WARNING: STRONG VIOLENCE AHEAD

It’s spooky season once again. You know what that means. It’s time to dive into another 31 deadly, bloody, horrifying deathmatches as we go into the 3rd annual deathmatch calendar. As always, this will be a day-by-day calendar of gore as we break into some of the greatest, nastiest, and most infamous of deathmatches across the years culminating with my pick of the year so far at the number 31 spot. With the preamble out of the way, let’s see what is awaiting us in this year’s tour of wrestling terror.

So, this year we start with a rebirth. Atsushi Onita is one of the ultimate icons of deathmatch wrestling. He pioneered the Japanese deathmatch style and brought us one of the most popular companies of all time, FMW. That company was so monumental it shifted wrestling’s landscape and even got featured on Dark Side of the Ring. Well, on the 4th of July, he resurrected FMW and the explosive deathmatch style through FMW-E. The E stands for Explosion and Entertainment. With that, he set about showing off his brand of deathmatch for a new generation. This led us to the 4th of July Deathmatch extravaganza, the Deathmatch of Hell. A match feeling exploding barbed wire ropes, land mines, and the new horrifying contraption, the exploding table.

The actual match was as fun as you’d hope. It played out as a six-man brawl with Onita teaming with Minoru Fujita and Ricky Fuji against the dastardly team of Abdullah Kobayashi, Onryo, and Yuko Miyamoto. Despite the new company production woes this match stayed true to Onita’s vision and put the explosions on front and centre. Across its run time, we’d seen Onita and Abdullah Kobayashi crash into land mines and exploding barbed-wire, Minoru Fujita and Ricky Fuji brawl all around the venue with Yuko Miyamoto and Onryo, and the exploding table almost claim the life of Onryo. He even stated in post-match comments he felt dead after feeling the wrath of that weapon. This was all given an extra air of drama as the venue filled with smoke. It was a nightmare for production but a Silent Hill vibe deathmatch struck a chord with me, even if it was accidental.  This gets the first spot as a legendary company came back and that deserves to be commended. It also means I can start the calendar with a bang! Come back tomorrow for the next deathmatch delight.

the GREAT NITA spews his red mist and DDTs Abdullah Kobayashi into the EXPLODING BARBED-WIRE BOARDS #FMWE pic.twitter.com/Azx1pW1zUm

— Tripping Balls (@IsThisWrestling) July 4, 2021

All images courtesy of FMW-E, Tokyo Sports, Isthiswrestling