-The day FMW went bankrupt-


Arai released his book ‘Bankruptcy! FMW’ (Tokuma Shoten Publishing).

I read it. It was quite interesting. I read it all so quickly. I knew who those names are in his book, so I couldn’t stop smiling.

As it was mentioned in his book, February 14, 2002, FMW declared bankruptcy.

Thinking back, it was such a scene.

Reading his book reminded me of the day clearly. When Arai was surrounded by loan sharks, I was in a different location.

After 5pm, my phone started ringing.

‘It’s an emergency!’

‘Please come back to the office!’

I didn’t know the exact situation, but I knew it’s something happened to the company. I thought maybe we went bankrupt.

And I went back to the office straight away. Then I saw loan sharks were surrounding the building as described in Arai’s book. Around that time, Arai was at the cafe surrounded by scary looking loan sharks. I heard he used more than 10 loan sharks. Unbelievable number.

Anyway, I got into the office .There was Kintaro Kanemura, Mr. Gannosuke and all the other FMW wrestlers. Young wrestlers were also there and their face looked bitter. They gathered to prevent the loan sharks to come inside of our office.

No one knew what was going on because Arai wasn’t there. Then Kanemura or someone said they were going to rescue Arai because he had been captured.

I stopped him. We don’t know the actual situation of him or company, so it’s no point us making actions. We needed to wait until he tells us what to do. While I was persuading them, one of the loan sharks broke into the office.

‘Give me the money back!’

‘Where is Arai?’

He only shouts that and we can’t have a proper conversation. He is actually quite brave because we were well built wrestlers surrounding him in the small room.

That’s how much he was desperate for taking something back from us.

Anyway, I explained him that there’s no one who can explain the situation, but it was impossible him to understand, but it was true. As soon as I arrived at the office, it was chaos like this and I just had to find out what was actually happening.

Then the loan shark shouted again ‘Give me anything valuable!’

I think he was ordered by his boss not to come back with empty handed.

That was too bad. I told him ‘Ok, you can take anything you think it’s valuable, take a look.’ But literally there wasn't anything!! He started asking us ‘Do you have anything?’

In the end, I gave him some FMW T-shirts. He left happily. But he was hiding the T-shirts from the other loan sharks. That made us laugh...I just had to laugh.

Eventually, as it’s mentioned in Arai’s book, Arai managed to escape from the cafe. We finally face to the reality...FMW is Over.

Young wrestlers looked upset. But I didn’t feel much. Because I knew it was coming.

The problem was Arai borrowed from more than 10 different loan sharks. People usually use only a few if they are in serious financial trouble. Using more than 10 is almost like a con. I have sympathy with Arai though, I feel sorry for those loan sharks. How did he do that?

Selling Shinkansen tickets to Cash Converters? Using a Car Loan company??

I had no idea how he made debts and made money to pay it off.

I knew FMW was in trouble, but I was so shocked how much debt he was in. It was an impossible amount. It must have been so hard for him...but he was a CEO. I won’t give him a kind word. In his book, he said ’On February 15th, FMW was going to get funding ¥10,000,000  ($100,000) from some company. We needed just one more day.' That's a lie.

I know. It’s not from ‘A company’. I wouldn’t tell the details because he’s dead, but the company was a shady one who we shouldn’t associate with.

Let’s change the subject.

When Arai was captured at the cafe, in our office there was a guy called ‘Y’.

He was so shady!

I know there are some proper adults out there though.

By the way, it’s ‘Y’.

He was also young and probably around 30. He called himself a business man and ex-soccer player of Consadole Sapporo. I’m not really sure who he was.

I’m not interested in soccer at all, so I ignored what he was from the beginning, but Kanemura has a friend in Consadole and he found out there wasn’t such a soccer player. ’What is he?? Why is he in FMW?’ I thought. He was brought in by Arai. I don’t know if Arai had gone mad because he made huge debts or something, he was letting a so-called Start-Up Company guy into FMW. We didn’t know where they were coming from. Y  was so shady.

He was allowed to work at FMW because he was a investor. He promised he invested more money than other companies. He was so good at talking and acting to make himself look very hard working for FMW. He turned up to the office with an aluminum suitcase to show off how professional he is.

Then he said ‘I’ll bring back billion of yen.’ and left for a meeting. I don't think the suit cases ever had money in it though, he was just so good at conning people with such performances.

That’s why almost everyone believed in him. Only Tetsuhiro Kuroda was doubting him. Even I nearly got conned by him believing his fund idea. It was a 500,000,000yen ($5,000,000) fund. I should have doubted him immediately.

