FMW Rule The Asylum

[Guest Thomas Moore]

One of Tokyopop's latest home videos is another FMW hardcore wrestling title, "Rule The Asylum".

This has got to be right up there with "The Flying Assassin" (best of Hayabusa) and "The Enforcer" (best of Masato Tanaka) as one of Tokyopop's better FMW tapes.

 

All of the matches on "Rule The Asylum" are championship matches for FMW's biggest title, The Double Title (Independent World Title and Brass Knucks Title).

 

There are five Double Title matches on this tape, all complete matches from what I can tell (which should please people who have complained about the "match clipping" on some of this series' tapes), and because there are only five matches on "Rule The Asylum", that's means there's a lot more action and story telling in the ring.

 

Your announcers again are "Straight Up" John Watanabe (Urban Wrestling Alliance fame) and Dan "The Mouth" Lovranski

(Live Audio Wrestling fame), talking in front of a blue screen, with photo images of different wrestlers and match highlights in the background while they do their host work.

 

The five Double Title matches on "Rule The Asylum" are:

"The Gladiator" Mike Awesome vs. WING Kanemura (the very first Double Title match in FMW's history),

Awesome vs. Masato Tanaka,

Tanaka vs. Mr. Ganosuke,

Mr. Ganosuke vs. Hayabusa (this is the same match from "The Flying Assassin", with slightly different commentary),

and Hayabusa vs. Team No Respect member Kodo Fuyuki (shortly after this match took place, Fuyuki as evil commissioner formed the WEW Title)

 

Watanabe and Lovranski give some history about FMW's Double Title (with no Hollywood scriptwriters' made-up storylines that plagued the original John and Eric videos), and "Rule The Asylum" is a good example of FMW's hardcore style and fine technical wrestling, before Fuyuki turned FMW into more of a WWF sports entertainment style league.

 

With long, complete Double Title matches with solid action and FMW's best talent, fine informative announcing by John and Dan, and fine production values, "Rule The Asylum" is one of Tokyopop's best efforts to date.

[Guest razazteca]

is there a 2nd audio channel to listen to the orginal Japanese commentary with English subtitles?

 

So how long are the matches, and how long is the DVD and are there any extras worth talking about?

 

are the title matches still clipped?

[Guest Thomas Moore]

I have the home video VHS version of "Rule The Asylum" (not the DVD), but I can tell you that the VHS version is "114 minutes" in length.

 

This "114 minutes" contains five matches, all of them championship matches for the FMW Double Title, with very few wrestler promos (before the Awesome-Tanaka title match, which is good, they show Mike Awesome cutting a promo of how he's going to kick Tanaka's BUTT and then show Tanaka saying a few words in Japanese).

 

From what I can tell, all five Double Title matches are complete, and with five matches on a 114 minute tape, these title matches are pretty long (not just 2 or 3 minutes of highlights and that's it).

[Guest razazteca]

fair enough, nice review, but I am still unsure why to buy the product.

[Guest Thomas Moore]

Why buy FMW "Rule The Asylum":

 

Something tells me that like lots of wrestling fans since early last year, you are probably always seeking alternatives besides WWFE, Inc. here in the U.S. of A.

 

With that in mind, I will say that Galavision (in your words, "the other cable channel") is a good TV alternative for wrestling (actually, CMLL more than AAA, but I guess AAA is also entertaining in its own way-out-there way), but when it comes to home video and DVD alternatives to Vince McMahon, Inc., FMW is a good alternative, especially "The Enforcer", "The Flying Assassin", and now, "Rule The Asylum".

 

As far as home video alternatives go, FMW is arguably not as good as ECW, but FMW's products are better than XPW and backyard wrestling in the hardcore wrestling department.  

 

Right now, compared to some of the FMW old and new videos, I don't see anything real bad about "Rule The Asylum", so, why not buy it? Hope I sincerely gave you more fair  viewpoints.

