Goodbye Hayabusa | |
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Promotion | Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling |
Date | July 18, 1999–August 25, 1999 [1] [2] |
Attendance | 20,730 (combined) [1] [2] |
Goodbye Hayabusa was the name of two professional wrestling series of events produced by Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW) in 1999. The backstory of the series was that on-screen FMW Commissioner Kodo Fuyuki decided to end Eiji Ezaki's "Hayabusa" character after August 25, 1999 and the tour consisted of farewell matches of Ezaki's Hayabusa character and the end of it. The first part of the event took place between July 18 and July 31, 1999 [1] and the second part of the event took place between August 20 and August 25, 1999. [2] The series also introduced the WEW 6-Man Tag Team Championship, a substitute for the FMW World Street Fight 6-Man Tag Team Championship, which had been retired and awarded to the departing Atsushi Onita by FMW President Shoichi Arai on November 20, 1998 for establishing FMW and taking it to a huge level. [3]
Show: | Date: | Venue: | City: | Main event: |
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Day 1 | July 18, 1999 | Osaka Municipal East Gymnasium | Osaka | Hayabusa, Masato Tanaka and Tetsuhiro Kuroda vs. Team Respect No (Kodo Fuyuki, Koji Nakagawa and Gedo) |
Day 2 | July 19, 1999 | Gifu Industrial Gymnasium | Gifu | Hayabusa, Masato Tanaka and Tetsuhiro Kuroda vs. Super Leather, Armageddon #1 and Armageddon #2 |
Day 3 | July 20, 1999 | Toyohashi City Gymnasium | Toyohashi | Mr. Gannosuke, Yukihiro Kanemura and Jado vs. Super Leather, Armageddon #1 and Armageddon #2 |
Day 4 | July 24, 1999 | Kaseda City Gymnasium | Kaseda | Mr. Gannosuke and Yukihiro Kanemura vs. Hayabusa and Hisakatsu Oya |
Day 5 | July 25, 1999 | Kushira Peaceful Arena | Kushira | Mr. Gannosuke, Yukihiro Kanemura and Jado vs. Team Respect No (Kodo Fuyuki, Koji Nakagawa and Gedo) |
Day 6 | July 29, 1999 | Takamatsu City Gymnasium | Takamatsu | Hayabusa, Masato Tanaka and Tetsuhiro Kuroda vs. Mr. Gannosuke, Yukihiro Kanemura and Jado |
Pay-per-view | July 31, 1999 | Korakuen Hall | Tokyo | Hayabusa, Masato Tanaka and Tetsuhiro Kuroda vs. Team Respect No (Kodo Fuyuki, Koji Nakagawa and Gedo) |
Show: | Date: | Venue: | City: | Main event: |
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Haunted House | August 20, 1999 | Korakuen Hall | Tokyo | Masato Tanaka vs. Mr. Gannosuke (c) for the FMW Independent Heavyweight Championship |
Hayabusa Graduation Ceremony | August 23, 1999 | Hayabusa vs. Yukihiro Kanemura (c) for the FMW Brass Knuckles Heavyweight Championship | ||
Last Match | August 25, 1999 | Nakajima Sports Center | Sapporo | Hayabusa (c) vs. Mr. Gannosuke for the FMW Brass Knuckles Heavyweight Championship with special guest referee Kodo Fuyuki |
On May 5, 1999, Team No Respect reunited when they helped Kodo Fuyuki in retaining the FMW Double Championship against Tetsuhiro Kuroda. [4] After the match, Fuyuki revealed that he had become the new Commissioner of FMW as he had goaded FMW President Shoichi Arai into giving him the position. On May 18, Fuyuki separated the Double Championship by awarding the FMW Brass Knuckles Heavyweight Championship and the FMW Independent Heavyweight Championship to his Team No Respect teammates Yukihiro Kanemura and Mr. Gannosuke respectively. On June 15, Fuyuki decided to end the Hayabusa character and announced that Eiji Ezaki would not be allowed to compete with the mask or under the "Hayabusa" character after August 25. [3] Later at the event, the FMW team of Hayabusa, Masato Tanaka and Tetsuhiro Kuroda defeated Mr. Gannosuke, Yukihiro Kanemura and Hido in a ladder match which stipulated that Fuyuki would have to eat dog food if TNR lost. [5] Fuyuki chewed it and then spit it in Hayabusa's face and a brawl took place between TNR and FMW wrestlers. On June 23, Hayabusa met Arai to null Fuyuki's decision of ending the Hayabusa character but Arai said that the decision stood. The legitimate reason of ending the gimmick was that Ezaki had suffered many injuries throughout the past few years and he was unable to do high-flying in the ring and he needed to change his wrestling style to mat wrestling, so he needed a character change. [6] A series of events took place to feature farewell matches of the "Hayabusa" character titled Goodbye Hayabusa from July to August 1999. [7]