People get so soft when they hear about money, including me. Then we began planning how to use the money. It's funny, we couldn’t use it up! It was too enormous amount for us to handle. Anyway, the 500million yen was a lie. A wrestling promotion who has suspicious investors and kids who don't know how to use money...ridiculous.

I guess it’s a bit irresponsible to talk about him like this way because there are victims of him but I wasn’t the victim, but I think he was quite funny and made me laugh. The best one was, when there was an idea of he will become CEO of FMW...I don’t know how it came up, but Arai was very serious. I remember I thought ‘No, he can’t be!’

Then one day after the show, he called everyone and had a brief meeting. He started complaining about the matches. That movement wasn’t good, or the process of the match wasn’t good etc...even though he never wrestled. Everyone was wanting him to shut up and stop talking.

Then he said to us ’From next time, you need to show me the match before the door opens! Without my approval, no match that night!’

Is he stupid? Why does this weirdo have such a right? Nobody was listening to him though, he behaved like a boss of a company. Y was a con man after all.

He conned money from several people and disappeared. He said he will take care of FMW after the bankruptcy, but nothing.

No, he actually paid a little to Hayabusa and several other top wrestlers in FMW.

He had big stories, but I think only money he used was paying just a little wages to those. What was he thinking? I really don’t understand Y. Someone told me that when he saw me gone somewhere, Y said ‘He is the problem! FMW is ruined by him!!’ and punched my face on a poster. It's funny. It doesn't make me angry. It's just funny.

Anyway, FMW was confused by Y until the end. The promotion was actually allowing such a conman to work for them. I wonder why Arai brought Y in and why he liked Y so much. I should have asked him once.

It’s just my opinion...I think Y and Arai had something in common. They loved being surrounded by their favorite wrestlers, saying random things what they wanna hear and talking their dreams...then when things turns bad, they runaway. Arai was that type of guy. He was so determined to being a CEO of FMW.

He really loved the position more than anybody else. It sounds beautiful, but he was just obsessed. He was so comfortable in the place where many people listen to him and work for him. There were more shady guys like Y in FMW. They didn’t come for us. I think Arai invited them into the business as his copy. We were confused by many outsiders like Y, but it was all Arai’s fault and he didn’t notice. There must have been more important positions than CEO. CEO’s chair has no value. Arai shouldn’t have died.

-Before Joining FMW-

I worked for many promotions, before I joined FMW, I was working with Jado & Gedo as a freelance and had my own promotion called ‘Fuyuki Promotion’. The first contact I had with FMW was booking FMW’s talents for my show.

Or did we ask them to book us for FMW? I cannot remember exactly, but it didn’t start off with Arai asking me to join FMW.
Then there was a opportunity to talk to the FMW staff about us going to FMW and it became real. There weren’t proper negotiations. The friendly talk got into the employment talk. Honestly, Fuyuki promotion wasn’t doing well, so I was hoping to find someone to hire us.

I wanted to do the entertainment wrestling. I had a bigger picture. To do that, I didn’t mind having a partner for Fuyuki Promotion. FMW had a broadcasting right of DirecTV. It had a bigger operation scale than any other indie promotions.

When I was about to join FMW, they had a storyline that Onita was leaving FMW or he was kicked out of FMW. It was good timing for me to join. I wanted to do entertainment wrestling. FMW wanted a new face. We had an alignment of interest. Onita had just left when I joined FMW and it just happened at the same time.

People think I kicked Onita out, but I didn’t. I wasn’t involved in the storyline that Arai made and I didn’t know about what happened behind the scene until I read his book. Anyway, I just wanted to do entertainment wrestling.


-Treatment of Jado & Gedo-

FMW only wanted me, but I asked them to take Jado & Gedo also as member of Fuyuki Promotion. To tell you the truth, I wanted to pay them enough to eat. It was my headache to take care of two lives. It's so hard to pay wages to employees.

Before I joined FMW, I could only book them short term job with All Japan or give them small jobs. I felt obliged to make employment for them.
Then FMW made a offer to Jado & Gedo.  First I asked them. ’Do you wanna come to FMW with me?’  They said yes. I felt so relieved.

FMW said ‘We employ Jado & Gedo as permanent members.’ I was going to beg Misawa for All Japan to take them if there isn’t any choices. That’s how much I was desperate for them. But it wasn’t easy for them joining FMW.

