cancer and that the cancer cells had already spread to the nerves of the brain leaving the doctors unable to operate on the tumor. This was sadly a death sentence and she knew it. Just two weeks later her friend Hayabusa passed away. She appeared with Hayabusa's band mates Sana Sakura and Fumi Taguchi and sang a song written by Hayabusa with them as tribute to Hayabusa on March 12, 2016.

Ray would continue to appear on shows with fans donating money for her medical bills. I had the chance to meet her on June 21, 2016 and coincidentally enough ended up spending most of the night around her as we ended up sitting next to each other for most of the night after the FMW After Party. She was very nice to me as she is well known for but just observing her you could see the sadness in her and realization in her that she knew her life was going to be over soon. Ray had made comments about wanting to return at Super Battle FMW's May 5, 2017 show but her condition would only worsen and Super Battle FMW's main sponsor pulled out and by 2017 they were only able to run small buildings like Shin-Kiba 1st Ring anyway. Ray would appear in front of the crowd at the November 17, 2016 at Korakuen Hall for Super Battle FMW and thank the fans for their support and donations. Her health and life would begin to decline as all they could try and do is give treatments to her. She would tell the Super Battle FMW promotion that she would appear for the March 22, 2017 show for Hayabusa's One Year Memorial show put on by the promotion but then tell them that the weather was too cold for to attend the show due to the risk of germs. Ray would end up making her last appearance to the public on September 21, 2017 for the Super Battle FMW show at the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring where she would sit at ringside and watch the matches. Her face was much more swollen due to all the steroids that she was being given for treatment that she was hardly recognizable even while wearing a mask. It would become much more difficult for her friends to hear anything back from her and eventually on August 30, 2018 at her hospital bed she would end up passing away. Several of her friends including Ricky Fuji were made aware of it the night of August 30th as someone close to her who had been given the news of her passing had began making calls and letting people know about it before it would become officially reported by the media on August 31st. The funeral has been announced a private one for just family. Sana Sakura made mention that Ray is now up in heaven singing with Hayabusa once again. I will continue to pray for you Ray.

FREEDOMS would run their annual show in Iwate at the Ichinoseki City Gym in the Main Arena on July 22, 2018 and announce a crowd of 571 fans for the show. The show which usually takes place in the Fall is held in Takashi Sasaki's home town and he would participate in the main event along with Masashi Takeda, Jun Kasai, and Yuko Miyamoto going up against Violento Jack, Daisuke Masaoka, Miedo Extremo, and Ciclope in a Two out of Three Falls Weapons Death Match. Sasaki would be the first to take the fall as Violento Jack would end up hitting his Package Piledriver at 8 minutes, 56 seconds on a broken can board. Jun Kasai would then come in against Extremo and Ciclope with Extremo suplexing Kasai on his head with Ciclope following that with a knee to the face of Kasai. Masaoka would come at Kasai off the top turnbuckle with his knees but Kasai would move out of the way and end up delivering a Reverse Tiger Driver followed by a Pearl Harbor Splash on fluorescent light tubes at 14 minutes, 31 seconds to tie things up at once fall a piece. Sasaki would end up missing a lariat and end up getting clotheslined by Jack, Extremo, and Ciclope. Extremo would then setup a ladder and begin to climb it but Sasaki would get up and deliver a suplex off the ladder on Extremo. Sasaki would then hit the bloody Extremo with a lariat followed by placing a light tube over his head and delivering a right leg kick to the light breaking over Extremo's head to get the pin at at 19 minutes, 14 seconds to win the match for FREEDOMS two falls to one against Los Nomadas.

The semi-main event would have Hi69 return to FREEDOMS for the first time since March 2, 2017 now a member of the Pro-Wrestling NOAH promotion as he would team up with fellow NOAH member Go Shoizaki against the FREEDOMS team of Mammoth Sasaki and Toru Sugiura. Shiozaki would get in a clothesline battle with Mammoth that would result in Mammoth getting knocked down first but eventually Shiozaki would collapse also. Shiozaki would get up and setup for Hi69 to deliver a knee to the face of Sugiura. Hi69 would then deliver a diving headbutt but Sugiura would get his knees up and would roll up Hi69 for the two count. Sugiura would then pick up Hi69 for a Powerbomb but Hi69 would escape and then roll up Sugiura for the win at 14 minutes, 21 seconds with a Jikiden GENTARO Clutch for the win. The Great Sasuke would team up with the Brahman Brothers as they would defeat the team of Kenji Fukimoto, Minoru Fujitra, adn Chikara when Sasauke would get the pin at 10 minutes, 37 seconds with a Jack knife roll up. Tsukasa Fujimoto and Makoto would defeat the team of Hamuko Hoshi and Ibuki Hoshi at 13 minutes, 50 seconds when Fujimoto would deliver a Japanese Ocean Cyclone Suplex for the pinfall over Ibuki. GENTARO and Tomoya Hirata would team up just weeks after GENTARO terrorized the rookie and they would end up taking the loss ot the 666 team of Shinobu and Kozu Takeda when Shinobu would hit the SEX Shooting Star Press at 9 minutes, 56 seconds for the win over Hirata. The opening match would have Yuya Susumu, Masamune, and Aisawa # 1 getting the win over Kamui, Dragon Libre, and Heisenberg when Masamune would pick up the pinfall at 10 minutes, 47 seconds with the Raikiri over Libre.

The next show on the Jun Kasai 20th Anniversary show Tour would take place on July 29, 2018 at the Osaka Tsurumi Greenland Hanamizuki Hall which was an indoor location next to the Osaka Tsurumi Green Forest Park but it would have to be moved due to a a huge Tsunami hitting Japan although at the time of the show there would not even be any rain. The main event would be Jun Kasai, Kenji Fukimoto, Kamui, and Toru Sugiura going up against Violento Jack, Daisuke Masaoka, Miedo Extremo, and Ciclope in a No Holds Barred Fire Death Match. Kasai would lift Masaoka on his shoulders and then drop him face first into a set of light tubes followed by a clothesline to Masaoka. Kamui would then get in his car and attempt to hit Los Nomadas with it although and all of them would get thrown into the car coming at them along with Toru Sugiura somehow getting tossed into the car as well. The match would then go outside where Kamui would set a table on fire. Miedo Extremo would defend himself by grabbing Kamui and delivering a Death Valley Bomb on the table set on fire. Some of the wrestlers would then make it back to the ring with Sugiura delivering a flying dropkick to Masaoka. Kasai would then climb to the top of the scaffold and deliver the Pearl Harbor Splash on Masaoka off the scaffold. Kamui would then follow it up by delivering a Swanton Bomb off the scaffold on Masaoka. Masaoka would then kick Kamui low and Jack would deliver a lariat to Kamui followed by Jack delivering a Package Piledriver on Kamui and then Ciclope would dive off the scaffold with light tubes to break the light tubes across Kamui and Ciclope would end up covering Kamui at 15 minutes, 9 seconds for the Los Nomadas win.

The semi-main event would be a Hardcore Match with Takashi Sasaki and Tomoya Hirata going up against Gunso and Naoki Tanizaki. Hirata would get bloodied early on and tossed in and on the ladder. Hirata would fight back and duck a chair swing by Tanizaki and deliver a shoulder tackle to him. Hirata would then climb the top rope and deliver a flying drop kick on Gunso and make the cover with Tanizaki having to make the save. Hirata would make another charge at Gunso but he would move out of the way and instead Hirata would end up getting kicked by Tanizaki. Gunso would then grab a chair and smash it over Hirata's head and make the cover at 15 minutes, 51 seconds for the pinfall win for Gunso. brother YASSHI and Ryukyu Dragon's Tida Heat would defeat Yuya Susumu and Heisenberg when YASSHI would pick up the win at 10 minutes, 2 seconds with a Flying Big Head win over Heisenberg. Mammoth Sasaki and GENTARO would win a Street Fight against Masashi Takeda and Minoru Fujita after Mammoth would get the win at 10 minutes, 11 seconds after hitting Fujita with a 29 Years Old onto a chair. The twins match of Brahman Shu and Brahman Kei would end up going to a No Contest against Yasu and Hide Kubota at 6 minutes, 3 seconds after both teams would get DQ'd. The opening match of Drake Morimatsu and Idea defeating Dyna Mido and Dragon Libre after Idea would pick up the pinfall at 11 minutes, 25 seconds over Libre after Morimatsu had hit him with the Drake Driver.

Takashi Sasaki would promote his Sengoku Period Warrior show on August 6, 2018 drawing an announced crowd of 386 fans for the show. They expect those numbers going into the show as the shows are more of a way to to let smaller indie wrestlers get the chance to work at Korakuen Hall but the numbers are declining each time they run one of these shows and I would imagine it is time to put an end to these shows as the number will probably keep declining. I have watched the previous two shows both shows I dreaded going into it because you are about to spend 2 hours watching a bunch of guys you don't know in matches without heat. Both shows have been better than I expected and I would say are okay but I am sure when it is time to watch this show I will dread going into it as well and I will come out of this one just thinking it was okay instead which there have been some FREEDOMS shows in the past I have come away with a much sour opinion on.

The main event had the Okinawa Ryukyu Dragon Team of Churaumi Saber, Shuri Joe, and Hijya Kidman defeat the Osaka based Dotonbori team of TORU, Kazuaki Mihara, and Katsumi Oribe when Saber would get the pin at 17 minutes, 42 seconds with a Firebird Splash. Takashi Sasaki, Guruken Mask, and Kazunori Yoshida would defeat Takahiro Katori, Rising Hayato, and Kohei Kinoshita when Sasaki would pick up the win at 11 minutes, 30 seconds with a D-Geist in the semi-main event. The Unchain team of Masashi Takeda, Jun Kasia, and Kenji Fukimoto would defeat the Dove Pro team of Naoki Tanizaki, brother YASSHI, and Kenshin Chinako when Takeda would make Chikano tap out at 9 minutes, 37 seconds to an Ankle Lock. The Bad Boy team of Ken45°, Manjimaru, and Kengo would defeat the Los Nomadas team of Violento Jack, Miedo Extremo, and Ciclope when Ken45° would pin Extremo at 8 minutes, 59 seconds with a Cryptosporidium. Kyusei Ninja Ranmaru and Hibiscus Mii would originally lose after just 16 seconds to Kengo Takai and Grand Passion Mask # 4 but the match would get restarted and Ranmaru would end up pinning Passion Mask at 4 minutes, 54 seconds with after a low blow. Toru Sugiura defeated Yoju at 10 minutes, 1 second with an Over Easy. Daisuke Masaoka and Jun Matsuoka would defeat Yuya Susumu and Aisawa # 1 when Masaoka would get the win at 10 minutes, 6 seconds over Aisawa with the Rokkura Kai. The FREEDOMS team of Mammoth Sasaki, GENTARO, and Tomoya Hirata would defeat the PUZZLE team of Togyo, Senkuma, and Heisenberg when GENTARO would pin Heisenberg at 11 minutes, 3 seconds with a Samson Clutch. The opening match would have Ultimate Spider, Jr. and Takoyakida would defeat Kamui and Dragon Libre when Spider would get the win at 10 minutes, 37 seconds with a Swanton Bomb over Libre.

FREEDOMS ran their annual "Unchain Night" at the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring on August 11, 2018 where they would announced a crowd of 240 fans for the show. The main event was a 4 vs. 4 Single Elimination Match with the Unchain team of Masashi Takeda, Jun Kasai, Kenji Fukimoto, and Minoru Fujita going up against Los Nomadas in Violento Jack, Daisuke Masaoka, Miedo Extremo, and Ciclope. Daisuke Masaoka would climb up the top turnbuckle when Takeda would shove him off causing him to land to the outside of the ring at 16 minutes, 15 seconds for the first elimination of the match. Minoru Fujita would end up being the next eliminated after Ciclope would off the top rope with a snapmare and Fujita would end up getting pinned at 17 minutes, 38 seconds to tie things up. Violento Jack would then finish off Kenji Fukimoto at 18 minutes, 45 seconds with a Package Piledriver leaving just Kasai and Takeda left for the Unchain team. Jun Kasai then setup light tubes on Ciclope's chest and deliver a Pearl Harbor Splash when Masaoka would end up grabbing the referee and pulling him out of the ring to stop the three count. Masaoka would then deliver a Reverse Tiger Driver Kasai. Ciclope would then charge at Kasai but both would end up going over the top rope together at 21 minutes, 52 seconds leaving it up to just Masashi Takeda against Violento Jack and Miedo Extremo. Extremo would hit Takeda with a Falcon Arrow and Jack would come over and lift Takeda up above his head but Takeda would manage to get free and away from Jack. Jack would then charge at Takeda but Takeda would end up tossing Jack over the top rope at 23 minutes, 42 seconds for the elimination. This would leave just Masashi Takeda against Miedo Extremo and Takeda would end up hitting the Reverse U Crash on Extremo but once again Masaoka would end up running in and interfering and attack the referee. The rest of the Unchain members would then hit the ring and attack Masaoka leaving Takeda and Extremo alone and Takeda would end up hitting the Reverse U-Crash again for the pinfall at 27 minutes, 33 seconds for the Unchain win. The Unchain team would end up celebrating and Jun Kasai would end up taking the mic and challenging Masashi Takeda for the King of Freedom World Championship at Korakuen Hall on August 28th for Jun Kasai's 20th Anniversary show.

The other matches on the show would see Kamui and Toru Sugiura get the win in the semi-main event over the team of Mammoth Sasaki and GENTARO when Kamui would end up getting the pin at 10 minutes, 59 seconds over GENTARO with a Firebird Splash. Yuya Susumu would defeat Gunso at 8 minutes, 8 seconds after Gunso would end up getting DQ'd for using a chair in the match. Masato Inaba would return as Captain Abnormal a former member that attends the annual show and he would defeat Chikara at 8 minutes, 29 seconds with a Small Package. The opening match would be the Unchain team of Masashi Takeda, Jun Kasai, Kenji Fukimoto, Minoru Fujita, and Gunso defeating Takashi Sasaki and his young team of Dragon Libre, Tomoya Hirata, Heisenberg, and Trainee K when Fukimoto would pick up the win at 9 minutes, 56 seconds over Dragon Libre with a Package Piledriver.

Jun Kasai would continue his 20th Anniversary Tour on August 19, 2018 at the Hiroshima Industry Center West Building where they would announce a crowd of 532 fans for the show. The main event would have Miedo Extremo and Ciclope defend the GCW Tag Team Titles against Jun Kasai and Minoru Fujita in a Fluorescent Light Tubes Glass Board Weapons Death Match. Kasai and Fujita would both be put through one of the glass boards early in the match as they would both be dropkicked by Extremo and Ciclope causing them to break the glass at the same time. Extremo and Ciclope would then take the other glass board, but as Ciclope would climb the top turnbuckle and try and to send Fujita through the glass board he would be met by Kasai who would come up and grab Ciclope and powerbomb him through the other glass board. Kasai would then throw a light tube on Ciclope and deliver the Pearl Harbor Splash on Ciclope. Fujita would deliver a Fire Thunder on Extremo but Masaoka would end up throwing the referee out and attacking Fujita and laying Kasai out with a Reverse Tiger Driver. Masaoka would setup a light tube on Fujita with Ciclope delivering a kick to the light tube across Fujita followed by a 450 Splash by Extremo while holding a light tube. Ciclope would then get the pinfall over Fujita at 17 minutes, 17 seconds with a Diving Body Press with light tube to successfully defend the GCW Tag Team Championship.

The other matches on the show would have Violento Jack and Daisuke Masaoka team up against Takashi Sasaki and Tomoya Hirata in a Thumbtacks Death Match. Tomoya Hirata would grab the bucket of thumbtacks drop them over his head and then drop Masaoka into the thumbtacks. Masaoka would come back and deliver a knee causing Hirata to fall into the thumbtacks. Jack would then charge at Hirata but would end up getting knocked down into the tacks by Hirata. Jack would get up and eventually deliver a belly to belly suplex the bloody Hirata into the tacks. Jack would then finish Hirata off into the tacks with a Package Piledriver at 14 minutes, 19 seconds for the win. GENTARO would team up with Kamui and Takeshi Okada as they would take on the returning from a heart attack Devil Magician, Hideki Hosaka, and Kenshin Chikano when GENTARO would end up making Magician submit at 12 minutes, 54 seconds with a Manjigatame in a Street Fight Death Match. Kenji Fukimoto, Gunso, and brother YASSHI would defeat Mammoth Sasaki, Kazma Sakamoto, and Chikara when YASSHI would pin Chikara at 11 minutes, 15 seconds with a Tombstone Piledriver. Yuya Susumu and Rising Hayato would get the win over Toru Sugiura and Katori Takahiro when Susumu would get the win at 12 minutes, 23 seconds with a Front Crash. Rey Paloma and Tsuchiya Crazy would defeat Dragon Libre and Heisenberg when Paloma would pick up the win at 12 minutes, 58 seconds over Heisenberg with a Backslide in the opening match.

The final Jun Kasai Death Match Carnival show took place on August 28, 2018 at Korakuen Hall for Jun Kasai's 20th Anniversary show and would be FREEDOMS biggest show in the promotions history announcing a crowd of 1,654 fans for the show. This beats out last years show for the biggest Korakuen Hall show the promotion has done which was last year on August 27, 2017 when Daisuke Masaoka going up against Miedo Extremo drew 1,378 fans as well as the biggest show they have done total when they drew 1,382 fans at the Iwate Ichinoseki City Gym for Riki Choshu and Tatsumi Fujinami against Takashi Sasaki and HIROKI back on September 9, 2012. This show like expected when they announced the main event was a huge success. The main event of Jun Kasai vs. Masashi Takeda which after announced on August 11th began selling tickets instantly. This is the third time they have main evented although just two shows had the match promoted as their first match at Korakuen was the finals of a tournament so they had wrestled earlier that night.

Jun Kasai who had last faced off against Masashi Takeda and won the King of Freedom World Championship from him on December 25, 2015 would challenge for the title once again in a No Canvas Fluorescent Glass Board Weapons Death Match. The first weapon used would be a pair of scissors that Takeda would begin using to begin cut Kasai up with by stabbing him in the forehead with them. Takeda would then throw Kasai to the outside and place one of the glass boards on a stack of chairs and lay the glass over Kasai's body. Takeda would then dive off the top turnbuckle to the outside and send his body smashing through the glass board causing the glass to explode all over Kasai's body. Takeda would then take out the boards of the ring and place the other glass board and deliver a Uranage through it sending Kasai to below the ring. Takeda would get back into the ring but Kasai would get up and grab Takeda by his boot with a big smile on his face. Kasai would then grab some skewers and plant them in Takeda's head. Kasai would bring out a cross razor board and deliver a Reverse Tiger Driver on to it. Kasai would place some light tubes on Takeda's body but as he would go up to the top rope, Takeda would get up in time and deliver a spider suplex off the turnbuckle sending Kasai into the light tubes. Kasai absolutely covered in blood would begin punching and slapping Takeda, but that would just result in Takeda slapping back and eventually just punching Kasai square in the face which would just knock Kasai out. Takeda would place a light tube over Kasai and deliver a running knee kick breaking the light tube over Kasai, but Takeda would only get a one count and double middle fingers from Kasai. Takeda would then grab Kasai and deliver a U Crash on a board of scissors followed by a Reverse U Crash reform and finally finishing Kasai off for the three count at 23 minutes, 4 seconds to successfully defend the King of Freedom World Championship for the second time. Takeda and Kasai would go to shake hands both but both would pull away and give each other middle fingers as a sign of respect. Kasai while doing his interview would be met with Daisuke Masaoka who would begin mocking Kasai for losing the match and would challenge Kasai to a Death Match to main event the next FREEDOMS show at Korakuen Hall on September 17th.

