Hayabusa

[Deezy]

I first started watching FMW around 05 on The Fight Network. At first it was to watch Mike Awesome since he was the only name I knew from it. For the most part it was just violent crap, but this small masked man in a cape caught my eye. The first time I watched him wrestle he was taking giant bumps and doing moves that were freaking amazing. If you look at AJ Styles moveset, you can tell he has based it off Hayabusa's, his feud with Onita was legendary and think he is slept on by followers of Japanese wrestling. I always thought he was underated and should be considered one of the 90s Japanese pioneers with Liger and Ultimo Dragon.

thoughts or memories?

 

[The New F'n Show]

Completely agree but because FMW was not on the national scale he is mostly forgotten. Always minus a very short stint in ECW, people in the US have no idea who he is. The guy was incredible and pretty much any high-flyer has stolen something from him. I first saw him in ECW at the Heatwave 1998 PPV. He teamed with another underrated performer (Jinsei Shinzaki or Hakashi as old WWF fans may remember him) to face Sabu and RVD. I was amazed by the risks in that match and found some of his FMW stuff later on.

 

[EffectsofRaven]

The thing with that ECW Tag Team match was Sabu being Sabu which killed the flow of the match but Hayabusa damn, when I watched some of his tribute videos the mask caper was fantastic; It's very unfortunate he stuck with a dying company and fell out with Liger (I think it was either Liger or Dragon) and refused a contract to go to NJPW where his talents quite possibly more known but indeed Hayabusa is the third Musketeer of the Japan's Juniors...

A member of that important "Japanese Top Three" in the sense of what he did as a Junior.

 

[Deezy]

It was his fierce loyalty to FMW that caused the falling out with Liger, but they have since patched things up. I think New Japan would've jobbed him out as they did with others from FMW because Inoki looked down upon the garbage wrestling aspect of FMW. Also, his accident was the death knell for FMW since it didn't last that long after he broke his neck. Onita giving up the reigns to Arai and Fuyuka also were contibuting factors, since they were the ones who took the mask of Hayabusa and got Shawn Michaels to ref some matches.

 

[EffectsofRaven]

Yeah, he was really their figure head which is why they began to collapse afterwards.

As for Inoki, he can't book for shit in the first place, so I think Hayabusa was gonna suffer either way, the Reason Liger survived so well because he is basically the Tiger Mask of NJPW expect the 5 Star Match aluding him on many occasions; so Hayabusa sticking with FMW was his best decision but also a debt to his career :/.

 

[Deezy]

Inoki's problem was that he was far more interested in his retirement tour than New Japan. Also the fact that he had the Eric Bischoff approach to wrestling and pushed old stars instead of making new ones. I'm glad Yuke's bought him out.

 

[The New F'n Show]

Inoki had some good ideas but he clearly pushed the wrong guys and didn't make stars in his later days. It was time for him to give it up when he did.