Added: 12/31

FMW-E would return to the Yokohama Tsurumi Fruit and Vegetables Market for the first time in nearly a year as they would run on December 11, 2022 and just like the previous last couple of shows that made them stop running they would not announce an attendance number for this show.

The main event would be Atsushi Onita, Raijin Yaguchi, and Koji Nakagawa making his FMW-E debut taking on Osamu Nishimura, Yutaka Yoshie, and Go Takemura in a Exploding Spidernet, Exploding Barbed wire Barricade, Exploding Barbed wire Baseball Bat, and Exploding Barbed wire Board Death Match. Nishimura would end up placing Onita in a figure four leglock with Yaguchi coming in and turning on the exploding barbed wire bat and hitting Nishimura with it. Yoshie and Takemura would then come in and knock Onita to the apron and then knock him down into the exploding spidernet outside the ring. Nishimura would then take Onita and place him on the chair in the ring before placing him in a figure four leglock again. They would end up rolling under the ropes and both fall into the exploding barbed wire barricade. Takemura would then turn on the exploding barbed wire bat and look to hit Onita with it, but would get green mist spit in his face again. Onita and Yaguchi would then both hit Takemura with the double exploding bats with Onita pinning Takemura at 16 minutes, 44 seconds for the Onita team win.

After the show, Onita while taking pictures with fans and signing autographs would get up from the table and begin shouting to the fans still left in the building that he planned on attending the All Japan show on February 4, 2023 at the Tokyo Haichioji Esforta Arena and All Japan will finally bring the exploding death match to All Japan after all these years.

The semi-main event would be an Exploding Coffin Death Match between Mr. Pogo and Onryo against Naoshi Sano and Chainsaw Tony. Sano would end up delivering a Shining Wizard to Pogo with Sano and Tony looking to stuff him in the coffin, but Pogo would get up and shoot a fireball at both of them. Pogo would then take a chair and smash it over Tony's head and then clothesline him into the coffin. Pogo would then set a fireball in the coffin causing the coffin to explode at 14 minutes, 17 seconds for the Pogo and Onryo win.

Miss Mongol and Pandita would defeat Maku Donaruto & Nene ∞ D.a.i when Mongol would pin Donaruto at 9 minutes, 59 seconds with a roll up for the pin. Shota Nakagawa would defeat The Boogie Man at 5 minutes, 59 seconds with a Swanton Bomb. The opening match would be Buatsushi Futonita (Fat Onita) defeating The Yo-chan and Shocker going by FMW-E Shocker for this match when Futonita would pin Yo-chan at 7 minutes, 2 seconds in a Exploding Wind (comedy exploding barbed wire match) Spidernet Three Way Match when he would get the pin over Yo-chan. Click here for highlights of the FMW-E 12/11/22 show.

Following the show, I reached out and asked the FMW-E social media team about this December 11th show airing anywhere which originally was stated that it would air when they originally announced the show back in October. They responded back to me that the show would not be uploaded anywhere due the difficulty of people selling these shows.

I don't know if that was just a passive aggressive shot at me personally without saying anything, but for their sake I actually hope that's all it would be as that answer makes no sense.

FMW-E ran their first three shows in the second half of 2021 on the paid streaming channel Zaiko where it cost around $10 dollars or so to watch the shows live in the middle of the night in the states which that was the big marketing ploy for this promotion over any other Onita promotion. I know I personally waited until those shows were no longer for sale on Zaiko to put them up for sale on this site. I don't know anybody else personally that did put up those any of the shows for sale while the show was still up streaming either.

Then after their third show in September 2021 they raised the price to 20 dollars charging people to watch on the lower quality Zaiko service, then after it stopped airing on Zaiko, they just put up the show on YouTube for free at a higher video quality soon afterwards. Their fourth show in October 2021 was then just put up on YouTube for free with no capability of being able to purchase it. They waited several months to ever release the November and December 2021 shows as a commercial video for sale, but then ended up putting up the main event of the December 2021 show which consumed most of the commercial video that was sale up on YouTube for free anyway.

Atsushi Onita and explosions put together can still be a successful combination when done right in Japan. A lot of it has to do with the live experience though. FMW-E was hoping that Onita could attract an American fan base to purchase their streamed shows. Their first show which was the only successful show steaming wise for them was littered with issues.

The cameras were turned on with nothing happening for a hour, they had English commentary, but their mics didn't work and you could only hear them as well as the crowd at the show itself could hear them, then they cut off the video early for the big angle at the end which was Shadow WX blowing and setting Onita on fire. The second show which had already lost most of the people willing to pay was held at a outside venue and it might have been due to the delay of getting the explosions ready for the match, but by the time the main event took place it had become evening and with no lighting it became really difficult to even see what was going on in the match. Those are the only two shows that you had to pay to stream that you couldn't get for free eventually as after the third show in September 2021 they knew the streaming service had now become a financial burden to them.

FMW-E itself had also become a financial burden as like this most recent show, they stopped announcing the attendance due to low numbers. That is why the promotion pretty much took an entire year off other than renting the name out to other promoters willing to sponsor the events themselves. FMW-E now has no shows lined up, and it looks like it will go back to being dormant again until probably April when those same sponsors are willing to spend the money to have Onita show up in their town and have some really cool explosions take place on the show, if they don't, then this promotion will either become a one show a year promotion, or a no longer active promotion.

Atsushi Onita will be returning to the Yokohama Tsurumi Fruit and Vegetables Market on January 7, 2023 for the DDT promotion. Onita will team up with Shunma Katsumata and Toi Kojima to take on Sanshiro Takagi, Akito, and Soma Takao in a Exploding Barbed wire Baseball Bats and Aerial Exploding Death Match which is when explosions from above the ring will go off at a certain time during the match. This match will have stipulations involved with if the Onita teams wins then the person that gets the pinfall will become the President of DDT with his other two partners becoming vice Presidents. If the Takagi teams win, then DDT will win the trademark of "current blast" which is Onita's name that he has copyrighted for an explosion match.

Ricky Fuji was released from the hospital on November 29, 2022 following his collapsing on September 7, 2022 after suffering from a stroke. It had been announced that Ricky was originally paralyzed from half his body at the time of the stroke, but Ricky was able to make a very speedy recovery with having the goal of wanting to return to the ring before the end of the year. Ricky had been texting with Onita from the hospital wanting to wrestle at the FMW-E show on December 11th. Onita respecting Ricky's wish would actually get the original main event match of him and Yaguchi taking on Nishimura and Yutaka Yoshie changed to a six man without announcing it to the public. Ricky would be added to the Onita team, and Go Takemura would be added to the Nishimura team as the person to take the fall since it would have been more expensive to get Nishimura or Yoshie to job anyway.

Ricky realized soon after being released from the hospital though, that he would not be ready to appear in the match. Ricky would ask Onita to have Koji Nakagawa fill in for him instead. Nakagawa who is semi-retired wrestled for the first time a month ago all year has been long time friends with Ricky Fuji since their FMW days together. Nakagawa would wrestle in the match, but based off the highlights aired and accounts of the show, would do very little if anything meaningful in the match.

Ricky would then appear at the 2AW show on December 25, 2022 at the Chiba TKP Garden City now sporting a beard. Ricky would announce that he was be making his return to the ring for the 2AW's January 2, 2023 show at the 2AW Arena. The match will be the main event and will consist of Ricky Fuji, Ayato Yoshida, Naka Shuuma, and Noriyuki Yoshida going up against fellow stroke victim GENTARO, Kengo Mashimo, Tatsuya Hanami, and Kotaro Yoshino.

Ricky is also booked to appear on the Last Fighters Colosseum show which will take place on January 14, 2023 at the Kawasaki Club Citta. This show like the Bugs Factory show that will take place on the same day at the same building are practically Fire Blast Wrestling shows without actually being promoted under the names. They fall under the FBW cannon though, which is different than FMW-E as the two promotions are essentially rivals despite Onita being the top star for both of them.

FREEDOMS would return to Korakuen Hall on November 16, 2022 and announce a crowd of 572 fans for the show. The main event would be Drew Parker defending his King of Freedom World Championship against Masashi Takeda in a Fluorescent Light Tubes Glass Board Death Match. Takeda would charge at Parker early on, but he would end up being sent head first into the glass board in the corner. Parker and Takeda would then exchange some moves with one another until Takeda would end up placing light tubes on Parker and deliver a running knee breaking them across his body, with Parker also managing to grab Takeda's leg and hit him with a Powerbomb. Parker would then then deliver a running knee followed by hitting Takeda with a Swanton Bomb with light tubes over Takeda's body to get the win at 18 minutes, 20 seconds to successfully defend the King of Freedom World Title for the second time.

The semi-main event would be a Jun Kasai and Daisuke Masaoka against Rina Yamashita and her GCW Mystery Partner who would turn out to be Alex Colon. Colon and Yamashita would end up setting up a barbed wire board over Kasai and climb up to the top with a ladder holding both of them as they would deliver a double diving foot stomp onto Kasai followed by Colon hitting a tope to Masaoka. This would leave Kasai and Yamashita with Kasai hitting Yamashita with a Reverse Tiger Driver on chair with Colon having to make the save. Masaoka and Colon would square off with both of them double headbutting each other as they would exit the ring and Kasai would end up hitting Yamashita with a Cross Arm Stimulation to get the win at 15 minutes, 55 seconds as Colon would be staying in Japan up until the Christmas Death Match show.

The finals of the King of Freedom Jr. Heavyweight Tournament to crown the first ever King of Freedom Jr. Heavyweight Champion would see Kamui take on Jun Masaoka. Masaoka would deliver several kicks to Kamui's head, but Kamui would come back with a Pele Kick followed by finishing Masaoka off with the Iomante at 16 minutes, 26 seconds to get the win and become the first King of Freedom Jr. Heavyweight Champion.

Mammoth Sasaki would make his return to the ring after being out for nearly 6 months due to a neck injury after being dropped on his head by Orca Uto back in March. Mammoth would team up with Takashi Sasaki, Toru Sugiura, and Tomoya Hirata to take on ERE's Violento Jack, Toshiyuki Sakuda, Brown Rat Fukki, and Kyu Mogami in a Hardcore Match. Takashi and Mogami would struggle to gain control while up on the top of the turnbuckle when Mammoth would come over and throw Takashi down resulting in him to be able superplex Mogami in the middle of the ring. Sugiura would then place a chair over Mogami's head with Mammoth hitting a Mammoth Home Run on him followed by Sugiura hitting a Swift Driver to pick up the win at 12 minutes, 13 seconds over Mogami. Dragon Libre, Leo Isaka, and Rekka would defeat Mataro Aoki, Brahman Shu, and Brahman Kei when Libre would pick up the win at 7 minutes, 23 seconds over Kei with his Konin Yoshitonic. The opening match would see GENTARO and Tatsuhito Takaiwa defeat Minoru Fujita and Takahiro Katori when Takaiwa would put away with the returning Katori at 9 minutes, 41 seconds with a Death Valley Bomb. Click here for highlights of the FREEDOMS 11/16/22 Korakuen Hall show.

FREEDOMS would run their annual tour in South Japan although what used to be a Summer tradition has now turned into a Fall tradition. The first show would take place on November 26, 2022 at the Oita Tops Bills Hall as they would announce a crowd of 107 fans for the show. The main event would be ERE's Drew Parker, Violento Jack, and Toshiyuki Sakuda defeating Jun Kasai, Daisuke Masaoka, and Toru Sugiura after Parker would pick up the win at 16 minutes, 7 seconds following a Swanton Bomb on Masaoka. The semi-main event would see Takashi Sasaki and GENTARO reunite as a team to defeat Brown Rat Fukki and Skull Reaper A-ji when Sasaki would pin Fukki at 10 minutes, 31 seconds with the Shonan no Kaze. Alex Colon and Rina Yamashita would defeat Minoru Fujita and Takahiro Katori when Colon would hit a Spanish Fly to get the pinfall at 10 minutes, 42 seconds over Katori. Tomoya Hirata and Dragon Lire would defeat local talent Kyoya Okazaki and Meijiro Kid when Hirata would get the win at 10 minutes, 27 seconds with a German Suplex over Meijiro Kid. The opening match would have Kamui defeat Van Vert Negro at 8 minutes, 32 seconds with a Rolling Kamui Clutch.

The next show would take place on November 27, 2022 at the Fukuoka Kitakyushu Moji Akarenga Place where they would announce a crowd of 157 fans. The main event would have Jun Kasai, Takashi Sasaki, and Minoru Fujita defeat Drew Parker, Toshiyuki Sakuda, and Brown Rat Fukki when Sasaki would pin Sakuda at 15 minutes, 55 second swith a D-Geist. The semi-main event would be Toru Sugiura and Tomoya Hirata defeating Violento Jack and Tessho with Hirata gettin gthe pin at 12 minutes, 31 seconds with a Lariat over Tessho for the win. Alex Colon and Rina Yamashita would defeat Daisuke Masaoka and Kamui after Colon would be awarded the win at 8 minutes, 20 seconds after Masaoka would give up. GENTARO, Dragon Libre, and Takahiro Katori would defeat MYWAY's Van Vert Negro, Van Vert Jack, and Yousei Estrella when Katori get the win at 10 minutes, 51 seconds after pinning Estrella. The opening match would be a FREEDOMS vs. Gamashara Pro match with Toru Sugiura and Tomoya Hirata defeating Yoju and Trueno Guerrero at 10 minutes, 36 seconds when Sugiura would get the win with a Right Elbow over Sugiura.

FREEDOMS would then return to the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring on December 1, 2022 and announce a crowd of 133 fans for the show. The main event would be Jun Kasai, Masashi Takeda, and Minoru Fujita taking on Drew Parker, Violento Jack, and Brown Rat Fukki in a Fluorescent Light Tubes Death Match. Kasai and Parker would square off with Parker breaking a stack of light tubes with a knee over Kasai's head followed by Jack going for a Package Piledriver with Fujita making the save by ripping Jack's mask off. Kasai would then manage to finish off Fukki at 19 minutes, 51 seconds with a Reverse Tiger Driver with it being announced that Drew Parker would defend his King of Freedom World Championship against Jun Kasai in the main event of the Christmas Death Match show at Korakuen Hall.

The semi-main event would be Takashi Sasaki and Mammoth Sasaki taking on Alex Colon and Rina Yamashita in a Barbed wire Board Death Match with the winning team getting a shot at the tag team titles for the Christmas Death Match show. Mammoth would try the spot again of powerbombing Takashi while he was trying to superplex Colon off the top rope onto the barbed wire board, but this time it would not go as plan as Takashi would end up falling back first into the barbed wire board instead. Mammoth and Takashi would regroup and hit a Double Mammoth Home Run on Colon with Yamashita making the save by diving off the top rope. Sasaki would then go for a Right Kick to Colon's head, but Colon would dodge it and then roll up Takashi with a Backslide to get the win at 14 minutes, 42 seconds to earn the GCW team a shot at the titles.

Toru Sugiura, Tomoya Hirata, and Dragon Libre would defeat the team of Toshiyuki Sakuda, Kyu Mogami, and Yusaku Ito when Sugiura would finish Ito off at 11 minutes, 48 seconds with a Short Range Right Elbow. The Junior Heavyweight Match of Jun Masaoka and Kohei Kinoshita against Takahiro Katori and Leo Isaka would end up going to a 20 minute time limit draw. The opening match would see Daisuke Masaoka, Kamui, and Rekka defeat GENTARO, Brahman Shu, and Brahman Kei when Kamui would pin Kei at 9 minutes, 43 seconds with a Kamui Clutch for the win. Click here for the highlights of the FREEDOMS 12/1/22 show.

After the show, Daisuke Masaoka who has been dealing with a neck injury going back to when Masashi Takeda delivered a Fire Thunder off a ladder onto a guard rail on the outside back in November 2020 started to complain that his neck was giving him issues again and started to lose the feelings in his hands. FREEDOMS announced they were taking Masaoka off the cards for the rest of December with no announced return date set.

FREEDOMS and 2AW would co-promote their VERSUS show on December 11, 2022 at the Chiba 2AW Square where they would announce a crowd of 62 fans for the show. The main event would be Toru Sugiura taking on 2AW's Takuma Joshiba in a Fluorescent Light Tubes Death Match. Sugiura would attempt to break a light across Joshiba with a right arm, but Joshima would manage to avoid it and then hit a choke bomb on Sugiura and then go up to the top and deliver a splash. Joshiba would then try for a Reverse Tiger Driver, but Sugiura would counter by lifting Joshiba with and bringing him down with a Brainbuster. Sugiura would then place a light tube across Joshiba and hit a running elbow breaking the light tube across him and score the pin at 16 minutes, 14 seconds for the FREEDOMS win.

The semi-main event would be Jun Kasai, Takashi Sasaki, Mammoth Sasaki, and Dragon Libre taking on 2AW's Kengo Mashimo, Tatsuya Hanami, Takuro Niki, and Kunio Toshima. Mammoth would look to get the win by chokeslamming Toshima and having Kasai hit a Pearl Harbor Splash. Libre would then come in and square off against Mashimo with him hitting a Konin Yoshitonic (Canadian Destroyer) on him with the 2AW team making the save. Libre would then try for it again, but Hanami would come in and deliver a kick to Libre's head. This would setup Mashimo to hit a Brainbuster on Libre to get the pin at 16 minutes, 4 seconds for the 2AW win.

Alex Colon would defeat Daiju Wakamatsu at 10 minutes, 45 seconds with a Camel Clutch. Taishi Takizawa and Shu Asakawa would defeat Tomoya Hirata and GENTARO when Asakawa would pin GENTARO at 12 minutes, 25 seconds with his Rebellion finisher. Ayumu Honda and Chicharit Shoki would defeat Brown Rat Fukki and 2AW's Kyu Mogami when the match would end at 8 minutes, 57 seconds after Mogami would get DQ'd. The opening match would see Kamui and Dragon Libre defeat Ayato Yoshida and Naka Shuma when Libre would pin Shuma at 9 minutes, 54 seconds with his Konin Yoshitonic. Click here for highlights of the FREEDOMS/2AW 12/11/22 show.

FREEDOMS would return to the Yokohama Radiant Hall on December 17, 2022 and announce a crowd of 106 fans for the show. The main event would be a Single Elimination Match between the FREEDOMS team of Jun Kasai, Takashi Sasaki, Toru Sugiura, and Tomoya Hirata against the ERE team of Drew Parker, Toshiyuki Sakuda, Brown Rat Fukki, and Kyu Mogami. Sugiura would eliminated Mogami first at 8 minutes, 9 seconds with a side cradle. Sakuda would then manage to awkwardly knock Sugiura over the top rope to the floor at 9 minutes, 35 seconds for the elimination tie it up. Sasaki would eliminate Fukki at 12 minutes, 11 seconds after pinning him with a Michinoku Driver II. Sasaki would then go for a kick to Parker, but he would manage to avoid the kick and roll up Sasaki with a Leg Roll Clutch at 12 minutes, 59 seconds for the elimination. Hirata would then try and German Suplex Parker off the apron, but Parker would go low and deliver a running knee resulting in both of them falling to the floor at 16 minutes, 24 seconds for the double elimination. This would leave Kasai and Sakuda left with Kasai hitting Sakuda with a Reverse Tiger Driver before finishing him off with the Cross Arm Stimulation for the pin at 20 minutes, 19 seconds for the FREEDOMS win.

The semi-main event would be Alex Colon and Rina Yamashita defeating Masashi Takeda and Yusaku Ito when Colon would deliver a flying drop kick to Ito while Yamashita would hit him with the Implant to get the pinfall at 11 minutes, 19 seconds for the win. Kamui, Tatsuhito Takaiwa, and GENTARO would defeat Mammoth Sasaki, Minoru Fujita, and Takahiro Katori when Kamui would pin Katori at 12 minutes, 8 seconds with a Kamui Clutch. Jun Masaoka would defeat Rekka at 11 minutes, 15 seconds with the Ambitions. The opening match would see Tomoya Hirata and Dragon Libre defeat Brahman Shu and Brahman Kei when Hirata would score the victory at 7 minutes, 47 seconds after hitting Kei with a Lariat. Click here for highlights of the FREEDOMS 11/17/22 show.

Jun Kasai would promote his annual Christmas Death Match show on December 25, 2022 at Korakuen Hall This would be the 14th consecutive year of holding a Christmas Death Match show and 15th time overall going back to Christmas 2006 when former FMW booker Go Ito felt that Jun Kasai's popularity was enough that the Apache Army promotion could build a whole death match tournament around him.

They would announce a crowd of 1,236 fans for the show which would be the biggest show of the year for FREEDOMS and biggest going back to the pre-COVID days of Christmas 2019 when they announced 1534 fans.

The main event would be Drew Parker defending his King of Freedom World Championship against Jun Kasai in a Fluorescent Light Tubes Glass Board Death Match. Kasai would end up sending Parker into the corner with light tubes waiting for him followed by bringing him up to the top and piledriving Parker off the turnbuckle through the glass board and then hit a Pearl Harbor Splash on him with Parker kicking out. Kasai would then hit a Reverse Tiger Driver and then try for another Pearl Harbor Splash with a razor cross board over Parker but he would flip it over with Kasai going into it instead. Parker would then drop Kasai onto some light tubes on the mat before hitting a Swanton Bomb and would get the win at 24 minutes, 34 seconds to successfully defend the title for the third time.

The semi-main event would have Toru Sugiura and Tomoya Hirata defending their King of Freedom Tag Team Titles looking to reach the one year mark of holding the belts as they would take on Alex Colon and Rina Yamashita in a Weapons Death Match. Yamashita and Colon would take the early advantage in the match with Yamashita dropping Sugiura's head into a Christmas tree brought in the ring, followed by her and Colon delivering a double diving footstomp to Hirata. Colon would then deliver a running knee breaking a stack of light tubes across Hirata. Colon would then place Hirata in a Camel Clutch with Sugiura running in to make the save with an elbow followed by Hirata going up to the top and hitting Colon with a gadget board covered over him a Moonsault to get the win at 13 minutes, 27 seconds to successfully defend the King of Freedom Tag Team Titles for the 9th time. This would be the final show for Alex Colon in Japan as he announced he would be taking some time off from wrestling going into the new year for personal reasons.

Takashi Sasaki and Mammoth Sasaki would team up to take on Masashi Takeda and Yusaku Ito in a Hardcore Match. Takeda and Ito would both end up pulling out their huge scissors and begin cutting open both Mammoth and Takashi's forehead with them but in the end it would be Mammoth managing to put away Ito at 11 minutes, 59 seconds with the 29 Years Old to earn themselves a shot at the tag team titles for the January 3rd Shin-Kiba show.

Violento Jack would take on Minoru Fujita in a Scramble Bunkhouse Death Match with both of them busting each other up before Jack would end up getting the win at 11 minutes, 25 seconds with after making Fujita submit to his Mexican Stretch hold. Following the show, Rina Yamashita announced that Minoru Fujita would be taking time off starting in 2023 to recover. Fujita ended up suffering an eye injury back in April that caused him to miss three months. Fujita would return at the end of July with an eye patch that he has worn since. There is no time table of when Fujita would be coming back.

Jun Masaoka, Takahiro Katori, Rekka, and Gaia Hox who is a Taiwanese wrestler for the PUZZLE promotion would defeat Kamui, Tatsuhito Takaiwa, GENTARO, and Dragon Libre when Katori would pick up the win at 7 minutes, 11 seconds with his KARMA move for the win. The opening match would be the traditional Tokyo Desert Homeless Man Death Match with Toshiyuki Sakuda, Brown Rat Fukki, and Kyu Mogami defeating Brahman Shu, Brahman Kei, and Kikutaro when Sakuda would get the win at 6 minutes, 32 seconds over Brahman Kei with the Tornado Clutch. Click here for highlights of the FREEDOMS 12/25/22 Korakuen Hall show.

FREEDOMS announced the lineup for their January 3, 2022 show at the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring. The main event will be Toru Sugiura and Tomoya Hirata defending the King of Freedom Tag Team Titles against Takashi Sasaki and Mammoth Sasaki. The semi-main event will be Kamui defending the King of Freedom Jr. Heavyweight Championship against Takahiro Katori. Drew Parker and Violento Jack will team up to take on Rina Yamashita and Jun Masaoka. Toshiyuki Sakuda will team up with Brown Rat Fukki and Kyu Mogami against Tatsuhito Takaiwa, GENTARO, and Leo Isaka. Brahman Shu and Brahman Kei will go up against Rekka and Gaia Hoix.

The opening match will be Jun Kasai taking on Masashi Takeda in a 10 minute time limit in a Self Board Death Match. Kasai had stated prior to the Christmas Death Match show that he wanted to defend the title against Masashi Takeda on this show. After losing to Parker, Kasai stated he still wanted to have the match with Takeda, but because of the loss it should be the opening match. This would probably lead to a time limit draw and eventually the match happening again on a bigger stage whether it be for the announced March 18th show at the Chigasaki General Gym or the unannounced annual first week of May show which would probably be at the Yokohama Budokan if they were to try running there again. This will be the first time Kasai and Takeda will be having a singles match since the Christmas Death Match show in 2018.

The A-Team would return to the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring on November 27, 2022 and announce a crowd of 284 fans for the show. The main event would be HASEGAWA's 9th Anniversary match against Masato Tanaka with Tanaka getting the win at 20 minutes, 25 seconds with the Sliding D. The semi-main event would be a WEW Tag Team Titles Match with Tomohiko Hashimoto and Super Tiger getting the win over Daisaku Shimoda and Kosaku Tonozaki at 19 minutes, 48 seconds when Tiger would pin Tonozaki with the Shiden. This would be the 10th time that Tomohiko Hashimoto has won the WEW Tag Team Titles with 9 different partners. Takumi Sakurai would successfully defend his WEW Jr. Heavyweight Title against Bryan Ishizaka at 17 minutes, 59 seconds after getting the win with a Moonsault to successfully defend his title for the first time. Ryoji Sai, Revion, and Ishikiri would defeat Raiden, Joji Otani, and Hashinosuke when Sai would pin Hashinosuke at 20 minutes, 12 seconds with the Mountain Folding. Iori Sugawara, Magic Killer # 1, and Jin would defeat Rion Mizuki, Kota Nagashima, and Kazu Shibano when Iori would pin Shibano at 13 minutes, 35 seconds with the Cescent Tail. The opening match would see So Daimonji and Yoshihiro Douguchhi defeat Tatsuhito Takaiwa and Takahiro Tababa when Daimonji would get the win at 11 minutes, 29 seconds with the Black Rain.

The A-Team would run their final show of the year on December 11, 2022 at the Osaka Colega Studio where they would announce a crowd of 300 fans for the show. The main event would be the second retirement of Masahiro Sase who retired on December 19, 2017 before coming back on December 23, 2018 to become a regular the A-Team promotion. Sase would team up with Masashi Takeda and Kankuro Hoshino against Yuko Miyamoto, Magic Killer # 1, and Jin with Sase getting the pin over Jin at 12 minutes, 49 seconds with a a Diving Body Press on a thumbtack and saw board to get the win. Kazuyuki Fujita would return to the A-Team promotion for the semi-main event to defeat Tomohiko Hashimoto at 11 minutes, 12 seconds with a Face Kick. HASEGAWA would defeat The Great Sasuke at 21 minutes, 40 seconds in a Barbed wire Board Death Match with HASEGAWA delivering a Diving Foot Stomp on the barbed wire board to get the biggest win of his career. Kendo Kashin who is also Kazuyuki Fujita's agent, Gameras, and Bryan Ishizaka would defeat Takumi Sakurai, Kota Nagashima, and Kazu Shibano when Kashin would get the win at 17 minutes, 14 seconds over Shibano with a Jumping Cross Arm Breaker for the tap out victory. Ryoji Sai and Super Tiger would defeat Daisaku Shimoda and Andy Wu when Sai would pick up the win over Shimoda at 10 minutes, 11 seconds with the Akagawa Iron Bridge. So Daimonji would defeat Kosaku Tonozaki at 13 minutes, 38 seconds with the Black Rain. Raiden and Joji Otani would defeat Kim Soobin and John Hamin when Raiden would pin Soobin at 10 minutes, 28 seconds with a Tiger Driver in the opening wrestling match on the show.

Japan Cable Television most commonly known as JCTV is a company that is owned by TV Asahi that operations television programs for many different channels going back to the 1970s.

In April 1990 the cable network station Space Vision Network created their own sports and music channel called the Power Channel and with JCTV's help they would create a weekly pro-wrestling show called "Champs Forum".

Champs Forum would show all different types of combat sports including American wrestling promotions, UWF, and karate fights as well as the new Lucharesu promotion started by Gran Hamada called Universal. The following year the show would start to air W*ING shows. The Power Channel would end up shutting down in 1993 and Champs Forum would move to the main Space Vision Network before it would be re-branded as the GAORA Sports channel in October 1993.

Eventually Universal and W*ING would go under and Champs Forum would begin to air shows from the promotion that would take over for them in IWA Japan and Michinoku Pro. Eventually FMW under Shoichi Arai would begin to have their top shows air once a month on Champs Forum looking for exposure despite the fact that Champs Forum did not pay to air the shows.

Everything would change in 1996 though as a new 24/7 wrestling channel would be created called Samurai TV and begin airing in December 1996.  GAORA would also begin to grow as they would create their own PPV channel called PerfecTV in October 1996 which would later become known as SkyPerfecTV. The DirecTV company would also start up their own PPV channel in Japan in December 1997 and would pay for exclusive rights to FMW starting in April 1998.

JCTV would have their fingerprints on all of these networks in helping distribute all of them. JCTV in the past year has created their own wrestling channel on YouTube and air old Champs Forum clips that they helped distribute in W*ING and Michinoku Pro as well as getting certain people on to tell stories about the promotion.

They recently have started up their own FMW series as well. They have brought back the old FMW DirecTV commentators Mitsuru Saito who also was a Champs Forum host and Sugisaku J Taro who was well known manga artist and comedian/entertainer who would eventually help book FMW along with Kodo Fuyuki before leaving the promotion due to burn out due to the struggles of booking FMW its final year.

Saito and J Taro did the first couple of episodes, but their knowledge on FMW was actually limited, as there is only so much they are going to be able to talk about seeing that it had been 20 years since they were apart of the company and the commentary job only meant they were only there once or twice a month. They would bring in Mr. Gannosuke on the show to be able to add the wrestling inside knowledge. Gannosuke who lives in Kumamoto came to Tokyo for the first time since the pandemic started to film a bunch of episodes with them where they go over different topics. Gannosuke also adds some fun inside stories like talking about how Victor Quinones taught him how to spit a fire ball outside a house show building while fans were in line waiting to get in watching Gannosuke's attempt at blowing fire at grass.

Gannosuke also told the story again about leaving FMW in 1995 with Tarzan Goto and Flying Kid Ichihara but mentioned that Katsutoshi Niiyama who was another Tarzan Goto loyalist with them even though that was in the meeting with them when they all decided to leave, that even though Niiyama stated that his loyalty to FMW outweighed Tarzan Goto and he stayed with the promotion, he was still seen as a Goto loyalist in FMW's eyes and he was punished as a result and his second in charge of FMW was quickly given to Masato Tanaka. FMW would tell you though that Niiyama just simply was not that good and his charisma didn't help things either, and even though he was 22-23 years old Masato Tanaka was already a better wrestler and fit to surpass Niiyama. Niiyama would eventually leave FMW in 1997 and join up with his mentor Tarzan Goto for the start of his Shin FMW promotion.

They also have watched many different FMW clips with most of the topics being about the Entertainment era since that is mostly what Saito and J Taro called during their commentary time. JCTV because of helping distribute the Champs Forum, Samurai TV, DirecTV, and SkyPerfecTV FMW broadcasts that were used in clip form for the FMW Story of the F video tapes, feel they have the right to air clips from those Story of the F videos to highlight what they are talking about. It is obvious though that despite having so much to do with distribution many years of FMW shows,  that they do not actually possess anything that did not air on Champs Forum.

Although it is all in Japanese, their YouTube channel is still worth checking out, as are the old Champs Forum shows that they have posted that includes old W*ING, Battlarts, and Michinoku Pro footage.

This month is almost over but I wanted to do something special to commemorate the 25 year anniversary this month of FMW's Super Extreme Warfare Tour in December 1997. This tour in a lot of ways was really the end of the FMW that is well known and loved. Although 1998 still had a bunch of great matches and was an overall fun year, the vibe that Team No Respect's formation really started the change of the FMW Entertainment era that was pushed by them signing with DirecTV that would go into full effect in August 1998.

This tour also included ECW wrestlers on it, so these four shows are some of the more remembered shows as the commercial video covering these shows has always been one of the more popular commercial videos because of everything it includes. I wanted to honor this tour by going back and translating the reviews in the weekly Japanese magazines for the top matches of each of these four shows concluding on December 22, 1997 with Mr. Gannosuke and Yukihiro Kanemura turning on Atsushi Onita and leaving ZEN to form their own group which at the time was just known as Team Evil. You can find the translations and pictures at http://fmwwrestling.us/FMWDecember97.html

Added: 11/12

FMW-E would return for the first time since April for two shows on October 1st and October 2nd in Hokkaido. The first show on October 1, 2022 would be the Hokkaido Ashikawa Western Powers Parking Lot. Nothing about this show would be released in any fashion although I was able to reach out to a fan that attended the show to get the results for this show. The main event had Atsushi Onita, Raijin Yaguchi, and Naoshi Sano defeat Mr. Pogo, Onryo, and Takumi Sakurai when Onita would pin Sakurai in a Exploding Barbed wire Baseball Bat Exploding Barricade Death Match. Onita would also open the show by losing to Andreza Giant Panada.

The next show on October 2, 2022 at the Tobetsu General Gym with the main event being an Exploding Table, three exploding barbed wire bats, an exploding barricade board, and a Jado Rocket Death Match with Atsushi Onita, Raijin Yaguchi, and Noriyuki Yoshida defeating Mr. Pogo, Onryo, and Monster Leather when Onita would end up pinning Onryo at 13 minutes, 29 seconds after piledriving him through the exploding table for the win. Onita would also lose to Andreza Giant Panada in the opening match at 3 minutes, 44 seconds after a Giant Press. Since 1989 when he started FMW up, this would only be the second time that Onita had lost a singles match two times in a row to somebody without getting a win in between as the only other person would be Grigori Verichev who defeated Onita on February 27, 1991 and May 5, 1991 before losing to him on May 29, 1991.

