-Hearing Hayabusa’s News-


To me Hayabusa wasn’t special. He was just a member of FMW...however, I got so shocked about his injury.

All of our scenarios became unavailable.

It seemed like Hayabusa failed to flip using second rope. He couldn’t turn enough and landed on his neck. It’s like all his weight was on his neck.

At that time, I didn’t think he was seriously injured and would become handicapped. I think everybody else had the same thought I had. It wasn't the first time Hayabusa had been injured and I guess people were wondering how long he will be absent from the next tour...that sort of level of injury, but in the reality, he was paralyzed.

He must be so devastated.

I heard that now Hayabusa is able to stand holding on to something. It’s amazing how incredible where his energy level is.

He also says that he wants to make a come back in the WMF’s ring once it starts up.

I read about it and I think It’s a great idea.

I have no problem if the current Hayabusa stands in the ring again, but he should only come back once.

He should know that with how much he recovers, he won’t be able to perform as good as before. He won’t be able to jump as beautiful as before. He should have a retirement match. A wrestler who had a major injury to make a come back in response of the audience’s hope...it should happen just once.

Because audience won’t be satisfied, right? Fans were supporting Hayabusa because of his brilliant high flying style. It’s not going to be the same. You can see the obvious difference and will get disappointed.

First time will be okay. They’ll probably give him a warm welcome and watch him with sympathy and then, after the second time, third time, ’Oh dear, how disappointing.’ they will get colder.

They are paying customers. The injured wrestlers shouldn’t be in the ring to get self satisfaction. Once you have a come back match, you can move on.

Retire and do something else. He has so much talent other than wrestling. Drawing, writing articles...he would be better to ditch the idea of being successful as a wrestler again.

Hayabusa wasn’t an ordinary wrestler.

He was a face of the promotion.

He has too much hopes from a lot of people. If he can wrestle only an ordinary way, it’s over. You remember what happened when he became ‘H’ ?

He couldn’t do that much. It doesn’t mean anything if he becomes a normal wrestler. To be honest, Hayabusa shouldn’t be on the ring anymore because he will only feel miserable. It’s like the sympathy let him get in the ring and once he gets in the ring, he won’t get many cheers.

The reality is harsh in the ring and I don’t think his family will let him either. If I were his family, I won’t let him come back because it’ll be a huge damage to himself for sure and to his relatives.



-In the meantime, Arai was...-


I wonder how Arai thought about Hayabusa’s injury.

In his book. he only said ‘It was a shock’, but you never know!

‘I’ll look after Hayabusa for rest of his life.’

‘I did terrible things to Hayabusa.’

He said beautiful things, but you don’t know how he really thought.

Maybe he was like me disappointed that he lost a useful man.

I read some articles. It was about Arai’s voice mail he left before he passed.

In a tape he said, ’I’d like Hayabusa to stand in the ring again.’ and that inspired Hayabusa to come back.

It must be a made up story.

If it’s true then Arai had no sense of responsibility. He can’t do anything and he didn’t do anything. He rested in peace but he wants Hayabusa to have more of a hard time?

Everything is always like this.

He is a good guy. Truly a good guy, but he was misunderstanding the meaning of dedication completely.

Look, if you are thinking of doing the best for someone ,you don’t just make them feel good. You need to say ‘no’ sometimes.

Not just agreeing to everything.

Arai didn’t want people to hate him or give him disadvantages. I don’t even know if he was feeling his responsibility as a CEO. You will face problems in any work as it progresses. He was always avoiding the problems and giving them to somebody else in the end...to me or Onita or other members of the company.

He should have sorted the problems out.

I’ll skip the subject though, if the company had that much debt, they should’ve closed down. Maybe he thought he’d give people more troubles if he closed down FMW, but it was wrong.

Business men are able to make a decision in the right time when to finish the business if it comes to the financial crisis. They usually declare the bankruptcy not to trouble everyone. The right way to declare the bankruptcy...it sounds quite brutal though. They should do it sooner even it’s complicated...for people who works at the company.

They delayed bankruptcy and Hayabusa and the other wrestlers had to over work for nothing. Always Arai was saying ‘I’ll take my responsibility’, but it was just verbal.’ If he really meant that, he should have closed FMW peacefully, even if he was called a bad guy.

The way he exited was the same as he escaped. There were more other ways. Well I think he succeeded to be gone as a likable character.