The semi-main event of the show would be Violento Jack against Kenji Fukimoto in a Fluorescent Light Tubes Death Match with the loser having to give up their signature Package Piledriver finisher. Both Jack and Fukimoto would start by trading Package Piledrivers but as Fukimoto would try to deliver one on a razor cross board, he would end up getting picked up by Jack and dropped on the razors instead. Jack would then lay a stack of light tubes on Fukimoto but Fukimoto would end up raising the light tubes so when Jack would come off the top rope he would end up coming off the top rope and they would break across his body. Fukimoto would end up delivering a brainbuster to Jack on the razor cross board and finally would hit a Package Piledriver on Jack to get the win at 13 minutes, 56 seconds so Violento Jack will no longer be able to use the Package Piledriver.

Daisuke Masaoka, Miedo Extremo, and Ciclope would end up defeating Takashi Sasaki, Kamui, and Tomoya Hirata in a Street Fight Scramble Bunkhouse Death Match when Masaoka would get the pin over Kamui at 12 minutes, 30 seconds with a Small Package. Gunso and brother YASSHI would defeat Yuya Susumu and Dragon Libre when YASSHI would finish off Libre at 9 minutes, 18 seconds with a Kingston Piledriver. Mammoth Sasaki and Kazma Sakamoto would defeat GENTARO and Heisenberg when Mammoth would pick up the win at 7 minutes, 45 seconds using the Camel Clutch. The annual Tokyo Desert Man on the verge homelessness Death Match would see Minoru Fujita, Brahman Shu, and Brahman Kei defeat Sugiura Man who would be Toru Sugiura, Sugira Man Great who would be Keizo Matsuda, and Chikara when Fujita would get the pin over Chikara at 7 minutes, 11 seconds in the opening match.

FREEDOMS would run for the first time on September 2, 2018 at the Saitama Tobu Animal Park Zoo Event Stage drawing an announced 68 fans for the special show. The FREEDOMS team of Jun Kasai, Takashi Sasaki, Mammoth Sasaki, and GENTARO would defeat Los Nomadas of Violento Jack, Daisuke Masaoka, Miedo Extremo, and Ciclope when Kasai would end up getting the win at 15 minutes, 1 second after hitting the Pearl Harbor Splash on Extremo for the win. Toru Sugiura dressing up and going by the name White Tiger would defeat Tomoya Hirata dressing up and going by Capybara at 15 minutes, 10 seconds with a Moonsault. Kenji Fukimoto would defeat Takahiro Katori at 9 minutes, 40 seconds with a Package Piledriver. The opening match would have Yuya Susumu and Kazunori Yoshida defeat Kamui and Dragon Libre when Susumu would pin Libre at 11 minutes, 5 seconds with a Front Crash. The wrestlers before the show took a trip around the zoo which included Jun Kasai feeding a white tiger.

FREEDOMS has announced the partial lineup for their 9th Anniversary show on September 17, 2018 at Korakuen Hall. The main event will be Jun Kasai going up against Daisuke Masaoka in a Death Match. I would imagine this would be to setup Masaoka challenging Takeda for the Christmas Death Match show. FREEDOMS will take on ZERO1 on the show as Takashi Sasaki, Mammoth Sasaki, and Tomoya Hirata go up against Shinjiro Otani, Tatsuhito Takaiwa, and Syouki Kitamura. Masashi Takeda will team up with Unchain members Kenji Fukimoto and Minoru Fujita in a Death Match against Violento Jack, Miedo Extremo, and Ciclope. brother YASSHI will defend the UWA Jr. Heavyweight Title against Yuya Susumu. Except 2-3 more matches to be announced prior to the show.

FREEDOMS will then run a show on September 22, 2018 at the Odate Citizen Gym where the main event would be Jun Kasai taking on Violento Jack in a Fluorescent Light Tubes Death Match. Masashi Takeda and Kenji Fukimoto team up to take on Daisuke Masaoka and Isami Kodaka in a Barbed wire Board Death Match. Takashi Sasaki teams up with Skai to take on Shiro Koshinaka and Moeka Kasuga in a mixed tag match. Koji Kanemoto teams up with Kamui to take on Yuya Susumu and Masamune. Yuna Manabu and Mari take on Naho Kakuda and Hikari Shimizu. Makoto goes up against Shiori Akiba. The opening match will be Mammoth Sasaki teaming up with Toru Sugiura and Dragon Libre against GENTARO, Tomoya Hirata, and Chikara.

Kintaro Kanemura promoted his ING show on July 20, 2018 at the Tokyo Shinjuku FACE. No crowd attendance was announced but it looked to be about 200 fans in the 650 seat building. Kanemura told me that he does plan on running another show in October although nothing has been officially announced yet. Kanemura came to the ring to thank the fans for attending the show and sat in the row and watched but that was pretty much the involvement he had for the show.

The main event would be a Hardcore Match between Jun Kasai and Yuji Hino against the former WEW Hardcore Tag Team Champions Mammoth Sasaki and Hideki Hosaka. Kasai during the match would climb the top rope would point to Kanemura who would just look on emotionless as Kasai would deliver a dive off the top to the outside sending Hosaka through the table. Hosaka and Kasai would end up brawling on the outside which would leave Kasai busted open but Hino who refuses to take part in any type of Death Match style of wrestling would stay in the ring the whole time and eventually lay out Hosaka with a Powerbomb before Kasai would finish Hosaka off at 15 minutes, 8 seconds with a Pearl Harbor Splash.

Onryo, Yuko Miyamoto, Jiro Kuroshio, and Naoki Tanizaki all doing the Ikemen Meterosexual gimmick with matching jackets would team up to take on the team of Kengo, Yuya Susumu, Shinobu, and Koju Takeda in the semi-main event. Onryo and Kengo would go at it with every time Onryo getting hit dust falling all over the ring off him. There would be a spot where all four of the Ikemen team would throw their opponents to the ring and at the same time do a matching abdominal stretch. Kuroshio would end up getting the pinfall over Takeda with a Moonsault at 13 minutes, 52 seconds for the Ikemen win. Tetsuhiro Kuroda charge at Kazushi Miyamoto with a lariat but would unphase Miyamoto. Miyamoto would take a swing at Kuroda who would duck and Kuroda would end up knocking him down with a lariat. Kuroda would then hit a Shining Wizard on Miyamoto. Kuroda would end up getting knocked out by Miyamoto who would end up finishing him with a Powerbomb to get the win at 12 minutes, 36 seconds for his team. Kazushi Miyamoto, Nobuhiro Tsurumaki, and Gajo would take on Tetsuhiro Kuroda, Masao Orihara, and Mototsugu Shimizu with Kuroda charging at Miyamoto with a lariat which would unphase Miyamoto. Miyamoto would then take a swing at Kuroda who would duck and end up knocking Miyamoto down with a lariat. Kuroda would then hit a Shining Wizard on Miyamoto but eventually Kuroda would end up getting knocked out by Miyamoto who would end up finishing him with a Powerbomb to get the win at 12 minutes, 36 seconds for his team. Motosugu Shimizu & Amigo Suzuki would defeat 666's NENE mugen D.a.i & Yuiga at 10 minutes, 6 seconds when Shimizu would pin Yuiga. Takahiro Tababa would get the win at 7 minutes, 7 seconds over Yuta Suzuki. Shingo Garyu would defeat Bomber Ryoku in the first round at 3 minutes, 54 seconds via TKO after knocking him out. Yu Iizuka would defeatH II & Tetsuya Ido when Iizuka would pin H II at 5 minutes, 2 seconds in a Triple Threat Match for the opener.

The A-Team ran a show on July 22, 2018 at the Nara Tenri Station Ekimae Square Station where they would announce a crowd of 250 fans for the show. This should would mark the start of the WEW Tag Team Championship League Battle with the main event having WEW World Champion Kim Duk and foreign wrestler Randy Player teaming up to get the win over the Bustas tag team of Tomohiko Hashimoto and Nobutaka Moribe with Duk getting the win over Moribe at 10 minutes, 15 seconds with a Tombstone Piledriver. The semi-main event would have Daisuke Ikeda and HASEGAWA earning their first two points of the tournament as threy would defeat the team of Keisuke Okuda and Yosuke Enomoto at 16 minutes, 5 seconds when Okuda was DQ'd for attacking the referee. The other tournament match would have Raiden and Akira Jo defeat Rion Mizuki and Lion Fujiwara when Jo would get the win at 10 minutes, 21 seconds over Fujiwara with a Cross Roads. The non tournament matches saw Daiskue Shimoda and Takumi Sakurai defeat El Kinto and Danger when Sakurai would get the win at 11 minutes, 10 seconds with a Moonsault. The opening match had Koharu Hinata defeat HONOHA at 6 minutes, 27 seconds with the Diving Foot Stomp.

The A-Team held their first show at the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring on August 5, 2018 where they would announce a crowd of 286 fans for the show. The main event would be an A-Team vs. FREEDOMS match with the FREEDOMS team of Takashi Sasaki, GENTARO, and Toru Sugiura getting the win over the A-Team of Tomohiko Hashimoto, HASEGAWA, and Nobutaka Moribe when GENTARO would roll up Moribe at 16 minutes, 45 seconds with a Small Package Hold. The semi-main event would have Raiden defend his WEW Jr. Heavyweight Title against GOING-UP's Joji Otani with Raiden getting the win at 10 minutes, 57 seconds with a Tiger Driver for the second successful title defense. Randy Player would get his first singles win at 12 minutes, 42 seconds over Takumi Sakurai with a Powerbomb. A-Team's Daisaku Shimoda would defeat FREEDOMS' Tomoya Hirata at 10 minutes, 4 seconds with a Backdrop. Kim Duk would get the win in a non-title match after defeating Shocker at 7 minutes, 57 seconds with a Tombstone Piledriver. The opening match would have Daisuke Ikeda and Chikara defeating the team of Akira Jo and Hazard when Ikeda would get the win at 13 minutes, 24 seconds with a Daichan Bomber over Jo.

Then A-Team would continue their WEW Tag Team Championship League Battle Tournament on August 25, 2018 at the Miyagi Tomei City Yoneyama Special Ring where they would announce 230 fans for the show. The main event would have Shinobu and Nobutaka Moribe defeat the team of Tomohiko Hashimoto and Kazuki Enosawa the former Kizarasu Clown when Shinobu would pin Enosawa at 14 minutes, 42 seconds with the Shooting Star Press. Raiden and Akira earned their fourth points in the tournament against Keisuke Okuda and Yosuke Enomoto when they would once again be DQ'd at 11 minutes, 33 seconds this time for Enomoto attacking the referee. The opening match would have Daisuke Ikeda and HASEGAWA also earn their fourth points of the tournament defeating Daisaku Shimoda and Takumi Sakurai when Ikeda would get the pinfall at 18 minutes, 15 seconds over Shimoda with a Daichan Bomber.

Yuko Miyamoto has had quite the eventful month as he was able to win his very first ZERO1 Fire Festival Tournament on July 29, 2018 defeating Kohei Sato in the finals to win the sword. He would then lose his Bakuha-ō King Championship that he had held since November by defeating Masato Tanaka as he would end up losing to TARU on August 5th in a Exploding Barbed wire Death Match. 666 would then hold a Yuko Miyamoto 15th Anniversary show as he would team up with Abdullah Kobayashi who has had a long rivalry with in Big Japan and Mayumi Ozaki who he made a name having a Death Match with her in back in 2007 as they would go up against Mammoth Sasaki who helped train him in the WMF Dojo back in 2003, Kamui who he trained in the WMF Dojo with, and his long time tag team partner Isami Kodaka with Miyamoto getting the win at 15 minutes, 42 seconds after hitting a Moonsault on Kamui for the win. He would then challenge and lose to Masashi Takeda for the Big Japan Death Match Heavyweight Title on August 19, 2018 in Nagoya in a Fluorescent Light Tubes Spike Needle Board Thumbtack Board Death Match.

I wanted to apologize for the lack of updates for this news section. It has to do with three things. 1) Before the last couple of days there really was not that much news to come out other than the FREEDOMS shows I try and wait and see if anything else is worth writing about. 2) Just life. Being married and moving into a house in early October has just resulted in less free time than ever before. 3) That limited free time lately has been going to working on the History of FMW video podcasts that I am posting on YouTube. I am glad I am getting a lot of positive feedback for them because they suck to make and take a very, very long time with so many edits needing to be made. If you did not know already even though I don't change the updated date on the main page of the site for the news until I do a huge update like this I am still constantly updating the future show lineups as soon as I possibly can and posting to the Misc. Results section which does take a good amount of time in itself when I don't even know how many people are actually using it as any type of source. Because of the move the next update of this will probably come out in mid October as there will probably be an answer to whether or not Onita will be coming out of retirement.

Last updated: 7/18

WWS which is ran by Ramen Man and Naoya Takase these days held a Mr. Pogo Memorial show at the Tokyo Shin-Kiba 1st Ring on July 1, 2018 and although no attendance was announced the building seemed very full as I would expect well over 200 fans for the show. Ramen Man even joked that joked that between this show and the Mr. Pogo Memorial show back on November 12, 2017 in Gunma that was also a financial success that WWS is doing better without Pogo. Kanemura and Ramen Man came out to start the show to greet fans. Kanemura was very happy with how this show turned out.

The main event had Masato Tanaka and Tetsuhiro Kuroda team up which would mark 25 years since they first teamed up as they took on the team of Magnitude Kishiwada and Nobuhiro Tsuramaki in a FMW vs. W*ING Scramble Bunkhouse Death Match. All four wrestlers rushed to the ring to grab the barbed wire bat and even though Tanaka would grab it first he would be met with a drop kick by Tsuramaki who would pick up the the barbed wire bat and smash it over Tanaka. Tanaka would come back and place Takase on a table to the outside and deliver a splash sending Takase through the table. Kazushi Miyamoto would take the bloody Takase and deliver a piledriver to him. Tanaka and Kuroda would then send Kishiwada to the ropes but he would come back with a double lariat on both Tanaka and Kuroda. Takase would grab a piece of the broken table and smash it over Tanaka and Kuroda. Takase would then deliver a Diamond Cutter to Kuroda but Tanaka would manage to make the save as Miyamoto would then grab Takase and deliver a Jumping Powerbomb and score the win at 12 minutes, 59 seconds for the FMW team over W*ING/WWS. Takase would take the mic and begin pointing to the sky while talking to Pogo.

The 15 Person Battle Royal which would consist of the likes of Miss Mongol, Naoshi Sano, Kisazaru Clown, and MASAMI would seem like it would be won Survival Tobita who competed in the early days of WWS before Dump Matsumoto would come to the ring. Tobita would get ready to face off against Matsumoto when he would get jumped by ZAP T and Miss Mongol and Tobita would then begin to beg Matsumoto and would be met with red mist to the face as a result before being put away with a Face Crusher for the pinfall at 7 minutes, 52 seconds for the Battle Royal win.

Tam Nakano who had began working death matches last year for Atsushi Onita and played The Great Nita's sister for The Great Nita's retirement match last year announced that Stardom will be creating a Stardom Idols promotion on December 2, 2018 at the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring. Nakano who is a former idol made this announcement on July 16, 2018 at Korakuen Hall. Atsushi Onita would then came out for a surprise appearance and announced that he would help cooperate with the Stardom Idol promotion. Onita stated that he first made a women's division for a male promotion and brought up Megumi Kudo's name when talking about making a wrestler into a idol. Rossy Ogawa who was a big fan of FMW in the mid 90's who runs Stardom was also there for this announcement.

The reason that Onita was in Tokyo for this show was that he was holding a live talk reflection show on July 16, 2018 in Chiyoda, Tokyo along with Tomohiko Hashimoto, Naoshi Sano, HASEGAWA, and Buatsushi Futonita spoke about Onita's career in front of about 50 fans in a class room like building with everyone sitting at desks. Onita joked afterwards how he was dressed as he just appeared in a tie dye shirt and jeans and joked that he pretty much came out in pajamas.

Kintaro Kanemura will be promoting his second Independent Next Generation show on July 20, 2018 at the Shinjuku FACE which is a much bigger venue than the debut show that was a standing room only concert hall. The main event will be Jun Kasai and Yuji Hino taking on the former WEW Hardcore Tag Team Champions Mammoth Sasaki and Hideki Hosaka who I believe will be teaming up for the first time since Hideki Hosaka turned on Mammoth Sasaki in FMW on January 7, 2001 after they lost their WEW Hardcore Tag Team Titles. The semi-main event will be Jiro Kuroshio, Naoki Tanizaki, and 666's Onryo and Yuko Miyamoto taking on Kengo, Yuya Susumu, and 666's Shinobu and Koju Takeda. Tetsuhiro Kuroda, Masao Orihara, and Mototsugu Shimizu will take on Kazushi Miyamoto, Nobuhiro Tsurumaki, and Gajo. Boxer Shingo Garyu will take on Bomber Ryoku. 666's NENE mugen D.a.i teams up with WWS' MASAMI against Secret Base's Mototsugu Shimizu and Amigo Suzuki. Takahiro Tababa will go up against Yuta Suzuki and the opening match will be a Battle Royal. The next show is expected to be in September.

FREEDOMS would return to the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring on June 14, 2018 and draw an announced 234 fans for the show. The main event would be Masashi Takeda, Jun Kasai, and Kenji Fukimoto taking on Violento Jack, Daisuke Masaoka, and Yuko Miyamoto in a Fluorescent Light Tubes Death Match. Masaoka would climb the top rope and throw a stack of light tubes at Fukimoto and when Fukimoto would catch them that would lead to Masaoka coming off the top rope with a drop kick smashing the light tubes across Fukimoto's chest. Masaoka would then deliver a running kick to the head of Fukimoto and make the cover with Kasai and Takeda making the save. Masaoka would then go for a Rokkura-kai but Fukimoto would move out of the way and Takeda would come at Masaoka with a running spear. Kasai would then deliver a kick to Miyamoto and deliver a Reverse Tiger Driver on Miyamoto with Jack charging at him with a light tube that Kasai would duck and deliver a clothesline breaking the light tube across Jack's chest. Fukimoto would then grab Masaoka and deliver a Package Piledriver for a three count as he would score the win at 14 minutes, 54 seconds with Fukimoto and Kasai challenging for Jack and Masaoka's King of Freedom Tag Team Titles with Jack and Masaoka accepting.

