Onita, Hayabusa, and The Spectacle of FMW

When the whole is greater than the sum of its parts

When people talk about pro wrestling operating as a spectacle, I can’t help but get my guard up sometimes. In my head, it’s an argument I associate with people who disregard and dismiss the value of in-ring work in general, when the fact of the matter is that it’s pro “wrestling” for a goddamn reason.

I think the platonic ideal of that idea thought might just be Onita’s deathmatches from FMW in the 90s. In this match, and in his other major Kawasaki Stadium matches as well, one can see most clearly how a variety of factors such as production, editing, pageantry, and pure uncut star power can come together to create a piece of pro wrestling often greater than the sum of its parts. The “wrestling is cinema” crowd typically don’t know the joys of how FMW so expertly bring together the visual presentation of a match like this that can’t help but elevate the actual in-ring contributions from the workers.

To that point, I don’t always love what’s happening in the ring in this match.

There are some strong choices though. Matches with environmental hazards such as barbed wire, explosions, a cage, or in this case all three, always function very strongly around an early building of suspense. The tension is in the anticipation of that first big boom, and Onita and Hayabusa play it smartly here too. The early lock up, the headlocks, all of these simple ways to express the idea of leveraging one’s opposition into the clutches of danger. I love all the near misses, getting just close enough, being thrown but dodging at the last moment, all of it is the stuff I like best from matches of this genre.

And the booms fucking rule.

It can not be understated how valuable the level of production for the gimmickry here is. The cage looks great, it’s made up of real barbed wire as far as I can tell, and the camera shooting through it always gives every visual an immediate sense of danger. It’s like glimpsing the carnage through the wire on the trenches, it’s a visual that clings to heart like a stray sash on sharp barbs.

All the explosions look great too. Big sparks and puffs of smoke that are aided by the lesser production of the time. I don’t think it would look half as menacing if caught on a 40K 60fps camera, but here through digitized VHS footage, it feels like peeking into something truly underground and dangerous.

The set up in the stadium helps here too. The large digital countdown above the ring, bringing us ever closer to the promised explosion, or the blaring siren that comes when the countdown drops to only three minutes left. These elements all come together to create an atmosphere of constant threat and risk. So much so that the crowd can’t help but bite on every hint of potential carnage.

That being said, I struggle with the ring work at times. I can’t help but wish some of the explosions led to larger shifts in the action, potentially a little more time selling down on the mat, or at least a shift in tone. We get the visual representation of what the explosions do to the wrestlers—slices on Onita’s arm, dust starting to settle over their bodies—but it doesn’t always feel like it informs that action occurring between the blasts. While the early start functions as a great means of building anticipation, following up on the explosions with a Scorpion Deathlock and a figure four might not have been my first choices for this match. One wonders if they might have chosen slower, more ground-based offense here to continue that overall sense of anticipation and dread, instead of inviting a more thrilling, in your face style of action.

It's a bit of a double-edged sword. I’m not always as invested in the ground work here, especially since it feels more incidental than anything, but it does make those larger spots pop. Down the stretch too, after the cage explodes, Onita and Hayabusa opt for a more blunt bomb-throwing segment with Hayabusa withstanding a barrage of powerbombs to put over his toughness. It’s a structural that’s not entirely clever but does at least tap into the idea of a more primal urgency to end the match after they both suffer the effects of the cage explosion.

And the cage explosion itself is just stunning. Not just the literal smoke and fire of it all, but also the shots included in the broadcast. We not only see the wide shot of the initial explosion, but then the crowd getting blasted with the smoke, seeing the cage through the settling ash, and the broken bodies of both wrestlers and the referee in the ring. It’s genuinely some of the most dramatic footage one can see in any medium, and it’s something of a minor miracle to have it come from professional wrestling.

That ash adds so much to that final stretch. Everyone literally looks like they’ve survived a warzone, and all of it does so much to bolster an idea as simple as “younger wrestler kicks out of the veteran’s finish a bunch.”

With FMW matches like this too, there’s the sense of Onita’s heroism pervading it all. Where I’ll quibble with his submission holds and repetitive DDTs, the heart sings for him protecting the referee from the blast or pouring out the first bottle of water for Hayabusa before he can even have the chance to bask in the victory of it all. It really is like seeing an action hero in the flesh, tattered white tank top and all.

It's a match that’s primarily smoke and mirrors, but when the smoke is the moody and the glass this polished, one can’t help but just enjoy the view.

Rating: ****1/4