[1990-11-05-FMW-1st Anniversary Show] Atsushi Onita vs Mr Pogo

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Has anyone here ever dropped acid while watching Memphis wrestling? I would imagine the experience is very similar to watching this match. Pogo's sunglasses-wearing manager takes a piledriver on a ringside table and Pogo takes off both of his cowboy boots and starts windmill socking Onita, as if he's some sort of possessed Eddie Marlin. The crowd really takes to Pogo as the ultimate villain, and Onita as their hero.

 

This was a borderline selection that I'm really glad we kept. Each Onita match in 1990 has really produced something very different and notable. This has the feel of Atsushi Onita fighting off the monster in the famous final scene of a slasher flick. It's a brilliant match.

 

The I-love-you-I-hate-you handshake and slaps while terrible music plays them out is awesome. Good fun for the family. It's really fascinating to watch Onita establish his stardom and legacy throughout the yearbook.

[Childs]

Is that opening line a party suggestion, Loss? Sounds fun.

[Loss]

Is that opening line a party suggestion, Loss? Sounds fun.

Haha!

[PeteF3]

Jesus, that's not even accounting for the ring announcer with the super-long blond mullet.

 

This is quite the Japan indy version of Jerry Lawler vs. random monster. Pogo basically sucks but Onita is such a compelling seller and his fired-up headbutt comebacks are so brilliant that it doesn't matter.

 

I don't know if Onita was coming out to "Wild Thing" yet but man do the music overdubs kill this, worse than the Demolition dub at WM6.

[soup23]

Loss description of this match may be one of my favorite descriptions of all time for a match. I thought this was a good solid overcoming the odds type match for Onita and I agree that the evolution of him and the company as a whole has been fun to watch with the snippets we have seen.

[Kevin Ridge]

Pogo hits a ringside fan with a tshirt. So Onita throws the belt at Pogo and does a big dive to the outside. All before the match starts! Pogo stabs away at Onita’s torso and arm. He don’t feel like wearing his boots so he takes them off. Piledriver on a chair for the pinfall. It’s death match format though and Onita makes the 10 count. Onita hits a bunch of standing headbutts and I’m wanting to see him versus Fujiwara now. Onita piledrives someone through a table. More multiple headbutts from Onita. He then rams Pogo’s head into the mat over and over and gets the pinfall and wins. Finish worked for me.

[Childs]

I don't like Mr. Pogo as much as Goto, but I've enjoyed all these early Onita matches. He kept things tight and simple, with the focus very much on his strengths.

[ajtroma]

Was that Red Bastien with the long hair?

[garretta]

Watching these matches is frightening now, knowing what repeated headbutts (among other things) turned Chris Benoit's brain into. Onita hit so many of those headbutts that he had to give himself about a Grade 6 concussion in the process, and Pogo couldn't have been in much better shape, particularly after taking a DDT on a chair on the floor. This is one of those matches that was fascinating to watch as a spectacle, but I'm not a big enough fan of this style to call it a great match. There's no doubting how over Onita was with the crowd, though; they attacked him as violently as Pogo did during the postmatch celebration.

 

Somewhere Paul Heyman saw this and said, "Gee, if I could find myself a few Onitas and a few Pogos, and a fanbase bloodthirsty enough to go nuts over them like this one did, maybe I could build an American promotion around matches like this!"

 

One question: What was the object Pogo attacked Onita with at the start of the match? It looked like a knife or letter opener at first, but then I saw the hook on it. Could it have been a heavy cane?

[G. Badger]

Atsushi comes in a like a demon- throwing his belt at Pogo and when he escapes to the out side, the Big O dives right through the ropes after him! Eventually (through the meddling of Victor Quinones) Pogo gets the better of our hero. He's sticking him with some kind of curve handled weapon. It looks like a children's umbrella with all the umbrella bit removed. Ha! Ok, why not!? Then, Senor Pogo decides to take his cowboy boots off and tenderize Onita-san's face. Holy head spike Batman! Pogo straight piledrove Onita on that chair. But, come on that's not enough...it's fucking Onita. He asks to get stabbed for an angle...he's crazy and tough...amongst other things :-I

 

He fights back with some of the sickest no touch headbutts ever. Pogster is bleeding now and gets thrown to the concrete. He tries to steal back control but, O. says, "Fuck that noise!" DDT! Now he's flying off the apron like a poor man's Misawa. Victor Q. get's his too. Or the table collapses...I can't tell but, this the chaotic shit that is great about early FMW! This is Texas Deathmatch rules and Onita is clearly trying to KO the camo pants villain. It's unfortunately 11 minutes as I easily could have watched another 2-3 minutes. This was a great match. It's NOT but, only because I felt it wrapped up too soon Very Highly recommended match and an excellent close to FMW's first year.