The semi-main event would have Takashi Sasaki defeating Tomoya Hirata in a Barbed wire Board Death Match with Sasaki getting the win at 16 minutes, 7 seconds with a Right Foot Kick to the head to Hirata on the barbed wire board. GENTARO and Kenichiro Arai would defeat brother YASSHI and Minoru Fujita when Fujita would turn on YASSHI during the match and deliver a Tombstone Piledriver and place Arai on YASSHI for the pin at 10 minutes, 6 seconds with Fujita challenging for YASSHI's UWA Jr. Heavyweight Title afterwards. Yuya Susumu, Masamune, and Kazma Sakamoto would defeat Mammoth Sasaki, Kamui, and Toru Sugiura when Sakamoto would pick up the win at 10 minutes, 58 seconds with a Package Piledriver. Gunso would destroy Chikara and pick up the win at 9 minutes, 56 seconds with a Diving Guillotine Drop. The opening match had Dragon Libre defeat Asuka Project's Shunsuke Sayama when Libre would get the pin at 6 minutes, 33 seconds with a Moonsault.

FREEDOMS would run their Jun Kasai Productions starting off their Jun Kasai 20th Anniversary Tour on July 4, 2018 at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo drawing an announced 815 fans for the show. The main event would be Masashi Takeda defending his King of Freedom World Championship against Miedo Extremo in a Fluorescent Light Tubes Thumbtacks Board Death Match. Takeda would pull out a butcher knife early on in the match but after a couple of miss swings it would end up in Extremo's hand who would go after Takeda with it. Takeda would bring Extremo down by placing him a Cross Armbreaker but Extremo would keep a hold of the knife and use it on the top of Takeda's head. Extremo would then set up light tubes across four chairs and then deliver a sunset flip from the apron sending Takeda through the light tubes. Extremo would then deliver a powerbomb off the turnbuckle to Takeda but Takeda would get up right away and deliver a running kick. Takeda would climb the top turnbuckle but Extremo would jump to the turnbuckle and deliver a Spanish Fly on Takeda. Extremo would then attempt a Fire Thunder on the light tubes but Takeda would manage to escape and deliver a kick to the back of the head to Extremo. Takeda would then be the one to deliver the Fire Thunder on the light tubes and then followed by a Reverse U-Crash on the a thumbtack board to get the win at 15 minutes, 14 seconds for his first successful defense for the King of Freedom World Championship.

Violento Jack would be the first one to go through the glass board as Fukimoto would suplex him through the glass board filled with cut up cans attached to it early in the match. Masaoka would then follow along with his tag partner as he would be at the top turnbuckle when Fukimoto would grab him and hit a running powerbomb sending Masaoka through a glass board with knives attached to it. Kasai would then deliver a Pearl Harbor Splash with Jack making the save. Kasai would attempt a Reverse Tiger Driver on Masaoka but Jack would make the save and hit a Package Piledriver on Kasai. Masaoka would then run at Jack and Jack would send Masaoka in the air with him coming down and hitting Kasai with a Jawbreaker. Masaoka would then hit a Reverse Tiger Driver on Kasai with Kasai kicking out. Masaoka would then hit Kasai with the Rokkura-kai and pick up the win at 16 minutes, 24 seconds to successfully defend the King of Freedom Tag Team Titles. Jack would then hold down Kasai and Masaoka would take scissors and cut off Kasai's pony tail.

Other matches on the show saw brother YASSHI defend his UWA Jr. Heavyweight Title against Minoru Fujita and he would get the win at 13 minutes, 9 seconds with the Nice Jamaica for his first successful title defense. Mammoth Sasaki and Kazma Sakamoto would defeat Kamui and Toru Sugiura when Mammoth would finish Kamui at 10 minutes, 13 seconds with the 29 Years Old. Ciclope would win a Three Way Match over Takashi Sasaki and Gunso after delivering a Quesaora at 8 minutes, 57 seconds to get the win over Sasaki. Yuya Susumu would defeat New Taiwan's Heisenberg would defeat Dragon Libre and Chikara who also had a Dragon Libre mask on as well during the match with Susumu made Chikara tap out at 10 minutes, 1 seconds with a Cross Face Lock and afterwards Yuya would end up ripping Chikara's mask off with Chikara desperately trying to cover his face afterwards. GENTARO would destroy rookie Tomoya Hirata in the opening match in a Barbed wire Weapon Death Match with GENTARO getting the win after the referee would have to stop the match at 11 minutes, 44 seconds after GENTARO would hang Hirata over the top rope with the barbed wire.

The main event would be a Fluorescent Light Tubes Death Match between Masashi Takeda and Jun Kasai against Violento Jack and Daisuke Masaoka. Kasai and Takeda would charge at Jack and Masaoka and send them into the fluorescent light tubes right away. Kasai would set up Masaoka with a Pearl Harbor Splash but Masaoka would get his knees up on Kasai. Masaoka would then be lifted in the air by Jack and come down and deliver a Jawbreaker to Kasai. Masaoka would then hit a Reverse Tiger Driver on Kasai followed by Jack hitting a Death Valley Bomb with Takeda making the save. Jack would then grab the light tubes and go for a moonsault but Kasai would knock Jack off the turnbuckle and smash the light tube over Jack's head. Kasai would then use Masaoka's move and deliver a Rokkura-kai on Jack followed by a Reverse Tiger Driver. Takeda would then deliver a Uranage to Jack and place the light tubes on him as Kasai would hit a Pearl Harbor Splash smashing the light tubes across Jack and get the pinfall at 14 minutes, 57 seconds for the win. Jack, Extremo, and Ciclope would then jump Takeda afterwards and Masaoka would begin cutting Takeda's hair before Takeda would be able to get away. Takeda would then get on the mic and state if he was going to show Masaoka the proper way to use scissors which hints towards a Scissors Death Match between Takeda and Masaoka on August 28th at Korakuen Hall.

The semi-main event would be a Barbed wire Board Death Match between Kenji Fukimoto going up against Ciclope. Fukimoto would set up a barbed wire chair and then deliver a powerbomb to Ciclope on the barbed wire to. Fukimoto would then take a fishing hook and catch Ciclope's mouth with it and cause him to fall straight on to the barbed wire board. Fukimoto would then make the mistake of posing as Ciclope would grab him and deliver a suplex head first into the barbed wire board. Ciclope would then place the barbed wire board across Fukimoto and deliver a Frog Splash on him followed by a Shining Wizard for the pinfall at 11 minutes, 50 seconds for the Ciclope win. Minoru Fujita and Miedo Extremo would face each other in a Thumbtack Death Match. Fujita would deliver a Side Russian leg sweep on Extremo on the thumbtacks at first but then Fujita make the mistake of taking his boots off and begin and wrestling in the thumbtacks with his bare feet and would attempt an Octopus Suplex but Extremo would reverse it and deliver a back suplex to Fujita on the thumbtacks. Extremo would then place Fujita in a Figure Four Leglock on the thumbtacks at 12 minutes, 18 seconds would get Fujita to submit for the Extremo win.

Toru Sugiura, Kamui, and a masked man called Sugiura Man Great who would end up being Keizo Matsuda in a all black costumed would defeat the team of Mammoth Sasaki, Kazma Sakamoto, and Chikara when Toru Sugiura would get the pin at 12 minutes, 13 seconds over Chikara. Sugiura afterwards would announce that his wife was 6 months pregnant and that he was going to be a papa and would be taking time off for the first time in his 9 year career after their baby is born. GENTARO and New Taiwan's Heisenberg would defeat Takashi Sasaki and Tomoya Hirata after GENTARO would once again destroy Hirata and pick up the win over the rookie at 13 minutes, 54 seconds with a Diving Elbow. The opening match would have the 666 team of Shinobu and Koju Takeda defeating Yuya Susumu and Dragon Libre when Shinobu would end up making Libre submit at 11 minutes, 12 seconds with a Single Leg Crab.

FREEDOMS will run on July 22, 2018 at the main arena of the Iwate Ichinoseki Gym with a main event of Masashi Takeda, Takashi Sasaki, Jun Kasai, and Yuko Miyamoto against the team of Violento Jack, Daisuke Masaoka, and Ciclope in a Weapons Death Match. Mammoth Sasaki and Toru Sugiura return as a team to take on the NOAH team of Go Shiozaki and the returning Hi69. The Great Sasuke will team up with Brahman Shu and Brahman Kei as they take on the team of Kenji Fukimoto, Minoru Fujita, and Chikara. The Ice Ribbon match will consist of Tsukasa Fujimoto and Makoto taking on Hamuko Hoshi and Ibuki Hoshi. GENTARO teams up with Tomoya Hirata who has been torturing the last month as they take on the 666 team of Shinobu and Kozu Takeda. The opening match will have Yuya Susumu, Masamune, and Aisawa # 1 against the team of Kamui, Dragon Libre, and Heisenberg.

The Jun Kasai Anniversary Tour continues on July 29, 2018 takes place outside at the Osaka Tsurumi Green Foest Hanahumi Memorial Park with a main event of Jun Kasai, Kenji Fukimoto, Kamui, and Toru Sugiura against Violento Jack, Daisuke Masaoka, Miedo Extremo, and Ciclope in the second annual Fire Death Match at the location. The semi-main event will be Takashi Sasaki and Tomoya Hirata against Gunso and Naoki Tanizaki in a Hardcore Match. Yuya Susumu and Heisenberg take on brother YASSHI and Ryukyu Dragon's Tida Heat. Masashi Takeda and Minoru Fujita go up against Mammoth Sasaki and GENTARO in a Street Fight. The two twin tag teams finally go up against each other as Brahman Shu and Brahman Kei take on Yasu Kubota and Hide Kubota. The opening match will be Drake Morimatsu and Idea going up against Dyna Mido and Dragon Libre.

The A-Team returned to the Tokyo Kitasenju Theater 1010 on June 10, 2018 and drew an announced crowd of 140 fans for the show. The main event had the new team called the Bustas which consists of Tomohiko Hashimoto and Nobutaka Moribe ending the 8 month WEW Tag Team Title reign of Daisuke Ikeda and HASEGAWA when Hashimoto pinned HASEGAWA at 13 minutes, 6 seconds with their finishing move called Bustas which looks like a running powerbomb turned into a neckbreaker. This is Hashimoto's 7th WEW Tag Team Title reign all with different partners since 2012. The 70 year old Kim Duk returned to the ring to win the WEW World Title in the semi-main event against Daisaku Shimoda at 8 minutes, 4 seconds with a Tombstone Piledriver. Raiden would successfully defend the WEW Jr. Heavyweight Title for the first time as he would defeat Lion Fujiwara at 10 minutes, 55 seconds with a Tiger Driver. Tetsuhiro Kuroda would make his return to the A-Team promotion as he would team up with Akira Jo against Katsunari Toi and Keiichi Sato which would go to a 20 minute time limit draw. Hazard would get the win over Shocker at 4 minutes, 57 seconds with a Tombstone Piledriver and the opening match would have Hiroshi Kosakai and Keisuke Okuda defeat Toshiaki Terao who has since retired from wrestling and Takumi Sakurai when Kosakai would pin Sakurai at 12 minutes, 2 seconds with a Backdrop.

The A-Team will be starting up a WEW Tag Team Title League Battle Tournament over the next couple of months with the winning team winning the WEW Tag Team Titles. The tournament will begin on July 22nd at the Nara Tenri Station Ekimae Square Station with the main event being the current WEW Tag Team Champions Tomohiko Hashimoto and Nobutaka Moribe taking on WEW World Champion Kim Duk and new to the promotion Randy Plater. The former WEW Tag Team Champions Daisuke Ikeda and HASEGAWA will team up in the semi-main event against Keisuke Okuda and Yosuke Enomoto in a tournament match. Rion Mizuki and Lion Fujiwara will team up to take on Raiden and Akira Jo in a tournament match and Maholova and El Kinto team up against Daisaku Shimoda and Takumi Sakurai in a tournament match. The opening match will be a women's match with Koharu Hinata taking on KONOHA.

The following A-Team show will be the promotions first time running the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring as they will work with FREEDOMS on August 5, 2018 as the main event will be an A-Team vs. FREEDOMS match consisting of Tomohiko Hashimoto, HASEGAWA, and Takumi Sakurai taking on Takashi Sasaki, GENTARO, and Toru Sugiura. The semi-main event will be Raiden putting up his WEW Jr. Heavyweight Title against HEAT-UP's Joji Otani. Nobutaka Moribe will go up against the foreigner Randy Player. Daisaku Shimoda will take on FREEDOMS rookie Tomoya Hirata along with WEW World Champion Kim Duk taking on Shocker in a non-title match. The opening match will have Daisuke Ikeda and Chikara teaming up against Akira Jo and Hazard.

I recently visited Japan for my 8th time this past month. From July 2nd to July 5th I stayed in Tokyo where I met up with Kintaro Kanemura, Mitsuhiro Matsunaga, and went to a FREEDOMS show at Korakuen Hall among many other things. I went with my wife this year as well so we also visited Miyakojima in Okinawa from July 5th to July 8th. I wrote about my six days with a bunch of pictures that you can check out at http://fmwwrestling.us/Japan18.html

Added: 6/4

Masashi Takeda had the most notable Golden Week in 2018 as he would end up defeating Violento Jack on May 2, 2018 for the King of Freedom World Championship at Korakuen Hall against Violento Jack in a great match that saw both wrestlers go through glass tables before Takeda would give Violento Jack his first loss in Japan in over a year. Takeda became the first man to hold both the King of Freedom World Championship and the Big Japan Death Match Heavyweight Title as a result making him the King of the Death Match as he enters the prime of his career at 32. Takeda would then successfully defeat Abdullah Kobayashi who had previously defeated him when Kobayashi was champion back in 2012 as Takeda would end up defeating Kobayashi on May 5, 2018 at the Yokohama Bunka Gym as Takeda would end up placing a Flying Cross Armbreaker on a Nail Board to successfully defend that title for the 6th time. Takeda now will begin defending both titles separately for both promotions. FREEDOMS has tried to break away somewhat although keeping a friendly relationship with Big Japan to not seem like a smaller Big Japan promotion and as a result would use their guys like Jun Kasai exclusively. Takeda who grew up idolizing Kasai with his favorite promotion being Big Japan so he will always have loyalty to both promotions despite not being contracted to either. Takeda will end up defending his Big Japan Death Match Heavyweight Title next on June 20th for Big Japan's Korakuen Hall show against Isami Kodaka. His next opponent on Jun Kasai's Korakuen Hall on July 4, 2018 will be determined on June 14th at Shin-Kiba with it either being between Daisuke Masaoka, Violento Jack, and Yuko Miyamoto with my bet being on Miyamoto as it would be his first time defending that title. Takeda will most likely end up holding on to both titles until at least Jun Kasai's 20th Anniversary show on August 28th at Korakuen Hall for FREEDOMS and Big Japan's Ryogoku Sumo Hall on November 11th but in the mean time this will most likely be the highlight of Masashi Takeda's Death Match career and there is nobody that deserves it better than him.

FREEDOMS would return to Tokyo Korakuen Hall for their annual May 2nd show entitled "We Love FREEDOMS! We are FREEDOMS!" with an announced crowd of 957 fans. The main event would be Violento King defending his King of Freedom World Championship against BJW Death Match Heavyweight Champion Masashi Takeda in a Fluorescent Light Tubes Double Glass Board Death Match. Takeda would get cut open early and Takeda would end up setting a glass board on a stack of chairs but Jack would end up getting up and climbing the ladder as well. Takeda and Jack would end climbing up on top of a ladder with Jack giving him a suplex off the ladder sending Takeda through the glass board. They would setup the other glass board on a stack of chairs outside the ring and begin brawling on the apron trying to send the other one through the glass board. Jack would end up climbing the top turnbuckle but Takeda would grab him and deliver a suplex off the turnbuckle through the glass board on the outside. Takeda would then climb the ladder and dive off it landing on Jack but Jack would grab a hold of Takeda and deliver a suplex with Takeda landing on his head. Jack would then deliver a Package Piledriver with Takeda kicking out. Jack would then try another one on a knife with Takeda reversing it and placing him in a arm lock and begin placing the knife right up to Jack. Takeda would then take a stack of light tubes and place them on Jack and deliver a running knee followed by a Reverse U Crash for the win at 21 minutes, 50 seconds to win the King of Freedom World Championship for the second time and hold both the King of Freedom World Championship as well as the Big Japan King of the Death Match Heavyweight Title.

The semi-main event was a 3 Way Tag Team TLC Death Match as Jun Kasai and Kenji Fukimoto would defeat the teams of Daisuke Masaoka and Yuko Miyamoto as well as the BASARA team of Isami Kodaka and FUMA. Masaoka would deliver a running knee kick to Fukimoto followed by a Frog Splash but Kodaka would make the save by delivering a flying knee drop to Masaoka's back. FUMA would then go to pick up Masaoka when Kasai would come up from behind on him with skewers but FUMA would end up grabbing the skewers from Kasai and slamming them in Kasai's forehead instead. FUMA would then deliver a Flying Elbow Drop off a ladder onto Kasai with Fukimoto making the save for Kasai. FUMA would then go for an Olympic Slam when Kasai would grab another patch of skewers out and smash them into FUMA's head and would finish him off with a Reverse Tiger Driver with his head still having skewers in them hitting the mat hard as Kasai would make the pin at 10 minutes, 26 seconds while giving FUMA a kiss goodbye to mock him. Mammoth Sasaki and Toru Sugiura would defend their King of Freedom Tag Team Titles for the 11th time as they would defeat the team of Takashi Sasaki and Ryukyu Dragon's Guruken Mask with Mammoth grabbing Sugiura and throwing him on Sasaki but Sasaki would get his knees up and Guruken would deliver a missle drop kick to Mammoth. Sasaki would then go for a right leg kick but Sugiura would catch Sasaki and Mammoth would come up from behind on Sasaki and deliver a suplex to him dropping him on his hand. Sugiura would then deliver a Swift Driver followed by a finishing move to get the pin over Sasaki. Sugiura would pick up the win over Sasaki at 12 minutes, 28 seconds with a Raging Tornado to successfully defend their tag team titles for the 11th time.

Yuya Susumu would defend his UWA Jr. Heavyweight Title against brother YASSHI but would end up not being able to walk out with the title after Gunso would distract Susumu and the referee allowing YASSHI to grab a chair and smash it across Yuya's back followed by the Nice Jamaica German Suplex would get the win at 9 minutes, 13 seconds for YASSHI's first singles title of his career. Kamui would defeat Minoru Fujita at 7 minutes, 10 seconds with a Kamui Clutch in a Hardcore Match. Chikara would lead the team of Tomoya Hirata and Dragon Libre in a upset over the team of Mitsuo Momoa, Kazma Sakamoto, and Masamune when Chikara would get the pin at 9 minutes, 9 seconds with a Backslide over his father Momota for the win. GENTARO would get the opening match win in a Brass Knuckle Street Fight over Gunso at 10 minutes, 25 seconds when GENTARO would grab a Dojima Sleeper for the win.

