-Meetings for the show-

First thing I did since Fuyuki regime started was to have regular match meetings.

We discussed the show details, match ideas and lay out. And we employed script writers from outside to make FMW more fun.

The meeting was weekly and it was held at Toshiba EMI's meeting room in their office. We discussed the production of DirecTV too.

Let me make it clear.

DirecTV didn’t pay for their software’s production fee. FMW paid for it.

That’s why at every show, it cost millions of yen (tens of thousands of dollars). People said why was so much money used? Because we had to pay for our own production fee and we couldn’t make much profit. Anyway, I don’t care about that now.

I suggested and arranged the regular meeting. I remember in the first meeting, there was Arai and myself from FMW, a related company member, a script writer so only four of us.

Then more and more people started attending the meetings. We let a TV producer in. Also a TV director for company F (mentioned in Arai’s book). Sometimes we had more than 10 people.

There were times Hayabusa and Nakagawa attended the meeting as well.

It’s not good that wrestlers attend the match meetings. I asked Arai why did he need to bring in wrestlers for the match meetings. But Arai said he wanted to omit the all time to explain them everything and they could see why it was decided. I doubt that's true.

I thought he was too afraid of me and wanted to bring his allies. As the meeting proceeded, people listened to me more and I was able to control FMW employees more. I also gained control of arranging the matches.

That’s why Arai brought his allies to stop me somehow.

It’s so scary with someone like Arai being in charge of the promotion. It’s not a problem if it’s Antonio Inoki or Giant Baba. No one says no to their opinions. But Arai is just normal guy that became the CEO, he did not have any charisma.

I think the company should have at least three or four top wrestlers in case they quit the company. Just like the Three Musketeers in New Japan. (Muto, Chono, Hashimoto). See? Chono stayed.

Putting multiple wrestlers on the same level and let them compete makes the company future more secure, but in FMW, I was the strongest of all and nobody was as close as me with wrestling skills and experience. Hayabusa was great, but there still was a gap between me and him. That’s why Arai was afraid of me, and that's why he got Hayabusa and Nakagawa to attend our meetings as FMW members.

He didn’t mention anything to me, but I reckon that was Arai’s plan not to give me the majority vote and brought more people in. What was he doing? I keep thinking so hard for FMW and making ideas.

I was so annoyed and told Arai ‘Why do you invite so many people ? If there's too many people, we can not have a proper meeting.’

Arai answered stupidly, ’I just want to hear as many opinions as possible.’

I wouldn’t say he thought I’m stupid, but I think he thought that I would be like a FMW young wrestler. He underrated my intelligence. He was too optimistic. He was looking down on me.

He should have left me alone to make choices. It may have not looked like I was not doing anything, but in a reality, I was a match maker and always thinking so hard. Of course we needed to use money depending on the situation. Unfortunately, Arai didn’t want us to spend much and always would say he couldn't afford that.

Towards the end of FMW, Arai was always answering phone calls at our meeting and went outside. They must have been from loan sharks. He was useless in the meeting to be honest and didn’t have to be there anyway because he didn’t have good ideas.

I was secretly thinking that we don’t need him in the meeting, but he is a CEO at the end of the day, and we needed his authorization for decision making involving money .That’s the only reason why he was in a room.

He was cheeky. He said to me,’ Fuyuki-san, if you need to use our money ,you can decide everything in a meeting.’ but there were troubles every time afterwards. He says he doesn’t remember saying that. So I let him attend the meetings as an eye witness. I cared about him, but he didn’t talk to me. He would only grumble about me to the other people.

‘We spent so much money, but didn't have a good result...I want Fuyuki to feel the responsibility.’

‘We are not making back any money at all! I can’t trust Fuyuki’s entertainment wrestling.’ and so on. He should’ve told me to my face, stupid idiot!

Let’s get back to talk about the meeting.

Since we get more attendees at the meeting, I got more objections about my opinions and ideas, even with the match details. But I thought it was fine to have objections as new developments needs new opinions. That’s how entertainment should be. I was prepared to create a new style of show business.

I asked the meeting attendees to be volunteers. I couldn’t afford to pay them, but they were willing to sacrifice their time. Even office workers were volunteers.

Sometimes we argued and shouted at each other, but we were more productive and the ticket sales were good.

Then we started getting more negative complaints and criticisms about us in the meeting and we lost meeting attendees. There started be less and less attendees and every meeting started to only take 2-3 hours.

It was just like "It's okay to do that idea, lets do it." Everyone agreed so easily.

As the enthusiasm decreased within a company, audience number had dropped too. It was the worst.

Before our idea was the result of everyone’s good discussions, so whatever the idea was, we had to persuade wrestlers to do it.

They said ‘No ,I don’t want to do this!’, but we were making them doing it.

