The End?

As usual, this isn't how I want to end things for the time being. But for one reason or another, I keep putting off the inevitable.

For the five or six people who still subscribe to my mailing list, and to the even fewer who frequented my blog, it's been pretty clear that my heart hasn't been in FURY for most of the year. Since 2002, I've always been able to find time to work on FURY, even if it meant falling behind six months at a time. But this year, for many reasons I won't bore you with, I haven't been able to devote the time and focus on FURY... However, the bottom line is yes... I am burnt out.

Earlier this year, I had started thinking a lot about my future... I wondered how much I had left to give in FURY. Honestly, I had grown complacent with a lot of the guys on the roster, along with the roster alignments... It wasn't only recently with the RAGNAROK formation that I tried spicing it up (to some success.) In addition, I didn't really know how many stories there were left to tell. I eventually came to the conclusion that FURY would close. I originally aimed for 2012 to coincide with FURY's 10th anniversary. Say what you want about this hobby, but I really wanted to hit that milestone. However, as the last few months have gone by, I've yet again fallen behind.

In recent weeks, I've been planning on coming back... However, earlier in November, I decided I would close FURY (at least in its current form) by the end of 2010 and move onto a new foray into E-Puro. Despite coming to this conclusion, I still wanted to catch up, in order to give FURY a proper end on 12/21/2010... But for several reasons I won't go into, least of which being a lack of motivation, I was hadn't spent much time catching up going into 12/21, which brings me to today...

As of this posting, Pro-Wrestling FURY as it currently is no longer exists. For the sake of continuity and realism, I'm going to keep the group alive in name only, and I may even post results now and then... However, it's no longer my priority. In fact, I wanna hurry and get this out of the way, so without further a due, I give you the final six months of Pro-Wrestling FURY:

June: June was largely a holding pattern for the J1-MAX League, with a continuation of most of the story lines coming out of 5.31.

Manabe Tsuji became the #1 contender to Fukuda's F-MAX Unified Heavyweight title by defeating Fukuda's fellow REAL-ONE comrade, Kenichiro Hujikawa. However, despite Tsuji being the #1 contender, Tetsuhisa NAKAI (leader of RAGNAROK) took it upon himself to speak for Tsuji, often antagonizing Naoki Fukuda personally.

An all-out war between REAL-ONE and RAGNAROK was sparked on Hiroaki Nakata's “BREAK BLOW ~ Premium Vol. 2” event on 6.10, after REAL-ONE thwarted RAGNAROK from cheating their way to victory over Pro-Wrestling CRIMSON's Kenjiro Amagawa and Shinsuke Takahashi in a bout to determine the next team to challenge for the F-MAX Tag Team titles. Both sides would continue their feud leading into July...

6.10 also saw the departure of Hiroaki Nakata, who after a recent slump had decided to leave Japan to order to restructure himself. In his final match on Japanese soil, Nakata challenged his “little brother,” Yoshihiro Shimoda. It was clear from the start that Nakata had no fight in him, as he even refused to wrestle Shimoda in his ring clothes, but rather track pants and a BREAK BLOW T-Shirt. Shimoda drew irate at what he deemed to be a complete sign of disrespect, prompting him to SAVAGELY bombard Nakata with knees and palms, sending Nakata collapsing in the corner. Within minutes of the bell sounding, the match was over, with Nakata nearly unconscious. Shimoda further tore into Nakata, saying that while Nakata was somebody he admired and looked up in the dojo, Nakata today represented the type of person he despised most: someone who loses all confidence whenever they falter. In one final show of frustration, Shimoda walked over to Nakata' before tearing his shirt from his body and screaming, “YOU ARE NOT MY SENPAI ANYMORE, YOU DOG!” before delivering a HARD stomp to the face! After Shimoda left to deafening jeers from the normally respectful Korakuen crowd, Nakata began pleading with the fans to stop booing, saying Shimoda was ultimately right. With blood streaming from his bottom lip, Nakata thanked Shimoda for “kicking some sense” into him, which gave the fans the impression that Nakata was sticking around... However, Nakata said that he was still leaving Japan. “However,” Nakata said, “...Now, my goal is to make it back under the lights of Korakuen Hall!”