FREEDOMS would then return to the Yokohama Radiant Hall on May 4, 2018 for their annual Golden Week show in the building as they would announce 196 fans for the show. The main event would Takashi Sasaki getting his revenge over Toru Sugiura in a singles match after losing two days prior to him in the tag team match as Sasaki would get the win over Sugiura at 25 minutes, 9 seconds with a D-Geist. Violento Jack and Daisuke Masaoka would win a Hardcore Three Way Tag Match over the teams of Masashi Takeda and Minoru Fujita as well as Mammoth Sasaki and GENTARO when Jack would get the win at 9 minutes, 39 seconds after hitting a Package Piledriver on GENTARO on both a ladder and chair to get the win. Jun Kasai and Kenji Fukimoto once again defeated the BASARA team of Isami Kodaka and FUMA when FUMA would end up getting DQ'd at 10 minutes, 34 seconds for attacking the referee after FUMA would lose control after so many repeated losses to the FREEDOMS team and Kasai screaming that he was nothing but a green boy. Yuko Miyamoto would defeat Yuya Susumu at 9 minutes, 45 seconds with a Gedo Clutch. Katsumara Shu would make Chikara tap out at 7 minutes, 43 seconds with a Cross Armbar. The opening match would Kazma Sakamoto and Dragon Libre defeat Kamui and Tomoya Hirata after Libre would pick up the win at 10 minutes, 23 seconds with a Messiah over Hirata.

FREEDOMS would then run on May 6, 2018 at the Shizuoka Mt. Fuji Messe which is my favorite area I have ever been in Japan with no attendance being released for this show. The main event would have Violento Jack and Daisuke Masaoka defeating Jun Kasai and Takashi Sasaki in a Fluorescent Light Tubes, Barbed wire Board, and Sawtooth Ladder Death Match when Jack would get the win at 14 minutes, 58 seconds with a Package Piledriver onto Sasaki for the win. Mammoth Sasaki and Kamui would win the semi-main event getting the win over GENTARO and Tomoya Hirata adfter Mammoth would pick up the win at 15 minutes, 9 seconds after delivering a Release German Suplex on GENTARO for the pinfall. Masashi Takeda and Kenji Fukimoto would get the win over Yuya Susumu and Katsumara Shu when Takeda would deliver the U-Crash at 12 minutes, 50 seconds to pick up the win over Susumu. Toru Sugiura would defeat Chikara at 9 minutes, 2 seconds with a Raging Tornado. A WAVE Offer Match would see Rina Yamashita defeat Hiroe Nagahama at 10 minutes, 11 seconds when Yamashita would put her away with a Lariat. Dragon Libre would defeat Keisuke Goto at 7 minutes, 35 seconds with a La Magistral in the opening match.

FREEDOMS would hold their next show on May 20, 2018 at the Miyagi Sendai Miyagino Cultural Center and not release an attendance number again with a Three Way Main Event Tag Team Match as Mammoth Sasaki and Toru Sugiura would defeat both teams of Masashi Takeda and Jun Kasai as well as Violento Jack and Daisuke Masaoka when Sugiura would get the pin at 9 minutes, 56 seconds with a Swift Driver over Masaoka. Takashi Sasaki would team up with Aisawa # 1 from Gakusai Pro as they would defeat Kenji Fukimoto and Minoru Fujita when Sasaki would deliver a D-Geist to pickup the win in the semi-main event at 14 minutes, 2 seconds over Fujita. Yuya Susumu and Masamune would get the win over GENTARO and Kenichiro Arai after Masamune would get the win over Arai at 11 minutes, 50 seconds with a Watarirai. Kamui would defeat rookie Tomoya Hirata at 9 minutes, 58 seconds with a Yurikamome. 666's Kozu Takeda would defeat Dragon Libre at 7 minutes, 40 seconds with a German Suplex and Tsuyoshi Kikuchi would get the win in the opening match at 7 minutes, 4 seconds over Chikara with a Hinotamu Bomb.

FREEDOMS would return to the Tokyo Shin-Kiba 1st Ring on May 24, 2018 announcing a crowd of 204 fans for the show. The main event would have Mammoth Sasaki and Toru Sugiura who have been King of Freedom Tag Team Champions for over 14 months and a record 11 title defending their King of Freedom Tag Team Titles to Violento Jack and Daisuke Masaoka. Jack would pick Masaoka and toss him at Mammoth with Mammoth catching him and throwing Masaoka back at Jack. Mammoth would then pick up Sugiura and toss him on Masaoka. Sugiura and Masaoka would begin striking each other with Masaoka jumping at Sugiura and getting caught and Sugiura delivering a powerbomb to him. Sugiura and Masaoka would begin brawling at the top rope with Masaoaka delivering a Trance Rave on Sugiura. Jack would then deliver a Package Piledriver and Masaoka would come off the top rope with a Rokkura-kai for the pin at 22 minutes, 12 seconds ending their recorded breaking title reign for the promotion.

Masashi Takeda, Jun Kasai, and Kenji Fukimoto would get the win in the semi-main event over Takashi Sasaki, Yuko Miyamoto, and Tomoya Hirata in a Fluorescent Light Tubes Death Match. This match would be to show case Tomoya Hirata as he would go up against Kasai and get beaten and cut open including Kasai hitting a Reverse Tiger Driver on him on the broken glass before getting his knees up as Kasai would attempt a Pearl Harbor Splash. Kasai would tag Takeda in who would grab a light tube and swing and miss at Hirata with Hirat kicking the light tube into Takeda's stomach followed by a spine buster on Takeda with Takeda kicking out at two. Hirata would begin slapping at Takeda's cut up ear with Takeda coming back with a slap of his own followed by a running knee from Takeda. Takeda would then setup a stack of light tubes on Hirata and deliver a running knee breaking the light tubes on Hirata to make the cover at 13 minutes, 20 seconds with a Rokkinpro on a bundle of fluorescent light tubes. FREEDOMS once again got the better of the BASARA promotion as GENTARO would win a Weapons Death Match over FUMA at 13 minutes, 58 seconds when GENTARO would make him submit to a Triangle Lock with a barbed wire baseball bat. Yuya Susumu and Masamune defeated the team of brother YASSHI and Minoru Fujita with Susumu getting the submission win over YASSHI at 10 minutes, 58 seconds with a Calf Lock to setup a rematch for the UWA Jr. Heavyweight Title. Gunso would get the win over Kamui at 11 minutes, 4 seconds with a Jorge Clutch in a Hardcore Match. Kenichiro Arai and Dragon Libre would win the opening match over Chikara and Asuka Pro's Shunsuke Sayama when Arai would get the win at 11 minutes, 23 seconds with a Small Package.

FREEDOMS would close out their busy month of May on May 26, 2018 at the Osaka Moriguchi Citizen Gym drawing an announced 300 fans for the show. The main event would have Violento Jack and Daisuke Masaoka winning a non title match defeating Masashi Takeda and Kenji Fukimoto in a Weapons Death Match when Jack would pick up the win at 16 minutes, 59 seconds after delivering a Package Piledriver to Fukimoto on top of an aluminum can board and afterwards Masaoka would take a pair of scissors and begin cutting Fukimoto's hair off. Jun Kasai and Gunso would get the win in the semi-main event in a Street Fight Death Match over the team of Mammoth Sasaki and Kamui when Kasai would deliver a Reverse Tiger Driver at 12 minutes, 28 seconds to get the win over Kamui. Takashi Sasaki would defeat his regular tag team partner B-168's Dyna Mido after Sasaki would get the pin at 10 minutes, 59 seconds with a D-Geist. Yuya Susumu, Masamune, and Ryukyu Dragon's Tida Heat would defeat the team of GENTARO, Tomoya Hirata, and Hide Kubota when Tida Heat would pick up the win at 14 minutes, 46 seconds after delivering a Shooting Star Press on Hirata. Kengo Takai and Drake Morimatsu would defeat the team of Osaka Pro's Takoyakida and Yuki Tanaka when Morimatsu would get the pinfall at 10 minutes, 49 seconds with a Drake Driver over Tanaka. The opening match would have Brahman Shu and Brahman Kei defeating Toru Sugiura and Dragon Libre when Kei would get the win at just 5 minutes, 7 seconds over Libre with a Whole Body Dissatisfaction.

FREEDOMS returned for their annual Summer show at the Fukuoka Kitakyushu Moji Red Brick on June 2, 2018 where they would announce a crowd of 136 fans for the show. The main event would have the Unchain team of Masashi Takeda, Jun Kasai, Minoru Fujita getting the win over Violento Jack, Daisuke Masaoka, and Kazma Sakamoto with Fujita getting the upset win at 14 minutes, 23 seconds with a Samson Clutch. Takashi Sasaki and Mt. Aso defeated the former King of Freedom Tag Team Champions Mammoth Sasaki and Toru Sugiura after Aso would pick up the win at 12 minutes, 42 seconds after delivering a Magma Splash to get the pin on Sugiura. GENTARO and Tomoya Hirata would get the team of Kenji Fukimoto and Gamshara Pro's Tessho when GENTARO would make Tessho submit at 12 minutes, 15 seconds to a Manjigatame. Chikara would defeat Nozomi Kubo at 6 minutes, 8 seconds with a Backdrop in a singles match. The opening match would have Yuya Susumu and Rey Paloma defeat Kamui and Dragon Libre when Paloma would get the Backslide pin at 9 minutes, 21 seconds on Libre for the win. The dark match show had a Gamshara Pro Offer Match with Toru Sugiura teaming up with Taksuku Mihara and Trueno Guerrero defeating Takashi Sasaki, MIKIHISA, and Yoju with Sugiura getting pin at 10 minutes, 11 seconds over MIKIHISA with the Over Easy.

FREEDOMS will return to the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring on June 14, 2018 as they announced their lineup with the main event being a Death Match concisting of Masashi Takeda, Jun Kasai, and Kenji Fukimoto against Violento Jack, Daisuke Masaoka, and Yuko Miyamoto which makes me think they might be going with Takeda against Miyamoto on July 4th at Korakuen Hall for the title next. The semi-main event of the show will have Takashi Sasaki taking on Tomoya Hirata in a Death Match as Hirata continues to try and impress as a rookie in Death Matches. Mammoth Sasaki, Toru Sugiura, and Kamui will take on Yuya Susumu, Masamune, and Kazma Sakamoto. Gunso will go up against Chikara, and the opening match will have Asuka Pro's Shunsuke Sayama taking on Dragon Libre.

Super Battle FMW returned for a show on May 25, 2018 at the Ibaraki Mito Citizen Gym Sub Arena. The main event would be Kazushi Miyamoto returning to the Super Battle FMW promotion since December 22nd when it seemed like his feud with Super Battle FMW was over after shaking Masato Tanaka's hand in respect after insulting all the FMW wrestlers for being old and needing to live in a retirement home. Miyamoto renewed his role as a heel as he teamed up with Leatherface as they would take on the original FMW team of Tetsuhiro Kuroda and Ricky Fuji with Kuroda getting the win at 13 minutes, 45 seconds with a Tetsu Bomber. The semi-main event had Kotaro Suzuki and HASEGAWA defeat Tsuyoshi Kikuchi and Toshiki Iwaki when Suzuki would get the pinfall at 10 minutes, 23 seconds with the Endless Waltz. Miss Mongol and Koharu Hinata as Buso Mongol defeated Bambi and Shiori Akiba when Miss Mongol would get the pinfall at 12 minutes, 55 seconds over Akiba. The Hitachi Pro Offer Match which is the local promotion in Ibaraki saw Kosaku Anakizaki, Kazu Shibano, and YUDAI defeat Kento DiCaprio, Shogo, and Shigenobu Fukuda when YUDAI pinned Fukuda at 14 minutes, 29 seconds with a Running Knee Lift. Raiden Steel got the win over Yako Fujigasaki at 13 minutes, 20 seconds with a Frog Splash. Keiichi Sato won the opening match over Toshiaki Terao at 7 minutes, 34 seconds with a Fisherman Buster. No word on any future Super Battle FMW show.

Atsushi Onita returned to Tokyo on June 4th for the first time in 2018 as he currently is working a normal job in Kanzaki, Saga as he waits for the next election for mayor in 4 years and his job had him travel to Tokyo for the day. Onita stopped by Buatsushi Futonita's (Fat Onita) restaurant where he had Futonita's chiesutaccarbi along with his friends Naoshi Sano, Kenchi Fujii, and Miss Mongol.

Ricky Fuji will be promoting his 30th Anniversary show on July 15, 2018 at the Chiba Blue Field with no matches announced yet. This will be the first time Ricky will be promoting shows since 2004-2005 when he held a couple of shows that broke even with matches against Men's Teioh and Koji Nakagawa. Ricky made his debut back on June 28, 1988 against Ross Hart in Calgary and this show will most likely be a mix of old Ricky friends as well as current Kaientai Dojo wrestlers.

The A-Team ran a two show tour with the first taking place on May 26, 2018 at the Gifu Sports Bar M's Cafe where they would announce a crowd of 50 fans for the show. The main event had Daisaku Shimoda and Keisuke Okuda defeat the team of Tomohiko Hashimoto and Akira Jo when Shimoda would get the win at 14 minutes, 52 seconds with a Piledriver over Jo. HASEGAWA would end up going to a 30 minute time limit draw with Takumi Sakurai in the semi-main event of the show. Daisuke Ikeda would defeat Toshiaki Terao at 15 minutes, 15 seconds when finishing him off with the Shining Lightning. Hideki Hosaka and Raiden would open the show with a win over Nobutaka Moribe and Shocker when Hosaka would get the reverse roll up at 12 minutes, 54 seconds over Shocker.

The A-Team then ran the next day on May 27, 2018 at their usual Nara Nishiwa Distribution Logistics Center with a special ring setup where they would announce a crowd of 270 fans for the show. The main event would have Daisuke Ikeda and HASEGAWA defend their WEW Tag Team Titles against Yoshiaki Fujiwara and Takumi Sakurai when Ikeda would end up putting Sakurai away at 23 minutes, 16 seconds with a Muscle Buster to successfully defend their tag team titles for the fourth time. The semi-main event of the show had Kazushi Miyamoto and Keisuke Okuda defeat Tomohiko Hashimoto and Akira Jo when Miyamoto would end up putting away Hashimoto at 10 minutes, 46 seconds with a Lariat. The WEW World Heavyweight Champion Daisaku Shimoda would put away the WEW Jr. Heavyweight Champion Raiden in a non-title match at 8 minutes, 48 seconds with a Backdrop. Nobutaka Moribe woud get the singles victory over Toshiaki Terao at 6 minutes, 58 seconds with a Futari Season. The opening match would be Hideki Hosaka and Shocker getting the win against the team of Maholova and El Quinto at 10 minutes, 57 seconds when Hosaka would pin Quinto with a Death Valley Bomb.

The A-Team will return to Tokyo on June 10, 2018 at the Tokyo Kitasenju Theater 1010. The main event will have Daisuke Ikeda and HASEGAWA defending their WEW Tag Team Titles against the newly formed team called Bustas in Tomohiko Hashimoto and Nobutaka Moribe. The semi-main event will have Daisaku Shimoda going up against long time veteran Kim Duk who had challenged Shimoda for a title shot after presenting him with the title after Shimoda won it back on April 13th. Raiden will defend his WEW Jr. Heavyweight Title against Lion Fujiwara. Tetsuhiro Kuroda returns to the promotion for the first time in over a year as he teams up with Akira Jo as they take on Katsunari Toi and Keiichi Sato. Old Apache Army wrestler Hazard will take on Shocker and the opening match will have Toshiaki Terao and Takumi Sakuarai taking on another former Apache wrestler Hiroshi Kosasaki and Keisuke Okuda.

Kintaro Kanemura promoted his first show since retirement when he started up his new promotion "ING" which stands Independent Next Generation. The shows are suppose to be wrestling shows with a concert mixed in through out the show. The first show took place on April 26, 2018 at the Tokyo Meguro Rockmaykan which is a small club area that holds about 200 people but has no seats. No results were released of the show publically but someone there posted results of the show. The main event had Masato Tanaka defeating Chikara with a Sliding D. Hideki Hosaka won the semi-main event over Raito Shimizu. Tetsuhiro Kuroda defeated WWS' MASAMI and the opening match had Kazushi Miyamoto and Gajo defeat Yuji Hino and Kotaro Suzuki when Gajo pinned Suzuki. Ricky Fuji's band also played through out the show for the concert part of the show.

The next show will be much bigger as it will take place on July 20, 2018 at the Tokyo Shinjuku FACE. No matches have been announced but Kanemura has gotten FREEDOMS wrestlers Jun Kasai and Mammoth Sasaki scheduled as well as Tetsuhiro Kuroda, Onryo, Hideki Hosaka, Kazushi Miyamoto, Yuji Hino, Gajo, Mototsugu Shimizu, and Jiro Kuroshio among others. This show will also have a concert going on through out the show. Kintaro Kanemura, Tetsuhiro Kuroda, Yuji Hino, and Mototsugu Shimizu all attended a meet and greet at Toudoukan on May 30, 2018 to sell tickets for the show and take pictures with fans. Kanemura already has plans for another show after this in September and that is the show that Super Leather will be returning to wrestle in Japan for the first time since 2010 when he was not allowed in the country for not having the proper visa paper work that a rival indie promotion to Tarzan Goto's Super FMW promotion tipped off to customs before he arrived there.

WWS has announced that it will be running a special Mr. Pogo Memorial show on July 1, 2018 at the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring which will also be promoted under the W*ING name as well. No matches have been announced as the only to appear on the show will be Kintaro Kanemura in a non wrestling role.

I have booked my 8th trip to Tokyo but this trip will be unlike the others. This will be my honeymoon so we will only be in Tokyo for three days from the early morning of July 2nd and will leave early July 5th where we will head out to Miyakojima, Okinawa for the beach until July 8th. I am going to try and squeeze as much as I can into this Tokyo part of the trip as I will be attending the Jun Kasai Death Match show on July 4th at Korakuen Hall but that will probably be my only wrestling show. I would like to go to Mitsuhiro Matsunaga's Mr. Danger Steakhouse again some time during this trip as well as Naoshi Sano's Stanley Club Bar in Shinjuku if the right wrestler will be there that night. I have also booked where we will go on Mario Kart Go Karts as we will drive on the side of the road through Tokyo Tower, Shibuya, and Rainbow Bridge in Odaiba for about 3 hours. This will probably be my final time at least for a long, long time going to Japan. I will be doing a review of the trip afterwards with pictures like I usually do but like there will only be about 3 days of wrestling stuff in Tokyo for this trip than years prior.

