Straight Up John Watanabe

I am thankful to God and to wrestling fans that, to this day, I am still well-known (via videotapes, DVDs and television screens) around the nation and in parts of the world as the on-camera host & play-by-play announcer for Tokyopop's English language presentation of the influential hardcore wrestling promotion in Japan known as FMW (Frontier Martial-arts Wrestling), which influenced ECW and other promotions that have presented a hardcore-style of wrestling. A big high five to The Fight Network in Canada, who showed these FMW Wrestling episodes for several years. A big part of FMW was the wrestler named Eiji Ezaki, aka "The Flying Assassin", "the bird that never dies", Hayabusa! Along with calling the amazing high-flying moves of Hayabusa on several FMW Wrestling episodes distributed by Tokyopop, it was a pleasure for me to talk with Hayabusa, when he came to Los Angeles on a few occasions. Eiji/Hayabusa was a nice, laid-back guy with a gentle voice (yes, h...

Many tourists and even locals have favorite memories of Hollywood here in Southern California. There's the Chinese Theatre (formerly Sid Grauman's, now the TCL), the Musso & Frank Grill (the oldest restaurant in Hollywood, which opened in 1919), and of course, the world famous "HOLLYWOOD" sign within the Hollywood Hills. My favorite memory of Hollywood was working in front of the camera for some of those in-studio segments on Tokyopop's FMW (Frontier Martial-arts Wrestling) videos, shot at the CNN Building on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. We had a good crew on hand for these in-studio segments, including director Robin Hirsch, Tokyopop production coordinator Daisuke Kinouchi, and Tokyopop brand manager Joel Baral. The photo above features me & my FMW Wrestling color commentator Dan "The Mouth" Lovranski from Live Audio Wrestling, doing a taping at the CNN Building in Hollywood. To this day, some wrestling fans around the country and even around ...