Nobu Uchida (formally Nobusan) also formally joined FURY on 6.13 in Fukushima. Despite no longer being apart of FURY, nor being a freelance representative of RAGNAROK, Uchida made his presence felt on FURY's 6.07 Korakuen event after coming to the aid of his former rival, Jet Jaguar! After a heartfelt appeal from Jaguar, Uchida agreed to team with he and Masato Osagawa to face RAGNAROK on 6.10, where Uchida exacted revenge on the man who personally expelled him from RAGNAROK, Kyoto Okazaki. After admitting how good it felt to spike Okazaki on his skull (he admitted he had wanted to do it for years...), Uchida finally agreed to return to FURY. However this time, he asked for an official “Nobu Uchida Debut Match” to bring his career full circle. Through out the rest of the month, Nobu would continue to be plagued by Okazaki's medling.

July: The J1-MAX League was meant to be a “return to form” for FURY AND myself, as the event is the only real thing in FURY I've never skipped on until this year. As usual, it was filled with FURY's top juniors, in addition to outside participants PHEONIX and Akahito Yamada from CRIMSON, along with former Nansei wrestler Wataru Yamada.

Yoshihiro Shimoda dominated the B Block, suffering just one loss during his trials. Unfortunately, that one loss was to Hidaka Kamon, who was on Shimoda's heels to the semi finals after losing earlier in the tournament to Jet Jaguar. However, on the final night of group matches, Shimoda's friend and partner ATSUKA played spoiler in an incredible near 20-minute match.

While RAGNAROK interfered during the early going, referee Ed Sasaki managed to maintain order during the second half. Despite putting up a leveled up personance, nothing Kamon did could keep ATSUKA down, including the Shoushinjisatsu! Finally, near the brink of exhaustion, in addition to the approaching time limit, Kamon went for yet another Shoushinjisatsu; this time with even more height and speed than before... Unfortunately for him, ATSUKA managed to hurk his shoulder up just enough to roll out of the way, sending the back of Kamon's skull SMACKING into the canvas. With the air, and senses knocked out of him, Kamon was easy pray for ATSUKA's jackknife cradle, giving him the victory! By virtue of the result, Shimoda was cemented as the winner of the block, guaranteeing his slot in the semi finals.

However, luck would intervene for Kamon, who managed to garner passage to the semis as a runner up after Jet Jaguar (who beat Kamon earlier in the tournament) was forced to withdraw from the tournament after suffering an arm injury.

In the A Block, Kotaro Ota struggled early on, only to fight tooth-and-nail to get to the semis. Ota faltered early on, losing to CRIMSON's Akahito Yamada, and his own SPEED STAR partner Fumihiko Shirai a night later. After some words of encouragement from Shirai (in addition to a slice of Shirai's watermelon,) Ota rebounded by winning his remaining group matches, climaxing with a hard-earned victory over Okazaki on the final group night.

The finals took place a night later in Korakuen. Kamon, despite finding his way into the semis by chance, fell to the red-hot Kotaro Ota, who wore brand new red and white ring pants. Kamon looked good, and came close to victory a couple of times. However, Ota proved to be one-step ahead when it counted. The other semi final between Yoshihiro Shimoda and A Block runner up Shigeru Iwasaki was a much more hostile encounter. The two traded heavy slaps and kicks early on; one of which busted Shimoda's bottom lip open. However, just as the pace started to slow down, Shimoda managed to counter Iwasaki's ill-timed Cross Knell attempt with the Sapporo Lancer. As Ed Sasaki jumped in to check the submission, Shimoda cradled Iwasaki's flailing leg, before grabbing the middle rope with his left hand! Sasaki was unable to see the blatant cheating, and counted Iwasaki's shoulders to the mat!

Despite being the shortest final in J1 history, Shimoda and Ota put on probably the best single match of the tournament. Early on, RAGNAROK made their pressence felt, with ATSUKA and Okazaki attacking whenever the opportunity presented itself.

