Kakutogi Road: The Complete History of MMA 1992 Mega-Thread

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mbetz1981

Active Member
Jul 27, 2020
82
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Kakutogi Road: The Complete History of MMA Vol. 31 "Bonded By Blood"



Editors Note: Mike Lorefice's (of the excellent MMA/Puroresu emporium quebrada.net) will have his comments preceded by his initials. *

The link between pro wrestling and MMA has admittedly gotten a certain amount of superficial attention amongst various media outlets over the years, but truthfully, the inextricable link between the two is a vast chasm that very few have even attempted to rappel the depths of. Thankfully for the world at large, we at Kakutogi HQ are on the job and are pleased to be reporting an event, that while being obscure to most modern MMA fans, was an incredibly important part of its early development.

Many fans of the fight game can easily recall how K-1's brand of kickboxing was immensely popular at one point in history, even briefly enjoying status as the number one spectator sport in Japan (it even surpassed baseball at one point) but they are probably unaware that it spawned forth from Sediokaikan karate, an offshoot of Kyokushin Karate started by Kazuyoshi Ishii in 1980. For 13 years, Ishii hosted many karate tournaments until towards the end of 1991, he started to dabble with his format by introducing gloves. Sediokaikan tournament rules did not allow punches to the face and required participants to wear a gi, but on 10-10-91 a revolutionary change to Ishii's format happened. He restructured the event so the first round be business as usual, but the 2nd round would see the competitors take their gi tops off, and if a decision still hadn't been reached by the end of the third round, they would don boxing gloves and have full kickboxing round(s) to try and determine a winner.

Then, in a move that furthered its path towards becoming a full-blown kickboxing promotion, they held a massive tournament on 1-12-92, featuring 57 combatants, and a cash price of 10,000,000 yen (approximately 100,000 in U.S. currency). This mega tournament had full kickboxing rules including spinning back fists, elbows, protracted clinch time, etc., and went for unlimited rounds, with the end of each round being judged, until a winner was decided by the vote of three judges. This event was attended by the owner and top performer of FIGHTING NETWORK RINGS, Akira Maeda, who was friends with Ishii and was a major influence on him during this point in time. Ishii had ambitions to not only be the top promoter of all things combat-sport-related in Japan, but also wanted a way to showcase various styles of standup fighting from around the world. Maeda, on the other hand, was struggling to get his fledgling wrestling promotion off the ground, which until the end of 1991, had almost no stars outside of himself, and was thus forced to rent out various martial artists from Holland and Russia to fill in the gaps in his roster.

Serendipity abounded once again, as these two larger-than-life personalities came together at the perfect time, and their decision to forge ahead with an equitable relationship allowed combat sports to reach unheralded levels of presentation, but also wound up having a symbiotic and influential relationship to MMA for years to come. Ishii and his ensemble of karate stars were available to help Maeda through a lean patch in his company's history, and in return, he offered a lot of insight to Ishii on the finer points of formatting, booking, and presenting what was heretofore a niche sport with a grandiose verve and panache that was inspired by pro wrestling theatrics. Now, both men and both promotions head into the next phase of their respective transitions by co-promoting an event that will feature both RINGS and Sediokaikan performers, in an effort to highlight both styles.

We find ourselves at the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium, a massive sporting complex located within Sendagaya, Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. It was built in 1954 to host a wrestling championship, and is currently renowned for being an elite venue for gymnastics & table tennis, in addition to other sports. The first bout of the evening, held under RINGS RULES, will feature Akira Maeda vs Koichiro Kimura. When we last saw Kimura, he was in an entertaining and tough shoot against Mitsuya Nagai, in which he lost, but it's safe to presume that Maeda will not be indulging in shoot shenanigans anytime soon. To the credit of everyone involved, this was advertised as a 5min exhibition match, so surely there will be a built-in face-saving mechanism in place, in the event this turns out to be awful.