On July 2, Kodo Fuyuki announced the formation of a new WEW 6-Man Tag Team Championship and four teams were selected to compete in a tournament to crown the inaugural champions and the tournament would take place throughout the Goodbye Hayabusa tour. [1] [7] The four teams were Fuyuki, Koji Nakagawa and Gedo, the team of Mr. Gannosuke, Yukihiro Kanemura and Jado, the team of Hayabusa, Masato Tanaka and Tetsuhiro Kuroda and the team of Super Leather, Armageddon #1 and Armageddon #2. The first match took place on the first show of the Goodbye Hayabusa tour on July 18, in which the team of Hayabusa, Tanaka and Kuroda fought Fuyuki, Nakagawa and Gedo to a thirty-minute time limit draw. [8] Super Leather and Armageddon defeated Hayabusa, Tanaka and Kuroda to gain two points. [9] Super Leather and Armageddon lost to both TNR teams [10] [11] and then both TNR teams competed in a match, which Fuyuki, Nakagawa and Gedo won. [12] This gave them the advantage and they qualified for the final. On July 29, Hayabusa, Tanaka and Kuroda fought Gannosuke, Kanemura and Jado to a time limit draw, giving the advantage to the latter team and they qualified for the semi-final. [13] The teams of Hayabusa, Tanaka and Kuroda and Super Leather and Armageddon would compete in a decision match on the July 31 show airing on pay-per-view.
Goodbye Hayabusa: Day 7 | |||
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Promotion | Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling | ||
Date | July 31, 1999 [14] | ||
City | Tokyo, Japan | ||
Venue | Korakuen Hall | ||
Attendance | 2,150 [14] | ||
Pay-per-view chronology | |||
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The seventh show of the "Goodbye Hayabusa" tour aired live on pay-per-view via DirecTV. The event took place on July 31, 1999 at the Korakuen Hall in Tokyo, Japan. The event featured matches of a round-robin tournament contested for the new WEW 6-Man Tag Team Championship, in which the team of Hayabusa, Masato Tanaka and Tetsuhiro Kuroda qualified for the final by defeating the team of Super Leather, Armageddon #1 and Armageddon #2 and the team of Jado, Mr. Gannosuke and Yukihiro Kanemura and then faced the team of Kodo Fuyuki, Koji Nakagawa and Gedo in the final. Fuyuki, Nakagawa and Gedo became the inaugural 6-Man Tag Team Champions when Fuyuki performed a Lariat on Hayabusa.
Yoshinori Sasaki defeated Naohiko Yamazaki in the opening match by performing a Nodowa Otoshi . Flying Kid Ichihara got a disqualification victory against Team No Respect member Hido. Hisakatsu Oya defeated Hiroshi Usumi with an octopus hold and then called Kodo Fuyuki out to the ring and as Fuyuki came, Oya removed his wig to reveal his bald head. [1] The next match was a decision match in the WEW 6-Man Tag Team Championship tournament pitting Hayabusa, Masato Tanaka and Tetsuhiro Kuroda against Super Leather, Armageddon #1 and Armageddon #2. Hayabusa performed a Firebird Splash on Leather to win the match and to qualify for the semi-final match against Jado, Mr. Gannosuke and Yukihiro Kanemura. Hayabusa slapped Jado and rolled him up to qualify for the final. [1]
Hayabusa, Masato Tanaka and Tetsuhiro Kuroda took on Kodo Fuyuki, Koji Nakagawa and Gedo in the final of the WEW 6-Man Tag Team Championship tournament as Fuyuki's team got the advantage by topping the round-robin stage. After a back and forth match, Fuyuki performed a running lariat on Hayabusa to win the title. [1]
No. | Results [1] [14] | Stipulations | Times |
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1 | Yoshinori Sasaki defeated Naohiko Yamazaki | Singles match | 9:53 |
2 | Flying Kid Ichihara defeated Hido via disqualification | Singles match | 3:07 |
3 | Hisakatsu Oya defeated Hiroshi Usumi via submission | Singles match | 3:46 |
4 | Hayabusa, Masato Tanaka and Tetsuhiro Kuroda defeated Super Leather and Armageddon (#1 and #2) | WEW 6-Man Tag Team Championship tournament decision match | 4:03 |
5 | Hayabusa, Masato Tanaka and Tetsuhiro Kuroda defeated Team No Respect (Jado, Mr. Gannosuke and Yukihiro Kanemura) | WEW 6-Man Tag Team Championship tournament semi-final match | 20:55 |
6 | Team No Respect (Kodo Fuyuki, Koji Nakagawa and Gedo) defeated Hayabusa, Masato Tanaka and Tetsuhiro Kuroda | WEW 6-Man Tag Team Championship tournament final match | 10:21 |
|
Team | Points |
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Kodo Fuyuki, Koji Nakagawa and Gedo | 5 |
Mr. Gannosuke, Yukihiro Kanemura and Jado | 3 |
Hayabusa, Masato Tanaka and Tetsuhiro Kuroda | 2 |
Super Leather and Armageddon (#1 and #2) | 2 |
Decision | Semi-Finals | Final | ||||||||||||
Hayabusa, Masato Tanaka and Tetsuhiro Kuroda | Pin | |||||||||||||
