Atsushi Onita And The Great Sasuke To Face Off In Exploding Barbed Wire Deathmatch In October
Atsushi Onita is set for a deathmatch with Great Sasuke next month.
Legendary deathmatch wrestler Atsushi Onita announced this week that he will wrestle fellow legend Great Sasuke in an Exploding Barbed Wire Deathmatch in the main event of an FMW-E show on October 25. The show is set to take place on Onita’s 69th birthday.
In a statement transcribed by Yahoo Japan, Onita expressed his desire to face The Great Sasuke again next month.
“Sasuke has been a pillar of the indie pro wrestling scene – a comrade, or perhaps an ally. Since I’m holding an event on my birthday, I wanted to face this man in the ring again. Sasuke! Let’s do this again after all this time!”
-Atsushi Onita
Onita and Sasuke have had a long history as both men have been critical to the health and growth of Japanese pro wrestling as a whole. Both men created the two most important early Japanese indies; Onita created the original FMW in 1989 and helped make it a sensation in Japan during the 1990s, and Sasuke made Michinoku Pro in 1993, which was the first pro wrestling company in Japan to not be based in Tokyo. They still run shows to this day.
Without Onita, we wouldn’t have seen famous wrestlers like Masato Tanaka, Hayabusa, or Super Delfin, and we probably would never have seen the hardcore style gain much prominence in the United States when it did. Without Sasuke, we wouldn’t have TAKA Michinoku and Tiger Mask IV, and junior heavyweight wrestling as a whole would be tremendously different.
So to see these two clash once again at their advanced ages, Onita at 69 and Sasuke at a spry 57, is historic. These two have had three singles matches in the past, twice in Michinoku Pro and once in ZERO1 of all places. All three matches have been death matches of some kind.
Their first match took place on October 30, 1994, in a “No Ropes Barbed Wire Time Bomb Exploding Landmine Double Hell Death Match”, which Onita won in 13:58. Nearly a decade later on September 23, 2003, the two would wrestle again, this time in a “No Ropes Barbed Wire Explosive Mine Board Death Match”, which Sasuke would win after 21:59. Finally, Onita would successfully defend his Blast King Title against Sasuke in what was also a rubber match at the time on May 15, 2016, in a “Barbed Wire Current Blast Bat & Street Fight Death”.
The event will take place at the Fujimj Park Center in Kawasaki, a city that means a whole lot to Onita’s storied career. He had multiple seismic matches at the Kawasaki Stadium during his peak as ace of the original FMW, including his industry changing “No Rope Barbed Wire Current Blast Super Large Time Bomb Death Match” against Terry Funk in 1993.
As always, we’ll aim to provide any further updates on Atsushi Onita vs The Great Sasuke next month as soon as we hear more.
