(photo credit to BAHU and his wonderful site.)
This was a Different Style Fight.
Far (far far far far far) more importantly, even if it only exists in handheld fancam footage like this, it’s also the main event of the very first FMW show.
Whether or not it looks like it, t’s the perfect match for that spot.
Masashi Aoyagi, a karate fighter making his “official” professional wrestling debut in this match according to most sources, and Atsushi Onita don’t have a match that screams “FMW” in the way that a lot of less well-versed fans who only know the highlights (myself included, the point of this project) might think of. It is mostly fists and feet. There are no props, no set pieces, and the bombast involved is a result of performance far far more than any remarkable set up or stipulation assisting them.
However, what it has is a certain dangerous and wild feeling, and above all, a real sense of occasion.
Partially, because of the context.
There’s a context here that you can read about, among other places from far greater experts on FMW, at the site linked to already, but suffice to say, while it is the first pro wrestling match for the karate man, it is not Onita and Aoyagi’s first meeting. Following a WKA match (a martial arts promotion) in which Onita was disqualified for using a chair and headbutts to start a bloodbath that turned into a gigantic scene in the ring with like twenty people, the rematch between these two is essentially the entire reason for the birth of the FMW to begin with.
It doesn’t hurt also that everything in this rocks so much.
For example, in the second round where this totally breaks down into this electric and dramatic fight, Onita and Aoyagi have not only one of the better few moment fight sequences I’ve seen recently, but also one of the more efficient, managing to display the ability of Aoyagi, the sympathy of regular fighter Onita, as well as the overall hostility and frantic perfect energy of both men.
Just about everything that happens rules, but it’s also all connected together perfectly, creating something far greater than simply a connection of all the cool things in it.
Onita rushes Aoyagi at the start, and although the first round is a little more restrained after that, from the second on, this is wild. Less in terms of what they do or really even how they do it individually — although every Aoyagi kick and punch manages to both look like a man hurling concrete and also the most hateful shit in the entire world and Onita’s frantic assaults and sympathetic selling are unbelievable — but more in how it all comes together as one, along with what feels like a steady twenty minute roar from a somewhat smaller crowd, creating this feeling of both total disorder and a dangerous unease that only creeps further and further up as the match goes on. Even a less than ideal handheld recording of this, losing whatever chunk happens outside the ring, or even those moments not in the exact right places for our hero to capture it, cannot diminish how great this is or how well the energy in Nagoya translates, and how well it elevates what it is that they’re doing.
The trick, really, is that this is the second part in a trilogy.
More often than not, as this match goes on to prove by all accounts, the best one.
Despite coming in with all of the spirit and the ultra sympathetic chip on his shoulder ass anger in the world, once Aoyagi begins kicking and punching at will, Onita simply gets his ass kicked, and now gets it kicked even worse. The anger he showed later on in the WKA match that leads to it breaking out of control comes much earlier here, and Aoyagi survives it and not only does to Onita — at least in some sense — what Onita did to him, but does so while also getting a much cleaner, if not pristine, decision.
Atsushi Onita, in the last two or three rounds, is constantly getting beaten into dust with increasingly more brutal kicks to the head, and weirdly, it is the perfect decision.
Some promotions begin with an establishment of their top guy through not only a major win on the first show, but the first several to follow. Some begin with just one major win, or a tag sending one message or the other. What Onita does is something that’s not only different, but also so much more memorable. It’s a match with him in over his head against a real fighter in which he establishes himself perfectly as kind of an idealized everyman. He gets beaten up, but never ever stops fighting. He lands enough shots and gets up enough to always feel like he’s still in it, and the ending — with one of his corner men throwing in the towel even though he’s likely about to beat the count anyways — is also perfect.
Masashi Aoyagi, objectively speaking, has Onita beaten in the sense that he has been beating him for over half the match now, but without ever truly defeating him, everything is not only open for a third match, but said third match is far far more interesting now.
Beautiful pro wrestling ass pro wrestling.
If not for the July 24th double shot that UWF offered up, I’d call it the best match of the year with even a little shoot-style leaning.
HANDWERK 