Added: 4/24

Mr. Gannosuke's second retirement took place on April 15, 2018 at the final Guts World show at the Shinjuku FACE in front of an announced sell out crowd of 600 fans. Gannosuke's first retirement took place on December 27, 2018 as Gannosuke had just turned 40 and he was dealing with numerous injuries from the style of matches he had through out a 17 year old career. Gannosuke after retiring stayed living by Saitama and would continue to promote his own shows, attend FREEDOMS shows regularly, and help train the Ice Ribbon girls as the Dojo was near his home. As the years went by Gannosuke would end up splitting ties with Ice Ribbon due to issues with Emi Motokawa and would begin working for the Guts World office as he formed a close friendship with owner Guts Ishijima. Guts World would announced their first Korakuen Hall in 2014 and Ishijima asked Gannosuke over and over to come out of retirement to work the show to help the show draw with Gannosuke eventually agreeing. Gannosuke would continue his career for 33 1/2 years before it the Guts World would announce its closing following the retirement of Daisuke. Gannosuke nearing 50 and his home promotion that he came back for to help support closing down announced that he would be retiring again. This retirement would be different than the last. He would be getting re-married and moving back to his home in Kumamoto and would get a normal job and would have nothing to do with wrestling anymore. Gannosuke would not want to make that big of a deal of this retirement since the previous retirement had been such a big deal with a show promoted around it as this one would have such smaller retirement ceremony after the semi-main event of the show.

Mr. Gannosuke would get to choose his retirement match and would choose to team up with Michio Kageyama who had become a regular tag team partner for him since returning as Kageyama had a very similar look and wore similar pants as they would take on Tatsumi Fujinami and Hiro Saito. Gannosuke who had a relationship with Fujinami as his Dradition promotion had a relationship with Gannosuke's WMF a decade ago and Fujinami was Gannosuke's second favorite wrestler growing up behind Riki Choshu. Gannosuke and Fujinami would square off for the first time since their singles match on September 20, 2008 as Gannosuke would try for the Praying Powerbomb but Fujinami would end up flipping him over. Fujita would then grab Gannosuke like he was going to suplex him but Gannosuke would kick him low and deliver the final Gannosuke Clutch with Fujinami kicking out at two. Gannosuke would then try to kick Fujinami with Fujinami catching his leg and delivering a Dragon Screw followed by placing Gannosuke in the Dragon Sleeper with Gannosuke submitting at 16 minutes, 41 seconds ending Gannosuke's career after 26 years and 10 months. Gannosuke afterwards would jokingly yell at Fujinami that he wanted a rematch with Fujinami responding with next time.

Mr. Gannosuke's retirement ceremony would take place with him being presented a picture of him and Tetsuhiro Kuroda wearing their All Japan All Asian Tag Team Titles that they won in December 2003. The FREEDOMS group of Mammoth Sasaki who Gannosuke who had been teamed and feuded with since 2001, GENTARO who he had a series of matches with going back to 2008, and Kamui who he helped train in the WMF Dojo back in 2004. Keita Yano, Yasu Urano, Shinjuku Shark, Chocoball Mukai recovering from his stroke, Gosaku Goshogawara also came out to present flowers to Gannosuke. Ichiro Yaguchi came out and the two did the GUNS pose officially ending the group that started in 2003 in WMF. The Ice Ribbon girls that he helped trained including Makoto, Hamuko Hoshi, Tsukasa Fujimoto, Aki Shizuku, and Miyako Matsumoto presented him with flowers and took a group photo together. Guts Ishijima would also come out to present flowers to his best friends as a 10 bell salute for Gannosuke would take place and Gannosuke's theme would play one last time with black and gold streamers being thrown into the ring.

Battle Ranger who did some promoting back in 2015 and a key person at starting up Super Battle FMW before pulling away from the promotion once it found a new sponsor later in the year decided he would be promoting in Osaka again regularly with his first show having an FMW reunion main event. The show would take place on April 1, 2018 at the Osaka City Miyakojima Citizen Center drawing an announced 168 fans for the show. The main event would Battle Ranger teaming up with Mr. Gannosuke, Hideki Hosaka, and Osaka based wrestler Nanjyo Hayato against the team of Masato Tanaka, Flying Kid Ichihara, Gosaku Goshogawara, and a masked man going by the name The Shooter # 3. The last wrestler to go by The Shooter name was Keita Yano a couple of years ago for the Super Battle FMW promotion as he wrestled in the semi-main event of this show. The match would be a 4 vs. 4 elimination match with Shooter # 3 eliminated Hideki Hosaka at 9 minutes, 16 seconds after sending him over the top rope to the floor. Nanjyo would end up evening up by eliminating Gosaku Goshogawara at 10 minutes, 14 seconds with a La Magistral pin. Battle Ranger who during his early days had much resentment towards Hayabusa but later in life made up with him with Battle Ranger recently going by Hayabusa's mother hotel to see his memorial would end up eliminating Flying Kid Ichihara at 13 minutes, 56 seconds with a Falcon Arrow. The Shooter # 3 would then tie it up by eliminating Nanjyo at 15 minutes, 4 seconds with a Grand Cross 2000. Gannosuke would eliminate The Shooter # 3 at 16 minutes, 17 seconds after rolling him up for the pin. This would leave Masato Tanaka against Mr. Gannosuke and Battle Ranger with Tanaka knocking out Battle Ranger at 17 minutes, 20 seconds with the Sliding D for the elimination. This would leave Tanaka against Mr. Gannosuke for the final time in their careers and Tanaka end up putting away Mr. Gannosuke one last time at 20 minutes, 33 seconds after he would finish off Gannosuke with the Sliding D for the win. All the FMW wrestlers would pose together after the show.

Mr. Gannosuke attended a photography exhibition at the Osaka Lingua World Cafe on April 2, 2018 put on by Isomi Nishijima who is a photographer that has attended many wrestling shows since Mr. Gannosuke returned to the ring in 2014 and taken many different excellent photographs over the years of Gannosuke matches including his match against Hayabucha in July 2016 and his match against Daisuke in October 2017. Gannosuke who was already in Osaka for the day before showed up to check out all the pictures across the wall she had taken him over the years.

Mr. Gannosuke made his one and only return to the ZERO1 promotion since coming out of retirement for a match on April 8, 2018 at the Tokyo Yasukuni Shrine Sumo Wrestling Place. His previous last match for the promotion was against Masato Tanaka on December 17, 2008 at the Shinjuku FACE. Gannosuke would team up with Jinsei Shinzaki for the final time as the two had been partners off and on since Gannosuke's WMF debut show on August 28, 2002 as they would take on the ZERO1 against Shinjiro Otani and Tatsuhito Takaiwa who Gannosuke feuded with back in 2003. Otani would set up Shinzaki for the face wash kick with Takaiwa grabbing Gannosuke to prevent him from making the save. Otani would end up delivering the kick to Shinzaki's face and in the process also kick Gannosuke in the head sending him into the crowd. Gannosuke would end up getting Takaiwa in the ring and would try for the Praying Powerbomb but Takaiwa would reverse it and flip Gannosuke over. Takaiwa would then set up Gannosuke for the Death Valley Bomb but Gannosuke would escape and kick Takaiwa and deliver the Falcon Arrow. Shinzaki would then take Takaiwa and deliver a Praying Powerbomb before putting him in the Nirvana Strangle with Takaiwa submitting at 15 minutes, 29 seconds with Gannosuke and Shinzaki winning their final time teaming up together.

Mr. Gannosuke worked for his student Miyako Matsumoto's promoted show on April 9, 2018 at the Tokyo Shinjuku MARZ which is a night club with Gannosuke teaming up with another fellow student Tsukasa Fujimoto as they would take on Jun Kasai and Miyako Matsumoto in a crazy brawl that would see all four wrestlers fight all over the bar including on to the second floor with Kasai trying to drop Gannosuke off the balcony and Gannosuke fighting back before managing to roll up Matsumoto at 10 minutes, 59 seconds with the Gannosuke Clutch for the win. Gannosuke would hug Matsumoto afterwards and give her encouraging final words as a teacher.

Atsushi Onita ended up falling short in his quest to become mayor of Kanzaki, Saga after he was defeated on April 15, 2018 by Shigeyuki Matsumoto in a final vote of 9,002 to Onita's 8,025 votes. Only 65.8% of the population voted in the city which was the lowest since 2006. Onita in his post election speech stated he did not feel he lost but his reality of of bringing back Kanzaki to what it had been in years past and that if the city continues to lose its business' that there will be no future for the children. Onita stated that he and his team fought with their heart and that he will remain a citizen in Kanzaki and that he will fight to become mayor again in four years and that he is the hope for Kanzaki and he just will need to flip 500 voters next time.

FREEDOMS returned to the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring on April 12, 2018 where they would draw an announced 281 fans for the show as the main event would be the new formed team of Violento Jack and Daisuke Masaoka against Jun Kasai and Masashi Takeda. Jack would get the upper hand by headbutting Takeda with light tubes and then delivering a DDT to Takeda on the light tubes. Jack would then charge Takeda with light tubes but Takeda would move out of the way and drop kick the light tubes into Jack's stomach. Kasai would then lariat Masaoka and then pick Masaoka and drop him face first into light tubes set up on the turnbuckle. Kasai would then charge at Masaoka who would grab Kasai and deliver a backslide before rolling him up with La Magistral for the win at 17 minutes, 14 seconds with Kasai challenging Masaoka to a future match. Mr. Gannosuke would take on GENTARO for the final time and his final FREEDOMS match.

The Mr. Gannosuke vs. GENTARO rivalry would actually start back before Gannosuke's first retirement on November 14, 2008 when the two would have a 30 minute time limit draw followed by a 10 minute over time draw for the Apache Army promotion. Gannosuke would then have his first singles match after coming back from retirement and defeat GENTARO on November 18, 2014 for his own promoted show and then defend his GWC Title for the first time against GENTARO successfully on June 17, 2016 for the Guts World promotion. This match would start with both using mat work and work on each others legs before Gannosuke would grab GENTARO and deliver a running arm drag on him. Gannosuke would then charge at GENTARO with a lariat but GENTARO would catch Gannosuke and begin choking out before delivering a Backdrop Suplex and rolling him up at 22 minutes, 28 seconds with a Ashikiwame Kubigatame for GENTARO to finally defeat Gannosuke in a singles match. Both would kneel on the mat towards each other afterwards and shake hands out of respect towards one another.

The Unchain team of Kenji Fukimoto and Minoru Fujita would defeat the BASARA team of Isami Kodaka and FUMA in a Barbed wire Board Gadget Board Death Match as Fukimoto would finish off FUMA at 11 minutes, 12 seconds with a Package Piledriver. Yuya Susumu and Masamune would get the win over Gunso and brother YASSHI after YASSHI would get DQ'd at 9 minutes, 24 seconds for attacking Susumu with a chair. Kenichiro Arai would get the win over Kazma Sakamoto at 5 minutes, 55 seconds with a School Boy. The opening match would be Takashi Sasaki, Dragon Libre, and Tomoya Hirata defeating Mammoth Sasaki, Toru Sugiura, and Kamui when Sasaki would roll up Sugiura at 8 minutes, 48 seconds with a Shonan Gurodo Clutch for the win. Sugiura would challenge Mammoth and Sugiura for the King of Freedoms Tag Team Titles for the May 2nd Korakuen Hall show and would announced Ryukyu Dragon's Guruken Mask as his partner.

FREEDOMS would run a special show at the Shinjuku Loft 2nd Floor Basement Bar Space with the main event of Jun Kasai and Kenji Fukimoto getting the win after Fukimoto would pin Sugiura at 15 minutes, 46 seconds after using a Package Piledriver on the mat for the win in a Free Weapons Death Match. Violento Jack would get the win over rookie Tomoya Hirata at 8 minutes, 29 seconds when Jack would finish him off with a Lariat. Yuya Susumu and Dragon Libre would defeat GENTARO and trainee Miki Mamiki who has not yet made his debut as Libre would get the win after hitting a Missle Kick through a bar counter to get the win at 10 minutes, 9 seconds over Mamiki.

FREEDOMS announced the full lineup for their annual May 2nd show as Violento Jack will defend his King of Freedom World Championship against BJW Death Match Heavyweight Champion Masashi Takeda. Jun Kasai and Kenji Fukimoto will take on Isami Kodaka and FUMA as well as Daisuke Masaoka and Yuko Miyamoto in a Three Way Tag Team Death Match. Mammoth Sasaki and Toru Sugiura will defend their King of Freedom Tag Team Titles against Takashi Sasaki and Guruken Mask. Yuya Susumu will defend his UWA Jr. Heavyweight Title against brother YASSHI. GENTARO will go up against Gunso in a singles match and Minoru Fujita will go up against Kamui in a Hardcore Match. The opening match will have Chikara teaming up with Tomoya Hirata and Dragon Libre against the team of Chikara's father Mitsuo Momita, Kazma Sakamoto, and Masamune.

FREEDOMS will then run their annual Golden Week show at the Yokohama Radiant Hall on May 4, 2018 as the main event will be Takashi Sasaki taking on Toru Sugiura following their King of Freedom Tag Team Title match two days earlier. Violento Jack and Daisuke Masaoka team up to take on Masashi Takeda and Minoru Fujita as well as Mammoth Sasaki and GENTARO in a Hardcore Three Way Tag Team Match. Jun Kasai and Kenji Fukimoto will go up against the BASARA team of Isami Kodaka and FUMA. Yuya Susumu will take on Yuko Miyamoto in a singles match. Katsumara Shu returns to take on Chikara and the opening match will have Kamui and rookie Tomoya Hirata against Kazma Sakamoto and Dragon Libre.

FREEDOMS will then run on May 6, 2018 at the Shizuoka Mt. Fuji Messe with a main event of Violento Jack and Daisuke Masaoka against Jun Kasai and Takashi Sasaki in a Death Match. Mammoth Sasaki teams up with Kamui against GENTARO and Tomoya Hirata in the semi-main event. Masashi Takeda and Kenji Fukimoto will take on Yuya Susumu and Katsumara Shu. Toru Sugiura will go up against Chikara in a singles match. There will be a WAVE Offer Match and the opening match will have Keisuke Goto going up against Dragon Libre.

Super Battle FMW returned for the first time in 2018 as Gosaku Goshogawara was able to help promote two shows in his home town of Aomori with the first show taking place on April 7, 2018 at the Aomori Hamanasu Hall with an announced crowd of 500 but based on pictures the crowd looked more like around 50 fans. The main event had Ricky Fuji and The Iceman, Jr. defeat Masamune and Gosaku Goshogawara when Iceman pinned Masamune at 10 minutes, 34 seconds with the Lightning Off. Ricky replaced Hideki Hosaka for the main event because Hosaka was given babysitting duty for Miss Mongol's infant child who she brought on the tour for her first two matches back and she needed the baby watched while showering after her match. Keiichi Sato and Hayate defeated Kotaro Suzuki and Takuya Nakazato when Hayate got the pin at 12 minutes, 2 seconds with a Super Express Running Swing over Nakazato. Miss Mongol and Busu Mongol defeated Bambi and Koyuki when Miss Mongol got the win in her first match after giving birth by pinning Koyuki at 12 minutes, 43 seconds with a Mongolian Bomber. Hideki Hosaka easily defeated the former Kizarasu Clown now going by his real name Kazuki Enosawa at 6 minutes, 12 seconds with a Death Valley Bomb. The opening match had HASEGAWA defeat Naoshi Sano at 7 minutes, 45 seconds after he would make Sano submit with a Consolidated Side.

Super Battle FMW would run the next day on April 8, 2018 at the Aomori Hirosaki City Kawanishi Sports Center drawing an announced 700 fans which looked closer to around 100 fans based off pictures with the main event of Gosaku Goshogawara and Masamune defeating Ricky Fuji and Naoshi Sano when Goshogawara would get the win over Sano at 13 minutes, 11 seconds with a Hirosaki Bomber for the home town win. Hayate and HASEGAWA would get the win over Kotaro Suzuki and Tetsuya Nakazato when Hayate would pin Nakazato at 11 minutes, 40 seconds with a Hurricanrana. Miss Mongol and Buso Mongol would get the win over Bambi and Koyuki when Buso Mongol who is Koharu Hinata who was trained by Mr. Gannosuke would get the win after making Koyuki submit at 12 minutes, 43 seconds with a Mr. Gannosuke trained Nirvana Strangle that he used as a finisher in 1998. Keiichi Sato would get the pin over The Iceman, Jr. at 9 minutes, 59 seconds with a Flying Body Cross. The opening match had Hideki Hosaka on babysitting duty again so he would easily defeat Kazuki Enosawa at 1 minutes, 21 seconds with a drop kick.

Super Battle FMW have booked another show for May 25, 2018 at the Ibaraki Mito Citizen Gym Sub Arena with pretty much the same roster they used in April as well as Tetsuhiro Kuroda.

The A-Team held their 1st Year Anniversary show on April 13, 2018 at the Tokyo Kitazawa Town Hall where they announced a crowd of 294 fans for the show. The main event would be the WEW Openweight belt that they created nearly a year ago which they are now referring to as the New WEW World Title and continue lineage of the old title that Kanemura had would be given to the winner of the main event of Daisaku Shimoda against The Blue Shark with Shimoda getting the win at 12 minutes, 28 seconds after hitting Shark with three Backdrop Suplexs. Kintaro Kanemura was originally suppose to attend the show to hand Shimoda the title did not show as he also did not show for the Super Battle FMW shows in Aomori a week earlier so Kim Duk who worked for W*ING was the one that handed the title to Shimoda but afterwards got on the mic and challenged Shimoda for a shot at it. Shimoda's daughter came in the ring to celebrate with her father as all the wrestlers got in the ring and ended the show doing the Team No Respect dance. Raiden who had started off as one of Onita's undercard wrestlers who has transferred over to the A-Team defeated Akira Jo to win the WEW Jr. Heavyweight Title in the semi-main event at 9 minutes, 2 seconds with a Diving Body Press. Daisuke Ikeda and HASEGAWA defended their WEW Tag Team Titles against Brahman Shu and Kei with the match originally getting thrown out at 2 minutes, 12 seconds before the match would get a restart and HASEGAWA would win the second match at 10 minutes, 40 seconds after delivering a Foot stomp to Kei for the win to successfully defend their WEW Tag Team Titles. Tatsuhito Takaiwa defeated Masaru Kameda at 10 minutes, 42 seconds with a Death Valley Bomb. Tomohiko Hashimoto's 18th Year Anniversary match had him team with Hi69 and Gota Ihashi team up to defeat Kohei Sato, Nobutaka Moribe, and Keisuke Okuda when Hashimoto pinned Okuda at 11 minutes, 16 seconds with the XCT. Minoru Tanaka, Masamune, and Lion Fujiwara defeated Rion Mizuki, Keiichi Sato, and Takumi Sakurai when Fujiwara made Sakurai submit at 12 minutes, 38 seconds with the Wakigatame. Chikara defeated Toshiaki Terao at 8 minutes, 34 seconds with a Backdrop and the opening match had Hazard and Naoshi Sano defeat Kurone Shimizu and Shocker when Hazard pinned Shimizu at 10 minutes, 18 seconds with a Tombstone Piledriver.

Kintaro Kanemura's ING promotion which stands for Independent Next Generation will be holding its debut show at the Tokyo Meguro Rockmaykan which is a 250 person standing room concert hall so there will no seats for this show. The main event will be Masato Tanaka going up against Chikara and the semi-main event will be Hideki Hosaka against Raito Shimizu. Tetsuhiro Kuroda will take on WWS's MASAMI and the opening match will be Yuji Hino and Kotaro Suzuki against Kazushi Miyamoto and Gajo. Ricky Fuji's band will also be playing during this show.