FMW-E announced the return to their home base for the first time in a year as they will run at the Yokohama Tsurumi Fruit and Vegetables Market on December 11, 2022. They did state the show would be taped, but did not announce where it would be released. The main event looks to be a conclusion of the Onita vs. Nishimura feud that started back on May 1, 2022 in Fire Pro after Nishimura had accidentally Onita over the head with an exploding bat. Onita would then take exception when they would hold a press conference later when Nishimura would state he did not want to be partners anymore. It will be Atsushi Onita and Raijin Yaguchi apart of Team Jado against Team Muga of Osamu Nishimura and Yutaka Yoshie in a Exploding Spidernet, Exploding Landmines, Exploding Barbed wire Baseball Bat, and Exploding Barbed wire Board Death Match. The semi-main event will be Mr. Pogo and Onryo teaming up with Naoshi Sano and the returning Chainsaw Tony in a Exploding Coffin Death Match. Other matches winclude Noriyuki Yoshida and Miss Mongol teaming up to take on Maku Donaruto and Nene∞D.a.i as well as WWS' Mr. Atomic taking on Boogie Man.

Fire Pro-Wrestling returned under it's original name for a show on October 16, 2022 at the Nagoya International Conference Center Event Hall with a main event of Atsushi Onita, Michio Kageyama, and Rising Kid taking on Mr. Pogo, Seigo Tachibana, and the return of the masked Mayo-gun gimmick where were followers of the late Masashi Aoyagi in 2016-2017 as Mayo-gun # 2 would be on their team in a Exploding Barbed wire Baseball Bat Death Match. No attendance would be announced but the building would look pretty empty.

Onita and Pogo would end up outside the ring brawling in the crowd before getting back in the ring as Tachibana would choke Onita in the corner with a chair before turning on the exploding bat. They would place Onita in a chair as Mayo-gun would end up hitting Onita across the chest with the exploding bat. Kageyama would hit the ring and help out Onita allowing Onita to fight back and eventually piledrive Tachibana through a table. Pogo would then double clothesline both Kageyama and Rising Kid and grab a hold of Onita as Mayo-gun would look to hit Onita with the exploding bat again, but this time Onita would spit red mist in Mayo-gun's eyes and Rising Kid would take the bat and hit it across Mayo-gun's back followed by Onita hitting him across the chest and then Onita would finish Mayo-gun with a horrible DDT that would be listed as a back drop to get the win at 12 minutes, 23 seconds as Onita, Rising Kid, and Michio Kageyama would do the Onita Theater with Onita although with the empty crowd and COVID restrictions it would be to complete silence. Click here for highlights of the Fire Pro 10/16/22 main event.

There is not another scheduled Fire Pro-Wrestling show, but Bugs who was the movie director that was able to put in the money for Fire Pro to have some extreme death matches in July and September has announced that he is going to promote his own show on January 14, 2023 called the Bugs Factory Festival at the Kawasaki Club Citta. The show will be a combo of a concert and pro-wrestling which Onita did with FMW and multiple rock bands on August 17, 1991 although that show would end up being a huge financial disaster for FMW due to how large scale it was. This show will be at the Kawasaki Club Citta which when FMW would run it they never announced more than 800 fans in the building. Onita also announced he plans on promoting his own show on January 4, 2023 but no other details have came out yet.

Atsushi Onita held a press conference on October 25, 2022 in Sugamo, Tokyo at the Toudoukan store where he celebrated his 65th birthday and ran down the card for the FMW-E show on December 11th in Yokohama. Onita then brought up Ricky Fuji and stated that Ricky had called him the day before and told Onita if he can leave the hospital, then he will want to have a match. Onita stated he respects Ricky for having a goal of returning to the ring by the end of the year, and that he wants Ricky to wrestle if he can, but he also wants to wait to see Ricky's progress in his rehabilitation before booking him for a match.

2AW held a benefit show for Ricky Fuji on November 6, 2022 at the 2AW Square with them announcing 100 fans for the show. Masato Tanaka, Jun Kasai, Raijin Yaguchi, Isami Kodaka, and other FREEDOMS wrestled on the show to help their friend out with the show concluding with Ricky's theme song playing. Ricky sent a message to Takashi Sasaki afterwards and thanked him for having the FREEDOMS on the show and stated that he hopes that FREEDOMS will begin to book him again after he returns to the ring. I asked Ricky when I went to his gym in Chiba about his status with FREEDOMS in 2012 after he had signed with Kaientai Dojo. Ricky who had been working with FREEDOMS regularly before signing with him stated after he signed with him, he just simply stopped getting booked by Takashi Sasaki for FREEDOMS and didn't know. I didn't say this, but I would imagine it was out of loyalty to TAKA Michinoku and K-Dojo that he stopped booking Ricky, but just never told him that. Ricky told me preferred getting booked by K-Dojo anyway because they ran closer to his house and he got booked once a week compared to FREEDOMS at the time only running about once or twice a month at the most.

Ricky has announced that he would be getting discharged from the hospital on December 1st and will continue to rehab at home. His goal is still to wrestle before the end of the year, but like Onita I am guessing they are going to want to see how well off his body is after just suffering a stroke in September and becoming paralyzed in half his body before just putting him back in the ring like everything is back to normal.

I was also able to complete the Ricky Fuji interview that I posted half of during my last update. The time frame still only remains about the Onita era of FMW but Ricky talks about convincing Mike Awesome to join Team Canada, him being being told he could have gone to WCW if he wanted to, and not only SWS trying to steal him away from FMW, but also SWS trying to buy FMW at the time as well as much. It's an interesting read that can be found at http://fmwwrestling.us/Ricky2022.html

FREEDOMS would hold their 13th Anniversary show on October 2, 2022 at Korakuen Hall and announce a crowd of 820 fans for the show. The main event would be a Fluorescent Light Tubes Death Match between Jun Kasai, Daisuke Masaoka with a new hairstyle, and Masashi Takeda going up against Alex Colon, John Wayne Murdoch, and Jimmy Lloyd. Takeda would end up placing a light tube across Colon and deliver a running knee breaking it across Colon with Murdoch and Lloyd making the save and then grabbing Takeda and sending him to the ropes but he would move out of the way, and Masaoka would come off the top rope with a dropkick connecting on both Murdoch and Wayne. They would escape to the outside with Masaoka delivering an Asai Moonsault. Takeda would then place a steel rail against the turnbuckle and set up Colon with a Reverse U Crash off of it onto light tubes to get the pin at 14 minutes, 1 seconds for the FREEDOMS win.

The semi-main event would be Toru Sugiura and Tomoya Hirata defending the King of Freedom Tag Team Titles against Joey Janela and Cole Radrick in a Thumbtacks Death Match with all four squaring off and clotheslining each other knocking everybody down. Radrick and Janela would get up and throw Sugiura to the ropes with Janela grabbing him from behind and delivering a suplex. Janela would then go up to the top rope and deliver a flying elbow drop. They would then throw Hirata into the ropes, but he would come back with a double spear on both of them as they would escape to the outside. Sugiura would end up delivering a tope con hilo onto everyone and throw Radrick back in the ring with Hirata going up to the top and delivering a Moonsault on Radrick to get the win at 16 minutes, 34 seconds to defend the tag titles for the seventh time.

The ERE team of Drew Parker and Violento Jack would take SHLAK and Effy in a Weapons Death Match. It would start with all four drinking with Effy not enjoying the taste as they would begin all punching each other while sitting down before Parker would get up and just kick Effy out of his chair. Parker would then place Effy against the ropes and throw a dart in his back followed by Jack hitting him with the Amatalan with SHLAK making the save. SHLAK would then dump a bag of cans out onto the ring and place Parker over his shoulders as Effy would come off the top with a flying leg kick on Parker. Effy would then try to hit a Last Ride Powerbomb on Parker, but he would manage to reverse it and knock Effy down and go up to the top and hit a Swanton Bomb to pick up the win at 10 minutes, 40 seconds for the ERE victory.

Rina Yamashita would team up with GCW's Jordan Oliver and Nick Wayne to defeat Takashi Sasaki, Minoru Fujita, and Kikutaro when Yamashita would put away Kikutaro at 13 minutes, 11 seconds with a Splash Mountain for the GCW win. Toshiyuki Sakuda and Brown Rat Fukki would defeat Tatsuhito Takaiwa and GENTARO when Fukki would get the win at 9 minutes, 17 seconds after putting away GENTARO with a Package Piledriver for the win. The opening match would see Kamui and Dragon Libre defeat Rekka and Jun Masaoka at 9 minutes, 45 seconds when Libre would get the pin over Rekka with his Yoshitanic. Click here for highlights of the FREEDOMS 10/2/22 Korakuen Hall show.

The final GCW Japan show would take place on October 4, 2022 at the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring where they would announce a crowd of 297 fans for the show. The main event would be Jun Kasai and Masashi Takeda challenging for the GCW Tag Team Titles against Alex Colon and John Wayne Murdoch in a Fluorescent Light Tubes Death Match. Takeda would end up delivering a running knee breaking a light tube across Murdoch followed by a dive off the top breaking more light tubes a cross Murdoch followed by Takeda placing another stack of light tubes across Murdoch's body as Kasai would hit a Pearl Harbor Splash breaking those light tubes over Murdoch with Takeda covering him, but Colon would manage to make the save.

Takeda would then go for a Reverse U Crash on the bloody Murdoch, but he instead would avoid that and deliver a Canadian Destroyer on Takeda on a stack of light tubes followed by Colon delivering a DDT off the turnbuckle sending Takeda face first into a stack of light tubes and then place a Camel Clutch on Takeda with the Referee Stopping the match at 12 minutes, 38 seconds and rewarding the match to Colon and Murdoch for their second successful tag team title defense.

After the match, the FREEDOMS and GCW wrestlers would come out and be divided on both sides of the ring with Jimmy Lloyd holding Markus Crane's shield he brought last time to Japan in 2019 as Lloyd would up the shield in honor of both Crane and Danny Havoc.

The semi-main event would be Rina Yamashita defending her GCW Ultraviolent Title against Cole Radrick in a Barbed wire Board Death Match. Radrick would end up picking up Yamashita and tossing her into the barbed wire board. Radrick would then look to roll Yamashita up with a Clutch like move, but Yamashita would instead lift him up and hit a Death Valley Bomb on some light tubes on the mat and then deliver a Reverse Fire Thunder but Radrick would then roll her up for two. Radrick would look to deliver a Brainbuster, but Yamashita would reverse it and hit one of her own. Yamashita would then deliver a splash off the top and get a two count before hitting Radrick with a Splash Mountain on a stack of chairs to get the win at 11 minutes, 8 seconds to defend the title for the third time.

Toshiyuki Sakuda would take on Joey Janela in what was originally going to be for Janela's DDT Extreme Title although that would be changed prior to the match and it would just be a Fluorescent Light Tubes Barbed wire Board Ladder Death Match. Sakuda would end up pulling out a weed eater and use it on Janela's back with Janela screaming in pain. Sakuda would then charge at Janela who would grab him and deliver a German Suplex followed by setting up a barbed wire board on a stack of chairs with Sakuda manage to hit a Slice Bread # 2 while up there sending Janela into the barbed wire board. Sakuda would then climb up the top of the ladder with a light up against his back and dive off the ladder with Janela moving out of the way. Janela would send Sakuda into the turnbuckle with him jumping off the turnbuckle and delivering a Canadian Destroyer with Janela popping up right away and delivering an elbow to Sakuda followed by setting light tubes over Sakuda and delivering a Diving Footstomp to get the win at 13 minutes, 49 seconds as both would break light tubes over each others head and shake hands with one another.

Takashi Sasaki and Yuko Miyamoto would end up teaming up to defeat Toru Sugiura and SHLAK after Sasaki would pin Sugiura at 9 minutes, 35 seconds with the Shonan no Kaze in a Hardcore Match. Effy would defeat Kikutaro at 10 minutes, 41 seconds with the Under the Rainbow in the comedy match. The opening match would see Jordan Oliver and Nick Wayne defeat Drew Parker and Jimmy Lloyd when Wayne would pin Lloyd at 11 minutes, 41 seconds with a Springboard Stunner for the win. Click here to watch highlights of the GCW 10/4/22 show.

FREEDOMS would run a joint VERSUS show with 2AW on October 23, 2022 at the Chiba 2AW Square with an announced crowd of 69 fans for the show. The main event would be Jun Kasai and Takashi Sasaki taking on 2AW's Kyu Mogami and Daiju Wakamatsu in a Fluorescent Light Tubes Death Match. Wakamatsu would grab a barbed wire bat and swing it at Sasaki but miss and get slammed on it instead. Kasai would take Wakamatsu and piledrive him on a concrete block with forks sticking out of it before throwing him into the ropes and him coming back and enziguri. Wakamatsu would then place a stack of light tubes over Kasai and dive onto them breaking them across Kasai's body. Wakamatsu would then look to suplex Kasai when Sasaki would come over and smash a stack of light tubes over Wakamatus's head. Kasai would then go up to the top and hit a Pearl Harbor Splash and cover with Wakamatsu kicking out before Kasai would finish Wakamatsu at 20 minutes, 31 seconds with a Reverse Tiger Driver for the FREEDOMS win.

The semi-main event would be a Hardcore Match with Daisuke Masaoka, Toru Sugiura, and Tomoya Hirata facing off against Takuma Joshiba, Ayato Yoshida, and Naka Shuma with Sugiura pinning Shuma at 13 minutes, 10 seconds with a Swift Driver. Kengo Mashimo and Tatsuya Hanami would defeat Violento Jack and Brown Rat Fukki at 8 minutes, 16 seconds when Mashimo would roll up Fukki for the win in the only 2AW victory on the show. GENTARO would defeat Ayumu Honda at 8 minutes, 32 seconds after making him tap out to an Abdominal Hold. The opening match would see Kamui and Dragon Libre defeat Chicharito Shoki and Takuro Niki when Kamui would pin Shoki at 9 minutes, 56 seconds with an Arabian Press. Click here for highlights of the FREEDOMS/2AW 10/23/22 show.

FREEDOMS would then return to Shin-Kiba 1st Ring on October 27, 2022 and announce a crowd of 151 fans for the show. The main event would be Jun Kasai, Daisuke Masaoka, and Masashi Takeda taking on Toru Sugiura, Takashi Sasaki, and Tomoya Hirata in a Fluorescent Light Tubes Tornado Death Match. Sasaki setup for a right leg kick to break light tube across Takeda but he would move out of the way and look to break the light tube across Sasaki, but Sasaki would get the upper hand and break the light tube over Takeda's head instead. Sasaki would begin delivering high kicks to Takeda who would grab Sasaki's leg and place him in an Ankle Lock followed by placing successfully breaking a light tube with a knee over Sasaki with Sugiura and Hirata making the save. Kasai and Masaoka would then take care of Sugiura and Hirata allowing Takeda to nail Sasaki with a Reverse U Crash to pick up the win at 18 minutes, 2 seconds as Takeda would get on the mic and call out Drew Parker and challenge him to a King of Freedom World Title Match for November 16th at the next Korakuen Hall show with Parker accepting.

Drew Parker and Kyu Mogami would team up to take on Tatsuhito Takaiwa and Minoru Fujita with Parker defeating Fujita who is returning from an eye injury that had miss most of this year after having a serious bout with COVID last year as Parker would end up defeating Fujita at 11 minutes, 23 seconds with the Azumi Sushi. Jun Masaoka and Leo Isaka would defeat Kamui and Dragon Libre with Isaka pinning Kamui with a Hurricanrana at 10 minutes, 57 seconds as a match to prepare for the upcoming tournament to determine the first ever King of Freedom Jr. Heavyweight Champion. GENTARO would end up defeating Brown Rat Fukki at 9 minutes, 28 seconds with an Octopus Hold on the ground for the submission. The opening match would see Brahman Shu and Yusaku Ito defeat Toshiyuki Sakuda and Mataro Aoki when Shu would roll up Aoki at 9 minutes, 21 seconds with a cradle for the win. Click here to watch highlights of the FREEDOMS 10/27/22 show.

The next show would be promoted by Toru Sugiura on October 30, 2022 at the Kariya City Industry Promotion Center Aioi Hall in Aichi with an announced crowd of 292 fans for the event. The main event would be Toru Sugiura and Tomoya Hirata defending the King of Freedom Tag Team Titles against Jun Kasai and Daisuke Masaoka in a Fluorecent Light Tubes Death Match with Sugiura delivering an elbow breaking a light tube over Masaoka to pick up the win at 22 minutes, 38 seconds to defend the titles for the 8th time. The semi-main event match would be Takashi Sasaki and Minoru Fujita defeating Drew Parker and Brown Rat Fuki when Fujita would roll up Fukki at 13 minutes, 47 seconds with a Samson Clutch for the win. Masashi Takeda would defeat Yusaku Ito at 12 minutes, 39 seconds with a Reverse U Crash in a Weapons Death Match. Gunso and Toshiyuki Sakuda would defeat Kamui and Michio Kageyama when Sakuda would pin Kageyama with a Slice Bread # 2 at 12 minutes, 29 seconds in a Scramble Bunkhouse Death Match. Mataro Aoki and Konaka Pale One would defeat Dragon Libre and Shinya Ishida when Aoki would roll up Libre at 10 minutes, 51 seconds with a Mataro Clutch. The opening match would see the local wrestlers Kengo Takai and Takaya Shibayama defeat GENTARO and Dyna Mido when Takai would get the win at 10 minutes, 25 seconds after putting Mido away with a Hof Lariat.

FREEDOMS would then return back to Shin-Kiba 1st Ring and announce a crowd of 114 fans for the show with the show holding the first two rounds of the tournament to determine the King of Freedom Jr. Heavyweight Champion. The semi-finals of the tournament would be Jun Masaoka and Dragon Libre in the final match of the show. They would find themselves on the outside of the apron with Libre delivering a German Suplex to Masaoka on it followed by charging at him in the corner, but Masaoka would move out of the way and Libre would run into the referee. Masaoka would then grab a sign and smash Libre over the head with it. Libre would fight back and try for a Canadian Destroyer, but Masaoka would escape it and throw Libre in the corner and deliver a Superkick to him before finishing Libre off with his Ambitions finisher at 17 minutes, 6 seconds to advance to the finals of the tournament.

The other semi-finals match in the tournament would be Kamui taking on Mataro Aoki with Aoki and Kamui fighting on the outside before Aoki would get back in the ring and deliver a tope con hilo to Kamui on the outside. They would get back in the ring with Kamui grabbing Aoki by the arm and then nailing him with Iomante at 12 minutes, 59 seconds to advance to the finals of the tournament.

The final announced match prior the show starting match would be Jun Kasai teaming up with Daisuke Masaoka, Masashi Takeda, and Rina Yamashita taking on Drew Parker, Violento Jack, Toshiyuki Sakuda, and Brown Rat Fukki in a Hardcore Match. Jack and Yamashita would begin fighting with strikes before Kasai would come over and try and help her suplex Jack but he would end up hitting them both with a suplex himself instead. Takeda and Parker would begin brawling outside the ring with Fukki trying to come over and help Parker but would end up being thrown into the turnbuckle outside the ring instead. Masaoka would go up to the top and hit a flying drop kick on Jack before hitting an Asai Moonsault onto everyone.

Takeda and Parker would then meet in the ring with Parker hitting a Diamond Cutter but Takeda would get up right away and deliver a kick to him. They would fight on the turnbuckle until Sakuda would come over with a ladder and hit Takeda with it, but Takeda would counter by powerbombing Sakuda off the turnbuckle before finishing Sakuda off with a Reverse U Crash at 11 minutes, 26 seconds for the win. Takeda and Parker would get in each others faces after the match followed by Yamashita getting on the mic and challenging Kasai and Masaoka to a tag match at Korakuen Hall show on November 16th with her announcing her partner would be a GCW wrestler.

Toru Sugiura, Takashi Sasaki, and Tomoya Hirata would defeat Tatsuhito Takaiwa, GENTARO, and Minoru Fujita when Sugiura would finish Takaiwa at 11 minutes, 49 seconds with a Swift Driver. The first round tournament matches for the Jr. Heavyweight Tournament would see Dragon Libre defeat Leo Isaka at 8 minutes, 48 seconds with the Konin Yoshitonic, Jun Masaoka defeat Brahman Kei at 7 minutes, 48 seconds with his Ambitions finisher, Kamui defeat Yusaku Ito at 6 minutes, 46 seconds with Iomante, and the opening match see Mataro Aoki defeat Rekka at 6 minutes, 10 seconds with his Mataro Clutch. Click here for highlights of the FREEDOMS 11/9/22 show.

FREEDOMS next show will take place on November 16, 2022 at Korakuen Hall. The main event will be Drew Parker defending his King of Freedom World Championship against Masashi Takeda in a Fluorescent Light Tubes Glass Board Death Match as it will be interesting to see where they go after this. If Takeda were to win, I could see them just going ahead and doing Kasai vs. Takeda finally for the title at the Christmas Death Match show if there is no plan to do a Yokohama Budokan show next May. Jun Kasai and Daisuke Masaoka will team up to take on Rina Yamashita and her GCW Mystery Partner. Joey Janela would still be in Japan for DDT so he would be the favorite for the spot as otherwise they would have to fly somebody else in which would not be ideal. Kamui will take on Jun Masaoka in the finals of the tournament for the King of Freedom Jr. Heavyweight Title.

Mammoth Sasaki returns to the ring for the first time since May after injuring his neck in a match back in March against Orca Uto who ended up dropping Mammoth on his head during the match. Mammoth will team up with Takashi Sasaki, Toru Sugiura, and Tomoya Hirata in a Hardcore Match against ERE's Violento Jack, Toshiyuki Sakuda, Brown Rat Fukki, and Kyu Mogami. Dragon Libre, Leo Isaka, and Rekka will team up to take on Mataro Aoki, Yusaku Ito, and Brahman Kei. The opening match will be Tatsuhito Takaiwa and GENTARO going up against Minoru Fujita and the returning from injury also Takahiro Katori.

The A-Team would return to the Tokyo Oji Basement Monstar on October 23, 2022 and announce a crowd of 150 fans for the show. The main event would be Dylan James who use to go by James Raideen in ZERO1 winning the WEW Heavyweight Title from Tomohiko Hashimoto at 11 minutes, 42 seconds with a Thunder Lariat. The semi-main event would be Daisaku Shimoda and Kosaku Tonozaki successfully defend the WEW Tag Team Titles by defeating Joji Otani and Hasinosuke when Tonozaki pinned Hashinosuke at 16 minutes, 46 with a Human Pinwheel. Ryoji Sai and Super Tiger would defeat Kota Nagashima and Kazu Shibano when Sai would get the pin at 25 minutes, 42 seconds over Shibano with a Mountain Folding. TORU and Rey Paloma would defeat HASEGAWA and Yoshihiro Douguchi when TORU would pin Douguchi at 13 minutes, 14 seconds after holding him upside down for the pin. After the match, HASEGAWA would get on the mic and announce the next A-Team show on November 27th with be at Shin-Kiba and will his 9th Year Anniversary Match and it will be a singles match against Masato Tanaka. The opening match would be Masahiro Sase, Bryan Ishizaka, Magic Killer # 1, and Jin defeating Takumi Sakurai, Raiden, Rion Mizuki, and Takahiro Tanobaba when Ishizaka would pin Sakurai at 10 minutes, 50 seconds with the Pay Dirt.

Tetsuhiro Kuroda at the age of 50 has been quite active over the last year after having been pretty much semi-retired for the last five years or so. He has been working regularly for the Secret Base and TTT promotions as of late which includes him winning the TTT Tag Team Titles with Masked Mystery back on June 19, 2022 at the Shinjuku FACE. Kuroda before the match stated that if he were to lose the match then he would retire. After winning the titles though, Kuroda has continued to state that he would retire after the next match he loses in TTT. Kuroda has stated though that he comes from FMW so there's a loose meaning when you say you are going to retire.

Kuroda and Mystery would defend their tag team titles on November 5, 2022 against the team of Guts Ishijima and Hideo Fujiwara when Ishijima would end up accidentally clotheslining his own partner Fujiwara. Fujiwara would get up and begin attacking Ishijima with Kuroda and Mystery trying to get him to stop when Keisuke Goto and Koju Takeda would hit the ring and begin attacking Ishijima, Kuroda and Mystery causing the referee to throw the match out. Ishijima would then challenge Fujiwara, Goto, and Takeda who were also the TTT 6 Man Tag Team Champions to a title match with Ishijima hitting a Facebuster and getting the win at 5 minutes, 3 seconds over Goto to win the TTT 6 Man Tag Team Champions as Kuroda now has the two sets of titles with his career continuing on. Kuroda and Masked Mystery will next defend their TTT Tag Team Titles on December 3, 2022 at Shin-Kiba against Jun Masaoka and Kohei Kinoshita.

Megumi Kudo conducted an interview on October 19, 2022 for Sports Graphic Number. Kudo talked about FMW at the beginning and how she saw first hand Atsushi Onita become a celebrity to where people that were not even wrestling fans recognized him because of him being on talk shows so much through out the years. Kudo was asked about the popularity of FMW and what that meant for the women on the roster. Kudo felt it was good and bad because at first there were so few women it was hard to have different matches with such a limited roster and they were able to show that the women could have good matches and stand out. The bad that came with it though was that they were always stuck at the same spot in the card regardless because of Onita as she felt there were matches that the girls could have closed the show instead of it just always being an Onita match. Kudo mentioned it took seven years for her to appear in the main event of a show which was her retirement match on April 29, 1997 at the Yokohama Arena. Kudo felt nervous going into the show that Onita at the last second would get the match order changed, but Kudo would get to keep her main event match for her retirement show.

Kudo was then asked about retirement match with Shark Tsuchiya and Kudo went into the match not thinking about the future so she kept agreeing to all the stipulations that were getting added to the matches like exploding barbed wire and an exploding barbed wire barricade during the match. Kudo wonders if now she should have stepped in and stopped the match from getting more and more extreme as the days got closer to the match. Kudo felt the most terrifying match she ever was in was against Shinobu Kandori on January 5, 1997 for LLPW at Korakuen Hall. She was hung from the balcony at Korakuen Hall with a chain and before that, she was hanged from the third rope and dropped down to the floor. Kudo when she watched the video now sees her eyes were open but she was half conscious at the moment while continuing the matches and while she was suspended by a chain she couldn't breathe, speak, or tap out. Kudo's Yokohama Arena match against Shark would get brought up again with her catching on fire with Kudo stating that the fire spread in her hair and ended up tattering ring outfit. She also mentions that day as she was entering the building she was told by some fans that day they were attending the show to see her get beat up as she felt fans only wanted to see her in a underdog role.

The discussion of her photo books that she did that were published to market on her looks. Kudo stated it was the area she was most weak at. Shoichi Arai came up to her and told her she was not good at taking photos as she had not taken any good ones. Her first photo shoot she did in 1990 the photographer had to force her to laugh as if he was dealing with a child. Kudo felt it had to do with not having much confidence in her looks. Kudo stated that everyone on the staff taking pictures were all men and she was having to wear a bikini that she doesn't usually wear and she was nervous. She felt like was moving stiff like a robot and was told afterwards there would be a female staff member on set as well. Kudo was then asked about the photo books she did and how she showed her butt in the books. Kudo said she was grateful that Shoichi Arai had told her that FMW would not force her to do anything she didn't want to do. Kudo told the photo book that she would show so much exposure as those books were known for nudity of the more popular women's wrestlers during that time. Kudo specifically stated she would not show her breasts in the book and that her limit would be showing her butt for the photos. She stated after the first photo book came out then there were demands for again in the second book but again she refused to show anything more than her butt.

Kudo also mentioned how she had trouble with doing modeling work while also being a professional wrestler willing to death matches. She mentioned that she had a scar on her forehead that caused issues when she was trying to do a photo shoot for a poster. She couldn't cover it with make up so she had ended up having to use concealer to cover it but it limited the quality of the posters. Then in the photo books she had scars and bruises from the matches as she didn't feel she could cut corners because she had agreed to do a shoot. She felt that this is what you are going to get when you do photo shoots of professional wrestlers. Kudo was asked about participating in those types of photo books and she stated she was cold towards them. She felt it was sad to think that female professional wrestlers were being recognized for more than just the content of their matches. It's also the case for girls in gymnastics and beach volleyball with girls wearing tight fitting costumes and it makes it harder for people to look at you with kind eyes when you are wearing those kind of outfits. She felt the overall experience doing the photo books was a positive though and she looks at them and she doesn't even think it's her anymore just like when she watches her retirement match and when she sees what she went through the match, she thinks the damage done to her in the match is somebody else's problem in her mind.

Kudo then talked about after retiring she became a newscaster for Samurai TV followed by marrying Hido in 1998. She then would go on to get certified in Mental Health Management as well as a Lymphatic Care Therapist. She got back into wrestling in 2016 by becoming an Executive Producer for Super Fireworks before becoming the General Manager of ZERO1. She is also an committee member of OSU Premium which produces shows for legendary wrestlers to get booked. She was asked why she got back into wrestling with Kudo saying at first it was just to appear for an Onita show and then Super Fireworks was created and she was approached because of her connection explosion matches. It was going to just be one shot deal, but then it was decided for them to commercialize it and make her Executive Producer before she became GM of ZERO1. Kudo felt that returning to wrestling was good as she feels calm when she attends a show as it's somewhere she belongs and they are always fun. She was asked if she was worried being a girl that that she would get some negative reaction to being in a all men promotion. Kudo stated she did as she is sure there are people who wonder why someone from FMW is connected to ZERO1 as it has been so long since she was in FMW but she wants to work hard to where people don't just see her an ex FMW person and a current ZERO1 employee.

Kudo was then asked about her marriage with Hido and if they talked about wrestling while living together. Kudo stated she did not. At first, Hido did not talk about wrestling at all while together so Kudo would never ask him any questions. Kudo stated that if she happen to watch a match though she would say small things like "I'm glad wrestler X didn't get hurt" but that they didn't talk about styles or what moves he should do. Kudo was then asked what was Hido's condition before he passed away in October 2021. Kudo stated his physical condition had been bad for many years, but he hated hospitals, so he never went. He would said "I'm not feeling well" or "I'm tired" and she would recommend him going to the hospital, but after awhile, the symptoms would get lighter and then repeat.

Then around 2020 he was in the hospital repeatedly, but never hospitalized long term but because of COVID she could never go see him while he was there. Hido never would tell her his symptoms and would only answer questions if she asked. One time he mentioned that he had a gastro camera examination that she didn't even know he was going to have as she felt he didn't want make her or other people worried. She stated the last time he went to the hospital he ended up staying there a week and she got a call from the doctor saying the symptoms had completely changed from the day before. Kudo had went to the hospital to see him and Hido had told her that he told her that he wanted to bring a book so she said when she came back the next time she would bring it, then the next day he could no longer speak. Even though it was dealing with some life threatening at that time, she did not even know about it. She tried to refrain visiting him all the time because of the pandemic, but before she knew it, she was told he was either going to pass that day or the next. He lived through out the rest of that day before passing at 4 am the next morning.

Kudo when asked about it having just recently been the one year anniversary of Hido's passing what were her thoughts currently. She felt that the moment was really painful and her train of thought was messed up, and she couldn't control herself. She said everyone told her things would calm down after a year, but one year is not enough. She never thought it would hurt like this. She would just shut down and not talk to anyone, but has decided that wasn't the way to go so she tries to go out as much as possible. She was asked if she had gained anything from this loss. She began to cry as she said people's kindness. Sometimes it's through words and sometimes it's through people watching over her without saying anything. When she goes to the ZERO1 office, she feels the kindness from everyone. Some people say "Please take care of yourself" and young wrestlers who don't even know her as a wrestler are warm to her. When she goes to a wrestling show, she's glad she went. Most of the people she has met through professional wrestling have helped her.

She had told the President of ZERO1 that she was thinking about quitting after Hido's death as she couldn't concrete on the wrestling when she was at the shows because of all the things she was feeling and felt she would cause trouble for the promotion, and she was told she could quit if she wanted, but he didn't want her to quit for those reasons. She is now glad she continued with working. She was asked about her future vision with ZERO1 and stated she has a long way to go. ZERO1 was a promotion created by the great Shinya Hashimoto and it should be exposed to more light. Now with Shinjiro Otani out due to a spinal cord injury everyone has changed their mindset and go into the ring with the feeling of making Otani feel at ease. New wrestlers are also gaining strength and creating ZERO1 like never before to level up for when Otani comes back. She has high hopes for ZERO1 going forward.

Next week will mark the 24th anniversary of this website. I am pretty confident when I say this is one of the longest running constantly updated wrestling websites around on the internet, especially one that is just ran by one person. I have tried to branch out over the 6 years or so to places like YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram and get attention to FMW and to be able to share my passion for it to those that will probably never even know this website exists. At the end of the day though this website is where my heart is, and as long as I am writing about FMW, I will keep up with this website to the best of my ability, even though these news updates can some times be a killer to me to keep up with and not fall too far behind on.

I did want to write about one thought I have had recently. One thing over the last year I have done after translating a couple of books for this website was being able to translate older magazine articles and interviews for this website. I have been collecting Japanese wrestling magazines since 2008 and probably have about 1400 magazines at this point. I have thought recently about possibly doing more with them, including making a Patreon where I would translate a bunch of FMW and other independent promotions events and matches from through out the 1990s to early 2000s and have everything in one place for those interested in learning the details of stuff that would never be uncovered otherwise. It's just currently a thought right now though, as I don't even know if the interest would be there for me to put the time and effort into it, as I know it would be a huge time consuming project for me to commit to, as they can be a real challenge time wise and in trying to have them make sense to the reader. I would also want to have already built up somewhat of a library of translations before I even thought of starting it and accepting any type of payments from anyone though, so it would be a little while regardless before I would open it up if I were to go in that direction.

Finally I did want to say thank you though for those that have still continued to come here. I don't really check the numbers anymore as I know covering a promotion that closed down over 20 years ago in FMW and the smaller promotions that have came from it is a pretty niche, but it's still something that I have a passion for after all these years, so I am just happy that I am still able to get to write about something that I love, and still have people come here and want to read about it no matter a number. I hope that you still find this place to be a great resource for both historic information and newer information, as I have tried to blend the two a lot more in these news updates the last couple of years. I hope as long as I still have this passion that I have to write about anything and everything related to FMW, that there will always be people still wanting to come here and learn about these great promotions and wrestlers.

