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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[GOTNW]

I had Fuchi placed around 50-60 last time, and thought “hmmm Fuchi was great but was that a bit high?”. I decided to give him a more focused look and the deeper I get the more convinced I am the opposite is the case and he should have ranked much higher than that.

One aspect of Fuchi I’ve come to appreciate the most is probably his look. It might not be imposing initially, but it speaks so much. First thing it says is old-school wrestler, and that’s absolutely what you’re getting from him. Second thing you can see is that he is clearly an athlete. Maybe not a bodybuilder, but clearly in shape, something akin to a 2000s UFC career journeyman Welterweight veteran. He’s big and tall enough that he can believably stand up to his peer heavyweights when need be.

But he’s also pale and somewhat frail. I remember one time a camera zoomed in super close and you could see acne scars on his face. His skill is great, but physically he’s just barely lacking. Just a little bit more and it would be enough for his stature to be so much greater. I can’t help but wonder if there is a deep pain inside him. If he wore a dress shirt instead of wrestling trunks I could imagine him as a salaryman sadistically daydreaming of taking out the injustices of this world on his annoying supervisors and seniors. Luckily destiny guided him to pro-wrestling instead of an office career and we get to see him brutalize and torture younglings in 6-man tags.

Fuchi definitely represents a type of worker. The Arn Anderson/Fit Finlay/William Regal respected role player veteran who helps backstage. And if you want to make a fact-based argument, it’s going to be hard to point to someone who was better at him at being that type. For one, he agented the most revered wrestling of all time (90s All Japan). But as a worker, he has a really sneaky strong case and checks all the boxes.

At various points in his career, he:
-was a great base for luchadores
-had some of the best brawls ever to take place in Memphis and All Japan
-had probably the best “role player” performances ever as a torturer in the best run of 6 man tags of all time
-worked great junior title matches
-went hold for hold with shooters
-worked as a sympathetic underdog, eating a big beating if needed

You can repeat talking points like “All Japan didn’t focus on the Juniors enough for Fuchi to have a strong enough resume of singles matches”, and that may be true. If you’re talking about a top 10-20 placement. As it stands, I think there’s more than enough volume to deduct that he was a phenomenal pro wrestler. The man carried Hiro Saito and Kuniaki Kobayashi to near-classics. Enough said.

For a solid mix of canonically accepted all time great wrestling, flavored Fuchi performances and “you just gotta watch this”, I would point to the following list as a glimpse of his development and variety as a worker:

vs Dos Caras (AJPW 1978/8/18)
w/Atsushi Onita vs R2 & C3 (AJPW 1979/7/6)
vs Chavo Guerrero (SCW 1981)
w/Atsushi Onita vs Jerry Lawler & Bill Dundee (CWA 1981/8/1)
w/Atsushi Onita vs Eddie Gilbert & Ricky Morton (CWA 1981/9/4)
vs Chavo Guerrero (AJPW 1983/8/19)
vs Chavo Guerrero (AJPW 1983/8/31)
vs Kuniaki Kobayashi (AJPW 1986/4/6)
vs Hiro Saito (AJPW 1986/6/12)
vs Joe Malenko (AJPW 1989/1/21)
vs Mitsuo Momota (AJPW 1989/3/29)
vs Tsuyoshi Kikuchi (AJPW 1990/7/12)
w/Tsuruta & Taue vs Misawa, Kawada & Kobashi (AJPW 1990/10/19)
vs Tsuyoshi Kikuchi (AJPW 1991/ 4/16)
w/Tsuruta & Taue vs Misawa, Kawada & Kobashi (AJPW 1991/4/20)
vs Toshiaki Kawada (AJPW 1991/7/18)
vs Tsuyoshi Kikuchi (AJPW 1991/9/4)
vs Mitsuharu Misawa (AJPW 1992/1/21)
w/Ogawa vs Kobashi & Kikuchi (AJPW 1992/4/18)
w/Tsuruta & Taue vs Misawa, Kawada & Kobashi (AJPW 1992/5/22)
w/Ogawa vs Kobashi & Kikuchi (AJPW 1992/7/5)
vs Tsuyoshi Kikuchi (AJPW 1993/2/28)
w/Kawada & Taue vs Baba, Misawa & Kobashi (AJPW 1994/1/29)
vs Tsuyoshi Kikuchi (AJPW 1996/7/24)
w/Toshiaki Kawada vs Yoshiaki Fujiwara & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi (AJPW 1997/1/26)
vs Toshiaki Kawada (AJPW 2000/7/1)
vs Yoshiaki Fujiwara (AJPW 2000/7/11)
w/Kawada vs Yuji Nagata & Takashi Iizuka (NJPW 2000/12/14)
w/Tenryu vs Kawada & Araya (AJPW 2001/6/30)