[1997-11-28-FMW] Hayabusa & Masato Tanaka vs Mr Gannosuke & W*ING Kanemura

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Very good tag match on the wave of Hayabusa performing in the tag league. It has the FMW flavor with occasional weapon shots, but for the most part, they stick to wrestling basics, which is cool. Gannosuke and Kanemura make a pretty solid heel team. You can see the All Japan influence creeping into this style, as they do a lot of dramatic saves around the nearfalls toward the end. It's like All Japan as done by FMW, which means it has a slightly different tone, but the style is changing to a more traditional wrestling style in some ways.

[Kevin Ridge]

FMW has been getting away from the gimmick/death matches. Chairs still get involved but only rarely in match. This match did feel like it was part of the current AJPW Tag League as a match that gets slightly out of control but still has all the close falls at the end.

[soup23]

Good tag match sounds pretty nondiscript but I thought that fits this match perfectly and it is a compliment to FMW overall that they had this good of a mostly traditional tag sprinkling in some hardcore segements. I really enjoyed the heel team in this and they worked well against the contrasting styles of both Busa and Tanaka. Finish built to a crescendo as well.

[PeteF3]

Kanemura does the greatest 360 lariat bump in history--it's more like a 780 bump and it makes total sense for a fatso like him to be doing it (unlike Rikishi doing it off a standard clothesline) when you see the velocity that he and Tanaka are going at. A fun balls-to-the-wall sprint with a few twists and turns and some neat offense from everyone involved, especially the heel double teams complete with mocking of Shinzaki's Buddhist prayer rituals. Kanemura in particular would be an interesting guy to see in AJPW for a one-off tour, since he's got a broad heel personality but also really knows how to work a traditional match.