Frontier Martial Arts Wrestling
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Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling, better known by its initials FMW, was a Japanese professional wrestling promotion founded in 1989 by Atsushi Ōnita (often spelled Ohnita). It specialized in hardcore wrestling, involving weapons such as barbed wire, fire and explosives, and often portrayed Ōnita as the hero of the organization. FMW also had a short lived working agreement with Extreme Championship Wrestling. FMW has had 14 volumes releases in the U.S. by Tokyopop.
In 1991, Ōnita had the first ever barbed wire, exploding ring match with Tarzan Goto. This match started a revolution between the small "garbage wrestling" organizations of Japan. From there, Onita recruited some of hardcore wrestling´s best, like Mr. Pogo, Mitsuhiro Matsunaga, Leatherface and Kintaro Kanemura. In 1995 Ōnita wrestled his retirement match with young talent Hayabusa in an exploding ring, barbed wire steel cage match. This match started a revolution in FMW, called Neo FMW, where stars Masato Tanaka, The Gladiator and Ricky Fuji took part in high-flying matches. Hayabusa became the central star of the promotion, winning its belt several times, and battling most of the FMW roster. FMW had also a thriving women's wrestling division led first by Shark Tsuchiya and then by Megumi Kudo. The women were no different than the men in handling foreign objects and beating each other silly using them - All Japan Women's Pro Wrestling talent feared them so much that they rarely had interpromotional matches against each other, but the FMW women were successful in other feuds with LLPW and JWP.
However, under new FMW president Shoichi Arai, the promotion began to falter. Arai brought in former International Pro Wrestling, All Japan Pro Wrestling and SWS jobber Hiromichi Fuyuki as the new booker, and he brought an end to the garbage/death matches in favor of an entertainment-oriented style based on that of the WWE. Although this saved the roster from further potential injury, it called into question the essence of FMW's wrestling. The women's and junior heavyweight divisions were scrapped. Onita began withdrawing further into the background, eventually leaving the promotion altogether to create his own death match ventures and to go back to high school to earn his diploma. Hayabusa abandoned his mask and costume to become "H", a male-model gimmick in short shorts. Shawn Michaels was even invited as a guest referee for one match.
In 2001, in a match against Mammoth Sasaki, Hayabusa attempted an springboard moonsault—one of his signature moves—but botched and fell directly on his neck, breaking it and paralysing himself. He retired, but actually regained some control over his legs a year later. By the end of 2001, Arai owed about a million dollars to influential organizations in Japan. Realizing that the promotion was going nowhere, he decided to finally close its doors. FMW came to an end with a final show on February 15, 2002, in which Atsushi Ōnita, the founder 13 years earlier, returned and addressed the crowd. On May 16, 2002, Arai hung himself in a Tokyo park using his tie.
The talent divided into two promotions: Fuyuki's WEW (World Entertainment Wrestling, the name of FMW's title governing body since 1997), and Hayabusa's WMF (Wrestling Marvelous Future). Some of the talent also made appearanced on Onita's special shows.
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