Added: 9/30

2AW announced that Ricky Fuji had fallen unconscious after suffering a stroke on September 7, 2022. Ricky was taken to the hospital where emergency surgery was held. He was diagnosed with a cerebral infarction which occurs when there's disrupted blood flow to the brain due to problems with with the blood vessels which deprives the brain cells from oxygen and causes part of the brain to die off.

The surgery was considered a success as he was no longer in a life threatening situation, but half his body would become paralyzed as a result. The plan after the surgery was for Ricky to be transferred to a rehabilitation hospital so that his progress could be monitored. Ricky's last match took place on September 4, 2022 where he lost a singles match to Kaji Tomato for 2AW at the 2AW Square. Ricky has always prided himself on never missing a show due to injury after 34 years in the ring, but that streak came to an end after missing the 2AW September 11, 2022 show at Korakuen Hall that he was scheduled for as he was going to to be in the opening 8 man match on the show. The team he was supposed to be on in the match paid tribute to him by coming out to Ricky's "Sexy Storm" theme and doing his mannerisms going into the ring.

The big question remains if this will result in Ricky never being able to wrestle again. Ricky told me himself he never planned on retiring, but having just turned 57 years old he was not really at a point where he was being expected to do anything more than entertaining comedy matches, although that might play in his favor of actually coming back as he was not be put to a standard of expecting to have high quality matches after such a serious situation. GENTARO suffered a stroke back on August 5, 2012 after a 45 minute match with Isami Kodaka and collapsed backstage afterwards. It took him 21 months to be able to return to the ring, although GENTARO was having much higher quality of matches prior to the stroke and the last 8 years since his return, he has not really been able to do much other than a very mat based style or just a comedy match due to what the stroke did to him. Chocoball Mukai also suffered a stroke, although he had already retired, but was able to to return back to running his Chocoball Family Bar.

If Ricky's career were to be over, he would still be able to run his Hard Rock Gym out of Chiba, although I know the goal for him would always be to return back to the ring. Ricky has not posted anything about his condition since the stroke on social media, but he has posted thank you to some people on Facebook and Twitter for wishing him a speed recovery including Kazushi Miyamoto.

Ricky Fuji before his stroke did a interview back in August for a magazine about the recent FMW book that came out called "The men who made FMW" with Ricky giving his opinion about them interviewing several people that were just there for a little while at the beginning and not interviewing him who was there almost the entire time of FMW's existence. They do say in the book though that no active wrestler was interviewed because of agendas they might have plus the book is about only about the first two years and many of the office people that they interviewed are going to have more insight about that specific time than Ricky would. I have gone through the entire time and I got it all translated into English, but honestly I did not think it was worth the hours it would take cleaning up and having it all make sense for the site. My most recent FMW Stories is almost straight from reading the book so if you are looking for the more interesting stories, they are all going to be there anyway. The first half of Ricky Fuji's interview was posted online that you can find at http://fmwwrestling.us/Ricky2022.html. It's an interesting interview with Ricky talking about the early days of FMW with the interviewer. I have purchased the magazine so most likely next update I will be able to update it to include the entire interview.

Atsushi Onita competed at the Tokyo Nippon Budokan Hall for only the fifth time in his career on September 18, 2022. Onita's first time competing at Nippon Budokan was back on May 14, 1977 as he lost to a South Korean wrestler Kim Kwang Sik in the opening match for an All Japan show. The next time would take place on August 26, 1979 for an All Star Dream show as All Japan and New Japan worked together with Onita once again working the opening match although this time in a Battle Royal. Onita would then come back 22 years later on August 30, 2001 for ZERO1 as he would take on Shinjiro Otani in the semi-main event with Onita getting DQ'd after spitting green mist in Otani's face. The next match would be 20 years later as Onita would return for a one match event that would also be a New Years Eve show on December 31, 2021 with Onita defeating Shinya Aoki in a Exploding Barbed wire Baseball Bat Death Match. It would only take less than 9 months for him to return for this match.

Onita  would team up Masa Fuchi and Shiro Koshinaka to take on Great Kojika, Yoshiaki Yatsu, and Masao Inoue for All Japan's 50th Anniversary show. After all the wrestlers would enter the ring, The Great Kabuki's music would begin to play and he would come out and pose with all the wrestlers in the match and eventually he would end up spitting green mist in Inoue's face allowing Fuchi to hit him with a Backdrop to get the win at 11 minutes, 55 seconds with Onita admitting the match was not any good, but it was a great experience for him to be reunited with so many wrestlers from his youth.

Fire Pro-Wrestling would hold their first two shows called "Fire Blast Wrestling" on September 23, 2022 and September 24, 2022 at the Osaka Tsurumi Green Forest Hana Exhibition Park. The first show would draw an announced crowd of 323 fans. The main event would be Atsushi Onita, Masakatsu Funaki, Drew Parker, and Shota Nakagawa taking on Mr. Pogo, Osamu Nishimura, Masked Fire, and Rising Kid in a 10 Exploding Barbed wire Bats and a Double Missile Death Match.

The Onita side would have a guy by the name of BILLY accompanying them. BILLY is a movie producer for a movie called BUGS II which Onita has a part in the movie and he was also the sponsor for the both main events which how the promotion was able to afford such so many different types of explosions. Funaki and Pogo would go at it with Funaki slapping the side of Pogo's head before Pogo would deliver a hand thrust to Funaki's throat. Pogo would then turn on the first exploding bat but Funaki would end up kicking it causing an explosion. Funaki would then turn on the exploding bat and hit Nishimura with it.

The heels would then tie Onita to the turnbuckle and set the missiles off with the missiles launching and exploding at the turnbuckle that Onita was tied up against. Pogo, Nishimura, and Masked Fire would all turn on exploding bats and smash it over Onita's back and get the pin over Onita at 12 minutes, 1 seconds for the heel victory. The heels would then turn on the exploding bat and smash it across BILLY while he was in the ring. Click here to watch highlights of the Fire Blast Wrestling 9/23/22 main event.

The second show would take place on September 24, 2022 once again at the Osaka Tsurumi Green Forest Hana Exhibition Park this time announcing a crowd of 494 fans for the show. The main event stipulations definitely interested more fans than the missiles and bats which have been done so many times at this point. The main event match was Atsushi Onita, Masakatsu Funaki, Brahman Shu, and Brahman Kei with BILLY once again on their side although selling the injury from yesterday as they would takeon Mr. Pogo, Osamu Nishimura, Masked Fire, and Dyna Mido in a Exploding Barbed wire Baseball Bat, Barbed wire Barricade, Fire Boards, and Exploding Spidernet Death Match.

Funaki and Nishimura would wrestle a traditional UWF style match when Pogo would come in the ring with a exploding bat and smash it over Funaki. Pogo would then set the fire board on fire when Onita would come over and brawl with him in the crowd. Onita would then grab a board and set the board on fire and hit Pogo with it. Nishimura and Onita would get in the ring with Nishimura putting Onita in a choke hold while outside on the apron when the Brahman Brothers would come over and as Nishimura would let go of the choke they would end up spitting red mist in Onita's face with Nishimura giving Onita a push and shoving Onita off the apron into the exploding spidernet for the explosion.

BILLY would get in the ring and begin to try and brawl with Pogo but Funaki would come over and drop kick both of them into the exploding barricade outside the ring. Onita and Funaki would then turn on the exploding bats and smash them against Masked Fire at the same time followed by delivering a DDT to him to get the pin at 9 minutes, 50 seconds for the Onita team win. Onita and Funaki would shake hands afterwards and Onita would do his Onita Theater to end the show. Click here to watch the main event of the Fire Blast Wrestling 9/24/22 show.

FMW-E will return for the first time since April when they hold two house shows in Hokkaido on October 1st and October 2nd. The first show will take place outside at the Ashikawa Western Powers Parking Lot. The main event will be Atsushi Onita, Raijin Yaguchi, and Naoshi Sano against Mr. Pogo, Onryo, and Takumi Sakurai in a Exploding Barbed wire Bat, Exploding Table, Exploding Barbed wire Barricade Death Match. The second show will be inside at the Tobetsu General Gym with Atsushi Onita, Raijin Yaguchi, and Noriyuki Yoshida taking on Mr. Pogo, Onryo, and Monster Leather in a Exploding Barbed wire Bat, Exploding Table, Exploding Jado Rocket Death Match.

The undercards are pretty much nothing besides the opening matches which will see Atsushi Onita take on Andre the Giant Panda. Onita said he would bring a barbed wire bat to the ring with Andre's manager Uncle Tiger saying that Onita could not use a barbed wire bat in their matches. Tiger stated he would bring an item each day to be used in their match with Onita agreeing. Onita then told a story about wrestling Andre the Giant in St. Petersburg, Florida with Onita going to the bathroom and sitting on the toilet and Andre walked in with no pants on and shoved his ass right in Onita's face while he was on the toilet with Onita saying he couldn't breathe. Onita also remembers being body slammed by Andre at 6'5 feet in the air.

Fire Pro-Wrestling returns under their original name on October 16, 2022 at the Nagoya International Conference Center Event Hall with no card announced but Onita, Pogo, and Michio Kageyama will be on the show. They will also screen BILLY's movie "BUGS II" with Onita appearing in the movie at the show. Onita also stated to put down on your calendar the date of December 11, 2022 as that looks to be the next big show for the promotion.

Antonio Inoki passed away on October 1, 2022 at 7:40 am Japanese Time. Inoki had been dealing a conditioned in which his blood circulation had impaired which resulted in heart failure. His last public appearance was on August 28, 2022 for the 24 Hour Television which is annual charity telethon that does positive stories on those that are handicap which also did that feature on Hayabusa in 2015.

Inoki is the biggest Japanese wrestler in the last 50 years. Atsushi Onita wanted to be Inoki including getting into politics like Inoki, and although Onita became somewhat of a national celebrity he never came close to what Inoki's fame in Japan. Inoki also was in the first Spiked Nail Death Match on February 8, 1978 against Umanosuke Ueda which the spiked nails were never used in the match. W*ING would take the gimmick on December 20, 1992 with Mitsuhiro Matsunaga taking on Leatherface with Matsunaga being the first person to fall into the spiked nails.

Inoki also was apart of the Ganryujima Island Death Match on October 4, 1987 against Masa Saito which FMW would take that idea and have Onita compete in a Exploding Barbed wire Death Match at Ganryujima Sekigaha Island against Tiger Jeet Singh on June 30, 1992. Even though Antonio Inoki never had anything to do with FMW or any of the death match independents his influence was still seen by them. Antonio Inoki was 79 years old.

Jun Kasai's Death Match Carnival Part 2 would take place on August 29, 2022 at Korakuen Hall with an announced crowd of 741 fans. This August Korakuen Hall show has generally always been considered the second biggest show if not the biggest Korakuen Hall show of the year as it would sometimes compete with the Christmas Death Match which the August 2018 Korakuen Hall show still remains the most attended show in FREEDOMS history. This is now the second year in a row though that the July Korakuen Hall has done better now though although this years show included the return after 6 months of Masashi Takeda to the ring which was a big draw.

The main event of the show would be Daisuke Masaoka defending the King of Freedom World Championship against Drew Parker in a Fluorescent Light Tubes Glass Board Ladder Death Match with Parker setting Masaoka under the first glass board outside the ring and delivering a Swanton Bomb off the top breaking the glass board over Masaoka. They would get back in the ring and Parker would smash a chair over Masaoka's head although he would then grab Parker and deliver a Fire Thunder to him. Masaoka would then place Parker on a table and climb up the top of the ladder and deliver a diving knee drop sending Parker through the table. Masaoka would then go for a moonsault, but Parker would move out of the way and toss a light tube at Masaoka and hit him with a running knee breaking the light tube across Masaoka. Parker would then go up top and deliver a Swanton Bomb breaking a light tube over Masaoka and cover him for the win at 19 minutes, 50 seconds with Parker being handed the King of Freedom World Championship by Masaoka.

Toru Sugiura and Tomoya Hirata would defend the King of Freedom Tag Team Titles against Violento Jack and Toshiyuki Sakuda in a Fluorescent Light Tubes Human Meat Slicer Death Match. Sugiura and Sakuda would square off at first before tagging in Jack and Hirata as they would charge at each other with while holding light tubes followed by Hirata knocking Jack down with a lariat. Hirata would then pick up Jack with Sugiura breaking a light tube over Jack followed by Hirata hitting him with a PowerSlam. Sakuda would then come in and deliver a hurricanrana to Sugiura and then pour hot sauce on the mat and drop Hirata back first into the sauce. Jack would then place Hirata in the Mexican Stretch but he would manage to roll out of it and hit Jack with a German Suplex and then hit a moonsault on Jack to get the win at 21 minutes, 5 seconds in what would be Hirata's biggest victory of his nearly 5 year career and to successfully defend the tag team titles for the 6th time.

Minoru Fujita who has been dealing with an eye injury would make his return to FREEDOMS while wearing an eye protective mask as he would team up with Masashi Takeda as they would take on Jun Kasai and Rina Yamashita in a Tornado Street Fight Weapons Death Match. Yamashita would end up delivering a powerbomb to Fujita followed by Kasai hitting a Pearl Harbor Splash with Takeda making the save. Takeda would then try to deliver a Reverse U Crash on Kasai on a fork board, but Yamashita would come in to make the save but get rolled up by Fujita with a Samson Clutch for two. Yamashita would get up after kicking out and get up and immediately nail Fujita with a lariat and score the pin at 12 minutes, 52 seconds over Fujita. Yamashita would put her hand out for Fujita to shake, but her former partner would instead attack her and lay her out with a Technan Buster DDT. Kasai would then help her up and shake her hand but then nail her with a lariat before leaving himself leaving Yamashita all alone.

Takashi Sasaki, Jun Masaoka, and Dragon Libre would team up to defeat Brown Rat Fukki, Yusaku Ito, and Mataro Aoki when Masaoka would get the win over Aoki at 11 minutes, 41 seconds with the 2trap. GENTARO and Kamui would defeat Takahiro Katori and Leo Isaka when Kamui would pin Katori at 14 minutes, 2 seconds with the Iomante which is a Kudo Driver for the win. Tatsuhito Takaiwa and Rekka would win the opening match against Brahman Shu and Brahman Kei at 6 minutes, 51 seconds in a Tokyo Desert Homeless Man Death Match when Takaiwa would finish Kei off with the Death Valley Bomb. It would also be announced during the show that FREEDOMS instead of bringing back the UWA Jr. Heavyweight Title would be creating a FREEDOMS Jr. Heavyweight Title of their own instead. Click here for highlights of the Jun Kasai Productions 8/29/22 Korakuen Hall show.

FREEDOMS would run on September 3, 2022 at the Shizuoka Twin Messe where they would announce a crowd of 160 fans for the show. This show was a makeup of what was originally scheduled for July 31, 2022, but it was postponed due to so many wrestlers getting COVID. The main event would be Daisuke Masaoka, Masashi Takeda, and Takashi Sasaki defeating ERE's Drew Parker, Toshiyuki Sakuda, and Brown Rat Fukki in a Fluorescent Light Tubes Death Match when Sasaki would pin Fukki at 15 minutes, 18 seconds with a right leg kick to the fluorescent light tube across Fukki's head for the win.

Jun Kasai would defeat Violento Jack at 12 minutes, 7 seconds in a Empty Can Board and Razor Cross Board Death Match when Kasai would hit Jack with the Cross Arm Stimulation. The big renewed Jack got last year including winning the King of Freedom World Championship seems like ancient history at this point after losing a semi-main event house show match to Kasai. Toru Sugiura and Tomoya Hirata would defeat Takumi Tsukamoto and Kamui at 13 minutes, 15 seconds in a Hardcore Match when Hirata would pin Kamui with a German Suplex. Rina Yamashita and Mataro Aoki would defeat Brahman Shu and Brahman Kei when Aoki would pin Kei at 10 minutes, 21 seconds with the Mataro Clutch. Tatsuhito Takaiwa and GENTARO would open the show going to 15 minute time limit draw with Dragon Libre and Takahiro Katori.

FREEDOMS would return to the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring on September 8, 2022 for their annual "Heel Don't Think" show with an announced crowd of 155 fans for the show. The main e vent would be a 4 vs. 4 Single Elimination Fluorescent Light Tubes Death Match with Jun Kasai, Daisuke Masaoka, Toru Sugiura, and Tomoya Hirata taking on ERE's Drew Parker, Violento Jack, Toshiyuki Sakuda, and Brown Rat Fukki.

Masaoka and Parker would square off although it would not be long before Jack would come in and hit Masaoka with a Amatalon and then roll him up with a Crucifix at 7 minutes, 14 seconds for the elimination of Masaoka. Sugiura would then end up eliminating Fukki at 11 minutes, 40 seconds with a Swift Driver. Kasai and Jack would then go over the top rope and begin fighting on the apron with Jack falling to the floor but bringing Kasai with him for the double elimination at 14 minutes, 30 seconds over the top rope.

Sugiura and Sakuda would then go over the top rope to the apron but Sakuda would get out of the way as Parker would toss Sugiura a light tube and deliver a drop kick breaking it over him and knocking Sugiura to the floor at 17 minutes, 13 seconds with the over the top elimination. Parker would then climb up to the top of a ladder when Sugiura would grab Sakuda and shove him into the ladder knocking Parker off to the outside for the 18 minutes, 49 seconds for the over the top elimination. This would leave just Hirata and Sakuda with Hirata nailing Sakuda with a German Suplex to get the pinfall at 23 minutes, 24 seconds for the FREEDOMS win as the Hirata push continues.

The semi-main event would be Masashi Takeda defeating Kyu Mogami at 11 minutes, 41 seconds in a Hardcore Match in a Crossface with scissors pressed up against Mogami for the submission victory. Mataro Aoki, Brahman Shu, and Brahman Kei would defeat Takashi Sasaki, Minoru Fujita, and Rina Yamashita when Aoki would pin Sasaki at 10 minutes, 46 seconds with his Batarian 3. Jun Masaoka, Leo Isaka, and Dragon Libre would get the win over Tatsuhito Takaiwa, GENTARO, and Kamui when Masaoka would pin Kamui at 10 minutes, 55 seconds with the 2trap. Yusaku Ito would win the opening match over Rekka at 6 minutes, 6 seconds after pinning him with the Onimaru. Click here to watch highlights of the FREEDOMS 9/8/22 show.

GCW would run the first two of three shows while in Japan at the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring with the first show taking place on September 26, 2022 and announcing a sell out crowd of 295 fans. Although the shows are considered GCW and many of the wrestlers are GCW wrestlers and GCW owner Brett Lauderdale is there in attendance these shows could not take place without FREEDOMS and Takashi Sasaki as Sasaki was a key in getting all the GCW wrestlers work visas at a time that Japan still is only allowing Americans to come in if they have a work visa or are apart of a a tour group.

The main event would be Alex Colon taking on Drew Parker and Toru Sugiura in a Fluorescent Light Tubes Three Way Match with Parker getting the win after knocking Colon out of the ring and hitting a Swanton Bomb with a a fluorescent light tube tower over Sugiura's body to get the pin at 9 minutes, 50 seconds to get the win in a short main event match.

The semi-main event would be Rina Yamashita defending her GCW Ultra Violent Championship that she won in GCW back on August 13th in a Barbed wire Board Death Match against Mance Warner. Yamashita would end up suplexing Warner off the turnbuckle into the barbed wire board with the barbed wire getting stuck in her hair. Warner would come back with a lariat to Yamashita, but then Yamashita would duck a lariat and deliver a suplex to Warner. Yamashita would then setup a stack of light tubes and deliver a Splash Mountain on him to get the win at 12 minutes, 6 seconds to defend the title for the second time.

Masashi Takeda would defeat John Wayne Murdoch in a Fluorescent Light Tubes Fork Board Death Match when he would nail Murdoch with a Reverse U Crash on the fork board at 9 minutes, 26 seconds to get the win.

SHLAK and Effy would defeat Daisuke Masaoka and Takashi Sasaki when SHLAK would get the win at 11 minutes, 26 seconds after pinning Sasaki with a Choke Bomb. Violento Jack would defeat Cole Radrick at 8 minutes, 49 seconds with the Amatlan in a Barbed wire Chair Death Match. The opening match would see Jordan Oliver win a Scramble Match against Nick Wayne, Toshiyuki Sakuda, the Invisible Man, Kikutaro, and Jimmy Lloyd when Jordan would pin Lloyd at 5 minutes, 48 seconds with a Clout Cutter. Click here to watch highlights of the GCW 9/26/22 show.

The next show would take place on September 27, 2022 and announce another sell out crowd of 297 fans for this show. The main event would be Rina Yamashita teaming up with Alex Colon and John Wayne Murdoch against Drew Parker, Violento Jack, and Toshiyuki Sakuda in a Fluorescent Light Tubes Death Match. Colon and Parker would face off with Colon trying to do a tope onto Parker who was standing on the ramp but Parker would catch him and deliver a DDT.

Violento Jack would then setup a ladder and look to dive off of it onto Jack, but Murdoch would instead get up and suplex Jack off the ladder onto a stack of light tubes followed by Parker going for a Swanton Bomb off the ladder with Murdoch moving out of the way. Yamashita would then pick up Parker and deliver a Death Valley Bomb to him but Sakuda break up the pinfall attempt with a light tube shot to Yamashita. Sakuda would then try for a hurricanrana to Colon but he would reverse it and turn it into a Alex Crash sending Sakuda into a stack of light tubes for the win at 11 minutes, 53 seconds for the GCW victory.

The Japanese wrestlers would then all get in the ring and they would begin brawling with the GCW wrestlers when Rina Yamashita would side the GCW wrestlers. Sasaki would get upset at Yamashita for siding with the GCW team and she would end up kicking him to show her loyalty to GCW.

Jun Kasai would face off against Effy in the semi-main event Fork Board Death Match with Effy starting off by telling Kasai that he was a sexy monkey before eventually dropping him face first into the fork board. Kasai would come back and take off his pants and then deliver a Canadian Destroyer on to a stack of light tubes to Effy followed by a Pearl Harbor Splash on a stack of light tubes and then a Reverse Tiger Driver on the fork board to get the win at 11 minutes, 47 seconds with Kasai kissing Effy afterwards and Effy coming back and kissing Kasai passionately.

Masashi Takeda would take on SHLAK in a Fluorescent Light Tubes Death with Takeda suplexing SHLAK off the apron through a stack of light tubes setup on chairs to the outside. Takeda would get back in the ring and grab a fluorescent light tube tower with SHLAK charging at him with a lariat breaking it across him. SHLAK would then pick up his own light tube tower with Takeda delivering a running drop kick breaking it across SHLAK with SHLAK getting up right away. They both would grab a stack of light tubes and charge into each other with them.

SHLAK would then grab a stack of light tubes and swing them at Takeda with Takeda ducking and delivering a German Suplex with light tubes behind SHLAK's head. Takeda would then pick up SHLAK and nail him with the Reverse U Crash on a stack of light tubes to pick up the win at 12 minutes, 28 seconds with Takeda acting like he was going to shake hands with SHLAK before flipping him off.

Ryuji Ito and Abdullah Kobayashi would defeat the team of Mance Warner and Cole Radrick when Ito would pin Radrick at 10 minutes, 28 seconds with a Dragon Splash. Masato Tanaka and The Great Sasuke would defeat Jimmy Lloyd and Kikutaro when Tanaka would pin Kikutaro at 11 minutes, 52 seconds with a Sliding D. CIMA, T-Hawk, and El Lindaman would open the show defeating Joey Janela, Jordan Oliver, and Nick Wayne when CIMA would pick up the win at 9 minutes, 21 seconds with the Meteroa over Wayne. Click here to watch highlights of the GCW 9/27/22 show.

FREEDOMS next show will be on October 2, 2022 at Korakuen Hall for FREEDOMS 13th Anniversary show. The theme of this show will be FREEDOMS vs. GCW. The main event will be Jun Kasai, Daisuke Masaoka, and Masashi Takeda taking on Alex Colon, John Wayne Murdoch, and Jimmy Lloyd in a Fluorescent Light Tubes Death Match. Toru Sugiura and Tomoya Hirata will defend the King of Freedom Tag Team Titles against Joey Janela and Cole Radrick in a Barbed wire Board and Thumbtack Board Death Match. Drew Parker and Violento Jack will team up to take on SHLAK and Effy in a Weapons Death Match. Takashi Sasaki, Minoru Fujita, and Kikutaro will take on Rina Yamashita, Jordan Oliver, and Nick Wayne. Tatsuhito Takaiwa and GENTARO will team up to take on Brown Rat Fukki and Toshiyuki Sakuda. The opening match will be Kamui and Dragon Libre teaming up to take on Rekka and Jun Masaoka.

The next and final GCW show will take place on October 4, 2022 at the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring. The main event will be Jun Kasai and Masashi Takeda taking on Alex Colon and John Wayne Murdoch. Yuko Miyamoto and Takashi Sasaki will team up to take on Toru Sugiura and Cole Radrick. Rina Yamashita will defend the GCW Ultra Violent Title against SHLAK. Joey Janela will defend his DDT Extreme Title against Toshiyuki Sakuda. Drew Parker and Jimmy Lloyd will team up to take on Jordan Oliver and Nick Wayne. The opening comedy match will be Kikutaro against Effy.

The A-Team would return to their new home of the Tokyo Oji Basement Monstar on September 11, 2022 and draw an announced crowd of 150 fans for the show. The main event would be the Land's End team of Ryoji Sai and Dylan James defeating Tomohiko Hashimoto and HASEGAWA when Sai would put away HASEGAWA at 21 minutes, 9 seconds with the Mountain Folding as James would challenge Hashimoto for the WEW Heavyweight Title for the next show on October 23rd afterwards. The semi-main event would be a WEW Tag Team Title Match between Daisaku Shimoda and Kosaku Tonozaki defending their WEW Tag Team Titles against Rion Mizuki and Takahiro Tanobaba when Shimoda would pin Tanobaba at 17 minutes, 31 seconds with a piledriver to defend the titles for the first time. Masahiro Sase, Magic Killer # 1, and Jin would defeat Takumi Sakurai, Raiden, and Bryan Ishizaka when Sase would pin Raiden at 13 minutes, 7 seconds with a Diving Body Press. Tatsuhito Takaiwa would defeat Kota Nagashima at 9 minutes, 9 seconds with a Death Valley Bomb. The opening match would see Joji Otani, Hashinosuke, and Bambi defeat Super Tiger, Kazu Shibano, and Shiori Akiba when Otani would pin Shinabo at 13 minutes, 50 seconds with a Sliding D.

Mr. Gannosuke's YouTube has been a rather entertaining channel over the last year that has become very formative. Obviously the issue is that it's in Japanese as that's why I don't bring it up every update, but if you hit the CC button and translate it to English it becomes somewhat understandable to a point that you can follow along. He recently did a show about how much he was paid through out his career. His first year as a rookie in FMW from 1991 to 1992 he was paid 50 dollars a match with an extra 20 dollars for lunch every day of a show. He wrestled around 110 matches so that would have put him at $7700 his first year.

His pay went up to $100 dollars a match with the $20 dollars a day for lunch, but he also dealt with injuries that second year so he only wrestled about 60 matches which would have resulted in about $7200 dollars for the year. Also it should be noted he was living in the FMW Dojo during this time as well so he was not having to pay rent.

His third year which would have been 1993-1994 his contract went up to 300 dollars a match and he was able to again wrestle a full year of about 110 matches and the 20 dollars a day for lunch would have put him at about $35,000 for the year. His pay stayed at $300 dollars a match the next year from 1994-1995 before he left FMW and joined IWA Japan with Tarzan Goto in May 1995.

Gannosuke originally was going to get paid $2,500 dollars a month with IWA Japan which would have put him at $30,000 a year a decrease from his FMW time but Gannosuke stated that he had just got married and negotiated to where instead he would get paid $3,000 dollars a month which would get him at $36,000 dollars a year. Gannosuke's first year returning back to FMW in 1997 he was able to get a $4,000 dollar a month contract which would mean he made about $48,000 for his first year back. Gannosuke doesn't give a specific time frame but says his highest annual amount in FMW was about $70,000 dollars which I am guessing would be in 1999.

Gannosuke stated that none of the wrestlers would ask how much the other wrestler was making because everyone was making such different amounts. Gannosuke felt he probably made the lowest of the other wrestlers at his levels which would be Hayabusa, Tanaka, Fuyuki, and Kanemura. I know Kanemura has stated he was making $120,000 a year when he originally came into FMW in 1994 and made mention that Arai didn't cut his pay in 1995 like he did with Mr. Pogo and Mitsuhiro Matsunaga had theirs after Onita retired. Although when Kanemura started taking bookings Big Japan as well in 2000, he was told by Fuyuki that if he ever missed a FMW show due to working Big Japan that his contract would be terminated, which he made sure never to do no matter how injured he was going into a show. 

Gannosuke then did a second video because so many people had commented about how $70,000 dollars was not that much for him to be a top wrestler in FMW. Gannosuke defended FMW though stating that he felt he was treated well there financially with full health insurance as he did not have to pay any money for the two times he suffered serious leg injuries in 1998 and 2002 and had to live at the hospital for over a month both times, although he was lucky that to be discharged the day before FMW went bankrupt during his 2002 stay.

Gannosuke also stated he was paid his full salary while he was out from November 2000 to April 2001 which he didn't state why, but it was due to dealing with liver damage that he originally thought could actually end his career and he didn't know if he was going to be able to return, so the fact that he was still getting paid by FMW like he was still on the road wrestling makes him appreciative of his pay there.

Goro Tsurumi passed away on August 26, 2022 at the age of 73 years old. There was no funeral held for him. Tsurumi's son informed Takashi Sasaki who Tsurumi had trained of the news with Sasaki getting the blessing from him to announce the news of Tsurumi's passing on social media.

Tsurumi had been suffering from leg ulcers, high blood pressure, diabetes, and he was dealing with heart failure without taking medication, although it would be low blood pressure and sepsis due to an infection that had shown up three days earlier that resulted in his passing at 7:11 am on August 26th.  Tsurumi had asked for no funeral as he wanted his body donated right away following his passing.

Takao Tanaka was born on November 23, 1948 in Beppu City, Oita before moving to Tsurumi, Yokohama at the age of 5 due to his father getting a new job.

Tanaka enrolled at Tokai University wanting to become a professional wrestler, but since there was no wrestling club on campus, he joined a wrestling group that was holding amateur shows at the Mitsuzawa Park. That is where he caught the attention of IWE's Thunder Sugiyama and joined the IWE promotion where he made his on July 12, 1971 losing to Takeshi Oiso at the Sapporo Nakajima Sports Center.

Tanaka would change his ring name to Goro Tsurumi in March 1972 with the Tsurumi being based off his hometown name. Tsurumi along with Hiroshi Yagi who would later go by Ryuma Go would travel overseas to Europe in March 1973 where they would work in West Germany and England as they would enroll in Billy Riley's Gym known as the Snake Pit. He would then travel to Mexico where he would win the NWA Light Heavyweight Title from Dr. Wagner, but afterwards it would be found out that he weighed too much and he would be stripped of the title as a result.

Tsurumi would come back from Mexico and unlike most Japanese wrestlers returning back from Mexico having gained weight instead of losing it. He would also end up working in Vancouver in 1979 before once again returning to the IWE promotion.

Tsurumi would end up turning heel on October 3, 1979 when he attacked IWE President Yoshihara for not having the lineup of the show announced at the start of the show. The next day having a match against Lou Thesz with Thesz picking up the win. Tsurumi's heel turn would see him go from wearing blue trunks to a black costume with a skull mark on his chest.

He would go on to form the heel group "Independent Gurentai" in 1980 with future FMW wrestler Mr. Chin as his partner and manager with Tsurumi and Chin acting as if they were foreigners to make up for the fact that IWE could no longer afford to bring in as many foreign wrestlers as they previously had. Tsurumi would end up taking part in the a cage match against Terry Gibbs which would go to a Double KO in what would end up being the last match in IWE history. before it would close down.

Tsurumi would begin working in All Japan as a freelancer as well as touring around CWA in Germany and Stampede Wrestling in Calgary. He would end up turning heel in All Japan in March 1983 during a Lumberjack Death Match between Genichiro Tenryu and Umanosuke Ueda when he would hand Ueda a weapon during the match. He also would end up forming a tag team with the One Man Gang and eventually enter form a stable with Rusher Kimura, Ryuma Go, and Apollo Sugawara called the International Blood Alliance Army with the group coming to an end in June 1985.

He would wrestle in All Japan until June 1990 when the rival SWS promotion would start and he would end up joining. It would come out that Tsurumi had not been recruited by SWS like some other All Japan wrestlers like Tenryu but he had contacted Shogun KY Wakamatsu from his IWE days and asked him if he could join SWS with them finding a spot for him. He would lose his first match in SWS on September 29, 1990 against George Takano where he lost but received high praise for his performance. SWS would be a huge financial failure though and close down in June 1992.

SWS would be broken up into two new promotions. WAR and NOW. NOW would be started by George and Shunji Takano with Tsurumi joining that promotion where he would begin to have boxing matches with his opponents. NOW would be another money pit although not nearly as much as SWS and Tsurumi would end up leaving the promotion in October 1993 a year before they would close their doors.

Tsurumi would appear in FMW for the first time in January 1994 as he would come to the ring in a mask to help Mr. Pogo attack Atsushi Onita with the mask being taken off and Tsurumi's identity being revealed. Tsurumi would work in FMW teaming with Mr. Pogo's heel group against Atsushi Onita's FMW team in Street Fights and No Rope Barbed wire Death Matches until leaving FMW in October 1994.

This is when he would become one of the godfathers of the independent sleaze scene. He start up his own promotion IWA Kakuto-Shijuku while also joining Pro-Wrestling Union. He would also begin working West Japan, Ryuma Go's Go Gundan, SPWF, Tokyo Pro as well as the PWC promotion where he would be the masked Uchu Power X.

He would also help train wrestlers Takashi Sasaki and Sanshiro Takagi during this time. IWA Kakuto-Shijuku would eventually become IWA Kokusai in 1997 and he would continue to run shows in Yokohama before retiring in 2006. He would come out of retirement and eventually work Sanshiro Takagi's DDT's Ryogoku Sumo Hall shows in 2009 and 2010 as well as wrestle a two minute match against Takashi Sasaki in FREEDOMS on January 6, 2011 to honor the 15th year anniversary of Takashi Sasaki in pro-wrestling.