Things start with Maeda looking spryer than I expected, throwing some quick leg-kicks, before being forced to the mat with an excellent single-leg from Kimura. Maeda quickly scrambles to a dominant position, before utilizing his considerable weight advantage to stand back to his feet. Once up, he throws a nasty inside-leg kick to Kimura, and again, this was not the Maeda that I was expecting. Kimura no longer wants to directly engage Maeda, so he opts to try and shoot in from too far a distance, allowing an easy sprawl counter from Maeda. Maeda then hits an explosive (albeit showy) suplex on Kimura, then forces a rope escape by putting Kimura in a Kimura. The rest of this quick bout was fast and entertaining, with Kimura adding just the right amount of spice and resistance to Maeda. Maeda was urgent throughout, and everything here looked good, proving that he is still capable of working a good match, as long as it's done in a minimal amount of time. This was too short to be offered as a recommended match, but in the context of this event, it worked as a good introduction for RINGS, showing what their style of bout looked like.

ML: I assume this was an exhibition because a "real" Maeda match would have had to be the main event, but doing so would have ruined the flow by putting something farcical at the end of a bunch of legitimate contests. Nonetheless, I'm sure that would have happened anyway if Maeda wasn't beat up and trying to conserve himself. This was a surprisingly interesting match that was closer to shooting than Maeda has been so far, although Maeda certainly was allowed to go much harder than Kimura was. Basically, Kimura was allowed to go for a takedown but then had to let Maeda take over so he didn't take any damage. Maeda did one suplex but was more realistic and less loose here. He was pretty nasty beating up Kimura's legs with low-kicks as Kimura set up his takedown attempts. The brief time limit kept things from getting repetitive and too over the top. Overall, while something a bit more striking based would have been preferable for this audience, I think this was a successful introduction to the RINGS style.

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Next up is Daido Juku ace, Mikoki Ichihara , going against judo stalwart, Pieter Smit. I'm unsure of exactly how the rules are supposed to be in this one, but it appears that the first round is under RINGS rules. Unfortunately, Ichihara is mostly known for losing in a most inglorious fashion to Royce Gracie at UFC II, thus causing him to be completely mistaken as but a mere footnote in MMA history. Truthfully, he had a very strong stand-up game, being a major player within the Daido Juku Karate organization. Daido Juku was similar to Sediokaikan karate, the main difference being that they would allow punches to the face, but insisted upon their competitors wearing face gear ripped off the set of an 80s Italian post-apocalyptic flick. They also hosted events that could be arguably be considered the first true MMA contests, as their format did allow for submissions and ground fighting, but the time that they were generally permitted on the ground was so quick that scoring a submission was neigh impossible even if the opponent basically didn't know how to defend, making the inclusion of it to be of no practical value. The Daido Juku organization was also keen on loaning out talent and featuring guest fighters with their series of events dubbed “The Wars”, which we will hopefully be able to cover more in future columns.

Round 1 starts, and right away we see some excellent inside-out footwork from Ichihara, which made Smit look completely flat-footed by comparison. Sadly, this disparity didn't matter, as Smit simply walked over to Ishihara and fell on top of him, which had this been a judo competition, would have surely qualified as an unskilled entry into ne-waza. Thankfully, the ref quickly restarted them, giving Ichihara a chance to unload a few powerful kicks, and overhand strikes, before Smit would hug Ichihara into the ropes. Ichihara quickly adapted to the hug-a-thon, and shifted his strategy to quickly sticking and moving, getting some nice shots in before the end of the round.

Round 2 sees the fighters don boxing gloves, which can only be bad news for Smit, who has no business trying to be in a straight kickboxing affair. Sure enough, Smit is clearly out of his element as he is only managing to survive Ichihara's assaults, and that by covering his face and charging in for the hug. At one point, Smit is able to force Ichihara down to the mat and attempts an armbar, so it would seem that we are still under some kind of mixed rules, only with boxing gloves. They were too close to the ropes, so the ref simply stood them back up, but Ichihara will be in trouble if Smit can manage to get him down in the center of the ring. The rest of the round saw Ichihara continuing to bank on powerful overhand punches, but he seems to lack even basic submission awareness, and at one point was easily put in a rear-naked choke, where Smit simply stepped around him, and slapped it on from a standing position.