It was more full filling times. I used Arai’s men’s idea also, but Arai was just sitting there doing nothing. He didn’t say anything, but he was making his men do the speaking. I’m sure he didn’t like his situation that he couldn’t say anything. He couldn’t complete his obligations.

He was always halfway through. He should’ve finish his job properly as CEO. I guess he didn’t know, but when he was leaving the meeting room to answer his phone, attendees were calling him ‘He is a weirdo.’

-Match making under the Fuyuki Regime-

I became in charge after the Yokohama Bunka Gymnasium show in May 1999.

In Arai’s book, he described that Go Ito refused to do entertainment wrestling and left the promotion and I took over his position, but that's a big lie!

Ito never refused Entertainment Wrestling.

He was also enthusiastic about it, and said ‘Let’s work together!’ He also talked about setting up a ‘Match Making Department’. He also offered me to be a director for it, so I just assumed that he wanted to do entertainment wrestling, but then as soon as I joined Arai denied all of Ito’s ideas. He just said ‘I didn’t know anything about it.’, so Ito lost his position completely.

I knew there were something going on in between him and Arai, but the show must go on and the audience comes first, so I did my best in the match making. Afterwards, Ito quit FMW. I told him,’ I know you have a problem with Arai, but it’ll be all okay after 6 months. Just wait!' but he was clearly done.

‘No, it's okay. I can not trust Arai anymore. I'm not coming back.'

I wondered what happened in between two. I was told by Ito that Arai said he was going to listen to anything regarding us doing the entertainment wrestling, but then he wouldn't. Then Ito couldn’t trust him anymore and...maybe there were more stories I don't know about.

Once Arai and Ito were so close. Ito was just like Arai’s secretary. Well we never know what their true relationships was like, but it’s quite common in the wrestling industry. One day two people were so close then suddenly hate each other, blaming each other ‘You lied!’ ‘No, you lied!’ then it’s too late to break up the fight.

Typical example of love and hate.

I didn’t get them to make up afterwards. Because of them not getting along, I got promoted just like that and I felt that I had advantage of that situation. I managed to get this position without anybody’s interference. I have had no contact with Ito since then.

After all that, I became a match maker for FMW. It was me me who suggested to use script writers from outside wrestling.

I wanted to use opinions of people who doesn’t know wrestling in a good way.

If it’s written by someone who knows wrestling well, the person might have a connection with the wrestlers and they might consider too much of their feeling. I wanted to avoid that. To pursue the entertainment, we have to draw the line with personal emotions. I was ready to pursue the wrestlers if they don’t like our idea.

Script writers shouldn’t worry so much about how wrestlers feel. If the writers only knows about wrestling, they’ll probably run out of ideas in 6 months. We needed professional script writers. I used the new system and pushed the entertainment wrestling forward.

I made a lot of story lines. There were good ones and bad ones.

Taking the clothes off of wrestlers, throwing the urine...some people said that we got down graded or asked us where did our pride go...but I didn’t care at all. In fact Arai wasn’t sure of the entertainment style though.

I thought as long as audiences enjoyed it, then it doesn’t matter. I wanted to do entertainment style and tried to get the sponsors and audience for it, and most importantly, Arai agreed to do that. He was the one who made the final decision. So he should have completed his mission.

I knew he wasn’t sure about our direction, so I always asked him if he wants to do it or not.

‘If you want to quit the entertainment style, say it clearly.’

He always said yes and I also asked him if he wanted to continue entertainment wrestling even we are on the edge of the business and he said clearly ‘YES’.

Of course. He had no choice.

FMW wrestlers weren’t getting paid enough. That was already happening before I joined. They were all single except me, so they could survive with little money somehow. But when they get older and have a family, they’ll need more money.

I knew FMW won’t be able to pay them enough if their business is still the same.

We decided to use entertainment wrestling to earn more and wanted to lead us to the right direction.

FMW made a clear direction change to entertainment style since I joined.

I was prepared to complete my mission.

I thought Arai felt the same but apparently he was complaining about me behind my back.

He was always so careful not to argue, not to fight.

We shouldn’t be afraid of arguments because sometimes that finds right answers.

The things Arai did all seemed to fail. We shifted to entertainment style because we didn’t have money, but Arai was still unsure about this change. I think he had a big dilemma, but still he should’ve the stability as a CEO of the company.


-Danger of FMW-


I think I got paid my wages up until November 2001?

My payday was every 25th of the month, but they were getting delayed.

I got paid on time probably once or twice a year while I became match maker.

Well I knew my wages were higher than everybody else, so it wasn’t bothering me, but then about a year before the closure, FMW’s other members wages started getting delayed.

I thought we are in danger. We didn’t have enough pooled money. Troubling our own members is a bad sign of the company. Exactly.

Showing that everyone outside that we are doing okay but suffering inside is typical of closing down company. While this was happening my wages started getting paid on time all of a sudden. How ironic is that?

