FMW: Megumi Kudo Anthology
Running Time: 2 hours
This was basically a documentary of Kudo’s career with lots of match highlights for the first 90 minutes. The last half hour or so focused on her match against Shinobu Kandori, which was one of Kudo’s last matches before retiring. Throughout the tape, Combat Toyoda and Jaguar Yokota joined Kudo in talking about her career. In between match clips Atsushi Onita also talked about Kudo’s career. As for the match clips themselves, the biggest drawback is that most last for less than a minute, so you’re not really going to get a true sense of the quality of each match. However, many of the clips are interesting, especially if almost all of the Kudo footage you’ve seen is from 1994 or later. Some of the opening clips were from her days in All Japan Women, and her “graduation” as part of their class of 1987 (along with Cooga, Aja Kong & Bison Kimura) was featured.
Among the more interesting clips from her FMW years:
*An 8/4/90 match against Combat Toyoda, who looked much lighter back then compared to her career from 1993 on
*A 2/27/91 rematch against Toyoda
*A 9/23/91 match and a 12/9/91 rematch against Svetlana Gundarenko, a Russian judo star (I think) who had to weigh about 300 pounds at the time
*A 9/19/92 match teaming with Toyoda against All Japan Women stars Bull Nakano & Akira Hokuto
*Kudo & Toyoda vs Manami Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada from 4/2/93 and their rematch on 5/5/93
*Kudo vs Aja Kong for Kong’s WWWA title on 12/6/93
*Kudo vs Yumiko Hotta from 5/5/94
*11/20/94: Kudo & Hikari Fukuoka vs Takako Inoue & Cuty Suzuki from Big Egg Wrestling Universe
*12/22/95: Kudo vs Shark Tsuchiya in a no-rope barbed wire match
*1/10/96: Kudo vs Chigusa Nagayo
*5/5/96: Kudo vs Toyoda in a barbed wire explosion match, which was Toyoda’s retirement match
*12/11/96 & 1/5/97: Kudo’s first match against Shinobu Kandori and their rematch
The last part of the video focused on her 3/14/97 match against Kandori.
1. No-Rope Barbed Wire Match: Megumi Kudo vs Shinobu Kandori 3/14/97
The action began at the bell. They teased barbed wire spots early as usual. Kandori attacked Kudo with a strand of barbed wire and sliced her open using the wire on one side of the ring. Kandori back suplexed Kudo at 6:00. Kudo countered a powerbomb and attempted a hip attack but Kandori moved and Kudo crashed into the barbed wire. Kandori applied a sleeper and gained a near fall. Kandori gained a near fall with a lariat. Kudo fought back and sent Kandori into the barbed wire. Kudo back suplexed Kandori and sliced her open with a strand of barbed wire. Kudo pushed Kandori’s head into the barbed wire for a lengthy period of time and gained a near fall at 9:43. Kudo wrapped her right arm in barbed wire and gave Kandori a lariat. Kudo applied a sleeper. She dove at Kandori over the barbed wire to ringside. Kudo gained a near fall with a cradle suplex. Kudo applied an armbar with her leg pushing on Kandori’s neck as well. Kandori fought back with a couple lariats, one of which sent Kudo into the barbed wire. Kandori gained a near fall with a powerbomb but Kudo countered a second powerbomb for a near fall of her own. Kandori applied an ankle lock. Kudo gained a near fall with a tiger driver and another with a fisherman buster. Kudo knocked Kandori into the barbed wire with a hip attack. Kudo pinned Kandori at 16:23 after a running elbow. Seeing the entire match, it was solid but nothing special. Perhaps due to Kandori as well as the lack of chemistry between the two, it lacked the move-to-move momentum and heat of Kudo’s better matches (like her classic against Mayumi Ozaki days before her retirement). **1/4
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