Mr. Gannosuke attended his last ever event as Mr. Gannosuke on April 21, 2018 at Naoshi Sano's Stanley Club Bar in Shinjuku. Gannosuke who had not been a bartender since 2014 met and talked with his long time fans one last time until closing at 4 am in the early morning of April 22nd. Gannosuke then had the fans still there all come outside the bar and begin cutting his long blonde hair as he transitions into a normal life as a normal looking person. Takuya Kato who is a huge Hayabusa fan and has gone to Kumamoto several times to visit Hayabusa's mothers hotel stayed until the end wearing a Hayabusa mask that he has worn to all events for years. Kato cut Gannosuke's hair with the Hayabusa mask as a call back to April 29, 1997 after Hayabusa defeated Gannosuke in a Hair vs. Mask match but then did not want to cut his hair. This symbolized Hayabusa finally cutting Gannosuke's hair 21 years later. Gannosuke then who debuted his blonde hair on April 15, 1997 would go back to his natural color hair on April 22, 2018 as well as shave his beard to where Masato Tanaka would not even recognize him after seeing him. Gannosuke will be moving to Kumamoto with his new wife in a couple of weeks and will be getting a traditional job and will be living a traditional life before turning 50 in June.

I have started a new project of placing matches and clips on the YouTube videos of what we are talking about for the History of FMW Podcast series. I have created them for the first four episodes and have changed the links out on the music page to include them. This task does take awhile so please be patient as it will be awhile before I am able to replace all of them with content to give you a better understanding of what we are talking about.

Added: 3/28

Hayabusa was honored for the second anniversary of his passing on back to back days this past week. The first took place on March 26, 2018 at the Tokyo Shinjuku Cat's Hole which is a small concert hall. The event was promoted as the Hayabusa Memory - The Legend of the Phoenix talk show with former FMW wrestlers on stage. The former FMW wrestlers were Masato Tanaka, Kintaro Kanemura, Tetsuhiro Kuroda, Hideki Hosaka, Koji Nakagawa, Ricky Fuji, Mammoth Sasaki, and Miss Mongol. Tanaka stated that the interesting part of FMW was always backstage in the locker room with all the wrestlers messing around with each other and making each other laugh and this show was no exception as all the wrestlers were telling old stories and making each other laugh before even getting on stage. Every wrestler was in a good mood and the show would end up being a financial success with people coming as far as Sapporo to attend the show. All the wrestlers got the chance to have a mic and speak about Hayabusa and their memory of their lost friend even Kanemura who never really got along with Hayabusa during their time in FMW but Kanemura mentioned that he saw Hayabusa as the main thing from NEO FMW and that was a time that he considers the best in his life. Yuko Miyamoto who also attended the show would state he would have a great time just listening to all the FMW wrestlers talk about the past but with all the seniors present it brought him back to his early WMF days and he felt like he needed to do some young boy chores as a result. A video screen would play Hayabusa clips through out the show and Ricky Fuji and his band would begin playing a song with Kintaro Kanemura grabbing a barbed wire bat he brought and begin playing it like a guitar as Kanemura was the star of the show with his jokes to the audience and other wrestlers as it was a very good night for all the wrestlers and brought back many good memories for all those that attended.

A video would play towards the end of the event announcing Kintaro Kanemura's new project called ING which stands for Independent Next Generation with the first even taking place on April 26th at the Tokyo Meguro Rockmaykan as it will be a similar in that it will be a wrestling show and concert mixed together with the Kanemura's friends in a 250 person standing room concert hall. The video then showed Super Leather wearing his old Team Phoenix jacket from 1998 proclaiming that he will be attending an event at one of the shows in the summer.

Mr. Gannosuke would promote his 25th Kishindo and final show at Shin-Kiba 1st Ring on March 27, 2018 drawing an announced crowd of 314 fans for the show. This would also be promoted as the 2nd Anniversary Hayabusa Memorial show as he would team up with Hayabucha which was HARASHIMA's third time going under the gimmick since Hayabusa's passing. Their opponents would be Mr. Gannosuke's student student Yuko Miyamoto who he also would be facing for the final time as well as Isami Kodaka who spent a lot of time in WMF a decade ago. Mr. Gannosuke and Hayabucha would come to the ring with Sana Sakura who was in Hayabusa's band presenting flowers to Gannosuke in celebration of his career. Gannosuke and Hayabucha would both point to Hayabusa in heaven before the match would start.

The match would come to an end as Gannosuke would deliver a Fire Thunder to Miyamoto with Hayabucha following that up with a Fire Bird Splash covering Miyamoto and Kodaka making the save for his partner. Kodaka would then give a diving double knee drop to Gannosuke's abdomen and Miyamoto would setup Gannosuke for a Praying Powerbomb but Gannosuke would out of nowhere turn that into a Gannosuke Clutch with Miyamoto kicking out at two. Miyamoto would then grab Gannosuke and deliver the Fire Thunder a move that Gannosuke gave Miyamoto permission to use after he retired originally in 2008 to finish off Gannosuke for their final match against each other as Miyamoto would get pinfall at 20 minutes, 22 seconds over his teacher.

Mr. Gannosuke would shake Miyamoto and Kodaka's hands afterwards with Miyamoto grabbing the mic and thanking Gannosuke for teaching him. Hayabucha would grab the mic and thank Gannosuke for giving him this chance to participate on this show as he was a big fan of Hayabusa. Gannosuke would grab the mic and state that Hayabusa was watching this match from heaven. Gannosuke also urged Miyamoto to polish up the Fire Thunder and to continue to use it as his finisher. Miyamoto thanked Gannosuke for that and told him that he loves him. Gannosuke then had everyone in the crowd stand up and did Hayabusa's catch phrase Let's have some fun to end the show. Gannosuke's music would then play and Guts Ishijima would enter the ring and all four wrestlers would pick up Gannosuke and tried to toss him up in the air as a custom retirement celebration but the timing was off and Gannosuke was getting no elevation in the air before just getting away from all of them with Gannosuke scolding them all in a playful way that it would be better to just stop with that.

The semi-main event of the show would have Kenichiro Arai defeat Yasu Urano at 17 minutes, 31 seconds with a Jumping Piledriver. W-1's Jiro Kuroshio would defeat Buffalo at 13 minutes, 38 seconds with the Ikemen Clutch. Mineo Fujita another student of Gannosuke who had wrestled on every Kishindo show besides one would get the win over Brahman Kei at 13 minutes, 39 seconds with a Swanton Bomb. Antonio Honda would finish off Shota at 12 minutes, 48 seconds with a Diving Fist Drop. Manabu Hara would get a TKO win over Fuminori Abe at 8 minutes, 38 seconds after delivering a high kick to the head of Abe that would force the referee to stop the match. Makoto would win the opening match over Papillion Akemi at 6 minutes, 18 seconds with a Japanese Leg Roll Clutch.

FREEDOMS returned to the Osaka Hirano Kumin Hall on March 11, 2018 drawing an announced 244 fans for the show. The main event continued the rivalry of Daisuke Masaoka and Kenji Fukimoto as they would go up against each other in a 4 Corners of Pain Death Match with this time Fukimoto picking up the win at 16 minutes, 40 seconds with a Package Piledriver on a fluorescent light tube before Fukimoto would head to Mexico to challenge for Violento Jack's King of Freedom World Championship. Jun Kasai and Gunso would team up to defeat Brahman Shu and Brahman Kei with Kasai getting the win over Kei at 11 minutes, 46 seconds with a Reverse Tiger Driver for the win in the semi-main event. Mammoth Sasaki, Toru Sugiura, and Kamui would defeat the Osaka based team of brother YASSHI, Naoki Tanizaki, and Kouhei Kinoshita when Kamui would pick up the win at 12 minutes, 4 seconds after delivering a Swanton Bomb off a ladder on Kinota for the pin in a Hardcore Match. Masashi Takeda would destroy the rookie Tomoya Hirata at 9 minutes, 23 seconds after making him submit to a Modified Cross Armbar. Masamune and Idea would defeat Takashi Sasaki and Dyna Mido when Mido would pick up the win at 13 minutes with a Diving Headbutt on Idea for the win. The opening match would have GENTARO and Chikara defeat Yuya Susumu and Dragon Libre when GENTARO would get the pin at 10 minutes, 1 second after delivering a Back drop on Libre for the win.

Kenji Fukimoto flew to Mexico to compete at DTU's show in Hidalgo on March 17, 2018 at the Autolabad VW Hall where he would challenge for Violento Jack's King of Freedom World Title in a Fluorescent Light Tube Empty Can Board Gadget Board Death Match with Jack picking up the win with a Package Piledriver on a gadget board and fluorescent light tube to successfully defend the title for the second time. This would result in the main event of the FREEDOMS main event at Korakuen Hall on March 22nd a non title match between Masashi Takeda against Kenji Fukimoto.

FREEDOMS returned to the Tokyo Korakuen Hall for their March 22, 2018 show where they would announce a crowd of 738 fans which is the exact same number the Korakuen Hall show last March drew. The main event of the show would have Masashi Takeda and Kenji Fukimoto in a 4 Corners of Pain Death Match. Takeda and Fukimoto would both open up cans of beers and begin chugging them before both would begin smashing the cans against the others heads. Takeda would then try to throw Fukimoto outside the ring but Fukimoto would catch the rope which would result in Takeda grabbing a light tube and kicking it right into Fukimoto sending him to the outside. Takeda would then take a glass board and set it up on a stack of chairs and deliver a suplex off the turnbuckle sending Fukimoto into shattering the glass. Fukimoto would then manage to block a Takeda kick and roll him into a Fujiwara Armbar before picking him up for the Package Piledriver with Takeda kicking out. Fukimoto would then try for a Package Piledriver on a light tube but Takeda would reverse it and Takeda would end instead drop Fukimoto on the light tube with a side suplex. Takeda would then grab a knife on the mat and place Fukimoto in a Megaraba and place the sawtooth up against his throat to make Fukimoto submit instantly at 15 minutes, 20 seconds for the Takeda win. Violento Jack after the match would rush the ring and attack Takeda and deliver a Package Piledriver on Fukimoto. Jack and Takeda would have a stare down before Kasai would rush the ring and attack Jack. Daisuke Masaoka would then come in to the ring to help Jack with Masaoka putting his hand out and asking to be Jack's partner with Jack accepting and shaking. The entire FREEDOMS roster came out to question Masaoka's actions with Takashi Sasaki declaring war on Jack.

The FREEDOMS vs. BASARA feud started with Jun Kasai, Takashi Sasaki, and Daisuke Masaoka taking on the team of Isami Kodaka, Ryuichi Sekine, and FUMA in a Fluorescent Light Tubes Ladder Death Match in the semi-main event of the show. Kasai would charge at FUMA but would get caught and FUMA would end up delivering an exploder to Kasai into the turnbuckle. FUMA would then climb the turnbuckle with a chair and deliver a dive off the top with the chair but Kasai would move out of the way. Kasai and Sasaki would then send FUMA to the ropes and would pick him up in the air and drop him to the glass covered mat. Kasai would hold on to FUMA as Masaoka would climb the top rope but Masaoka would come off the top with a Rokkura kai and FUMA would move out of the way resulting in Masaoka hitting Kasai instead. Sekine would pick up Masaoka and deliver a Kamikaze a tribute to his friend and gym buddy Ricky Fuji. FUMA would then climb a ladder and deliver a diving elbow onto Kasai but Kasai would kick out. FUMA would then try for a round house kick on Kasai but Kasai would duck and pick up a stack of light tubes and smash them over FUMA's head. Kasai would then climb the ladder and deliver the Pearl Harbor Splash on FUMA with FUMA kicking out. Kasai would then finish off FUMA at 15 minutes, 28 seconds with the Reverse Tiger Driver as Basara would claim that the feud would continue at the next FREEDOMS show.

Mr. Gannosuke would team up with his student Yuko Miyamoto as they would challenge Mammoth Sasaki and Toru Sugiura for the King of Freedom Tag Team Titles. This would be the final match with Gannosuke going up against Mammoth as the two had started out as a team in 2001 and became WEW Tag Team Champions near the end of FMW before feuding from 2003 to 2008 in WMF and Apache Army before Gannosuke's original retirement. Gannosuke and Miyamoto would send Sugiura into the turnbuckle and deliver a double super powerbomb off the turnbuckle. Sugiura would fight back and end up delivering a suplex with Gannosuke landing on his head. Mammoth would then pick up Sugiura and drop him right on to Gannosuke with both Mammoth and Sugiura covering Gannosuke's body with Miyamoto managing to make the save. Mammoth would then grab Gannosuke and try to chokeslam him but Gannosuke would reverse it into a Gannosuke Clutch with Sugiura making the save. Gannosuke and Miyamoto would then try to suplex Mammoth but he would reversing it and sending them both to the mat. Mammoth would then take Gannosuke and deliver the 29 Years Old with Gannosuke kicking out at two. Mammoth would then pick up Gannosuke and deliver a Falcon Arrow while shouting out "Hayabusa!" before pinning Hayabusa's childhood friend Gannosuke at 13 minutes, 18 seconds to defend the King of Freedom Tag Team Titles for a record tenth time. Gannosuke and Mammoth shook afterwards out of respect towards one another.

GENTARO and Kenichiro Arai took on the team of Gunso and brother YASSHI which would end up going to a No Contest after 10 minutes, 4 seconds when Gunso would cut up GENTARO so deep that his face covered in blood would end up making him attack his partner Arai in confusion causing the referee to throw the match out. Yuya Susumu and Masamune would defeat the team of Minoru Fujita and Chikara when Masamune would get the win at 8 minutes, 6 seconds with the Honebami on Chikara. Kazma Sakamoto would defeat Kamui at 6 minutes, 55 seconds with a Michinoku Driver II onto the chair for the win. Brahman Shu and Brahman Kei would defeat Tomoya Hirata and Dragon Libre when Kei would pick up the pinfall over Hirata at 7 minutes, 28 seconds with a Full Body Dissatisfaction for the win in the opening match. GENTARO would get a dark match win over a wrestler that is training with FREEDOMS and has not been a given a ring name yet and is only going by Trainee M.

FREEDOMS and DJ Namijin of the Head Rock Cafe in Shibuya, Tokyo will be promoting the 30th Anniversary show for the Kawasaki Club Citta with a main event of Takashi Sasaki and Daisuke Masaoka going up against Jun Kasai and Kenji Fukimoto in a Barbed wire Board Sawtooth Ladder Death Match. Mammoth Sasaki and GENTARO will team up to take on Ricky Hemano who is Ricky Fuji under a mask as well as Dragon Hermano but I could not tell who he really is. TAKA Michinoku will team up with Marines Mask as they go up against Violento Jack and Yuya Susumu. There will be a WAVE Offer Match of Ryo Mizunami going up against Hiroe Nagahama. The opening match will have Toru Sugiura and Dragon Libre taking on Kamui and Tomoya Hirata.

FREEDOMS will run at the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring on April 12, 2018 with a main event of Violento Jack and Daisuke Masaoka against Jun Kasai and Masashi Takeda in a Death Match. Mr. Gannosuke will wrestle his second to last match and his last singles match in the semi-main event against GENTARO who he wrestled his first singles match when coming out of retirement in November 2014. Kenji Fukimoto and Minoru Fujita will go up against Isami Kodaka and FUMA in a Death Match to continue the FREEDOMS vs. BASARA feud. Yuya Susumu and Masamune will take on Gunso and brother YASSU. Kenichiro Arai will go up against Kazma Sakamoto and the opening match will be Mammoth Sasaki, Toru Sugiura, and Kamui taking on Takashi Sasaki, Dragon Libre, and Tomoya Hirata.

The A-Team returned to the Nara Tenri Station Square Special Ring for their show on March 4, 2018 where they would announce a crowd of 290 fans for the show. The main event would have Tomohiko Hashimoto and Nobutaka Moribe defeating TORU and Chikara when Hashimoto would pin Chikara at 14 minutes, 23 seconds with the XCT. Akira Jo would become the newest WEW Jr. Heavyweight Champion after defeating Takumi Sakurai at 18 minutes, 47 seconds with the Cross Roads for the title. HUB and Raiden would defeat Kotaro Suzuki and Keiichi Sato when HUB would pin Sato at 11 minutes, 35 seconds with the Superstitious Wave Bomb. Koji Kanemoto would make Toshiaki Terao tap out at 15 minutes, 43 seconds to the Ankle Hold and Daisaku Shimoda would finish off Keisuke Okuda at 7 minutes, 49 seconds with a Backdrop. Maholoya, El Quinto, and Tenri Ramen Man would defeat Masaru Kameda, Rion Mizuki, and Kruone Shimizu when Maholoya would pin Shimizu at 8 minutes, 4 seconds with a Mu Fu. Daisuke Ikeda and HASEGAWA would defend their WEW Tag Team Titles against Yasu Kubota and Hide Kubota at 10 minutes, 26 seconds when HASEGAWA would get the pin over Yasu at 10 minutes, 26 seconds with Diving Foot Stomp to defend their tag team titles for the first time.

The A-Team will hold their next show on April 13, 2018 at the Tokyo Kitazawa Town Hall. The main event will be Daisaku Shimoda going up against The Blue Shark to become the New WEW Heavyweight Champion which will be the first champion since Kintaro Kanemura last won it on December 25, 2016. Akira Jo will defend his WEW Jr. Heavyweight Title for the first time against Raiden in the semi-main event of the show. Daisuke Ikeda and HASEGAWA defend their WEW Tag Team Titles against Brahman Shu and Brahman Kei. Tomohiko Hashimoto will have a 15th Anniversary match as he teams up with NOAH's Hi69 and DDT's Gota Ihashi against ZERO1's Kohei Sato, Nobutaka Moribe, and Keisuke Okuda. Tatsuhito Takaiwa will destroy Masaru Kameda and there will be a Jr. Heavyweight 6 Man Match with Minoru Tanaka, Masamune, and Lion Fujiwara going up against Rion Mizuki, Keiichi Sato, and Takumi Sakurai. Toshiaki Terao will go up against Chikara and Naoshi Sano will take on Shocker in the opening match.

Mr. Gannosuke competed for the final time for the Ice Ribbon a promotion that he helped train many of the wrestlers a decade ago as well as his final time competing at Korakuen Hall on March 25, 2018. Gannosuke would team up with Mochi Miyagi as they would take on the team of Minoru Fujita and Akane Fujita with Akane requesting the match be a Hardcore Match. Gannosuke would decline the match but the Ice Ribbon would announce that the fans want that match so it was going to happen. Akane would try multiple times to pin Gannosuke with a Schoolboy but Gannosuke would kick out at two each time and grab Akane and set her up for a Fire Thunder but Akane would manage to grab the rope and Minoru would hit Gannosuke with a bat from the apron. Gannosuke would manage to get up and deliver a lariat to Akane and then finish her off at 12 minutes, 26 seconds with a Powerbomb on a Lego Block, garbage can lid, bat, and chair for the win. Gannosuke would embrace his former trainees Akane and Miyagi afterwards for his final time in Ice Ribbon after 12 years and his final time at Korakuen Hall after 27 years.

