4. Atsushi Onita
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5NbbOoFP3A Atsushi Onita is probably a name that most fans outside of Japan haven't heard before, but he was an extremely influential figure to the hardcore genre. Originally, a Jr. Heavyweight for All Japan in the 70s and 80s, Onita was exposed to the early stages of hardcore when he toured Puerto Rico and Memphis during the formative years of his career. Speaking of Memphis, Onita was actually involved in the famous concession stand brawl that is known as one of the first hardcore matches on American TV. The flying fries and pop corn had a profound effect on the young Japanese grappler, who was first exposed to barbed wire a few years later in Carlos Colon's World Wrestling Council. Colon was the first promoter to put barbed wire in a main event spot, but Onita took it to an entirely different level when he took the gimmick back to Japan with him. After a series of knee injuries derailed his fast paced style in All Japan, Onita founded Frontier Martial Arts Wrestling, which changed the path of the hardcore style. By today's standard's FMW would probably be considered garbage wrestling, but in 1989 when the promotion's first barbed wire match was promoted, it drew an audience because there was a sense of real danger. Onita's willingness to push the envelop (and scar his body in the process) allowed FMW to become the top independent promotion in Japan in the 90s with a cast of intriguing characters and a variety of weapons regularly featured. In 1993, Onita promoted the first exploding barbed wire match (the video above) against Terry funk with 30,000 fans in attendance, which is very rare for an independent show in Japan. The success was noticed by a young manager in America, Paul Heyman, who borrowed quite liberally from the FMW formula, including putting the ECW title on FMW alumni, Masato Tanaka. That's not to say that Onita was responsible for ECW's success because he clearly wasn't, but the influence was there. Onita's contribution to the genre was that he proved that hardcore could draw money and that it could be a main stream product. However, it should be noted that FMW wasn't all blood and guts, as the promotion had some tremendous high fliers on its roster, including the legendary Hayabusa. Despite, Onita's notorious reputation during recent years, which led to his dismissal from his position in the Japanese government and the tasteless angle he ran after the murder of Bruiser Brody, which garnered negative press in Japan, he must be credited for his accomplishments. The FMW promotion itself folded in 2002 after Hayabusa broke his neck in a match the previous year, but he has made remarkable progress in recent years.