Added: 12/27

Jun Kasai promoted his Christmas Death Match show for the third year in a row and fourth out of the last five years on December 25, 2010 at the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring called "Blood X'Mas 2010". The announced crowd was an overwhelming 435 fans for the show. Sami Callihan of CZW had originally been booked as Kasai's opponent and although Callihan made it to his flight to the Narita Airport he never made it into Tokyo. Because of Callihan's absence the main two matches were changed with Takashi Sasaki being moved up into the main event of the show against Kasai in a Glass Death Match and Yuko Miyamoto being booked for the show to take on The Winger in a Ladder Death Match.

Jun Kasai faced off against Takashi Sasaki in the main event of the show for their first singles match against each other since January 16, 2009. Key spots in the match were Kasai placing the Glass on top of two chairs and then powerbombing Sasaki through the plate glass as well as Sasaki grabbing some fluorescent light tubes and kicking them into Kasai's head. Both wrestlers were covered in blood by the end when Kasai hit his Reverse Tiger Driver on Sasaki to get the win at 16 minutes, 21 seconds. 

Yuko Miyamoto coming out with his newly won CZW Ultraviolet Underground Title faced off against The Winger in a Fluorescent Light Tube Ladder Death Match. Miyamoto attacked The Winger right away and diving over the top rope onto the outside. Miyamoto would then unmask Winger and smash a light tube over his head into the crowd. The Winger would eventually make a come back and hit his Diving Senton off the top rope on Miyamoto but climbing the ladder would turn out to be a mistake by The Winger as Miyamoto would end up climbing it and delivering a hurricanrana off the ladder. Miyamoto would end up pinning The Winger with a Backslide for the win at 18 minutes, 50 seconds. Mammoth Sasaki would take on Masashi Takeda in a Barbed wire Board Death Match and Mammoth would prove to be way too much for Takeda to handle as Mammoth would throw Takeda into the barbed wire board and then finish him off with the 29 Years Old at just 9 minutes, 7 seconds. Ricky Fuji and Ken45° who formed their own band with The Great Sasuke since Ken45° left the Kojika Army teamed up with Mototsugu Shimizu to defeat the Kojika Army team of GENTARO, Brahman Shu, and Brahman Kei in a Scramble Bunkhouse Death Match after Ricky hit the 9999 DDT on Kei for the win at 10 minutes, 23 seconds. Kamui opened the show defeating Big Japan's Kankuro Hoshino in a Street Fight after getting the win at 15 minutes, 4 seconds by hitting Hoshino with a Swanton Bomb.

FREEDOMS held their second biggest show in the promotions history on December 15, 2010 at the Shinjuku FACE in Tokyo. They announced a crowd of 285 fans which would have to be considered a huge disappointment considering the building holds up to around 650 people. The main event of the show was the leader of the FREEDOMS Army in Takashi Sasaki against his old tag team partner and leader of the Kojika Army in GENTARO in a Two out of Three Falls Match. It was also a rematch of the first ever FREEDOMS match back on September 2, 2009 that GENTARO won. The first fall was rewarded to GENTARO after he hit a Backdrop on Sasaki and held him down for the three count to get the first fall at 12 minutes, 31 seconds. Sasaki came back with a D-Geist on GENTARO to tie it up at one fall a piece at 19 minutes, 32 seconds. Sasaki then finally defeated GENTARO with the Fuyuki like Charging Lariat at 28 minutes, 13 seconds for the FREEDOMS Army win over the Kojika Army although the feud looks to continue into 2011.

The team of Tsuyoshi Kikuchi, Ricky Fuji and Ken45° defeated the Kojika Army team of Great Kojika, Antonio Honda, and Abdullah Kobayashi after Ken45° rolled up Kojika with a La Magistral for the win at 15 minutes, 55 seconds. Kikuchi had heated words with Kojika at the beginning of the match as well as afterwards when Sanshiro Takagi came out with Shigehiro Irie as the three formed a new faction called TKG48 and will continue to feud with the Kojika Army. 

The team of Takao Omori, Dick Togo, and Tatsuhito Takaiwa took on the FREEDOMS Army of Jun Kasai, Mammoth Sasaki, and The Winger with Takaiwa getting the win for his team after hitting The Winger with a Death Valley Bomb at 16 minutes, 57 seconds. Jun Kasai and Takao Omori exchanged heated words after the match although no match between the two has been set as Omori will be facing off against Masashi Takeda in a singles match at the January FREEDOMS show.

Yuko Miyamoto took on Kamui in a Hardcore Rules Match between the two former WMF Dojo students. Two tables were setup between the turnbuckles with both Miyamoto and Kamui climbing up on top of the tables and diving off of them. Kamui placed Miyamoto on one of the tables by the ring and then climbed up into the crowd and dove off of one of ramps that fans keep their drinks on and send Miyamoto through the table. Miyamoto would still be able to make his come back and get the win over Kamui by hitting a Fire Thunder on a chair at 15 minutes, 38 seconds.

Keita Yano with a Joker from the Dark Knight look defended his Wallaby TV Title after defeating HIROKI 2 minutes, 36 seconds in the 3rd Round after HIROKI was attacked during the match by a Karate Mummy and HIROKI was unable to continue the match giving Yano the win. Masashi Takeda, Shinobu, and Madoka teamed up to defeat the team of Kazuhiko Ogasawara, Brahman Shu, and Brahman Kei with Onryo as the Special Referee. The Brahman Brothers were very upset at Onryo for playing a fair and Ogasawara tried to use a chain that backfired as he got hit with it instead and Shinobu got the pinfall over Ogasawara as a result with Onryo counting the three for the win at 8 minutes, 51 seconds.

The Apache Army promotion returned under Kintaro Kanemura for the first time since his sexual harassment scandal in February 2008 after Kanemura took back the name after Takashi Sasaki dropped it to create his FREEDOMS promotion. The Apache Army returned to Shin-Kiba 1st Ring on December 17, 2010 drawing an announced 200 fans which if legitimate would seem to be a financial success due to the small roster for the show. The main event of the show which originally was suppose to be an Apex Triangle Title match between Dick Togo and Masao Orihara against Kintaro Kanemura and Tetsuhiro Kuroda was force to be switched around after Orihara was unable to make the show. Arashi filled in for Orihara as Togo's partner and the Apex Triangle Title match turned into a Spectators were to throw in their chairs during the match as Togo ended up getting the win for his team after hitting Kuroda with a Powerbomb to score the pinfall at 14 minutes, 58 seconds. Takao Omori defeated Tomohiko Hashimoto in the semi-main event after hitting Hashimoto with the Axe Bomber for the pin at 12 minutes, 50 seconds. Former UWFi fighter Kenichi Yamamoto returned to the ring and took apart Apache Kosaki which is Hiroshi Kosaki's new ring name after Yamamoto KO'd Kosaki with a knee kick at 5 minutes, 38 seconds. NEO's Yuki Miyazaki defeated Shinjuku Shark with a Moonsault at 6 minutes, 5 seconds and in the opening match Kintaro Kanemura and Yasu Urano defeated Tetsuhiro Kuroda and Tomohiro Waki who was making his pro-wrestling debut in the match. Kanemura ended up finishing off Waki with the Blast YAMA Senton Special and getting the pinfall at 9 minutes, 14 seconds. The next Apache Army show will be on January 28th at the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring. The team of Kanemura and Takuya Sugawara finished up unsuccessfully in the Furinkazen Tag Team Tournament after only getting one victory in the tournament by defeating the team of Sean and Phil Davis but losing to the teams of Munenori Sawa and Hikaru Sato, Shinjiro Otani and Akebono, and Kohei Sato and Kamikaze. Masato Tanaka and his partner Daisuke Sekimoto made it to the finals of the tournament but ended up losing to Kamikaze and Kohei Sato.

Two former FMW wrestlers celebrated their 15 Year Anniversaries in pro-wrestling over a one month span of each other. First was Miss Mongol's 15th Year Anniversary as she promoted her own show under the name Miss Mongol's Productions "History of M" show on November 22, 2010 at the Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse. Mongol teamed up with former FMW wrestlers Atsushi Onita, Masato Tanaka, and Tetsuhiro Kuroda against the team of Mr. Pogo, Ricky Fuji, The Winger, and Hideki Hosaka in a Barbed wire Street Fight Death Match. It was Onita's second match back from his most recent retirement back on May 5th as he fought with Mr. Pogo in the Barbed wire like it was the 90's. Mongol who was bloodied during the match due to Mr. Pogo's knife as well as getting carved up by the barbed wire was able to get the win for her team as she climbed up a ladder and while Tanaka and Kuroda held the ladder straight for her, Onita bodyslammed The Winger and held him down for Mongol to dive off the ladder and get the win over The Winger. Onita grabbed the mic afterwards and did his promo to get the crowd pumped up before giving the mic as well as putting his jacket on Mongol who then did her own emotional promo for the crowd and thanked the fans for showing up to celebrate her 15 years in Pro-Wrestling.

The next former FMW wrestler to celebrate their 15th Anniversary in Pro-Wrestling was Onryo who reunited his team with GOEMON who was wrestling in his first match since July for the 666 promotion on December 23, 2010 at the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring. Onryo and GOEMON took on the DDT team of MIKAMI and Tanomusaku Toba with Onryo getting the win over Toba with the Onryo Clutch at 22 minutes, 13 seconds. After the match, every wrestler on the show came to the ring and celebrated Onryo's 15 years in pro-wrestling by tossing him up in the air several times before dropping him. Onryo and MIKAMI would then reform their tag team just three days later on December 26th for DDT's Korakuen Hall show as they defeated Tanomusaku Toba and Mitsuya Nagai after MIKAMI pinned Toba to earn a shot at Antonio Honda and Daisuke Sasaki's KO-D Tag Team Titles on January 16th in Nagoya.

Added: 12/12

Mr. Gannosuke ran his "Kishindoh Returns 5" show at the Tokyo Shin-Kiba 1st Ring drawing an announced crowd of 285 fans. Jun Kasai faced off against Munenori Sawa in the main event of the show in a Ladder Match. It was just a standard match with a ladder allowed to be used by the request of both Kasai and Sawa with Gannosuke accepting their request. They did a couple of spots with the ladder at first before beginning to brawl around the building with Kasai throwing Sawa at the table that Mr. Gannosuke was using to sell all his previous Gannosuke Production show DVD's at. The two would end up fighting outside the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring before making it back in the ring. Kasai would set up the ladder and attempt to deliver the Pearl Harbor Splash off of it but Sawa would manage to climb it and put Kasai in the Octopus Hold on top of the ladder. The move would end up being broken and the two would begin striking at each other before knocking the ladder down to the mat. Kasai would then hit a Supplex on Sawa into the ladder and then place the ladder on top of Sawa and then hit the Pearl Harbor Splash on the ladder on top of Sawa and cover him for the pin at 17 minutes, 32 seconds.

Jun Kasai would grab the mic and proclaim Munenori Sawa a splendid disturbed man after having that match with him and thanked him for the match and would leave. Sawa would then grab the mic and call Mr. Gannosuke to the ring. Sawa thanked Gannosuke for allowing him such difficult homework for his shows like the 61 minute 2 out of 3 fall match against GENTARO last year and now this Ladder Match. Gannosuke then got on the mic and proclaimed Sawa the ace of the Kishindoh Returns shows. Sawa thanked Gannosuke for that as well as giving him a break 5 years ago as Lingerie Muto in WMF which was at the time the biggest and best known promotion that Sawa was being booked for at the time. Gannosuke stated that it was Sawa's talent that had gotten him this far and that's what gives you the breaks in the business as the show hands and Sawa left the ring. Gosaku then came to the ring and talked with Gannsouke for a minute before their 3, 2, 1 Bokkingu chant that ends every Gannosuke show. That is usually followed by Gannosuke lariating Gosaku although this time Gannosuke instead dropkicked Gosaku from behind although was not able to get much height on the kick that sent Gosaku out of the ring. Gannosuke then announced that there would be a Kishindoh Reutnrs 6 show in 2011 although no hint was given on exactly when. Gannosuke thanked the fans for coming and continued to support this promotion that allows Dream Matches to take place. 

Masato Tanaka faced off against Masashi Takeda in their first ever singles match in the semi-main event of the show. The match was as hard hitting as expected with both wrestlers going all out with Tanaka hitting his Roaring Elbow, Lariat, and Frog Splash and Takeda hitting his German Supplex before Tanaka finshed it off with his Sliding D to get the win over Takeda at 13 minutes, 43 seconds.

Dragon Gate's Kenichiro Arai teamed up with 19 year old Ice Ribbon wrestler Chii Tomiya who is one of Gannosuke's Ice Ribbon trainees took on the team of Osaka Pro's Masamune and 21 year old Makoto who is another Gannosuke Ice Ribbon trainee. The men and women both fought each other during the match until Masamune used the Honebami to finish off Tomiya at 14 minutes, 30 seconds in what was described as a very fun match. Keita Yano who was dressed up completely as Doink including the face paint took on Kazuhiro Tamura in the second match. The match was mostly mat work with both wrestlers using their submission training before Tamura would end up getting the better on Yano by putting on a Cross Armbreaker and making Yano tap out at 11 minutes, 44 seconds.

GENTARO who won the main event of the last Gannosuke Production show back in July opened the show this time around by taking on the GUTS Promotions Daisuke who brought the Guts World Championship to the ring with him. The most noteworthy thing that came from the match was GENTARO hitting a Sliding D as a call out to Masato Tanaka before finishing Daisuke with the a lariat for the win at 11 minutes, 12 seconds. Mr. Gannosuke opened the show coming out to the ring and thanking the fans for attending the show when Real Japan was running at the same time at Korakuen Hall and had Tiger Mask vs. Tiger Mask on their show and Style-E having already taken place earlier in the day at Shin-Kiba. The show was considered a good show with every match being entertaining as the Gannosuke shows are considered trust worthy when it comes to putting on a good product. The only knock on the show was the lighting was poor and sometimes hard to see when it comes to taking pictures which is usually the case when it comes to the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring building. 

Osaka Pro's Masamune held his own promoted show on December 10, 2010 at the Tokyo Shin-Kiba 1st Ring drawing an announced crowd of 263 fans. Some of the highlights from the show were Soldier bringing his BUU Bar to a gimmick table outside the building and selling his beer and appetites before the show. Kamui, Yasu Urano, and Munenori Sawa worked the show. Masato Tanaka took on Black Buffalo in a bloody singles match that saw Buffalo get unmasked and bleed all over his face before Tanaka would finish him off with the Sliding D at 13 minutes, 4 seconds. 

Added: 11/29

Kintaro Kanemura announced the lineup for the return for the Apache Army promotion this past week. The main event will be Kintaro Kanemura and Tetsuhiro Kuroda teaming up to take on Dick Togo and Masao Orihara with the Apex of Triangle Tag Team Titles on the line. I would guess whoever wins the match will get to pick another wrestler to hold the titles with them seeing as they are 6 man titles. Takao Omori who has began working every Independent promotion he can get booked on will work the show against Tomohiko Hashimoto. Former UWFI and UFC Japan fighter Kenichi Yamamoto will be working the show as he faces Yusaku Obata. Shinjuku Shark will end up faking on NEO's Yuki Miyazaki with Kanemura and Kyoko Inoue having formed a working relationship after Kanemura wrestled Yuki Miyazaki earlier this month for the NEO promotion. Kintaro Kanemura will also be participating in ZERO-ONE's Furinkazan Tag Team Tournament for the second year in a row. This year Kanemura's partner will be Takuya Sugawara with the tournament taking place from December 11th to December 21st. They will be in the A Block with the team of Masato Tanaka and Daisuke Sekimoto in the B Block.

