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89-697: An "outlaw" wrestling promotion in the 1980s, International World Class Championship Wrestling held interpromotional events with the Puerto Rican-based World Wrestling Council , the American Wrestling Association and World Class Championship Wrestling . Many of its former roster would later find success in the World Wrestling Federation , World Championship Wrestling , Extreme Championship Wrestling and elsewhere during

178-571: A booker for ICW) as well as top stars Blackjack Mulligan , Mark Lewin , Austin Idol and Bruiser Brody . ICW also had a history of working with the American Wrestling Association , promoting joint cards in New England as well as AWA talent appearing on ICW shows from time to time. The ICW would expand beyond New England and produced cards in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York State. In

267-634: A lumberjack match on December 20 and would continue to use this alternative character on several occasions. Onita lost the Brass Knuckles Heavyweight Championship to Mr. Pogo's alter ego "Pogo Daiyo" on January 21, 1995. On February 24, Onita and his pupil Mr. Gannosuke defeated Pogo and The Gladiator to win the Brass Knuckles Tag Team Championship. They lost the title to Pogo and W*ING Kanemura on March 7. Speculation arose over

356-555: A no rope barbed wire electrified dynamite land mine time bomb death match , which stipulated that if Onita lost, he must retire and if Kanemura lost then W*ING Alliance would be forced to disband. Onita defeated Kanemura, forcing W*ING to disband. Onita became upset at the W*ING Alliance members Kanemura, Hideki Hosaka and Hido , who were upset as no group would accept them and he became enraged at FMW leaders Hayabusa , Koji Nakagawa and Masato Tanaka on their leadership of

445-495: A weapons deathmatch . On August 21, Onita formed a group called Team Zero with Kuroda, Hosaka, Yoshinori Sasaki and Mr. Pogo #2 and the group feuded with TNR throughout the fall of 1998. Onita's former rival Mr. Pogo returned to FMW and the two feuded with each other, with Onita defeating Pogo in a match on November 20 to end their rivalry in FMW once and for all. This would be Onita's last match and last appearance in FMW as he left

534-509: A Japanese independent promotion . Onita sold FMW to Shoichi Arai and retired from wrestling in 1995 to pursue an acting career, which was unsuccessful, forcing him to return as a wrestler in 1996. After returning to FMW, he led stables ZEN and Team Zero but departed the company in 1998 after disagreements over his position in the company. He held the FMW Brass Knuckles Heavyweight Championship

623-640: A Six-Man Tag Team Tournament. On July 31, Onita teamed with Mitsuhiro Matsunaga to defeat Mr. Pogo and Hisakatsu Oya to win the Brass Knuckles Tag Team Championship . Around the same time, Onita renewed his feud with Masashi Aoyagi, who had returned to FMW and attacked Onita after a match. Their rivalry culminated in a no ropes electrified explosive barbed wire barricade double hell match at Summer Spectacular , which Onita won. Onita defeated Mr. Pogo to win his sixth Brass Knuckles Heavyweight Championship on September 7. After

712-404: A few appearances for New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), in 1999, establishing himself as a heel, since he was a FMW employee, the crowd would not accept him on a NJPW ring, which prompted him to gain a lot of heat. During that time, he would cut promos insulting his interviewers (such as spitting water in their faces, physically assaulting and threatening them) and future targets. On January 4, during

801-652: A few weeks after him. He was known as a loyal ring attendant to AJPW promoter Giant Baba , who had accepted him into the dojo despite not having graduated from high school. In the late 1970s and the early 1980s, he and Fuchi toured Memphis, Tennessee , winning the AWA Southern Tag Team titles three times. When the junior heavyweight wrestling boom started in Japan, originally in New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) under Tatsumi Fujinami and

890-730: A former IWCCW Light Heavyweight Champion who had been wrestling in the promotion as The Tasmaniac , agreed to appear at an IWCCW taping in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1990. However, after a disagreement between him and promoters Mario and Tom Savoldi, he left the promotion and eventually began competing in Eastern Championship Wrestling during the early 1990s. Val Puccio had a brief run in ECW as “Big” Val Puccio. Dudley Family member Dances with Dudley worked in IWCCW as

979-663: A hiatus as he was unhappy with his position in the company. He made an appearance for FMW's working partner Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) on June 26 by costing The Sandman and Tommy Dreamer , a match against Dudley Boyz to set up a no ropes exploding barbed wire deathmatch against Sandman in ECW but the match never took place as Onita returned to FMW on July 20 to rescue Shoichi Arai from an assault by Team No Respect. At Atsushi Onita Presents Liar, Liar on August 11, Onita released his former ZEN teammates Hideki Hosaka and Tetsuhiro Kuroda from Team No Respect's slavery and saved Shoichi Arai's job as FMW President by defeating TNR in