I might hurt his family’s feeling though, but it is true that he didn’t accomplish his responsibility as a CEO. I also want to add that a business man should never use family as an excuse. Pulling a family card is not fair.

In Arai’s book, he wrote he had a domestic situation, but everyone has family problems, big or small. Everyone has family and we all try to survive the situations. You can’t say that only my family had a problem...that’s not fair.

I don’t know if he was divorced or not.

Their reason of divorce must not only because of the money. If they really loved each other, they wouldn’t split up and will find the way. Isn’t that right? Don’t fake your weakness. Just skip the subject.

-About Hayabusa-


I met Hayabusa for the first time while I was in Mexico.

I think around that that time he had wrestled for New Japan’s Junior heavy weight tournament.

When I was in my thirties, I had a Mexican tour for two weeks. One day, I was at the dressing room with Ultimo Dragon while in Arena Mexico.

I didn’t have a match that day and Ultimo Dragon told me, ‘Let me introduce you to a guy called Hayabusa. He’s from Japan.’

I was introduced to Hayabusa.

‘I’m Hayabusa. Nice to meet you.’

He bowed to me. He was wearing a Hayabusa mask already. He didn’t impress me anything particular, but I thought he looked cool. He looked a bit arrogant because he was handsome.

He had a match on that night, but I didn’t watch it. I hate watching wrestling.

He was still young. I guess he wasn’t that young as he graduated from his University, so he must’ve been in early 20’s.

Oh yeah, he didn’t graduate. Gannosuke who joined FMW with Hayabusa did graduated his university though.

Gannosuke scored high enough to graduate before taking entry test for FMW.

He was so annoyed because people think it’s the opposite. ’I don’t look like it, but I graduated from my University!’ He said angrily.

By the way, meeting Hayabusa was such a coincidence. I didn’t see him again until I joined FMW.

Hayabusa is a good young man.

But he tries to look cool.

Just lighting a cigarette the way he does, he is trying to look cool. I thought it’s quite embarrassing, but he is a show man. He did the right thing as an entertainer! The most attractive things of Hayabusa are his long arms and legs.

It’s very important.

He is a mass of quality. In Pro-wrestling, having long arms & legs is more an advantage than having power or flexibility.

It looks better in the ring and you can take advantage of doing anything with them.

If it’s fat arms like mine, you can not wrap around your opponents waist properly and can not lift them up well. If you have long arms, you can hold them well tight and able to lift up without the power.

If you have long legs, it's not only good for for kicks, but also your standing figure looks beautiful. Some say that long legs has disadvantages because it can’t secure the center of gravity.

But in the wrestling, it’s not important.

It’s okay to fall over in this sports.

I always envied his long arms and legs.

Have I ever talked to Hayabusa face to face? No. Me and him were both relaxed, so we didn’t need to talk.

Hayabusa was a member of the office in the company, but he never did anything. It was just a title. Maybe he wanted to relate to the business, but I always said to Arai that top wrestlers of the promotion shouldn’t be in charge of their business because they should concentrate on wrestling.

If they know the information of our business, they care too much. Hayabusa was quite a caring person, so he could be too hesitant and that’s not good as the face of the promotion. He shouldn’t get involved in the match making etc.

One thing, Hayabusa had a bad habit...he didn’t train much. You might be surprised by this, but he was one of the worst in FMW. He was an ace of the promotion, so he could at least pretend to train hard, but no one said anything maybe because he was the most popular wrestler in FMW.

I reckon some of the wrestlers were secretly making fun of him about not training hard. It doesn’t matter if he goes to dojo or not. Everyone had to exercise hard in the ring before the door opens, but not Hayabusa.

Maybe he was training so hard when no one was watching, but it’s important that he shows that to the others as a top wrestler.

He liked alcohol. Some people got annoyed by seeing him get drunk and laughing so loud. No one said anything, but some might be thinking that they can beat him in a shoot fight. That could lead to having a bad atmosphere in the ring and effect their match performance.

Hayabusa sometimes had really bad matches. Maybe his relationship with other wrestlers gave some effects on that?

That’s the way it was back then because it was a small promotion.

Wrestling needs a strong character of course, but it also needs a weak character.

Cool looking guy, comedian guy, wrestling needs all sorts of type of wrestlers.

However, the skilled ,strong and good looking guy like Hayabusa are most appreciated in general.

I wanted to change the stereotypes, so I started entertainment wrestling.