FREEDOMS ran two shows over the last week. The first show was on November 23, 2010 at the Hiroshima Industrial Hall West Pavilion announcing a crowd of 255 fans for their first show in the Hiroshima area. The main event was a Elimination Hardcore Rules Match. The FREEDOMS Army consisting of Takashi Sasaki and Jun Kasai teaming with the Hiroshima Union of Yuko Miyamoto who is from Hiroshima and Kai who is also from the city facing off against the Kojika Army of Great Kojika, GENTARO, Brahman Shu, and Brahman Kei. Jun Kasai scored the first elimination by hitting the Pearl Harbor Splash on Brahman Kei to get the pinfall at 11 minutes, 54 seconds. Brahman Shu then managed to eliminate Jun Kasai by tossing him over the top rope at 12 minutes, 58 seconds. Yuko Miyamoto and Brahman Shu then ended up tossing each other over the top rope at 16 minutes, 47 seconds. Kai then eliminated Great Kojika at 20 minutes, 50 seconds by throwing him over the top rope. GENTARO then followed that up by tossing Kai over the top rope to eliminate him at 22 minutes, 18 seconds. This left just Takashi Sasaki and GENTARO against each other with Sasaki getting the win after eliminating GENTARO by hitting the D-Geist for the pinfall victory at 26 minutes, 9 seconds for the FREEDOMS Army and Hiroshima Union victory. The semi-main event saw HIROKI defend his International Jr. Heavyweight Title which he won from the Tenryu Project promotion which also use to be the WAR International Jr. Heavyweight Title by defeating Kamui with the Quick Bomb at 11 minutes, 55 seconds for his first title defense. Mammoth Sasaki and Keita Yano teamed up to take on the team of Tatsuhito Takaiwa and Masashi Takeda and would end up losing after Takaiwa pinned Yano with the Death Valley Bomb at 14 minutes, 42 seconds. Onryo and Hiroshima's SUSUMU defeated Ricky Fuji and Madoka after Ricky ended up being counted out of the ring at 13 minutes, 7 seconds after Onryo tied him up against the rope outside and threw dust in Madoka's face to prevent him from helping Ricky out. The Winger opened the show by defeating American wrestler Souther with a cradle at 7 minutes, 47 seconds.

The next show was held on November 25, 2010 at the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring with the show continuing a bad trend as the announced attendance went down again to 149 fans for the show. The main event was a Two out of Three Falls Match between the FREEDOMS Army of Takashi Sasaki, Jun Kasai, Ricky Fuji, and the newest member Ken45° against the Kojika Army of Magnitude Kishiwada, Kazuhiko Ogasawara, Abdullah Kobayashi, and Antonio Honda with Great Kojika in their corner. The first fall ended up being a draw after Jun Kasai and Antonio Honda were counted out of the ring at 19 minutes, 7 seconds. This would lead to the winner of the next fall winning the match and Magnitude Kishiwada would end up bringing victory to the Kojika Army after hitting Last Ride on Ken45° for the pinfall at 24 minutes, 26 seconds. The semi-main event saw GENTARO and Dick Togo who have become a regular tag team in both FREEDOMS and DDT take on and defeat the team of Tatsuhito Takaiwa and HIROKI after Togo made HIROKI submit to the Crossface. Mammoth Sasaki and Kamui teamed up again to take on Masashi Takeda and Madoka with Mammoth hitting the 29 Years Old on Madoka for the win at 12 minutes, 5 seconds. They setup a singles match between Mammoth and Takeda for the Jun Kasai Death Match show on Christmas afterwards. Keita Yano defended his Wallaby TV Title for the second time after Onryo ended up being DQ'd during the match 2 minutes, 53 seconds in the third round. The Brahman Brothers won the opening match defeating The Winger and Ryuichi Sekine when Kei pinned Winger using the Brahman Clutch. 

The next show will be the annual Jun Kasai promoted Death Match Christmas show on December 25, 2010 at the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring. The main event will be Jun Kasai against a Mystery Opponent with it stated that the opponent will be from Australia in a Death Match stip to be named later. Takashi Sasaki and The Winger will take on each other in a Death Match with a stip to be named later as well. Mammoth Sasaki will take on Masashi Takeda in their first singles match against each other in a Barbed wire Board Death Match. GENTARO, Brahman Shu and Brahman Kei will team up against Ricky Fuji & Ken45° & Mototsugu Shimizu in a Scramble Bunkhouse Death Match. The opening match will be Kamui looking to steal the show like he did at last years show taking on Big Japan's Kankuro Hoshino in a Street Fight. 

The FREEDOMS, Big Japan, K-Dojo, and Ice Ribbon promoted New Years Eve show on December 31, 2010 at Korakuen Hall announced an outline to their lineup for the show. Takashi Sasaki and GENTARO are the only FREEDOMS wrestlers announced for the show so far. GENTARO will face off against Atsushi Ohashi in a 7 Referees Match. Takashi Sasaki will be in a 8 Man One Night Tournament along with the likes of Great Kojika, TAKA Michinoku, Yuki Ishikura, and Sanshiro Takagi. A 30 Organization Battle Royal will end the show. 

I spent hours looking at everywhere but I was unable to find anything as far as the Miss Mongol promoted "History of M" November 22nd show at the Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse to celebrate her 15 years in wrestling with the main event of Atsushi Onita, Masato Tanaka, Tetsuhiro Kuroda, and Miss Mongol against Mr. Pogo, Ricky Fuji, The Winger, and Hideki Hosaka in a Barbed wire Death Match. I also was unable to find anything on the Super FMW show on November 27th at Shin-Kiba 1st Ring as I believe the promotion has so few fans attending that nobody cares at this point to release any of the results of the show. The full lineup was Tarzan Goto, Nobuhiro Tsurumaki and Yuta Nakata against Yuko Miyamoto & The Winger & Kamui in a Hardcore Rules Street Fight, Cherry Bomb & Sexy Star against Kaori Yoneyama and Senri Kuroki, Tomonobu Matsumoto vs. Crab K*ING, Haley Hatred vs. Kyoko Kimura, Shitamachi Pounder and Ikeru Kojima against Kunihiko Mitame & Bruce Lei, and Reina Ayukawa against Yuka Inokuma for the Half Life Title. I'm sure the main event of both shows will end up on the Occupation of the Indies show soon so once I get that I will post whatever I find from that. 

Kimura Yoshikimi who wrestled as Gran Naniwa passed away on October 6, 2010 of a heart attack at 33 years old. Naniwa who started in Michinoku Pro and wrestled for All Japan before becoming a freelancer which he remained until his death. He wrestled two matches in FMW as he becomes the 19th person to have wrestled a match in FMW to have passed away. He wrestled at the Osaka Hyogo Nishnomiya Stadium show on August 22, 1993 where he teamed with fellow Michinoku Pro wrestlers Super Delfin and Jinsei Shinzaki against The Great Sasuke, TAKA Michinoku, and Battle Ranger Z (Yukihide Ueno) when Ranger pinning Naniwa. His other match a singles match on October 27, 1993 in Niigata where Onita Jr. (Flying Kid Ichihara) defeated him to get over his Onita Jr. gimmick at the time. He also competed in the FMW Independent Jr. Heavyweight Heavyweight Tournament in 1993 although the tournament matches for him just took place in Michinoku Pro. He also teamed with Hayabusa who considered him a friend on May 3, 1997 along with Tiger Mask IV as they defeated the team of TAKA Michinoku, Shoichi Funaki, and Super Boy when Hayabusa pinned TAKA. Naniwa had a dark side due to his drinking as the last time anyone had seen him was after he was passed out on the street drunk and the promoter of the Mil Mascaras show back on October 11th was called to come pick him up. Yasu Urano also wrote that he was hanging out with Gran Naniwa in 2002 while drinking and Naniwa for whatever reason began believing that Urano was ignoring him. Later that night, Urano was in his hotel room when he heard a knocking at the door. It turned out to be Naniwa who was drunk wanting to fight him for thinking Urano had been ignoring him that night. Naniwa swung a punch at Urano but was so  drunk that there was hardly any impact and Naniwa ended up falling down drunk and needing help up. 

Today November 29th marks Hayabusa's 42nd Birthday. November 20th also marked the 12 year anniversary of this website. I believe it's the longest running updated Japanese wrestling website on the internet and although I understand a promotion that ended 8 years ago and promotions like FREEDOMS and Super FMW don't draw the most interest in 2010 like other promotions do I still believe this website is the best Japanese wrestling promotion based website on the internet. 

Added: 11/7

Atsushi Onita stated after his 5th Retirement on May 5, 2010 that he was most likely not retiring for good, but that he was going to take a long break from wrestling. That long break ended up being a little over 6 months as Atsushi Onita has been booked to return for a show promoted by Miss Mongol. Miss Mongol who is the head of the CPE promotion (a very small indy women's promotion with their main appeal being girls who are trained very little if at all have their tops ripped off during the matches) will be putting on her 15th Anniversary to Pro-Wrestling show. The show will take place on November 22, 2010 at the Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse. The undercard is pretty much a bunch of very small independent wrestlers feeling out the card with the main event being the only draw of the show as it will be an FMW Barbed wire Street Fight Death Match that will see Onita on one side against Mr. Pogo. The teams will consist of Onita, Masato Tanaka, Tetsuhiro Kuroda, and Miss Mongol against Mr. Pogo, Ricky Fuji, The Winger, and the returning to wrestling Hideki Hosaka. The Winger is the only non former FMW wrestler in the match although he did wrestle one FMW back in April 2000 while he was apart of Big Japan. 

That week in November will be a busy week for former FMW wrestlers as 10 of them are booked for shows that week. Super FMW makes its return to Shin-Kiba 1st Ring so apparently even though the last show was said to be around 25-30 fans they are still making enough money to keep running. The show will take place on November 27, 2010 with only two matches being announced so far. The main event will be Tarzan Goto with former W*ING wrestler Nobuhiro Tsurumaki and student Yuta Nakata against the team of Yuko Miyamoto, The Winger, and Kamui in a Hardcore Rules Street Fight. The only other match announced is a women's match with returning Cherry Bomb from Ontario teaming up with AAA's Sexy Star against JWP's Kaori Yoneyama and Senri Kuroki. 

Mineo Fujita recently sent a letter out directed towards ZERO-ONE stating how he missed out on the Tenka-Ichi Jr. Tournament in September due to a neck injury and issued a challenge to the winner of the Ikuto Hidaka who won the International Jr. Heavyweight Title by winning the Tenka Inchi Jr. Tournament against Fujita Jr. Hayato match at ZERO-ONE's Korakuen Hall show on November 17th. Minoru Fujita would reply to Mineo Fujita's letter by stating that it's a bunch of bullshit that Fujita was throwing his name out there for a title match when he didn't compete in the tournament and hasn't beaten anybody to earn a shot. Minoru Fujita stated that he deserved the title shot and not Mineo. Minoru Fujita's tag team partner Takuya Sugawara then replied back to his partners message by stating that between Mineo, Minoru, and Jr. Hayato that there are too many Fujita's in ZERO-ONE and that he deserved the title shot against Ikuto Hidaka. As a result, a three way match between Minoru Fujita, Takuya Sugawara, and Mineo Fujita has been made for the ZERO-ONE November 17th Korakuen Hall show with the winner of the Three Way at a later date facing the winner of the Ikuto Hidaka against Fujita Jr. Hayato match later on in the show for the title. 

The next Big Japan Korakuen Hall show will be on November 22nd. The main event will be Jun Kasai and Jaki Numazawa challenging for the BJW Tag Team Titles against current champions Daisuke Sekimoto and Yoshihito Sasaki in a Barbed wire Execution Match. Shinya Ishikawa who has just recently returned from a major knee injury will be teaming up with DDT's HARASHIMA as they face off against Yuji Okabayashi and Ryuichi Kawakami. Takashi Sasaki continues his two year long feud with the Brahman Brothers this time in Big Japan as he will team up with Yuko Miyamoto and Shinobu to take on Shu, Kei, and Shadow WX. Onryo will have yet another Men's World match as he teams up with Men's Teioh as well as Atsushi Ohashi to take on K-Dojo's Makoto Oishi, Shiori Asahi, and Tsutomu Oosugi.

Added: 11/1

Kintaro Kanemura announced on October 26, 2010 that the Apache Army promotion would be returning. The first show announced for would be on December 17, 2010 at the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring with the plan right now returning to Shin-Kiba every month as well as running shows in January in Osaka and Kanemura's home town of Mie. There is no financial backer so it is just Kanemura paying mostly his own money as well as whatever sponsors he is able to get. The group will consist of Kanemura's friends of Tetsuhiro Kuroda, Masao Orihara, Yusaku Obata, Tomohiko Hashimoto, Shinjuku Shark, and Hiroshi Kosaki. With the exception of Kuroda, I was told everyone of those wrestlers have spent time in jail including Kanemura. 

This officially ends the XWF promotion that never really overcame the problems of the debut show at Korakuen Hall on August 7, 2008 that bombed horribly which was followed by owner Yuichi Sasahara not paying many of the wrestlers as a result which got Kanemura heat for getting them involved with Sasahara to begin with since Sasahara has a horrible reputation as a sleazy liar. This Apache Army promotion will have no ties with Sasahara.

The Apache Army promotion will be going through its third start back up since being created in August 2004 by Kanemura and Go Ito. The first stoppage of the promotion of course was after Kanemura's sexual harassment with a Big Japan female employee that ended up becoming mainstream news in Japan in February 2008 and the main Apache Army sponsor pulled out right away and they were force to close just days later on February 22, 2008. Kanemura was expelled from the group, but Takashi Sasaki was able to get another main sponsor for the promotion to start back up on June 13, 2008 with Kanemura and Go Ito being gone from the promotion and Takashi Sasaki becoming the main booker of the promotion with Tetsuhiro Kuroda assisting him. The Apache Army for the first time in four years created an alliance with Mr. Gannosuke's WMF group that allowed Gannosuke, Ricky Fuji, Koji Nakagawa, and Kamui to work the shows shortly before WMF closed in August 2008 and all those wrestlers were given jobs in the Apache Army. The Apache Army still struggled greatly with keeping the fans coming to the shows and by December 2008 they were drawing less than a hundred fans for shows in Shin-Kiba causing the CF sponsorship to pull out.

Takashi Sasaki would then take more leadership in the promotion as he would put up much of his own money as well as finding other sponsors to keep going as the promotion pretty much became Takashi Sasaki's Apache Army in January 2009 with the promotion completely changing its look as Sasaki's friends like the Brahman Brothers, Jun Kasai, and Masashi Takeda became the main focus of the promotion and the likes of Mammoth Sasaki before his injury and Tetsuhiro Kuroda were phased down the card. This version of the Apache Army also struggled to keep around 100 fans for their Shin-Kiba 1st Ring shows and Sasaki came up with an idea to create interest and buzz by coming up with a plan for Kanemura to return to the promotion. Kanemura along with Kohei Sato and Tomohiko Hashimoto hit the ring after the main event of the May 22, 2009 show with Kanemura screaming and having to be held back for still running the promotion he had created the Apache Army and now he was banned from his own group. This angle would backfire as the little bit of sponsors Sasaki had left would pull out citing they were promised that Kintaro Kanemura would never appear on a show they were putting money into as well as anger many of the wrestlers on the show not knowing about the angle ahead of time including Jun Kasai who is very vocal about his hatred for Kanemura after the sexual harassment case stating he would never work on the same card as Kanemura again. 

Sasaki would end up scoring another sponsor after the latest sponsors pulled out in June 2009. But the new sponsors would refuse to sponsor the Apache Army name due to the promotion having Kanemura's bad stigma attached to it forever and force Sasaki to come up with a new promotion and just start all over. Sasaki would officially end his version of the Apache Army promotion in his hometown of Iwate on August 8, 2009 before creating the FREEDOMS promotion in September 2009 which he runs today. Tetsuhiro Kuroda would be the only wrestler not to follow Sasaki to the FREEDOMS promotion as he had only stayed with Sasaki's version of the Apache Army due to loyalty of the Apache Army name and not Takashi Sasaki himself. Kuroda would rejoin back up with the Kanemura group after the end of the Apache Army even though Kanemura's XWF was barely running at that point, but had Kuroda decided it was more important to stay loyal with Kanemura due to their decade long friendship since he wasn't making a  living from wrestling with Sasaki in charge anyway as he was force to get a job outside of wrestling due to recently getting married and having a child with her.

Now fourteen months since the last show was ran, Kanemura has decided to take back the Apache Army name that he had created as a group in August 2003 and made into a promotion in August 2004. Now only time will tell whether this version of the promotion will be able to stick around or it will meet yet another end.