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1068-517: A member of the “Sioux War Party” known as Dancing Wolf. Another Dudley Family member, Big Dick Dudley , also worked in IWCCW under the gimmick “Alexander the Great” IWCCW mainstay Mondo Kleen is one of the few stars to be signed by the World Wrestling Federation directly. Mondo was repackaged as "Damien Demento” in the WWF. Another ECW star who got his start in IWCCW was Tommy Dreamer who briefly

1157-491: A potential takeover of a territory. This was not always the case, however, as some promotions freely cooperated with the NWA promoters (e.g. National Wrestling Federation ) while others operated in areas where there was not an established NWA presence. Upon its acrimonious exit from the NWA in summer 1983, the World Wrestling Federation became, in effect, an outlaw promotion. Longtime NWA members, such as Jim Crockett Promotions ,

1246-560: A record seven times and headlined the first six editions of FMW's premier Anniversary Show event from 1989 to 1995. Onita was the first true graduate of the All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW) dojo ( Jumbo Tsuruta had debuted first, but he had trained in Amarillo, Texas , with Dory Funk Jr. and Terry Funk ), debuting on April 14, 1974. In his early days he teamed with dojo classmate Masanobu Fuchi , who debuted only

1335-528: A result, Onita reverted to being face along with ZEN. ZEN began feuding with the newly formed Team No Respect , which evolved from legitimate heat between Onita and Kodo Fuyuki , who was getting a lot of influence and booking power in the company. Onita wanted to return FMW to its old deathmatch style ideology while Shoichi Arai and Kodo Fuyuki were toning down the deathmatch content. On February 13, Onita, Koji Nakagawa and Tetsuhiro Kuroda defeated TNR's Mr. Gannosuke, Yukihiro Kanemura and Jado to win

1424-456: A short period, he brought back his Great Nita persona, facing Keiji Mutoh's, The Great Muta in a No Rope Explosive Barbed Wire Barricade Explosive Land Mine match (also dubbed Double Hell Deathmatch ) on August 28, losing the match after Muta used Nita's kama to knock him down. One year later, he challenged Riki Choshu to a barbed wire deathmatch on July 30, 2000: Choshu accepted and came out of retirement to wrestle him. Choshu defeated Onita in

1513-584: A squash after launching him in the explosive barbed wires multiple times, and making him pass out while locking him in his finisher, the Sasori-Gatame. In 2001, he returned to AJPW for one night only, at the Tokyo Dome, to team with Terry Funk against Abdullah the Butcher and Giant Kimala. Whereas AJPW fans had already known Funk and Abdullah's willingness to brawl, Onita also played a huge part in

1602-570: A street fight. During this time, Onita also quietly ended his feud with W*ING Alliance as the group joined him in his feud with the Funk Masters of Wrestling. At the 8th Anniversary Show , the team of Onita, Masato Tanaka and W*ING Kanemura defeated Terry Funk, Cactus Jack and The Gladiator in a Texas Tornado Street Fight Deathmatch. Onita headlined the Fall Spectacular event on September 28, 1997, against W*ING Kanemura in

1691-468: Is a list of outlaw wrestling promotions in the United States , sorted by regional area , from the 1940s to 1980s. This list does not include pre-1948 groups active during the " Pioneer Era " (1900s–1940s), overseas promotions outside the NWA remit from this period or modern-day " indy promotions ". Outlaw promotions are traditionally defined as professional wrestling promotions not affiliated with

1780-503: Is a Japanese actor, politician, and semi-retired professional wrestler . He is best known for his work in Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW) and is credited with introducing the deathmatch style of professional wrestling to Japan . He is a former All Asia Tag Team Champions alongside Yoshitatsu . Onita founded FMW in 1989, defeating martial artist Masashi Aoyagi under his own martial arts rules in

1869-705: The Barbed Wire Deathmatch Tournament . During this time, Mr. Pogo left FMW and Tarzan Goto turned on Onita once again to renew their feud and became Onita's arch rival. Onita defeated Goto in the first-ever no rope exploding barbed wire steel cage deathmatch at the very successful 2nd Anniversary Show on September 23 at the Kawasaki Stadium in Kawasaki , which would become the venue for FMW's major events in future. Onita and Goto reunited once again and they participated in

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1958-615: The Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW) banner titled Grudge in Nagoya and Grudge in Tokyo in October and headlined both shows against Aoyagi. He lost to Aoyagi at Grudge in Nagoya and defeated him at Grudge in Tokyo . Onita shortly after developed FMW into a full-time promotion, originally basing it around shoot style matches before transitioning the company into being Japan's first death match promotion – taking inspiration from

2047-573: The National Wrestling Alliance , not recognizing the NWA World Heavyweight Championship and promoting shows in direct competition against NWA regional territories . Wrestlers who had been blackballed from the sport or were winding down their career often found a home with such promotions. These groups were often short-lived as NWA promoters would receive top stars from other members to prevent