Mr. Gannosuke will wrestle six more matches before retiring on April 15th at the Shinjuku FACE for the final Guts World show. His next show will be on April 1, 2018 at the Guts World show in Osaka as he teams up with long time IWA Japan rival Keizo Matsuda for the first time as well as Shota as they take on Guts Ishijima, Kenichiro Arai, and TORU. He will then compete later that day in the same building in Osaka for the Battle Ranger promoted show which will be an FMW match 4 vs. 4 Single Elimination Match with the teams not announced until the day of the show but the 8 wrestlers will be Gannosuke, Masato Tanaka which it will be the final that Gannosuke and Tanaka go up against each other in their careers, Hideki Hosaka, Gosaku Goshogawara, Nanjyo Hayato, Flying Kid Ichihara, Battle Ranger, and a masked man going by the name Shooter # 3. He will then compete at the Tokyo Yasukuni Shrine for the first time on April 8th for ZERO1 as he teams up with Jinsei Shinzaki for the final time as they take on Shinjiro Otani and Tatsuhito Takaiwa. He will then compete in his final singles match for FREEDOMS at Shin-Kiba on April 12th against GENTARO, and his final match will be on April 15th as he teams up with Michio Kageyama against Tatsumi Fujinami and Hiro Saito.

A little over a month ago I finished career music video of Mr. Pogo and today I finished a video of Masato Tanaka. Both I am very proud of as I feel like all these videos I have done do a great job at going over a wrestlers career the best possible way I can with good music that matches with what is going on. If you want to check them out they are on the Music Video page on my site along with all the other FMW wrestlers I have done other the last year and a half.

Added: 3/3

Atsushi Onita opened up his own office on February 25, 2018 in Kanzaki, Saga where he is running for mayor. Around 200 supporters gathered as Onita held a rally where he told everyone he was sincerely thankful to everyone who has greeted him since deciding to run for mayor of Kanizaki and that Saga's blood is flowing through him. He stated he wants to live in Kanzaki as that is where he was born as a child and that he plans on making Kanizaki the best city in the prefecture as he fought back tears stating this was the area his mother grew up in. He told everyone he was going to fight the issues going on with the town which includes the new government building, utilization of the hometown tax payment, child rearing support, medical treatment for the elderly. Onita is going up against Mr. Shogo Masayuki who is 67 years old. The election will take place on April 15th.

Super Battle FMW announced that the promotion would be returning and holding its first shows of 2018 on April 7th at the Aomori Hamanasu Hall and April 8th at the Aomori Hirosaki City Kawanishi Sports Center. These are buildings they have ran since the promotion started up in April 2015 so they have found sponsors willing to help promote these shows but the roster is incredibly thin. The wrestlers booked for the show are: Gosaku Goshogawara who is helping with the promotion as he is from Aomori, Hideki Hosaka, Ricky Fuji, Kotaro Suzuki, Naoshi Sano, Kazuki Enosawa, HASEGAWA, Hayate, Masamune, Miss Mongol, Bambi, Pandita, Leatherface, and Kintaro Kanemura will be appearing on both shows in a non wrestling capacity. I spoke with Ricky Fuji in 2016 about this promotion needing to come up with a new star as it was known Onita would be retiring 2017 and the whole promotion had been built around him. Ricky told me that he thought they would come up with a new star to take the top spot like Hayabusa did and lead the promotion. I felt they should have at least tried with Keiichi Sato and given him the chance to try and stand out but they failed to do any such thing and the promotion is now almost extinct with a limited roster and very limited fan base.

FREEDOMS would hold their February 8, 2018 show at the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring where they would announce a crowd of 227 fans for the show. The main event of the show would Unchain's Jun Kasai and Kenji Fukimoto against Yuko Miyamoto and Daisuke Masaoka in a Fluorescent Light Tubes Death Match. Masaoka would end up knocking Fukimoto to the mat and would begin climbing the ladder when Kasai would end up grabbing Masaoka from being able to jump off of it allowing Fukimoto to climb up the ladder and deliver a suplex on Masaoka off of it. Kasai would then deliver a lariat to Masaoka and place a stack of light tubes on Masaoka as Kasai would deliver the Pearl Harbor Splash with the light tubes breaking across Masaoka's body. Fukimoto would then setup Masaoka for the Package Piledriver but Miyamoto would come in with a light tube and break it over Fukimoto's head. Miyamoto would then grab Kasai and deliver a Fire Thunder off the apron through a table. Masaoka would then charge at Fukimoto but Fukimoto would nail him with a lariat and then finish off Masaoka at 17 minutes, 13 seconds with a Package Piledriver on a stack of light tubes for the win. Fukimoto would declare that he was the number one contender for the King of Freedom World Championship and challenge for Violento Jack in Mexico on March 17, 2018 for the DTU promotion.

The semi-main event of the show would have GENTARO and Kenichiro Arai defeat Masashi Takeda and Minoru Fujita when GENTARO would get the pin at 12 minutes, 57 seconds with a Ground Cobra Twist on Fujita for the win to become the number one contenders for the King of Freedom Tag Team Titles. Mammoth Sasaki, Toru Sugiura, and Tomoya Hirata would take on Takashi Sasaki, Guruken Mask, and Dragon Libre in the semi-main event of the show. Dragon Libre would come off the top rope with Mammoth catching him and just dumping Libre on the mat. Mammoth and Sugiura would then pick up Hirata and drop him on Libre with Sasaki and Guruken making the save. Libre and Hirata would begin to go at it with Hirata delivering a kick to the head of Libre and then delivering a Spinebuster to get the pin at 16 minutes, 20 seconds for the win with a singles match between Libre and Hirata being made at the next Shin-Kiba show. Yuya Susumu would defeat Chikara at 9 minutes, 5 seconds with a Calf Lock after making Chikara submit. Gunso would end up taking on Kazma Sakamoto and at 8 minutes, 12 seconds the match would be declared a No Contest.

Mr. Gannosuke would face off against his student Kamui who he along with Mammoth Sasaki trained in the WMF Dojo in 2004. Their last singles match took place on the second to last WMF show on July 27, 2008 where Gannosuke won but not before Kamui would accidentally nail him in the crotch with his foot while coming down on an Asai Moonsault. This match almost 10 years later would open the show with Gannosuke working the arm right away to hit Kamui with a running arm drag. Gannosuke would charge at Kamui but Kamui would deliver a hurricanrana to Gannosuke. Kamui would go for a Fire Bird Splash but Gannosuke would move out of the way but Kamui would follow up by delivering a Pele Kick to Gannosuke. Kamui would then try and lift Gannosuke for a Tiger Driver but Gannosuke would turn it into a Gannosuke Clutch to get the win at 10 minutes, 37 seconds over Kamui. Gannosuke and Kamui would hug afterwards.

FREEDOMS would return for their annual show on February 11, 2018 at the Hiroshima Industry Center West Building drawing an announced 481 fans for the show. The main event would have Takashi Sasaki, Daisuke Masaoka, and Yuko Miyamoto defeating the Unchain team of Jun Kasai, Masashi Takeda, and Kenji Fukimoto in a Fluorescent Light Tubes Death Match when Masaoka would get the revenge pinfall over Fukimoto at 17 minutes, 1 seconds following Masaoka nailing the Rokkura Kai on Fukimoto for the pinfall. Yuya Susumu would defend his UWA Jr. Heavyweight Title defeating DOVE's Kenshin Chikano at 15 minutes, 53 seconds after Susumu would get Chikano to submit to the Calf Lock hold at 15 minutes, 53 seconds for Susumu's fifth successful title defense. Minoru Fujita, Gunso, and brother YASSHI would defeat the team of Mammoth Sasaki, Toru Sugiura, and Tomoya Hirata when YASSHI would get the win at 13 minutes, 49 seconds following a Nice German on Hirata for the win. Kazma Sakamoto would have local wrestler Devil Magician in his corner after Magician suffered a heart attack back in December and Takashi Sasaki would not clear him to compete on the show as Sakamoto would take on Rising Hayato with Cutie Elly on the show show with Kazma picking up the win at 8 minutes, 24 seconds after nailing the Michinoku Driver II on Hayato. GENTARO would end up picking up the win over Takeshi Okada at 8 minutes, 13 seconds after GENTARO would get the win via Count Out. The opening match would have Brahman Shu and Brahman Kei teaming up with Rey Paloma who would embrace the Brahman gimmick and go by Brahman Paloma as they would take on the team of Kamui, Chikara, and Dragon Libre with Chikara picking up the win at 9 minutes, 4 seconds following a Saber Chop on Kei for the win.

FREEDOMS held their Shin-Kiba 1st Ring show on March 1, 2018 to setup for their upcoming Korakuen Hall show with an announced crowd of 164 fans for the show which is down from recent shows. The main event had Takashi Sasaki and Daisuke Masaoka winning a Fluorescent Light Tubes Scramble Bunkhouse Death Match against Jun Kasai and Kenji Fukimoto at 16 minutes, 21 seconds with Sasaki delivering a Right Leg Kick to a light tube against Fukimoto's head for the win. FUMA afterwards would come out as a representative for the BASARA promotion and attack Kasai, Sasaki, and Masaoka and then challenge the FREEDOMS team to an interpromotional match at Korakuen Hall with the FREEDOMS team accepting. Mammoth Sasaki and Toru Sugiura defeated GENTARO and Kenichiro Arai at 19 minutes, 5 seconds when Mammoth used the Gannosuke Clutch to get the pin over GENTARO to successfully defend their titles for the 9th time. Mr. Gannosuke came out afterwards and proclaimed he would be winning the tag titles along with Yuko Miyamoto and bringing his title belt back to his new home in Kumamoto to hang on his wall. Masashi Takeda and Gunso defeated Mr. Gannosuke and Kamui in what was Gannosuke's first time taking on both Takeda and Gunso and Gannosuke would end up getting cut open during the match by Gunso after he would slice his forehead with scissors before Takeda would finish off Kamui at 13 minutes, 45 seconds with a Reverse U Crash. Minoru Fujita would end up defeating Chikara in a singles at 7 minutes, 50 seconds with a Samson Clutch. Yuya Susumu and Masamune teamed up to defeat Brahman Shu and Brahman Kei when Masamune got the win at 9 minutes, 27 seconds using a Japanese Leg Roll Clutch. Dragon Libre would get revenge for his tag team lost in February as he would defeat Tomoya Hirata at 10 minutes, 55 seconds after making him submit to a Triangle Choke in the opening match on the show.

FREEDOMS' next show will be on March 11, 2018 at the Osaka Hirano Community Hall which will have a main event of Kenji Fukimoto going up against Daisuke Masaoka in a 4 Corners of Pain Death Match just a couple of days before Fukimoto would head to Mexico to challenge for the King of Freedom World Championship. Jun Kasai and Gunso will go up against the Brahman Brothers in the semi-main event of the show. Mammoth Sasaki will team up with Toru Sugiura and Kamui against brother YASSHI, Naoki Tanizaki, and Kouhei Kinoshita. Masashi Takeda will go up Tomoya Hirata with the idea of Takeda destroying the rookie. Takashi Sasaki and Dyna Mido return as a team to take on Masamune and Idea and the opening match will have GENTARO and Chikara going up against Yuya Susumu and Dragon Libre.

FREEDOMS announced their lineup for their Tokyo Korakuen Hall show on March 22, 2018 with the main event of Kenji Fukimoto going up against Masashi Takeda in a Death Match with the match becoming a King of Freedom World Championship match if Fukimoto is to win the title from Violento Jack on March 17th and bring it back to Japan. The FREEDOMS vs. Basara feud begins as the semi-main event of the show will be Jun Kasai, Takashi Sasaki, and Daisuke going up against the BASARA team of FUMA, Isami Kodaka, and Ryuichi Sekine. Mammoth Sasaki and Toru Sugiura will defend the King of Freedom Tag Team Titles for the 10th time against the team of Mr. Gannosuke and his student Yuko Miyamoto in what will be Gannosuke's final Korakuen Hall show as well as the first time in almost 10 years and final time that Gannosuke will be going up against Mammoth Sasaki in the ring. Gannosuke has stated that this will be his final title match and after winning the titles he will bring his belt to his home in Kumamoto and hang it up on the wall. GENTARO and Kenichiro Arai go up against the Unchain team of Gunso and brother YASSHI. Yuya Susumu and Masamune team up against Minoru Fujita and Chikara who have seem to have bonded as a team. Kamui will take on Kazma Sakmoto in a singles match. The youngsters Dragon Libre and Tomoya Hirata will go up against the Brahman Brothers in the opening match and there will two FREEDOMS trainees competing against each other in a dark match.

The A-Team will run their next show on March 4, 2018 once again at the Nara Tenri Station Square Special Ring with a main event of Tomohiko Hashimoto and Nobutaka Moribe against the team of TORU and Chikara in a lackluster main event. Takumi Sakurai will defend his WEW Jr. Heavyweight Title for the first time against Akira Jo in the semi-main event. HUB will be brought in to team up with Raiden against Kotaro Suzuki and Keiichi Sato. Koji Kanemoto will destroy the youngster Toshiaki Terao and Daisaku Shimoda will go up against Keisuke Okuda. Kurone Shimizu will take on Maholva and the opening match will have Daisuke Ikeda and HASEGAWA defend their WEW Tag Team Titles against Hide and Yasu Kubota.

The A-Team will then return to Tokyo at the Kitazawa Town Hall on April 13, 2018 where they will determine a new WEW World Heavyweight Champion between Daisaku Shimoda and The Blue Shark. Kintaro Kanemura will be at the show to present the title to the winner. The original idea was for the WEW World Title to retire along with Kintaro Kanemura and the A Team even created a belt to be their new title called the WEW Open Weight Title. They have since changed their minds and Kanemura agreed to let them use the WEW Title to keep the title history going in this promotion. Daisuke Ikeda and HASEGAWA will also defend their WEW Tag Team Titles against Brahman Shu and Brahman Kei in the semi-main event if Ikeda and HASEGAWA can defeat the other set of Japanese twins Hide and Yasu Kubota on March 4th in Nara.

Mr. Gannosuke would compete on the final Guts World show at the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring on February 3, 2018. Gannosuke would take on Kenichiro Arai as Arai had tried out to join the FMW Dojo's in the early 1990's but would end up not passing the exit test. This would be the first time Gannosuke would face Arai with Gannosuke working on Arai's arm while bringing the match to the mat. Arai would fight out of it and manage to deliver a piledriver to Gannosuke. Arai would then grab Gannosuke by the throat and begin trying to choke him out with Gannosuke managing to escape but Arai would then begin working on Gannosuke's arm but that would allow Gannosuke to spin out of and and reverse Arai right into the Gannosuke Clutch for the win at 14 minutes, 47 in the third to final Guts World show. Gannosuke and Arai would both speak to each other afterwards before embracing.

Mr. Gannosuke married for the second time on February 9, 2018 in Tokyo. Gannosuke who is a very private individual had a private ceremony and only announced anything following the wedding. Gannosuke and his new wife will be moving to Kumamoto where Gannosuke has a job lined up and will live a normal life as he looks to get out of the wrestling business for good this time.

Mr. Gannosuke wrestled his final show in Yokohama on February 24, 2018 at the Yokohama Radiant Hall which was promoted by 045 Bay Arena which is a new bar in Yokohama with the owner being a big FMW of the late 1990's as an old FMW Entertainment Wrestling and Team No Respect t- shirts are on display there. The main event would have Mr. Gannosuke team up with Minoru Fujita, Koji Doi, and Hiroyo Matsumoto who Gannosuke helped train against the team of TAKA Michinoku, Takashi Sasaki, Hideyoshi Kamitani, and another Gannosuke trainee in Tsukasa Fukimoto. Gannosuke would end up knocked out by getting a super kick from TAKA Michinoku, followed by a right leg kick by Takashi Sasaki and then followed by laraits from both Kamitani and Fukimoto but as Sasaki would begin working on Gannosuke he would end up keeping his streak alive of using the Gannosuke Clutch successfully as he would roll up Sasaki at 13 minutes, 50 seconds with his Gannosuke Clutch for the win. The entire roster would come out after the match to a take a group photo to help promote the new wrestling bar.

Mr. Gannosuke's final set of matches have been booked as his next show will take place on March 10, 2018 for the REINA show on March 10th at the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring as he teams up with Makoto to go up against Hikaru Sato and Kaori Yoneyama. Then on March 11, 2018 in Nagoya as he will team up with Michio Kageyama under the GUNs gimmick to take on former FMW women's wrestler Drake Morimatsu and Kengo Takai going by the identical gimmick also of Drake Takai. He will then compete at the Korakuen Hall show for FREEDOMS on March 22nd and then his last promoted show on March 27th at Shin-Kiba 1st Ring which will be a 2nd Year Hayabusa Memorial show and then on April 1st in Osaka he will compete on the second to last Guts World show as well as a Battle Ranger promoted show the same day followed by a Batoscafe show in Osaka where he will take on Manabu Hara who has recently come back from retirement on April 3rd before his final match on April 15th.

Mr. Gannosuke's final match and second retirement match will take place April 15, 2018 at Tokyo Shinjuku FACE for the final Guts World show with Gannosuke teaming up with friend Michio Kageyama as they take on Tatsumi Fujinami and Hiro Saito. Gannosuke who grew up a huge New Japan in the 1980's fan loved Riki Choshu the most but a close second was Tatsumi Fujinami who Gannosuke got to face off against in a singles match back on September 20, 2008 at Korakuen Hall for the Dradition promotion. Fujinami presented Gannosuke with flowers at Gannosuke's first retirement ceremony in December 2008 and it was Gannosuke's wish to face off against Fujinami for his final match.

The Bulls Eye Agent will be promoting a Hayabusa Memorial Talk Show segment with fellow former FMW wrestlers of his. Right now they have booked Masato Tanaka, Ricky Fuji, Tetsuhiro Kuroda, Mammoth Sasaki, and Kintaro Kanemura. They are negotiating with 5 more former FMW wrestlers as well. The event will take place on March 26, 2018 at 7:00 PM at the Tokyo Shinjuku Cat Hole which is a small concert hall.

Although this story is nearly two years old it is the first time I have heard about it as I do not believe it was reported anywhere in English. Kaoru Fuyuki who was the wife of Kodo Fuyuki before his passing in 2003 would end up dating and eventually becoming engaged to Shinya Hashimoto who left his wife for Kaoru. Hashimoto would end up passing away in 2005 while at the dinner table with Fuyuki when he would suffer a brain aneurysm and collapse and be declared dead at the hospital that day. Over a decade went would go by following Hashimoto's passing before anyone would hear anything about Kaoru Fuyuki. Kaoru Fuyuki now going by the name Kaoru Nakamura would end up being arrested in April 2016 for suspicion of cheating a man out of money. Kaoru who married again after Hashimoto's death but left him citing physical abuse met the man who would only go by the name Mr. S in the story while out with friends and the two agreed to go on a date. Kaoru brought the two books she had published following Fuyuki's death in 2003 and Hashimoto's death in 2005 to show Mr. S who she was.