In FMW, Hayabusa is the only wrestler who gets a spotlight. I wanted to characterize the other not so good wrestlers to make them more fun and get fans attention.

I wanted to use them as much I could, but if not, they had to go.

I wouldn’t like to let them stay if they cannot perform well enough. Not only Hayabusa, I want all wrestlers to find their job roles within a company. As I started the new system, FMW was slowly changing.

Unfortunately, Arai ruined it. He was thinking that only Hayabusa should win.

Hayabusa was the only wrestler who could talk to me equally. But we never argued.

We would kind of get along...we understood what we wanted from each other.

He didn’t have preference of people much. He was good at getting along with anybody. We weren’t friends, but I think he knew he doesn’t need to talk to me much because I understand him.

I guess Hayabusa was worried about FMW.

He must had worried for long time. He is a original member of FMW. If he wasn’t afraid what’s happening to the promotion, he is an idiot, but he didn't like training.

I heard he used to call up someone to hangout for drinking every night. Then no one would hangout with him anymore and he was lonely. When he was drinking, he was paid well. He was a leader type. But he didn’t like training and some people might not want to follow him. He was always complaining about the pain in his body.

I told him there must be a way to train even if you are in pain. He didn’t listen to me. I’m sure Hayabusa could perform well even without practicing ,but as a face of the promotion ,he should’ve shown his effort to other fellow wrestlers to be a team.

I told Gannosuke once to tell Hayabusa to train more seriously. Gannosuke walked towards me hopelessly, ‘He said he’s too much in pain and can’t.’

I still wanted him to try though. It’s true that people treated Hayabusa with caution.

As I said before, I don’t have any objections that Hayabusa comes back to the ring. He’s working so hard towards it with hopes. It’s nothing I can say, but Hayabusa must known that he won’t be able to move like before.

While ago, I went to see him in his hospital.

He was lying in his bed and told me.

‘I want to come back to the ring, but to be honest, I don’t know how many years it will take...’I understood his feeling very well. Because I suffer from cancer. You need to work to survive somehow.’

I told him, ‘We are both disabled, aren’t we? But you have the possibility of getting better. Hang in there! You need to work to survive somehow.’
As a man, you cannot let yourself to get fed by everyone. I’m sure he understands and I hope he’ll make a come back even if he quits wrestling. He has so much talent other than wrestling.

One thing I realized when I became ill. Retirement is not such a big deal.
Pro-wrestlers think retirement is very important, but that’s because they are too afraid to get out from wrestling world.

To be honest I was afraid as well. I was wondering what else I can do after retirement, but it wasn’t a big deal after all.
There are so much other things to do. I wouldn’t like to go back into the ring anymore. Wrestling wasn’t my only life.

I feel like doing something else now. I think it’s a good idea that Hayabusa would come back to the ring as a finale.
I feel sorry for him because no one tells him to retire. Everyone wants him to come back again to wrestle.

Do they still want him to work hard after all that? Someone needs to say his time is up FMW didn’t have anyone who could say that to older wrestlers.

Not everyone is waiting for his return.
They just feel sorry for him and cannot tell him that it’s difficult him to wrestle as same as before.

It’s not fair for Hayabusa. I don’t like it.
Arai should have made Hayabusa retired properly.
He couldn’t do it, so Hayabusa is still going to be wandering around in the ring.
It’s not my position to retire him.
I’ll just watch. I want him to show that in the new promotion.


-About Atsushi Onita-

I met Atsushi Onita first time in 1983-84 in All Japan. Soon after I joined them, he came back from US tour. We worked together for 6 months, then he retired because of his knee injury.

I was just a new face moved from different promotion, and he was NWA Junior Heavy Champion. We never talked. We only greeted and he was like a man above the clouds. Now I don’t see that image in him anymore.

After that, Onita gained tremendous popularity with FMW. He used Puerto Rican show style. I know it because I was touring there. It was thought as new, but it already existed. Including Barbed Wire or Death Match...I wasn’t surprised by that. Fast forwarded to FMW time, I saw Onita again but he wasn’t there because he had retired. He came out of the retirement soon after though.

I saw him in WAR also.

He was already off the front line ,but he had huge draws. Indie wrestling saw the light of the day because of Onita’s hard work no matter what people think of him. I acknowledge his work.

As a person, as a wrestler, he thinks so deep. He had a bad knee and couldn’t do strong style wrestling. How can people get entertained? Then he thought of Death Matches. He is extremely clever. He knew how to cover up his weaknesses and he was very good at performance.