2136-598: The Street Fight Tournament with former rival Grigory Verichev on December 7. He ended his feud with The Sheik by defeating him for the United States Championship on January 18, 1993; Onita later returned the belt to Sheik saying that Sheik deserved the title for holding it for over a decade. This earned him Sheik's respect and both men ended their feud and became allies. Onita's success streak continued as he defeated Terry Funk in

2225-471: The Summer Spectacular show on August 22. Onita successfully defended the title against W*ING's former ace Mitsuhiro Matsunaga in a no ropes exploding barbed wire deathmatch at Year End Spectacular , and then the two men became allies to feud with Mr. Pogo and his entourage. On January 6, 1994, Onita lost the Brass Knuckles Heavyweight Championship to Mr. Pogo in a street fight. After losing

2314-738: The Universal Wrestling Federation and World Class Championship Wrestling , left the organization in order to compete with the WWF during the 1980s wrestling boom . The collapse of the NWA territory system at the end of the decade, the result of the WWF's national expansion, subsequently saw outlaw promotions being replaced by the emerging independent wrestling circuit in North America. Atsushi Onita Mid 20th Century 1970s and 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s and 2020s Atsushi Onita ( 大仁田 厚 , Ōnita Atsushi , born October 25, 1957)

2403-621: The WCCW Texas Title and appeared in several promos with the belt to announce the merger of the two federations. Kevin was billed as the “World Class” champion. The idea was that down the road the two champions (Tony Atlas and Kevin Von Erich) would meet to create an IWCCW title. Kevin appeared a couple of times in New England, wrestling at 2 or 3 TV tapings. He participated in a memorable interview with wrestler Tony Rumble , aka The Boston Bad Boy . During that interview, Rumble berated

2492-846: The WWC Universal Heavyweight Championship and the WWC Tag Team Championship as the top championships in the promotion. The titles were never clearly named as “WWC” titles on ICW television, nor were they presented as being owned by ICW. On February 27, 1985, Dory Funk, Jr. defeated Carlos Colón for the WWC Universal Heavyweight Title in Bangor, Maine . It marked the first time that the WWC Universal Title changed hands outside of Puerto Rico. During

2581-491: The World Street Fight 6-Man Tag Team Championship . On October 19, Onita and Yukihiro Kanemura defeated Mr. Gannosuke and Hisakatsu Oya to win the Brass Knuckles Tag Team Championship . Funk Masters of Wrestling came to an end as its leader Terry Funk left FMW, while the remaining members Mr. Gannosuke, Hisakatsu Oya and The Gladiator joined ZEN, which had now become the main villainous group in FMW against

2670-491: The World's Strongest Tag Team Tournament , which they won by defeating Grigory Verichev and Koba Krutanize in the final on December 9 to win the inaugural WWA World Martial Arts Tag Team Championship . FMW phased away the martial arts style and emphasized on the deathmatch wrestling as its key feature during this time. Onita lost his World Martial Arts Heavyweight Championship to Big Titan on January 15, 1992. Onita and Goto lost

2759-607: The Wrestling World Tokyo Dome event, he faced Kensuke Sasaki , losing by disqualification after throwing a fireball to Sasaki's face. Then on April 10, he wrestled Masahiro Chono on a No-Rope Explosive Barbed-Wire Death Match, ending in no-contest after both Chono and Onita were knocked out. Shortly after that, Onita allied himself with Chono and his Team 2000 faction against the nWo Japan . On July 21, he, Chono and AKIRA defeated nWo Japan's Hiro Saito , Hiroyoshi Tenzan and their leader, Keiji Mutoh . For

International World Class Championship Wrestling - Misplaced Pages Continue

2848-548: The shoot style promotion Universal Wrestling Federation (UWF) but his challenge was rejected and he responded by taking on martial artist Masashi Aoyagi in a ( worked ) martial arts fight for the World Karate Association (WKA) on July 2, 1989, during which Onita was disqualified for using wrestling moves on Aoyagi. In the aftermath of his fight for the WKA, Onita personally promoted two wrestling shows under

2937-543: The 100th All Asia Tag Team Champions . Two days later, Onita announced he was planning to retire from professional wrestling at a special event at Kawasaki Stadium in October 2017. On May 10, 2017, Onita announced his retirement tour, which would conclude with his final match on October 31. Onita's plans for Kawasaki Stadium had fallen through and his final match would instead take place at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo. Onita claimed that this, his seventh retirement, would be his "true" retirement. On June 20, Onita and Fuchi lost

3026-589: The 1990s. Originally known as International Championship Wrestling (not to be confused with the similarly named ICW promotion run by Angelo Poffo between 1978 and 1984, or the ICW promotion run by George and Gil Culkin from 1977 to 1979), the promotion started holding events the Boston area sometime around 1984 or 1985. Initially ICW was affiliated with the Puerto Rico -based World Wrestling Council , recognizing