FREEDOMS returned to the Tokyo Shin-Kiba 1st Ring for their October 28, 2010 show announcing their lowest crowd in the building for the promotions history at 153 fans. GENTARO teamed up with DDT partner Dick Togo in the main event to take on Takashi Sasaki and Masashi Takeda with GENTARO hitting a Backdrop on Takeda to score the pinfall at 20 minutes, 38 seconds. Jun Kasai ended Madoka's small push in the semi-main event after Kasai put away Madoka with a Reverse Tiger Driver at 13 minutes, 57 seconds for the win. The Kojika Army consisting of Kazuhiko Ogasawara, Brahman Shu, and Brahman Kei along with Great Kojika in their corner defeated the FREEDOMS Army team consisting of Mammoth Sasaki, The Winger, and Kamui with Shu hitting the School Shooter on Kamui to get the win at 13 minutes, 35 seconds. Keita Yano put up his Wallabee TV Title against Abdullah Kobayashi in a European Catch Rules Match with the match going the limit of all five 3 minute rounds expired with no winner being declared as Yano would retain his TV title as a result. Ricky Fuji defeated Shigehiro Irie at 13 minutes, 37 seconds after hitting Irie with his 9999 DDT for the win. Tatsuhito Takaiwa and HIROKI opened up the show by defeating the Kojika Army members of Onryo and Antonio Honda after HIROKI hit the Trance Rave on Honda at 14 minutes, 8 seconds for the pinfall.

No lineups for the two FREEDOMS shows in November in Hiroshima on the 23rd and Shin-Kiba 1st Ring for the 25th have been announced yet. Jun Kasai announced for the third straight year he would be promoting his own Death Match show at the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring on December 25th. 

Hayabusa attended Mil Mascaras' Mask Nobility Fiesta show that took place on October 11, 2010 at the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring. Hayabusa watched on the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring entrance ramp the match between El Samurai and Kikutaro. Hayabusa also got to meet with Mil Mascaras who was his first ever favorite wrester when he was four and his grandfather would take him to wrestling shows. Hayabusa hadn't met with Mascaras since he was working in Mexico in 1994. Hayabusa also got to meet with Genichiro Tenryu, El Pantera, and Kikutaro after the show with all of them taking pictures with Hayabusa after the show.

I ended up receiving the Mr. Gannosuke's movie the "Tonpachi Fellow of the Heisei Era" but due to it being an actual studio released movie it has been blocked from being able to copy into a DVD-R. Beginning of the movie is entertaining with Gannosuke fighting all the Ice Ribbon girls and the ending has a good scene with Gannosuke and Ricky Fuji sharing a moment together.

Added: 10/14

Now that Mr. Gannosuke has closed down his bar, he had started his focus back on promoting his own shows as he will return to the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring for his Kishindoh Returns 5 show on December 9, 2010. The main event of the show will be Jun Kasai taking on Munenori Sawa in a No Time Limit Match. The semi-main event of the show which originally was suppose to be the main event of the show will be Masato Tanaka taking on Masashi Takeda in their first singles match against each other. Dragon Gate's Kenichiro Arai will team up with Ice Ribbon's Chii Tomoya to take on Osaka Pro's Masamune and Ice Ribbon's Makoto. Kazuhiro Tamura will take on Keita Yano, and the opening match will be GENTARO against GUTS World's Daisuke. Only thing that sticks out is the lack of Gannosuke's students in Mineo Fujita and Yuko Miyamoto on the show as one of the reasons he started promoting again after retirement was to give Mineo Fujita another chance at a pay day but Fujita might still possibly be out by then with his neck injury but no idea why no Miyamoto scheduled for the show. 

FREEDOMS ran their show at the Sapporo Teisen Hall in the afternoon of October 11, 2010 which was the same day as the FREEDOMS, Big Japan, K-Dojo, DDT, and Ice Ribbon joint show in the same building. The FREEDOMS show announced a crowd of 268 fans. The main event saw the Kojika Army of Great Kojika, GENTARO, and Onryo defeat the FREEDOMS Army of Takashi Sasaki, Jun Kasai, and HIROKI after Kojika cradled up Kasai for the win at 21 minutes, 2 seconds. The surprise result of the show saw Mammoth Sasaki get his first big win since his return after he defeated Tatsuhito Takaiwa with the 29 Years Old at 12 minutes, 29 seconds. Madoka got a big win for him as he managed to defeat both Kamui and Masashi Takeda after he pinned both of them at the same with a Double Crucifix for the pinfall at 12 minutes, 31 seconds. The Winger and Shinobu defeated the team of Kazuhiko Ogasawara and Saburo Inematsu when Winger hit his Diving Senton on Inematsu for the win at 12 minutes, 24 seconds. The opening match saw Abdullah Kobayashi and Antonio Honda defeat the team of Ricky Fuji and Keita Yano after Kobayashi pinned Yano with a Diving Elbow at 14 minutes, 35 seconds.

Some Big Japan notes as Daisuke Sekimoto and Yoshihito Sasaki won the Big Japan Tag Team Titles over Jun Kasai and Jaki Numazawa after Sasaki pinned Numazawa on October 10th at the Sapporo Teisen Hall to start Sekimoto and Sasaki's second reign as tag champions together. It is Sekimoto's sixth reign as tag champ and Sasaki's third. Necro Butcher who was originally scheduled for the October tour for Big Japan was force to cancel after he was not allowed in Japan due to Immigration issues. The BJW Death Match Title main event for October 17th between Ryuji Ito against Shuji Ishikawa at Korakuen Hall will be a Fluorescent Light Tube, Glass Board, and Thumbtacks Death Match. 

Kintaro Kanemura and Tetsuhiro Kuroda returned to ZERO-ONE for the Shinjiro Otani and Masato Tanaka promoted show on October 11, 2010 at the Shinjuku FACE. Kanemura and Kuroda faced the team they feuded with throughout 2002 and 2003 in Shinjiro Otani and Masato Tanaka in the main event of the show. The result was the same as their 2002 and 2003 bouts were as Otani ended up getting the pinfall at 18 minutes, 42 seconds after hitting the Spiral Bomb for the pinfall on Kuroda.

Added: 10/4

Super FMW returned to the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring for their October 2, 2010 show. No attendance was announced but I was told that it was much less than 50 people there at the show which is downright horrible but some small promotions like this one use these shows just to gather hidden money as a tax saving method and that's why they keep putting on these shows that no one goes to. The main event was a Barbed wire Board Thumbtacks Ladder Death Match with Tarzan Goto, Nobuhiro Tsurumaki, and Yuta Nakata taking on the team of Yuko Miyamoto, Gokuaku-Umibozu, and Masahiro Sase in the main event. Most likely the ladder was used to setup a spot with Miyamoto doing a Moonsault off it, but Goto would of course end up getting the pinfall after hitting a facebuster on Sase on the thumbtacks to get the pinfall at 21 minutes, 42 seconds. The Winger ended up defeating Tarzan Goto's student in Tomonobu Matsumoto at 8 minutes, 34 seconds with a Senton for the America's Title Championship. Mr. Pogo ended up getting DQ'd quickly in his match against Transvestite Reina Ayukawa after Pogo began to hang Ayukawa over the top rope with his hang which for years as given him a TKO victory but instead he was DQ'd for it by the referee at 2 minutes 49 seconds. No results were released so far of Yuka Inokuma & Aki Shizuku against Wolf Star & Black Dog who is Banji Takada and Tsuneo Yoshie & Mother Kong vs. Ikeru Kojima & Bruce Ray. The opening match saw Kaori Yoneyama team up with a blonde Ontario based wrestler Cherry Bomb in the picture above against Basara and Haley Hatred with the practically the same finish as the Pogo match taking place as Basara began choking Cherry Bomb with a whip and was DQ'd for refusing to let go at 8 minutes, 46 seconds. Cherry Bomb, Haley Hatred, and Basara will continue to work along with each other as they will be in the same matches for both JWP and NEO's Korakuen Hall show. Basara also might be the best looking Joshi wrestler today as well. No future shows announced afterwards although they did have a 2 hour DVD of Super FMW's July 30th and August 20th shows for sale.

FREEDOMS ran two shows over the last month. Their first show of the month was on September 12, 2010 in Takashi Sasaki's home town of Iwate at the Ichinoseki City Gym drawing an announced crowd of 433 fans. The main event match saw the FREEDOMS Army of Takashi Sasaki, Jun Kasai, and The Great Sasuke defeat the Kojika Army of GENTARO, Brahman Shu, and Brahman Kei with the Great Kojika in their corner after Sasaki hit a Chokka-Style D-Geist on Kei for the win at 21 minutes, 14 seconds. The semi-main event saw Mammoth Sasaki face off against Daisuke Sekimoto for the first time since Mammoth's return at Korakuen Hall back on June 21st as Mammoth teamed with Shuji Ishikawa to defeat Daisuke Sekimoto and Kankuro Hoshino after Ishikawa hit the Splash Mountain on Hoshino for the pin at 16 minutes 23, seconds. Madoka got his revenge for losing the month prior as defeated Kamui with a Flying Cross Armbreaker at 14 minutes, 26 seconds. Yuko Miyamoto teamed up with Takuya Sugawara to defeat the team of The Winger and Ricky Fuji after Ricky was counted out after being unable to make it back in the ring for a 20 count. HIROKI and Shinobu defeated the Kojika Army team of Onryo and Ken45° after Shinobu deliver the S.E.X. for the pinfall on Ken45° at 14 minutes, 41 seconds. The opening match was an all Iwate match as Kikujiro Umezawa and Shuou Fujiwara defeated the Michinoku Pro team of Rui Hyugaji and Daichi Sasaki after Umezawa got the Jackhammer roll up pinfall at 11 minutes, 39 seconds on Sasaki for the win. 

The next show for FREEDOMS was a return to their home base of the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring as they draw an announced crowd of 184 fans which has to be considered a disappointed as their Shin-Kiba crowds have been dropping throughout the past few months. The main event saw GENTARO establish himself as the top heel in the promotion and Mammoth as the third top babyface in the promotion after GENTARO defeated Mammoth Sasaki in the main event after GENTARO hit a Rolling Clutch Hold on Mammoth to get the win at 13 minutes, 34 seconds. The semi-main event saw Takashi Sasaki, Jun Kasai, and HIROKI defeat the Kojika Army of Magnitude Kishiwada, Brahman Shu, and Brahman Kei with HIROKI getting one of the bigger wins since his return from injury after he pinned Kei with the Trance Rave at 16 minutes, 7 seconds. In a match originally scheduled for the Jun Kasai Death Match Tournament, Masashi Takeda returned to FREEDOMS from injury and defeated Kamui with a German Supplex at 15 minutes, 9 seconds in a Hardcore Rules Match. The FREEDOMS Army of Tatsuhito Takaiwa, The Winger, and Ricky Fuji defeated the Kojika Army of the Great Kojika, Kazuhiko Ogasawara, and Abdullah Kobayashi after The Winger rolled up Kobayashi with the La Magisterial for the huge upset win at 13 minutes, 48 seconds. The Three Way Match between Onryo, Takuya Sugawara, and Madoka was thrown out as all three men were DQ'd at 7 minutes, 35 seconds. The opening match between Antonio Honda and Keita Yano saw both pin end up knocking each other out with both hands laying across one another as the referee counted a Double Pinfall for both men at 18 minutes, 25 seconds. 

October 11th is turning out to be an eventful day for former FMW wrestlers. FREEDOMS will run a Noon show at the Sapporo Teisen Hall that day as Takashi Sasaki, Jun Kasai, and HIROKI will team up against the Kojika Army members of Great Kojika, GENTARO, and Onryo in the main event of the show. Mammoth will probably continue his singles losing slump in FREEDOMS as he takes on Tatsuhito Takaiwa in the semi-main event of the show. Kamui will get another chance at the last two wrestlers he has lost in singles matches to as he takes on Masashi Takeda and Madoka in a Three Way Hardcore Rules Match. The Winger and Shinobu will team up against Kazuhiko Ogsawara and K-Dojo's Saburo Inematsu. The opening match will see Ricky Fuji and Keita Yano against Abdullah Kobayashi and Antonio Honda. Around that time at the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring, Mil Mascaras will be having his Mask Nobility Fiesta 2010 show where Hayabusa will come out to witness the El Samurai against Kikutaro match on the show. Then later that day, Masato Tanaka and Shinjiro Otani will co-produce their own ZERO-ONE show at the Shinjuku FACE and they will team up in the main event to take on the team of Kintaro Kanemura and Tetsuhiro Kuroda in a revival of their 2002-2003 feud between WEW and Emblem. 

Mr. Gannosuke announced that on September 11, 2010 that his NOV Bar in Shin-Nakano was shutting down. The bar ended up ended up being a big time flop financially for Gannosuke as he only gave one days notice before shutting it down. Gannosuke who tried to bring fans in by bringing in personal friends of his like Masashi Takeda, Jun Kasai, and Kamui to meet with everyone at the bar one night a week and sing karaoke with them just couldn't establish a regular turn out of customers since opening the bar on June 26th. Gannosuke stated that he would like to try and open up another bar soon but doesn't know when exactly that will happen. He also wrote how he went to the dentist for the first time in 17 years after The Gladiator broke his jaw with a dropkick in FMW which caused him to suffer nerve damage that was giving him problems again recently. Having been up close to Gannosuke a couple of times, I will just say that you can definitely tell its been that long since he has been to a dentist as it is very noticeable up close. 

Mineo Fujita ended up suffering a neck injury at I believe the Arashi promoted show on September 5th. He was force to pull out of the ZERO ONE Tenka-Ichi Jr. Tournament with Madoka taking his place in the tournament as Madoka would lose to Sonjay Dutt in the 1st Round on September 14th at the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring. Ikuto Hidaka would end up winning the tournament on September 19th at Korakuen Hall as he would defeat Okinawa Pro's Kajin Habu Otoko in the finals. Fujita also was force to miss Dradition's September 26th show in Aikawa as a result of the injury. No word on when Fujita will be able to return to the ring.

Mammoth Sasaki will return to Big Japan and Korakuen Hall on October 17, 2010 as he will participate in the Young Boy match as he teams with Kazuki Hashimoto to take on Yuji Okabayashi and Takumi Tsukamoto. Shuji Ishikawa who defeated Abdullah Kobayashi on September 19th at Korakuen in a Number One Contender match will challenge Ryuji Ito for the BJW King of the Death Match Title in the main event of the show. 

WWS ran their 10 year Anniversary show in Pogo's home town of Gunma on September 20, 2010 drawing an announced crowd of 500 fans. Mr. Pogo teamed up with the Toryu (Magnitude Kishiwada) and Naoya Takase (a local green boy) to defeat the team of Tarzan Goto, Kintaro Kanemura, and Yuta Nakata after Pogo placed the chain over Nakata's neck and threw him over the top rope to strangle him causing the referee to stop the match and reward it to Pogo's team. The only thing of note on the show was that Gran Hamada teamed with a wrestler by the name of YAMIKI which was a reunion between the two as they along with Mr. Pogo trained in the New Japan Dojo together 38 years ago and this was the first time they were teaming together since all three were apart of the first New Japan Dojo class in 1972. 

I wanted to give a plug to the Japanese website Miruhon Fight! - "Miru" means look or read and "hon" means book.  They have helped me greatly over the last couple of months with this site and they offer a good deal when it comes to cheap e-books. They sale e-books for around 3 dollars with very detailed pictures of many shows in Japan. You can find their website at http://miruhon.net just click the Add to Cart button at the bottom of the screen, create your name and password, and it'll then let you download KeyRing PDF if you don't have it installed already and then after purchasing them you can download the books which include tons of pictures and reviews of Big Japan, WWE, SMASH, Super FMW, WWS, and Mr. Pogo's book that was written by them and then later published in Japan. You may first try a free book at http://miruhon.net/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=18

I also wanted to make mention that if you haven't checked out my video section in awhile, I haven recently updated with more FMW handhelds from 1992, rare FMW TV from 1994, a very rare tape that looks at the life of Megumi Kudo in 1994, an FMW DVD with a never before seen FMW match from Korakuen Hall on it, WMF DVD's from 2007 as well as the last WMF show in 2008 that I personally bought from Soldier, Mr. Gannosuke Production shows from 2009, Shin-FMW's debut show from last December with Onita and Goto's return as a team for the first time in 15 years, and I have been keeping up with all the most recent FREEDOMS DVD's. I also have been updating old FMW results throughout the last couple of months. 8 years ago I stated on this site that I wanted to have every FMW result listed on this site and although I doubt that is going to happen, I have managed to get atleast 98% and every result spanning from early 1995 to the end of FMW with more to come as well as tons of new pictures to go with the results.

Added: 9/6

Jun Kasai promoted his own two shows on August 25th and August 26th at Shin-Kiba 1st Ring for his second Death Match Tournament. The first Death Match tournament took place on December 25, 2006 when The Winger defeated Jun Kasai in the finals.

This tournament was spread out over two days with the first round matches taking place on August 25, 2010 at the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring to an announced crowd of 326 fans.