Now I can talk about it...but I don’t want to talk much...Gedo was okay, but Jado used to work at early FMW and didn’t have a good relationship with them. Something had happened.

So I wasn’t sure he could get along with the FMW people. I suggested that he wears a mask when he went on tour. I wanted to see FMW’s wrestler’s reaction with Jado. If I see them having bad times, I was going to pull him and find the job elsewhere.

After the tour, a staff member told me ‘He was communicating ok with everyone.’ So, I was very relieved. It’s nonsense to worry that much, but human relationships are complicated sometimes aren’t they?

It’s a off topic...shall I talk about Jado and Gedo? I met Jado and Gedo when I was working at WAR, Ultimo Dragon took them in and introduced me.

WAR was thinking how to promote these promising rookies. I remember Tenryu asked me ‘What do you think of them?’ so I answered ‘Yes, they are quite useful.’  WAR decided to tag Jado and Gedo with Takashi Ishikawa as a heel group, but it seemed like Ishikawa refused to be a heel or something and the idea was put on hold.

Tenryu asked me if I want to tag with them. There is no reason to say no to Tenryu-san, but I didn’t want to get much attention in the ring and I told Tenryu-san that once I tag with these young wrestlers and become a heel, it’s difficult to turn back to a face. Tenryu promised that the company would push us. That’s why I took care of them and taught them.

That was a company’s order to begin with. It won’t be interesting if I mention about this though, there must be similar cases in the major promotion’s wrestling unit as well. What do I think about them now?

Yeah, it’s great. They are now top tag team of New Japan, but they weren’t good in FMW until the end. First they said it’s okay, but they must had some difficult time there. They were treated as lower class than the other wrestlers.

I brought them in to FMW, so of course I was so attached to them. Maybe I should have cared more about their wrestling matches. But I couldn’t have favoritisms in my position. As a matchmaker, I had to watch all of matches and rank the wrestlers.

It was very difficult to rank them as they were similar age, similar length of career, and similar body. Obviously, Hayabusa was on the different level. He was extremely good. Jado, Gedo, Gannosuke, Kanemura, they were on the same level of match construction skills, ability of making audiences excited. So naturally, if there are original members and freelance, original members will get priority. Because this is FMW. FMW fans comes to the show to see FMW wrestlers. Especially after Onita left, FMW had hardcore fans.

I think it’s quite common that promotions uses original member first, then the freelance wrestlers. After freelance get betters by three or four times than original wrestlers, finally match makers are able to push them.

They have to get up there all by themselves. We can’t help them even if we like them so much. I hoped that Jado & Gedo beat the original FMW wrestlers all by themselves, but unfortunately they couldn’t. It’s not only my opinion.

The other people at FMW also said the same thing. Maybe I let them drink bitter water.
But wherever you go, if you are the same condition as the original member of the promotion, they get the priority. I know it because I’ve worked for so many different promotions. If you are a freelance wrestler, you’ll have to have something extra special to climb up to the top of the promotion.

-Fulfilling time with FMW-

Do I remember my first match in FMW?

Well...no...I don’t remember. I don't remember my matches. It didn’t matter how the match goes. I was just desperate to begin doing entertainment wrestling, but I don’t remember the details of most of my matches. I do remember matches which the audience really enjoyed.

I wanted to take FMW to the different direction from Onita. Arai also wanted to go to different direction from Onita ,so we had a common goal. There's no point following his path because he’s not there. That style existed because of him.

Anyway, I can tell that was the most fulfilling time when we had DirecTV’s broadcast contract. I heard that FMW and DirecTV had a 3 year contract. When I joined FMW, one year had already passed. FMW had not started entertainment wrestling yet. So during my first year from April 1999 the business was doing okay and I wanted to sew the seeds for one year, during my first year and then start entertainment wrestling...but the business was getting worse.

First of all, I didn’t know how much money FMW usually spent on one show. People said the most expensive one cost 80,000,000yen ($800,000), but I never knew the truth. Only Arai knows. But he was changing the price ever time he opened his mouth. I felt he was very loose with money.

I admire that they still kept going.

There was a rumor that Onita’s company was involved with NEO FMW, but I don’t think so. Because I saw their regal document when I borrowed 2,500,000yen ($25,000) from FMW.

Arai and I went to the council office together to make official documents for a fund transfer. The name on the registration was Arai only. FMW had become his private company. I’m sure Arai owned FMW and Onita had nothing to do with FMW by then. But even though I could see Arai was still in the curse of Onita. He said he hates Onita, he often denied Onitaism.