Goro's last match would take place on May 4, 2012 for DDT's Union Pro promotion at Korakuen Hall as Goro Tsurumi would team up with his kayfabe sons Goro Jr. who was supposed to be his son that he fathered while in Germany and El Hijo del Goro who was supposed to be his son he fathered while in Mexico. His health had declined so much around this time that a year later in 2013 he announced that he could no longer wrestle again.

Tsurumi began to be hospitalized regularly in Kanagawa since 2014 due to his leg ulcers. FREEDOMS, DDT, and Naoshi Sano all worked together to sell Goro Tsurumi Aid t-shirts to help cover his hospital bills and treatment costs. Tsurumi had also been dealing with hypertension and diabetes. Takashi Sasaki still went to go see him as much as he could in the hospital, but it became more difficult due to COVID. Takashi Sasaki stated after announcing his passing that Goro Tsurumi was so loved and his professional wrestling has been inherited by many wrestlers and he will continue to live on through them.

Added: 8/24

Atsushi Onita returned to America for the third time in under a year as he would once again participate at Battleground Championship Wrestling's August 6, 2022 show at the 2300 Arena in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This match was setup after Bully Ray defeated The Great Nita back on March 26th at the promotions previous show when Sabu would make a surprise appearance and turn on Onita to help Bully Ray get the win in the FMW vs. ECW match.

The FMW vs. ECW feud would continue as Onita would team up with Chainsaw Tony who did some work for the Super Battle FMW promotion in 2017 as they would take on Bully Ray and PCO who did three house show appearances in June and July 2000 for ECW before losing to Justin Credible in a ECW Heavyweight Title Match back on July 8, 2000 at the ECW Arena in his final gig for the promotion.

This match would be a Barbed wire Board Death Match and Onita would come out last and in the ramp re-enact his infamous April 10, 1999 Tokyo Dome entrance where he would sit down on a chair and smoke a cigarette before making his way to the ring. Onita and Bully would square off at first while PCO and Tony would go at it with one another. Onita would take a chair and smash it over Bully Ray's head before delivering a DDT to him before grabbing a guitar, but Bully would end up grabbing it from him and smash the guitar over Onita's head. Onita would exit out of the ring and come back bloodied across the face as he would grab a barbed wire baseball bat, but PCO would then end up spearing Onita through the barbed wire board. Bully would then place Tony on a table on the outside as PCO would deliver a dive off the turnbuckle sending Tony through the table on the outside as the match would be pretty much left to Onita and Bully at this point.

Bully would setup a table in the ring, but Onita would get up and begin using the barbed wire bat on Bully's face with Bully managing to pick up Onita and try to powerbomb him through the table, but there would not be enough force as Onita would end up just falling down off the table without it breaking. Bully would then lay Onita on the table as one of the table's legs would come undone with Onita sliding off the table as Bully would look up in the air frustrated over the messed up table spots. Bully would then lay Onita down on the table and dive off the middle turnbuckle sending Onita through it and making the cover but Onita would manage to kick out. Bully would then grab a chain with Onita spitting red mist in Bully's face and delivering a DDT to Bully followed by smashing Bully over the head with a chair and then another DDT to get the win at 14 minutes, 30 seconds for the FMW team.

Onita would then get on the mic and pretty much cut the promo he did with Matt Tremont back in 2017 where he would tell Bully Ray that he wanted him to come to Japan and that he would show him an explosion match. Onita would then begin chanting FMW like the ECW fans would chant ECW before throwing the mic back to Bully Ray. Bully would just state very calmly that he was fine with going to Japan for an exploding barbed wire death match and then begin getting the fans to chant ECW before saying that he had  torn his hamstring and was going to the hospital before leaving. Bully would limp to the back as Onita would celebrate before again sitting down on the chair on the ramp all bloody and smoking a cigarette in victory.

A Japanese reporter for the Miruhon website that was at the show and covering it for their website mentioned about the possibility that Bully Ray appearing for the next two FMW-E shows in October. I don't think that is likely at all though, as even if Bully Ray was injury free after stating he tore his hamstring, I do not see him coming to Japan to work two shows up in Hokkaido. It would most likely be something next year and in the Tokyo region if it were to happen and after he has recovered from his injury if it were to ever really happen.

The next big show for Atsushi Onita was supposed to be on August 13, 2022 where he was going to wrestle in a Kawasaki stadium although not the Kawasaki Stadium, but instead the Kawasaki Todoroki Stadium which is a soccer stadium. The event was going to sponsored by the Kawasaki Frontale soccer team as they were planning on having an Exploding Barbed wire Baseball Bat Exploding Landmine Death Match with Onita an hour before the soccer game between Kawasaki Frontale against the Kyoko Sanga FC. The game though would end up getting canceled due to a typhoon of 45 mph winds making landfall in Shizuoka which is about 80 miles away from Kawasaki and thus the match would be cancelled also. The match was supposed to be Onita teaming up with Raijin Yaguchi and Ricky Fuji against Mr. Pogo, Onryo, and Yuko Miyamoto. Onita would end up appearing at the stadium and cut a promo in the rain about the match being cancelled.

After the video camera would be turned off, Onita would end up getting attacked by Mr. Pogo, Onryo, Yuko Miyamoto, and Miss Mongol with Miyamoto putting on a soccer referee jersey as it would become a no people in attendance explosion match as Onita would fight back by pulling out his exploding bat that he brought with him and then nailing Onryo with it which would knock Pogo and Miyamoto down as the heels would retreat away from Onita. Although it was not really a match, this was compared to the Exploding Barbed wire Jungle Death Match on June 30, 1992 between Atsushi Onita and Tiger Jeet Singh that also had no one in attendance. Onita at the end stated "Next year, I will get my revenge here at Todoroki Stadium, the home of the Kawasaki Frontale!"

Atsushi Onita would then be scheduled to wrestle on August 20, 2022 for the Niigata Pro promotion at the Niigata City Bandaijima Multipurpose Square but he would announce before the show that he had been dealing with a lot of pain in his knee going back to the August 6th match against Bully Ray in Philadelphia and it only felt worse after getting jumped by the wrestlers at Kawasaki Todoroki Stadium a week later. Onita had been dealing with so much pain in his knee that he decided on August 19th to get an X-Ray at the hospital, and it was found that he had right knee lateral collateral ligament damage. The doctor would tell Onita that he should not wrestle the next day and needed to let it heal. Onita stated that he was always taught by Giant Baba that if you are advertised for a show, you can not miss it. So Onita instead would get a 4 block (4 shots) injection of painkillers while at the hospital to make it through the match.

Onita would be paired with Jun Kasai and Big Japan's Hideyoshi Kamitani as a tag team. This would be the first time that Onita and Kasai have teamed up as they feuded in 2013 in FREEDOMS against one another before the feud just kind of ended with neither one really having a desire to job to one another and since then they had randomly been paired against each other in tag matches for small independent promotions like this one through out the years, but this would be the first time they would be on the same team against Niigata Pro's Shigeno Shima, Abdullah Kobayashi, and Daisuke Sekimoto.

Onita dealing with the severe knee pain during the match would not even try to do a Thunder Fire Powerbomb in the match, but instead use the neck breaker which was a trademark Giant Baba move who was from Niigata with Onita getting the pin over Shima at 16 minutes, 15 seconds for the win. Onita then got on the mic and requested that time he appear for Niigata Pro he wanted to have an explosion match with Shima as he planned on getting rid of Shima that way. Both Kasai and Kobayashi stated that if Niigata Pro does an explosion match, they would both participate again in that match.

Onita will get about two weeks to rest his injured right knee before he will wrestle for DDT in an explosion match that Konosuke Takeshita stated would be an exploding barbed wire match. He will then get another two week break before he participates for All Japan's 50th Anniversary show on September 18, 2022 at Budokan Hall as he teams up with Masa Fuchi and Shiro Koshinaka against Great Kojika, Yoshiaki Yatsu, and Masao Inoue.

Then five days after that he will participate for a double shot for the Fire Blast Wrestling promotion on September 23rd and September 24th. The Fire Blast Wrestling is the official new name for Fire Pro-Wrestling that started back up in 2016 and then stopped running from 2017 to 2019 before running one show in 2020 and then nothing again until starting to run every couple of months this past Spring. This promotion is sponsored by a company called Office Raddy and have nothing to do with FMW-E and seem to be in a small little competition with them despite using a lot of the same top wrestlers for the shows. Office Raddy also announced that the September 23rd and 24th shows will be taped and sliced into one show with the top matches from both cards streaming on an unannounced streaming device. It was announced that Atsushi Onita will team up with Masakatsu Funaki on September 23rd against Osamu Nishimura and a Mystery Partner (Mr. Pogo is on the show, but that seems too obvious and Drew Parker is also going to be on the show) in a Exploding Barbed wire Bat, Exploding Landmines, Exploding Rocket, and Exploding Coffin Death Match.

Onita will then go one another week before touring up in Hokkaido on October 1st and 2nd in Ashikawa and Tobetsu for the FMW-E promotion. The only other match Onita has booked after that is a return to Big Japan on October 28th for a house show in Ishikawa. Onita when asked about the possibility of missing any of those shows due to his injury, Onita stated "As long as there are fans waiting to see, I will never rest!" and declared he would not any of the shows.

Atsushi Onita's name came up in the national news in Japan for an infamous incident that took place in 2007. Masafumi Mori who serves as the aide to the Prime Minster was revealed to have attended a party thrown by Atsushi Onita at his luxury apartment back in 2007. Mori was appointed as aide to the of the Prime Minister this past January and it was reported on August 19, 2022 about how he attended the party where Onita brought in seven women including several Adult Video actresses, a 19 year old cabaret club woman, and a companion of Onita who was in their 20s for the party.

The story had always been told that it was Onita using government funds to have a threesome with a adult video actresses and a woman who worked for the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transportation at this party. It turns out that it was actually Mr. Mori who worked for the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transportation that attended the party as his name had always been kept out of the public. It was reported that three of the seven women who were at the party ended up leaving and going home after doing some stripping for the men. Onita then whispered into one of the adult video actresses ear, "You can use my room" as Mori would end up going into one room with two of the women at the party and Onita went into another room with two of the women at the party. Onita ended up resigning from his position back in 2007 two days before the story originally came out although last year when doing his shoot interview he stated that his term was up and he just did not run again with not wanting to make any reference about this scandal.

The Jun Kasai promoted Shin-Kiba Death Match Carnival would take place on July 21, 2022 at Shin-Kiba 1st Ring with an announced crowd of 201 fans as it seems that restrictions are starting to ease with them allowing more than 150 or so people in the building which has been the limit for over a year at this point.

The main event would be a Fluorescent Light Tubes TLC Death Match between Daisuke Masaoka and Jun Kasai against Violento Jack and Drew Parker. Kasai and Jack would square off and battle over a stack of light tubes with Kasai headbutting the light tube over Jack's head and follow that up by hitting him with a Reverse Tiger Driver. Masaoka would then climb up to the top of the ladder, but Jack would get up and superplex Masaoka off the ladder followed by Parker hitting him with a Swanton off the top of the ladder on a stack of light tubes laid across Masaoka's body to get the pin at 17 minutes, 25 seconds for the ERE win. Parker would then challenge Masaoka for the King of Freedom World Championship with Masaoka not caring where the match would be held with Masaoka accepting and the match being made for the next Korakuen Hall show on August 29th.

Tatsuhito Takaiwa's 30th Anniversary Match would be the semi-main event as Takaiwa would team up with GENTARO to take on Takashi Sasaki and Tomoya Hirata as Sasaki would suplex Takaiwa off the turnbuckle, but Takaiwa get right up and deliver a clothesline to Sasaki. Takaiwa would then grab a hold of Sasaki and GENTARO would begin jabbing and slapping him before Takaiwa would try to deliver a powerbomb to Sasaki with Hirata coming up from behind and delivering a German Suplex to Takaiwa. Sasaki would then look to gain control by delivering a suplex to Takaiwa but it would get reversed with Takaiwa delivering a Brainbuster on him and then taking Sasaki to the turnbuckle where he would deliver a Death Valley Bomb off the turnbuckle to get the win at 14 minutes, 10 seconds over Sasaki. Takaiwa would then be presented flowers for his 30th anniversary as he had made his debut on July 21, 1992.

Toru Sugiura, Masashi Takeda, and Rina Yamashita would team up to defeat Toshiyuki Sakuda, Brown Rat Fukki, and Kyu Mogami when Takeda would end up hitting Fukki with a Reverse U Crash to get the win over him at 13 minutes, 54 seconds in a Hardcore Match. Mataro Aoki would defeat Dragon Libre at 9 minutes, 36 seconds with a Mataro Clutch. The opening match would be Kamui and Leo Isaka defeating Jun Masaoka and Rekka when Kamui would pick up the win at 12 minutes, 10 seconds with the Iomante over Rekka. Click here for the highlights of the Jun Kasai Productions 7/21/22 show.

The next Jun Kasai promoted Shin-Kiba Death Match Carnival Volume 2 would take place on August 12, 2022 drawing an announced 224 fans for the show which is the biggest FREEDOMS show at Shin-Kiba since they did 290 fans for the Unchain Night back in 2019. This event would typically be the annual Unchain Night but Unchain now is officially over after 10 years and the show was instead promoted as a Jun Kasai booked Death Match show which typically do better than your average FREEDOMS show.

The main event would be Daisuke Masaoka, Toru Sugiura, and Tomoya Hirata taking on Violento Jack, Drew Parker, and Toshiyuki Sakuda in a Fluorescent Light Tubes Death Match. Masaoka and Parker would square off with one another with Masaoka hitting Parker with a pump handle Fire Thunder before Jack and Hirata would go at it with one another as Hirata would end up breaking a stack of light tubes that Jack had been holding and deliver a clothesline to Jack. Hirata would then try for a German Suplex to Jack but Jack would manage to overpower Hirata and bring him to the mat and place him an Octopus Hold while also stapling Hirata's forehead for Hirata to give up at 20 minutes, 43 seconds for the ERE win. Jack and Sakuda would then challenge Sugiura and Hirata for the King of Freedom Tag Team Titles for the August 29th Korakuen Hall show.

The semi-main event would be Jun Kasai and Masashi Takeda teaming up to take on Brown Rat Fukki and Kyu Mogami in a Weapons Death Match. Takeda would try to powerbomb Mogami on broken cans with the lids sticking open but after that would not work, Takeda would go for a spear with Mogami drop toe holding Takeda down to the cans with Takeda stopping himself just short of going into them, but just moments later Mogami would come down and stomp Takeda into the broken cans. Brown Rat Fukki would then place a fishing hook in Takeda's lip and move Takeda around with his fishing pole before Takeda and Mogami would end up squaring off with Takeda getting the better end of it and eventually hitting Mogami with a Reverse U Crash to get the win at 13 minutes, 18 seconds as Kasai and Takeda would continue to bicker backstage with one another.

Takashi Sasaki and Takahiro Katori would team up to defeat MYWAY's Sho-ki and Yousei Estrella when Katori would pick up the win at 14 minutes, 3 seconds with a Amunija. Kamui would defeat Jun Masaoka at 8 minutes, 54 seconds with a Kamui Clutch and the opening match would be Tatsuhito Takaiwa and GENTARO defeating Dragon Libre and Rekka when Takaiwa would finish Libre off at 11 minutes, 23 seconds with a Death Valley Bomb. Click here for highlights of the Jun Kasai Productions 8/12/22 show.

The Jun Kasai Osaka Death Match Carnival would take place on August 21, 2022 at the Osaka Active Square Daito with an announced crowd of 298 fans for the show. The main event would be a Fluorescent Light Tubes Scaffold Death Match between Daisuke Masaoka and Jun Kasai against Drew Parker and Toshiyuki Sakuda. Kasai would be the first one to use the scaffold as he would end up hitting a Pearl Harbor Splash off the scaffold onto Sakuda but then as Masaoka would go for the pinfall attempt on Sakuda he would be met with a Swanton Bomb off the scaffold by Parker. Kasai would then grab Parker and nail him with a Reverse Tiger Driver as Masaoka would climb the top of the scaffold and deliver a Rokkura Kai Knee Drop off the scaffold to the pinfall at 15 minutes, 46 seconds over Sakuda. Masaoka and Parker would get right in each others faces afterwards with their title match coming up at Korakuen Hall.

The semi-main event would be Toru Sugiura and Rina Yamashita taking on Violento Jack and Brown Rat Fukki in a Weapons Death Match. Fukki would end up placing his fish hook in Yamashita's mouth and then delivering a fisherman suplex to her with Sugiura having to make the save to break the count. Sugiura and Jack would then begin exchanging strikes to one another followed by Sugiura hitting Jack with a rolling discus punch, but then Jack would come back and nail Sugiura with a lariat. Jack would then climb up to the top and hit a Swanton Bomb off on Sugiura, but then Yamashita would hit the ring and nail Jack with a lariat followed by Sugiura finishing Fukki at 15 minutes, 30 seconds with the Soul Driver for the win.

Takashi Sasaki and Tomoya Hirata would defeat Gunso and Mataro Aoki when Hirata would pin Aoki at 10 minutes, 34 seconds with a Lariat. Kamui and Kohei Kinoshita would defeat GENTARO and Dragon Libre at 14 minutes, 35 seconds when Kamui would pin GENTARO at 14 minutes, 35 seconds with the Iomante. Tatsuhito Takaiwa would defeat Jun Masaoka at 9 minutes, 46 seconds with the Death Valley Bomb. Brahman Shu and Brahman Kei would get the win in the opening match over Idea and Dyna Mido at 8 minutes, 49 seconds when Shu would roll up Mido with the Nobody's Perfect. Click here to watch highlights of the Jun Kasai Productions 8/21/22 show.

The next show will take place on August 29, 2022 at Korakuen Hall for the final Jun Kasai Death Match Carnival show of the summer as this has in the past been the biggest FREEDOMS show of the year, although even Takashi Sasaki has admitted the the card is not going to draw as much hype as some the previous Death Match Carnival shows. The main event will be Daisuke Masaoka defending the King of Freedom World Championship in a "Fly High Glass Board Death Match" the fly high part would make it seem like there would be some type of scaffolding device for the match, but that has not been officially said.

The semi-main event will be Toru Sugiura and Tomoya Hirata defending the King of Freedom Tag Team Titles against Violento Jack and Toshiyuki Sakuda in a Fluorescent Light Tubes Human Slicer Death Match. Jun Kasai and Rina Yamashita will team up to take on Masashi Takeda and Minoru Fujita in a Weapons Tornado Street Fight Death Match. This is Minoru Fujita's return to FREEDOMS as after being out for a couple of months due to having a really bad bout with COVID he ended up seriously injuring his eye back in April and has just recently been able to come back from that. Takashi Sasaki will team up with Jun Masaoka and Dragon Libre against Brown Rat Fukki, Kyu Mogami, and Mataro Aoki in a Hardcore Match. GENTARO and Kamui will team up to take on Takahiro Katori and Leo Isaka. The opening match will be Tatsuhito Takaiwa and Rekka taking on Brahman Shu and Brahman Kei in a Tokyo Homeless Man Death Match.

FREEDOMS will then return to the Shizuoka Twin Messe on September 3, 2022 as the main event will be Daisuke Masaoka, Takashi Sasaki, and Masashi Takeda taking on Drew Parker, Toshiyuki Sakuda, and Brown Rat Fukki in a Fluorescent Light Tubes Death Match. The semi-main event will be Jun Kasai and Violento Jack in a Empty Can Board Razor Cross Board Death Match. It is interesting that this is being made the semi-main event since this feud has always been one of the bigger feuds with the company including main eventing the Christmas Death Match show at Korakuen Hall just last year. Toru Sugiura and Tomoya Hirata will team up to take on Takumi Tsukamoto and Kamui in a Hardcore Match. Rina Yamashita and Mataro Aoki will team up to take on Brahman Shu and Brahman Kei. The opening match will be Tatsuhito Takaiwa and GENTARO against Dragon Libre and Takahiro Katori. FREEDOMS was originally supposed to run at this building back on July 31st, but the show was postponed after Masashi Takeda, Toru Sugiura, Brown Rat Fukki, and Rina Yamashita all end up testing positive for COVID following the July 21st Shin-Kiba 1st Ring show.

FREEDOMS also announced that GCW will be returning to Japan for the first time since February 2020. The names listed for the tour will be Alex Colon, Jimmy Lloyd, Joey Janela, SHLAK, Effie, John Wayne Murdoch, Jordan Oliver, Mance Warner, and Nick Wayne as well as FREEDOMS wrestlers will be participating as well. The shows will take place on September 26th, September 27th, and October 4th at the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring. The GCW wrestlers will also be participating on the Big Japan September 29th Korakuen Hall show and the FREEDOMS October 2nd Korakuen Hall show as well as any other show that they can get booked in the mean time.

The A-Team promotion would run their biggest show of the year on July 31, 2022 at the Tokyo Shin-Kiba 1st Ring. The main event would be Super Tiger defending his WEW Heavyweight Title with Hashimoto getting the win at 11 minutes, 29 seconds with the XCT to end Super Tiger's 20 month reign as champion. The semi-main event would see Masahiro Sase and Iori Sugawara defending their WEW Tag Team Titles against Daisaku Shimoda and Kosaku Tonozaki with Shimoda and Tonozaki winning the belts after Tonozaki would get the pin at 15 minutes, 31 seconds after hitting Iori with a Shion Lariat for the win. MIKAMI would defend his WEW Jr. Heavyweight Title against Takumi Sakurai with Sakurai picking up the win for the title at 13 minutes, 41 seconds after hitting MIKAMI with a Moonsault to win the title. Ryoji Sai and HASEGAWA would defeat Yoshitatsu and Joji Otani when Sai would pin Otani at 26 minutes, 46 seconds with a Akagawa Iron Bridge. Koji Kanemoto would defeat Raiden at 11 minutes, 46 seconds after making him tap out to an Ankle Lock. Yoshihiro Doguchi and Jin would defeat Bryan Ishizaka and Hashinosuke when Jin would pin Ishizaka at 10 minutes, 14 seconds with a Sneak Attack. The opening match would be Kaz Shibano's Debut Match as he would team up with Gran Masaru and Rionne Mizuki to defeat Takahiro Tanobaba, Rekka, and Raito Shimizu when Masaru would pin Shimizu at 11 minutes, 28 seconds with a Brainbuster.

Mitsuhiro Matsunaga and Megumi Kudo held a FMW Talk Event on August 7, 2022 at Toudoukan along with Kazuhiro Kojima who wrote the FMW book that was released last month entitled "The men who made FMW" covering the 1989-1991 time frame up until the first Kawasaki Stadium show. The event was very COVID cautious as Kudo and Matsunaga along with everyone in attendance wore masks the entire time, and there were no personal pictures taken with fans afterwards, but just one big group shot together. Matsunaga feels he probably ended up talking much, but Kudo also felt like her memory probably was not the best as Matsunaga has a much better memory than her about that time period of the early days of FMW, but he wasn't around that much as well since he left after just two months following the creation of FMW to follow his karate director Masashi Aoyagi. There will be another talk event at Toudoukan this time on September 19, 2022 with Atsushi Onita and Kazuhiro Kojima discussing the book which Kojima did not interview Onita for the book and wanted to focus on the other people that helped create FMW since Onita's side of the story has been told so many times.

I did manage to read the book over the last week although with the translation aspect, I will need to go back and go through it again in a more detailed fashion in trying to make a FMW Stories episode from it. One interesting story in it was when W*ING was created Mickey Ibaragi after already getting Mr. Pogo to leave FMW with him, he felt he needed two more FMW wrestlers to leave and join W*ING with him. Ricky Fuji who he asked in person and Ricky told him no and Megumi Kudo who he never could meet in person, so he left her a voice mail on her answering machine and she never responded. Kudo in the book stated that she has no memory of ever even getting that message, but probably would not have left FMW anyway.

Mr. Gannosuke recently did a video on his YouTube channel about the health status of Hayabusa's mother. Gannosuke who now lives in Yatsushiro, Kumamoto where Hayabusa's mothers side of the family has lived for decades and ran the Hinagu Onsen Ryokan Kotobuki which is a traditional Japanese style hot springs hotel.

The hotel was always very popular in the area as Hayabusa who lived there with his family growing up remembered people coming in and out at all hours of the day and night through out his child hood. Hayabusa's mother and father took control over of the hotel from Hayabusa's grandparents in the 1970s and it was always expected since Hayabusa was the oldest child that he would inherit the hotel once he got older and his parents would decide to step aside. Hayabusa deciding to become a pro-wrestler and not telling his parents that he had been accepted into the FMW Dojo 1991 caused a huge fight among the Ezaki family with Hayabusa being kicked out of the hotel where they lived with Hayabusa feeling while training and living at the FMW Dojo that he could not quit, because he had nowhere else to go if he quit. Hayabusa also did have a younger brother Takanori but no there was never a reason given on why it would not be expected for him to take over the hotel once it was clear that Hayabusa would not and then eventually could not.

Hayabusa did end up seeing his family again a year later for the first time in 1992 when FMW would tour in Kumamoto, but it would not be until 1995 when Hayabusa would become a star in FMW and FMW was running in Southern Japan that the family and him would make up and get back on good terms with one another. Hayabusa's father would end up passing away in 2010 and then Hayabusa himself would ended up passing away in 2016. Hayabusa's mother would continue to run the hotel herself including creating a shrine of Hayabusa in one of the rooms in the hotel which would include Hayabusa's urn as there was never a tombstone created for him in another location.

Mr. Gannosuke ended up going to visit Hayabusa's mother in March for the 6th year anniversary of Hayabusa's passing where they took the picture above. Gannosuke stated they mostly talked about medicine as Hayabusa's mother had been dealing with declining health including her memory getting worse. Gannosuke stated that each time he would show up at the hotel, that even though she never forgot who he was, it seemed to take longer each time for her to recognize who he was. Gannosuke stated then stated around May or June that he was working at his nursing facility when he got a call from a co-worker that Hayabusa's mother had moved in to that nursing facility which was the first time he had been made aware that she had even planned on moving out of the hotel that she had always lived at since he has known her. Gannosuke wanted it to be known that since she has moved into the nursing facility, that the hot springs hotel she ran is now closed as many people in Japan would travel to Yatsushiro as a pilgrimage to see the hotel that Hayabusa grew up in and he didn't want people to do the travel and then find out the hotel was closed.

Gannosuke also told the story about how in 2018 he was helping Hayabusa's mom with the hotel and took Hayabusa's white mask that he had worn before in matches that she had gain possession of after his passing, and ended up putting out in front of the door so it could gain attention to any wrestling fan that would know Hayabusa and his mask as a way of advertising the hotel. It was only a couple of weeks later that the one morning it was discovered that the mask was gone. Gannosuke was shocked as that is an area where nobody ever even locks their doors, so he would not expect for someone to steal something like that. The mask still has not been found after four years although Gannosuke holds out hope that one day the person that took it will decide to return it.

Masashi Takeda recently did a interview back in June about his return to pro-wrestling for Weekly Pro Magazine. Takeda talks about the night he found his wife having died in their house after coming back home from drinking. He talks about his depression following until Jun Kasai reached out to him and asked him to come back to pro-wrestling because he felt like someone was going to need to push him to do so. Takeda then talked about his 2 year old daughter and although now being a single dad has caused some logistic issues as far as his returning back to the ring, he wanted to come back to show his daughter how cool he is to be a death match wrestler. He also talked about the storyline reason why he separated from Jun Kasai back in January 2021 to form ERE and why he came back no longer aligned with them. You can check out the interview that I was able to translate at http://fmwwrestling.us/Takeda22.html

Added: 7/20

Seishin Kaikan founder Masashi Aoyagi ended up passing away on July 6, 2022 with no cause of his passing having been released other than it was was sudden. Aoyagi had appeared at his Seishin Kaikan Karate Dojo two days earlier for a training session and did not come across as in bad shape health wise from anyone that saw him that day. Aoyagi's passing comes just a little a little over a month after Tarzan Goto's passing as Goto like Aoyagi were two very important factors in the very beginning stages of FMW.

Atsushi Onita had been been working for the Martial Arts Union which was made up of former UWF and New Japan employees who did not like the New UWF promotion that was very hot at the time with its shoot style matches. It was decided that Atsushi Onita along with the Martial Arts Union would start up its own independent promotion with the main idea of pro-wrestler vs. karate to show that a pro-wrestler could defeat a shoot style fighter. Onita reached out to World Karate Association President World Karate Association Hisao Maki on what karate star would make a good opponent for him and he chose Masashi Aoyagi.

This lead to their first match on July 2, 1989 at Korakuen Hall with Aoyagi having control of their bout and Onita feeling like he was going to lose and instead started headbutting Aoyagi and then throw the referee out of the ring to get himself DQ'd with Onita's pro-wrestlers and Aoyagi's karate fighters brawling all inside the ring. This would lead to the the very first FMW show on October 6, 1989 in Nagoya with Onita and Maki co-promoting it as Aoyagi would end up once again getting the win after Monkey Magic Wakita who would go on to become Super Delfin who was in Onita's corner would end up throwing in the towel to give Aoyagi the win again although both Onita and Aoyagi's sides would brawl once again to a great reaction from the crowd.

This would then setup the third match between Onita and Aoyagi on October 10, 1989 at Korakuen Hall with Onita finally getting the win over Aoyagi on the third try. These shows were huge successes as not only were the buildings packed but the crowd was so electric as it was a mix of wrestling and karate fans attending both cheering their favorite to win and yelling and cursing at the other side for not cheering for their favorite.

Onita and Maki's working relationship would end after this set of shows and Onita would take over as owner of FMW. Onita knowing FMW was starting off as poor promotion would not offer Aoyagi the amount of money he wanted to continue on with FMW and Aoyagi would pull out of FMW in January 1990.

Both Onita and Aoyagi would continue to feud off and on spread out through the years including them having an No Ropes Exploding Barbed wire Double Hell Death Match on August 28, 1994 in FMW with Onita getting the win over Aoyagi all the way up until August 15, 2022 for an FMW-E show in Osaka for a 6 Man Exploding Barbed wire Landmines Death Match although very little interaction between Onita and Aoyagi would actually happen as Aoyagi would not really be in the physical condition to do much at that point.

While Goto was the right hand man for FMW and Onita, it would be Aoyagi that was the original antagonist and rival to Onita and FMW. Onita and Aoyagi had recently talked with Onita asking Aoyagi about his eye and Aoyagi stating that he lost vision in it, but he could still see out of the other and that meant he could still kick Onita and wanted another singles match between the two.

Atsushi Onita along with all the wrestlers for the Fire Pro-Wrestling show in Osaka at the same location that Onita and Aoyagi had their last match against one another 11 months earlier all entered the ring with Onita holding Aoyagi's picture as there was a 10 bell salute in Aoyagi's memory as he said goodbye once and for all to his rival of 32 years. Aoyagi had actually had a connection with Fire Pro-Wrestling as he became the top heel in the first year of the promotion in 2016 as he feuded with Onita with his masked Mayo-gun stable that ultimately lead to him returning to the ring in 2017 to face off against Onita right before his seventh retirement.

Fire Pro-Wrestling ran at the Osaka Tsurumi Green Forest Hana Exhibition Park on July 17, 2022 with 512 fans announced for the show. The main event would be Atsushi Onita and Raijin Yaguchi taking on Osamu Nishimura and Yutaka Yoshie in a Scramble Bunkhouse Exploding Barbed wire Baseball Bats, Exploding Barbed wire Barricade, and an Exploding Rocket Death Match. This match between Onita and Nishimura started back on May 1, 2022 in Fire Pro when Onita and Nishimura were teaming up and Nishimura accidentally hit Onita over the head with an exploding chair.

Nishimura would end up sending Onita into a table in the corner and then doing a spinning toe hold on Onita as Yoshie would turn on the exploding bat with Nishimura hitting Onita across the chest with it. Nishimura would then place Onita in a sleeper as they would all get in the corner with everyone in the match when one of Nishimura's seconds would get on the apron and hit the button on the turnbuckle to set off the exploding rocket that would hit the ring knocking everyone down. Nishimura and Onita would then begin fighting towards the ropes when Yoshie would come and knock Onita down into the exploding barbed wire barricade creating a huge explosion.

Mr. Pogo would then come down ringside with a blow torch and began to set Onita's back on fire with it with water having to dumped on Onita quickly. Nishimura and Yoshie turned on the exploding bats with each taking one and would end up smashing Yaguchi with them as Nishimura would cover him to get the win at 12 minutes, 11 seconds for the Muga win. Mr. Pogo would then come in the ring and hold up both Nishimura and Yoshie's arms in victory with Nishimura not wanting anything to do with Pogo.

The semi-main event would be Shadow WX as Mr. Pogo, Onryo, and the Devil Magician taking on Tsuyoshi Okada, HASEGAWA, and Shota Nakagawa in a Exploding Coffin Fire Weapons Death Match. The coffin would be placed in the ring early on in the match as everyone would brawl outside the ring. They would get back in the ring with Okada and Nakagawa holding on to Mr. Pogo as HASEGAWA would grab a triple spark shooter and begin shooting it at Pogo. Pogo would come back though and grab a missile and that would shoot fireworks out at the back of Okada's head. Pogo would then throw HASEGAWA in the coffin with Onryo putting the lid on it as Pogo would blow fire at the coffin causing it to explode with HASEGAWA in it to end the match at 15 minutes, 31 seconds for the Pogo team victory. HASEGAWA would be taken to the hospital afterwards to be treated for burns on his neck from the match. The highlights below are probably the only footage that will ever exist of this match, as it is highly unlikely anything ever complete of this airs anywhere, but this match looked to be insane from the highlights alone. Click here for highlights of the Fire Pro-Wrestling 7/17/22 show

Atsushi Onita will then return to the United States for his 5th since 2017 when he returns to the Battleground Championship Wrestling on August 6, 2022 at the 2300 Arena in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This match is a continuation of the Onita vs. Bully Ray match that took place back in March where Bully won. This will be a Street Fight with Onita teaming up with Chainsaw Tony against Bully Ray as well as PCO who also ended up fighting Onita while Onita was in Dallas the following week.