The main event of the first night saw Jun Kasai take on The Great Sasuke in a Fluorescent Light Tubes Ladder Death Match. Both Sasuke and Kasai would use the fluorescent light tubes to hit each other over the head with them right away. Sasuke would climb up the ladder and place Kasai's goggles on himself and scream "DIE!" like Kasai does every match but Kasai would get up in time to knock Sasuke off the ladder and he would land in between the top rope. Sasuke would end up making a come back after hitting an enziguri to Kasai and followed that up with a Thunder Fire Powerbomb onto the ladder. Sasuke would then place Kasai on the ladder and go for a moonsault but Kasai would move out of the way. Kasai would then deliver a Reverse Tiger Driver to Sasuke onto the ladder and then place a light tube and ladder on top of Sasuke before hitting the Pearl Harbor Splash to get the victory and move on to the semi-finals of the tournament at 20 minutes, 16 seconds. 

Other first round matches saw MASADA defeat Takashi Sasaki in a Steel of Pain Death Match after MASADA hit a Death Valley Bomb on Sasaki to get the pinfall at 13 minutes, 17 seconds. GENTARO who was the replacement for Masashi Takeda went on to defeat Kamui in a Barbed wire Board Street Fight Death Match after GENTARO hit Kamui with a Northern Lights Supplex on the Barbed wire Board to get the win at 18 minutes, 44 seconds. Kaientai Dojo's Saburo Inematsu advanced in the tournament after defeating The Winger in a Falls Count Anywhere Scramble Bunkhouse Death Match after Inematsu hit Winger with the 36 Hammer for the victory at 12 minutes, 21 seconds. The only non tournament match was the opener with Brahman Shu, Brahman Kei, and Ken45° defeating Mammoth Sasaki, Ricky Fuji, and Ryuichi Sekine when Shu hit a Zombie Kick on Sekine for the pinfall win at 12 minutes, 57 seconds.

The second night of the tournament on August 26, 2010 was an overwhelming success as far as attendance goes as they announced 412 fans for the show. The main event of the show was the finals of the Death Match Tournament as Jun Kasai took on MASADA in a Glass Board Death Match. MASADA attacked early on by diving out of the ring to hit Kasai outside the ring. MASADA then began stabbing Kasai in the forehead with stick like needles and then keeping them in Kasai's forehead with blood dripping down Kasai's face. Kasai would end up fighting back by delivering a German Supplex to MASADA and then nailing him with a chair. Kasai would then climb up to the balcony of of the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring and dive off the balcony onto MASADA. Kasai would then grab the Glass and place it on top of two chairs and lay MASADA under it. MASADA would manage to get up before Kasai could splash into the glass and instead MASADA would pick up Kasai and drive him into the glass causing the glass to shatter everywhere on Kasai's back. MASADA would then powerbomb Kasai into the broken glass, but Kasai would manage to fight back one more time after hitting a clothesline and then place a light tube on top of MASADA and deliver the Pearl Harbor Splash on the light tube with MASADA managing to kick out. Kasai would try everything to put MASADA away including hitting a Brainbuster into the glass and then grabbing another fluorescent light tube and kicking it against MASADA's head. MASADA would fight back and begin delivering supplexs on Kasai before finishing him with the Skullfucka Buster to win the Death Match Tournament at 15 minutes, 34 seconds. 

Other matches on the show were Takashi Sasaki and The Great Sasuke taking on the Brahman Brothers with The Great Sasuke hitting a Thunder Fire Powerbomb on Kei to get the win at 11 minutes, 22 seconds. In a Hardcore Rules Match that saw two friends in Mammoth Sasaki and Kamui go at it with Mammoth putting away Kamui at 10 minutes, 20 seconds with the 29 Years Old. In the Semi-Finals Tournament Matches, in a Thumbtack Death Match Jun Kasai advanced to the finals by defeating Saburo Inematsu at 5 Minutes, 43 seconds after hitting a Reverse Tiger Driver on the thumbtacks to pick up the win and MASADA advanced to the finals in a Kenzan Death Match by defeating GENTARO at 13 minutes, 30 seconds with the Skullfucka Buster. The opening match which was built as a "Shin-Kiba Rock Festival Match" The Winger and HIROKI defeated the forced team of Ricky Fuji and Ken45° after HIROKI pinned Ken45° with a cradle at 11 minutes, 42 seconds.

FREEDOMS also announced two shows in November as they make their debut in the Hiroshima area on November 23rd as they will run at the Hiroshima Industrial Hall West Pavilion and then on November 25th they will return to Shin-Kiba 1st Ring. For those interested, it costs 120,000 Yen (roughly a little more than 1,200 U.S. dollars) to rent the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring for one weekday night and 150,000 Yen to rent Shin-Kiba 1st Ring for one weekend night. It is cheaper to run during the day and regular promoters of the building like Takashi Sasaki and Mr. Gannosuke can rent it for 100,000 Yen instead. It costs about 1,500,000 Yen (roughly a little more than 15,000 U.S. dollars) to rent Korakuen Hall for a weekday night. 

Super FMW returned to Shin-Kiba 1st Ring on August 20, 2010 like most of their other shows no attendance was announced but usually Japanese photographers and reporters that I talk to attend the shows to give me a rough estimate of how many fans attend, but no one I know attended this show as they all chose to attend the WWE show at Sumo Hall that night instead. The trend though lately has seen fewer and fewer fans attend the show up to the point where there was no way more than 50 fans that attended the show in July. They also have not announced another show thus far and instead announced a show for Mr. Pogo's WWS on September 30, 2010 at Shin-Kiba 1st Ring instead. The main event saw Tarzan Goto team up with the debuting Shark Tsuchiya, former W*ING wrestler Nobuhiro Tsurumaki, and Dynamite Vamp's Reina Ayukawa defeated Mr. Pogo, Tomonobu Matsumoto, Basara, and Yuta Nakagawa in a Barbed wire Board Thumbtacks Death Match. Thumbtacks were all spread all over the ring as well as the entrance ramp before Goto hit the Facebuster on Nakata on the thumbtacks for the win at 23 minutes, 14 seconds. Vader's son Jessie White made his debut for the promotion being booked very strongly by defeating former New Japan wrestler Tatsutohi Goto at 7 minutes, 27 seconds with the Spear. Kintaro Kanemura returned to the promotion to face off against Super Leather # 2 with Leather # 2 hitting a Brainbuster off the top turnbuckle to get the win over Kanemura at 8 minutes, 59 seconds. 

Mammoth Sasaki reformed his tag team with Daisuke Sekimoto on August 29th at Big Japan's Korakuen Hall show. Mammoth and Sekimoto defeated the team of Yoshihito Sasaki and Yuji Okabayashi. Mammoth who use to be the FMW Dojo den master and would beat the crap regularly out of Yoshihito and one time kicked Yoshihito so hard while sleeping (for oversleeping) that Yoshihito went so high up in the air from the kick that he had time to land on his feet. Mammoth and Sekimoto who were former BJW Tag Team Champions teamed up for the first time since February 13, 2009 defeated Yoshihito and Okabayashi after Sekimoto hit a German Supplex on Okabayashi at 16 minutes, 9 seconds. Mammoth does not look to be booked for the next Big Japan Korakuen Hall show on September 19th. 

Mineo Fujita has been entered into ZERO-ONE's Tenka-Ichi Jr. Tournament with his first round opponent being former TNA wrestler Sonjay Dutt on September 14, 2010 at the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring. If Fujita were to defeat Dutt then his second round opponent in the tournament would be on September 16, 2010 at the Shinjuku FACE against Okinawa Pro's Kajin Habu Otoko. The semi-finals and finals of the tournament will be on September 19th at Korakuen Hall. 

Also, I get asked this question every now and then, so I figured I would answer it on here about who exactly owns FMW currently. The answer is the bankruptcy court owns the FMW name and the logo due to the creditors that Arai owed money to never coming forward during the bankruptcy court hearing. The creditors had the right to buy the rights to FMW in bankruptcy court after Shoichi Arai declared FMW bankrupt on February 15, 2002. The creditors were the Yakuza who Arai owed millions of dollars to. They never came forward at bankruptcy court due to all their deals being shady and illegal with Arai. Arai who went in hiding for three months due to the Yakuza looking to kill him due to all the money he owed them killed himself on May 16, 2002 so that he could get the money from his life insurance so that his family could pay the Yakuza and they would not coming looking for them. The problem is that the life insurance was still not enough money for Arai's wife to pay off what he owed and the former Miss Arai is still having to pay the Yakuza every month with her own pay check. 

Several owned the video library of FMW though. The BMG Video company owns the right to all the Commercial releases they put out from 1990 to 1995 and Atsushi Onita goes to them to air footage of his Death Matches from his prime in FMW. Koyoshi "Mickey" Ibaragi and his Miracle, Inc. also own the rights to the FMW video library due to a deal he made with Onita at the very beginning of FMW. Ibaragi who helped create FMW with Onita and then later went on to create W*ING released several DVD's of FMW a couple of years ago although he only owns the rights to the actual matches and can't air any of the theme songs that play before and after the matches since he does not own the music rights. 

Added: 8/15

Lance Cade passed away on August 12, 2010. Cade who is best known for his time in WWE wrestled on two tours in FMW back in 1999 and 2000. Lance Cade's first tour was in December 1999 through working for Shawn Michaels' TWA promotion that formed a relationship after FMW's November 23, 1999 Yokohama Arena show that Shawn Michaels worked. Lance Cade and American Dragon Bryan Danielson made their FMW debut on December 1, 1999 by defeating the team of Ricky Fuji and Flying Kid Ichihara after Cade pinned Ichihara. Cade made his debut at Korakuen Hall on December 11, 1999 when teaming with Dragon to defeat the team of Yoshinori Sasaki and Naohiko Yamazaki when Dragon pinned Yamazaki. The next day at Korakuen Hall on December 12, 1999 the team of Cade and Dragon lost to Hisakatsu Oya and Yoshinori Sasaki after Oya pinned Cade. Cade came back for one more tour in February 2000 by himself with his last match in FMW being on February 25, 2000 in a really bad Three Way Dance Match against Balls Mahoney and Crazy Boy with Mahoney getting the win in that match. Cade would go on to work in WWE, HUSTLE, and was currently working for All Japan at the time of his death. Along with Cade people that have wrestled atleast one match for FMW that have passed away are Mr. Chin, Dick Murdoch, Mercenary # 2 Louie Spicolli, Jos LeDuc, Shoichi Arai, Kodo Fuyuki, The Sheik, Sambo Asako, The Blonde Bomber/Chris Candido, Bam Bam Bigelow, John Kronus, Captain Jack, The Gladiator, Ryuma Go, John Tolos, Killer Kowalski, and Armageddon # 1/Eddy Fatu.

FREEDOMS runs in Takashi Sasaki's hometown on Iwate at the Ichinoseki City Gym U Dome Sub Arena on September 12, 2010. The main event will see Takashi Sasaki team up with Jun Kasai and The Great Sasuke against GENTARO, Brahman Shu, and Brahman Kei who have all made up after their August 1st match. Great Kojika will be in GENTARO and the Brahman Brothers corner in their match. The semi-main event will see Mammoth Sasaki face off against Daisuke Sekimoto in a tag match which will be the first time they've faced off against each other since their June 21st Korakuen Hall singles match. Mammoth will team up with Shuji Ishikawa against Daisuke Sekimoto Kankuro Hoshino. The Winger and Ricky Fuji will team up to take on Yuko Miyamoto who is making his FREEDOMS debut and Takuya Sugawara. Kojika Army members Onryo and Ken45° will face off against HIROKI and Shinobu in a tag team match. Madoka will look to get revenge on Kamui in a singles match after Kamui pinned Madoka in a tag match back on August 1st in Chiba and the opening match will see local wrestler Shuou Fujiwara against a Mystery Opponent.

Some interesting notes I have learned while talking with people who cover small Independent promotions in Japan. It turns out that the real reason that Shin-W*ING which had originally booked a show for June 26th at Shin-Kiba 1st Ring and then gave Super FMW the booking of the show instead was because there was a double cross during the Kintaro Kanemura match against Super Crazy on April 30th at the Shin-W*ING show. Kanemura who had been legit knocked out during the match ended up pinning Super Crazy which was not the planned finish as All Japan who had sent over Super Crazy for the match made it known that Crazy was suppose to win. Mickey Ibaragi who was the promoter of the show and one of the three men that helped create FMW apparently double crossed All Japan and told the referee to count three after Kanemura were to make a pinfall attempt before Super Crazy could kick out. All Japan was furious after this and sent the Yakuza to Mickey Ibaragi (who is described as a naturally fucked up person) and they ended up getting Shin-W*ING shut down which is why Super FMW took their booking and it does not look like Shin-W*ING will be running again as a result. Ibaragi used the excuse to them that Kanemura was knocked out during the match and the finish was fucked up as a result but they did not buy it as it was obvious the referee was in on the double cross when making the count.  

Another thing I was told was that Kintaro Kanemura is very hated by many wrestlers and it was not just the main Apache Army sponsor CF afraid of the backlash by fans that made them get rid of Kanemura. Jun Kasai who is friends with the woman that Kanemura inappropriately touched stated that he will never work with him again and that he did not know about the plan that Takashi Sasaki came up with about bringing in Kintaro Kanemura on the May 22, 2009 Apache Army show that got Sasaki a lot of heat by the people that were helping him sponsor the shows for allowing. Kanemura also pissed off a lot of the wrestlers after he did not pay many of them following his XWF August 6, 2008 Korakuen Hall show that bombed big time attendance wise. XWF's owner Yuichi Sasahara is also considered a bad guy, and a huge sleaze ball and Kanemura is thought of less for associating himself with Sasahara. It is considered a complete 180 degrees difference between now and a couple of years ago when Kanemura had all the contacts and friendships to block Mr. Gannosuke out from working many promotions. Gannosuke is considered a very respected person as he continues to help train the Ice Ribbon girls who all very much like him and is the "director" (I am guessing that means booker) of the promotion. Kintaro Kanemura who turned 40 last week also plans on having a XWF show on December 20, 2010 which will be his 20th Anniversary of his debut. 

An internet TV show for Hayabusa has been started up by Tokyo Borderless. It is mostly Hayabusa and Command Bolshoi talking while Hayabusa's match against Mr. Gannosuke from August 25, 1999 is playing in the background. It can be found at http://movie.tokyoborderless.tv/index.php?cid=1637.

Added: 8/5

Super FMW returned to the Tokyo Shin-Kiba 1st Ring for their July 30, 2010 show. The promotion has stopped releasing results of the shows so I had to e-mail the photographer that took the pictures above for the main event result and told me that there was no way there were more than 50 people in attendance for the show. The main event saw Tarzan Goto, Mr. Pogo, and Yuta Nakata team up and defeat the W*ING team of Kintaro Kanemura, Masayoshi Motegi, and their mystery partner Yusaku Obata. It turned out to be another bloody brawl like last month that went all over the building which included Tarzan Goto using a broken beer bottle glass to cut open Obata's arm. Mr. Pogo afterwards got on the microphone and challenged Tarzan Goto in a tag match to a match with thumbtacks involved. Pogo stated that in 5 years him and Goto will still be fighting against each other, in 10 years they'll still be fighting each other, and in one hundred million years they'll still be fighting each other. 

Over at Korakuen Hall that same night saw Ryuji Ito defend his BJW Death Match Championship for the first time after he defeated Masashi Takeda in a Glass and Fluorescent Light Tubes Death Match after hitting a Dragon Splash on Takeda to get the pinfall at 21 minutes, 3 seconds to defend his title for the first time. The match was an incredibly bloody spectacle as Takeda's face was completely covered in blood during the match. Takeda ended up suffering a laceration cut of the eyelid and is out of action for at least all of August. Big Japan announced their lineup for their next Korakuen Hall show on August 29th which will see Mammoth Sasaki return to the main roster of Big Japan as he reunites his tag team with Daisuke Sekimoto to take on Yoshihito Sasaki and Yuji Okabayashi. 

