Masa Fuchi

[elliott]

THANK YOU! OMG ONITA IS THE OTHER GUY!!!

[NintendoLogic]

I can't believe Fuchi is only 25 there. He has that Arn Anderson deal where he's looked middle-aged his entire life.

[Graham Crackers]

2 hours ago, KinchStalker said:

The earliest Fuchi rec that comes to mind (though of course everyone should see the Concession Stand Brawl once) is the 1983.08.31 junior title match against Chavo, which I enjoyed more more than anything from the '82 Onita/Chavo series.

Also seconding the praise for his work in the 2000-1 run. I thought Fuchi/Liger was the best match on the 2001.01.28 Dome show.

There's a Fuchi/Onita vs Lawler/Dundee match from the TV studio that I also remember loving. Fuchi and Onita do Fargo struts.

[KB8]

I think I had that Lawler tag top 25 when we did the Memphis set. The concession stand brawl was for sure in my top 10.

[WingedEagle]

7 hours ago, bigyellowsinglet said:

Even without his pre-split work, Fuchi was tremendous working against New Japan guys through 2000-01 and is currently the best active comedy wrestler doing the only good version of comedy wrestling, old man who illegally punches people then convinces the referee that he didn't. He is still able to rise to the occasion once every few years when asked to (like in the jr. title match against Aoki in 2014) and even if the matches aren't exceptional, his performances are consistently impressive given his age.

Where is this current comedy Fuchi?

[bigyellowsinglet]

12 minutes ago, WingedEagle said:

Where is this current comedy Fuchi?

He has only worked one match this year and a handful last year, but pre-covid the Fuchi 6-man tag was a standard attraction at nearly every All Japan Korakuen show.

[KB8]

I had Fuchi at number 56 in 2016. He probably won't be as high next time, but he won't drop off the list just because he brings so much of what I love in wrestling even within a style I'm sort of over at this stage of the game. Basically, Fuchi brings the greatest aspects of angry disgruntled torturous lumpy wee old bastard WAR to the pristine All Japan. It's obviously a shame that he never had much of a singles run during the 90s, but I'm okay with the trade-off of having him in those tags and six-mans in the early part of the decade. You could always rely on Fuchi to be the one to just punch someone with the point of his knuckles dead in the nose, then mash those knuckles into that nose just to make sure it's properly broken. A spectacular cheapshotting prick of a man, and as he grew older and the younger heavyweights started to pass him by I love that he almost turned that into a means of generating sympathy. What else could he do against Kobashi BUT punch him in the eye or kick him in the throat? The run after the All Japan exodus is one of my favourite returns to form ever, as he more or less comes out of retirement to fight for the honour of All Japan against Chono, Nagata and any other New Japan folk thrown at him. I don't even like that 12/00 tag all that much but Fuchi coming in and standing on Nagata's face was one of the best moments of the decade. No matter how outmatched, Fuchi was the definition of first man into the breach. He's also involved in a couple Tenryu tags early in the 00s and at least one is sensational (I'll rec it down below). Part of me selfishly wishes he left All Japan with Tenryu to form SWS, as even though he wouldn't have been there for those aforementioned All Japan tags and six-mans, he WOULD have been there for WAR v New Japan and I can say with decent confidence that he would've been unbelievable in something like that. And yeah, the Memphis run was a hoot. Actually fuck it, 56 might've been too low. 

 

MASA FUCHI YOU SHOULD WATCH:

v Mitsuo Momota (All Japan, 3/29/89)

w/Giant Baba & Rusher Kimura v Genichiro Tenryu, Toshiaki Kawada & Ricky Fuyuki (All Japan, 9/24/89)

w/Jumbo Tsuruta & Akira Taue v Mitsuharu Misawa, Toshiaki Kawada & Kenta Kobashi (All Japan, 10/19/90)

w/Jumbo Tsuruta & Akira Taue v Mitsuharu Misawa, Toshiaki Kawada & Kenta Kobashi (All Japan, 4/20/91)

v Genichiro Tenryu v Toshiaki Kawada & Nobutaka Araya (All Japan, 6/30/01)

[Ma Stump Puller]

Through his peaks are obvious, Fuchi does suffer a bit from shrinking in quality matches for most of the 90's after the Tsuruta-Gun stuff. Not that he was bad, mind you, it's just that he was basically a mainstay of the AJPW uncle comedy 6-man stuff, so he never got much chances to do much of anything. The only times I recall him during this period being of any interest was a singles match with Albright and him teaming with NO FEAR in a fun underrated tag.

Fuchi has his moments and shines particularly well in heated confrontations with strong opposing forces, but he's a very.....dry worker at times, even when young, at times by the numbers. He's a good wrestler with surprisingly strong mat-wrestling but few actually great matches from simply working on the mat. All of his best stuff is dramatic work revolving around him being a dickhead heel stretcher or a babyface underdog, but I would say he's never played the main man in any of his most well-known acts in that regard. I recall 2004 being the last year where I seen anything truly worthwhile (namely a Tenryu singles match that borrows from his bout with Inoki, for some reason) and his post-prime stuff only goes so far. As others have stated, Fuchi would be high on a "top 100 tag workers" but his singles stuff is not exactly bursting with top notch matches; this would've likely been not the case if his peak Jr runs were actually aired as opposed to piecemeal. That makes him annoying to rank properly, but he'll definitely be somewhere on my top 100 given his talent.