Onita will then return to DDT on September 4, 2022 at the Nagoya Congress Center Event Hall where he team up with Shinya Aoki and Yukio Naya against Konosuke Takeshita, Shunma Katsumata, and Toi Kojima in what DDT has just described as an "Explosion Match" but Takeshita responded to that saying it would be a Exploding Barbed wire Death Match. That just might mean putting barbed wire over the ropes and making them have explosions to them like FMW-E was doing last year and not the No Ropes Exploding Barbed wire Death Match that Onita seems to have stopped doing since 2017.

Then Onita will do a pair of shows at the Osaka Tsurumi Green Forest Hana Exhibition Park on September 23, 2022 and September 24, 2022 with the first show being a new promotion entitled "Fire Blast Wrestling" followed by a Fire Pro-Wrestling show the next day. That tells me that the Fire Blast Wrestling will be from a new sponsor and the Fire Pro-Wrestling show wil be a sponsor from the same people that sponsored the July show in the same park as the park allows no restrictions from being able to do as much as explosions and fire as they want unlike any building they would run at.

FMW-E has announced that they will be returning for the first time since their one show in April for back to back shows on October 1, 2022 and October 2, 2022 in Hokkaido. No official building has been announced yet. These two shows much like the April show will be promoted by a sponsor as FMW-E owner Hidetaka Kajiki seems to be pretty much finished with putting money into the shows himself as he has not promoted one since December 2021. That is similar to what Super Battle FMW did in 2018 when Hideki Takahashi who was promoting them had finished up with the promotion in December, but continued to have sponsors pay to book the shows themselves with the core talent for a couple of more months until that ended and the promotion quietly closed down. Onita still refers to himself as a FMW-E wrestler, but it seems more like Fire Pro-Wrestling has become the home for Onita and Shadow WX as Mr. Pogo since it seems like it is going to be running more frequently as they are looking to hold shows every two months compared to the every 5 or 6 months that FMW-E has been doing this year.

FREEDOMS would return to Shin-Kiba 1st Ring on June 9, 2022 and announce a crowd of 132 fans for the show. The main event would be Daisuke Masaoka, Toru Sugiura, and Rina Yamashita taking on Violento Jack, Brown Rat Fukki, and Toshiyuki Sakuda in a Fluorescent Light Tubes Death Match with Sugiura and Yamashita taking two light tubes and smashing with them right elbows breaking both light tubes against Sakuda followed by Masaoka hitting a Fire Thunder on him. Sugiura would then take a light tube and hit a running elbow which is now called the MIGIHIZI breaking a light tube across Sakuda and pin him at 15 minutes, 9 seconds for the win.

Jun Kasai would take on Kyu Mogami in a 4 Corners Ultraviolent Death Match with Kasai picking up the win at 12 minutes, 10 seconds after hitting Mogami with a Stimulation on a fork board for the win. GENTARO would defeat Kengo at 8 minutes, 27 seconds to setup him as a contender for the UWA Jr. Heavyweight Title. Takashi Sasaki and Tomoya Hirata would defeat Takahiro Katori and Leo Isak when Hirata would get the win at 10 minutes, 15 seconds with a lariat over Isaka. Tatsuhito Takaiwa would team up with Kamui, Dragon Libre, and Rekka defeat Van Vert Negro, Van Vert Jack, Seiki, and Yousei Estrella when Kamui would pin Jack at 9 minutes, 4 seconds with the Mozu Otoshi in the opening match. Click here for highlights of the FREEDOMS 6/9/22 show

FREEDOMS would then run at the Yokohama Radiant Hall on June 18, 2022 and announce 103 fans for the show with a change in the card just hours before the show was to take place as ERE would announce a mystery partner to their team for the main event. The main event would be Daisuke Masaoka, Jun Kasai, Takashi Sasaki, and Tomoya Hirata taking on Violento Jack, Toshiyuki Sakuda, Brown Rat Fukki, and the newest member of ERE in Drew Parker. Parker would hit the ring and right away hit a tope con hilo onto everyone on the outside. Kasai and Parker would end up squaring off with strikes before Kasai would nail him with a headbutt and try and throw him out of the ring, but Parker would come back and hit a Diamond Cutter on Kasai followed by Jack hitting Kasai with the Amatlan to get the win at 15 minutes, 53 seconds for the ERE win.

The semi-main event would see Toru Sugiura and Rina Yamashita who had both competed for GCW earlier in the month go up against each other with Sugiura picking up the win at 16 minutes, 28 seconds after hitting her with the Swift Driver. GENTARO and Dragon Libre would team up to defeat Kengo and Takahiro Katori with GENTARO making Katori tap out at 12 minutes, 5 seconds with a Facelock to continue the build of GENTARO going for Kengo's UWA Jr. Heavyweight Title. Tatsuhito Takaiwa would defeat Leo Isaka at 9 minutes, 23 secodns with a Death Valley Bomb and the opening match would see Brahman Shu, Brahman Kei, and Rekka defeat Van Vert Negro, Van Vert Jack, and Yousei Estrella when Kei would roll up Estrella at 9 minutes, 3 seconds with Nobody's Perfect for the win. Click here for highlights of the FREEDOMS 6/18/22 show

FREEDOMS would then return to Shin-Kiba 1st Ring on June 23, 2022 and announce a crowd of 151 fans. The main event would be a Fluorescent Light Tubes Death Match with Daisuke Masaoka, Jun Kasai, Toru Sugiura, and Tomoya Hirata taking on ERE's Violento Jack, Drew Parker, Toshiyuki Sakuda, and Brown Rat Fukki with Kasai hitting a Pearl Harbor Splash on a stack of light tubes over Sakuda's body as he would kick out. Sugiura would then go for the MIGIHIZI running elbow but Mogami would interfere and Fukki would smash a stack of light tubes over Sugiura's head. Fukki would then nail Sugiura with a Reverse Tiger Driver and follow that up with a Package Pile Screwdriver to get the win at 19 minutes over Sugiura. ERE would then grab Kasai's body as Sakuda would look to hit him with a fluorescent light tube when Masashi Takeda would hit the ring and grab the light tube and smash the light tube over Sakuda's head. Takeda would then clear the ring of ERE as the fans couldn't help but begin to scream at Takeda's return. Takeda would then get on the mic to let the fans know he was back and no longer apart of ERE. Kasai would put his hand out for Takeda to shake and tell Takeda that he has been waiting for him as Takeda would refuse to shake Kasai's hand and leave the ring.

Takeda's face was expected for two reasons. One it would be hard for him to remain heel with what had happened with the passing of his wife and taking the necessary time off. Also, it was just a numbers situation as since Takeda had taken time off at the start of the year ERE had gained new members Drew Parker, Brown Rat Fukki, and Kyu Mogami. The babyface side needed somebody else new on their side.

There was also no reason to have Kasai and Takeda become friends though as although they will team, the tension between the two still will most likely lead to a singles match between the two as it is going on four years since they have had one against each other. It would be expected that they will either save it for the Christmas Death Match show or if they return to the Yokohama Budokan in May 2023. I also would expect Takeda to be the one to take the title away from Masaoka whenever they decide for that to take place.

Takashi Sasai would defeat Takahiro Katori at 15 minutes, 22 seconds with the D-Geist in the semi-main event of the show. GENTARO and Tatsuhito Takaiwa would defeat Kengo and Van Vert Negro as GENTARO and Kengo would square off in the aisle while Takaiwa would finish Negro off at 12 minutes, 52 seconds with the Death Valley Bomb. Kamui and Dragon Libre would defeat Van Vert Jack and Yousei Estrella when Kamui would pin Estrella at 10 minutes, 16 seconds with the Kamui Clutch. Brahman Shu and Brahman Kei would defeat Leo Isaka and Rekka at 8 minutes, 51 seconds when Shu would pin Rekka with the Nobody's Perfect in the opening match. Click here for highlights of the FREEDOMS 6/23/22 show

Kengo would announce on July 3, 2022 that he had been dealing with a serious neck injury for some time and was going to need to take a long period of time off as a result. Kengo would state that he had been dealing with hernias for several months due to the injury, but continued to work through them. Then in June though, his left arm became paralyzed and he knew then he needed to take time off to heal and try and get the feeling back in his arm. Kengo would decide to vacate the UWA Jr. Heavyweight Title and hand it back to Takashi Sasaki. No word on when a match for the vacant title will take place, but I would imagine it would most likely be a GENTARO match either at the August or October Korakuen Hall shows coming up.

FREEDOMS would then run their annual show at the Sendai Miyagi PIT on July 3, 2022 where they would announce a crowd of 175 fans for the show. The main event would be Daisuke Masaoka, Jun Kasai, and Takashi Sasaki taking on Violento Jack, Drew Parker, and Toshiyuki Sakuda in a Fluorescent Light Tubes Tornado Death Match. Kasai would end up pulling out skewers and shoving them in Jack's head before hitting him with a Reverse Tiger Driver. Kasai would then turn his attention to Parker who he would try and throw out of the ring before he would come back and hit Kasai with a Diamond Cutter. Jack, Parker, and Sakuda would then all climb up to the top and hit Swanton Bombs on Masaoka, Kasai, and Sasaki followed by Jack hitting a Frog Splash on a stack of light tubes to get the win at 15 minutes, 43 seconds over Kasai.

The semi-main event would see Toru Sugiura take on Brown Rat Fukki in a Weapons Death Match with Fukki doing the fish hook in the mouth spot on Sugiura before delivering a fisherman's suplex to Sugiura with the hook still in his mouth. Sugiura would fight back and hit an Over Easy on Fukki with the hook still in his mouth, but Fukki would end up rolling Sugiura up at 11 minutes, 23 seconds with a Small Package for the win. Fukki would then try for the Package Piledriver on Sugiura, but Tomoya Hirata would rush in to make the save.

Tatsuhito Takaiwa and Kamui would team up to take on Tomoya Hirata and Rina Yamashita which would see Hirata charge at Kamui but Kamui would move out of the way and Hirata would end up running into Yamashita in the corner. Yamashita would get up and be upset at Hirata with Hirata leaving the ring. Takaiwa would then take Yamashita and nail her with a Death Valley Bomb but while covering him he would be picked up Hirata making the save who would hit Takaiwa with a German Suplex. Yamashita would then go for a lariat, but he hit by one from Takaiwa instead who would then nail her with a Death Valley Bomb at 12 minutes, 48 seconds to get the win. Yamashita would immediately go after Hirata backstage still upset from earlier and try to choke him, but Hirata would pull away and run off instead.

GENTARO and Dragon Libre would end up defeating Van Vert Negro and Van Vert Jack when GENTARO making Jack tap out at 11 minutes, 59 seconds with a Octopus Hold on the ground for the win. The opening match would see Aisawa # 1, Takahiro Katori, and Leo Isaka defeat Brahman Shu, Brahman Kei, and Rekka when Aisawa would pin Kei at 9 minutes, 21 seconds with a Horizontal Cradle to get the win. Click here for highlights of the FREEDOMS 7/3/22 show

Jun Kasai would then promote the first Death Match Carnival show on July 10, 2022 at Korakuen Hall with the announced crowd of 1,028 fans for the show. This would be the first FREEDOMS show to announce over 1,000 fans since the Christmas Death Match show in 2019.

The main event would be Fluorescent Light Tubes Glass Boards Death Match as Daisuke Masaoka, Jun Kasai, and the returning Masashi Takeda would take on Violento Jack, Drew Parker, and Toshiyuki Sakuda. Sakuda would end up sending Takeda into the Glass Board in the corner early on followed by Parker kicking a light tube against Takeda's back. Sakuda would then place the ERE shirt over Takeda's face and staple it to him before ripping the stapled shirt off his face.

Takeda and Jack would then square off with strikes before Takeda would suplex Jack into the other Glass Board in the corner. Masaoka would then deliver an Asai Moonsault to both Parker and Sakuda on the outside as Takeda would break a light tube over Jack's head followed by Kasai hitting him with a Reverse Tiger Driver with Jack kicking out at one. Takeda would then take another stack of light tubes and deliver a running knee to the light tubes breaking them over Jack's body as Kasai would hit his Stimulation on Jack to get the win at 20 minutes, 56 seconds for the FREEDOMS team victory.

The semi-main event would be Toru Sugiura and Tomoya Hirata defending the King of Freedom Tag Team Titles against Brown Rat Fukki and Kyu Mogami in a Barbed wire Board, Gadget, and Giant Mousetrap Death Match. Mogami and Fukki would focus on Sugiura at first, but he would fight back and send Mogami down into the barbed wire board. Sugiura would then suplex Mogami off the turnbuckle followed by Hirata hitting a Moonsault on Mogami to pick up the win at 19 minutes, 8 seconds to defend the King of Freedom Tag Team Titles for the fifth time.

Takashi Sasaki and Rina Yamashita would team up to take on Gunso and Mataro Aoki in a Scramble Bunkhouse Street Fight Death Match with Sasaki finishing Aoki at 11 minutes, 38 seconds with the D-Geist.

GENTARO would defeat Tatsuhito Takaiwa at 16 minutes, 40 seconds with an Abdominal Hold as Takaiwa's midcard singles push looks to be over. Kamui would defeat Takahiro Katori at 12 minutes, 12 seconds with the Iomante. The opening match would be a FREEDOMS vs. 2AW match with 2AW's Ayumu Honda and Chicharito Shoki would defeat Dragon Libre and Rekka with Honda making Libre tap out at 8 minutes, 9 seconds with a Jumping Cross Armbreaker for the win. Click here for highlights of the Jun Kasai Productions 7/10/22 Korakuen Hall show

FREEDOMS and 2AW would run a joint "VERSUS" show at the Chiba 2AW Square on July 17, 2022 and announce a crowd of 85 fans for the show. The main event would be the FREEDOMS team of Toru Sugiura and Tomoya Hirata defeating Ayato Yoshida and Takuma Joshiba with Sugiura pinning Joshida at 16 minutes, 36 seconds with the Swift Driver. The semi-main event would see the 2AW team of Kengo Mashimo, Tatsuya Hanami, and Kunio Toshima defeating Daisuke Masaoka, Takashi Sasaki, and GENTARO when Hanami would pin GENTARO at 15 minutes, 54 seconds with the All Out School Boy. Jun Kasai would defeat Daiju Wakamatsu who is still alive in the BJW Death Match Tournament as Kasai would put Wakamatsu away at 10 minutes, 35 seconds with a Pearl Harbor Splash. Violento Jack and Brown Rat Fukki would defeat Ayumu Honda and Chicharito Shoki at 12 minutes, 21 seconds when Fukki would put Shoki away with a Package Piledriver. Kyu Mogami would manage to defeat Kamui at 6 minutes, 37 seconds with the Slipping Top and the opening match would see Takuro Niki defeat Dragon Libre at 6 minutes, 26 seconds with a Dragon Sleeper Style Camel Clutch as the show would conclude with both FREEDOMS and 2AW splitting the 6 matches three to three.

The next Jun Kasai promoted show will be on July 21, 2022 at the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring. The main event will be Daisuke Masaoka and Jun Kasai taking on Violento Jack and Drew Parker in a Death Match. Takashi Sasaki and Tomoya Hirata would team up to take on GENTARO and Tatsuhito Takaiwa in the semi-main event of the show. Masashi Takeda will team up with Toru Sugiura and Rina Yamashita as they go up against Toshiyuki Sakuda, Brown Rat Fukki, and Kyu Mogami in a Hardcore Match. Mataro Aoki returns as he will take on Dragon Libre in a singles match and the opening match will have Kamui and Leo Isaka taking on Jun Masaoka and Rekka.

Jun Kasai had a recent health scare after having surgery to remove polyps from his large intestine on June 27, 2022. He got word back a week later on July 4, 2022 that polyps were not cancerous and he was in the clear. Kasai was worried as this is the second time he has had to deal with a cancer scare in his life.

Kasai back on October 23, 2005 after competing for a Mr. Pogo WWS show came home that night and went to bed from being exhausted. Kasai woke up that night with incredible stomach pain. Kasai tried to get back to sleep that night on only stomach medicine and in the morning had his wife take him to the hospital. Kasai had to lay there and wait for an hour to be seen and have x-rays done on his stomach. The x-rays determined he had a baby's fist sized tumor in his small intestine and was also suffering from an appendicitis. Kasai was told the tumor might be cancerous with Kasai feeling like his life was over if that was the case. The nurse also apologized for making Kasai wait an hour as they have a rule that if the person can walk, they can wait their turn, but the amount of pain Kasai was in would result in a normal person not being able to walk.

Kasai would end up having a successful surgery that removed the tumor and it was ruled not cancerous although Kasai would end up being out for several months due to the surgery and appendix removal. Kasai would not be able to work for several months with Big Japan once again not helping him financially while out of action, but also Big Japan President Eiji Tosaka only coming to see him a time or two at the hospital. This is where Kintaro Kanemura would step up and hold a benefit show for Kasai on November 23, 2005 at the Chiba Blue Field as Kasai was also part time working for Kanemura's Apache Army with Kasai agreeing to join the Apache Army full time once he was good to come back to the ring which would eventually lead to him becoming a founding member of FREEDOMS three years later.

Masashi Takeda recently conducted an interview for Pro-Wrestling Weekly about his recent return to pro-wrestling. I was hoping to be able to get it and translate it for this news update, but there was a delay in the shipping and I have not received it yet. I do hope to do a smaller update in the first week of August and will hopefully have gotten it by then and translated for next time.

The A-Team would hold another show at the Tokyo Oji Basement Mon*Star and announce a crowd of 150 fans for the show. The main event would be Masahiro Sase and Iori Sugawara once again defending their WEW Tag Team Titles against Bryan Ishizaka and Shota Nakagawa when Ishizaka would be counted out at 15 minutes, 57 seconds as they would successfully defend their tag titles for the second time. The semi-main event would see MIKAMI defend his WEW Jr. Heavyweight Title against Magic Killer # 1 with MIKAMI putting Magic Killer # 1 away at 8 minutes, 27 seconds with the Sliding sk-rubo-i to defend the title for the second time. Former ZERO1 wrestler and current Land's End Ryoji Sai would defeat Kosaku Tonozaki at 21 minutes, 1 second with the Akakawa Iron Bridge. Raiden and Joji Otani would defeat HASEGAWA and Kota Nagashima at 13 minutes, 4 seconds when Raiden would pin Nagashima with a Tiger Driver. Takumi Sakurai would defeat Jin at 10 minutes, 26 seconds with a Moonsault Press. The opening match would see Tomohiko Hashimoto, Daisaku Shimoda, Rion Mizuki, and Hashinosuke defeat Tatsuhito Takaiwa, Takahiro Tababa, Raito Shimizu, and Kenya Maeda when Hashinosuke would pin Maeda at 13 minutes, 8 seconds with a Small Package Hold.

There will be a new FMW book published on July 27, 2022 called "The men who made FMW". The book goes over mostly the span between October 10, 1989 as a brand new promotion up until their first Kawasaki Stadium show on September 23, 1991. The author is Kazuhiro Kojima who was a reporter on FMW for Pro-Wrestling Weekly back then as he also published an entire book on the entire existence of W*ING last year. He has interviewed Mitsuhiro Matsunaga, Masanobu Kurisu, Super Delfin, Megumi Kudo, Combat Toyoda, Mickey Ibragi, Ring Announcer Takuji Daiho, Public Relations' Kaori Higuchi, and Sales Manager Hideki Takahashi for it. Mitsuhiro Matsunaga and Megumi Kudo will also be doing a talk event on August 7, 2022 at Toudoukan to help promote the book. I will be getting this book as soon as I can. I had already been planning on doing a FMW Stories episode for YouTube on this time period next so that episode will be delayed for the time being until I end up getting this book and having some time to go through it.

Mitsuhiro Matsunaga has announced that he is doing a fundraiser for both The Headhunters due to them both being ill. He stated Headhunter A is in more critical condition, but B is ill as well and posted this picture of Headhunter A needing oxygen. Matsunaga did not give out any specific illness that they were dealing with, but felt like it was an emergency when they asked for financial help so Matsunaga immediately sent them 100,000 yen which with the yen so low currently ended up being $709 dollars for them. Matsunaga will begin selling Headhunters t-shirts with the art work done by Sei Ozawa at his Mr. Danger's steakhouse restaurants in order to make back the money that he sent to help them. The picture that he received and Matsunaga saying "illness" definitely comes across as they both have COVID with Headhunter A being in a life threatening situation. I was told that both were dealing with diabetes recently, and Headhunter A was actually get his leg amputated due to the severity of it. Hopefully everything will be okay for both of them during this time. 

I recently wrote up a memorial page for Masashi Aoyagi's passing that you can find at http://fmwwrestling.us/Aoyagi.html where I go over his upbringing and how he got into karate, his working relationship with Mitsuhiro Matsunaga, the rivalry with Onita in FMW, him joining New Japan and forming the Heisei Ishingun group to eventually working WAR and then the small independent promotions, the details of his motorcycle accident in 2015, and his return to the ring in 2017 to face off against Atsushi Onita once again as well as the reunited Heisei Ishingun matches before his final match in FMW-E.

Added: 6/6

Mr. Gannosuke would break the news on May 30, 2022 at 6:09 PM on Twitter that his trainer and mentor Masaji "Tarzan" Goto had passed away on May 29, 2022 at 6:50 PM. It would later come out that Goto had been sick for some time with liver cancer. Goto's wrestling career spanned from February 1981 in All Japan to December 2018 when he had last match with his Super FMW promotion.

Tarzan Goto thought his wrestling career was practically over in 1989 after he decided he was never going to coming back from his excursion to America and after marrying female wrestler Despina Montages and having two boys at the time with her as his mindset was that he was an American now with an American wife and kids and his main source of living would be as a cook at a Chinese restaurant in Tampa, Florida since he was not making very much while wrestling in the Florida territory.

It would just be a couple months later though in September 1989 when Atsushi Onita would call up Goto randomly. Onita and Goto had a big brother/little brother relationship when Onita came back from his excursion in America to All Japan in 1983 and the two always seemed to bond while training together. Onita felt like Goto would be the perfect number two wrestler for the promotion he was going to be starting up in 1989 called FMW. Goto when answering the phone would tell Onita he would need to think about Onita's request to join him. Then Goto would agree to wrestle one show for a final match Japan but while going back to Japan, he would decide that this was something he wanted to do full time again and with Despina's blessing the family would move back to Japan in December 1989.

Goto would become Onita's right hand man and help train the FMW Dojo students eventually laying the ground work Hayabusa, Mr. Gannosuke, and Masato Tanaka all to become elite wrestlers. He would also handle all the every day duties like making sure every wrestler was on time for the tour bus and making sure all the younger wrestlers had properly setup the ring and chairs for each show. Eventually Onita and Goto's relationship would go sour and they would not end up speaking to each other anymore in 1995 before Goto, Gannosuke, and Akihito Ichihara would all end up leaving FMW just two weeks before what was supposed to be the biggest FMW match of all time on May 5, 1995 at Kawasaki Stadium.

Goto and Onita would eventually agree to do business together with Goto working as a heel against Onita for Onita's promotion in 2001 before publicly making up in 2009 as they would team up for Tarzan Goto's Shin-FMW promotion. Atsushi Onita would state the final time he had saw Goto was when he went into his ramen restaurant to see him after Onita had his October 31, 2017 retirement match.

\

The day after the Goto news would come out a memorial show would take place for both Onita and Goto's trainer Jumbo Tsuruta on May 31, 2022 at Korakuen Hall. Atsushi Onita would team with Great Kojika, Raijin Yaguchi, Yuko Miyamoto, and Isami Kodaka against Hikaru Sato, Mitsuya Nagai, Yoshitatsu, Kuma Arashi, and Akira Raijin in a Street Fight Tornado Bunkhouse Hardcore Match. Hikaru Sato would go after Onita with a barbed wire bat but be met with red mist in his face followed by Onita piledriving Sato through a table. Miyamoto and Kodaka would then throw Akira Raijin into Kojika who would deliver a choke slam to him and pin him at 5 minutes, 53 seconds for the win. Tarzan Goto's picture would then appear on the screen against the wall at Korakuen Hall as a 10 bell salute would take place as Onita would begin to break down visibly with tears of the passing of his long time friend. Click here to watch highlights of the Atsushi Onita match for the Jumbo Tsuruta Memorial show on May 31, 2022.

Tarzan Goto's funeral would take place on June 5, 2022 and be held at the Koshiwayahato Heart Hall in Hikifune, Tokyo. Over 150 friends, family, and fellow wrestlers would attend the funeral to say their goodbyes to Goto. A table including a framed picture of Tarzan Goto with the IWA Heavyweight Title along with other pictures through out his career would be placed on a table along with his yellow singlet, barbed wire, and thumbtacks. A board would be besides it with pictures from his career that were found online and printed into pictures. Tarzan Goto's wife Yoshie Goto would speak stating that Goto had been sick for some time, but that he was still planning on returning to the ring for his 60th birthday in August 2023. A 10 bell memorial was held at the end with Goto's theme song "Riding High" being played as Atsushi Onita, Masato Tanaka, Ichiro Yaguchi, Battle Ranger Z, and Ricky Fuji among others would be the pall bearers and bring Goto's casket outside the building into the hearse for Goto's body to be laid to rest. Former W*ING wrestler Nobuhiro Tsurumaki who had wrestled for Goto's Super FMW promotion in 2010 would attend and record the last two minutes on his phone. Click here to watch the final two minutes of Tarzan Goto's funeral 6/5/22.

The Fire Pro promotion would holds its first show since September 13, 2020 when they would run on April 30, 2022 at the Shimane Kunbiki Messe with them announcing a crowd of 300 fans for the show. The main event would be Atsushi Onita and Osamu Nishimura teaming up for the first time along with HASEGAWA as they would take on the team of Shadow WX as Mr. Pogo, PSYCHO, and ALL Mighty Inoue in a Exploding Barbed wire Baseball Bat Exploding Table Death Match. Pogo would go for Nishimura with the exploding bat with Nishimura ducking and Pogo hitting the turnbuckle to cause the explosion as Nishimura would still sell as if he had been hit. Inoue would then place Onita on a chair as PSYCHO would end up hitting Onita across the chest with the exploding bat. Nishimura would come in and place Pogo in an Octopus Hold with PSYCHO breaking it up with a barbed wire bat, but when he would go over to Onita he would be met with red mist in his face. Onita would then piledrive PSYCHO through the exploding table and cover him to get the pin 10 minutes, 13 seconds for the Onita victory. Click here to watch highlights of the Fire Pro 4/30/22 show.

Fire Pro would run again the next day on May 1, 2022 at the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Hall East Building and announce a crowd of 630 fans for this show. The main event would be Atsushi Onita and Osamu Nishimura once again teaming up this time along with Tsuyoshi Okada as they would take on the team of Mr. Pogo, Takumi Tsukamoto, and the Devil Magician in a Exploding Barbed wire on top of Exploding Barbed wire Baseball Bat and Exploding Table Death Match. This match would see the Onita and Nishimura team begin to have issues as Onita would end up accidentally spitting red mist in Nishimura's face during the match which would then be followed with Nishimura taking the exploding barbed wire bat and accidentally hitting Onita over the head with it to cause a huge explosion with Devil Magician coming over and getting the pin at 14 minutes, 5 seconds over Onita.

Atsushi Onita and Osamu Nishimura would then hold a press conference on June 4, 2022 at Toudoukan with Nishimura talking about the possibility of them not teaming on the upcoming show for Fire Pro on July 17, 2022 at the Osaka Flower Expo Memorial Park with Onita taking exception to Nishimura just hinting at not wanting to be partners anymore. They would then agree to face off against each other at the upcoming show instead in Osaka with it being a Jado vs. MUGA Death Match. The poster for the show states that it is a FMW-E vs. Fire Pro match.

There are still no official bookings for the FMW-E show. I asked a staff member if there was any plan to run any upcoming shows and they stated believed that a show would be held at the Yokohama Fruit and Vegetables Market this summer and then the next month there would be a show in Osaka. A couple of days later the announcement of the Fire Pro show taking place in Osaka would be announced so I don't know if they got confused on what Onita based company would actually be promoting the show, but there still has been no announcement for an FMW-E show running in their home building in Yokohama.

The only other announcement made about FMW-E was that they would be represented in a match for the Sendai Exploding GOLD Festival on June 19, 2022 at the Sendai Miyagi PIT. This is a show that has been booked by a sponsor and the show will be based around the FMW-E style match for a main event as Atsushi Onita, Raijin Yaguchi, and Ricky Fuji will team up to take on Abdullah Kobayashi, Onryo, and Toshiyuki Sakuda in a Exploding Barbed wire Baseball Bat and Exploding Table Death Match.

FREEDOMS would run their biggest building in the company history as they would run at the 3,000 seated Yokohama Budokan where they would announce a crowd of 762 fans for the show. Big Japan would run a show three days later at the Yokohama Budokan with ticket sales much cheaper than what FREEDOMS did for this show and would announce a sell out crowd of 1,800 fans which makes it seem like that is the allowed capacity currently in the building with COVID still around. The one thing about the Yokohama Budokan unlike the former Yokohama Bunka Gym or even Korakuen Hall the building does not allow glass so they would have to use every other weapon they could think of for this show.

The original plan was for the main event to be their biggest drawing in match between Jun Kasai and Masashi Takeda but that had to be scrapped and instead they went with two top stars they have pushed over the last couple of years that did not have a main event match against one another in Daisuke Masaoka defending the King of Freedom World Championship against Toru Sugiura in a No Canvas Double Chimera Board Weapons Death Match. Masaoka who started in the Osaka indies and Sugiura who started in the Nagoya indies a couple of years apart had wrestled on small shows before both joining FREEDOMS after its creation and this match was to celebrate both of their coming of age as two of the top stars in the promotion today.

Like every No Canvas Death Match to take place in the FREEDOMS, the boards would end up being taken out to create in the ring. Sugiura would then manage to pick up Masaoka and drop him on a barbed wire board and broken cans board sending Masaoka through the hole in the ring They would get back in the ring with Masaoka headbutting Sugiura and then follow that up by hitting a Fire Thunder with Sugiura's head hitting the boards in the ring. Masaoka would then go up to the top rope and hit a Rokkura Kai Kneedrop followed by a Moonsault Double Knee Drop on the barbed wire board place over Sugiura to get the win win at 27 minutes, 58 seconds to defend the King of Freedom World Championship. The face FREEDOMS wrestlers would come to the ring as Masaoka and Sugiura would end up shaking hands and hug to celebrate before every wrestler in the ring would end up raising their arms up to celebrate the experience of this show. Masaoka and Sugiura would end up walking to the entrance together and raising each others arms one final time before going to the back to end the show.

The semi-main event would be Jun Kasai once again taking on Toshiyuki Sakuda in a Beauty Murder and Safety Pinboard Death Match. Sakuda would end up sending Kasai outside the ring on a stack of chairs and then follow that up by delivering a dive over the top onto Kasai on the outside. Sakuda would then go to the top rope with a board with beauty murders attached to it, and dive off the top but Kasai would manage to move out of the way. Kasai would then just nail Sakuda with a punch to the face and then deliver a Reverse Tiger Driver on him followed by a Cross Arm Stimulation for the win at 21 minutes, 8 seconds as Kasai would once again manages to defeat Sakuda in their third singles match against one another.

Tomoya Hirata would take on All Japan's Shuji Ishikawa in his biggest match to date although he would come into the ring with his foot taped up due to a prior injury. Hirata would end up delivering a tope to Ishikawa on the outside but showing signs of pain after landing on his foot following the move. They would get back in the ring and Ishikawa would begin headbutting Hirata until he would become busted open before Ishikawa would end up putting Hirata away at 10 minutes, 22 seconds with the Splash Mountain for the win.

Violento Jack would take on Kenji Fukimoto in a match where Jack would put his mask on the line with Fukimoto putting up his facepaint on the line in a Barbed wire Board and Gadget Board Death Match. Fukimoto would end up suplexing Jack off the turnbuckle onto the barbed wire board, but Jack would get right up and brainbuster Fukimoto onto the barbed wire. Jack would then begin to wrap the barbed wire around his body and going up to the top and deliver a diving body splash with the barbed wire wrapped around him before nailing Fukimoto with the Package Piledriver to get the win at 13 minutes, 53 seconds with Jack grabbing a rag and beginning to wipe the face paint off Fukimoto's face with the barbed wire still wrapped around his body.

Mammoth Sasaki would team up with Kamui to take on the team of Masato Tanaka and GENTARO as this was build as a FMW/WMF vs. FMW/Apache Army match. This match took place when Mammoth Sasaki challenged Masato Tanaka to a match, but it would end up being turned into a tag match to get everybody on the show. Tanaka and Mammoth would start off by chopping one another before tagging out and GENTARO and Kamui would end up facing off against one another. Tanaka would end up coming in and deliver a combo DDT and stunner to Mammoth and Kamui and then knock them both down with clotheslines followed by hitting Kamui with a Sliding D to get the win at 15 minutes, 24 seconds with Mammoth requesting a singles match with Tanaka down the line.

Takashi Sasaki would then help bring Kintaro Kanemura in the ring as this would be Kanemura's first ever appearance in FREEDOMS as he was initially banned when the promotion was created due to issues with appearing at a Takashi Sasaki promoted Apache Army show against the wish of the sponsor of the promotion and thus forcing them to close down the Apache Army promotion and start up FREEDOMS. Kanemura, Tanaka, Sasaki, Mammoth, GENTARO, and Kamui would all do the Team No Respect Brief Brother Dance to Come out and Play.

Takashi Sasaki and Rina Yamashita would end up teaming up against ERE's Takayuki Ueki and Kyu Mogami in a Junkyard Tornado Death Match in what would be a typical weapons hardcore match before Sasaki would end up getting the win at 13 minutes, 2 seconds with a Junkyard Driver to get the win over Mogami. Sasaki and Yamashita would pose together afterwards.

Tatsuhito Takaiwa would defend his UWA Jr. Heavyweight Title for the fifth time against Kengo with Kengo finally ending Takaiwa's near one year reign as champion at 363 days as he would nail a Frog Splash to get the win at 15 minutes, 5 seconds to become the new UWA Jr. Heavyweight Champion. The opening match would see the FREEDOMS undercard team of Dragon Libre, Takahiro Katori, Leo Isaka, and Rekka defeat the MYWAY team of Van Vert Jack, Van Vert Negro, Yousei Estrella, and Shoki when Libre would put away Negro at 7 minutes, 40 seconds with the Yoshitonic. Click here for highlights of the FREEDOMS 5/3/22 Yokohama Budokan show.