Then Tanaka, Jado & Gedo and a few others left. It was Jado and Gedo’s idea. I understand how they felt. They made so much effort, but there were no rewards. Maybe they decided to leave because they couldn’t see the future of FMW with entertainment style. It’s fair enough if they thought so and I can not stop them.

Once I had a talk with Arai.

By February 2001, DirecTV had canceled the partnership with FMW. Arai said to me "We are in big trouble."

I asked him ‘Ok, let’s calculate. Give me the figures how much do we need monthly.’

He said ‘¥2,500,000 ($25,000) per month.’

I said ‘I see...’

We both became silent. I thought this was very bad.

Then I made a decision.

‘Let’s cut off some cost.’

‘How?’

‘Fire some wrestlers’

Arai swallowed his breath.

Axing our own colleagues easily, I might have looked scary to him.

It might be cruel for wrestlers, but think about it. Which is better? Have to stay in a company who doesn’t pay you or get sacked and able to find a new job by yourself? We are doing business. Not just helping each other.

If we have expenses, we need to sacrifice something to pay off. I’m not sure if ‘thankful’is the right word, but there were several wrestlers who wanted to leave FMW like Jado. I welcomed their decision. I would love to look after them forever, but they wanted to leave and we couldn’t afford to pay them, so that’s the way it is.

Arai said ‘Are we going to survive without them?’ when Jado and the others left.

We will. We must survive. CEO shouldn’t say such a thing. Only problem was that a member who wanted to leave was Kanemura.

I gave Arai advice.

‘Letting them leave is okay, but we need Tanaka or Kanemura. Otherwise FMW will be finished.’ They were both main eventers and without both of them, there would be problems for our upcoming tours.

Arai hesitated to choose.

‘Which one should stay?’

‘Whichever. I’ll speak to the one staying and I’ll support.’

In the end, Kanemura was chosen because he was easier to stay.

The media said the event was a mass exit of wrestlers.

That was the redundancy. It was just like we put a sign that said ‘volunteer to quit’ in the office.

They seemed like they were against entertainment wrestling, but they were bunch of nice guys. But we have to feed ourselves and it’s a business. I think they deserve to find somewhere they can feel better and they don’t need to get frustrated at FMW anymore.

Wrestler’s life is short, so it’s better them doing what they want. That was my decision I released those wrestlers and at the same time, I gave them freedom and able to shine at the other places using their talent.

Arai had grumbled because he wanted to keep the wrestlers, but I was the one who cared more about wrestlers.

So we don’t need to pay 2,500,000yen ($25,000) expenses anymore. Even though we were still in trouble. The answer is simple. Hayabusa was injured with both elbows and had long absence. Then the attendance number had dropped dramatically.

FMW existed because of Hayabusa after all. There were so many problems happening at the same time. Hayabusa had come back afterwards though, but the situation was still very bad.

Back then, every time when I asked Arai if our company was okay, he only said ‘Yes, it’s okay.’ I had to just listen to that because the CEO was saying it’s ok. I could work together with him, but he always said ‘I’ll deal with it.’ I guessed he didn’t want to listen to my opinion. Since then he started to borrow shady money from loan sharks as he described in his book.

Once, Arai telephoned my home in a hurry and said ‘Fuyuki-san, could you be my guarantor?’ I didn’t mind, so I said ‘Yeah that's fine. So what do I need to do? Can we meet tomorrow?’

‘Please come to the office with your official Inkan stamp and the seal certificate by 3pm?’

It was already in the afternoon and I live in Yokohama, so it was impossible to be there by 3pm.

‘I can’t get the seal certificate so quickly. And I can’t make it by 3pm even if I leave home now.’

‘Oh no no no no no...I don’t know what to do...’

I could hear he was scratching his head through the phone and then he said he’ll ring me back again, so I was waiting.

The phone rang in the late afternoon and he said ’I managed somehow.’

I didn’t know how he did, but later I found out that he borrowed large sum from really shady place. I was going to give my signature without hesitation if I was near him on that day with my stamps and everything.

People still tell me that ‘Fuyuki-san, it was the turning point of your life.’ But it’s true that I was not so aware that FMW was in serious trouble at the time. Arai was the only one who acknowledged all the business details. Towards the end of FMW, he stopped talking about the money all together. I don’t know if it’s because he had no trust in me or lack of the financial sense. I also thought I should stay away from his money dealing and stopped questioning.

Maybe because I became silent, he lost his control?


-Farewell to FMW-


After the August 11, 2001 Komazawa Gymnasium show, I left FMW as a rebellion.

Even since then though I still had matches in FMW, so it’s not exactly the right word though. I’m not going to deny about it.

We just grew apart.

As I mentioned, I was so frustrated with Arai. I repeat again, he interfered my job too much especially about the my match planning. He might have said things after consideration, but that was just amateur’s ideas.