[Guest Thomas Moore]

Even though lucha libre is seen on Galavision, I wonder if there would be any demand for English language, U.S.A. market videos and DVDs for Mexican wrestling? Now that might be a good alternative that might reach just beyond the usual Latino fans, with non-Latino fans catching on?

[Guest razazteca]

As I go through the isles of the local video store at the mall I notice that there are several options of DVD to choose from.

 

WWF

ECW

FMW

XPW

CZW

Wrestling Gold

UFC

Pride

King of the Cage

 

Each have the pros and cons, something for everybody, some I would not even consider for personal bias reasoning.  I prefer a DVD that has a complete program well at least all the matches from the PPV event.  The WWF did have several good releases in my opinion well the ones that feature Beniot vs Angle vs Jericho especially the DVD that had audio commentary by the wrestlers.  I like Pride FC Grand Prix because it features the whole match.....Gracie vs Sakuraba even though it was 90 minutes of stalling which could of been clipped but was not, showing the whole match showed that the Gracies are not immortal as they are hyped at times.

 

I dislike the UFC Greatest Hits 1 for showing glorified jober matches, and clipping the big name fights Fry vs Tank.  So I did not buy Volume 2 of UFC.  I owned 5 FMW DVDs which I thought were above average with Legend Dawns and King of Death Match as my favorites.  I solved the Eric Keller commentary problem by listening to the Japanese commentary.  The last FMW DVD I bought was the Yokohama Deathmatch, I felt disappointed and misled by the name of the title.  I thought Yohohama would show the whole event not just the triple main event.  I notice Fuyuki on the back of the case and hoped to see him in action but all I saw was the highlights of the match.  Maybe it was called best matches from Yohohama or if they just did not mention the undercard at all I would have no problem with the FMW but they teased the undercard making me mad.

 

Now if AAA, CMLL, or EMLL every decided to release their PPVs or do best of DVD I would be 1st in line to buy them.  But I would also be concern of spending money on something that did not provide what they hyped.  Like show a wrestler on the cover but not have him wrestle a match.  If the matches were not shown in the usual 2/3 pin falls, or without orginal Espanol commentary, I would do a Scott Keith complain about everything wrong.

 

[Guest MRFTW]

"I thought Yohohama would show the whole event not just the triple main event."

 

From what i've been able to find out, there is no complete version of this show and the matches are clipped just as much on the japanese commercial version of the show

[Guest Thomas Moore]

As I go through the isles of the local video store at the mall I notice that there are several options of DVD to choose from.

 

WWF

ECW

FMW

XPW

CZW

Wrestling Gold

UFC

Pride

King of the Cage

 

Each have the pros and cons, something for everybody, some I would not even consider for personal bias reasoning.  

 

Now if AAA, CMLL, or EMLL every decided to release their PPVs or do best of DVD I would be 1st in line to buy them.  But I would also be concern of spending money on something that did not provide what they hyped.  Like show a wrestler on the cover but not have him wrestle a match.  If the matches were not shown in the usual 2/3 pin falls, or without orginal Espanol commentary, I would do a Scott Keith complain about everything wrong.

 

I don't know if the original Espanol commentary on a U.S. market DVD of AAA or CMLL would be totally necessary, because people who would want Spanish language are either Latino who speak fluent Spanish or people who already watch lucha libre on Galavision. An alternative Spanish language track on a U.S. DVD would be OK but not really necessary in order to reach non-Latino, English-speaking wrestling fans who are not already familiar with lucha libre (just my opinion, though).

[Guest J*ingus]

Hey, some areas of the country (like mine) don't even get Galavision, at least without expensive deluxe satellite pachages.  I'd love some English-language DVDs or videos from any foreign promotion which had an inkling to put them out there (All Japan, I'm looking at you!).

[Guest razazteca]

Its always a good thing to have the orginal language as a 2nd audio track.  With it you can see the passion and emotion of the wrestling match.  Dubbed English versions of anime and HK action movies seem to loose something in the translations.

