FMW War Of Attrition video

[Guest Thomas Moore]

A review of War Of Attrition:

 

One of Tokyopop's latest home video releases of FMW Japanese wrestling for American audiences, War Of Attrition, is overall a vast improvement from Tokyopop's early FMW products, and possibly a sign that this company is listening to its customers.

 

Gone are the Hollywood script writers' bad jokes and made-up storylines that the announcers were instructed to tell on the first series of videos.

 

The announcers and hosts for War Of Attrition are "Straight Up" John Watanabe and Dan "The Mouth" Lovranski (obnoxious heel commentator Eric is no longer John's foil on these FMW shows). The production is pretty impressive--this time, it appears the announcers did hosting in front of a blue screen, with images of the wrestlers and certain match highlights appearing in back of them, as they give us the back stories of the matches shown.

 

War Of Attrition begins with footage of FMW's big Judgment Day event, which was FMW's 10th anniversary show at the Yokohama Arena in 1999--mainly of hated Kodo Fuyuki losing an electrified cage match against Masato Tanaka, and H (Hayabusa) vs. Mr. Ganosuke (with guest referee "The HBK", Shawn Michaels). The matches shown on War Of Attrition take place after Judgment Day, and lead up to the big FMW event known as Back Draft (which they seem to plug as a future show/tape to look for at this show's end).

 

The best match on this video is a tag match involving FMW superman H and his former enemy turned friend Mr. Ganosuke vs. former favorite turned heel Masato Tanaka and Kuroda (whom Tanaka feuds with after Kuroda loses this match for his team). This tag team match is fairly long, exciting, with solid wrestling skills and high spots--better than stuff you'd see on Monday night U.S. wrestling.

 

Also, there are stars from ECW on this tape, including Super Crazy and Tajiri (before he became Lord Regal's house boy). A cool angle is shown with FMW President Mr. Arai, going to an ECW live event in America to meet with ECW owner Paul Heyman, with Arai getting beat up by ECW wrestlers and literally squashed by big Sal E. Graziano.

 

The main storylines involve Masato Tanaka feeling betrayed and turning heel against FMW and joining up with ECW, and Kodo Fuyuki forming his own heel group called ECW Japan.

 

About the only real complaint I have is that Tokyopop still tends to clip matches kind of short and not showing matches in their entirety (thankfully, the H and Ganosuke vs. Tanaka and Kuroda match appears to be a complete match).

 

I give War Of Attrition a thumbs up. It's not a full four or five stars, but Tokyopop has made efforts in improving this FMW wrestling series, production-wise and announcing-wise, and it's certainly a decent alternative if you're looking for alternatives apart from WWF sports entertainment.

[Guest MRFTW]

"I give War Of Attrition a thumbs up."

 

Huh? This is actually one of the worst tapes they've put out. Only has 2 full matches out of around 10 and while good aren't worth paying $20 for.

[Guest razazteca]

only 2 matches?  how long is the DVD?  So the undercard is only shown in cliped hi-light form, with only the main event getting the full match?

 

Is War of Attrition the same as Yokohama Deathmatch with the cliped lowcard and showcasing main event format?  if that is the case why should I buy the DVD for only 2 matches that barely is an hour long?

 

FMW might have corrected the announcer problem but has made a new problem.  $24.95 for a DVD that is only 90 minutes!!!!!

[Guest MRFTW]

"only 2 matches"

 

Yeah, only 2 full matches that both go around 14 mins each and then everything else is clipped down to about 5 mins or less

 

"how long is the DVD?"

 

95 mins or so

 

"So the undercard is only shown in cliped hi-light form, with only the main event getting the full match?"

 

They just showed a bunch of matches from diffrent shows on this tape and the 2 full ones(H/Ganosuke vs Tanaka/Kuroda and Kuroda vs Tanaka) came at about the middle of it.

[Guest Thomas Moore]

Yeah, the match clipping may still be a problem. However, it can be said that a certain amount of match clipping edits out the dull and boring parts of matches and gives the exciting highlights. Plus, if you're not that familiar with FMW, or if you're a fan who misses ECW on TNN, FMW War Of Attrition is better than nothing.

 

Clipping on this tape may be a slight problem, but I don't believe that qualifies it as the absolute worst video of all-time. If you ever bought 1980s Jim Crockett Promotions home videos, they clipped matches just as bad or even worse than Tokyopop's videos, but I didn't really mind, because at that time, I was just starving to see an alternative besides just WWF circus action (hey, the more things change, the more things stay the same).