Round 3 sees them going back to a gloveless round, and back to normal RINGS rules. Ichihara is sticking to his fast-moving strike hard and run-away strategy, which is paying dividends, as early in the round he was able to land a hard overhand palm-strike flush into Smit's face. Smit is getting craftier, however, and is able to land several hard knees, after backing Ichihara into the corner. The fight ends when Ichihara blasts Smit in the face with a combination, and in desperation, Smit hugs Ichihara and falls to the mat with him. At first, it looked like a takedown, but once the ref stood them up, you could tell that Smit was completely dazed, and his takedown was out of desperation. Ichihara scored a KO victory. This was fast and entertaining, but it's easy to see why Ichihara did as poorly against Gracie, as he did. He is clearly a great striker, and is quick, but seems to lack any takedown defense skills. Had he cross-trained in those early days, and was more aware of what Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu was, then he may have been a formidable opponent in those early days, but he was a victim of being in the right place at the wrong time.

ML: Here we see the problem of the early days' concept of trying to determine which martial art was superior. Both fighters were strong within their own discipline, but in order to try to make it fair, we're alternating rounds with and without boxing gloves, which drastically shifts the styles and capabilities of the fighters, or at least it should. Ultimately, this was a heavyweight against a middleweight, so even beyond the fact that one was a judo practitioner and the other was a striker, the overriding dynamic was Smit had to use his size, while Ichihara had to use his speed. Smit's plodding nature accentuated the explosiveness of Ichihara's striking, while Ichihara's complete lack of submission defense made Smit look like a submission wizard. None of this is amazing by 21st century standards, but imagine having trained spinning back fists and only worried about the counter strike, only to suddenly be in the ring with an opponent who instead took you right down and slapped on an armbar. Imagine giving your back in the corner and having the opponent rear naked choke you rather than figuring out where to still strike legally. Imagine thinking there was safety dropping to your butt, only to take repeated knees, if they didn't just knock you through the ropes to the floor. There was a great spot where Ichihara matadored a right hand to the point that Smit fell into the middle rope, only to have Ichihara nail him with a charging right as soon as he turned around. The finish was rather questionable, Smit seemed to just quit, but this was a fun match for its time. Good match.

Ichihara slappin a fool!
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Next up is another overlooked figure in the pantheon of lesser-known pioneers, in Yoshinori Nishi, who is going up against Herman Renting. Nishi was one of the more interesting personalities in early 90s MMA, as his main strength as a fighter was his incredibly strong judo acumen, but he was also a respectable karate practitioner. If anyone knows him at all, these days, it's mainly from his horrible showing against Rickson Gracie at VTJ 94', where the only thing he managed to do was show the world that Eddie Bravo did not invent the Lockdown. He was able to win the inaugural Lumax Cup in 1994 (an MMA tournament where the practitioners wore gi-jackets) and later went on to promote or be involved with several Japanese MMA events in the 90s, all while starting up his own martial art brand, named WA-JUTSU. He was a mentor to both Akira Shoji and Caol Uno, and as a result, his influence was felt even into the early 00's Pride era.

Round 1 (RINGS RULES) starts with a feeling out process between the two before Renting is completely surprised by a thunderous thigh-kick that catches him off-guard. Here we get to see the difference between Nishi and Ichihara, where one was quick, young, and one-dimensional, the other was seasoned and had a multi-faceted game. Nishi takes his time, and employs feints, as he stalks renting, before carefully timing another leg kick. Renting is able to catch it and toss him to the ground, but Nishi quickly works to either get a half-guard or leg attack, before scrambling into the ropes for an escape. Renting is eventually able to get Nishi pressed into the corner, but the round ends before he can capitalize.

