Atsushi Onita/Lee Gak Soo vs. Ricky Fuji/Mr. Pogo, FMW Summer Passion 1990 Day Four (7/22/1990)

Since we last left FMW, Mr. Pogo has not only come in as the big new Onita opponent, but as a response to Onita burying the hatchet with Gak Soo and the other karate men, Tarzan Goto has turned on Atsushi Onita to join him, bringing little annoying ass Richard Fuji along for the ride.

Much of that will be important, and is, but I am not talking about this match because of any of those things.

This is not a great match.

Or at least, I don’t know if it is. It might be, experienced another way.

FMW held this show in a ring at sea, although not far from where people could see it. It’s a fascinating thing that puts other matches at such locales to shame because rather than any ramp connecting the ring to the land, everyone in every match arrives by boat, leaving them well and truly alone out there. Several people tumble in to the sea, and in the main event after this tag, there is a battle royal in which people are thrown into the sea for elimination (unfortunately not captured in this fan cam, although a reputable source says Onita and Goto would fight through the water and back onto shore before continuing the brawl). This match — as well as many others on the show — comes close and/or delivers moments like that, and is worth it for that alone.

Beyond that, in another beautiful piece of wrestling fan bullshit from decades and decades ago, there is no ring sound at all on this recording, nor any I can find of this. Instead, there is a full musical soundtrack overlay, ranging from orchestral adjacent to what feels like full on disco ass instrumentals for the main event. It’s beautiful stuff, and although the shaky shaky shaky camera work and lack of ring sound means you will never watch this to see a great match, I also cannot recommend it enough.

Godfrey Ho’s finest aquatic pro-wrestling based feature.

If you loved the WCW Monday Nitro Spring Breakout specials — and who didn’t? — or maybe just strange old silent films, then boy, do I have the barely comprehensible Japanese fan cam half-show for you.

Atsushi Onita vs. Lee Gak Soo, FMW Battle Crush Day Eight (5/19/1990)

This was a Different Style Fight.

You have see this film before.

Atsushi Onita, defending the honor of FMW and also professional wrestling as a whole against a karate fighter in a gi in a Different Style fight. Lots of Onita getting his ass kicked, big knockdowns, struggles to catch a leg only for the round to end, before Our Hero finally breaks through, leading to a very dramatic conclusion.

There are differences of course.

Some are purely cosmetic, like that Lee Gak Soo is in a red ki, symbolizing a major difference in that he is Korean. If the name on the back of the gi didn’t tip you off that it’s a difference, then the horribly nasty look that Onita throws to him that he never quite throws to his Japanese or North American opponents might.

Others are more scientific and quantifiable, like that Lee Gak Soo is a shorter man, and so the match is different in very obvious ways. Onita has a reach advantage, so he can break through the defense faster when he does come back, and Gak Soo also has to be closer to Onita to connect. At the same time, he’s also faster than the other karate fighters Onita’s put himself against, and so as Gak Soo needs to strike multiple time to mimic the power of maybe one Masashi Aoyagi kick, Onita also in turn gets rocked with flurries here in a way he wasn’t always against the others. The different physical dimensions also give this a different narrative dimension too, where Onita is sort of working from above as the bigger guy, and the struggle is less to survive, and more to find a way to break through Gak Soo’s frenzied and frantic attack.

Mostly though, it is this match again, and it works for the reasons this match worked before.

Kicking against cool guy power moves is a beautiful formula, and this is not a match with any visible interest in messing with the formula. Lee Gak Soo is maybe not Aoyagi as an antagonist, but has a certain charm to him along with the believability that his great kicks lend him. Onita’s comebacks are as energetic and triumphant as ever, even when the mountain he’s climbing isn’t quite so big, and above all, the spirit of the fight is an infectious one. The general framework of the match is a great one, and a fairly strict adherence to it produces a predictably great result.

Onita wins with two Fire Thunder Powerbombs in a row, before making peace with Gak Soo after the match and agreeing to team in the future.

While not exactly on the level of what came six or seven months before it and beyond, there are some things that just kind of innately work no matter what, and Onita overcoming a karate fighter is one of them. It’s just a little too hard not to like.

three boy