[Guest Thomas Moore]

It should be noted that on new FMW video releases, they add one or two extra "bonus matches" (I'm guessing maybe as a way to appease some of the match clipping earlier on some of these tapes).

[Guest MRFTW]

With the exception of Tanaka and Hayabusa's tapes all the Tokyopop FMW videos have had clipping in some matches but never as much as on War of Attrition and Yokohama Deathmatch.

 

"However, it can be said that a certain amount of match clipping edits out the dull and boring parts of matches and gives the exciting highlights"

 

If a match is so bad that they have to purposely edit out parts of it then there's really no point in bothering at all.

 

"Plus, if you're not that familiar with FMW, or if you're a fan who misses ECW on TNN, FMW War Of Attrition is better than nothing."

 

Would be better then nothing except for the fact that there's 10-11 other Tokyopop FMW tapes that are better then this one.

 

And most of the bonus matches are clipped too(on the vhs versions atleast)

[Guest Thomas Moore]

"However, it can be said that a certain amount of match clipping edits out the dull and boring parts of matches and gives the exciting highlights"

 

If a match is so bad that they have to purposely edit out parts of it then there's really no point in bothering at all.

I didn't say that any of the matches were that bad (I believe it was you who said that the matches "WHILE GOOD" are clipped), but maybe it's OK to see some prelim matches in shorter forms.

 

In wrestling, boxing and other sports (or sports-entertainment), the events are usually built on the strength of the main event matches, so I'm at least glad that Tokyopop shows the FMW main event matches in their entirety. And I do agree that H & Ganosuke vs. Tanaka & Kuroda and Tanaka vs. Kuroda are really good.

[Guest MRFTW]

"I didn't say that any of the matches were that bad"

 

No but you said that clipping some matches can be a good thing.

 

And while most of the clipped matches appeared like they might be good if shown in full I specifically said that "while good" the 2 full matches aren't worth getting the whole tape for, especially when there's better FMW tapes you could get and better stuff period.

[Guest Thomas Moore]

there's better FMW tapes you could get and better stuff period.

Just out of curio, which do you think are the best FMW tapes from Tokyopop?

[Guest MRFTW]

Except for the 2 that came out a week or so ago I have all the others so

 

The Best

1. Enforcer (best of Tanaka)

2. Flying Assasin (best of Hayabusa)

3. Crash & Burn (bad anouncing aside you can't go wrong with a 2 hour tape an hour of which is made up of Hayabusa matches and that has a short but good Tanaka vs Awesome match too)

4/5. Tie between Legend Dawns and King of the Deathmatch

 

The Worst

1. International Slaughterhouse (I like ECW but they pretty much sucked on this tape)

2. War of Attrition (too many clipped matches)

 

and everything else i'd lump in the middle as they MIGHT be worth picking up if you've got some extra money but you shouldn't go out of your way to see them or anything.

[Guest Thomas Moore]

I agree that The Flying Assassin (the best of Hayabusa) and The Enforcer (best of Masato Tanaka) are really worth it and well done. They both have long matches and really focus on two great athletes.

 

I actually liked International Slaughterhouse (especially if you're really into ECW, plus, the Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Masato Tanaka match was excellent). War Of Attrition, I think, got over the angles or "stories" between Tanaka-H-Fuyuki, more so than the actual matches, which may be good if you're not that familiar with FMW.

[Guest MRFTW]

"War Of Attrition, I think, got over the angles or "stories" between Tanaka-H-Fuyuki, more so than the actual matches"

 

Yeah, the whole tape is basically just one big hype job/lead in for Backdraft(which is one of the 2 tapes that came out last week)

[Guest razazteca]

why does FMW not show a listing of the matches on the releases?  But trying to follow my fav FMW wrestlers is hard to do when I am not sure if they are on the DVD.  If FMW was trying to become a sports-entertainment company how is showing 1 minute clips of the matches going to help promote the angles.

 

Are there any plans to make a best of:

 

Gladitor vs Tanaka

Megumi Kudo

Mr. Ganosuke vs Hayabusa

[Guest MRFTW]

1. You can find the match listings at www.tokyopop.com in the FMW section

 

2. Personally i'd like to see a best of Kanemura but there haven't been any anouncements about ANY new videos coming out in the future yet and there may not be with FMW having shut down.

[Guest razazteca]

Wing Kanemura is a great talent.  But what about the others who are only seen in the 10 sec clip form like Gedo&Jado.

 

I would also like to see all of the Hayabusa Death Matches, would prefer the ones where got his scars.  But the as I have stated before, a 90minute DVD will prevent me from buying any other FMW releases.

[Guest MRFTW]

Some of them run 2 hours but that's the max