Flexibility is very important for wrestlers.

Once I was admitted to the hospital with a sepsis infection and wasn’t able to walk for three months because it caused the back pain.

I was wondering how I was going to wrestle, then I decided to put some weight on. That gave me another option in my wrestling style.

I didn’t need to move fast, or jump and run. I discovered different ways to show.

You can change your wrestling style within your capacity.

I understand having training is good, but also using different ideas are very important for Indie wrestlers.

So Onita became extremely successful.

Onita's biggest weapon is that he can be completely bonkers. He can do anything even if he gets criticism.

He did all miserable things and dumb things with full force. If you have are normal, you would hesitate to stomp on a bomb and be covered in blood.

You might probably think, ‘I don’t want to do that. Why should I do this to make money??’

How much they are in need of money, people usually care what the others think and hesitate to do it, but Onita doesn’t care. He’ll do anything. That’s why he is very successful. No one else can succeed like him. He make himself completely dirty in a way. That’s why he is very suitable to be a politician. He is already a politician ,and I think it’s his real real self.

Should Onita have any regrets about FMW?

I can’t think of anything to be honest.

He’s been written a lot in Arai’s book, but FMW doesn’t exist without Onita.

FMW’s wrestlers weren’t able to be professional wrestlers. They couldn’t enter New Japan or All Japan.

Onita made employments for those wrestlers who couldn’t pass exams at the major promotions. It’s definitely a Onita’s achievement. I think Hayabusa would be able to work for a major promotion, but I don’t think they would have given him a quick promotion to be a main eventer like FMW.

To me it doesn’t matter that Onita has scandals of money and women. I know there are people who are worse than him. I only have a good memories of Onita.

When I was touring with indie promotions, I used to criticize Onita a lot, but it was all being calculated. He lent me some money when I was poor. He was very caring as a man.

I was in better financial position in FMW, so unlike Arai, I don’t have any personal grudges with Onita.

That’s what people are saying Onita’s real problem is not about money. He is really scary. If you become a top wrestler in a wrestling promotion, you’d care about others first. But Onita was different. He was killing their career one by one for him to stay at the top.

That’s why his fellow wrestlers had disappeared. I guess that’s the reason why the all original FMW wrestlers hated him. On the other hand, all his opponents lived. He doesn’t trust his fellow wrestlers. He has no friends.

That particular personality can be used as a stepping stone by his rivals. He makes his opponent really his opponent unconsciously. He is so unique and rare.

I repeat, it’s a good thing for his opponents. Because they can just be used by Onita to farther their career. That's how unknown wrestlers like Mr. Pogo or Shoji Nakamaki became successful .

When Arai was having problems dealing with Onita, I suggested him to use Onita wisely, but Arai only said No.

For Arai, maybe he couldn’t afford to think about Onita. He couldn’t even use me well either. Arai wasn’t handling Onita well, but I worked with Onita showing my respect until the end because he didn’t do anything bad to me.

If I was treated badly by him, I could have done something nasty with him as my enemy. I’ll do anything for my job.

Just once I had a dinner with Onita to discuss FMW’s future. It was at a Korean BBQ restaurant somewhere during a tour.

We didn’t talk about our private lives.

We just talked about FMW, but we didn’t have a conclusion or came up with any ideas. Onita seemed to have several ideas for FMW, but he didn’t open up to me.

He might thought that I am a different guy to what he was thinking. We might have parted ways after that. I have never known what he was thinking about FMW. That was the only time I talked with Onita property. I also saw him at the Parliament House but I’m not going to talk about it as it’s nothing to do with this book.

Onita still appears in the ring sometimes, but I think he prefers someone else organizes the show. He is very smart. He doesn’t want to take risk anymore because he has so many people around and he cares for them.

If he has a show, he has to care for more people and I guess it’s annoying to him. I think he’ll use another organizer’s show letting them use his name. Onita’s show’s or event which has Onita’s name are run by another promoter.

Onita is obviously a great wrestler on a different level than Hayabusa. Top wrestlers can wrestle 1 hour or 2 hours with their own pace, it doesn’t matter how strong the opponent is.

Without thinking of breathing, ignoring the opponent and audience and doing whatever you want is just a ordinary wrestler.

A top wrestler can build a match without changing his pace.

The wrestler who could do it perfectly was Jumbo Tsuruta. Whatever the style he wrestled, he didn’t change his pace, so he didn’t get tired. He was called ‘A Monster’.