Ota was however not just aided by his partner Shirai, but Nobu Uchida, who made an incredibly-timed run in towards the end of the match. After seeing Okazaki in the ring, Nobu sprinted in to cut him off PERFECTLY with the Skylark! With the fans rabidly jumping to their feet, Nobu was then able to thwart an ambush from Shimoda, before JARRING him with a wild palm strike; leaving Shimoda prone to Ota's Violent Spark! Ota pounced on Shimoda's body, sensing the win in hand. Shimoda however put up one last effort by kicking out just before three. From there, Shimoda could only watch as Ota caught him exactly on the chin with the sickening savate kick known as the “Satsugai!” Ota collapsed on Shimoda's body; grabbing ahold of Shimoda's right leg on the down. Korakuen erupted as Kotaro Ota became the very first person in the history of Pro-Wrestling FURY to win the J1-MAX League TWICE. Ota called his win a victory for the New Generation of FURY Juniors, and said the days of the “old guard” were over. Despite his injury, Jet Jaguar appeared and congratulated the tournament champion. Jaguar said that it's tradition that the J1-MAX Champion challenge the F-MAX Jr. Heavyweight Champion during the post-match interview. However, Jaguar said that he was breaking tradition, and issued the challenge himself, offering Ota his rightful crack at the F-MAX Jr. Heavyweight title. As if there was any doubt, the two agreed to hold their match in a building they've both had great success in: Ryogoku Kokugikan! The two promised to usher in a new era of Junior Heavyweight Pro-Wrestling.

From here, all roads led to “ERUPTION'11” in Ryogoku on 8.11.11. Despite some doubts, Pro-Wrestling FURY put on one of its strongest Ryogoku offering yet. In the main event, Naoki Fukuda aimed to make his next defense of the F-MAX Unified Heavyweight title after coming off a successful defense against Manabe Tsuji. His opponent on these date however would be Tetsuhisa NAKAI, who has been trying to lure Fukuda into the ring for over a month. NAKAI had gone above and beyond in antagonizing the champion, even going as far as to attack him in public (which has become something of a trademark for RAGNAROK, who embrace the “nomad” philosophy of the Nordic Vikings.) However, Fukuda would only agree to the match if NAKAI agreed to ban all seconds from the ring. NAKAI tried to talk his way out of it, but Fukuda was able to play off NAKAI's ego to convince him to agree.

The match was long and violent as expected. While not technically a “death match,” Referee Edd Sasaki gave both men as much leeway as he could allow, making way for weapon attacks and prolonged crowd fighting. NAKAI seemed to have the edge for most of it, thanks to having no issues with taking whatever short cut needed to stay one step ahead of the champion. However, Fukuda's Fighting Spirit continually fueled him through out, allowing him to give back just as much as NAKAI could dish out.

The closing moments were a paticular nailbiter, as both men teased nadare-shiki versions of their finishers. In the end, however, it was the heroic champion that won out, as Fukuda SPIKED NAKAI on his head with a nadare-shiki Mastodon Slam! Always stubborn however, NAKAI slowly rose to his feet, albeit with his head dangling from side-to-side. By this time, NAKAI had already scaled the top rope, where he caught NAKAI with a cross-body variation of the Mastodon Crash! Rather than going for the cover, Fukuda let up, before climbing to the top once more. After taking a moment to size NAKAI up, the champion finished him once and for all with one final Mastodon Crash to record his V4 defense.

Perhaps even more anticipated than the main event was the semi final, pitting F-MAX Jr. Heavyweight Champion Jet Jaguar against the J1-MAX Champion Kotaro Ota. Both men put on one of the most fast-paced matches FURY had ever seen, with both men pulling out all of the stops, and taking absolutely no breathers. Early on, the two pulled off several moves and counters that you would only see in an action movie. While maintaining his leveled up performance from the J1, Ota found himself struggling with the newly rehabbed Jaguar, who too had been impecable in recent weeks since returning from his injury. In the closing moments of the match, it appeared that Ota was within moments of winning the F-MAX Jr. Heavyweight title once again after catching Jaguar (after FIVE failed attempts) with the Satsugai! The seemingly invincible champion however fought on to spoil Ota's title aspirations with the nadare-shiki Fisherman Buster!