‘Hayabusa should have more spots.’

‘Use more baby faces.’

He was telling that not only to me, also to the other FMW staff or wrestlers.

I remember Ito said ‘Every time I planned something Arai interferes and I end up planning all over again! So annoying!’

Yes, he was right!

Just before the Komazawa match, he ordered me do this do that...so I finally lost my temper.

‘You fucking idiot! What do you know about matches!? If you are CEO, just shut up and watch me!’

Arai was petrified. It was the first time I shouted at him. I just exploded because I was holding the frustration so much in the last few years. Just like the cup under the tap filled up little by little then couldn’t hold the water anymore.

Letting so many dodgy people into business, made so much debt, he can’t even manage the company. I lost his trust as CEO completely.

There was another reason why I lost my temper. They held some memorial party before Komazawa show. I wasn’t invited.

People who attended said, ‘You weren’t there, Fuyuki-san. What happened?’

To me, it was like, ’What is he talking about?’

That party was only for baby face wrestlers and heel wrestlers weren’t invited. I was extremely angry.

Because I was a top of their management team. I’m in charge of wrestlers.

If I wasn’t there at the party ,it looks like I’ve got a problem with the company. In fact the people there thought so. So it didn’t look good for the company.

Arai was asked by people why I’m not at the party, and he said, ‘I thought he shouldn’t be here, so he’s not coming.’

That’s too bad. He didn’t think of my position in FMW at all.

I got very annoyed, so I told Arai

‘You didn’t invite me to the party on purpose!’

He just said ’No!’.

Just like he is saying ‘Is there any problems?’

His excuse is, ’Since Onita’s time, we don’t mix baby faces and heels in public. I just followed our tradition.’

Hey! Why does he use Onita’s name now!?

You’ve been trying so hard to get out of Onitaism, haven’t you?? It doesn’t matter if it’s tradition or not, every wrestlers should show up at the party and celebrate together. That’s normal for any promotions. Not only for New Japan.

To be honest, I didn’t mind what people to think about FMW. However, it wasn’t right thing to do as a business man. I worked so hard for FMW, but why was Arai still using Onita’s name whenever it’s convenient for him? I knew the truth. The party was for getting new sponsors using the baby face wrestlers to attend.

Arai didn’t want me to be there because I am an influencer in the industry. That was an incident which made me thought ‘Ah...he is so stupid.’

Such frustrations were built up and my feelings were exploded before August 11th. But I did my job properly because I produced Biomonster DNA for the Komazawa show.

I still remember that day very well.

It was a stormy weather and we were concerned about the signal for the Pay Per View. There weren’t many in attendance.

If I think about it, it could have been a sign of how FMW was going downhill.

I didn’t speak to Arai much since the incident. Well, I shouted at him.

Wrestlers do not shout at the CEO unless you are well prepared with the serious reason.

As a result, I had to resign from FMW. People said I was a rebelling, but I think it’s exaggerated. I didn’t even start up a new promotion.

Also, it's not a surprise I would go to work for All Japan. It's not news. I think that was the way it goes. I think we both had a lots of defects but once our relationship became complicated, it’s too late to fix. This is just my excuse.

Once employees complained to their boss about something intensively, it’s difficult to apologize. So the boss should give them a chance or a reason to negotiate.

Don’t you think Fuyuki quitting FMW causes huge damage to the promotion? They should have stopped me quitting somehow. But this is Arai. He didn’t stop me. I was still booked for FMW even after the incident because someone helped me negotiate. However Arai couldn’t handle this simple, but important action in human relations. He had no sense.

He only thought about getting through the current situation.

I couldn’t be submissive because of my personality and my position in the company.

I became stubborn and I used the media to mess them up. I was happy seeing the mess. I know I was childish...but Arai never understood the wrestlers pride even an inch until the end.

As you know, the ticket sales had gone down and then Hayabusa injured his cervical spine. That finished FMW.

It was October 2001. I was having a meeting with Tenryu.

I was consulting with Tenryu about FMW’s matches and the future plans.

I’m not go in through the details, but there were some great ideas to get over the situation. I even admired myself! And of course Hayabusa was an important part of it...I was chuckling myself as it was such a perfect idea. Then the phone rang. It was about Hayabusa’s injury.

I couldn’t figure out what his condition was. Anyway, Hayabusa had a big accident, He was taken to the hospital by ambulance. He went into ICU, he lost consciousness etc...my phone didn’t stop ringing. I closed my eyes.

Tenryu asked me,’ Hey, what shall we do about the FMW matches?’

I could only answer ’It’s not good. I’ll leave all up to you.’

Tenryu-san became silent.

As a result of the accident, Hayabusa became paralyzed.

FMW lost the last hope.
 

Click here for Part 4 of Kodo Fuyuki's book