Super Leather, Armageddon #1 and Armageddon #2 | 4:03 | |||||||||||||
Hayabusa, Masato Tanaka and Tetsuhiro Kuroda | Pin | |||||||||||||
Mr. Gannosuke, Yukihiro Kanemura and Jado | 20:55 | |||||||||||||
Mr. Gannosuke, Yukihiro Kanemura and Jado | ||||||||||||||
BYE | ||||||||||||||
Hayabusa, Masato Tanaka and Tetsuhiro Kuroda | Pin | |||||||||||||
Kodo Fuyuki, Koji Nakagawa and Gedo | 10:20 | |||||||||||||
Kodo Fuyuki, Koji Nakagawa and Gedo | ||||||||||||||
BYE | ||||||||||||||
Kodo Fuyuki, Koji Nakagawa and Gedo | ||||||||||||||
BYE |
Three more events were conducted as farewell to the "Hayabusa" character following the July tour in August 1999 as a continuation of the "Goodbye Hayabusa" series. [2] The three events concluded with the end of Hayabusa's character. The first event Haunted House took place on August 20 at the Korakuen Hall in Tokyo, Japan. At the event, Hayabusa unleashed his "darkside" for the final time and the event was headlined by Masato Tanaka beating Mr. Gannosuke for the FMW Independent Heavyweight Championship. The second event Hayabusa Graduation Ceremony aired as a pay-per-view event on August 23 at the Korakuen Hall and the departing character of Hayabusa defeated Yukihiro Kanemura in the main event to win the FMW Brass Knuckles Heavyweight Championship. The final event in the series was the Last Match, also airing on pay-per-view and taking place on August 25 at Nakajima Sports Center in Sapporo. Masato Tanaka retained the Independent Heavyweight Championship against Yukihiro Kanemura and Hayabusa retained the Brass Knuckles Heavyweight Championship in his last match under the gimmick against frequent rival Mr. Gannosuke in the main event of the show. [3]
Kodo Fuyuki deactivated the Brass Knuckles Heavyweight Championship and the Independent Heavyweight Championship and created the WEW Single Championship in place of the double titles. After the retirement of the "Hayabusa" character, Eiji Ezaki announced that he would begin competing as "H". H was an unmasked cool dude wearing jeans and shirts and was completely different than the serious Hayabusa. He debuted the character on August 27 and continued his war with Team No Respect but the character failed to get over with the fans and attendance declined, forcing FMW to revive the Hayabusa character on July 23, 2000. [6]
Eiji Ezaki was a Japanese professional wrestler, stage actor, musician and professional wrestling promoter, better known under the ring name Hayabusa. He was best known for his time with Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW), where he primarily wrestled throughout his career and was the franchise player of the company between 1995 and 2001.
Shoji Akiyoshi is a Japanese professional wrestler, better known by the ring name Jado (邪道). He is best known for his work in New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) as part of a tag team with his partner Gedo. Jado and Gedo's careers have largely paralleled each other, except for a brief period Jado spent in Universal Lucha Libre in 1993, a stint in Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW) in 1997 where they were on opposing sides, and Jado not having emulated Gedo's tour of North America with World Championship Wrestling. The World Class Tag team has held numerous championships in wrestling, including NJPW's IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship, the Universal Wrestling Association's UWA/UWF Intercontinental Tag Team Title, and Dragon Gate's International Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship, as well as having won NJPW's Super J Tag League once. Jado and Gedo are co-head bookers of NJPW.
Yukihiro Kanemura is a Zainichi-Korean retired professional wrestler, better known by the ring name Kintaro Kanemura. He is also known as W*ING Kanemura or Wing Kanemura. He is best known for his death matches in Apache Army, Big Japan Pro Wrestling (BJW), Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW), Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW), International Wrestling Association (IWA) and Wrestling International New Generations (W*ING).
Hiromichi Fuyuki was a Japanese professional wrestler and promoter better known by his ring name Kodo Fuyuki best known for his time in All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW), Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW), New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), Wrestle Association R (WAR) and other Japanese and international promotions during the 1980s and 1990s as the leader of 6-man tag team Fuyuki-Gun with Gedo and Jado.