While it wasn't the result most fans expected, the Ryogoku crowd were elated with the efforts of both men. Ota accepted defeat graciously, praising Jaguar as the “Ultimate Champion.” However, with a confident grin on his face, Ota said he wouldn't let tonight discourage him, and vowed to be F-MAX Jr. Heavyweight Champion by the end of 2010!

That night also saw Naoyuki Watanabe and Norihiro Akashi face off in an important single's match. The two had been developing something of a rivalry in the weeks leading in, after Watanabe and Akashi both placed #1 and #2 respectively in a fanclub popularity poll. After weeks of arguing, Akira Takayoshi and Otsuo Kayusa both made the match for Ryogoku to determine the “#1 Superstar” in FURY. Unfortunately, the match was something of a disappointment, as Akashi had suffered an ankle injury a week prior in Osaka. Obviously, the injury hindered Akashi more than anything, allowing Watanabe to score the victory in the end.

The feud between Nobu Uchida and Kyoto Okazaki also came to a head on 8.11 in the form of a Hair match. In the end, Okazaki got what he had coming to him for weeks, after continually attacking FURY wrestler's hair (mostly Nobu's) with scissors, as Nobu spiked Okazaki with the nadare-shiki Brainbuster! Okazaki took his haircut less than well, as immediately fled the ring with his head under a towel...

FURY appeared to be stronger than ever following the night's main event, as the ring filled with every wrestler on the FURY wrestler. FURY's strength appeared even stronger as KAZUMA FUJITA made a shocking return to Japan admist the post-main celebration. Fujita's reasons for returning were oddly vague, as he gave no specific reason as to why he was no longer wrestling for DEFIANCE in the United States. He said his heart was with Japan and FURY, and vowed never to leave again. Despite an enthused crowd welcoming Fujita back with open arms, many wrestlers within FURY itself were less than excited.

The next big event on FURY's calender was 10.25; FURY's 8th Anniversary celebration. Here, Naoki Fukuda aimed to make his next defense of the F-MAX Unified Heavyweight title against Norihiro Akashi, who had come great lengths since 8.11, including gaining revenge over Watanabe to earn this title match. The bout was Akashi's most gifted performance yet, as he matched the champion blow-for-blow through out. However, even on this day, Akashi's best wasn't enough obtain victory... However, nor did it spell defeat, as both men fought to a one-hour time limit draw for the first time in an F-MAX Unified Heavyweight title match!

Earlier in the night however, history had been made as Pro-Wrestling CRIMSON's Hayato Saigo wrestled the F-MAX Jr. Heavyweight title from the waist of Jet Jaguar in an incredible interpromotional match. After the match, Saigo stated that he was proud to wear FURY's belt, but stated for clarity that he was still a representative of Pro-Wrestling CRIMSON. This prompted Saigo's friend and fellow SPEED STAR partner to step up and issue a challenge on behalf of FURY! However, he was cut off by not one, not two, but THREE other suitors: Hidaka Kamon, Nobu Uchida, and Manabe Tsuji (representing Kyoto Okazaki, who was too embarressed to come out...) In the end, a one-night tournament was decided for November.

10.25 also marked the Japanese return of HIROAKI NAKATA, fresh from his six-month sabatacle across the world. In the months prior, Nakata had shocked fans AND wrestlers across Japan by taking up full-contact Mixed Martial Arts while living in Las Vegas. While Nakata never competed as a “pro,” Nakata did score two amateur victories for himself; one by quick guillotine submission, and the other by BRUTAL flying knee knockout! Nakata's popularity swelled in Japan, as he would always tell Japanese reporters, “I am strengthening myself to strengthen Pro-Wrestling!” Nakata's new appearance stunned the Japanese fans, as the lush, boyish brown hair Nakata was known (and sometimes rediculed for...) was gone in favor of a skinhead.

However, Nakata was only the first half of an announced surprise, as FURY announced its “KING OF FURY Grand Prix” tournament for the following month. The tournament was set to replace the F-MAX Summit round robin tournament with a 16-Man single-elimination tournament. The change was met with a mixed reaction, but the concept was treated as something significant, and thus support followed.