The two got engaged despite Kaoru stating she wanted to wait for marriage until they would sleep together. Kaoru asked for Mr. S to lend her $80,000 dollars and got her to sign an IOU for $30,000 dollars of that money. She stated that her father had just passed away and she needed money for her fathers funeral as well as for her two daughters college tuition money but that she would be getting back money to pay him back soon due to her fathers inheritance. Mr. S became incredibly ill shortly after lending her the money and had a lengthy stay in the hospital where Kaoru never visited him once there and then he could no longer get in contact with her despite them being engaged and also found out through investigation that her father had not even recently passed away like she said. Mr. S reported the money that she owed him to the Kanagawa Prefecture Police who gave her a deadline of having to pay back by March 31, 2016 which she still did not pay back and as a result was arrested on April 11, 2016 which is where the story ends and nothing new has been reported on this since.

Today marks the 2nd anniversary of Hayabusa passing away. He was somebody despite me only having three sit down conversations with really transformed my life a lot. I will never forget how the second time meeting him at concert he told everyone in the crowd about me as I was the first foreigner to attend a concert of his which everyone began clapping at me for. I will never forget how the following year when I was having my first real conversation with Mr. Gannosuke I was telling him about what a fan of FMW I was and he responded he knew already because Hayabusa told him about me last year. I will never forget how my last time meeting him he called for me after his concert to sit by him and he began just talking to me about his life and his love of pro-wrestling and we talked about each others girlfriends and personal lives and that one night I was friends with Hayabusa.

I will also never forget how on March 2, 2016 when I was at work thinking about how I was hoping that Hayabusa would be holding a concert around the 10 days that I was going to be in Tokyo that June not knowing that was probably right around the time period that he was waking up in the middle of the night and dying a tragic death. I will never forget how sad I was when his daughter Ayane reached out to me shortly after his passing and told me how he was suppose to attend her high school graduation two days before his death and now his younger daughter Shie graduated from high school today the second anniversary of her fathers death. I will never forget that Eiji Ezaki was by no means a perfect human or a wrestler. He messed up a lot in the ring and he messed up a lot in life decisions much of which he felt the last 14 years of his life was karma for. I will never forget that no matter much he was suffering everyone I know that were around him would say he was still a very positive person with a lot to live for. I will never forget you Eiji Ezaki.

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Atsushi Onita held a press conference on January 18, 2018 at the House of Councilors in Saga City to announce that he would be running for mayor of the city of Kanzaki which is located in the Saga prefecture. Onita stated that his mother is from Saga and that is the location his mother was born and the location he will be buried in. Onita is scheduled to run as an independent and he has been backed by a member of the House of Representatives Kazuhiro Haraguchi.

Onita promised six things for Kanzaki if he were to be elected mayor of the city. The first would be build a 5 billion (50 Million USD) new town hall. The second would be there would be that none of his administration would have the distinction that they were above the citizens, the third would be a publicity for the Kanzaki brand, the fourth would be reduction of school supplies needed for the students as well as resume that school meals will be supplied by all schools. The fifth would be a Kanzaki City increase population plan, and the sixth would be enhancement of medical welfare for support elderly and disabled people. The election would be on April 15th so I would imagine if he were actually asked to attend WrestleMania in New Orleans on April 8th that he would unable to anyway with how close it is to the election.

Atsushi Onita appeared on January 27, 2018 the UWF Snake Pit in Koenji, Tokyo where UWF training takes place for a talk event. This was symbolic as it was 30 years after Onita went to a UWF show in Osaka when he was challenging UWF and was told he could not go into the building because he did not have a ticket for the show and was sent away. Shigeo Miyato a former UWF wrestler who runs the Snake Pit Gym participated in the talk show with Onita revealed to Onita that he was the wrestler at the entrance that told Onita he could not come in because he did not have a ticket. They talked about if FMW were to ever become a movie that interaction between the two would be the first scene of the movie as it would eventually lead to FMW and the Death Match wrestling that followed with both laughing about everything that came from it. Onita and Miyato took pictures with the fans afterwards.

Keiji Muto's Pro-Wrestling Masters promotion will have an FMW vs. Fujiwara-Gumi match on their February 16, 2018 show at Korakuen Hall as Tetsuhiro Kuroda, Hideki Hosaka, and Ricky Fuji who will be called the FMW Masters team will be taking on the Fujiwara-Gumi team of Yoshiaki Fujiwara, Kazuo Takahashi, and Takaku Fuke in a six man tag team match. Hisakatsu Oya will also be on the show as he takes on former FMW Jr. Heavyweight Champion Takuma Sano.

ZERO1 would run their first Super Fireworks show since November 3rd as they would return to the Osaka Prefectural Gym # 2 with a main event of Bakuha-ō King Champion Yuko Miyamoto taking on World Heavyweight Champion Yusaku Obata in a Double Titles Exploding Baseball Bats Death Match. Miyamoto would pick up Obata for the Fire Thunder but Obata would manage to escape and deliver a kick to the back of then the head of Miyamoto. Obata would charge at Miyamoto again but Miyamoto would grab him and then manage to hit the Fire Thunder on Obata. Obata and Miyamoto would eventually both grab exploding barbed wire bats and at the same time would both hit each other causing them both to be knocked out and the match would be declared a Draw after a Double KO at 14 minutes with the referee raising both wrestlers hands. Obata will defend his World Heavyweight Title on February 12th against Isami Kodaka.

Chigusa Nagayo who was declared the first Bakuha-ō Queen Champion by Atsushi Onita on August 13, 2017 would end up losing her title in a 4 Way Exploding Barbed wire Baseball Bat Death Match to Yoshiko when Yoshiko would get the win at 15 minutes, 21 seconds after pinning Akane Fujita who was also in the match. This look to setup a future match between Yoshiko and Nagayo for the title.

FREEDOMS would run their first show of the year on January 3, 2018 at the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring where they would announce 220 fans for the show. The show would be a 4 man tournament to determine the number one contender for Violento Jack's King of Freedom World Championship. The first match of the year had Dragon Libre get the win over Chikara at 7 minutes, 30 seconds after Libre got the win with the Deformation pinfall. Kenji Fukimoto would be the first to advanced to the main event of the show after he would defeat Takashi Sasaki at 7 minutes, 48 seconds after he would manage to roll up Sasaki with Small Package to move on. GENTARO would be the next to move on after he would defeat Daisuke Masaoka at 9 minutes, 36 seconds after working on Masaoka's ankle that got injured back on Christmas as GENTARO would end up making Masaoka submit to the Ankle Hold to advance to the main event. Yuya Susumu would defend his UWA Jr. Heavyweight Title for the fourth time after defeating Kamui at 11 minutes, 51 seconds after getting him to submit to the Calf Lock to defend the title for the fourth time. Mammoth Sasaki, Toru Sugiura, and Kazma Sakamoto would defeat the Unchain team of Masashi Takeda, Gunso, and Minoru Fujita in a Hardcore Match after Mammoth would finish off Fujita at 12 minutes, 5 seconds with a 29 Years Old on a ladder the pinfall.

Jun Kasai would take on the rookie Tomoya Hirata and would destroy Hirata the entire time including piledriving him on the stage and busting him open with punches to the head. Hirata would fight back with a lariat but Kasai would end up catching a punch by Hirata and place him in the Cross Armbreaker to get the win at 11 minutes, 37 seconds for the submission win over Hirata in the semi-main event of the show. The main event would have the winners from earlier in GENTARO going up against Kenji Fukimoto to become the number one contender for Violento Jack's title. GENTARO would end up making the mistake of going to the top rope with Fukimoto catching him and delivering the Package Piledriver to get the win at 13 minutes, 31 seconds with Fukimoto that he wanted to challenge Jack in Mexico for the title afterwards.

FREEDOMS would run at the Osaka Higashinari Kumin Center drawing an announced 384 fans for Kenji Fukimoto's 20th Anniversary Show as the main event would be Jun Kasai and Jaki Numazawa teaming up once again as they would take on Kenji Fukimoto and fellow Unchain member Masashi Takeda in a Fluorescent Light Tubes Saw Board Death Match with Kasai getting the win at 21 minutes, 13 seconds after delivering a Reverse Tiger Driver on Fukimoto directly on the saw board for the win. The Wrestle-1 team of Seiki Yoshioka and Andy Wu would defeat the team of Daisuke Masaoka and Kamui in the semi-main event after Yoshioka would get the pinfall at 15 minutes, 42 seconds using the La Magistral on Kamui. The team of Gunso, Hide Kubota, and Kabuki Kid would defeat the team of Mammoth Sasaki, Toru Sugiura, and Dyna Mido when Gunso would get the pinfall over Mido with a Diving Guillotine Drop with a ladder at 11 minutes, 27 seconds in a Hardcore Match. Yuko Miyamoto would defeat the rookie Tomoya Hirata at 11 minutes, 58 seconds with the signature move to defeat a rookie in the Single Leg Crap. Takashi Sasaki and GENTARO reunited as a team to defeat Yuya Susumu and Dragon Libre when GENTARO would hit a Flying Body Attack to get the win at 10 minutes, 21 seconds over Libre. The opening match had Kenji Fukimoto reunited with Karate Brahman who were tag partners for the King of Freedom Tag Team Tournament in 2014 as they would lose to the team of Drake Morimatsu and Idea when Morimatsu would get the pinfall at 8 minutes, 41 seconds over Karate.

FREEDOMS would return at the Yokohama Radiant Hall on January 27, 2018 drawing an announced crowd of 219 fans for the show with the main event of the FREEDOMS team of Takashi Sasaki, GENTARO, and Daisuke Masaoka against Unchain's Jun Kasai, Masashi Takeda, and Kenji Fukimoto. Kasai and Fukimoto would first work on double teaming Sasaki which would lead to Kasai delivering a Pearl Harbor Splash on Sasaki. Fukimoto would go to suplex Sasaki but he would counter and suplex Fukimoto instead. GENTARO would then hold on to Fukimoto as Masaoka would deliver a dive on to Fukimoto. GENTARO would then deliver a dive over the top rope onto the outside on to all the wrestlers on the outside. Sasaki would then pick up Fukimoto for the Michinoku Driver II but Fukimoto would manage to kick out. Sasaki would charge at Fukimoto with a lariat but Fukimoto would move out of the way and grab Sasaki and deliver a Package Piledriver at 19 minutes, 12 seconds for the Unchain win. The semi-main event had Toru Sugiura going up against Minoru Fujita with Fujita setting up Sugiura with his finisher the Tombstone Piledriver but Sugiura would manage to counter and deliver the Swift Driver instead with Fujita managing to kick out. Sugiura would go up to the top and deliver the Raging Tornado and at 14 minutes, 40 seconds would manage to pull the upset win over Fujita. Kamui would go up against Gunso with Kamui's game plan of taking the match to the outside and then making sure Gunso could not get back in as Kamui would deliver a drop kick to Gunso as soon as he would get back on the apron until the referee would count to 20 and reward the victory to Kamui at 11 minutes, 55 seconds via Count Out. Kazma Sakamoto and Chikara would defeat the team of Kenichiro Arai and Dragon Libre as Chikara would get revenge for the singles loss earlier in the month to Dragon Libre as Chikara would pick up the win at 13 minutes, 1 seconds following a Backdrop to Libre for the win. The opening match would have Takashi Sasaki team up with FREEDOMS trainee Miki Mamaiki would end up losing to Brahman Shu and Brahman Kei after Shu would get the pinfall win at 8 minutes, 28 seconds with a Camel Clutch over Mamaiki.

FREEDOMS will return to Shin-Kiba 1st Ring on February 8, 2018 with the main event of Daisuke Masaoka and Yuko Miyamoto taking on Jun Kasai and Kenji Fukimoto in a Death Match. GENTARO and Kenichiro Arai returned as a team against Unchain's Masashi Takeda and Minoru Fujita. Mammoth Sasaki and Toru Sugiura will team up with the rookie Tomoya Hirata once again as they take on Takashi Sasaki, Ryukyu Dragon's Guruken Mask, and Dragon Libre. Yuya Susumu will go up against Chikara and Kazma Sakamoto will take on Gunso. Mr. Gannosuke will return to FREEDOMS for the first time in over two years for possibly the last time to take on his former WMF Dojo student Kamui in their second singles match against each other with the first being back on July 27, 2008 in WMF prior Gannosuke's first retirement.

FREEDOMS will then run their annual February show at the Hiroshima Industry Center West Building on February 11th with the main event of Takashi Sasaki, Daisuke Masaoka, and Yuko Miyamoto going up against the Unchain team of Jun Kasai, Masashi Takeda, and Kenji Fukimoto in a Fluorescent Light Tubes Weapons Glass Board Death Match. Yuya Susumu will defend his UWA Jr. Heavyweight Title against Kenshin Kono. Mammoth Sasaki and Toru Sugiura will again team up with Tomoya Hirata as he takes on Unchain's Minoru Fujita, Gunso, and brother YASSHI. GENTARO will face off against Takeshi Okada and Kazma Sakamoto who will have Devil Magician in his corner who is recovering from recently suffering a heart attack will take on Rising Hayato. The opening match will be Rey Paloma becoming a Brahman Brother for the show as he teams up with Shu and Kei as they will take on Kamui, Chikara, and Dragon Libre in the opening match.

The A-Team promotion ran their first show of the year on January 28, 2018 at the Nara Tenri Station Square Special Ring and drew an announced crowd of 260 fans for the show. The main event had the old veteran team of Koji Kanemoto, Daisuke Ikeda, and Kotaro Suzuki defeated the main event of Tomohiko Hashimoto, Nobutaka Moribe, and Daichi Kakimoto with Kanemoto getting the win at 22 minutes, 15 seconds over Moribe with an Ankle Lock Submission win. Takumi Sakurai won the WEW Jr. Heavyweight Championship after defeating HASEGAWA in a Barbed wire Board Death Match after Sakurai would get the win at 14 minutes, 18 seconds after delivering a Diving Footstomp on the Barbed wire Board placed over HASEGAWA to win the title. NOAH's Hi69 defeated A-Team's Raiden after Hi69 would get the pinfall at 8 minutes, 52 seconds with the Stalker Splash. Koharu Hinata got the win in the Three Way Women's Match as she defeated Saki and ZAP at 4 minutes, 52 seconds after she would roll up Saki for the win. Daisaku Shimoda and Keiichi Sato would get the win over the team of Maholova an El Quinto when Shimoda would pick up the win at 10 minutes, 52 seconds after pinning El Quinto. Pandita would get the singles victory over Shocker at 3 minutes, 53 seconds after reversing a Figure Four to make Shocker submit for the win. The opening match had Akira Jo get the victory over Toshiaki Terao at 11 minutes, 7 seconds after using a Sliding Lariat on Terao for the win.

A-Team's next show will be on March 4, 2018 as they will return to the Nara Tenri Station Square Special Ring with a main event of Tomohiko Hashimoto and Nobutaka Moribe against TORU and Chikara. Takumi Sakurai will defend his WEW Jr. Heavyweight Title against Akira Jo. Raiden will team up with Okinawa based wrestler HUB against Kotaro Suzuki and Keiichi Sato. Koji Kanemoto will wrestle in a singles match against A-Team's Toshiaki Terao and Daisaku Shimoda will also go up against Keisuke Okuda in a singles match. Dream Fighter Pro's Kurone Shimizu will go up against Manyo Wrestling's Maholova and the opening match will be Daisuke Ikeda and HASEGAWA defending their WEW Tag Team Titles against the Kubota Brothers Yasu and Hide.

Mr. Gannosuke made his debut for the Gatoh Move promotion on January 27, 2018 at the Tokyo Oji Basement Monster show where he would team up with Riho who he helped train take on Emi Sakura and Masahiro Takanashi in the main event with Sakura getting the pin at 13 minutes, 15 seconds over Riho with the Hundred Dollar Driver. Gannosuke and Emi Motokawa who go back to IWA Japan in 1995 decided to become partners in 2006 when Motokawa who became Emi Sakura started up the Ice Ribbon promotion. Gannosuke would train the girls and would work mixed tag shows for the promotion. Gannosuke would retire at the end of 2008 but would continue training the Ice Ribbon girls until 2011 when he could not handle how insane Sakura was and the two split. Sakura left the promotion in 2012 herself and started up the Gatoh Move promotion. Gannosuke would work this show as a way to work with Riho as well as say goodbye to Emi Motokawa professionally after 23 years.

Mr. Gannosuke's next match will be the final Shin-Kiba 1st Ring show for the Guts World promotion as Mr. Gannosuke will take on Kenichiro Arai who entered the FMW Dojo in 1994 while Gannosuke was the live in Dojo house keeper trainer but was unable to successfully graduate from the FMW Dojo and was kicked out as a result. It will be the first singles match between the two veterans.

Mr. Gannosuke announced the full lineup for his final Kishindo show which will also be the 2nd Memorial of Hayabusa's passing. The main event will be Mr. Gannosuke and HARASHIMA returning under Hayabusa gimmick called Hayabucha as they take on Yuko Miyamoto and Isami Kodaka. Kenichiro Arai will go up against Yasu Urano in a match of two wrestlers that spent time in the FMW Dojo. Jiro Kuroshio will take on Buffalo who Gannosuke has known since IWA Japan in 1995. Mineo Fujita who was trained by Gannosuke will take on Brahman Monkey. Shota will take on Antonio Honda in a singles match as well as Fuminori Abe will go up against Manabu Hara. The opening match will have Makoto taking on Papillion Akemi.

I got married on January 14, 2018 and I was asked what kind of groomsmen cake I could have. It could be any design I want so naturally I chose to have an FMW ring with the Lightning Bolt logo. Sadly, she was unable to place the FMW letters on the apron but I feel it still came out looking good for a cake. My wife also ended up grabbing one of my Hayabusa figures and placing it in the ring as well as getting the DJ to play the Hayabusa theme song while we cut the cake which I did not know was going to happen. Here's a link to the video of us cutting the cake with the Hayabusa music playing. https://youtu.be/P-62vh5Gyc8

FREEDOMS/Super Battle FMW/Onita & Production Shows News 2017 (January - December 2017)

Apache Army/FREEDOMS/Super Battle FMW & Production Shows News 2016 (January - December 2016)

Apache Army/FREEDOMS/Super Battle FMW & Production Shows News 2015 (January - December 2015)

Apache Army/FREEDOMS/Onita & Production Shows News 2014 (January - December 2014)

Apache Army/FREEDOMS & Production Shows News 2013 (January - December 2013)

Apache Army/FREEDOMS & Production Shows News 2012 (January - December 2012)

Apache Army/FREEDOMS & Production Shows News 2011 (January - December 2011)

FREEDOMS& Production Shows News 2010 (January - December 2010)

Apache Army/FREEDOMS & Production Show News 2009 (January - December 2009)

WMF& Apache Army News 2008 (January - December 2008)

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WMF& Apache Army News 2006 (January - December 2006)