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ON ITS ANNIVERSARY, LOOKING AT THE GREATNESS OF THE BEST DEATH MATCH OF ALL TIME, TERRY FUNK VS. ATSUSHI ONITA - AND WHY IT STANDS IMMORTAL

For many, May 5th is Cinco del Mayo, but for me, I think of this date as the anniversary of one of the all-time greatest matches to ever take place, Atsushi Onita vs. Terry Funk for Frontier Martial Arts Wrestling at Kawasaki Stadium.

While I doubt I could truly write anything that hasn’t already been stated about the match, it serves as an important historical document for exactly what true drama and emotion can be for professional wrestling. 

All too often, Death Matches are dismissed as environments for those who can’t hack it as regular professional wrestlers and certainly, there are times where the weaponry used and the gore unleashed are the focus of such matches today, but in 1993, Funk vs. Onita was a beast of a different color and in many ways, has never been surpassed - and in my mind, likely never will.

The core essence of the match isn’t truly about the spectacle of exploding barbed wire so much as it is about fundamental pro wrestling storytelling taken to an extreme. The explosions certainly add an amazing visual flair, but what makes the match is that it is patterned very similarly to the best horror films.  In that genre, you don’t get to the monster or the gore right away if they are done right.  The suspense looms around you, building to the first tease of a jump scare, which is usually a red herring, before you go on the roller coaster of fright.

This match is as much about the teased suspense as much as the chaos.  Even when Funk and Onita lock up for the first time, the idea that they are surrounded by barbed wire makes the most basic wrestling sequence something dangerous.  They are not just two wrestlers grappling.  They are effectively two men trying to evade the equivalent of stepping on a land mine.  They tease sending each other into the electrified wire and when they save themselves, the hushes and the gasps from the Kawasaki Stadium audience are akin to someone witnessing two cars almost collide but at the last second, a miracle happens and everyone escapes without any damage.

Even the referee, pretty much clad in radiation protection gear to shield himself from the potential explosions, adds a dimension of fear and foreboding.  

Terry Funk has a master class here in emotions.  Whether he’s throwing punches or screaming at Onita, there is zero that is done just to do it.  He’s too old for this sh**, yet he’s elevating every moment. 

Certainly, the history between the two with Onita as Funk’s former protege helps set the stage for the story - it’s perfect exposition, but Funk’s ability to express himself through his physical movements and his ability to sell makes one believe in every moment of the match.

That emotion is matched by Onita’s intensity.  Whether it’s Onita screaming or crying, there is something that draws you in as a viewer, even if you don’t speak one word of Japanese. 

You truly get sucked into the personalities as much as you do the violence, and that’s the difference between this match and everything that has followed.  The hourglass in many ways has been flipped.  The chaos and the violence leads the way for much of the presentation for these types of bout, but this one was led by emotion. 

It’s the difference between Jaws, a truly scary movie that allows you to truly get to know the main characters before they plunge them into battle with a monstrous shark and just about every shark movie that has followed, where the spectacle of the shark eating people is more important than the people they are eating.   

Like Jaws, sooner or later, the monster comes for everyone in this match.  When Funk and Onita hit the barbed wire, it’s a thing of beauty and horror all at once.  The explosions appear to actually do damage to these valiant warriors.  Onita’s white shirt was stained in soot and gunpowder.  Cuts bled.  Like Quint meeting his fate in Jaws, Funk’s screams make one truly believe he is facing certain doom.  Onita’s cries do not come off as someone selling their character but as someone truly overcome with emotion.

The climax of the match comes, ironically, well after the match has ended.  Onita scores the win as warning sirens blare.  The ring is going to explode.  Effectively, a nuclear bomb is about to go off - as much as one can explode in a pro wrestling ring.  The end of the match does not halt the impending doom. 

With one minute to go, the alarms get even more intense, invoking the feeling that a natural disaster is about to strike and everyone has to run for shelter,  but the aged, beaten Terry Funk can’t get out of the ring in time.  He's given up, left to his fate.

Onita, realizing he has left Funk to his demise, returns, slapping him to rouse the beaten Funk.  Onita tries to pull him from the ring but the clock has run out.  There’s no escape for either of them now.  With no choice, Onita makes the ultimate sacrifice.  He dives atop of Funk, attempting to save his mentor while allowing himself to take the brunt of the explosion - and the explosion is massive, beautifully staged and tremendously impressive, especially if one is viewing this scene for the first time.

It's awesome.

In the aftermath, covered in dirt and soot, the two warriors embrace, cry and somehow, have survived to fight another day.  They exit together, like Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, bonded forever to each other, and the audience by virtue of the insanity they all been plunged into, and somehow, they will battle on. 

It’s the greatest moment one can ever truly witness when it comes to Death Match wrestling and it’s one of the best all-time professional wrestling storyline moments, and today, and every day, it should be celebrated, because every single talent who has the courage and insanity to perform with fire, barbed wire, glass and other instruments of destruction to entertain, they are all fighting to have the second-best match of all time for that unique subgenre of pro wrestling.  

Nothing can ever surpass Atsushi Onita vs. Terry Funk, a perfect, beautiful, awe-inspiring, insanity-baked moment in time.  Immortality attained through suspense, violence, and spectacle.  

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