Masa Fuchi, Atsushi Onita & Tojo Yamamoto vs. Roy Rogers, Rick & Robert Gibson, 9/5/81 Options

[Phil Schneider]

Masa Fuchi, Atsushi Onita & Tojo Yamamoto vs. Roy Rogers, Rick & Robert Gibson (9/5/81)

[S.L.L.]

This was flawed, but I still enjoyed it a bunch. Roy Rogers is way better at making fried chicken than he is at wrestling. He throws perhaps the saddest looking bodyslam of all time in this match. But the Gibsons typically deliver, and the Japanese contingent's comedy stuff was fun. Loved the goofy martial arts duel they had going at the end. Match kept picking up steam as it went along, and ended just as it looked like it was going into overdrive, but them's the breaks.

[Bix]

FYI, Roy Rogers = Johnny Rich.

[clintthecrippler]

This isn't going to finish high for me, but I just want to add to the love for the match ending with Onita and Rick Gibson getting into a karate showdown. I absolutely did not expect that to happen. The match won't end high, but this is worth watching just for that moment.

[Shane]

Nothing really stands out from this match, but from what we've seen of him so far, I'm surprised that Rick Gibson was never a bigger name. He'd bleed buckets, had a really nice dropkick and I thought he was the best part of every match he's been involved in.

[Johnny Sorrow]

Nothing really stands out from this match, but from what we've seen of him so far, I'm surprised that Rick Gibson was never a bigger name. He'd bleed buckets, had a really nice dropkick and I thought he was the best part of every match he's been involved in.

In the early Eighties Rick Gibson was in a head on car wreck that ended his career. He's on the SMW Night of the Legends DVD in a bit where Tammy Sytch was handcuffed to him on the outside so she couldn't interefere, and he was walking with a cane.

[Stuttsy]

I've heard for years that Rick Gibson was pretty much incredible before the wreck so getting to see some of his work was a treat for me when I saw the listings. So far he hasn't disappointed but this is just a pretty pedestrian TV match for me.

[Shane]

Nothing really stands out from this match, but from what we've seen of him so far, I'm surprised that Rick Gibson was never a bigger name. He'd bleed buckets, had a really nice dropkick and I thought he was the best part of every match he's been involved in.

In the early Eighties Rick Gibson was in a head on car wreck that ended his career. He's on the SMW Night of the Legends DVD in a bit where Tammy Sytch was handcuffed to him on the outside so she couldn't interefere, and he was walking with a cane.

Ah, I've seen that show, but would have never put the two together. It's a shame, as he seemed to have a lot going for him.

[kjh]

With regards to Rick Gibson not being more of a star, I think his obituary in the Observer mentioned that he could have been a big star in the mid 70s in the young babyface idol role, but he didn't like working outside the South. IIRC he left midway through a run in California without any notice, where he was getting over, because he was homesick and afterwards stuck to working places like Alabama, Tennessee and Texas.

I thought the match itself didn't stand out from the TV pack, outside the cool karate showdown in the closing moments. Flashes of good stuff, but it never really went anywhere due to neither side keeping the momentum for longer than 90 seconds or at least so it seemed.

[EricR]

I was looking forward to Onita/Fuchi working as fish out of water AJ juniors stuck in Memphis. I was not expecting them to be southern comedy heels, or be so good at it. It was just so surreal to see Fuchi doing shit like distracting the ref to cheat or complain of tights pulling. My favorite part was when Fuchi stretched Rogers out of the top rope and just smacked him right in the balls. Completely prone, right in the balls. Roy didn't see it comin'. You can still see him holding his balls on the apron when Gibson and Onita did their karate stand-off. So it's good to see that Fuchi was an awesome dick 25+ years ago, too.


Eric

[Marcos]

Yeah glad to see Rick Gibson too. I'd previously only seen him do a quick angle in Mid South with the RnRs (I never knew he ever wrestled until hearing Corny talk about him) and in SMW. But Cornette has said on Wrestling Gold set I believe, that many thought Ricky and Robert Gibson was an even better combo than Ricky Morton with Robert Gibson. Sounds like an obvious exaggeration but it says something for Rick to even be compared by people who saw both in their primes. I also think that Ricky was a headliner as a singles star in the Gulas promotion and his brother, then known as Ruben, came into the business on his heels.

Anyway, I didn't like this match as much as I expected but it was a fun little tag. Really enjoying watching Fuchi, Onita, and Tojo, even though the first two are so green. Easy to see where Onita got his ideas for how to do FMW.

[martysugar]

This was a fun little "television time remaining" match, although Roy Rogers fucking suuuuuuuuuucked. You can call it a "half-nelson half-slam" all you want, but I am with SLL on this one: the saddest looking bodyslam of all time. It was a Grade-A piece of shit.

As for the match, it isn't going to rank very high, but as a whole it wasn't awful or anything. The showdown between Rick Gibson and Atsushi Onita at the end was very amusing, too.

[Hijo Del Parties]

The Onita-Rick Gibson standoff here is so awesome, both doing the over-the-top Shaw Bros. posedown, I’d have watched it a hundred more times in FMW. Why were the announcers saying time was running out on the first fall? Was this one of those matches where they’d do several non-sequential falls throughout the show?

[Tim Evans]

Well Roy Rogers was much better in Continental as the Intern. I enjoyed this match mostly because I LOVE Fuchi/Onita in Memphis. Especially Fuchi. I just wish there was more Rick Gibson footage avaiable. Between this and the Tupelo brawl with Farris/Latham, He's impressed me.

[EricR]

Just watched this one against last night. Seriously. RIGHT. in. the. balls. I would commend him for his Kikuchi-level of ball selling here, as he does the perfect "close-legged, slightly keeled over, nauseous" as good as Kikuchi gets over overall damage...except he had just been socked in the balls. Why was he punched right in the balls? We'll never know. But it's now on tape forever as one of the gnarliest ball shots in wrestling history. Did not even see it coming. And he acted like a pro. I don't ever need to see a Roy Rogers match that doesn't involve a Japanese junior stiffing him in the balls.


Eric