FREEDOMS ran their first show at the Chiba Blue Field on August 1, 2010 and announced a crowd of 125 fans. The main event saw the FREEDOMS Army of Takashi Sasaki, Jun Kasai, and The Winger defeat the Kojika Army of Magnitude Kishiwada, Onryo, and Antonio Honda when Kasai hit Honda with the Pearl Harbor Splash for the pinfall at 18 minutes, 56 seconds. The semi-main event saw a Battle of the Kojika Army as GENTARO and K-Dojo's YOSHIYA defeated the Brahman Brothers after GENTARO reversed a Backslide on Kei to get the win at 16 minutes, 9 seconds. Tatsuhito Takaiwa teamed up with K-Dojo's Yuji Hino defeated the team of Mammoth Sasaki and Keita Yano after Takaiwa defeated Mammoth's partner for the second show in a row after hitting the Death Valley Bomb on Yano for the win at 20 minutes, 40 seconds. Due to Masashi Takeda's injury, he was unable to wrestle on the show and Kazuhiro Tamura ended up taking his place as he teamed with Madoka to face off against Kamui and HIROKI which saw Kamui hit a Fire Bird Splash on Madoka to get the pinfall at 13 minutes, 42 seconds. Kazuhiko Ogasawara faced K-Dojo's Makoto Oishi in a Different Style Fight which the referee ended up ruling it a No Contest after 1 minute, 55 seconds into the 3rd Round due to both wrestlers getting out of control during the match. In the opening match, Shinobu defeated Ken45° with a Hurricanrana for the victory after 11 minutes, 16 seconds. 

Jun Kasai announced the 1st Round Matches to take place for his two show Death Match Tournament on August 25th and August 26th at the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring. The first round matches on August 25, 2010 will see Kamui take on a Mystery Opponent with the match in a Barbed wire Board Street Fight Death Match. Kasai announced that Masashi Takeda was originally going to be in the match, but due to his injury he is unable to take part in the Tournament. The next will be Takashi Sasaki against MASADA in a Steel of Pain Death Match. The next first round match will be The Winger taking on K-Dojo's Saburo Inematsu in a Falls Count Anywhere Scramble Bunkhouse Death Match. The main event of the show and last first round tournament match will be a Fluorescent Light Tubes Ladder Death Match with Jun Kasai taking on The Great Sasuke. There will also be a Special Tag Team Match earlier on the show with the wrestlers not being announced yet. 

The next night on August 26th which will be the winners of The Winger/Inematsu vs. Kamui/Mystery Opponent and Kasai/Sasuke vs. Sasaki/MASADA in Kenzan Death Matches. The main event and finals of the tournament will then be a Glass Board Death Match to crown the winner of the Death Match Tournament. Two special matches will also be on the August 26th show between the semi-finals and the finals. Also schedule to participate on the shows in non tournament matches are Mammoth Sasaki, GENTARO, Ricky Fuji, Brahman Shu, Brahman Kei, Ken45°, and just for the August 26th show HIROKI. 

FREEDOMS also announced that they will be running their first ever show in Sapporo as they run at the Sapporo Teisen Hall on October 11th and will then return back to Shin-Kiba 1st Ring on October 28th. 

A new type of Hayabusa mask was recently created. It places where the makeup Hayabusa use to manually put on himself before a matches on the mask itself. Personally, not a fan of it. Also, although it happened back in April, in very sad news Eiji Ezaki's father passed away. Ezaki wrote how ever since his fathers death that he has been thinking a lot about his childhood in Kumamoto as well as the Inn that his parents use to run that Ezaki was suppose to take over once he grew up, but ended up losing the opportunity after he decided to get into pro-wrestling. 

Mr. Gannosuke announced that once that almost every Friday for the next month he will have a wrestler appear as his NOV Bar from 9 to 11 PM. At those times it would cost 4000 yen to get in but its all you can drink which includes sake, whiskey, wine, and plum wine and get to sing karaoke with the wrestler. Nanae Takahashi will appear on August 6th, Masashi Takeda on August 20th, Kamui on August 27th, and Jun Kasai will appear on September 3rd. Two more wrestlers will be announced later for September 10th and September 17th.  

Added: 7/20

FREEDOMS return to the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring on July 15, 2010 for their first show since their big Korakuen Hall show last month. They announced a crowd of 195 fans which has to be a disappointment coming off the show as well as a higher level main event than usual promoted for the show. The opening match saw Brahman Shu, Brahman Kei, and Ken45° defeat the team of GENTARO, The Winger, and Ricky Fuji after Kei would hit a Buzzsaw Kick on GENTARO for the pinfall at 10 minutes, 58 seconds. After that match GENTARO would announce that he was leaving the FREEDOMS Army and joining the Kojika Army after coming to a mutual friendship with Great Kojika after their match at Korakuen Hall. GENTARO would make it very clear though that he still disliked the Brahman Brothers and Ken45° though. The next match was a Different Style Fight as Kazuhiko Ogasawara end up defeating Shinobu 45 seconds into the 3rd Round after a TKO following a High Kick on Shinobu. Takuya Sugawara then defeated Keita Yano at 10 minutes, 22 seconds using the Shiisanputa. The Kojika Army got another win as Onryo and Antonio Honda defeated the team of HIROKI and Madoka after Onryo hooked on the Onryo Clutch on HIROKI for the pinfall at 14 minutes, 20 seconds. Mammoth Sasaki made his in ring return to Shin-Kiba in the semi-main event as he teamed up with Kamui to take on the team of Tatsuhito Takaiwa and Masashi Takeda which was also the first time that Mammoth and Takeda had squared off against one another. Takaiwa would end up getting the pinfall victory over Kamui using the Death Valley Bomb at 14 minutes, 23 seconds. The main event of the show would end up being changed as The Great Sasuke originally scheduled to team up with Magnitude Kishiwada to take on Takashi Sasaki and Jun Kasai would end up leaving the Kojika Army and joining up with the FREEDOMS Army. The newest member of the Kojika Army in GENTARO as well as Abdullah Kobayashi would insert themselves in the main event as the match would be changed into a six man with GENTARO teaming up with Abdullah Kobayashi and Magnitude Kishiwada against Takashi Sasaki, Jun Kasai, and The Great Sasuke with GENTARO getting the pinfall victory over Kasai after hitting a Flying Head Scissors.

Super FMW announced the partial lineup for its July 30, 2010 show at the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring. Tarzan Goto and Mr. Pogo will team up with Yuta Nakata again as the FMW Army as they face off against the W*ING Army of Kintaro Kanemura, Masayoshi Motegi, and a Mystery Partner in a Hardcore Rules Street Fight in the main event of the show. Yuka Inokuma will defend his Half Life Title against Reina Aikawa, and another FMW vs. W*NG match will see The Shooter take on The Winger. 

NHK a national station in Japan recently did a story on Hayabusa going over his career as a pro-wrestler and then after the accident showing clips of him and interviewing him about now being a professional singer. They do show of the later days of FMW in the clips in this segment including showing the actual accident itself on October 22, 2001.  Also, for fun here's a link of Ricky Fuji and The Great Sasuke singing "Runaway" by Bon Jovi back on January 1, 2008 at Shin-Kiba 1st Ring. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OIj-6jy9Wg&feature=related

I have recently added a whole bunch of results from 1991-1994 of FMW as well as tons of pictures spanning through all the FMW Results pages using a bunch of the magazines I purchased while in Japan. I also updated the Mammoth Sasaki Biography once again to include his recent return to wrestling. 

Added: 7/11

Mr. Gannosuke ran his tenth show under his own name when he ran the Mr. Gannosuke Productions "Kishindoh Returns 4" show on July 8, 2010 at the Tokyo Shin-Kiba 1st Ring. The show only drew 192 fans which continued a drop that has happened for each of his shows since he started running them after his retirement. The reason given for this shows low attendance by others was that it was held on a weekday unlike his other shows and Dragon Gate was running at the same time at Korakuen Hall. 

The main event of the show saw GENTARO take on Yuko Miyamoto. It would be a rematch between the two in WMF back on January 12, 2004 when Miyamoto was just getting started in wrestling. Miyamoto started the match by going after GENTARO's knee by hitting a dropkick to it and then placing him in the Figure Four Leglock. Miyamoto would go for his hand spring elbow with GENTARO moving out of the way to gain control of the match. GENTARO would end up hitting a Hurricanrana off the top rope, but Miyamoto would end up fighting back and delivering the Fire Thunder but would be unable to get the pinfall over GENTARO. That would turn out to be Miyamoto's last chance at victory as GENTARO would gain control of the match and hit a back supplex, putting Miyamoto in a Octopus Hold, and then finishing Miyamoto with the Diving Elbow Drop at 19 minutes, 16 second for the win. Mr. Gannosuke would come in the ring afterwards thank both Miyamoto and GENTARO for such a wonderful match. Gannosuke would then tell the crowd that all the wrestlers from the show would be attending his Bar NOV later on in the night while Gosaku got in the ring and they ended the show by all four by doing a countdown leading to a dance. GENTARO would state after the show that he wants an Iron Man match against TAJIRI at the next Gannosuke show.

TAJIRI would take on Emi Sakura in the semi-main event of the show. Mr. Gannosuke had originally wanted to make this match back on his March 20th show due to both of them winning 2009 Tokyo Sports Awards but he was unable to get Sakura for that show. Most of the match between the two saw them mat wrestling as Sakura's game plan was to keep the match on the mat and try to roll up TAJIRI for the win. It would not end up working that way for Sakura as TAJIRI would end up reversing her La Magistral and getting the pinfall and the win over Sakura at 14 minutes, 28 seconds.

In a match between two wrestlers that would probably be working for FMW if it were still alive today, Masashi Takeda took on Keita Yano. Yano would start off in control of the match and when punching away at Takeda while against the turnbuckle Yano would make the "Suck It" sign at Takeda. Takeda would eventually end up hitting a spear on Yano and then delivering a Powerbomb and then finishing him off with a German Supplex to get the win at 14 minutes, 51 seconds.

Munenori Sawa would return under his Lingerie Muto persona to take on Ice Ribbon's Miyako Matsumoto. They would end up brawling up the stands of the Shin-Kiba and Matsumoto would end up climbing to the top of the back of the arena and hitting a dive onto Muto in the crowd. They would end up making back in the ring where Matsumoto would grab Muto's hand and climb the ropes and then begin using Muto's own moves as she would put him in the figure four leglock and then deliver the Shining Wizard on Muto before eventually making Muto submit to the Octopus Hold to give Matsumoto the win at 10 minutes, 8 seconds. They both would do Muto poses together after the match. 

In the opening match of the show Mineo Fujita would take on Daisuke in a rematch from the last Gannosuke show when Daisuke would suffer a knee injury and would be unable to continue to give Mineo Fujita the easy win. Mineo Fujita would end up hitting a dive over the top rope onto Daisuke on the entrance ramp that is connected to the ring and then follow that up by hitting the 619 while Daisuke who would still be on the entrance ramp. Daisuke would make a come back after Fujita would go for a dive and Daisuke would end up hitting a dropkick on Fujita, but Fujita would gain control of the match again and hit the Swanton Bomb and put Daisuke with the Gannosuke Clutch to get the win at 13 minutes exactly for the opening match win for Fujita. 

Mr. Gannosuke would start the show by coming out in the TNR 2000 t-shirt that was also being sold at the show and thanked all the fans for coming out. He told the crowd about his his new "Bar NOV" in Shin-Nakano and promised the fans many good matches on the show and he would be at ringside watching them right next to the time keeper. 

Tarzan Goto announced that that Super FMW will be returning to the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring for July 30th and August 20th shows. It was also announced that Kintaro Kanemura would be making his debut for the promotion at the July 30th show but no matches have been announced so far.

I recently was in Japan for the third time from June 20th to June 28th. You can find a report with tons of pictures on my trip by clicking at at BAHU's Japanese Trip Diary 2010 and you can check out more random pictures from the trip at Random Japanese Pictures.

Added: 7/2

FREEDOMS held their biggest show in the promotions history on June 21, 2010 at Korakuen Hall. A review of the show can be found at http://fmwwrestling.us/Freedoms621.html

FREEDOMS runs their first show since their big Korakuen show as they return to Shin-Kiba 1st Ring on July 15, 2010. The main event will be Takashi Sasaki and Jun Kasai teaming up to take on the team of The Great Sasuke and Magnitude Kishiwada. The semi-main event will be Mammoth Sasaki teaming up with Kamui to take on the tag team of Tatsuhito Takaiwa and Masashi Takeda. Former full time K-Dojo wrestlers HIROKI and Madoka team up to take on the team of Onryo and Antonio Honda. Keita Yano will face off against Takuya Sugawara in a singles match. Shinobu will also wrestle in a singles match as he takes on Kazuhiko Ogasawara. In the opening match, GENTARO will team up with The Winger and Ricky to take on Brahman Shu, Brahman Kei, and Ken45°

Jun Kasai announced that he will be holding two shows promoted by himself on August 25th and August 26th at the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring. The two shows will have a two day Death Match Tournament. The first show will have the first round matches and the second night will have the rest of the tournament. The two shows will be called "DEATH MATCH TOURNAMENT ~ PAIN LIMIT 2010"

Mr. Gannosuke opened up his own bar on June 26th called "Bar NOV" in the Nakano District in Tokyo. It apparently is a three minute walk by foot from the Shin-Nakano station on the subway. It is a Karaoke Bar with the hours being opened from 11 PM to 5 AM. Gannosuke stated he will be there most nights and that the first night it opened was a huge success. 

I recently returned from Japan a couple of days ago. I will put up my Japan Diary 2010 on here for next weeks update with tons of pictures and a full review of the trip. I was able to attend FREEDOMS Korakuen Hall show on June 21st, go to Mr. Danger's Steakhouse Restaurant on June 22nd, I skipped DDT's June 23rd Shin-Kiba show and went to Soldier's bar instead, I spent all day in Yokohama on June 24th, attend SMASH's Shinjuku FACE show on June 25th, Super FMW on June 26th in Shin-Kiba, and for my last night I went to Big Japan's Korakuen Hall show on June 27th. 

Super FMW held their June 26, 2010 "Dead or Alive" show at the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring. I was able to attend this show and it was definitely what I had heard about from the promotion. It was probably the least fan friendly show I went to as besides Madoka and Basara sitting at their merchandise tables during intermission there were no other wrestlers that interacted with the fans during the shows. Tarzan Goto's table which some woman was in charge of consisted of his ring gear for sale at 300 dollars, his ring boots at 120 dollars, and a Tarzan Goto-Ippa show from May 10, 2010 for 30 dollars which I bought and the box proceeded to break by opening it with the show looking like it actually was held in Tarzan Goto's actual house. 

There were about 100 fans in the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring by the end as there were a bunch of late arriving fans to the show, some coming as late as two hours into the show which in hindsight was not a bad idea. The opening match was Makoto Hashi defeating Madoka which was a fine opening match, but neither wrestler were particularly over at all and the fans just really did not care at all about Hashi as he was seen roaming around the building the entire show and he might as well have been a fan as I did not see one person go up to him during the whole show. 

Bakabon no Papa, Crab K*ING, Minakami Gunma (Small Antonio Inoki), Crayon Shin-chan defeated Batten Tamagawa, Kunihiko Mitame & Mr. Poppo & Tsuneo Yoshie (older brother of Yutaka) when K*ING pinned Mitame at 9 minutes, 15 seconds. I actually do not mind Goto getting a bunch of his young small indy pupils on the show and it's fine if you throw them all in just one match like this as they all really were trying very hard to entertain the crowd, but none of them besides maybe Crab K*ING have any talent and it ends up just being a bad comedy match, but it was fine for what it was to me. 

But then things went straight to hell. There was a 15 intermission which was pretty early for a intermission, then Yuka Inokuma came out and they turned off the lights and nothing proceeded to happen for the next 8 minutes or so. Inokuma just stood there in the ring, the building was dark and nobody said a thing and time just froze for 8 minutes. Hiroshi Wakashita finally came out as well as Small Antonio Inoki from the  ast match came out and was now the referee for the show as I just figured that something happened to the referee during the show and he had to leave thus all the long stops for the show. Then the match proceeded to take place. Have you ever wanted to see a sumo wrestler take on a small transsexual wrestler and the whole lay out of the match is the transsexual trying to put on Fujiwara armbars the entire time on the sumo wrestler? Then this was your match. No heat whatsoever and I mean not one sound from anyone in the building. I really tried my hardest not to fall asleep several times during this match and the finish might have been one of the worst as Wakashita covered Inokuma for the pin and the referee counted to three and then time stood still again for ten seconds before the bell finally rang to end this horrible, horrible match. 

