Hiromichi 'Kodo' Furuki dies

[Guest NoSelfWorth]

 

Hiromichi "Kodo/Samson/Ricky" Fuyuki passed away today at the age of 42 after failing to defeat the cancer that ravaged his body. Fuyuki, the founder of WEW, one of the three post-FMW promotions, had just appealed for one final match with Shinya Hashimoto days before, and Hashimoto had accepted it for 5/5 at the remnants of Kawasaki Stadium. Fuyuki was initiated into All Japan early in the 1980's, and formed an upstart group named Footloose with Toshiaki Kawada. When the new decade turned, Kawada had sped ahead of Fuyuki and was moving into more high profile matches. Fuyuki made what, at the time, was a wise move, following Genichiro Tenryu to his SWS promotion. SWS failed badly, but Fuyuki again followed Tenryu to WAR, and there he became one of the top "heels" in the promotion. Fuyuki formed one of the most popular trios (six man tag) teams in history with Jado & Gedo, the three having many reigns as WAR 6 Man Tag Team Champions. Fuyuki moved to FMW, taking Jado and Gedo with him, and from February, 1997, it was their main battlefield. Few could have predicted the impact Fuyuki would have on FMW at the time, as he was a midcarder then, but did have a high profile match with Terry Funk at the Kawasaki Stadium in 1997. After Atsushi Onita's ZEN group split, Mr. Gannosuke, Yukihiro Kanemura, and Hido formed Team No Respect with Fuyuki. This would become one of the most controversial and talked about armies in wrestling history, as they did some things that would make even the WWF's creative department blush. Fuyuki was also rising to power backstage in FMW, and on 5/5/99 he truly took over, giving the once gritty hardcore promotion a motto of "Entertainment Wrestling". Fuyuki stressed American-style production and storylines, but with Japanese-style wrestling, like that of Hayabusa and Masato Tanaka. This direction didn't work in the long run, and a range of bad circumstances, including Hayabusa being paralyzed, led to the bankruptcy of the company. A close friend of Fuyuki and FMW founder, Shoichi Arai, took his own life shortly after FMW's collapse, while Mr. Gannosuke broke his ankle a while before FMW collapsed, and it almost seemed like the company was cursed. Fuyuki, though, came out of it alright and formed WEW, which was similar to what "his" FMW had been like. Fuyuki contracted cancer early in 2002, and had an abrupt retirement show set up by his friend, NOAH's Mitsuharu Misawa. The cancer went into remission, and he continued promoting WEW shows, with plans to come out of retirement. Then, suddenly the cancer re-emerged, and spread into his liver. Fuyuki took such a calm approach about this with the press that some people doubted the legitimacy of it. It turns out Fuyuki was just putting on a brave face, and privately fighting the cancer. Wrestlers have already spoken out about this tragedy, including Shiro Koshinaka, who Fuyuki had a big feud with in the 1990's, Nobutaka Araya, a former WAR wrestler, and Yoji Anjo, who had a high profile match with Fuyuki on New Japan's 1/4/96 Tokyo Dome convention.

 

Credit - SSS

 

This is very sad news, although not unexpected. He'd been ill for some time. At least he's not in pain anymore. RIP Fuyuki.