However, when it comes to defend himself he would say ’That’s how we always have done it since Onita’s time.’

I wanted to say ‘No, that’s not right.’

He had a huge debts, maybe he wanted some emotional support. Maybe he wanted my support, but I’m not a type of man who supports someone mentally.

I know I joined FMW as a top guy, but it doesn’t mean I can support him. He needed to be independent.

Happy time in FMW? Maybe there was, but the company was already in debt, and couldn’t decrease the debt. FMW had to pay for the video production and couldn’t pay off probably 30,000,000yen-40,000,000yen ($30,000-$40,000) to the production company. There were no sign of payment. I saw a production company guy come and shout at us before.

A production company often changes the person who is in charge and their structure changes often. If an unpaid balance was found by a new person in charge, he usually wants to collect that first. But Arai was very arrogant. He altered the dates on the documents and extended the due dates. He often said that with a grin.

‘If we close down, we can’t pay anything and they can’t collect anything. That’s what they are afraid of. We have debts but we have to continue to stay open."

He is not a man. He’s so much like a raccoon. I was told by someone when I was about to meet Arai for the first time.

‘Arai looks very gentle and quiet, but be careful. He is a raccoon.’

Do not trust Arai.

But I was the same as Arai.

We shouldn’t trust each other at the end of the day. I had my Fuyuki Promotion and to protect us, it was necessary to use or to be used. Because it’s a business.

I think wrestlers didn’t know about that side of Arai. I don’t know exactly, but usually the promotion boss doesn’t communicate with wrestlers directly.

They don’t come to every show. Maybe they only attend at shows in Tokyo.

CEO can’t vacate the office much and wrestlers do not come to the office so often. If you become CEO, it’s normal that you wouldn’t have time for communicating with wrestlers. So it’s good to have someone in between. A site supervisor.

Just like Chono from New Japan. They help communication in between management and wrestlers. It doesn’t have to be ex-wrestler though, but the person needs to be trustworthy. But if you are at this position, you’d see how money goes and some people take the advantage of it.

FMW used to have a site supervisor. He was the one who asked me to join FMW. I wouldn’t mention his name though. There's no point. He offered me to become the match maker and full-time wrestler for FMW. It was fine, but there was another offer. To purchase some of the FMW stock share. He said they have a plan to increase the capital and it’s the best time to buy.

I was ready to purchase. Then Arai said "I will never sell you FMW stock!" If you want to pretend, you can tell people you bought some."

What? Did the FMW site supervisor lie to me? Or was it Arai’s plan to steal my money or what? I had no idea. Anyway there were so many complicated stories like this.

I joined FMW, and Arai said to me, ‘We have so many wrestlers who needs more training. Can you teach them?? I asked you to join because of that.’

Well it’s different than what I expected. But don’t you think they need to sort that without me first?

Anyway, I accepted the offer and asked Arai where the dojo is. He said it’s in Kawagoe, Saitama. I lived in Yokohama. I wouldn’t want to ask, but I asked about travel experiences. He said FMW will pay every time if I go there, but to be honest, it was so tiring spending 6 hours for traveling. Ridiculous.

Anyway, I stopped going after a few times. There must have been a better person for teaching wrestling. I’m not a trainer type. I think they didn’t have anyone who can teach wrestling at the time.

I think securing financially is the first priority as CEO. Not their wrestling skills. You don’t have time for training and I was also against the use of wrestlers working in the office.

Hayabusa and GOEMON (Nakagawa) were office employees. It’s not a good idea. It was already decided before I joined FMW, so I could not say anything, but if they are office employees, they should do office work. It's not just a job title to have.

Or you should only work only as a wrestler and focus on wrestling. Company executive is a very important part of the business. It had to be done properly. It seemed like their position were just for the paperwork though Arai would make everything so vague. I told him, but he didn’t change.

November 1998, at the Yokohama Bunka Gymnasium was Onita's last appearance and I declared the start of entertainment wrestling.

Since then, so many weird people who’s claiming to know FMW staff approached me saying, ’I think it is difficult to do entertainment wrestling in current FMW.’

Didn’t matter what they say. I was more curious to know who they really were!

In the mean time, I became a commissioner of FMW in May 1999 and the Fuyuki regime started, but there were unknown people still working at FMW. They were all invited by Arai .What did they want to do?

Maybe Arai teamed up with them and wanted to control me? It certainly failed.
 

Click here for Part 3 of Kodo Fuyuki's book