FREEDOMS would then return to the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring where they would announce 101 fans for the show. The main event would be Violento Jack, Toshiyuki Sakuda, and Kyu Mogami taking on Daisuke Masaoka, Toru Sugiura, and Jun Kasai in a Fluorescent Light Tubes Death Match. Jack would try to setup a Package Piledriver on Kasai when Kenji Fukimoto would come to the ring a mask on and a light tube in his hands. Fukimoto though would end up hitting Kasai over the head with the light tube and then follow that with a Package Piledriver on him as Fukimoto would then take off his jacket to reveal a ERE shirt. Sugiura would hit the ring to go after Fukimoto, but he would be met with an RKO by Mogami as Sakuda would then hit a Swanton Bomb on Masaoka with a stack of light tubes over his body to get the win at 16 minutes, 14 seconds over the champion.

Jack and Fukimoto would then announce that Kenji Fukimoto will now go by the name Brown Rat Fukki as he will now be a masked wrestler following not being allowed to wrestle with his face paint anymore. This turn also practically ends the Unchain after 10 years although the annual Unchain Night is still booked for August 12th. The group if still alive still consists of Jun Kasai, Minoru Fujita, Kamui, and Rina Yamashita. Masashi Takeda and Kenji Fukimoto two of the original three members along with Kasai when they formed the group in March 2012 have now turned heel on Kasai and joined the ERE group although with everything that has happened with Takeda this year when he does decide to come back, he might have to go back to being a babyface.

Takashi Sasaki would take on Rina Yamashita in a Double Hell Board Death Match in the semi-main event of the show. Yamashita would charge at Sasaki in the light tube board in the corner and then follow that up by delivering a powerbomb onto him onto the other board light tube and barbed wire board, but then Sasaki would come back and hit Yamashita with a Michinoku Driver on what was just a barbed wire board at this point followed hitting her with the D-Geist on the barbed wire board again to get the win at 16 minutes, 8 seconds as he would raise Yamashita's hand up out of respect afterwards.

Mammoth Sasaki would defeat who has become his undercard tag partner lately in Takahiro Katori at 10 minutes, 24 seconds with a 29 Years Old. Kengo and GENTARO would defeat the team of Kamui and Leo Isaka with Kengo hitting Isaka with a Brainbuster to get the win over Isaka at 10 minutes, 59 seconds as Van Vert Negro would come to the ring and challenge Kengo for the UWA Jr. Heavyweight Title at the upcoming Korakuen Hall show. The opening match would be Van Vert Jack and Yousei Estrella defeating Dragon Libre and Rekka at 9 minutes, 24 seconds as Jack would end up pinning Rekka with a Sunset for the win. Click here for highlights of the FREEDOMS 5/12/22 show.

The main event would be a rematch of the February Korakuen Hall show although this time the match would be for the title as Daisuke Masaoka would defend the King of Freedom World Championship in a Fluorescent Light Tubes Glass Board Needle Hell Death Match against Toshiyuki Sakuda. Sakuda would end up hitting a Canadian Destroyer off the turnbuckle sending Masaoka into the glass board followed by taking a stack of light tubes and holding them to his back as he would deliver a Swanton Bomb on Masaoka. Sakuda would then go up to the top again, but this time Masaoka would get up and throw a chair at Sakuda's head which would give him the time to go up to the top as well and hit a Spanish Fly and follow that up by hitting Sakuda with a Fire Thunder to pin Sakuda at 21 minutes, 44 seconds to defend the King of Freedom World Championship for the second time.

The semi-main event would be Jun Kasai and Takashi Sasaki taking on the ERE team of Violento Jack and Brown Rat Fukki in a Weapons Death Match as Jack would end up nailing Kasai with a Amatalan and then follow that up by finishing him off at 16 minutes, 1 second with the Package Piledriver to get the win. This was done to establish the power of ERE with their new member, but also setup a show in Sendai on July 3rd where Jun Kasai will take on Violento Jack in a singles match as that match tends to a match that sponsors want whenever FREEDOMS runs a bigger show outside of Tokyo.

Toru Sugiura would end up taking on ERE's Kyu Mogami in a Gang Board Death Match with Mogami managing to grab barbed wire and wrap it around Sugiura's forehead but he would come back and finish off Mogami at 14 minutes, 16 seconds with the Soul Driver to get the win. Sugiura after this match would head out to America for the first time and participate on the GCW Tournament Survival on June 4th and then again on June 5th to Atlantic City, New Jersey along with Rina Yamashita who had already headed out and gone to Las Vegas to hang out with the Japanese women wrestlers in AEW in Las Vegas for the weekend.

Kengo would end up defending his UWA Jr. Heavyweight Championship against Van Vert Negro at 11 minutes, 11 seconds after hitting him with the Frog Splash to defend the title for the first time. Tatsuhito Takaiwa and GENTARO would end up defeating Mammoth Sasaki and Kamui as GENTARO would end up making Kamui submit at 9 minutes, 16 seconds with a Abdominal Hold. The opening match would see Van Vert Jak, Yousei Estrella, and Shoki defeat Dragon Libre, Takahiro Katori, and Rekka at 10 minutes, 54 seconds when Shoki would hit the 0933 for the win over Libre. Click here for highlights of the FREEDOMS 5/27/22 Korakuen Hall show.

FREEDOMS announced the lineup for the June 9, 2022 Shin-Kiba 1st Ring show. The main event will be Daisuke Masaoka, Toru Sugiura, and Rina Yamashita taking on Violento Jack, Toshiyuki Sakuda, and Brown Rat Fukki in a Death Match as it looks like either Jack or Fukki will be the next challenger for Masaoka's title. The semi-main event will be Jun Kasai taking on Kyu Mogami in a Death Match. Kengo will take on GENTARO in what will probably setup a future UWA Jr. Heavyweight Title match down the road. Takashi Sasaki and Tomoya Hirata making his return from injury after a month as they will take on Takahiro Katori and Leo Isaka. The opening match will be Tatsuhito Takaiwa, Kamui, Dragon Libre, and Rekka as they go up against Van Vert Jack, Van Vert Negro, Yousei Estrella, and Shoki. Mammoth Sasaki  announced afterwards that he felt some neck soreness in his Korakuen Hall match, and asked to not be booked for this show to allow him some time for it to heal.

The A-Team would begin running shows at their new home at the Tokyo Oji Basement Mon*Star where they would announce a crowd of 150 fans for the show. The main event would be MIKAMI defending his WEW Jr. Heavyweight Title against Joji Otani with MIKAMI getting the win over Otani at 14 minutes, 11 seconds with the Sliding sk-rubo-i to defend the title for the first time. Masahiro Sase and Iori Sugawara who are apart of the heel Demon MADDER group would win the WEW Tag Team Titles against Takumi Sakurai and Raiden after Sase would pick up the win at 12 minutes, 44 seconds when Sase would pin Sakurai with a Diving Body Press on a barbed wire chair. Bryan Ishizaka would defeat Kota Nagashima at 8 minutes, 26 seconds with the Paidart. Magic Killer # 1 and Jin would defeat Tomohiko Hashimoto and HASEGAWA when Killer # 1 would pin HASEGAWA at 14 minutes, 18 seconds with a Michinoku Driver on a barbed wire bat as the Demon MADDER group would lay out HASEGAWA afterwards. Super Tiger and Takahiro Tababa would defeat Daisaku Shimoda and Kosaku Tonosaki when Tiger would get the pinfall over Tonosaki at 15 minutes, 28 seconds with an Atomic Bomb. The opening match would be Rion Mizuki, Shota Nakagawa, and Hashinosuke defeating Tatsuhito Takaiwa, Fuminori Abe, and Kenya Maeda when Nakagawa would pin Maeda at 14 minutes, 3 seconds with a Swanton Bomb.

This most recent May 16th marked 20 years of FMW President Shoichi Arai passing away. Many including Tarzan Goto have stated that when Shoichi Arai passed away that was the actual official ending to FMW even though FMW had gone bankrupt three months earlier. I wanted to just write about exactly lead Shoichi Arai being put in a really difficult situation and what eventually lead to FMW closing down in 2002 as well as Onita and him always taking issue with people blaming him for FMW closing down.

Atsushi Onita states he is always blamed for FMW closing down and Shoichi Arai passing away, but he left in 1998 and FMW closed down in 2002. He is correct, and really Onita should not be blamed for FMW closing down. He is not innocent though either as the reason he is blamed by so many people is because when he agreed to let Shoichi Arai continue FMW on without him. He made the choice to make as much money as possible off the deal as there was no friendly discount to Arai on all the FMW related items that Arai was purchasing from Onita that was needed to continue on the FMW name. Onita had already made millions of dollars over the previous couple of years being the owner and top star of his own promotion that was making a lot of money, but FMW under Onita actually ended in debt because him and other big star wrestlers were making so much money that they still couldn't get out of the red because of those contracts.

The truth is though is Onita really didn't want anyone else taking his baby and making it popular as well without him, but his step dad had told him he would look bad if he just closed it down, so he agreed to let Arai continue it on without him, but he was going to make as much money as possible out of the deal to the point where Arai's FMW would already be in a hole at the very beginning. Then after 18 months Onita decided that he wants to come back. He also wants everything back to the way it was with him running the show even though he also just wanted to be a part time wrestler with him deciding how much he would make. FMW in 1996 had really started to grow without Onita, and this come back even though it brought back some but definitely not all the Onita fans that had left after his 1995 retirement. Arai in the end felt like Onita was not worth all the headaches with all the money that he was taking in for his appearances as well as all the drama he was causing with the rest of the roster, and it was decided to move on from him in 1998, but in the grand scheme of things FMW was going to close down eventually even if Onita decided to sell everything to Arai at a bargain and also would have never came out of retirement.

The truth is FMW's fatal wounds took place in 1997 with how FMW deciding to handle these issues being the factor of how long they were going to live. FMW despite several successful big shows at the Yokohama Arena and Kawasaki Stadium as well as still doing good for the most part at Korakuen Hall came out of the year in debt. Then they got word that a sponsor who paid them $280,000 dollars annually would not be renewing for 1998.

FMW was destined to die until they decided to make a deal with DirecTV that would pay them $800,000 dollars a year to air monthly PPVs on their channel. It was a no brain decision to Arai at that time feeling like they were just thrown a life raft, but really it was what most people think killed FMW as DirecTV would have them change direction and become a Sports Entertainment promotion.

FMW was already losing fans, but now they were losing fans at a faster rate due to the change in direction. They were able to gain enough new fans to the point where they could be to continue on due to the $800,000 dollars they were getting a year from DirecTV. Then DirecTV announced they were shutting down in June 2000 and FMW would end up having to make a deal with SkyPerfecTV for $480,000 a year instead. FMW was not in a position at this point that they could lose out on $320,000 dollars and be okay. Then the final blow to FMW ever being able to recover under Shoichi Arai took place in November 2000 when Hayabusa would need to take 6 months off for double reconstructive elbow surgery. The house show market without Hayabusa just  became a financial disaster. The usual dependable Korakuen Hall shows without Hayabusa also looked near empty. They were losing money at such a fast rate that this is when Arai began getting tangled up financially with the loan sharks that ultimately ended his life.

Hayabusa would come back in May 2001 and for some shows it was very apparent that Hayabusa was back and the crowds were there to see him, but then there were also some shows that still did so bad, it was as if fans didn't know or care that he was back and that they were gone and never coming back regardless. Hayabusa would then end up suffering his career ending injury in October 2001 and everything besides their Korakuen Hall show would again become complete financial disasters until February 14, 2002 when Arai would get caught for using many, many different loan sharks and could not realistically ever get out of the mess he had found himself in. Arai put his own life on the line to continue FMW from November 2000 to February 2002 not wanting to admit defeat and just hoping he could find someone to buy it from him, but that day would never come and FMW would be forced into bankruptcy and ultimately Arai would make the decision to end his life in hopes that it would help clean up the mess (and for feeling shame for the Hayabusa situation) he had created by keeping FMW going while in financial stress.

Shoichi Arai was a very good man who made some really bad business decisions that were apparent at the time, and even more so looking back in hindsight. He did love FMW though, and he was willing to do anything he could to keep it going despite it being apparent that closing it down sooner would have been the smarter decision for him. I will always appreciative of him though, for not only his willingness to do what it took to keep going until the bitter end, but also for giving me personally a promotion in FMW that I became so passionate about that here we are 20 years later, and I am still writing a website about it practically every month. Much like I have for Hayabusa like no one else, I always want to show my appreciation to Arai for everything he did despite all the chaos it caused him his finals months on this earth.

I did a write up in memory of Tarzan Goto's life and career the other day. I actually had done a lot of research on Goto back in April  for my FMW Stories podcast as for being such a key figure in FMW I had never really gone into great detail of him and his career since he was not in FMW anymore when I started covering it. Even after weeks of translating and finding out information I had never known about him for the show, I was able to find even more information for this memorial write up of him with so much more information coming out due to his passing as well as getting the chance to once again speak with his ex-wife Despina Montages. I go over the start of his sumo career, early days in All Japan, his excursion to America and getting married to Despina, what made him decide to go back to Japan and help start FMW up with Atsushi Onita, leaving FMW, and finally the twilight of his career working small indies before having his final match in 2018 in a return match for the Super FMW promotion. You can check it out by clicking the link at http://fmwwrestling.us/Goto.html

Added: 4/25

FMW-E would run their first show of the year on April 24, 2022 at the Fukuoka Yanagawa Civic Gym with an announced crowd of 725 fans. The show was a bought show which I am guessing by the same sponsor that sponsors FTO if not by FTO wrestler Skull Reaper A-ji wanting to be an explosion match with Onita himself. The main event would be Atsushi Onita, Ricky Fuji, and FTO's Skull Reaper A-ji defeating Shadow WX as Mr. Pogo, Onryo, and Umanosuke Ueda II in a Exploding Barbed wire Baseball Bat, Exploding Barbed wire Landmines outside the ring, and Exploding Rocket curiously not called the Jado Rocket despite it being the exact same type of rocket used as the Jado Rocket. The rocket would be the first big explosion as it would be set off from the second level into the turnbuckle where most of the wrestlers would happen to be with the explosion being so powerful it would knock all of them down. Umanosuke Ueda would then end up knocking Onita and Pogo outside the ring into the exploding landmines outside the ring. Onita would then get back in the ring and piledrive Onryo through an exploding table which Onryo going through the table back in July had felt like the table explosion had killed him due to how powerful it was as Onita would go over and pin Onryo at 12 minutes, 58 seconds for the FMW-E win.

Other matches on the show would see Maku Donaruto defeat Naoshi Sano and Miss Mongol at 8 minutes, 56 seconds when Donaruto would pin Sano with a Camel Clutch in a Three Way Match. Kyoya Okazaki would defeat Meijiro Kid at 8 minutes, 17 seconds with a Fisherman Suplex. Umanosuke Ueda II would be asked to do double duty due to a no sshow and would defeat Hiro Takita at 10 minutes, 41 seconds with a clothesline. The opening match would see Monster Leather defeat The Shooter at 3 minutes, 12 seconds with a Sledgehammer.

There is still no FMW-E show announced for the future, and I am going to assume if there is still no show booked by the end of May, that the promotion is actually finished with the owner not willing to lose anymore money on even one more show, and is only willing to sell shows like this one to someone so that they can team up with Onita in an explosion match.

Atsushi Onita's fourth trip in less than five years took place the last week of March 2022. Onita appeared for the Battleground Championship Wrestling promotion on March 26, 2022 at the original ECW Arena now called 2300 Arena against Bully Ray. Onita a couple of weeks before the match announced that it would actually be The Great Nita that would face off against Bully Ray in the match which was The Great Nita's first appearance since January 2020.

Nita would start off the match by spitting red mist in Bully Ray's face right away. They would go to the outside and Nita would end up taking a chair and smash it over Bully's head before Nita would spit red mist in Bully's face again. Nita would then take a guitar, but Bully would grab it from him and smash it over Nita's head. Bully would then take a barbed wire bat and use it on Nita before Nita would just take the bat from Bully and use it to cut him open. Nita would then try to do the Terry Funk ladder over his head spot, but Nita would do it very slowly. Nita would spit red mist in Bully's for the third time and deliver a DDT on the ladder. Bully would get up and deliver a thrust kick when Chainsaw Tony would hit the ring to help Nita out. This would bring The Sandman out with his Singapore Cain and hit Nita and Tony with it. The lights would then go out and come back on with Sabu in the ring as he would attack Nita followed by Bully Ray spitting red mist in Nita's face and then Bully would powerbomb Nita through a barbed wire table and pick up the win at 13 minutes, 38 seconds. This was only Onita's second singles lost since his most recent come back in 2018 as his only other one was to Kuro-chan on December 23, 2020 for DDT. Somewhere in all this Onita would end up suffering a busted eye and would have to go the rest of the week with a black eye that was a struggle for him to keep open. Click here to watch The Great Nita vs. Bully Ray 3/26/22

Onita would then fly to Dallas for WrestleCon and work the Mark Hitchcock Memorial Super Show on March 31, 2022 at the Dallas Fairmont Hotel. The match was announced as a Team Onita vs. Team PCO 5 vs. 5 match. It would turn out to be Atsushi Onita, Ricky Morton, Robert Gibson, Juice Robinson, and Colt Cabana taking on PCO, nZo, Jimmy Wang Yang, Dirty Dango, and Barry Horowitz. Onita would face off against PCO and spit red mist in his face and take him to the outside and deliver a DDT before throwing PCO into the guardrail and then get in the ring and hit another DDT before tagging out. Onita would come back in the ring and face off against PCO with PCO tagging in Dirty Dango who would throw the chair at Onita who wouldn't catch it and it would get awkward before Onita would just slowly kick the chair in Dango's face followed by spitting red mist in his face and then Onita would hit the Stunner on Dango to get the win at 12 minutes, 19 seconds in something I don't think Onita and Dango will remember that interaction very fondly with one another. Onita would then randomly spit red mist in Jimmy Wang Yang's face before throwing him out of the ring. This was also the first time that Atsushi Onita and Ricky Morton would be in the same match since they faced off in a tag match in Memphis in September 1981 that lead to the second Tupelo Concession Stand Brawl. Click here to watch Team Onita vs. Team PCO 3/31/22

Atsushi Onita would then participate in WrestleCon and meet with the fans. Onita would get pictures with Jushin Thunder Liger as the two had very little interaction with one another through out their long careers. Onita would then see Ted Dibiase with Onita saying he had his first television match in 1981 in Amarillo, Texas with Dibiase. Onita would also get to see Damian 666 as the last time the two met they had discussions of Onita doing an explosion match in Mexico that never ended up panning out.

Atsushi Onita did make mention that he did not get to meet up with Terry Funk while he was in Dallas like he had hoped he would due to time. I don't think he was aware that Dallas and Amarillo is nearly a 6 hour drive from one another. Onita stated he did talk to Terry though and that Terry told him everything was fine with him mentally as Onita had been criticized for talking about wanting to team up with Terry while in Texas months ago and several people wrote to Onita stating he was in the beginning stages of dementia. Terry did tell Onita though that while he was mentally okay, he was still dealing with physical pain of such a long career and being 77 years old. Onita stated that if Terry is feeling better that he wants to fly him to Japan next year for show on May 5, 2023 the 30 year anniversary of their Kawasaki Stadium Exploding Ring match. Just for the record Onita stated he wanted a match with Mr. Pogo on May 5, 2016 Kawasaki Stadium, he wanted to have a Hayabusa Memorial show on May 5, 2017 at Kawasaki Stadium, and just a couple of months ago he talked about doing a May 5, 2022 Kawasaki Stadium with FMW-E.

Onita's next set of matches will take place on April 30th and May 1st for the returning Fire Pro. Onita will team up with former New Japan wrestler Osamu Nishimura who will be participating in his first death matches as on the first show they will team up along with HASEGAWA to take on Shadow WX as Mr. Pogo, PSYCHO, and ALL Might Inoue in a Exploding Barbed wire Baseball Bat and Exploding Table Death Match. The next day it will be Onita and Nishimura teaming up with Takashi Okada against Pogo, Takumi Tsukamoto, and Devil Magician in a Exploding Barbed wire Baseball Bat, Exploding Table, and Exploding Chairs Death Match.

The main event would be Jun Kasai defending his King of Freedom World Championship in a Glass Board Death Match against Daisuke Masaoka. Kasai and Masaoka have had a long past with Kasai getting the better end of him every time. Their rivalry started on November 23, 2015 when Kasai defeated Masaoka with Kasai having Masaoka shave his head due to the loss. This would setup a great match on May 2, 2016 at Korakuen Hall with Kasai successfully defending his King of Freedom World Championship against Masaoka. Their next match would take place on September 17, 2018 at Korakuen Hall with Jun Kasai defeating Masaoka who had become the top heel in the promotion through out the last couple of months. Kasai would defeat Masaoka once again on December 6, 2018 in a second match on the card Hardcore Match at Shin-Kiba to setup Kasai in the main event for Korakuen Hall in the month. That loss was probably the most damaging to Masaoka as he did not seem like he was at Kasai's level and then he ended up suffering a kneecap injury a month that would have Masaoka out of action for over a year. Kasai would go five for five against Masaoka on November 17, 2021 at Korakuen Hall with Kasai once again earning himself a shot for the title at the Korakuen Hall Christmas Death Match show.

Kasai would start off with the early advantage by piledriving Masaoka off a stack of chairs against the turnbuckle through the first glass board. Kasai would then for the finish by trying a Stimulation Driver onto a stack of light tubes, but Masaoka would counter by headbutting Kasai and taking those light tubes and headbutting them breaking them into Kasai's head. Masaoka would then climb up to the top and deliver a Rokkura Kai Kneedrop wit Kasai kicking out. Masaoka would then lay light tubes over Kasai's body and hit him with a Moonsault Double Kneedrop and get the pinfall which would shock the crowd as they would out a loud pop despite the COVID rules of no making noises with your mouth as Masaoka would defeat Kasai at 23 minutes, 41 seconds to become the new King of Freedom World Champion and his second reign as champion. Toru Sugiura would come to the ring and challenge Masaoka for a title match in the main event for the May 3rd Yokohama Budokan show. This will be Sugiura's first shot at trying to win back the title since losing it to Violento Jack back on July 5, 2021 ending his record 21 month run.

The semi-main event would be Yuya Susumu's FREEDOMS Farewell match as he would team up with Toru Sugiura and Tomoya Hirata as they would take on Takashi Sasaki, Mammoth Sasaki, and Dragon Libre. Mammoth would end up putting a chair over Susumu's head and deliver him a Mammoth Home Run as his going away present followed by Takashi delivering a superkick and Dragon Libre hitting a Running DDT on him. Susumu would come back though and deliver a kick to Libre's head before finishing him off at 21 minutes, 10 seconds with the Front Crash to get his final win in FREEDOMS. Takashi Sasaki would present Susumu with a boquet of flowers and hug his friend as he goes off to NOAH full time.

ERE's newest member would be revealed as 2AW's Kyu Mogami as he would be the mystery opponent for Rina Yamashita with Mogami busting Yamashita up and then attack the referee for Yamashita to get the win at 2 minutes, 18 seconds via DQ with Mogami going back to attacking Yamashita. The rest of ERE would come out until Unchain would also hit the ring with the scheduled six man tag being turned into a eight person tag with Kenji Fukimoto, Minoru Fujita, Kamui, and Rina Yamashita taking on Violento Jack, Toshiyuki Sakuda, Takayuki Ueki, and Kyu Mogami in a Junkyard Tornado Death Match. Jack would try for the Amatalan on Fukimoto on a board of broken cans but Fukimoto would end up swiping Jack's mask off and then hit him with the Package Piledriver on the broken can board to get the win at 11 minutes, 20 seconds over Jack.

Tatsuhito Takaiwa and GENTARO would team up to take on Kengo and Takahiro Katori with Takaiwa getting the win at 10 minutes, 55 seconds after hitting a Death Valley Bomb off the turnbuckle on Kengo to pick up the win. Takaiwa afterwards would issue a challenge for Kengo and Takahiro Katori with the winner of their match on April 21st challenging Takaiwa for his UWA Jr. Heavyweight Title on May 3rd at the Yokohama Budokan. The opening match would have Brahman Shu and Brahman Kei defeat Leo Isaka and Rekka with Shu picking up the win at 8 minutes, 10 seconds after rolling Rekka up with the Nobody's Perfect. Click here for highlights of the FREEDOMS 3/29/22 Korakuen Hall show

FREEDOMS would hold their VERSUS 2022 show with 2AW at the Chiba 2AW Square on April 3, 2022 drawing an announced crowd of 71 fans for the show.T he main event would see Toru Sugiura and Tomoya Hirata defend their King of Freedom Tag Team Titles against 2AW's Kengo Mashimo and Tatsuya Hanami in a Hardcore Match. A ladder would be used as a weapon through out with Hanami climbing to the top of it, but Hirata would end up throwing a chair at it and climbing it up as well and suplex him off the ladder before Hirata would pin Hanami at 25 minutes, 27 seconds with a German Suplex to defend the tag titles for the third time. The semi-main event would be the newest ERE member in Kyu Mogami going up against Daisuke Masaoka with Mogami jumping Masaokat the entrance way with a chair before the start of the match. Mogami would then lowblow Masaoka without the referee seeing so Masaoka would take a chair and smash it over Mogami's head for the referee to end the match at 9 minutes, 30 seconds and reward the win to Mogami via DQ.

Unchain's Jun Kasai, Kenji Fukimoto, and Kamui would defeat 2AW's Ayato Yoshida, Takuma Joshiba, and Naka Shuma with Kasai getting the pinfall over Shuma at 12 minutes, 34 seconds with a Pearl Harbor Splash. 2AW's Taishi Takizawa, Daiju Wakamatsu, and Chicharito Shoki would get the win over Takashi Sasaki, Mammoth Sasaki, and Dragon Libre with Wakamatsu picking up the pin at 12 minutes, 38 seconds over Dragon Libre with a Dragon Suplex. Violento Jack would put away Kaji Tomato at 9 minutes, 57 seconds with the Amatalan. The opening match would see 2AW's Kunio Toshima and Takuro Niki defeat GENTARO and Takahiro Katori after Toshima would pick up the win at 12 minutes, 34 seconds after making GENTARO tap out to a Reverse STF. Click here to watch highlights of the FREEDOMS 4/3/22 show

FREEDOMS would then return to Shin-Kiba 1st Ring on April 21, 2022 and announce a crowd of 163 fans for the show. The main event would see Toru Sugiura and Tomoya Hirata defend their King of Freedom Tag Team Titles against Daisuke Masaoka and Kamui in a Fluorescent Light Tubes Death Match with Sugiura putting Kamui away at 19 minutes, 32 seconds with a Soul Driver to successfully defend the titles for the fourth time. Sugiura and Masaoka afterwards would get on the mic and fist pump one another knowing that they were going to go all out on one another for their May 3rd match.

The semi-main event would be Jun Kasai, Takashi Sasaki, Kenji Fukimoto, and Rina Yamashita taking on ERE's Violento Jack, Toshiyuki Sakuda, Takayuki Ueki, and Kyu Mogami in a Weapons Death Match which would see Sakuda pick up the pinfall over Kasai at 13 minutes, 41 seconds after holding a Safety Pin Board against his back and delivering a Swanton Bomb to pick up the win over Kasai to setup their singles match on May 3rd.

Kengo would defeat Takahiro Katori at 12 minutes, 59 seconds after hitting him with a Frog Splash with Kengo becoming the number one contender to challenge for Tatsuhito Takaiwa's UWA Jr. Heavyweight Title which would see Takaiwa come out and pose with Kengo in the ring. Tatsuhito Takaiwa would defeat Dragon Libre at 10 minutes, 17 seconds after finishing him with a Death Valley Bomb. The opening match would see Mammoth Sasaki and GENTARO defeating Leo Isaka and Rekka at 10 minutes, 13 seconds with Mammoth putting Rekka away with the 29 Years Old. Mammoth would get on the mic afterwards and challenge Masato Tanaka to either a singles or tag match for the May 3rd at the Yokohama Budokan. Click here for highlights of the FREEDOMS 4/21/22 show

FREEDOMS announced the full lineup for their May 3, 2022 biggest show in the company history at the Yokohama Budokan. The main event will be Daisuke Masaoka defending his King of Freedom World Championship against Toru Sugiura in a No Canvas Chimera Boards Death Match. This is the first No Canvas match for FREEDOMS in over three years. The semi-main event will be Jun Kasai once again facing off against Toshiyuki Sakuda in a Beauty Murder Safety Pin Board Death Match which the result of this will be interesting as Kasai has defeated Sakuda every single time they have faced off, but Kasai having just lost in March then to Sakuda in the tag match in April would make it seem like he would not be losing again so soon. Tomoya Hirata will go up against All Japan's Shuji Ishikawa.

Violento Jack will take on Kenji Fukimoto in a Mask vs. Makeup Barbed wire Board Gadget Board Death Match. Fukimoto beat Jack in August 2018 resulting in Jack from being unable to use the Package Piledriver as a move as Fukimoto now looks to take away his mask as well. The Masato Tanaka vs. Mammoth Sasaki match will be a tag match with Tanaka teaming up with GENTARO to take on Mammoth and Kamui. I think this will probably lead to Tanaka vs. Mammoth in a singles match for the upcoming May 27th Korakuen Hall show. Takashi Sasaki and Rina Yamashita will go up against ERE's Takayuki Ueki and Kyu Mogami in a Junkyard Tornado Death Match. Tatsuhito Takaiwa will defend his UWA Jr. Heavyweight Title Match against Kengo following Kengo's win on the April 21st show. The opening match will be the FREEDOMS young boy team of Dragon Libre, Takahiro Katori, Leo Isaka, and Rekka going up against the outside team of Van Vert Negro, Van Vert Jack, Yousei Estrella, and Seiki. Just a note I will be out of town with work the week of this show, so I will not be able to post the results of it until a couple days later on the weekend.

Obviously the original plan of Jun Kasai vs. Masashi Takeda main eventing the show was changed with Takeda's recent absence and instead they decided to with pretty much the only top main event match of Masaoka vs. Sugiura that has not happened in FREEDOMS yet. Takeda recently while celebrating his daughters second birthday stated that he will return to doing death matches again. This does at least keep the possibility of doing Kasai vs. Takeda at next years Yokohama Budokan show as I would imagine they are going to continue to run in this bigger building at least once a year going forward.

The A-Team would run back to back shows on March 27, 2022 at the Tokyo Kitasenju White Studio with both of them announcing a crowd of 50 fans. The first show would see MIKAMI and Tatsuhito Takaiwa team up in the main event to defeat HASEGAWA and Jin when MIKAMI would pin Jin at 13 minutes, 49 seconds with the 450 Splash. The semi-main event would see Tomohiko Hashimoto and TORU defeat Kuma Arashi and Hashinosuke when TORU would pin Hashinosuke at 16 minutes, 39 seconds with a Brainbuster. Daisaku Shimoda, Masahiro Sase, Shota Nakagawa, and Kosaku Tonozaki would end up going to a 30 minute time limit draw with Raiden, Takumi Sakurai, Joji Otani, and Bryan Ishizaka. Magic Killer # 1 would defeat Kenya Madea at 8 minutes, 47 seconds with a Shining Wizard. The opening match would see Iori Sugawara defeat Raito Shimizu at 7 minutes, 59 seconds with the Crescent Tail.

The second show would have the main event of Raiden and Takumi Sakurai winning the WEW Tag Team Titles from Tomohiko Hashimoto and Daisaku Shimoda when Sakurai would get the win at 16 minutes, 7 seconds with a Moonsault to get the pinfall over Shimoda. The semi-main event of HASEGAWA defending the WEW Jr. Title against MIKAMI would go to a No Contest at 18 minutes, 44 seconds with Masahiro Sase, Jin, and Magic Killer # 1 would all hit the ring and attack both to get the match thrown out with HASEGAWA defending his title for the third time. Kuma Arahsi would defeat Kosaku Tonozaki at 12 minutes, 6 seconds with a Diving Senton for the win. Masahiro Sase and Iori Sugawara would defeat Magic Killer # 1 and Jin when Sase would pick up the win at 13 minutes, 5 seconds over Jin with a Diving Body Press. The opening match would have TORU and Shota Nakagawa defeat Joji Otani and Bryan Ishizaka when Nakagawa would pin Ishizaka at 8 minutes, 39 seconds with a Swanton Bomb.

The A-Team would then hold their 5th Anniversary show at the Tokyo Kitasenju White Studio for their final show in the building as they would announce a crowd of 50 fans. The main event would see MIKAMI finally defeat HASEGAWA at 20 minutes, 43 seconds with the 450 Splash to win the WEW Jr. Heavyweight Tite. Super Tiger would defend his WEW Heavyweight Title by defeating Kosaku Tonosaki at 10 minutes, 58 seconds with the Shiden. Raiden and Takumi Sakurai would defeat Gamelas and Takeshi Irei when Sakurai would hit a Moonsault on Gamelas at 17 minutes, 37 seconds for their first title defense. Tatsuhito Takaiwa and Bryan Ishizaka would defeat Tomohiko Hashimoto and Kota Nagashima at 12 minutes, 42 seconds in Nagashima's debut match as Ishizaka would pin him with his Paydirt finisher. Masahiro Sase, Magic Killer # 1, and Jin would defeat Daisaku Shimoda, Iori Sugawara, and Raito Shimizu at 14 minutes, 12 seconds when Sase would pin Shimizau with a Diving Body Press. The opening match would see Joji Otani and Hashinosuke defeat Rion Mizuki and Kenya Maeda at 9 minutes, 44 seconds when Otani would pin Maeda with the Sliding D. The next scheduled A-Team show is for July 31, 2022 at the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring.

Kintaro Kanemura met up with Satoshi Kojima following the ZERO1 Ryogoku Sumo Hall show on April 10, 2022 for the first time in 15 years when Kojima worked an Apache Army show on February 2, 2007 at Korakuen Hall. Kanemura stated he felt that there was a time that Kojima was the best professional wrestler in Japan and he did not look down on indie wrestling like others (he didn't name names but Kojima's long time partner Hiroyoshi Tenzan would be one of those people). Kanemura stated that he had one single match after FMW closed (it was for the Rainbow Promotions on January 25, 2003) and that he hated New Japan so much during this time (Kojima was an All Japan wrestler at the time, but had a long history of being a New Japan wrestler) that he wanted to take out Kojima resulting in Kojima bleeding heavily during the match, but of course Kanemura would not be allowed to win a match against a major promotion wrestler like Kojima.