3115-661: The All Asia Tag Team Championship back to Aoki and Sato. Onita's retirement tour also took him to the United States, where he worked for Combat Zone Wrestling (CZW) on August 5. Prior to his actual retirement, Onita retired the Great Nita character on August 27. On October 31, Onita's retirement took place in a six-man barbed wire match, where he teamed with Kai and Shingo Takagi to defeat Nosawa Rongai , Kazuyuki Fujita and Kendo Kashin by pinning Rongai. However, Onita came out of retirement,

3204-510: The Billion Dollar Babies, leaving many of its titles vacant. IWCCW began to decline as its events were held irregularly throughout 1994 and early 1995. Despite a short lived revival in 1995 that saw former WWF stars such as Tito Santana and Koko B. Ware hold the IWCCW title, the promotion folded in the latter part of 1995. Mario Savoldi kept promoting cards in the New England area after the demise of ICW/IWCCW. In 1999 Savoldi

3293-429: The Brass Knuckles Heavyweight Championship against Goto in the first-ever no ropes exploding barbed wire deathmatch at Summer Spectacular . After the match, Onita and Goto ended their feud by embracing each other and putting away their differences and then Onita began a legendary rivalry against Mr. Pogo, with Onita defeating Pogo in the first singles encounter in a street fight on August 25. Onita successfully defended

3382-517: The Brass Knuckles Heavyweight Championship against Pogo in a Texas Deathmatch at 1st Anniversary Show . Onita lost the Brass Knuckles Heavyweight Championship to Grigory Verichev on February 27, 1991. Onita unsuccessfully challenged Verichev for the title in a rematch on May 5 and then received another title shot on May 29, where Onita defeated Verichev to regain the renamed World Martial Arts Heavyweight Championship. On August 17, Onita defeated Jimmy Backlund , Ricky Fuji and Sambo Asako to win

3471-622: The FMW name with another promotion (called Onita FMW since he did not own the rights to the FMW name), but the promotion would fold after only three months. Onita would retire once again on September 23, 2003, losing a death match to The Great Sasuke , but this would not last long. Onita fought yet another retirement match on March 26, 2005, being pinned by Genichiro Tenryu . This also would be disregarded, as he would come out of retirement in May 2008 and would begin promoting his own cards again in July. In

3560-630: The FMW team led by Hayabusa. Onita and Kanemura were stripped of the Brass Knuckles Tag Team Championship in November due to Onita's inactivity and ZEN also lost the World Street Fight 6-Man Tag Team Championship to Hayabusa, Hisakatsu Oya and Masato Tanaka during the Super Extreme Wrestling War tour. During this tour, Mr. Gannosuke and Yukihiro Kanemura, along with Hido, grew upset at Onita for booking himself in

3649-421: The FMW team. On September 30, Onita held a press conference in which he publicly denounced himself as a FMW wrestler and formed a New World Order (nWo)-themed faction ZEN with W*ING members and FMW wrestler Tetsuhiro Kuroda . As a result, Onita turned heel for the first and only time in FMW history. On October 14, the team of Onita, Hido and Kuroda defeated Hayabusa, Koji Nakagawa and Masato Tanaka to win

International World Class Championship Wrestling - Misplaced Pages Continue

3738-691: The USWA. Over the years ICW established a kind of “open door” policy, working with any federation or any individual competitor who was interested in working in the federation; this open door policy even saw the Japanese Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling Brass Knuckles Champion Atsushi Onita challenge the ICW Heavyweight champion Tony Atlas to a Title Vs Title Match. Onita lost the match by Disqualification to keep

3827-703: The United States. At the press conference for FMWE it was also announced that the first show would be held on July 4, 2021, at Tsurumi Fruit and Vegetable Market in Yokohama City. On October 31, 2021, in Trenton, NJ at the Trenton Thunder Ballpark, Onita stepped into the ring again with Matt Tremont to have an Exploding Barbed Wire Deathmatch. The match was promoted by FMWE and Tremont's H2O Wrestling. Though he originally dropped out of high school, Onita returned to finish his education when he

3916-521: The Von Erichs, and Kevin in return ran Rumble out of the studio when he signalled for the iron claw. Another World Class mainstay, Chris Adams, was to have been a part of IWCCW, but was not able to join the federation due to his legal troubles. After a short while Kevin Von Erich returned to Texas, effectively ending any plans to merge the two titles, but the name was kept. The IWCCW name lasted until

4005-607: The World Martial Arts Tag Team Championship to Sabu and Horace Boulder in a no ropes barbed wire street fight deathmatch on May 7. Onita regained the World Martial Arts Heavyweight Championship by defeating former boxing champion Leon Spinks in a cage match on May 24, which earned a rapid rise in popularity and stardom to Onita for having beaten a famous celebrity. A month later, Onita lost