Ordinary wrestlers don’t want to wrestle against the elite wrestlers because they don’t get tired.

I think Keiji Muto has gotten to the elite level nowadays.

Oh maybe he is on the next level. He make the opponents look very good.

I don’t know if he’s doing it on purpose or without thinking though.

The wrestlers who had match against Onita or Tsuruta says that it’s hard work. But with Muto, they always say it’s easy.

I had matches with Muto before, he built the matches. We don’t have to do anything and he can make us look good in the match.

Tenryu told me before my match against Muto. ’Muto’s match is easy. He’ll do everything.’

I understood that meaning very well after the match. I only wrestled Muto a couple of times and he surprised me. He is a genius.

Nothing else. He isn’t just strong or good, he is just extremely talented on a different level. He is very generous. All the elite wrestlers are like that.

Onita did a lots of unique self promotions when he appeared in New Japan. Using Great Nita, slapping presenter’s face and getting booted on the runway.

He was able to do them all because he is also an elite, and he understands pro-wrestling so well. He knew how to make himself look strong while using minimum strength.

Here is an example.

If you are on top of someone, you look stronger than the man beneath. He understood the logic so well, and he grabs his opponent’s hair and puts their head lower than him. He is so good at using that technique. If your hair is pulled, you cannot move much even it’s not painful. I guess Onita was gripping the opponents hair so hard then he walks around. Only showing that move make the audience to think that Onita is strong.

His timing for grabbing the hair was always perfect and I even tried to copy it, but I couldn’t.

Anyway, he was so good at showing himself look strong without using his energy. I admired how much he can take time just walking around while grabbing his opponent’s hair. I can’t do that like him because I care too much about audience’s reaction.

I can’t wrestle in silence for 5-10 minutes.

Onita is amazing because he can do it!

For example, Dory Funk long time ago, he wrestled very quietly in the beginning. Then whole arena cheers after 20minutes. I think it’s great. It’s common that top wrestlers can’t wrestle in a quiet arena. Top wrestlers don’t wrestle 100% in a country side (house show) match either. This is the reason why country side shows have less attendance and it’s usually quiet.

Young wrestlers can wrestle with no problem there though.

It’s very unusual that top wrestler like Onita had the same hungriness as a young wrestler. Audience can feel wrestlers personality and their life style by looking at wrestlers. If the wrestlers are grappling and thinking that it’s boring, audience can feel it and they also become quiet. We compete in this sport naked, we show everything.

It’s off topic, I tell you what I got told by a veteran wrestler.

‘When you are grappling with each other, and you are both are not moving how do you still attract the audience?'

I said I don’t know. Then he showed me his biceps and said  ‘Move your muscles.’

I thought that makes sense.

When you tighten your legs or cross your arms, your muscle moves as well right?

If you show that sort of small details ,the match looks better without using much movement?

There are wrestlers who understand that logic and also able to explain this and there are wrestlers that that there use their body and can not explain it.

Top wrestlers understand the logic with brain and body.

If only your brain understands it and not with your body, yes you are the wrestling genius type ,but once you are injured, it’s over.

On the other hand, if your body understands but not your brain, you need to use so much time for practice. It's too time consuming.

It’s interesting. Wrestling is like a traditional performing arts. It’s all about cheating technique. Just to runs across the ring, you can cheat to make you look like you are running faster.

I’m a slow runner and I was always wondering how I can run faster and then the veteran wrestler told me, ‘You don’t need to run faster. You just need to make it look like you are running faster.’

I asked him how.

He said move legs a lot.

Look at Antonio Inoki. When he runs between ropes, he’s moving his legs a lot.

That’s why I stomp hard before running.

It make me look like I am having more movement than I really am and the ring is squared shape.

I was taught that when you take the opponent’s arm and down to the ground position, stay still and look at east, west, south, north. Naturally that makes both bodies goes around like the clock and looks like you are having an exciting submission fight.

Anyway, I think about audience first. Imagine a view from the audience. Don’t wrestle for self satisfaction. This is show business after all. The only FMW member who understood this was Onita. Hayabusa was kind of understanding of this, however, he was ‘the genius type’, so his brain didn’t understand it. So when I joined FMW first, I thought these guys know nothing!

Anyway, Onita is great. Financially, as a person, and as a wrestler.

At the end of the day, FMW guys could never get better than him.

Click here for Part 5 of Kodo Fuyuki's book