As the K.O.F. Grand Prix came to pass, Hiroaki Nakata completed his revival in amazing fashion by capturing the Grand Prix trophy and crown. While he would cut through his first couple of opponents with ease, he would eventually encounter his old friend and rival, Akira Takayoshi. Despite pulling out counters to many of Nakata's moves, even Akira couldn't stop Nakata's new Santa Muerte knee strike to the face. Even with Akira behind him, the finals still lied ahead for Nakata, along with yet another opponent from his past, Tetsuhisa NAKAI! Nostalgia filled the air as Nakata and NAKAI set to face off in the annual November tournament. Shockingly, NAKAI fought a clean match through out, perhaps out of respect for his eternal rival. While NAKAI seemed to be on his way to victory early on, Nakata managed to dig deep, and fight back! In the end, Nakata used two consecutive Santa Muerte's to finally keep NAKAI down! A showdown between Nakata and F-MAX Unified Champion Naoki Fukuda was set for 12.21. While the match would go down as planned, the match would be cast into doubt weeks before the “FURY WORLD 2010” event as a bombshell was dropped.

On Tuesday, December 14, 2010, a press conference was called in Osaka by a number of the Pro-Wrestling FURY roster, spearheaded by Hiroaki Nakata, Tetsuhisa NAKAI, and Akira Takayoshi. Standing together in solidarity, the group announced that they were LEAVING Pro-Wrestling FURY after the end of the year. No official reason were given, other than generally saying it was time to move on.

Those who were present at the press conference were Nakata, NAKAI, Takayoshi, in addition to all of RAGNAROK and NEW FORCE. However, there were some rather important members of the FURY roster missing, including the F-MAX Unified Heavyweight Champion Naoki Fukuda, TAKU, Go Taniguchi, Otsuo Kayusa, Norihiro Akashi, Masafuji Yoshida, and Chikao Kessin.

The next day, the 12.21 event was thrown into chaos. First, it was announced that all of the wrestlers that had resigned would be removed from the card. Then, just 36 minutes later, a correction was sent out, stating that the card would go on as scheduled. However, the departing wrestlers were pulled from the three remaining cards before “FURY WORLD,” including an Osaka taping for Samurai TV. Because of which, the Osaka taping saw the shocking unannounced return to the ring of Kazuma Fujita, who faced Chikao Kessin in a 20-minute main event match. As if there was any doubt, Fujita eventually toppled the massive sumo with the Fujita Lariat... After the match, Fujita's words were met with a mixed reaction, as he labled the departing wrestlers as “pretenders,” and said that Pro-Wrestling FURY AND Kazuma Fujita would always be the standard for Japanese Pro-Wrestling.

“FURY WORLD” went on without any major hitches, fortunately. The show did extremely well; albeit thanks to the controversy surrounding the event, leading some to even speculate that the recent events were nothing more than publicity stunts. In the end, Fukuda vs. Nakata went on as planned, with the two putting on a stellar singles match for the F-MAX Unified Heavyweight title. The match had a unique atmosphere, as the FURY fans booed the “traitorious pretender” (as Fujita had dubbed them) from the moment his theme music played. Neither Nakata nor Fukuda played into the crowd much, aiming to have a match between men rather than as “face” and “heel.” Emotions were high between the two, as they pulled out all of the stops. In the end however, the “Unbreakable Champion” would retain his crown, guaranteeing that the F-MAX Unified title would stay within FURY.

Afterwards, Nakata, along with many of the departing wrestlers were briefly given time to address the fans. Nakata told the fans that he would always love Pro-Wrestling FURY and its fans. Akira and others shared that sentiment... Aside from NAKAI that is, who said by one word, “Later!”

Since 12.21, Pro-Wrestling FURY has been inactive while it undergoes what Kazuma Fujita is calling a “restructuring phase.” The departed wrestlers have also been keeping a low profile as of late while the heat surrounding their exit dies down. However, it's only a matter of time before their silence is broken...