4094-406: The World Street Fight 6-Man Tag Team Championship at ZEN's promoted show on May 5. Onita's team would lose after Nakagawa suffered an injury. Nakagawa continued to fake injury and would ultimately be revealed as the man responsible for breaking ZEN after he turned on Onita during a Brass Knuckles Tag Team Championship match against The New Footloose on May 31. After the breakup of ZEN, Onita took

4183-414: The World Street Fight 6-Man Tag Team Championship. Onita's rivalry with Fuyuki would lead to a match between the two at 9th Anniversary Show , which stipulated that Onita must disband ZEN if he lost. Onita lost the lumberjack match and was forced to disband ZEN but he said that he would break the group only if Kodo Fuyuki, Yukihiro Kanemura and Hido would beat Onita, Koji Nakagawa and Tetsuhiro Kuroda for

4272-577: The Year End Spectacular event, the FMW team of Onita, Pogo, Masato Tanaka and Tetsuhiro Kuroda defeated Funk Masters of Wrestling's Terry Funk , Hisakatsu Oya and The Headhunters in a Texas Tornado Street Fight Deathmatch . Onita had supposedly returned to the company for only one match until he began working part-time for the company on March 14, 1997, by teaming with Koji Nakagawa , Masato Tanaka and Tetsuhiro Kuroda to defeat The Headhunters , Hisakatsu Oya and The Gladiator in

4361-410: The children. This was all documented on film. Like fellow professional wrestler Scott Steiner , Onita has also claimed to have broken Wilt Chamberlain 's record of sleeping with 20,000 women. Coincidentally, his exit from politics was forced by a sex scandal in which he was alleged to have used government accommodations to host a threesome with a pornographic film actress and a female employee of

4450-459: The company after the match as Shoichi Arai refused to restore him as the promotion's ace due to Onita receiving backlash from FMW's roster due to his reputation as an egomaniac and selfish. He used the promotional names "USO" ( all caps version of the Japanese word for "lie"), "Jado" ("evil ways"; not to be confused with the wrestler of the same name ), "Onita Pro" and "Project X." Onita made

4539-601: The first time on January 17, 1990. Onita's first feud began in the summer of 1990 when Onita defeated Lee Gak-soo in a different style fight on May 19 and then the two showed respect to each other and teamed to defeat Mitsuteru Tokuda and Sambo Asako in a tag team match on June 2. Goto was irate at Onita for teaming with karate fighters and toning down professional wrestling and he brought in Mr. Pogo to FMW and Onita began feuding with Goto and Pogo. Onita defeated Goto in an empty arena match on June 24 and then successfully defended

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4628-550: The first-ever no ropes exploding barbed wire time bomb deathmatch at the 4th Anniversary Show on May 5. Onita renewed his rivalry with Mr. Pogo, who returned to FMW in the summer of 1993 and the World Martial Arts Heavyweight Championship was replaced with the FMW Brass Knuckles Heavyweight Championship. Onita defeated Pogo in a no ropes exploding barbed wire time bomb deathmatch to win the vacant Brass Knuckles Heavyweight Championship at

4717-469: The following year, on October 28, 2018, for Pro Wrestling A-Team. Onita fought Matt Tremont to a no-contest. Later, the latter wanted him to be his tag team partner against Masada and DJ Hyde. On May 6, 2021, Onita announced the formation of a new promotion that would focus on Explosion Matches. The promotion is called FMWE, and they plan to have events shown online for fans to see all over the world. Onita also hopes to finally bring real Explosion Matches to

4806-454: The group for the rest of his retirement tour. As a result, Onita and Matsunaga broke up as a team and vacated the Brass Knuckles Tag Team Championship in October. On December 1, Onita debuted his alter ego "The Great Nita", which was based and stylized on The Great Muta . The team of Nita and Tarzan Goto defeated Hisakatsu Oya and Mr. Pogo in a no ropes exploding barbed wire double hell deathmatch. Onita would return as Nita to defeat Pogo in

4895-449: The late 1980s and early 1990s, ICW cards occurred in towns like Harrisburgh, Middletown and Monticello, New York. This model was differentiated ICW from other regional federations, in that ICW was a very large territory that didn't have one town or city to act as its local base. So while the company had a presence in a wide area, it never got that strong local following of World Class, the PNW or

4984-431: The late 2000s and early 2010s, Onita kept on bringing Death Matches, (though mostly six-man affairs with Ichiro Yaguchi as one of his frequent partners), to promotions such as Osaka Pro Wrestling , Pro Wrestling Zero1 and Pro Wrestling NOAH . On December 12, 2014, he returned to AJPW to team with Fuchi and defeat the promotion's current junior standard bearers, Último Dragón and Yoshinobu Kanemaru . In April 2015, FMW