Aki Shizuku then came out for her match against Basara. Basara is very really good looking as you can see from the picture above and has a great look but she's not really good at all but neither was Shizuku so Basara ended up getting the pinfall at 8 minutes, 18 seconds in a bad match but atleast Basara looked good during it. Super Boogey KID & Super Jason KID then defeated Super Leather KID & Freddy KID after Boogey pinned Freddy. This match atleast woke me up as they brawled a bunch in the crowd so that was definitely a positive. 

They then had another 15 minute intermission and then had 65 year old Dynamite Vamp President (head of all the transsexual wrestlers that are in the promotion) Chiyomi Akane in a Sailor Moon outfit sing for another 15 minutes after that. The original referee then came back into the ring which nullified my theory that he had to leave thus having a wrestler obviously not suited to referee have to referee three matches. It was over 2 hours in before any wrestler having anything ever to do with FMW came out to a Super FMW show when Ricky Fuji came out to wrestle another transsexual wrestler in  Reina Ayukawa. The FMW Jr. Independent Heavyweight Title is a completely new belt as it looks like the 1998-2002 WWF World Title on crack. I love Ricky Fuji but I don't know if he ever could have gotten anything out of Reina Ayukawa let alone at 44 years old. Ricky manage to get the win to defend his title for the first time. Bad match.

The main event was able to save this show from being the worst show i've ever been to as the main event saw Tarzan Goto & Mr. Pogo & Masahiro Sase & Yuta Nakata defeat Jun Kasai & Shadow WX & The Winger & Nobuhiro Tsurumaki when Goto pinned Winger in a Hardcore Rules Street Fight. It was an awesome and wild brawl. All eight wrestlers brawled all over Shin-Kiba with wrestlers throwing the fans seats across the building at one another. Mr. Pogo was very over with the fans screaming his name almost the whole time. Pogo used his knives in the match and a broken beer bottle was also used during the match. Every fan in ringside had to stand up the entire match because just about every chair was thrown at a wrestler during the show as The Winger was unmasked and bloodied during the brawl and eventually hit with a Facebuster on two chairs in the ring by Goto to get the win in a great brawl. Goto was then handed several fluorescent light tubes and he then proceeded to smash them over his head and then began to cut his chest with them before him and Mr. Pogo shook hands and raised their hands in victory to end the show. This show was the definition of a one match show in everyway. 

Added: 6/14

Tarzan Goto announced that his Shin-FMW promotion would from now on be called "Super FMW" instead and that he would be running on June 26, 2010 at the Tokyo Shin-Kiba 1st Ring. Originally, W*ING's Mickey Ibaragi had booked the date for his Shin-W*ING promotion with Tarzan Goto and the Super FMW Army participating on the show. But Ibaragi was unable to run the show and instead got Goto to take the booking and in return Mr. Pogo will participate on the show. 

The main event of the show will be Tarzan Goto and Mr. Pogo teaming up with low level independent wrestler Masahiro Sase to take on FREEDOMS' Jun Kasai and The Winger as well as Big Japan's Shadow WX in a Hardcore Rules Match. In the random semi-main event of the show, Makoto Hashi showing that he's willing to work anywhere will take on Madoka who for months has shown he'll work and job anywhere. Although it was announced back on May 5th after Ricky Fuji defeated Masaru Toi that he was being recognized as the last FMW Independent Jr. Heavyweight Champion he will be defending his recognition of being the FMW Independent Jr. Heavyweight Champion against a Mystery Opponent on the show. Hiroshi Wakashita who is a former Sumo wrestler will be taking on a Mystery Opponent as well on the show. Basara will take on Aki Shizuku. In the opening match, it's a whose who of stars when Bakabon no Papa, Crab K*ING, Minakami Gunma who is also known as Small Antonio Inoki and Crayon Shin-chan (who is a popular Japanese cartoon character that even made it on Adult Swim for a couple of weeks two years ago) take on Batten Tamagawa, Kunihiko Mitame (Mitame means looks alike and he looks a lot like Japanese TV star Kunihiko), Mr. Poppo, and Tsuneo Yoshie who is the older brother of Yutaka Yoshie and is considered the best wrestler of the group..

Big Japan announced the lineup for their June 27th show at Korakuen Hall. Masashi Takeda and Isami Kodaka try to be elevated once again as they take on the team of Ryuji Ito and Shadow WX in the main event in what is only just announced as a Death Match so far. The semi-main event will be the Battle of the Sasaki's as Takashi Sasaki will take on Yoshihito Sasaki. Daisuke Sekimoto will square off like he did at last June's Korakuen Hall show against Yuji Okabayashi but they will each have two partners with them this time as Sekimoto will team up with Shinobu and Ryuichi Kawakami and Okabayashi will team up with Kazuki Hashimoto and Takumi Tsukamoto. In the odd pairing team of Yuko Miyamoto and Necro Butcher will take on Union Pro's Shuji Ishikawa and Kankuro Hoshino. Jun Kasai and Jaki Numazawa will team up to take on Ryuji Yamakawa and The Winger, and there will most likely be a Men's World on the show but that has not been announced yet. 

Just to remind everyone again, I will be making my third trip to Japan later this week on June 19th. I will be arriving in Tokyo hopefully sometime in the afternoon on June 20th. My plan right now is to attend the FREEDOMS' June 21st Korakuen Hall show, DDT's June 23rd Shin-Kiba 1st Ring show, SMASH's June 25th Shinjuku FACE show even though the tickets are really expensive compared to  other promotions, Super FMW on June 26th at Shin-Kiba 1st Ring, and Big Japan on June 27th at Korakuen Hall before leaving on June 28th. I also am going to try and make it to Mr. Danger's Steakhouse in the Sumida Ward of Tokyo sometime as well. I also want to try and visit Yokohama sometime during this trip. I'll of course have another Japanese Diary posted on the trip a couple of days after I return. Due to being in Japan I won't be able to update the site during that time so it'll be a week before I can post FREEDOMS Korakuen results on the site and a couple of days after that before I can write up a recap of the show. I also have recently updated the Mammoth Sasaki Biography over at the Bio's section and will be updating it again in July to cover his return. 

Added: 5/28

FREEDOMS announced the full lineup for their first ever Korakuen Hall show entitled "WE'RE FREEDOMS! WE'RE GONNA WIN!" on June 21, 2010. The main event will be a series of 5 matches between the FREEDOMS Army and the Kojika Army. The team that gets 3 wins will be considered the winner. All five matches will have 15 minute time limits with the first match seeing HIROKI taking on the new Kojika Army member Magnitude Kishiwada, followed by The Winger taking on DDT's Antonio Honda, then TAJIRI will go up against Kojika Army member Onryo, then Takashi Sasaki will go up against another new member of the Kojika Army in The Great Sasuke, and the final match and main event of the show will be GENTARO against Great Kojika. The rest of the show will see Jun Kasai take on Necro Butcher in a Hardcore Rules Match, Mammoth Sasaki make his return to the ring for the first time in 15 months against Daisuke Sekimoto, Tatsuhito Takaiwa and Masashi Takeda go up against Minoru Fujita and Takuya Sugawara, and the opening match will be a 5 vs. 5 Captain Falls Single Elimination match between the FREEDOMS Army and Kojika Army with Kamui being announced the captain for his team with Ricky Fuji, Keita Yano, Madoka, and Shinobu against the team of Abdullah Kobayashi as the captain with Brahman Shu, Brahman Kei, Ken45°, and Kazuhiko Ogasawara. Overall the show will have 9 matches on the card. 

FREEDOMS held their May 26, 2010 show at the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring as the show to setup their upcoming Korakuen Hall show. Takashi Sasaki wrote how he was worried about the attendance for this show due to heavy rain and thunderstorms happening in the Shin-Kiba region the day before and predicted to happen as well during the show. But luckily the rain let up before the show and the standard 234 announced fans were able to attend the show with no weather problems. The main event saw Brahman Shu and Brahman Kei with Great Kojika in their corner announced a new member to the Kojika Army in Magnitude Kishiwada as well as their mystery partner against Takashi Sasaki, Jun Kasai, and Kamui with Kishiwada hitting the Last Ride on Sasaki for the pinfall at 15 minutes, 31 seconds. The tag team of Tatsuhito Takaiwa and Masashi Takeda scored a victory over long time tag team GENTARO and The Winger when Takeda hit a German Supplex on Winger for the pinfall at 21 minutes, 58 seconds. HIROKI went up against the man that injured him and put him out of action for over two years in Tomohiro Ishii but HIROKI would fail to gain his revenge as Ishii put away HIROKI with a Lariat at 12 minutes, 38 seconds. The newest member of the FREEDOMS Army in TAJIRI teamed up with Ricky Fuji to take on Kojika Army members Onryo and Antonio Honda with TAJIRI getting the pinfall with a Schoolboy on Honda for the win at 12 minutes, 58 seconds. Magnitude Kishiwada teamed up with Takuya Sugawara as well earlier in the show as they took on Kojika Army members Abdullah Kobayashi and Kazuhiko Ogasawara with conflicting reports on who was DQ'd between Kobayashi and Ogasawara for trying to pull off Kishiwada's mask during the match. The opening match saw Keita Yano remind Madoka that it was a mistake to leave K-Dojo by defeating him with the Larsson.

Mr. Gannosuke completed the lineup for his July 8, 2010 Shin-Kiba 1st Ring "Kishindoh Returns 4" show by announced the semi-main event in TAJIRI against Emi Sakura. Gannosuke wrote that he wanted this match on his March 20th show but Emi was unable to be booked for the show and stated how they both started up in IWA Japan when Gannosuke was working there and both won Tokyo Sports Awards in 2009 and the match has great potential. To clear up a report I based off of what Gannosuke had said. Gannosuke was just stating that Yuko Miyamoto was trying to get rid of the image of just being a Death Match wrestler, he will still continue to wrestle in Death Matches in Big Japan, but that he was going wrestle in more straight matches so he can be known as more than just a Death Match wrestler because he has the talent to do just that and his match against GENTARO is suppose to help show that. 

Added: 5/12

FREEDOMS announced two matches of their biggest show in company history on June 21st at Korakuen Hall. Mammoth Sasaki will officially make his return on the show after 15 months out with a neck injury to take on former tag team partner and rival Daisuke Sekimoto in a singles match. Jun Kasai will also take on Necro Butcher on the show in what will most likely become announced as a Death Match. 

Mr. Gannosuke announced that his Mr. Gannosuke Productions "Kishindoh Returns 4" show will take place on July 8, 2010 at the Tokyo Shin-Kiba 1st Ring. Gannosuke has announced three matches so far with the main event being Yuko Miyamoto taking on GENTARO. Gannosuke wrote the reason for the match is that Miyamoto recently dropped the BJW Death Match Title and wants to get rid of the image of being known as a Death Match wrestler and GENTARO recently dropped the Independent Jr. Heavyweight Title and now wants to be considered a heavyweight so this match is for one of them to prove that they can succeed in their new style of wrestling. The other two matches announced are Mineo Fujita taking on Daisuke in a rematch of their March 20th match which had to be ended early on after Daisuke suffered a knee injury during it and Masashi Takeda against Keita Yano. TAJIRI will also be participating on the show. 

Added: 5/7

Atsushi Onita has retired for the 5th time. Atsushi Onita held his Retirement show (his third time promoting a retirement show) on May 5, 2010 at the Tokyo Shin-Kiba 1st Ring for the Shin-FMW promotion. It was 15 years to the day that Atsushi Onita retired against Hayabusa at Kawasaki Stadium with 58,250 fans attending. This time they drew 327 fans in the 350 seat building. The show also marked mostly likely the last time that the May 5th date and FMW would be connected together. Tarzan Goto requested that he apart of Onita's retirement match as he was originally scheduled to face Onita in Onita's retirement match in 1995 at Kawasaki Stadium before Onita refused to lose Goto and Goto bailed on being the leader of a promotion he felt would be a sinking ship without Onita ever putting him over to pass the torch to him. 

Atsushi Onita and Tarzan Goto teamed up together in the main event to face The Great Punk which was Katsutoshi Niiyama wrestling for the first time in years and The Shooter who unmasked right away at the beginning of the mask to reveal Mr. Gannosuke's former FMW pupil Banji Takada. Onita ended up getting the pinfall victory at 16 minutes, 46 seconds in the Street Fight after hitting Takada with the Thunder Fire Powerbomb for possibly the last time ever. Onita after the match when doing his routine got on the microphone and told the crowd he hopes he does to return to the ring sometime again before pouring water all over the crowd to Wild Thing before going to the back to talk to reporters. Onita told reporters he would like to come back but doesn't know if he will, and if he does it will definitely not be for awhile because he is running in a election for the House of Councilors this summer and just does not have time to wrestle. Tarzan Goto after hearing Onita talk about returning some day says he wants to wrestle Onita again even if it's at Korakuen Hall but definitely would like it for it to be the parking lot of Kawasaki Stadium for a real retirement match with Onita. Goto then announced that he was forming a Super-FMW Army and they would first be invading at the Shin-W*ING show on June 26th at Shin-Kiba 1st Ring. 

Also on the show, since Super Leather was unable to make it to Japan at all throughout the week due to what was announced as an emergency, Ricky Fuji instead faced and defeated Masaru Toi to be known as the last FMW Jr. Independent Heavyweight Champion. FMW which originally created the title back in 1993 lost interest in it in 1999 and gave the title belt to Battlarts where the belt became simply known as the Independent Jr. Heavyweight Title. That title belt which still holds the FMW letters on it is right now possessed by K-Dojo with Marines Mask II holding it. Technically Ricky Fuji won the FMW 93-99 version of the title and will be regarded as the last FMW Jr. Independent Champion with Marines Mask II still being known as the Independent Jr. Heavyweight Champion. This would also most likely mean that Ricky Fuji would be known as the last FMW champion of anything. A fan who went to the show who hated the last Shin-FMW show in January feeling the undercard symbolized nothing and was horrible about FMW just like this shows undercard did only went out of respect of this possibly being Onita's last match. He liked the main event, but felt overall the show again was a disappointed and the lighting was so poor that he could barely see the ring from his seats which were not that far from the ring. 

Miss Mongol who teamed up with Apple Miyuki to defeat the team of Mio Shirai & Io Shirai in the only non horrible match early on in the show took a picture with Katsutoshi Niiyama after the show and stated she was very impressed with how Katsutoshi Niiyama was in the main event and how great of a shape he was in without having wrestled for in years. 

Yuko Miyamoto's near 17 month title reign as BJW Death Match Champion came to an end on May 4, 2010 at the Yokohama Bunka Gym. Big Japan announced a crowd of 3,354 for the show as Miyamoto defended his title for the 5th time against Ryuji Ito in a Fluorescent Light Tubes Cage Death Match. Both Miyamoto and Ito bloodied each other in what was said to be an excellent match between the two. Miyamoto hit a Fire Thunder on Ito into the light tubes as his big move of the match, but Ito ended up getting the win after climbing up the cage and delivering the Dragon Splash off the top of the cage with light tubes laid across Miyamoto's chest to get the win at 20 minutes, 44 seconds for Ito's fourth title reign.

This is a report I got from my friend Max who is in Japan currently and attended the Shin-W*ING April 30, 2010 show. 

I just got back from the W*ING show and I thought you would be interested to know some stuff that happened. Crowd was not good. I would say the crowd at Shin-Kiba was at 40%. Super Leather didn't show up. He didn't come to Japan at all. Super Crazy replaced him. Kanemura got injured big time after a senton atomico. Crazy's ass landed on Kanemura's face, so his back head landed on the concrete. He couldn't get up for a LONG time. People were really scared. Then, he got up, but was super slow. Crazy kept telling the referee ''we gotta go, we gotta go''. They brawled a bit after to set up Kanemura's usual splash table spot. Then Kanemura pinned Crazy to everyone's surprise. Kanemura went straight to the backstage. The ambulance was there, but Kanemura refused to go to hospital because he has no health insurance.

Pogo couldn't use fire because apparently Shin-Kiba has banned fire now. They had a ten bell salute to Victor Quinones and Mr. Hito as well.

Kintaro Kanemura of course missed no shows from the head injury and was back in the ring just days later for ZERO-ONE's May 5, 2010 Korakuen Hall show. Kanemura who has faced the likes on May 5th of Ryuji Yamakawa, Vader, Shinya Hashimoto, and Riki Choshu would be facing off this year against Hartley "The Bull" Jackson in a Strap Death Match. Both Kanemura and Jackson would be tied to each other with Kanemura using the strap to choke Jackson while applying an STF to him. They would end up fighting in the crowd on the stage where Jackson would end up flinging Kanemura off it onto his back on the floor. Jackson would control most of the match, but Kanemura would end up getting the small package victory out of nowhere at 11 minutes, 42 seconds.