Masashi Honda is a Japanese retired professional wrestler. He is best known for his work in Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW) under the ring name Mr. Gannosuke.
Koji Nakagawa is a Japanese semi-retired professional wrestler best known for his work in Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW) between 1992 and 2002. He is perhaps best known for his “Hitman” character, heavily inspired by Canadian professional wrestler Bret Hart. Nakagawa also wrestled as Goemon between 2000 and 2002, a dark thief character that was eventually killed and turned into a ghost in storyline.
Welcome to the Darkside was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW). The event took place on August 22, 1998 at the DirecTV Studio in Tokyo, Japan.
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Tetsuhiro Kuroda is a Japanese professional wrestler, currently competing as a freelancer on the Japanese independent circuit. He is best known for his time with Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW), where he primarily competed from 1993 until the promotion's closure in 2002.
FMW 10th Anniversary Show: Entertainment Wrestling Special Live was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW). The event took place on November 23, 1999 at the Yokohama Arena in Yokohama, Japan. This was the tenth edition of the company's premier event Anniversary Show, commemorating the tenth anniversary of the company.
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Team No Respect was a professional wrestling faction in Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW), which existed in the company between 1998 and 2000. The ideology of the group was that they disrespected all the wrestlers in FMW as well as the company's management and President Shoichi Arai. TNR was formed after Mr. Gannosuke, Yukihiro Kanemura and Hido turned on their ZEN leader Atsushi Onita out of jealousy with Onita due to his high ego and selfishness and formed a major alliance with Fuyuki-Gun. TNR was the most popular, successful and influential stable in the history of FMW and were involved in FMW's major storylines and rivalries during its two and a half year existence.
Fuyuki-gun was the name of Japanese professional wrestling stables led by Hiromichi Fuyuki in Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW) and Wrestle Association R (WAR) during the 1990s. Fuyuki-gun was originally founded by Fuyuki in WAR in 1994 and they became the first WAR World Six-Man Tag Team Champions, winning the title a record five times. They left WAR in 1996 and competed as freelancers before being signed by FMW to a full-time contract, where they held the FMW World Street Fight 6-Man Tag Team Championship. The group would merge with the trio of Mr. Gannosuke, Yukihiro Kanemura and Hido to form Team No Respect. Fuyuki-Gun disbanded after Fuyuki left FMW (kayfabe) due to losing a match to Masato Tanaka at the 10th Anniversary Show. Fuyuki formed a new offshoot group called "Shin Fuyuki-Gun" which lasted until 2001.
FMW 12th Anniversary Show: Kawasaki Legend 2001 was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW). The event took place on May 5, 2001 at Kawasaki Stadium in Kawasaki, Kanagawa, Japan. The event marked the return of FMW to the Kawasaki Stadium since Fall Spectacular in 1997. The event commemorated the twelfth anniversary of the promotion and was the final edition of the Anniversary Show as the promotion closed on February 15, 2002.
Yoshinori Sasaki is a Japanese professional wrestler and retired sumo wrestler and mixed martial artist, currently working for Pro Wrestling Freedoms under the ring name Mammoth Sasaki, where he is a former King of Freedom Tag Team Champion, becoming the longest reigning champion during his second reign with the title. He is best known for his time with Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW), where he competed between 1997 until the promotion's closure in 2002.
Hideo Takayama was a Japanese professional wrestler, better known under the ring name BADBOY Hido or simply Hido. He is best known for his time with hardcore wrestling federations Big Japan Pro Wrestling (BJW), Independent Wrestling Association Mid-South (IWA-MS), Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW) and Wrestling International New Generations (W*ING).
Super Extreme Wrestling War was a series of professional wrestling events produced by Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW) in 1997. These events marked the first time that FMW began a partnership with American counterpart Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) and a working relationship began between the two companies as ECW wrestlers competed at these events and it marked the beginning of interpromotional matches and events between ECW and FMW. These events would create a huge impact in FMW's storylines as they concluded with the breakup of ZEN when Mr. Gannosuke, Yukihiro Kanemura and Hido attacked their leader Atsushi Onita out of jealousy after Hayabusa pinned Onita in a WarGames match. They merged with Fuyuki-Gun to form Team No Respect, which would dominate FMW until 2000.
Goodbye Hayabusa II: Haunted House was a professional wrestling live event produced by Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW) as part of the Goodbye Hayabusa tour on August 20, 1999 at the Korakuen Hall in Tokyo, Japan. The tour would feature the end of the Hayabusa character in FMW.
Goodbye Hayabusa II: Hayabusa Graduation Ceremony was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW). The event was taped on August 23, 1999 and aired on pay-per-view via broadcast delay on DirecTV on August 25. This event was a part of the Goodbye Hayabusa tour used as build-up to the retirement of Eiji Ezaki's "Hayabusa" character and switch to a new character.
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