Kanemura stated he also met up with Yuji Nagata and Tiger Mask IV at the show as well. Kanemura mentioned a story about how he was touring with Michinoku Pro (this would have been in August 2002) and took Tiger Mask IV's mask and put it on while on bus while they were in the parking lot leaving a show and Kanemura with the mask on stuck his head out the window began insulting the fans near the bus as if it was he was Tiger Mask insulting them. Tiger Mask IV had Kanemura meet Yuji Nagata for the first time at the show. Kanemura stated he always thought Nagata making his eyes go all white was stupid but he respected Nagata for shoot fighting Fedor Emelianenko and Mirko Cro Cop with very little time to train. Kanemura finished by stating to support Kojima who is one of the good guys in the business.

This month marks the 60th Anniversary of Korakuen Hall being opened. Even though people that aren't the biggest Japanese wrestling fans make jokes about the Tokyo Dome it is Korakuen Hall that is the most famous wrestling building in Japan and to me the best wrestling venue as well. I wanted go over the history of the building that has meant so much to so many promotions as well as the significance it had with FMW.

On April 16, 1962, the "Korakuen Bowling Hall" was completed on the west side of Korakuen Stadium (the big baseball stadium that was built before the Tokyo Dome). The building started off with a bowling alley, coffee shop, a steam bathroom, restaurant, billiards salon, and a movie theater. A couple of years later there would be a renovation and a pro-boxing arena was made for the 5th and 6th floors as it was renamed "Korakuen Gym" but eventually another "Korakuen Gym" would be built just for boxing, so to avoid the confusion the building was renamed "Korakuen Hall" in 1967.

Korakuen Hall was only known for its boxing gym because pro-wrestling was not held in it originally. That's because Japan Pro-Wrestling Rikidozan had gotten his own complex built called "Riki Sports Palace" in July 1961, which could fit 3,000 people for a pro-wrestling event as well as had its own sauna and bowling alley as well. Rikidozan would be killed though in December 1963 and a debt would continue to build for the Riki Enterprise resulting in the company having to sell the building to help with the debt they were in.

Japan Pro-Wrestling with the help of television company NTV would run the first pro-wrestling show at Korakuen Gym on November 25, 1966 with the main event of Giant Baba vs. Luis Hernandez. NTV which still this today has such a strangle hold on everything having to do with Tokyo Dome City (where Tokyo Dome/Korakuen Hall are located) prevented rival IWE and later New Japan Pro-Wrestling from being able to run Korakuen Hall until Japan Pro-Wrestling closed down in 1972. Even then All Japan which was created from the ashes of Japan Pro-Wrestling got first dibs with Korakuen Hall running their first show there on November 6, 1972. Eventually Korakuen would let All Japan Women's begin running there in May 1973 and then finally New Japan would be allowed to run there on July 6, 1973 as well. The next decade it would become the main building for all professional wrestling promotions.

Every promotion would use Korakuen Hall as a regular home and that would include the newly created FMW promotion which would run there for their second show ever on October 10, 1989 with Atsushi Onita defeating Masashi Aoyagi to conclude their wrestler vs. karate fight that had began back on July 2, 1989 at Korakuen Hall.

Onita would come back to Korakuen Hall for the very next show on December 10, 1989 to hold the very first barbed wire death match in Japan at the building with Onita's arm getting cut open deep to get over the dangerousness of the barbed wire to help get people talking about FMW.

FMW would continue to use Korakuen Hall usually around once a month, but it wouldn't be until Onita retired in May 1995 that Korakuen Hall became incredibly important to FMW. Korakuen Hall fans are known for being more of the hardcore smarter fans in Japan. Shows away from Tokyo usually only succeeded based on having a big time star like Antonio Inoki or Giant Baba on the card or Atsushi Onita who wasn't at those two level but had developed some what of a mainstream name but also brought the barbed wire death matches with him for the FMW shows under him to do well.

Hayabusa was practically a no name at that point and he wanted to change the direction from death matches to having good straight matches again as that was the style he liked and how he felt he would do best with. This change resulted in death at the box office for the house shows outside of Tokyo the first two weeks for this New FMW promotion. It was so bad that it didn't seem like FMW would survive a couple more months with how no one outside of Tokyo cared about FMW without Onita.

It wasn't until this New FMW promotion ran their first Korakuen Hall show on May 28, 1995 that ended up being a sell out to see Hayabusa in person and what he could do in the ring which included debuting the Phoenix Splash that the fear of having to close down almost immediately went away.

FMW under Hayabusa got better at drawing house show crowds outside of Tokyo, but they did that great. The New FMW for years would use their financially successful Korakuen Hall shows to make up for the debt that was collected while touring outside of Korakuen Hall.

Then in late 2000 going into their last full year in 2001 the promotion was dealt the blow with Hayabusa out of action due to injury which made the house shows go back to absolute financial disasters every night and FMW being desperate for money they would begin to run at Korakuen Hall twice a month every month. Hoping that the building that had always helped them get out of debt, would work its magic like it always had during their most desperate time.

The problem though would be that FMW was so cold without Hayabusa and now running it twice a month would make it where Korakuen Hall for the first time ever would begin to not make them money in return to help them as they continued to collect massive debt from touring.

Hayabusa would come back and the shows at Korakuen Hall would begin to do better, but then Hayabusa would end up suffering his career ending injury on October 22, 2001 at Korakuen Hall just five months into his return. The hardcore Korakuen Hall fans would still continue to attend and support FMW including their final two Korakuen Hall shows in 2002 doing really well as the building was nearly full for both of them. The house shows went back to bleeding money though horribly after Hayabusa's injury and all the millions of dollars they had lost while Hayabusa was out for the first half of 2001 still was hanging over them until time ran out on FMW was forced to officially shut down on February 15, 2002 with Korakuen Hall being the home of the final show for the promotion.

Korakuen Hall has become a very friendly place for independent promotions these days like it was for FMW back in the 90s. Promotions like Big Japan, ZERO1, and FREEDOMS use it as their main source of income with Big Japan running house shows that barely draw anything outside of Tokyo while ZERO1 and FREEDOMS tend to stay away from running outside of Tokyo too much knowing the debt that can be collected running too many house shows.

Korakuen Hall after all these years is a safe haven for so many promotions as legitimizes you by being able to run there, it gets you the media attention that only a huge arena show will get you more of, and it will bring you a hardcore passionate fan base of people keeping up with your product that will help with the atmosphere of the shows as well as help the matches themselves. It will also be the easiest way to be able to make good money back and help make up any debt collected by running outside of Tokyo. It is why after 60 years that Korakuen Hall still remains the most important wrestling building for Japanese wrestling with no end in sight of that ever changing.

I wanted to make a note that I have started a new series that you can check out in the multimedia section of the site. I have named it FMW Stories. I knew when I finished with the History of FMW that I wanted to do more special episode called Untold Stories going over a bunch of the stuff I have learned over the last couple of years. I struggled getting started knowing it would be a really difficult episode to put together with how long it might end up being. So I decided to just break them up by episodes and create a new show.

The shows while still very time consuming especially with how much research I do before starting on the episode, but they are nowhere near the month long project that the later History of FMW episodes became for me with how much editing I had to do. My big worry going into these episodes is going to be having enough new content to get to around 20 minutes per episode as I have some ideas for topics, but they might not get made just because I might not have enough info to make an episode based off it, but we will see how things work out. The first two episodes are about The Creation of FMW and Tarzan Goto and I think both do a great job of providing a lot of new content that isn't known by many people.

Added: 3/20

Atsushi Onita's Shoot Interview was released by RF Video earlier this month after a several month delay. This interview was originally conducted on October 29, 2021 at Rob Feinstein's house while Onita was in the Northeast region of the United States for his explosion match with Matt Tremont. Onita had his wife there that spoke really good English to help translate anything that he did not understand. Onita struggled to be able to understand most of the questions in English without translation help from his wife, but was able to answer most of the questions in English. Like most wrestlers it seems like his long term memory was better than his short term, but also it seems his spin on things have become the truth to him for a lot things whether it was really the case or not.

They started by talking about how Onita started his career and how he called All Japan 10 times before the office told him he can try out at the old Sumo Arena in Tokyo. Jumbo Tsuruta was the one that trained him in the All Japan Dojo where he learned amateur wrestling and had to do 2,000 squats. His first expedition after leaving All Japan was to go to Germany, France, England before going to Santa Domingo in the Dominican Republic

Onita complained about the Dominic Republic promoter was not good as he was not getting paid that much despite the promotion drawing a lot. Onita said he wanted more money and as a result many of the wrestlers attacked Onita in the dressing room. The story that Terry Funk says was that Onita was told he was going to job to the booker two times in a row in a two out of three falls match so Onita stiffed him during the match which lead Onita getting beaten down in the dressing room.

Onita then called Terry Funk in Texas about the Dominican Republic promoter being shit and then Onita went to Amarillo which is also what Funk says happened. Onita talked about Masa Fuchi and how they shared an apartment and traveled together across Texas and Tennessee and how Fuchi would wake him up at 5:00 am and how Onita hated that about Fuchi.

Onita was asked about his position on the card as he would state because of him being only 6 feet tall and 210 pounds compared to Jumbo Tsuruta and Stan Hansen who were big so the Jr. Heavyweight division gave him a chance to stand out.

Onita told a story about how he was in the foreigner dressing room as a young boy in All Japan and saw Mil Mascaras mask and put it on because he was such a big fan, but then later he heard Mascaras talking bad about Onita in Spanish and even though Onita couldn't understand him he knew he was talking bad about him and does not like Mascaras to this day as a result.

Onita would be asked about the Tupelo Concession Stand Brawl match in Memphis which Onita would confuse for a hair vs. hair match with Onita not feeling like it was fair he would get paid the same for the match as Fuchi when Fuchi had short hair and Onita had long hair. It would get brought back up with Onita remembering it because it was brought up, but it does not seem like it was something he had thought about for a long time but did add that Memphis was something he took a lot from later on.

Onita's memories of Florida was that the money was not good because business was down when Giant Baba came in to the territory and wanted him to go back to being his assistant like they were in Japan with Onita not wanting to although I couldn't understand the rest of his statement about it.

Onita's initial memories of Chavo Guerrero, Sr. was that he had died because he drank too much. Onita then talked about Chavo hitting him with the trophy causing Onita to bleed which Onita stated that was something that lead to FMW.

Onita was then ask about his time in Mexico which would mostly be about Onita not liking the peso and regretting agreeing to be paid in that because of how much it would change to where sometimes he was only making 2 bucks a match.

Onita brought up about being the top Jr. Heavyweight in All Japan but that lead to the comparison with New Japan's top Jr. Heavyweight Tiger Mask who was considered a hero by so many people while Onita was just Onita to most.

When asked about his knee injury that ended his All Japan career he just simply said it was "bye bye Onita" and then talked about the different jobs he got. He didn't talk about it here, but in his book he talks about how embarrassed he was to be doing regular everyday jobs like construction work and just hoping no one would recognize who he was.

Onita then talked about the Masashi Aoyagi feud which was based off Aoyagi running a karate dojo and them having a booked match with Onita attacking Aoyagi with a chair and leaving him bloody which resulted in a big brawl in the ring. This got a big reaction from the crowd and Onita knew this would be good business.

Onita then said Aoyagi would come to his new company FMW. Onita was asked about what lead from going to street fights to barbed wire but the barbed wire actually came first. Onita stated the promotion started as a wrestler vs. martial arts theme, but he needed a change and he changed it to a death matches promotion which was a success.

Onita would tell the story how Giant Baba called the FMW office twice but that one of the FMW employees (I believe it was Shoichi Arai) did not believe it was actually Giant Baba calling and hung up on him. Giant Baba then called Onita personally and told Onita about being hung up on with Onita having to apologize. Onita would be asked if New Japan and All Japan ever worked with FMW with Onita stating never which is true about Onita's time as owner, but All Japan and FMW worked together with Onita brokering the deal to get Hayabusa to work All Japan while Kenta Kobashi worked the Kawasaki Stadium show in 97)

The New Japan name though led to Onita talk about how he did not like New Japan and that his heart was All Japan as he was Giant Baba's boy. Onita then brought up UWF and how he went to a show to challenge UWF back in 1989 but Onita didn't have a ticket for the show, so they did not let him which made him very angry. Onita's goal after that was that his company FMW would beat UWF.

Onita when asked about Dick Murdoch would say he liked him, but he was stupid but he was a genius professional wrestling although crazy. Onita also said he thought FMW needed to be different than New Japan and UWF and that's when he thought about doing the explosion matches.

He was then asked about the Invader stabbing incident with Onita in Puerto Rico with Onita just stating that the Japanese fans did not want Jose Gonzales which that thought was based off the negative backlash Onita received by the fans and media for doing the angle in the first place.

Onita was then asked about Mike Awesome and stated he started off stiff with his chair shots to Sambo Asako, but as he kept coming back to Japan and he got a lot better and he became a good worker. I am sure Onita does know it, but the way he worded his answer made it sound like he thought Mike was still alive.

When he asked about "Wild Thing" Onita stated he used the theme song because of the movie Major League as he felt in the movie the Indians were bad, but the dream was for them to become good, which they did and that's how he felt when he started FMW. Onita afterwards then asked why did Jon Moxley steal his theme song.

Onita when asked about appearing for ECW back in 1998 he said he didn't know why he only worked the one show and then brought up his meeting with Vince McMahon at Titan Towers. Onita says Vince told him he wanted to a death match but Onita told him he did not want to which Onita was really there with Victor Quinones to finalize who FMW was going to pay WWF to bring in for their Kawasaki Stadium show in September 1997 which ended up being Vader and Ken Shamrock. Onita in the past had said he had asked Vince about doing an explosion match in America with Vince saying "sure, sure" but then there was no follow-up after that as it was never going to happen especially with Onita.

Onita did state Vince McMahon was very smart as he includes every style into his promotion. He was asked about bringing in Terry Funk for the Exploding Ring in 1993 with Onita saying there was no issue booking Terry because he was his brother although there was conflict afterwards as Terry was suppose to get booked regularly in FMW for ending his ties with All Japan to work the show and was suppose to beat Onita in a rematch with Terry only being booked on one more tour after that and the singles match never taking place. Onita would say he didn't have the rematch because the promotion needed. He is essentially saying they didn't just do rematches after Onita had gotten the win which was the formula for the booking at the time especially with Onita getting the loss in the last match. Onita didn't beat Tiger Jeet Singh and then have a rematch for him to lose to Tiger after their Stadium match in 1992 for example. I don't even know if Terry cared about the rematch not happening more than him just expecting to get booked more by Onita for doing the job to him.

When asked about doing so many explosion matches, he said he is always scared going into one of them which I have heard him say before due to the possibility of something going wrong like in 2013 when a fireball came out of the explosion and burnt Onita's arm up. Onita also said he got the idea of having a women's roster in a men's promotion based off seeing it in the United States.

He was asked how he held up while wrestling so much, Onita brought up almost dying twice with the barbed wire getting stuck in his throat and there was a 70% chance he was going to die when he got Sespis for diving into the Osaka Dotonbori River in December 1992. Onita would then randomly say one year he had 217 matches which is a specific number, but really the most for a one year span FMW ran was 160 shows from FMW May 5, 1994 to his retirement show on May 5, 1995 (and that time frame is favoring his point number wise). He then brought up being on top and having such a busy schedule, he also would go on television talk shows because nobody knew  Onita mainstream wise, so him appearing on television allowed people to know who he was, which did help him become a bigger star than he would have been just through wrestling which lead to him only having three days off one year.

Onita says the Great Nita was him saying fuck off to the Great Muta but when asked if he liked doing the gimmick he began to talk about the Great Nita being a different person.

Onita was then asked about Hayabusa being the right opponent for his retirement match and I believe he misunderstood the question as he talked about how the New FMW under Arai found Toshiba EMI as a sponsor to help pay for them without Onita and Onita agreed to leave and go to New Japan. Onita is confusing retiring in 1995 and FMW finding Toshiba EMI to help distribute their videos and FMW asking Onita to leave in 1998 with him going to New Japan. Onita then began talking about how he was not in FMW for four years before it closed down, but he is blamed for FMW closing down and Arai dying by people. I won't go into full detail about this, and it is true that FMW closing down in 2002 with Arai and Hayabusa's eventual deaths should not be blamed on Onita, but Onita is blamed for stopping the momentum that FMW had going in 1996 after building itself back up without him. FMW eventually decided to go in a different direction without Onita which is ultimately what ended the promotion but Onita should not be blamed for that.

Onita when asked about Masato Tanaka stated he was good, but made sure to take a jab at ZERO1 saying it was a bad company as Onita has issues with the company now as there was a falling out with them right before his 2017 retirement and now the person funding the company had a bad business experience back in the 90s in FMW with Onita so it doesn't look like it's going to improve anytime soon.

He was asked if he wanted to take back the company when he returned or if he let Arai have it which wasn't going to happen seeing that Arai bought the company from Onita and Onita didn't want to return full time. Onita stated that only Tokyo fans liked Hayabusa and that Arai asked Onita to come back because the company was not doing well which is not how Arai paints the picture at all about Onita returning in his book, nor is it something I have heard or believe. Onita pointed out that FMW struggled to draw outside of Tokyo on house shows without Onita which is true, but it doesn't make sense as the first six months into his return it was mostly Onita working the big shows anyway as he only worked two house shows as a face ten months into his return until he turned heel in ZEN. Also, if Onita's drawing ability during this time frame was so much more than what he was getting paid for it, I don't think Arai would have ever asked Onita to leave FMW no matter how frustrated all the other wrestlers were with Onita at the time.

Onita then stated the comment he made on Darkside of the Ring about how he wanted to be a heel and not babyface which again is another exact opposite of what is in Arai's book and why I would side with Arai's story on that is that Onita actually was a heel for 3 months in 1997 with ZEN before going back to babyface which if Onita wanted so badly to be heel he wouldn't have turned back so fast, which Arai's book states that Onita hated being a heel in FMW and was fighting it the whole time before they switched ZEN face.

Then the Darkside of the Ring about Shoichi Arai's daughter Rika about blaming Onita for Arai's death was brought up. Onita talks about how he does not want to say anything about Arai or Hayabusa who were negative about him because they are dead as it is a very bad look in Japanese culture to talk bad about the dead. Onita then mentioned that Arai's ex-wife who is Rika's mom contacted Onita's mom and apologized to her saying Rika was just a little girl when all this happened and she didn't know anything as Arai's ex-wife years ago had Onita's mom help pay for some the debt that she was dealt with by Arai and the loan sharks.

I do want to make mention that when I asked Rika to be apart of the show, she stated she did not want her mom to know she was doing it, and asked if it would air in Japan which it did not. Of course these days anything can be easily found online although last I talked to her Rika herself had not seen the show. They are right that Rika is just going off the book Arai wrote when she blames Onita and she doesn't have any extra inside knowledge although she has told me that her grandfather ended up paying the rest of the debt after a couple of years of still owing the loan sharks, although I am sure Onita's mom did help her out the best she could when asked.

Onita then accused of Arai of just making things up to help sell the book because he was in such debt, which there is truth that Arai did make up stuff in the book but from everything I have been able to tell that most of the Onita stuff related to his dislike for Onita personally at the end was true and I can honestly see Onita either not thinking that's how it went down or simply just not remembering it correctly after so many years. It doesn't make sense that Shoichi Arai would hate Onita, never want him back in FMW, write a book and be very negative about him when Onita is the one that got him into the wrestling business if Onita was as innocent as he portrays himself here.

Onita was asked about XPW and Sabu and he barely remembered but stated there was money issues. He just said about Kodo Fuyuki when asked that he was not too bad. When asked about Victor Quinones he made a gesture with his hand to his mouth which I am guessing meaning he was saying Quinones was gay without saying it, but didn't really have much to say.

Talking about New Japan he wanted to bring his style which New Japan originally said they did not want. Onita then stated New Japan use to be able to draw fifty to sixty thousand people for dome shows and now can only draw twenty thousand. Onita said he liked being hated by New Japan because he is All Japan and FMW heart and New Japan can fuck off.

He mentioned that Hayabusa maybe got a big head when he got pushed to the top by Arai in FMW but he doesn't know because he didn't want to talk to him, and Hayabusa didn't want to talk to him. He mentioned Hideki Takahashi started Super Battle FMW and he wanted to interact with Hayabusa together for the promotion but then the story kind of trailed off, but I am guessing he was implying that Hayabusa did not want to interact with Onita in public for the promotion.

Onita talked about his politics career was because he always wants to do something different. He was asked about the scandal that ended his politic career which he said that his term his expired and that was it.

His memories of the Terry Funk tag match for All Japan at the Tokyo Dome was that it was a so-so match. He said he thought both New Japan and All Japan are not that good because they keep doing the same matches and people are looking for different matches.

He was asked about fighting Matt Tremont in CZW and he was very tired because he had spent so much time before the show signing things. Talking about the Jon Moxley vs. Kenny Omega match he was asked for him to go to Florida to attend but he didn't want to go. Onita said he has never seen Moxley, but he feels he has the same heart as him.

When asked about starting up FMW-E he stated he was doing explosion matches already (DDT's Blasting Koshien) and that he wanted to appeal to the young generation and show that the explosion match was his idea and exciting. Onita asked about if there was any former FMW wrestlers that would come in for FMW-E and he stated that Damian would be one if he comes to Japan.

Onita would then finished the interview by mentioning that he is always looking for change like how he did from FMW to New Japan and you always need change because you are broken if you can't think of anything new.

Overall it was an Onita being Onita. You take what you can get with him. There is going to be the truth, there is going to be straight out lies (he even said he has never lied before in the interview), there's going to be things that are not correct, but that's how he honestly thinks that's how it went down, and then there's things where his memory is just not too good and he mixes things up or just straight out doesn't remember. It was entertaining though, but at this point, there is no point in Onita doing anything besides what he did here, which is portray himself as the total babyface when it comes to everything, and anyone that didn't like him for any of his actions back in the day were simply just jealous of him.

Atsushi Onita has announced his upcoming bookings from March to May. The first will be attending the Icons of Wrestling Convention Fan Fest on March 26th at the 2300 Arena in Philadelphia and then later that night wrestling in the main event as The Great Nita against Bubba Ray Dudley. This is technically Great Nita's first time appearing in America although he did the Great Muta ripoff gimmick for the first time back in February 1990 for the ICW promotion in Boston, Massachusetts against Tony Atlas while still being called Atsushi Onita in the match. Onita has also been stating he will be returning to the ECW Arena for the first time since 1998 as I think he has already forgotten his 2018 appearance at the building teaming up with Matt Tremont. Onita will then travel to Dallas and appear at WrestleCon from March 31st to April 2nd although Onita has not specifically promoted anything he is doing in Dallas. He had also mentioned flying to Los Angeles after Dallas previously, but he has not mentioned doing anything publicly while there if he is still going to be there after Dallas.

The first FMW-E show of the year will then take place on April 24th at the Fukuoka Yanagawa Civic Gym with Shadow WX, Onryo, Ricky Fuji, Miss Mongol, and a Leatherface gimmick participating on the show. The big show on May 5th not having been announced yet pretty much means there is zero chance of it happening at this point, and if anything it seems like FMW-E as a promotion might be done as there is nothing booked for May as of right now and the only reason this show is happening is because a sponsor bought it, which is similar to how Super Battle FMW ran shows into May 2018 despite being actually finished in December 2017. There is a chance the promotion re-starts up in the summer, but they are going to need to do something to change things up to bring back the fans, as they had already lost a good chunk of their small loyal fan base from July to December because of it being the same show every time. Onita has also been promoting him being a masked wrestler on the undercard of this FMW-E show.

Onita's old Fire Pro promotion (well a sponsor who pays Onita to say it's his promotion) which hasn't ran a show since September 13, 2020 will run two shows on April 30th at the Shimane Kunibiki Messe and then May 1st at the Hiroshima Industrial Hall with both shows having exploding bat matches in the main event. Onita will then work the May 28th DDT show in Fukuoka and then May 31st he will participate for the Jumbo Tsuruta 23rd Memorial show at Korakuen Hall.

Yuya Susumu and Takashi Sasaki held a press conference in Tokyo on March 18, 2022 to announce Susumu's departure from the company on March 31, 2022 once his FREEDOMS contract expires. They did not say where Susumu would be going, but it's not hard to figure out with him working a lot with NOAH over the past year that the promotion that also signed Hi69 and Yuki Sato would also sign him up to a contract as well. Susumu who started his career off in 2004 as SUSUMU worked freelance for the first half of his career mostly for shows in Hiroshima.

His first set of matches with FREEDOMS were for two shows on November 12, 2011 and November 13, 2011. He then began working FREEDOMS regularly starting in February 2012 before signing the contract in May 2013 as he and Toru Sugiura were the first two people to sign with the promotion that were not there from the first day of the promotion. The real turning point of him becoming an official member of the promotion was on October 30, 2013 when in a 4 Way Match along with Jun Kasai, Masashi Takeda, and Toru Sugiura he ended up taking the fall in the match to Kasai and Kasai convincing him he needed to shave his head which he did.

Susumu was pushed decently in a upper midcard type role including winning the King of Freedom Tag Team Titles with Buffalo on March 23, 2015. His one and only challenge for the King of Freedom World Championship took place on July 26, 2015 at the Shinjuku FACE where he lost to Masashi Takeda. After that match, he was pushed down to the undercard with no real direction.

FREEDOMS during that time pretty much became a full time main event death promotion which Susumu stayed a traditional wrestler during his entire time with the promotion which meant he was never going to be pushed as someone that could even contend for the title and mostly stuck in the undercard meaningless tag matches as a result. He started getting booked by NOAH on November 22, 2020 and about a year with Susumu not having really any direction and working semi-regularly for a much bigger promotion, it was only a matter of time I thought when Susumu would leave. Susumu does become the first person to go to a different promotion that was contracted with FREEDOMS. Hi69 although having a full time role with the promotion was never a contracted FREEDOMS wrestler when he decided to sign with NOAH and The Winger still has not wrestled one match since vanishing from FREEDOMS and letting his contract expire in the first part of 2017.

Takashi Sasaki said in a statement that he met Susumu in Dove Pro right before the start of FREEDOMS, and he agreed to join the promotion after deciding to move to Tokyo in May 2013. Sasaki said he progressed more than anyone else in the promotion in regards to "professional wrestling" and that Susumu's department is not a negative, as he wants him to aim to for the top in the professional wrestling world although this does leave a hole to fill in the Jr. Heavyweight division and that he hopes someone else will be able to step up and fill the role left by Yuya Susumu.

FREEDOMS returned to the Yokohama Radiant Hall on February 26, 2022 drawing an announced 115 fans for the show. The main event would be Jun Kasai taking on Minoru Fujita in a match that was supposed to happen earlier in the month with Kasai having to miss due to COVID. Legos would be dropped in the ring early on before referee would take a bump and be knocked out and Rina Yamashita would come in and take his shirt off and put it over her and become the referee for the rest of the match before Kasai would put Fujita away at 18 minutes, 57 seconds with a Cross Arm Stimulation for the win. Violento Jack, Toshiyuki Sakuda, and Takayuki Ueki would defeat Takashi Sasaki, Brahman Shu, and Brahman when Jak would finish off Kei at 11 minutes, 44 seconds with the Violent Breaker. Toru Sugiura and Tomoya Hirata would defeat Mammoth Sasaki and Takahiro Katori when Hirata would pin Katori at 13 minutes, 37 seconds with a German Suplex. GENTARO, Kenji Fukimoto, and Rina Yamashita would defeat Daisuke Masaoka, Kamui, and Rekka when Fukimoto would pin Rekka at 6 minutes, 5 seconds with a Package Piledriver. The opening match would see Tatsuhito Takaiwa and Kengo defeat Yuya Susumu and Dragon Libre when Kengo pinning Libre at 10 minutes, 28 seconds with a Vertical Brainbuster for the win. Click here for highlights of the FREEDOMS 2/26/22 show.

FREEDOMS would then their monthly Shin-Kiba show on March 10, 2022 announcing a crowd of 156 fans with the main event of Toru Sugiura and Tomoya Hirata defending their King of Freedom Tag Team Titles against Minoru Fujita and Rina Yamashita in a Fluorescent Light Tubes Death Match. Fujita would climb up to the top with a light tube, but Hirata would come up and headbutt Fujita and then smash the stack of light tubes over Fujita's head followed by Sugiura hitting Fujita with a Spanish Fly and then hit a running elbow breaking the stack light tubes over Fujita and get the pin over him at 20 minutes, 38 seconds to successfully defend the King of Freedom Tag Team Titles for the second time.

The semi-main event would be a Razor Cross Board and Saw Ladder Death Match with Jun Kasai, Daisuke Masaoka, and Kenji Fukimoto defeating Violento Jack, Toshiyuki Sakuda, and Takayuki Ueki when Masaoka would use Kasai's own Cross Arm Stimulation on Ueki to get the win at 16 minutes, 1 seconds right in front of Kasai. Kasai would counter that by attacking Masaoka and hitting him with the Cross Arm Stimulation before walking away. Mammoth Sasaki would defeat Orca Uto in a Hardcore Match at 9 minutes, 14 seconds after finishing him off with a chair shot. Tatsuhito Takaiwa, GENTARO, and Kamui would defeat Yuya Susumu, Kengo, and Leo Isaka when Takaiwa would put away Kengo at 11 minutes, 50 seconds with a Death Valley Bomb. The opening match would be Takahiro Katori, Rekka, and Dragon Libre defeating Takashi Sasaki, Brahman Shu, and Brahman Kei at 7 minutes, 32 seconds with Katori pinning Kei after a Super Kick.

FREEDOMS announced the lineup of their upcoming Korakuen Hall show. This show will not air on Samurai TV even though obviously Kasai vs. Masaoka is going to be a bigger drawing main event than last months Masaoka vs. Ueki which did air on Samurai. Jun Kasai and Daisuke Masaoka will fight for the King of Freedom World Championship in a Glass Board Death as Kasai looks to once again defeat Masaoka who has never beaten Kasai in a singles match. They will setup the main event of the Yokohama Budokan following the show. If there is still any chance of Kasai vs. Takeda taking place on May 3rd then it will know after this match. Takashi Sasaki, Mammoth Sasaki, and Dragon Libre will take on Toru Sugiura, Tomoya Hirata, and Yuya Susumu in what will be Susumu's last match in FREEDOMS. Minoru Fujita, Kenji Fukimoto, and Kamui will take on Violento Jack, Toshiyuki Sakuda, and Takayuki Ueki in a Junkyard Tornado Death Match. Rina Yamashita is scheduled to take on a ERE Mystery Opponent which is suppose to be the newest member of the group. Online speculation is that Takumi Tsukamoto is the favorite. Tatsuhito Takaiwa and GENTARO will take on Kengo and Takahiro Katori. The opening match will be Leo Isaka and Rekka taking on Brahman Shu and Brahman Kei. Click here for highlights of the FREEDOMS 3/10/22 show.

FREEDOMS would then return to the Osaka Active Square Daito where they would announce a crowd of 266 fans. The main event would be a Fluorescent Light Tubes Weapons Death Match with Daisuke Masaoka, Toru Sugiura, and Tomoya Hirata defeating Jun Kasai, Takashi Sasaki, and Rina Yamashita when Masaoka would get the pin over Yamashita at 19 minutes, 18 seconds once again using Kasai's Cross Arm Stimulation to pickup the pinfall. The semi-main event would be Toshiyuki Sakuda defeating Kamui at 19 minutes, 9 seconds in a Double Glass Board Death Match after Sakuda would pick up the win with a Swanton Bomb while holding a light tube for the pinfall. Violento Jack and Takayuki Ueki would defeat Minoru Fujita and Takahiro Katori when Ueki would pin Katori at 14 minutes, 57 seconds with a Death Valley Bomb. Orca Uto and Gunso would defeat Mammoth Sasaki and Dyna Mido when Uto would pick up the win over Mido at 8 minutes, 1 second with a Reverse Tiger Driver. Yuya Susumu and Dragon Libre would get the win over Masamune and Mataro Aoki when Susumu would make Aoki tap out at 12 minutes, 23 seconds with a Crossface. The opening match would have GENTARO, Brahman Shu, and Brahman Kei defeat Kenji Fukimoto, Shoichi Uchida, and Idea when GENTARO would pick up the win at 6 minutes, 58 seconds with a Backdrop to get the pinfall over Idea.

I recently added to my results section of the other promotions by adding the Nightmare promotion and all the follow up promotions following it. Last year I completed Atsushi Onita's promoted shows, Tarzan Goto's Goto-Ippa, and Mr. Pogo's WWS. Nightmare was a promotion that started in 2002 following Wrestle Yume Factory which went from 1995 to 2001 before closing due to financial issues. Even though I was closely following WMF at the time, I was unaware of how connected they were through out the history of one another as well as how prominent Tarzan Goto was in the early days of the promotion, that's how under the radar the promotion was to me at least

Shinigami who had worked for Wrestle Yume Factory started up this promotion with it going into 2005 before it also came upon financial issues and having to stop running shows. Towards the end of the promotion a sponsor called "The Count" as he would go by on the shows would have a masked heel group called "Garoga" come out and attack the Nightmare guys. The final original run Nightmare promotion would see the Garoga unit win a match and Nightmare knowing they could no financially keep going would let The Count take over and start up a new promotion called Garoga with all the wrestlers now fighting for the heel group's promotion. Garoga would go from the end of 2005 until the end of 2006 when they would rebrand as "Garoga Knights" and run through out 2007 before closing down for good. Masayoshi Motegi who had also wrestled for Wrestle Yume Factory and Nightmare and was the top babyface in the promotion would then start up his own promotion called Joshu in 2009, but this promotion was sporadic and would end up barely running many shows. Nightmare would then come back at the end of 2010 but they would only run four more total shows until closing down for good in 2011. Some reunion shows took place in 2015 and Yuga would promote some of her Batos Cafe shows to be Nightmare themed reunion shows up until 2016 but that would seem to close the book on this very unique independent promotion. You can check the results page at http://fmwwrestling.us/Nightmare.html

Last month marked the 15th Anniversary of The Gladiator Mike Awesome's passing. Earlier this month marked 6 years since Hayabusa's sudden passing. I wanted to go through and translate this interview the two did back in February 2003 for Weekly Pro Magazine. It is not too long, but it is very heart warming as it is the first time the two had met in three years and the first time they had met since Hayabusa's injury. You can check it out at http://fmwwrestling.us/HayabusaAwesome.html

Added: 2/11

Atsushi Onita returned to the ring for the first time for the year on February 6, 2022 for his own promoted event at the Tokyo Kitasenju White Studio, where they would announce a crowd of 50 fans for the show. This was the first match back as well for Onita since having hip surgery on January 5th.