5073-428: The main event match on December 19 against Masato Tanaka instead of booking Gannosuke and Kanemura's match. This exploded when the team of Hayabusa, Jinsei Shinzaki and Masato Tanaka defeated Atsushi Onita, Mr. Gannosuke and Yukihiro Kanemura in a WarGames match on December 22. After the match, Gannosuke and Kanemura attacked Onita and quit ZEN, along with Hido and Koji Nakagawa joined Onita as ZEN's newest member. As

5162-440: The main event of the second night of the promotion 's inaugural event. FMW later emerged as a full-fledged touring organization, moving away from martial arts-inspired shoot style matches and moving toward the rasslin' -inspired deathmatch style – which became popular with Japanese fans. He was the promotion's top star, wrestling in main event matches at sold-out events, making FMW a financially successful company, particularly for

5251-427: The match, Onita vacated the title due to his retirement from wrestling to pursue an acting career. During this time, he starred in the movie Dan Gan (Japanese for "bullet"), which would later be adopted as the nickname for Onita's pupil, Masato Tanaka . Onita's acting career flopped and he ventured a return to wrestling. After a sabbatical (getting his high school diploma, as he had dropped out of high school when he

5340-612: The match, and his team emerged victorious. In 2002, following FMW's closure Onita appeared briefly in WEW, run by Hiromichi Fuyuki. The storyline saw Onita blaming Fuyuki's "Entertainment Pro Wrestling" business strategy and supposed embezzlement of money for causing FMW to close, and appeared to be paving the road to an eventual match between Onita and Fuyuki before Fuyuki abruptly announced his retirement due to cancer that would eventually claim his life in March 2003. Onita attempted to resurrect

5429-443: The match, former W*ING wrestler Yukihiro Kanemura made his FMW debut and attacked Onita to avenge the demise of W*ING. Mitsuhiro Matsunaga visited Kanemura at hospital as Kanemura was getting treated for some burns which he had suffered during a past match. Onita accused Matsunaga of turning on FMW and mistrusting his loyalty and this angered Matsunaga, who then joined Kanemura and Mr. Pogo to form W*ING Alliance and Onita feuded with

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5518-586: The money for their match against the Puerto Rican Army. Onita made his next appearance on October 28, where his former rival Mr. Pogo begged him to come out of retirement and team with him against the Funk Masters of Wrestling in Pogo's retirement match at Year End Spectacular . Onita initially rejected Pogo's request and then rescued Pogo from an assault by Funk Masters of Wrestling on November 26 and agreed to come out of his retirement to team with Pogo. At

5607-460: The new junior heavyweight ace of AJPW. On January 3, 1985, Onita retired for the first time due to accumulated injuries. After over three years recuperating from his injuries, Onita returned to the ring in December 1988 for Pioneer Senshi, an independent promotion , losing a martial arts –inspired bout to Ryuma Go . Following his return to the ring, Onita issued a challenge to the wrestlers of

5696-538: The original Tiger Mask , Satoru Sayama , Onita was picked as the ace of AJPW's makeshift junior heavyweight division. Baba was able to get Chavo Guerrero , who had been an early rival of Fujinami, to jump over to AJPW's side, and Guerrero brought the NWA International Junior Heavyweight Championship with him, effectively establishing it as AJPW's junior heavyweight cornerstone. Onita and Guerrero's subsequent feud over

5785-417: The past. On March 30, Great Nita lost to Pogo Daiyo in a lumberjack match. Mr. Pogo refused to be Onita's opponent at 6th Anniversary Show and then Takashi Ishikawa was finally selected as the ace until Hayabusa interrupted Onita at a press conference and volunteered to be his opponent at the event as Hayabusa had been convinced by Shoichi Arai , whom Onita had sold the company around this time. Hayabusa

5874-472: The person to succeed Onita as the promotion's ace. Mitsuhiro Matsunaga had been the original choice but citing that W*ING had failed with Matsunaga as the ace, Onita had to change the decision and give the spot to Tarzan Goto, who would be Onita's opponent in his retirement match at the 6th Anniversary Show. Goto left FMW and took away his pupils Mr. Gannosuke and Flying Kid Ichihara as he was upset for putting over Onita again after having done it so many times in

5963-515: The promotion closed down in 1995. A video series, All Star American Wrestling' was released during 1992 and 1993 which featured matches from IWCCW. In early 1993 however, many of its longtime veterans left the promotion to join the newly formed Century Wrestling Alliance (the present day NWA Cold Front ) promoted by former manager and booker Tony Rumble. Among those jumping to Rumble's promotion included then Heavyweight Champion Tony Atlas, Light heavyweight champion Joe Savoldi and Tag Team champions