Both Mr. Gannosuke and Kintaro Kanemura's pupils in Mineo Fujita and Yusaku Obata would be paired against each other in the opening match on the show. Yusaku Obata would team up with Kamikaze and Rikiya Fudo against Mineo Fujita's team of Ken Saito and Yoshikazu Yokoyama with Obata's team being the much stronger team as Obata would end up delivering a Missile Kick to Yokoyama for the pinfall at 13 minutes, 12 seconds. 

FREEDOMS ran their biggest show drawing an announced 337 fans at the Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse on May 2, 2010. The main event saw Takashi Sasaki and Jun Kasai defeat the team of Tatsuhito Takaiwa and Masashi Takeda when Sasaki hit the D-Geist on Takaeda for the pinfall at 16 minutes, 28 seconds. GENTARO ended up getting the win over HIROKI at 19 minutes when GENTARO made HIROKI tap out to a figure four leglock. TAJIRI defeated his former boss in Great Kojika after nailing him with a Buzzsaw Kick at 13 minutes, 30 seconds for the win. The team of Magnitude Kishiwada and Shadow WX defeated the much smaller team of Madoka and Kamui after Kishiwada would hit the Last Ride Powerbomb on Kamui for the win at 14 minutes, 23 seconds in a Hardcore Tag Match. Keita Yano faced off against Kazuhiko Ogasawara and for the second time in less than 6 months Ogasawara failed to make it back in the ring and was counted out for the Yano win. The team of The Winger, Ricky Fuji, and the returning Koji Nakagawa defeated the Brahman Brothers and Antonio Honda in the opening match when Nakagawa would roll up Brahman Shu with the Jackknife at 13 minutes, 58 seconds. The only match announced so far for the FREEDOMS May 26th show at the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring is HIROKI facing the man that put him out of action for over 2 years after injuring his spine in Tomohiro Ishii. 

The GUNS team of Mr. Gannosuke, Ichiro Yaguchi as Mr. Rocknosuke, and Katsumi Hirano as Mr. Iwaonosuke were revised for the first time since October 26, 2008 as Mr. Rocknosuke and Mr. Iwaonosuke teamed earlier in the day on May 2, 2010 at the Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse for the GUTS World promotion. They would be accompanied by leader Mr. Gannosuke as well as Gosaku in their corner as they would face the team of GENTARO and Ricky Fuji. Ricky would end up hitting the 9999 DDT on Iwaonosuke for the pin at 13 minutes, 25 seconds. 

I am officially going to Japan once again next month. I will be arriving in Tokyo on June 20th and staying until June 28th. I plan on attending the FREEDOMS June 21st Korakuen Hall show, Shin-W*ING June 26th Shin-Kiba 1st Ring show, and the Big Japan June 27th Korakuen Hall show. I also am deciding between going to the SMASH June 25th Shinjuku FACE show or the Big Japan June 25th Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse show. I also would really like to go to Yokohama and Kawasaki during my time there as well. Needless to say, I am very excited about this trip and I will definitely do another Diary of the trip for the site.

Added: 4/11

Atsushi Onita's Retirement Match for May 5, 2010 at the Tokyo Shin-Kiba 1st Ring has been announced. Atsushi Onita will team up with Tarzan Goto in the main event against The Great Punk and The Shooter. No idea who will be under The Shooter mask as both gimmicks were played by Katsutoshi Niiyama and I would imagine he would be wrestling as The Great Punk for the match. Super Leather will return to Shin-FMW to take on Ricky Fuji who Leather defeated probably atleast 50 times without ever losing or being pinned by once. Miss Mongol will also return and team up with Apple Miyuki to take on Shirai sisters Mio and Io. The show will start at 12 Noon and seats around ringside are priced at around 60 dollars and bleacher seats are priced at around 50 dollars. 

FREEDOMS ran two shows last week as they ran at the Osaka Quartier World Pavilion on April 4, 2010 and announced 250 fans for the show. The top matches were the team of TAJIRI and Masamune filling in for the injured Asian Cougar defeating the team of The Winger and Ricky Fuji when TAJIRI hit a Buzzsaw Kick to Ricky Fuji's head for the pinfall at 13 minutes, 58 seconds. GENTARO who lost his Independent Jr. Heavyweight Title on April 2, 2010 at K-Dojo's Korakuen Hall show to Marines Mask II (formerly PSYCHO now under a mask) defended one of his other two titles in the VKF King of Wrestle Naniwa Title against Keita Yano who he defeated at 17 minutes, 54 seconds to successfully defend that title for the 7th time. In the main event which was a Street Fight, the FREEDOMS team of Takashi Sasaki, Jun Kasai, and Kamui defeated Brahman Shu, Brahman Kei, and Ken45° with Great Kojika in their corner after Kamui hit a Swanton Bomb on Kei for the win at 16 minutes, 13 seconds. 

FREEDOMS then returned to the Tokyo Shin-Kiba 1st Ring on April 6, 2010 and announced a crowd of 224 fans. The opening match saw Hi69 return as HIROKI after 2 1/2 years out with an injury and make his FREEDOMS debut against a Mystery Opponent revealed to be Takashi Sasaki. The match ended up going 10 minutes before the time limit expired. The next match was Minoru Fujita and Takuya Sugawara defeating Ricky Fuji and Keita Yano after Sugawara got a Jorge Rivera Cutback for the pinfall over Yano at 11 minutes, 29 seconds. SMASH's TAJIRI and Madoka defeated BJW's Abdullah Kobayashi and DDT's Antonio Honda after TAJIRI pinned Honda at 13 minutes, 45 seconds. The Semi-Main Event was an Handicap Singles Elimination Match Series. It was a 5 vs. 2 match with Takashi Sasaki and Jun Kasai taking on 5 members of the Kojika Army. Jun Kasai and Brahman Shu started off the match and both men eliminated each other as they both fell over the top rope at 7 minutes, 11 seconds. This left Takashi Sasaki against 4 other wrestlers. Sasaki started off by eliminating Brahman Kei at 10 minutes, 40 seconds, then eliminating Ken45° by throwing him over the top rope for the elimination at 15 minutes, 47 seconds, then making Kazuhiko Ogasawara tap out at 17 minutes, 53 seconds to a Crab Hold, but then Brahman Shu would return to the ring and beat down Takashi Sasaki with a chair attack allowing Great Kojika to pin Sasaki at 19 minutes, 22 seconds leaving Kojika to be the lone survivor in the match. The main event saw Tatsuhito Takaiwa team up with his new partner Masashi Takeda after their March 10th match went to a time limit draw, as well as Magnitude Kishiwada against the FREEDOMS team of GENTARO, The Winger, and Kamui with Takeda hitting a Supplex on GENTARO to get the pinfall at 18 minutes, 11 seconds. 

Big Japan announced the full lineup for their 15th Anniversary show on May 4, 2010 at the Yokohama Bunka Gym. Yuko Miyamoto's near 17 month reign as BJW Death Match Champion will most likely come to an end as he will take on the promotions ace Ryuji Ito in the main event. Genichiro Tenryu will make his BJW debut by teaming up with Yuji Okabayashi against former FMW wrestler Yoshihito Sasaki and Daisuke Sekimoto in the semi-main event. Jun Kasai will team up with Trent Acid now going by just Acid and CZW's Nick Gage against Jaki Numazawa, Masashi Takeda, and Isami Kodaka, and Takashi Sasaki will also team up with American Independent wrestler Necro Butcher against Union Pro's Shuji Ishikawa and Kankuro Hoshino. Former BJW wrestlers Kamikaze, Masayoshi Motegi & Kazuhiko Matsuzaki will take on BJW booker Men's Teioh and BJW rookies Kazuki Hashimoto & Takumi Tsukamoto. The women's match will see Manami Toyota, Marcela and Ariya against Aja Kong & GAMI & Bullfight Sora, and the opening match will see Onryo team up with Daikokubo Benkei and Ryuichi Kawakami against Kikutaro, Shinobu, and Atsushi Ohashi. The finals for the BJW Tag Team Tournament with the winners becoming the new BJW Tag Team Champions will take place on April 28, 2010 at Korakuen Hall with Jun Kasai and Jaki Numazawa taking on Daisuke Sekimoto and Yoshihito Sasaki.

Hayabusa held his Phoenix Music Fiesta on March 23, 2010 at the Yokohama Star Ship with Mr. Gannosuke and Ricky Fuji as his guest singers for the show. Gannosuke wrote about how much fun he had and how he met Eiji Ezaki when both were around 18 and here they are about to turn 42 and their friendship still remains in tact. Hayabusa's next show Phoenix Music Fiesta will be on April 13, 2010 at the Yokohama Star Ship with Ricky Fuji and Command Bolshoi as his musical guests. He also announced that he will be performing live at JWP's Korakuen Hall show on April 18, 2010 and his new CD will be released in stores by Dragon Gate records on June 2, 2010. Mr. Gannosuke also announced that he was filming "Tonpachi Fellow of the Heisei Era 2".

Added: 3/21

Atsushi Onita's Retirement match has been moved once again. Originally Atsushi Onita that he would be retiring in January this year, but then later announced that his retirement match would be on March 21, 2010 at the Tokyo Shinjuku FACE.  Now Onita has announced that his Retirement Match will be on May 5, 2010 at Shin-FMW's Tokyo Shin-Kiba 1st Ring show. It will be the 15 year anniversary of his most famous Retirement Match against Hayabusa and the day that he and FMW are best known for. It was announced that Onita would team up with Tarzan Goto on the show with the opponents not being announced yet. Goto stated that he wish he could have the show take place at Kawasaki Stadium, but that was financially impossible. Katsutoshi Niiyama and Flying Kid Ichihara who graduated apart of the first FMW class in the FMW Dojo from 1990 were announced on the show as well. Mr. Pogo has told a Japanese wrestling magazine when being interviewed that he was done with the Shin-FMW group.

Mr. Gannosuke held his "Kishindoh Returns 3" show on March 20, 2010 at the Tokyo Shin-Kiba 1st Ring announcing 240 fans for the show in one of the lowest crowds he has done for a show he has promoted although this one also had one of the weaker lineups. The FREEDOMS' team of Jun Kasai and GENTARO defeated Dick Togo and former NOAH wrestler Makoto Hashi when GENTARO cradled up Hashi for the win in the main event at 20 minutes, 29 seconds.

 The semi-main event saw TAJIRI also cradle up Munenori Sawa for the win at 18 minutes, 23 seconds. 

Osaka Pro's Masamune defeated Madoka with the Kaminari Setsu to get the pinfall at 13 minutes, 42 seconds. The SMASH team of Akira Shoji and Hajime Ohara defeated the team of Yuko Miyamoto and Yuki Sato when Ohara hit the Muy Bien on Sato for the win at 12 minutes, 25 seconds. 

Mineo Fujita's match against Daisuke ended up becoming very short after Daisuke suffered a right ankle injury during the match causing the referee to stop the match and reward the victory to Fujita at 2 minutes, 51 seconds. In the opening match, Yasu Urano defeated Keita Yano with a Backside at 14 minutes, 35 seconds. Gannosuke announced afterwards that his next show will either be June, July, August, or September.

A note from the FREEDOMS March 10, 2010 Shin-Kiba 1st Ring show. Mammoth Sasaki and HIROKI came out after the Jun Kasai, Takashi Sasaki, and Madoka against Magnitude Kishiwada, TAJIRI, and Minoru Fujita match to make their announcements about returning. HIROKI will return to FREEDOMS on April 6th and Mammoth is still scheduled to return on June 21st at Korakuen Hall. 

Yuko Miyamoto successfully defended his BJW Death Match Title for the fourth time on March 19, 2010 at Korakuen Hall against friend Isami Kodaka in a Double Glass Board and Indian Strap Death Match after Miyamoto got the pinfall on Kodaka at 17 minutes, 43 seconds with the match definitely not turning out to be the Match of the Year the two had been talking about having with one another. Big Japan also announced that Genichiro Tenryu would be making his Big Japan debut at the BJW 15th Anniversary show at the Yokohama Bunka Gym on May 4, 2010. Besides Tenryu, already announced as non official BJW wrestlers participating on the show will be Yuko Miyamoto, Takashi Sasaki, Jun Kasai, The Winger, Isami Kodaka, Masashi Takeda, Ryuji Yamakawa, Kamikaze, Masayoshi Motegi, Kazuhiko Matsuzaki, Marcela, Ariya, Aja Kong, Manami Toyota, GAMI, Bullfight Sora, Minoru Fujita, Necro Butcher, and Nick Gage.

Due to the injury of Shinya Ishikawa, the team of Yoshihito Sasaki and Shinya Ishikawa were forced to vacate their BJW Tag Team Titles. Another tag team tournament has been setup this year, but will be much shorter than last year. Certain teams received Byes to the semi-finals of the tournament. Daisuke Sekimoto and Yoshihito Sasaki teamed up to defeat the team of Takashi Sasaki and Abdullah Kobayashi on March 19, 2010 at Korakuen Hall in a Block A 1st Round Match to advance to the semi-finals of the tournament to take on Shuji Ishikawa and Yuji Okabayashi on April 1, 2010 at the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring. Jun Kasai and Jaki Numazawa will team up to take on Masashi Takeda and Isami Kodaka on March 22, 2010 at the Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse in a Block B 1st Round Match. The winner of that match will move on to the semi-finals where they will take on Ryuji Ito and Shadow WX on March 28, 2010 at the Fukuoka Hakata Star Lanes in a Fluorescent Light Tubes Death Match. The finals of the tournament will be held on April 28, 2010 at Korakuen Hall.

Added: 3/10

FREEDOMS made the biggest announcement of the promotions 6 month history after their March 10th Shin-Kiba 1st Ring show by announcing they will be running at Korakuen Hall for the first time as a promotion on June 21, 2010. They also announced that Mammoth Sasaki will be returning to the ring after 16 months from his neck injury from a car accident that took place back on February 28, 2009 for the June 21st Korakuen Hall show. HIROKI will also be on the show as well. 

FREEDOMS ran their March 10, 2010 Tokyo Shin-Kiba 1st Ring with an announced attendance of 227 fans. GENTARO successfully defended his Independent Jr. Heavyweight Title in the main event by making TAKA Michinoku submit to the Sharpshooter at 19 minutes, 5 seconds. It was the 6th defense of the title for GENTARO. The original semi-main event of the show ended up being just that as the team of TAJIRI, Magnitude Kishiwada, and Minoru Fujita defeated Takashi Sasaki, Jun Kasai, and Madoka when Fujita cradled Madoka at 14 minutes, 31 seconds. Masashi Takeda and Tatsuhito Takaiwa ended up battling to a thirty minute draw which I would guess would setup a rematch between the veteran and the youngster. Ricky Fuji battled Kazuhiko Ogasawara to a Double Count at 8 minutes, 34 seconds and in the opening match the newest member of the Kojika Army was revealed to be Abdullah Kobayashi as he teamed up with Great Kojika, Brahman Shu, and Brahman Kei in a lost to The Winger, Kamui, Keita Yano, and Antonio Honda when Honda pinned Kojika after Kobayashi accidentally hit Kojika to setup the pinfall for Honda at 13 minutes, 31 seconds.

Added: 3/7

I recently exchanged e-mails back and forth with Fumi Saito who is a Japanese wrestling magazine columnist who I got to meet on my first trip to Japan in January 2008. I asked him questions about Shin-FMW and FMW wrestlers that I wondered about and that I had been asked about a lot.

Q: Does Shin-FMW planning on running again? I know they ran back on January 26th, but they have not announced a future show and I heard the ticket sales had not been good for the show.

A: I think January 26th show at the Shin Kiba First Ring was the last show they will be running. I spoke with some the people at the show, and none of them knew anything about the history of FMW. My friend, Michael Penzel, aka, Super Leather flew in for the show. He thought it was the FMW reunion show but was pretty disappointed when he found out it wasn't. 

Actually, the show was promoted by the same promoter who are running the Vader Time show. Michael/Super Leather was invited back for the next Vader Time show which is set for April 19th date. 

It's a shame that FMW name is being used but being used by people who know nothing about the history or value of the brand name. Onita is not involved with it. Tarzan Goto is no longer associated with them. All those ex-FMW guys worked the January show with the idea that somebody was going to revive the FMW theme. They were all disappointed when they found out there was no such direction. 