Onita was told by the doctor after the surgery to be careful about making sure the wound from the surgery was not open while in the match. Onita competed in the main event along side Raijin Yaguchi and Ricky Fuji against the A-Team of Tomohiko Hashimoto, HASEGAWA, and Takumi Sakurai in a Scramble Bunkhouse Death Match.

Weapons such as a a ladder, barbed wire board, table, a barbed wire bat, a guitar, and a bamboo sword were all placed as weapons in the ring to be used in and out of the ring for this match. Onita stated he didn't feel any pain in his lower back even though he delivered a piledriver through a table and delivered a Thunder Fire Powerbomb to Sakurai although the finish would be Yaguchi getting the pin over Sakurai at 12 minutes, 6 seconds with the Thunder Struck.

Onita admitted that by the end of December last year that he had been dealing with severe pain for a long time. At the recommendation of a doctor, he underwent a removal operation in his hip with the incision being nearly 8 inches. The doctor told Onita that he could not compete for one month and that it would take two months for a full recovery. Almost exactly one month to the day of the surgery Onita was back working two matches, although he is not booked to work again until a DDT show on March 5th in Fukuoka.

The FMW-E promotion which was suppose to hibernate until returning for a house show on February 27th in Fukuoka and then return back to the Yokohama Fruit and Vegetables Market for March when it would be warmer outside announced that they will not be running another show until April 27th when they will actually run that house show in Fukuoka with the February show being cancelled with COVID being cited as the reason.

Such a long pause pretty much kills any little momentum the promotion had. This is similar to Super Battle FMW in 2016, although they actually did have momentum on their side before they decided to take three months off and when they came back the promotion was never able to gain anywhere close to the popularity it had before the break. FMW-E already was losing momentum with no attendance being announced for November and December and them deciding to not release the footage of those shows despite saying they wanted to have a way for fans outside of Japan to be able to see the shows which the big gimmick for this promotion was to air their shows for fans outside of Japan to watch, but the truth is after the first show in July, that idea was a money loser and that is why they first raised the price tag and then just stopped airing them.

The return on April 27th in Fukuoka also greatly hurts the idea of an actual big show on May 5th which Atsushi Onita had stated he wanted to do with the obvious tease that the show would take place at Kawasaki Stadium. The fact they would announce a small show in Fukuoka, but not yet announce a big show just eight days later makes me think that idea has already been dropped. I could see the return at the Fruit and Vegetables Market for May 5th and them returning to once a month there after that, but anything bigger and I would be pleasantly surprised at this point.

The FMW-E promotion at this point, much like Super Battle FMW before it, just seems like it has hit a wall where you have a certain amount of fans that are willing to pay to come to your shows, but you're not gaining any new fans because it's all based off nostalgia, and as a result because there are no new fans coming in, you only have your hardcore set number of fans to base your promotion off of, and when almost every show is the same as the previous months other than in FMW-E's case a different type of explosion being used, it's going to get old fast, and your fan base isn't going to see a need to come and pay to see the same show in the same location every month.

The semi-main event on the show would be Shadow WX as Mr. Pogo and the return of the Monster Leather gimmick from the beginning of Super Battle FMW in 2015 which was Tomohiko Hashimoto back then defeating Daisaku Shimoda and Grand Masaru in a Street Fight when Pogo would pin Masaru at 11 minutes, 12 seconds with a Brainbuster on a chair. An A-Team provided match as Raiden and Joji Otani defeated Bryan Ishizaka and Kosaku Tonozaki when Raiden pinned Ishizaka at 11 minutes, 16 seconds with a Tiger Driver. There was some negative comments about Onita booking Joji Otani after the Rob Feinstein connection back in October, but based on Onita's past he barely knows anything about the wrestlers on the undercard he's on despite his name being the title of the promotion and it's usually through the actual sponsors of the show that are booking the cheap undercard wrestlers. Onita didn't even know Nanjyo Hayato worked his FMW from 1993 to 1995 because he was always in the undercard never faced him and was wearing a mask the whole time that's how little he cares about undercard wrestlers of the shows he is on.

Onita also wrestled on the undercard but decided to live out a fantasy of his and put on the Mil Mascaras mask on and wrestle as Mil Mas Atsushi and team up with Mask Donaruto as they would lose to the team of Ricky Fuji and Miss Mongol when Ricky would pin Donaruto at 11 minutes, 45 seconds with the Kamikaze as Onita would state afterwards that he has always wanted to be Mil Mascaras for the last 40 years and got his chance on this show. The opening match would be The Yo-Chan and Kizarasu Kid going to a No Contest at 9 minutes, 28 seconds after both would end up attacking the referee. Click here to watch clips of Atsushi Onita/Rajin Yaguchi/Ricky Fuji vs. Tomohiko Hashimoto/HASEGAWA/Takumi Sakurai from 2/6/22.

Masashi Takeda on January 30, 2022 announced on Twitter about the sudden passing of his wife Yuka Takeda on January 7, 2022 at the age of 33, with the family having a private ceremony on January 14, 2022 for her.

Takeda was suppose to participate for the FREEDOMS January 20th event at Shin-Kiba which was going to be his 15th Anniversary show. It was announced on January 13, 2022 that Takeda would not be able to participate on the show due to a family circumstance and the his anniversary event will still happen some time later this year.

Yuka Omori was born on July 20, 1988 and at the age of 24 would be the first one recruited by Atsushi Tamura to be apart of his new J-Pop idol group called 'Through Skills' and would be the leader of the group with her nickname being the "Okayama Diva". The group would debut on January 19, 2013 with their major CD being released on April 1, 2015.

Through Omori's interest in wrestling, the group would end becoming ambassadors for All Japan Pro-Wrestling with them getting booked to perform during intermission of Korakuen Hall shows in 2016. They would end up performing on May 25, 2016 at the All Japan Korakuen Hall show with Takeda meeting Omori backstage and a relationship would end up forming between the two after they would stay in touch with one another.

Through Lines would announce on May 3, 2017 that they would be disbanding on June 30, 2017 with Omori being one of the few to be apart of the group through out the entire four year run. Takeda and Omori would end up registering to get married in the Spring 2018, although it would be kept private until June 19, 2019 when they would celebrate one year of marriage by holding a wedding ceremony with the likes of Jun Kasai, Kenji Fukimoto, and Minoru Fujita attending to celebrate the happy couple.

Takeda would then end up announcing the birth of his daughter on April 13, 2020 right at the start of the pandemic. This is the only child that has ever been mentioned by Takeda including a picture taken by Takeda of her in her stroller as they shopped together on January 5, 2022. During Takeda's message about the passing of his wife, he would write about having small children, although I do believe that might be a translation error, unless they had simply decided to keep complete privacy of a second infant child that would have been just born very recently.

Takeda when writing about the sudden passing of his wife stated he could not accept that she had passed away. There has been no reason given of her sudden passing. The only thing that has came out that she passed away at their home. There has been speculation by some on the internet, but most likely an official reason will never be made public.

Takeda has stated he does not know when he will return to the ring as he will not return until he gets everything sorted out, and he can get his heart back into it, which currently it is not.

The situation of being a single dad of at the very least a near two year old now becomes an issue that he was not exactly expecting to deal with. Jun Kasai in his documentary movie even speculated after Takeda ended up suffering his second recent injury that would keep him out of action for several months from glass cutting open his body deep on July 28, 2020, that he might just quit after all he has dealt with injury wise with and he could start over in his life with his wife and a child although obviously that was not apart of Takeda's plan when Kasai said that since he kept going for another year and a half since that quote.

Takeda had already pretty much stopped touring with Big Japan and only worked one show outside of Tokyo/Yokohama for them in 2021 which was their big show of the year in Sapporo. Although technically a freelancer, Takeda had pretty much made FREEDOMS his home promotion due to his loyalty to Kasai and them making him the top heel of the promotion as the leader of ERE. When or if he does decide to return, I could see it just being for Tokyo/Yokohama shows only so that he could be home that night without having to pay high prices to take a bullet train.

FREEDOMS has also tried to help out financially as they put pictures of Takeda for sale at their Korakuen Hall show as well as had their video company quickly made a Masashi Takeda compilation DVD of his best matches in FREEDOMS through out his entire time in the promotion which ended up selling out at Korakuen Hall as they would announce they would printing more out for the upcoming shows this month.

One of the best nights I ever had in Japan was hanging out with Masashi Takeda in 2012, when there happened to be a woman there that could translate for the both of us to interact without translation issues, and we really connected that night so much so that Takeda ended up writing in his blog about hanging out with me which was one of the coolest things for me as a fan. Even though I have met him a bunch since that night and the last time in 2018, I don't think he even remembered me anymore, that night was special for me as I got to see a side of him, what his friends get to see away from the camera, and I can tell he was a really good person, and I can not even imagine the amount of hurt he is going through right now after being dealt with this horrific tragedy in his life. I will continue to pray for him during these rough times.

FREEDOMS ran their first show of the year on January 3, 2022 at the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring announcing a sell out of 175 fans for the show. This show did not end up airing on NicoNico like the typical FREEDOMS Shin-Kiba show these days, but the main event was uploaded to YouTube. The main event was Jun Kasai defending the King of Freedom World Championship against Rina Yamashita in a Fluorescent Light Tubes Glass Board Death Match. Yamashita would have the early advantage by throwing Kasai into the light tubes and then picking him up on her shoulders and ramming Kasai into the first glass board in the corner. Yamashita would try to suplex Kasai on a stack of lights, but he would reverse it and suplex Yamashita on them instead. Kasai would then place a light tube over Yamashita and hit a Pearl Harbor Splash on her with her kicking out, but Kasai would finish Yamashita with a Cross Arm Stimulation and get the pinfall at 16 minutes, 29 seconds to defend the title for the first time with both of them chugging beers together to end the show.

The semi-main event would be Takashi Sasaki, Mammoth Sasaki, Tatsuhito Takaiwa, and Kenji Fukimoto taking on ERE's Violento Jack, Masashi Takeda, Toshiyuki Sakuda, and Takayuki Ueki in a Hardcore Match. Sakuda and Ueki would both begin hitting Takaiwa in the back with chairs, before he would get up and clothesline them both followed by an attempt at a lariat, but Sakuda would jump on him followed by Ueki headbutting a chair into Takaiwa's head allowing Sakuda to hit the Sakauchi to get the pin at 14 minutes, 49 seconds for the ERE win.

Toru Sugiura and Tomoya Hirata would team together in a non-title match against Yuya Susumu and Kengo with Susumu making Hirata tap out at 12 minutes, 20 seconds with a Cross Facelock to earn themselves as the number one contenders for the tag titles. Daisuke Masaoka and Kamui would defeat Takahiro Katori and Leo Isaka with Kamui pinning Katori at 9 minutes, 56 seconds with an Iomante. The opening match would see Brahman Shu and Brahman Kei defeat GENTARO and Dragon Libre at 8 minutes, 20 seconds when Kei would roll up Libre with Nobody's Perfect for the win. Click here to watch highlights of the FREEDOMS 1/3/22 show.

FREEDOMS would then return to the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring on January 20, 2022 where they would announce a crowd of 172 fans for the show. The main event would an ERE Fluorescent Light Tubes Weapons Death Match with Orca Uto replacing Masashi Takeda and teaming up with Takayuki Ueki to take on Violento Jack and Toshiyuki Sakuda. Sakuda would use Jack's back to jump and deliver an Air Sabu to Ueki in the corner breaking a light tube. Uto would then grab his giant fan made of light tubes and smash them over Jack's head followed by Ueki spearing Jack while he was holding light tubes although Jack would get up right away and deliver a clothesline to Ueki. Jack would then look for the Amatalan but Ueki would get away and headbutt Jack followed by nailing him with a Death Valley Bomb to get the upset win at 16 minutes, 44 seconds for Ueki would get on the mic and challenge for Kasai's King of Freedom World Title at Korakuen Hall when Daisuke Masaoka would hit the ring and request that Ueki beat him and the winner would get a shot at Kasai's title in March.

The semi-main event would be a Razor Cross Board Death Match with Jun Kasai and Rina Yamashita taking on Takashi Sasaki and Daisuke Masaoka which would have Sasaki placing miniature castles on a stack of chairs and then suplex Kasai off the turnbuckle onto them. Masaoka would then go up to the top and toss a chair to Kasai and deliver a flying dropkick to him. Masaoka would then pick up Kasai and drop him on the razor cross board causing a huge cut on Kasai's back. Kasai would manage to throw Masaoka in the corner where Yamashita would be waiting to shove skewers in Masaoka's head followed by a double suplex off the turnbuckle on Masaoka. Yamashita would then hit a splash on Masaoka followed by a Pearl Harbor Splash from Kasai with Sasaki making the save. Kasai would then try for the Reverse Tiger Driver but Masaoka would manage to turn that into a hurricanrana and get the pin at 16 minutes, 44 seconds over Kasai.

Toru Sugiura, Tomoya Hirata, and Leo Isaka would end up defeating Yuya Susumu, Kengo, and Dragon Libre when Isaka would end up rolling Libre up at 12 minutes, 31 seconds with an inside cradle. Tatsuhito Takaiwa, GENTARO, and Rekka would defeat Kamui, Kenji Fukimoto, and the returning SUSHI at 13 minutes, 5 seconds as Takaiwa would end up nailing SUSHI with a Death Valley Bomb for the pin. Minoru Fujita would make his come back to FREEDOMS since being hospitalized with COVID back in September and now wearing a "NOW STILL LIVING" t-shirt to replace his divorced shirt as he would team up with Mammoth Sasaki to defeat Brahman Shu and Brahman Kei at 9 minutes, 28 seconds after Mammoth would choke slam Kei and place Fujita over his body to get the win. Click here for the highlights of the FREEDOMS 1/20/22 show.

FREEDOMS would then run their first Korakuen Hall show on February 3, 2022 drawing an announced crowd of 416 fans which I would say was a good number for them considering the fact that on January 29th it would be announced that Jun Kasai had tested positive for COVID and would not be able to be on the show.

The main event would be Daisuke Masaoka taking on Takayuki Ueki in a Fluorescent Light Tubes Concrete Block Death Match with the winner getting a shot at Kasai's title on the March 29th Korakuen Hall show.

Ueki would end up handing Masaoka some skewers during the match and the two would end up doing a famous spot that Kasai and Masaoka did in May 2016 where they both shoved skewers in their heads at the same time. Masaoka would then headbutt Ueki who would come back with a torpedo headbutt with the skewers still stuck in his head followed by a Death Valley Bomb on the concrete block with the brick failing to break and Masaoka managing to kick out. Ueki would then go up to the top with a concrete block but Masaoka would come over with a concrete block himself and hit Ueki in the stomach with it and then smash Ueki's concrete block with his concrete block over Ueki's head. Masaoka would then hit Ueki with a Reverse Tiger Driver with Ueki kicking out, but then Masaoka would hit Ueki with a Rokkura Kai Knee Drop and get the win at 17 minutes, 56 seconds to become the number one contender for Kasai's King of Freedom World Championship.

Rina Yamashita would be the replacement for Jun Kasai as she would take on Minoru Fujita in a Glass Board Death Match in what was suppose to be a non title match and Fujita's return to death matches. Fujita would end up putting Tabasco sauce on one of the glass boards setup on a stack of chairs and suplex Yamashita off the turnbuckle with him overshooting it and Fujita would end up going through the glass board instead with Yamashita missing it mostly. Yamashita would charge at Fujita in the tunrbuckle but he would grab her and hit her with his Sayanora Tombstone Piledriver for a two count. Yamashita would manage to roll up Fujita with his Samson Clutch but Fujita would kick out of it and charge at her and be picked up and hit with a Reverse Thunder Fire which Fujita would no sell and roll her up for a two count. Fujita would then pick Yamashita up who would escape and hit Fujita with a lariat, but out of nowhere he would roll up Yamashita with the Samson Clutch at 17 minutes, 22 seconds to get the win over Yamashita. Yamashita afterwards would end up presenting Fujita with a flower for his return.

Toru Sugiura and Tomoya Hirata would defend their King of Freedom Tag Team Titles against Yuya Susumu and Kengo who had defeated the champions in a non-title match back on January 3rd. Sugiura and Hirata would both end up doing topes hitting Susumu and Kengo on the outside. They would get back in the ring with Sugiura and Hirata striking Susumu with elbows and then both trying rolling elbows with Susumu moving out of the way. That would allow for both Susumu and Kengo would deliver a double kick to Hirata's head followed by Susumu delivering several kicks to Hirata's face, but he would try for one too many kicks as Hirata would block it and pick up Susumu and deliver a powerslam to him followed by hitting Kengo with a German Suplex. Hirata would then go up to the top and hit a Moonsault on Susumu to get the win over him at 17 minutes, 41 seconds to successfully defend the titles for the first time.

Takashi Sasaki, Mammoth Sasaki, and Tatsuhito Takaiwa would defeat ERE's Violento Jack, Toshiyuki Sakuda, and Orca Uto when Mammoth would pick up the win at 17 minutes, 42 seconds with the 29 Years Old on Uto for the pinfall in a Hardcore Match. Takahiro Katori and Leo Isaka would defeat Brahman Shu and Brahman Kei at 9 minutes, 6 seconds when Katori would pin Kei with the Child Lock. The opening match would see Guruken Mask being booked because of Jun Kasai being out as he would team up with Kamui and Kenji Fukimoto to defeat GENTARO, Dragon Libre, and Rekka when Guruken would pick up the win at 8 minutes, 33 seconds with the Guruken Leg Roll Clutch over Libre. Click here for the highlights of the FREEDOMS 2/3/22 Korakuen Hall show.

FREEDOMS would return to the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring on February 10, 2022 drawing an announced crowd of 125 fans for the show which falls short of any type of near sell out even under the restrictions of only allowing around 175 people in the building.

The main event would be Jun Kasai making his return back from having COVID as he would team up with Unchain members Minoru Fujita and Rina Yamashita to take on Daisuke Masaoka, Toru Sugiura, and Tomoya Hirata in a Fluorescent Light Tubes Death Match.

\Sugiura and Yamashita would face off with Yamashita throwing Sugiura head first into some light tubes set up in the corner followed by a German Suplex. Kasai and Fujita would then throw Sugiura into the corner, but he would come back with a flying body press on both of them. Sugiura and Hirata would then begin laying Kasai out with punches followed by a double rolling elbow and then Masaoka would pick Kasai up and nail him with a Fire Thunder. Masaoka would then dive off the top but Kasai would move out of the way and smash a light tube over Masaoka's head followed by a Reverse Tiger Driver and then a Pearl Harbor Splash but Masaoka would kick out, but then Kasai would nail him with the Cross Arm Stimulation and Kasai would pick up the win at 18 minutes, 57 seconds over Masaoka.

Fujita and Yamashita afterwards would challenge Sugiura and Hirata for the King of Freedom Tag Team Titles for the March 10th show at Shin-Kiba with Sugiura and Hirata accepting.

Tatsuhito Takaiwa would defend the UWA Jr. Heavyweight Title in the semi-main event of the show against Toshiyuki Sakuda. There would be a ref bomb early as Sakuda would end up bringing chairs in the ring and deliver a hurricanrana off the top with Takaiwa landing on the chairs. Sakuda would then nail his Sakauchi and cover but Takaiwa would kick out. Sakuda would then go up to the top but be met by Takaiwa would suplex off the turnbuckle and then finish Sakuda off with a Death Valley Bomb to get the win at 14 minutes, 38 seconds to defend his UWA Jr. Heavyweight Title for the fourth time.

Mammoth Sasaki would team up with Kamui and Kenji Fukimoto against Violento Jack, Takayuki Ueki, and Orca Uto in a Hardcore Match. Mammoth would end up throwing a ladder at the ERE team with Kamui coming off and delivering a flying dropkick. Mammoth would then choke slam Jack as Kamui would hit a Swanton Bomb on him and cover but the other ERE members would make the save. Fukimoto would then for a Package Piledriver, but Jack would manage to reverse it and turn it into a Mexican Stretch with Fukimoto tapping out at 11 minutes, 32 seconds for the ERE win. Jack would get on the mic afterwards and tell Fukimoto he needed to retire.

Takashi Sasaki and GENTARO would reunite as a team as they would defeat Yuya Susumu and Dragon Libre when Sasaki would finish Libre at 10 minutes, 45 seconds with a D-Geist. The opening match would see Brahman Shu, Brahman Kei, and Kengo defeat Takahiro Katori, Leo Isaka, and Rekka when Shu would pin Katori at 9 minutes, 33 seconds with the Nobody's Perfect. Click here to watch highlights of the FREEDOMS 2/10/22 show.

FREEDOMS will return to the Yokohama Radiant Hall for their next show on February 26, 2022. The main event will be the match that was suppose to happen at Korakuen Hall between Jun Kasai and Minoru Fujita although this will be a Hardcore Match instead of a Glass Board Death Match. Takashi Sasaki will team up with his old rivals Brahman Shu and Brahman Kei as they take on the ERE team of Violento Jack, Toshiyuki Sakuda, and Takayuki Ueki. Toru Sugiura and Tomoya Hirata will have another non-title match this time against Mammoth Sasaki and Takahiro Katori. GENTARO, Kenji Fukimoto, and Rina Yamashita will form a team to take on Daisuke Masaoka, Kamui, and Rekka. The opening match will be Tatsuhito Takaiwa and Kengo against Yuya Susumu and Dragon Libre as it looks like the Susumu and Kengo team have broken up after failing to win the tag titles at the Korakuen Hall show.

As mentioned earlier, the main event of the FREEDOMS Korakuen Hall for March 29, 2022 will be Jun Kasai defending his King of FREEDOM World Championship against Daisuke Masaoka. A month ago I would have said there was no way that Masaoka was going to win. The plan was for Jun Kasai vs. Masashi Takeda for the title on May 3, 2022 at the Yokohama Budokan as FREEDOMS was going to do their biggest drawing match for their biggest show of the year. Now with things uncertain for Takeda, there is the possibility that they decide to go in a different direction. If there is no Takeda match for the title, there really isn't that many more contenders Kasai has within the promotion after just having a long run with the title in 2019. Masaoka who had a long run with the title in 2017 since losing the title has managed to become the guy you beat right before you challenge for the title and Masaoka which is what happened in November 2021 when Kasai defeated Masaoka on November 17, 2021 at Korakuen Hall to earn himself a shot at the title. It seems a little much for Masaoka to lose to Kasai again in a Korakuen Hall main event just four months later.

I do think if Takeda is going to come back any time in the first half of 2022, it will be for the Yokohama Budokan, but I think the odds of the Kasai vs. Takeda match happening for the title at least are not good as Takeda would be expected to be back in prime ring shape to main event the biggest show which would be a hard ask for him, and that's even if he finds the passion again to get back in the ring in just four months after the tragedy that he has gone through. Of course, the issue with Masaoka holding the title would mean that he would be expected to main event and help draw the biggest show of the year in his first title defense which would be a hard ask for him as well since he has not been properly built up like he had been in 2017 and the fans still did not take to him as champion back then.

The A-Team would run their first show of the year on January 16, 2022 at the Tokyo Kitasenju White Studio where they would announce a crowd of 100 fans which is double than what they typically announced every show last year. The main event would have HASEGAWA defending the WEW Jr. Heavyweight Title against Bryan Ishizaka with HASEGAWA putting away Ishizaka at 18 minutes, 18 seconds with a Diving Foot Stomp to successfully defend the title for the first time.

The semi-main event would be an A-Team vs. ZERO1 Battle with Tomohiko Hashimoto, Raiden, and Takumi Sakurai getting the win over the ZERO1 team of Takafumi, Junya Matsunaga, and Genta Hiriki with Hashimoto getting the win at 16 minutes, 34 seconds with the XCT on Hiriki. Masashiro Sase, Magic Killer # 1, and Jin would team up to take on the team of Toru Sugiura, Tomoya Hirata, and Kenya Maeda in a Table Crash Match with Magic Killer # 1 picking up the win at 17 minutes, 25 seconds with a Diving Body Press sending Maeda through the table for the win. Masamune, Shota Nakagawa, Kosaku Tonozaki would defeat the team of Super Tiger, MIKAMI, and Raito Shimizu when Tonozaki would get the pin over Shimizu at 14 minutes, 39 seconds with his Eject finisher. Rion Mizuki would defeat Joji Otani at 11 minutes, 11 seconds with a roll up to earn himself a shot at the WEW Jr. Heavyweight Title at the next show. The opening match would see Tatsuhito Takaiwa defeat Daisaku Shimoda at 9 minutes, 42 seconds with a Death Valley Bomb in the first match for the promotion in 2022.

The A-Team returned to the Tokyo Kitasenju White Studio on February 6, 2022 announcing a crowd of 100 fans which seems to be the number they are going to go with this year. The main event saw HASEGAWA successfully defend the WEW Jr. Heavyweight Title by defeating Rion Mizuki at 16 minutes, 28 seconds with a Diving Footstomp to defend the title for the second. After the match, MIKAMI came out to the ring and challenged HASEGAWA for a title shot for March 27th. The semi-main event would be an A-Team vs. ZERO1 match with Takafumi, Shoki Kitamura and Junya Matsunaga defeated Tomohiko Hashimoto, Raiden, and Grand Masaru when Kitamura would pin Raiden at 13 minutes, 8 seconds with a German Suplex. Takumi Sakurai, Iori Sugawara, and Kosaku Tonozaki would defeat Super Tiger, Tatsuhito Takaiwa, and Raito Shimizu when Tonozaki would pick up the win at 17 minutes with a lariat over Shimizu. The regular death match by sponsor Masahiro Sase would end up being a Street Fight Barbed wire Baseball Bat Death Match but Sase would not be on the show as scheduled and instead it would be Jin and Kenya Maeda defeating Magic Killer # 1 and Sase's replacement Kento DiCaprio with Jin pinning DiCaprio at 12 minutes, 55 seconds with a STO on the barbed wire bat and a stack of chairs. The opening match would be MIKAMI and Daisaku Shimoda defeating Joji Otani and Bryan Ishizaka when MIKAMI would pin Ishizaka at 11 minutes, 13 seconds with a School Boy.

Megumi Kudo was on Bull Nakano's YouTube show that was released today where Kudo went over how she has been dealing with the passing of her husband Hido since October. Kudo went over that writing the report on social media about his passing being incredibly difficult and overwhelming as so many people began to reach out to her afterwards. She talked about going back into her house and with no children feeling like she could not stay living in it anymore, so she decided to move back in with her parents. She does want to move and buy a new house soon, but it would be in a different ward (district) so that she can have a fresh new start.

She began to get emotional and cry talking about how so many people have contacted her and been really kind to her throughout the whole situation, but it's difficult for her cause many times she just wants to be alone, but at the times she doesn't want to be alone anymore, she doesn't want to be selfish and try to include herself in a social group of friends when she has denied being around them so much with wanting to be alone so often. Kudo talked about how she has really focused on her love of professional wrestling and her job with ZERO1 to keep her mind off things and she is in a better place right now than she was in October following his passing, and she was able to laugh and smile with Nakano towards the end of the interview segment.

Last week marked 20 years since FMW's final show on February 4, 2002 at Korakuen Hall. Next week marks 20 years since the official closing of FMW after it was forced to go into bankruptcy on February 15, 2002 ending the 12 year run of the promotion. I remember back on January 6, 2002, as it had been over two months since Hayabusa's career ending injury and that day Mr. Gannosuke had broken his leg. I had been laying in bed in a negative state of mind just thinking about how I knew FMW was not going to make it that much longer.

It turns out FMW owner Shoichi Arai and many of the FMW wrestlers did not even think this was the case, as Shoichi Arai continued to push through in hopes of selling FMW to keep it alive. Although he would not be able to find a buyer by the time of February 14, 2002, when it would come out that Arai had been borrowing from multiple different loan sharks which when they would find this out together would result in them all trying to deposit their checks all at once after Arai had asked them not to cash them knowing there was barely anything in the account and the account wouldn't be able to support all the checks cashed, so when the account couldn't support all the checks deposited account, it would result in FMW being forced into bankruptcy and an immediate closure the following day.

After going through Shoichi Arai's book where he breaks down the financial situations, it is very clear that FMW should have actually closed down after their big November 12, 2000 show in Yokohama Bunka Gym show where Hayabusa would wrestle one last match before needing double reconstructive elbow surgery and being out for 6 months. Being able to look back now, FMW might have closed down, but Hayabusa and Shoichi Arai most likely would still be alive to this day, and a new promotion would have been able to be formed with Hayabusa as the star of it, of course hindsight is always 20/20 and Arai did not want the FMW name to die after kicking Onita out of FMW in 1998 resulting in a fight over ownership of the FMW name between the two with Arai refusing to give it to Onita.

FMW had already been dealt with declining attendance numbers the last couple of years and then when DirecTV shut down in June 2000, which then made FMW take a much worse deal with SkyPerfecTV, that would result in them not being able to afford to go through anymore down periods when the promotion had been very up and down over the last couple of years with a better financial backing. They were put in a situation where profits needed to go up, and that's when attendance absolutely collapsed without Hayabusa. They began bleeding money after every show, even their Korakuen Hall events which traditionally had been their big monthly revenue source through out the Hayabusa era now turned into two shows a month that were barely making any money for the company, if they were making anything at all because of how much decline they had without Hayabusa on top.

Due to the decline they realized in February 2001, that they were going to have to either drop Masato Tanaka or Kintaro Kanemura due to their bigger contracts with Fuyuki deciding to drop Tanaka due to his friendship with Kanemura and feeling like it was more important to keep him than Tanaka who at that point had been passed over for Tetsuhiro Kuroda as Kuroda at that point had a better character than Tanaka and was another Fuyuki guy. Jado, Gedo, Hideki Hosaka, and Kaori Nakayama also ended up leaving with Tanaka on their own which FMW was okay with as it would be less contracts that they would need to make good on. Hayabusa was able to come back on May 5, 2001 and although the Korakuen Hall shows picked back up financially and there were some house shows that did well, there were still shows that did poorly as they never were able to fully recover from Hayabusa's original absence despite Hayabusa's return.

Hayabusa would end up suffering his career ending injury on October 22, 2001 and house shows attendance would just die once and for all. Knowing the roster in its current state without Hayabusa was not going to be a draw of any sorts, they would decide to begin to pay to bring in foreign wrestlers like Sabu, The Sandman, Balls Mahoney, and Vic Grimes which would actually result in the final two Korakuen Halls shows doing decently attendance wise from previous shows. It was way too little too late though, as Arai owed too much to too many people and was millions of dollars in debt.

FMW's name has been able to live on these last twenty years though. I remember after FMW's closure wondering how I was going to be able to keep the site going with the name being FMW World and there being no FMW. Its been 20 years though, and there is still enough content to keep this website going after all this time.

Twenty years ago I closed on the update of FMW declaring bankruptcy with the following statement: FMW was a great promotion, even in its last days, they still had good shows, and great wrestlers that loved the promotion. There will always be an FMW spirit because of the wrestlers and because of the fans. After all this time, I can still say this is true, as the FMW spirit is still alive, and I know personally I have done everything I can these last 20 years to make sure it continues to.

I have been collecting FMW merchandise for over 20 plus years at this point. The two biggest buys I have made are the white Hayabusa jacket in 2016 and the brown Hayabusa jacket in 2020. The brown jacket is the jacket that Hayabusa wore to the ring for his biggest matches of his career including his first two Kawasaki Stadium matches on May 5th in 1995 against Atsushi Onita and 1996 against Terry Funk and Mr. Pogo.

Some other notable matches he wore the brown jacket was for his June 27, 1995 match against Hisakatsu Oya for the vacant Brass Knuckles Title and his April 30, 1998 match against Mr. Gannosuke for the FMW Double Titles. Both those matches he ended up wearing his brown outfit to the ring and ended up walking away with the FMW Brass Knuckles Title. Hayabusa actually never defended the title for either of those two reigns, but on August 25, 1999 in what was suppose to be his last match as Hayabusa and was his second to last time wearing the brown jacket. He brought the FMW Brass Knuckles Heavyweight Title to the ring with his brown jacket and successfully defended the title against Mr. Gannosuke in the main event. The FMW Brass Knuckles Title would never be seen on FMW video again after that match.

I have searched through out the years for the original FMW Brass Knuckles Title on the internet, but I have not seen or heard of the whereabouts of either the FMW Brass Knuckles Heavyweight Title or the FMW Independent Heavyweight Title over the last 22 years. I was told back in 1999 that they were auctioned off shortly after the August 25, 1999 show. I never saw anything posted on a website back then and several FMW wrestlers did not know/remember this auction happening, but it was not commonly known that the FMW Brass Knuckles and Independent Heavyweight Titles would never be seen again following the August 25, 1999 show and just weeks later after I was told about the auction there was Kodo Fuyuki coming to the ring with the newly created original WEW Heavyweight Title. Which ironically enough, I was able to randomly come across that ugly title back in 2010 while in Tokyo.

Last year I decided that I probably will never find the original FMW Brass Knuckles Heavyweight Title, but there are so many great title belt makers and was able to get in touch with one that custom made the title belt and tried to make it as close to the original as possible so that I can place it over Hayabusa's brown jacket which to me is where the FMW Brass Knuckles Heavyweight Title belongs.

FREEDOMS/A-Team/FMW-E/Production Shows News 2021 (January - December 2021)

FREEDOMS/A-Team/FMW Misc./Production Shows News 2020 (January - December 2020)

FREEDOMS/A-Team/FMW Misc./Production Shows News 2019 (January - December 2019)

FREEDOMS/A-Team/FMW Misc./Production Shows News 2018 (January - December 2018)

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)

WMF & Apache Army News 2007 (January - December 2007)

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