6052-694: The promotion entered into a working agreement with Kevin Von Erich to use the World Class Championship Wrestling name. Von Erich had sold the WCCW territory to Jerry Jarrett and Jerry Lawler in 1989 but retained the rights to the World Class name (which is why Jarrett and Lawler created the United States Wrestling Association ). Since there was no real “home promotion” of WCCW the “merger”

6141-896: The rights to WCCW footage produced following its buyout by promoter Jerry Jarrett in 1988 and includes the video libraries of USWA Dallas , Wild West Wrestling and the Global Wrestling Federation , and IWCCW remains one of the few North American regional promotions whose collection is not owned by the World Wrestling Entertainment video library . During the late 1990s, the Savoldi family released several low cost DVD series including Classic Superstars of Wrestling which includes early matches from Steve Austin , Mick Foley and Booker T . IWCCW gave many future superstars their first breaks in wrestling and their first television exposure. The federation

6230-574: The same match for weeks in a row – Vic Steamboat’s title victory over Tony Atlas and Joe Savoldi beating the Tasmaniac for the IWCCW Lightheavyweight title were two of the matches that were shown repeatedly. IWCCW’s “Revolving door” policy often meant that events would be hyped on Television, but never actually happened in real life, the best example of this was an angle between ”Ravishing” Rick Rude and The Honky Tonk Man over who

6319-409: The scores and then Onita debuted his "Mr. Liar" character by saying that he was not going to retire immediately and that the retirement stipulation would take place a year later. Onita began his retirement tour which would conclude at the following year's 6th Anniversary Show . Onita reunited with Tenryu as the two teamed with Crusher Bam Bam Bigelow at WAR's 2nd Anniversary Show and the trio won

6408-528: The style of matches he had seen during his earlier stay in Memphis. Even as the deathmatch wrestling style become the main trademark of FMW, the promotion would continue to hold shoot style matches. Onita would bring in numerous karate and martial arts fighters to be part of the FMW roster in the early years of the promotion. The first street fight of FMW took place on December 4, in which Onita and Dick Murdoch defeated Jos LeDuc and Masanobu Kurisu. Onita

6497-575: The taped matches. Sometime in 1985 the working relation between ICW and WWC ended, which led to ICW creating both a Heavyweight and a tag-team title with their own names on them in 1985-86. These matches were initially taped in what appeared to be a high school gymnasium, with Lou Thesz and Les Thatcher providing color commentary. ICW next worked out another working relationship with Championship Wrestling from Florida which saw several Florida stars come to ICW such as Kevin Sullivan (who also acted as

6586-849: The time WWC and ICW had a working relationship talent from both federations travelled to the other federation to compete. The working relationship brought such superstars as Abdullah the Butcher , the Invaders and Hercules Ayala to the New England Area. Angelo Savoldi’s grandson ”Jumping” Joe Savoldi won the WWC Tag-Team Championship alongside Al Perez (known as the New York Rockers ) on January 6, 1985 when they beat Super Medico I and Black Gorman. During that period, these matches were shown on ICW television with Gordon Solie providing voice-over commentary to

6675-568: The title spanned three promotions (AJPW, Jim Crockett Promotions , and Empresa Mexicana de Lucha Libre ), and, while not as spectacular as NJPW's junior heavyweight division, provided a solid alternative to heavyweight-style wrestling for AJPW fans. Onita took a hiatus from wrestling due to injury in April 1983. He attempted a comeback in May 1984. His last match prior to his retirement occurred on December 2, 1984, against Mighty Inoue. He would be replaced by his former tag team partner Masanobu Fuchi as

6764-428: The title to The Sheik on June 25 because of an injury sustained from an attack by Tiger Jeet Singh before the match. Sheik would later reward the title to Singh. Onita lost to Singh in a jungle deathmatch on June 30, before defeating him in a no ropes exploding barbed wire deathmatch to win his fourth World Martial Arts Heavyweight Championship at the 3rd Anniversary Show . Onita continued his success by winning

6853-432: The title, Onita began his next feud with Genichiro Tenryu after the team of Onita and Tarzan Goto defeated Tenryu and Ashura Hara at Wrestling and Romance 's Revolution Rumble when Onita pinned Tenryu. Onita and Tenryu competed in a no ropes exploding barbed wire deathmatch at 5th Anniversary Show on May 5, which stipulated that if Onita lost, he must retire from professional wrestling. Tenryu defeated Onita to even

6942-499: The titles separate. Around 1989–90 ICW began using more “kid oriented” gimmicks like “Super Duper Mario” (a wrestling version of Super Mario ) as well as Curly Moe , the Equalizers: Zip, Zap and Zoom and even had a “Teen Report” segment hosted by kids. Paul E. Dangerously , after being fired from WCW , went to work for the company as a writer, but was fired on his first day in the middle of his first TV taping. In 1991,