 

Which is the case I see in FMW English commentary, no matter who does the talking it will never be as it was intended in Japanese.  Its just 2 different worlds and different perceived concepts.  Please give me an alturnative to John Watabe & the other guy, the 2nd audio channel was a great DVD extra.

[Guest MRFTW]

"Dubbed English versions of anime and HK action movies seem to loose something in the translations."

 

I usually prefer (a good, and yes there are some)dubed to subed anime actually.

 

"no matter who does the talking it will never be as it was intended in Japanese."

 

Well because of the fact that they even had japanese anouncers in the first place that means matches were INTENDED to have comentary. There is nothing at all wrong with having english anouncing for the matches and the only problem is just that the guys they chose to do it aren't all that good.

[Guest Thomas Moore]

Which is the case I see in FMW English commentary, no matter who does the talking it will never be as it was intended in Japanese.  Its just 2 different worlds and different perceived concepts.  Please give me an alturnative to John Watabe & the other guy, the 2nd audio channel was a great DVD extra.

As for the FMW English commentary, the joke-telling Eric person from the "old" FMW videos didn't fit into the mix (neither did the "old" scripts and jokes from the Hollywood scriptwriters), but I think John Watanabe and his new partner, Dan Lovranski do a decent job of getting the real history over of FMW on the "new" FMW videos (particularly to new fans who don't really know about FMW).

 

As for English language on foreign movies, anime, etc., I think there are good examples and not as good examples of everything, but I do think English language translation does get foreign products over more to a more mass audience (not just small art house types).

[Guest razazteca]

Well John Wantabe is just annoying with him repeating saying the same move over and over again.  Eric Keller was bad with his jokes trying to do a bad JR gimmick.  Dan is better than Eric but I would prefer listening to the Japanese commentors on the 2nd audio channel on DVD.

 

trying to stay on topic here.....sorry about the tangent rants

[Guest Thomas Moore]

Well John Wantabe is just annoying with him repeating saying the same move over and over again.  Eric Keller was bad with his jokes trying to do a bad JR gimmick.  Dan is better than Eric but I would prefer listening to the Japanese commentors on the 2nd audio channel on DVD.

 

trying to stay on topic here.....sorry about the tangent rants

On the "new" FMW releases, at least John Watanabe is actually allowed to call holds and moves (like he's done on the UWA TV shows), instead of reading off Hollywood scriptwriters' scripts on the "old" tapes, saying how Mike Awesome was trained on some mysterious island by some mad doctor or something, and saying how Kudo and Shark are ex-lovers (again, I'm glad Tokyopop got rid of the Hollywood scriptwriters trying to American-ize these tapes in a bad joke way). His old partner Eric may or may not be totally at fault, since Eric was basically following a script as well.

 

I think Dan Lovranski does a good job of straightforward commentary and history telling. I'm trying to stay on topic, too, but your tangents are OK (to go off on a tangent, I wouldn't mind seeing English language U.S. versions of other leagues, like AAA or CMLL from Mexico, or other Japanese leagues).

 

I do think English translations are necessary to broaden popularity to a U.S. market. Do you think Speed Racer, Pokemon and other anime would have been popular here in the U.S. if they stayed in Japanese language?

[Guest Thomas Moore]

Especially for Americans who don't get Galavision on their cable system ("the other channel"), I think English language DVDs and home videos of Mexican wrestling would be fun, particularly for the weird AAA stuff involving minis, and for calling the moves of CMLL's Super Porky!

[Guest razazteca]

you just had to bring up Brazo de Plata did'nt you? lol

 

I would love to see the PPVs from CMLL or AAA, especially when they use the 6 corner ring.

 

Shocker vs Dr Wanger from March 30, will this title match ever make on tv?

[Guest Thomas Moore]

you just had to bring up Brazo de Plata did'nt you? lol

Yes, I just had to bring up Brazo de Plata, a.k.a. Super Porky, a.k.a.a.k.a. "the Mexican Dusty"!! I'd love to see English language tapes featuring Porky planchas, belly bumps and his ring entrance music ("That's all folks!").