Q: Do you know if Gannosuke and Kanemura have reunited their friendship since Gannosuke has retired? I know they hugged at Gannosuke's Retirement show but did not know if that was for show or if they really were on good terms again. Also, was it ever revealed the exact reason their friendship ended in the first place?

A: It's very hard to know the details of those personal conflict. There are so many of them. For instance, there are guys like Hayabusa and Ricky Fuji who are good friends with everybody and want everyone to get along. Gannosuke and Kanemura shook hands at Gannosuke's retirement show. But it's not like those two will be running shows together. Neither of them have money to run shows on their own. Kanemura made a lot of enemies when he ran XWF two summers ago and didn't pay people. Gannosuke is coaching Ice Ribbon girls, and also filming a low budget movie right now.

There were numerous attempts at reviving FMW. Many people had tried and failed. You have to have EVERYBODY to make it. Just like ECW with WWE, it won't be the same. It will be run by people who wasn't there, if you know what I mean. It won't be the same anyhow.

Kanemura wanted to run a new company with FMW theme. Gannosuke had tried the same theme with WMF. There were many attempts in between. None had any success.

Q: Is there any health related issues to GOEMON? His body looks so horrible to even a couple of years ago and I know he is rarely booked. I noticed FREEDOMS quit using him as well. I didn't know if there was anything to it or he had just aged throughout the years and his body was not the same. 

A: I saw GOEMON (Koji Nakagawa) last week. Hayabusa had his live gig in Yokohama. I stopped there to say hi to some of the guys. I saw GOEMON there. It's not a health issue. He said he is just naturally a skinny like that. It was hard for him to put on weight to begin with.

Q: Is there any word on when Mammoth Sasaki will be making a return to wrestling?

A: Sasaki has not given up on wrestling. He also works at this toy shop (plastic models and radio-control cars and junk). I think wrestling is hobby for him. He knows he won't be making a lot of money with wrestling but he will wrestle on weekends. Very hard to make a fulltime living with wrestling these days.

The full lineup for the FREEDOMS March 10, 2010 show at the Tokyo Shin-Kiba 1st Ring. The semi-main event match announced is The Winger teaming with Kamui, Keita Yano, and Antonio Honda taking on The Kojika Army consisting of Great Kojika, Brahman Shu, Brahman Kei, and a Mystery Partner who will be the newest member of the Kojika Army. Great Kojika who turned on the FREEDOMS team earlier this year to team up with the Brahman Brothers will be making his first appearance in 2010 for the promotion. Ricky Fuji will take on Kazuhiko Ogasawara in the opening match. FREEDOMS also announced another show on April 4, 2010 at the Osaka World Pavilion (the Osaka equivalent to the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring building but much nicer looking inside) just two days before their April 6, 2010 show at the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring.

Atsushi Onita announced that his 5th Retirement will be on March 21, 2010 at the Tokyo Shinjuku FACE. No matches for the show including who Onita's opponent would be have been announced for the show. Onita announced back on December 27, 2009 that he would be retiring in January of this year but a show never took place. After Onita lost the election for Governor of Nagasaki he announced that this show would again be his last match ever.

Hi69 will return to the ring for the first time since October 11, 2007 for a LOCK UP show when Hi69 teamed with Mammoth Sasaki and Tetsuhiro Kuroda against Togi Makabe, Toru Yano, and Tomohiro Ishii where Ishii kicked Hi69 so hard in the chest it caused a dislocation in his vertebrae before Ishii would make Hi69 tap out. The Apache Army would put on a charity show on November 12, 2007 at the Tokyo Shin-Kiba 1st Ring called "HI69 AID" with all the money being made in the show going to pay for Hi69's hospital bills. It would be announced that Hi69 would be out for one year due to the injury but it would turn out to cause him to be out for 2 1/2 years as a result. Hi69 will return to the promotion he started with in Kaientai Dojo on April 2, 2010 at Korakuen Hall going now just as HIROKI while teaming with MIYAWAKI against TAKA Michinoku and Yasu Urano. 

Kintaro Kanemura recently completed a three shot tour with the ZERO-ONE promotion. Kanemura first teamed up with foreigners from the early days of the promotion in The Predator and Bambi Killer on February 26th in Kumagaya to beat the team of Shinjiro Otani, Akebono, and Kamikaze when Predator pinned Kamikaze with a King Kong Knee Drop. Kanemura then challenged for the WEW Tag Team Titles by teaming up with former W*ING partner Magnitude Kishiwada on February 28th at the Osaka Prefectural Gym where they would lose to the WEW Tag Team Champion team of Kohei Sato and Kamikaze after Kamikaze would hit a Moonsault Press on Kanemura to successfully defend the titles for the second time. Kanemura would then take on the WEW Tag Team Champions again, this time in a non title match while teaming with Rikiya Fudo on March 2nd at Korakuen Hall. Sato and Kamikaze would once again come out victorious after Sato would nail his Polestar on Fudo for the pin at 9 minutes, 20 seconds. Kanemura after the match would shake hands with Sato who is a close friend of his and afterwards make it clear this his goal is to win back the WEW Tag Team Titles from them.

For those interested in early 90's FMW results. I have added a bunch of 1991-1992 FMW results over the last month that can be found at http://fmwwrestling.us/FMWEarly.html and http://fmwwrestling.us/FMWStreetFight.html

Added: 2/23

Atsushi Onita failed to become Governor of Nagasaki on February 21, 2010 when he placed 3rd out of 7 running candidates. Hodo Nakamura, a former vice governor of Nagasaki won the election gathering 316,603 votes to become the new governor of the Prefecture. Tsuyoshi Hashimoto came in second in the election with 222,565 votes. Atsushi Onita ended up getting 98,200 votes to come in third in the election. 

Hayabusa made his first appearance in New Japan at Sumo Hall on February 14, 2010 since appearing at the Super J-Cup on April 16, 1994 at the Sumo Hall as well. Hayabusa was a special invited guest for Milano Collection A.T.'s Retirement Ceremony. Hayabusa was wheeled to the ring and presented flowers to Milano who was calling it a career after ten years. Hayabusa took pictures backstage with both Milano Collection A.T. as well as friend Koji Kanemoto. 

Hayabusa also wrote that as of January 2nd of this year, he has been going to the Walking Rehabilitation Center called Forest of the Heart (picture above of them working with Hayabusa) which has caused him the greatest improvement in his condition when it comes to walking in years. He still needs a cain to walk but he now can walk as much as he wants with the help of his cain compared to back in 2002 when he returned to Korakuen Hall he could only walk a couple of steps.

FREEDOMS ran a joint show with the Secret Base promotion as well as Pro-Wrestling Shop MACKY on February 20, 2010 at the Nagoya Sports Center with the show being entitled "Triple Threat" with the showing drawing an announced 215 fans. The two FREEDOMS matches on the six match show saw GENTARO team up with The Winger and Kamui to defeat the team of Shima Zion, Go, and Shigehiro Irie with GENTARO hitting a Diving Elbow on Irie for the pin at 15 minutes, 29 seconds. The other match was the main event of the show with Takashi Sasaki and Jun Kasai against Mototsugu Shimizu and Yamada Man Pound in a Dangerous Weapons Death Match with Kasai hitting the Pearl Harbor Splash on Yamada to get the pinfall at 19 minutes, 7 seconds.

Kintaro Kanemura who looks to have gotten a full time spot for ZERO-ONE through friends Masato Tanaka and Kohei Sato will be appearing for the next three shows for the promotion. Kanemura will appear in the main event on February 26, 2010 at the Kumagaya Citizen Gym with two of the earlier wrestlers from the promotion in The Predator and Bambi Killer as they take on Shinjiro Otani, Akebono, and Kamikaze. Kanemura will then team up with former W*ING friend Magnitude Kishiwada and challenge for the WEW Tag Team Titles on February 28, 2010 at the Osaka Prefectural Gym # 2 against the champions Kohei Sato and Kamikaze. It will be the first time that Kanemura will be challenging for the WEW Tag Team Titles for the first time since February 8, 2007. Kanemura will then return to Korakuen Hall and team up with Rikiya Fudo on March 2, 2010 and take on Kohei Sato and Kamikaze again.

With the Winter Olympics going on in Vancouver, British Columbia right now, it brought back memories to Ricky Fuji who lived in Calgary in 1988 the last time the Winter Olympics were in Canada. It has caused Ricky to become nostalgic and post pictures of his time in Canada from 1988. The picture above is of him and Shinya Hashimoto from 1988 when the two were wrestling for the Calgary Stampede promotion.

Added: 2/13

Tarzan Goto promoted his second Shin-FMW show on January 26, 2010 at the Tokyo Shin-Kiba 1st Ring and for the second time no attendance was announced of the show which is a not good sign as unlike the first show all tickets were regularly priced and not doubled.

The Lethal Weapon team of Tarzan Goto, Hisakatsu Oya, and Ricky Fuji teamed up for the first time together since April 20, 1995 to take on the W*ING team of Mr. Pogo, Super Leather, and The Winger in a Street Fight. When an obvious fake came out wearing the Leatherface mask a large amount of booing was echoed all over the building when it was obvious that this was not the real Super Leather. Tarzan Goto quickly KO'd the fake Leatherface when all of a sudden Super Leather's theme music began to play and out came Mike Kirschner revising his Super Leather gimmick with his chainsaw for the first time since August 2008. Ricky Fuji would end up getting sliced open by both Mr. Pogo and Super Leather but Tarzan Goto would end up hitting The Winger with a lariat for the pinfall at 18 minutes, 36 seconds. Kintaro Kanemura was seen watching the match in the building and it is believed he will be participating on the next show as he is friends with the promoter, but no future show has still been announced. 

Overall a report of the show was said to not be good. The main event was fine for what it was, but The Winger was the only wrestler in the match not over 40 trying to do an old style FMW Street Fight. GOEMON who teamed up with Masahiro Sase and defeated Madoka and Tomohiro Matsumoto when GOEMON rolled up Matsumoto at 9 minutes, 19 seconds was said to be decent at best. Reina Aikawa who defended Carrot to retain the New-Half Title after pulling Carrot's shirt off at 15 minutes, 12 seconds was said to be too long and with the crowd being quiet the entire time and then were confused by the ending as the stipulation of the shirt being pulled off as the way to win the match was never announced to the crowd. The two wrestlers are males playing females much like the old Azusa Kudo gimmick with the New-Half title being a transvestite title. Bakabon no Papa & Crab K*ING defeated Kunihiko Mitsamura and Batten Tamagawa when Bakabon pinned Tamagawa with a Michinoku Driver II was said to be way too long as a comedy match that was not funny at all. Daiju Takase defeated Shinjuku Shark with a Cross Armbreaker at 8 minutes, 9 seconds in a Different Style Fight in the opening match. The show was said to be too long due to the long entrances, too cold, and felt more like a Tarzan Goto Shin-FMW show from 1997 and not the real FMW that it's trying to recreate. It was announced both this show and the December 24, 2009 show will be released on DVD's in April.

FREEDOMS ran their February 9, 2010 show at the Tokyo Shin-Kiba 1st Ring drawing an announced 213 fans of the show. The basis of this show was for the FREEDOMS team to get their revenge on all the outsider teams. Jun Kasai and Masashi Takeda teamed up in the main event to take on former FMW wrestler Magnitude Kishiwada and former New Japan/ZERO-ONE wrestler Tatsuhito Takaiwa in the main event. Masashi Takeda would eventually nail Takaiwa with the Spear to score the pinfall at 14 minutes, 26 seconds. The semi-main event saw GENTARO, The Winger, and Ricky Fuji team up and defeat the team of TAJIRI, Minoru Fujita, and Takuya Sugawara when The Winger hit a Diving Senton on Sugawara for the win at 14 minutes, 12 seconds. Takashi Sasaki and Kamui teamed up in the opening match to defeat Brahman Shu and Brahman Kei after Kamui would get Kei in the Kamui Clutch for the roll up victory at 10 minutes, 5 seconds. The only match announced for the next show at the Shin-Kiba 1st Ring show on March 10th so far is GENTARO defending his Independent Jr. Heavyweight Title against TAKA Michinoku who once held the title back in 1996 when it was the FMW Jr. Heavyweight Title after beating Koji Nakagawa at Kawasaki Stadium on May 5th.

Mr. Gannosuke announced the full line up for his "Kishindoh Returns 3" show on March 20, 2010 at the Tokyo Shin-Kiba 1st Ring. The main event of the show will be Jun Kasai and GENTARO teaming up to take on the team of Dick Togo and former NOAH wrestler Makoto Hashi. TAJIRI against Munenori Sawa will be placed in the semi-main event of the show. Madoka will take on Osaka Pro's Masamune, Yuko Miyamoto and Yuki Sato will take on SMASH's Akira Shoji and Hajime Ohara, Mineo Fujita will take on Daisuke, and Yasu Urano will take on Keita Yano in the opening match of the show. 

I have updated the Profiles section of the site for the first time since 2006. I have added a bunch of new wrestlers to it and it can be found at http://fmwwrestling.us/Profiles.html and you can always find it at the bottom of the Bio's page for basic information for former FMW/WMF wrestlers and current FREEDOMS wrestlers. 

Added: 1/18

FREEDOMS ran their first show of 2010 on January 14th at the Tokyo Shin-Kiba 1st Ring drawing an announced crowd of 243 fans. The semi-main event saw Takashi Sasaki, Jun Kasai, and Masashi Takeda against Tatsuhito Takaiwa, Minoru Fujita, and the debuting for the promotion Magnitude Kishiwada. Tatsuhito Takaiwa would end up scoring the pinfall for the outsiders team when he nail Takeda with the Death Valley Bomb for the win at 14 minutes, 25 seconds. Kishiwada will join Takaiwa, TAJIRI, Minoru Fujita, Takuya Sugawara, Hajime Ohara, and Asian Cougar as regular outsiders for the promotion. The main event saw GENTARO once again put up his Independent Jr. Heavyweight title on the line against Takuya Sugawara with GENTARO once again successfully defending the title for the 5th time after making Sugawara submit to the Figure Four Leglock. Ricky Fuji also took on TAJIRI for the first time in a singles match on the show with TAJIRI blowing mist in Ricky's face and inside cradling him for the pinfall at 10 minutes, 48 seconds. The main event for the next show on February 5, 2010 at the Tokyo Shin-Kiba 1st Ring will be Takashi Sasaki and Jun Kasai teaming up to take on Magnitude Kishiwada and Tatsuhito Takaiwa with the semi-main event being GENTARO, The Winger, and Ricky Fuji against TAJIRI, Minoru Fujita, and Takuya Sugawara and also Asian Cougar will take on Hajime Ohara on the card. 2 more matches will be announced for the show. 

Tarzan Goto announced the second show lineup for the promotion that is officially called "Shin-FMW". The financial backer for the promotion is the same man that was the backer for the MAKEHEN promotion before it went under last year. The second show will be on January 26, 2010 at the Tokyo Shin-Kiba 1st Ring with the main event being the original Lethal Weapon reuniting as Tarzan Goto, Hisakatsu Oya, and Ricky Fuji taking on Mr. Pogo, Super Leather, and The Winger. It will be the first time that the Lethal Weapon have been a team since Goto left FMW in April 1995 and it will be the first time Hisakatsu Oya's name has popped up on a wrestling card since Hayabusa's promoted show in January 2009. Since the name is Super Leather on the card and not Leatherface one would guess that it would be Mike Kirschner returning as the FMW Super Leather, but nothing is official on that. Most of the rest of the card will be filled up by cheap independent wrestlers but the semi-main event will have GOEMON in the match as he teams up with Masahiro Sase as they take on Madoka and Tomohiro Matsumoto. Shinjuku Shark will also be on the undercard as he takes on Daiju Takase in a Different Style Match. Tickets for this show will be standard compared to last months show where every ticket was doubled in price and the show did not come close to a sell out and no attendance was ever announced for the show. 

Mr. Gannosuke announced that his next promoted show will be on March 20, 2010 at the Tokyo Shin-Kiba 1st Ring entitled "Kishindoh Returns 3". The only match announced so far is that TAJIRI will take on Munenori Sawa in a singles match. With that match scheduled, that looks to be the end of anymore GENTARO vs. Munenori Sawa matches with no winner ever being officially decided between the two. 

BAHU's Japanese Trip Diary 2010

BAHU's Japanese Trip Diary 2009

BAHU's Japanese Trip Diary 2008

Apache Army/FREEDOMS & Production Shows 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)