7031-446: Was 16), Onita made a surprise return to FMW on March 15, 1996, along with his former rivals W*ING Alliance to rescue FMW's team from an attack by the Puerto Rican Army. He convinced the FMW wrestlers to challenge Puerto Rican Army at the 7th Anniversary Show and announced that he would be present in the crowd at the event. He also sold off his jacket that he wore for his retirement match at the 6th Anniversary Show to assist FMW team get

7120-678: Was again resurrected with Onita as its central wrestler. On July 11, 2016, Onita announced the foundation of a new promotion named Fire Puroresu, which was set to hold its first show on August 26. On July 24, Onita fractured his right arm in a match, where he lost the Bakuha-ō Championship to Masakatsu Funaki , putting his participation in Fire Puroresu's inaugural event at risk. On November 27, 2016, Onita returned to All Japan, where he and fellow first class graduate Masanobu Fuchi defeated Atsushi Aoki and Hikaru Sato to become

7209-656: Was even seen on Satellite channels in the United Kingdom . The ICW shows usually featured a combination of original ICW/IWCCW footage and repeats of footage from other territories such as WWC, Florida Wrestling, Memphis , the National Wrestling Alliance and vintage footage of the World Wrestling Federation . During its existence, the first over-the-air video music channel V66 added the syndicated show to daily rotation Monday through Friday at 7pm. From around 1990 and on ICW Television often repeated old ICW matches, sometimes presenting them as brand new, other times repeating

7298-679: Was featured as the company's main star and the top fan favorite and headlined every show. His first Barbed Wire Deathmatch took place at Battle Creation as he teamed with Tarzan Goto to defeat Jerry Blayman and Mitsuhiro Matsunaga . After being eliminated by his frequent ally Tarzan Goto from the Battle Resistance tournament , Onita defeated Beast the Barbarian to win the WWA World Brass Knuckles Heavyweight Championship for

7387-573: Was in his late thirties. In 2001, he won the 19th House of Councilors election as a representative of the Liberal Democratic Party , following Antonio Inoki and Hiroshi Hase to a seat in the Japanese Diet . One of his first major acts in office was to launch a post- 9/11 humanitarian mission to Afghanistan , where he performed professional wrestling matches in crudely constructed rings made of sticks and rope, to benefit

7476-590: Was in many ways the breeding ground for future Eastern Championship Wrestling (later “Extreme Championship Wrestling”) performers due to the fact that Paul Heyman worked for the company as head booker in late 1989 and early 1990 and got to know quite a few of the people involved, such as Rocco Rock and Johnny Grunge who both competed in IWCCW under different gimmicks. Rocco Rock was a masked high flier known as “The Cheetah Kid” while Johnny Grunge worked both as “Johnny Rotten” and “Equalizer Zap”. Heyman would repackage both men as The Public Enemy . Peter Senerchia ,

7565-477: Was involved in a promotion called Ultimate Professional Wrestling (not to be mistaken for Ultimate Pro Wrestling) which continued IWCCW’s tradition of mixing current wrestling with classic matches on their TV shows. UPW's website claims to be a direct continuation of ICW. Despite being a small promotion that mainly toured in the New England area ICW/IWCCW had a nationally syndicated show from its inception. The show, simply called International Championship Wrestling

7654-526: Was only really felt in ICW and mainly as a way to re-brand the federation so that it did not have the same name as Angelo Poffo’s old ICW territory. Due to this working agreement, ICW changed the name of the promotion to International World Class Championship Wrestling (IWCCW), using the same opening sequence as WCCW did in the 1980s, with Earth from the Apollo 16 mission in the background. Kevin Von Erich had won

7743-505: Was the best Intercontinental Champion of all time. Vignettes were aired for months on end, but neither Rude nor the Honky Tonk Man ever worked in an ICW ring to settle the issue. However, after quite a number of years, the owners of the IWCCW footage released this very match, long rumored to have never taken place, via their streaming service called Ultimate Classic Wrestling Network In addition to its television series, IWCCW owns

7832-532: Was the promotion's World Champion. This led to a very awkward moment for Dreamer who was briefly working as a pizza deliveryman. According to Dreamer (interviewed in WWE Magazine), he delivered some food to a person's house, who just so happened to be watching Dreamer win the IWCCW title on TV at the same time. Dreamer had to very quickly assert that he wasn't, in fact, himself, so as not to break kayfabe . List of outlaw wrestling promotions This

7921-428: Was ultimately selected to be Onita's opponent in his retirement match. Just one day shy of his retirement match, Onita defeated Pogo in a barbed wire double hell deathmatch to win his record-setting seventh and final Brass Knuckles Heavyweight Championship on May 4. The following night at the 6th Anniversary Show, Onita successfully defended the title against Hayabusa in a no ropes exploding barbed wire deathmatch. After

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