Round 2 sees Renting wise up to Nishi's timing, and after an initial period of trepidation, he perfectly times one of Nishi's kicks and punishes him with a violent takedown turned into a guillotine choke. Nishi smartly avoids having to take a rope escape by pulling a Ric Flair and manages to slide underneath the ropes just enough that the ref opts for a clean break instead. Once they return to their feet, Nishi shows more caution and switches to a more conservative palm-strike approach.

Round 3 starts, and it's not long before Renting gets Nishi close to the ropes and attempts a rather sloppy rear-naked choke, but winds up spilling out of the ring with Nishi in tow. Once they get back inside, he spends a significant amount of time complaining to the ref, in what seems like an appeal to take a point from Nishi's score, due to the choke. The ref isn't having it, however, and a confused Nishi is now having to face an angry, and increasingly more confident Renting. Renting wastes no time getting Nishi back in a rear choke, this time applied deep and would have been a sure win in a different setting, or a cage, but Nishi must be given credit for his ring awareness and is able to slide back under the ring for another restart.

Round 4 has Renting bull rush Nishi, right outside of the ring again, and his aggression is clearly more than Nishi can deal with but is going to have to be channeled properly if he wants to succeed. Renting then presses Nishi into the corner, and just when it looks like Nishi's fighting spirit may be waning, he pulls out a wonderful Ouchi-gari (inside leg-trip) with impeccable timing. The rest of the round saw more ruthless aggression from Renting, who closed out the round by starting a choke attempt, while both were clearing out of the ring, and almost ready to spill out onto the concrete.

Round 5 sees both men tired and moving much slower. Nishi attempts a headlock throw, but botches it and winds up on his knees, exposing his back. Renting could have probably ended the fight right here, but was too tired to quickly force his hooks in and Nishi wound up deflecting him long enough for a restart. The round then ends, and Renting is awarded the win, although I'm not sure what the judging criteria is here. I suppose, from a modern standpoint, that the win is justified as he came close to finishing Nishi a couple of times with a choke, and had this been done under a more contemporary rule-set then there is little doubt that Renting would have won. As it stands, it was an interesting and decent shoot for the time.

ML: Both fighters were far more well-rounded than we saw in the previous fight, resulting in a more strategic, albeit less exciting encounter. The fight was mostly faking & feinting, with Renting setting up one or two counter rushes per round. It basically came down to whether Renting could defend the low kick and counter with the clinch/takedown or was simply getting his leg chewed up, although the threat of the tie-up kept Nishi's activity below the level where he could really put the leg out of commission. Scoring-wise, it was a clear win for Renting, but in reality, their styles largely negated one another.

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Next up is the debut of Eric Edlenbos, a Dutch fighter that would wind up having a few fights in RINGS, before calling it a day and Shootboxer Naoyuki Taira. Taira spent the late 80s/early 90s cutting his teeth in Shootboxing before transitioning to Rings and then eventually K-1. His later record is quite admirable, holding kickboxing wins over Jan Lomulder, Taro Minato, and Hiroki Kurosawa.

This match was quick and brutal! Edlenbos quickly bum-rushed Taira and used his impressive athleticism to wail away on his opponent, but 8 years before Kazushi Sakuraba made it famous in his match against Renzo Gracie, Taira was able to turn his back on Edlenbos and secure a standing Kimura. Like Gracie did after him, Edlenbos spun Taira down to the mat, but Taira wouldn't let go, and was able to keep rolling with his opponent, until the point that he was able to secure a side-mount and pin his opponents' shoulder with his forearm, which served to further restrict Edlenbos's movement, and probably dislocated his shoulder. This was a fantastic display and makes me wonder if Taira could have been a forgotten MMA legend had he spent his time in Shooto, instead of Shootboxing. A great display of submission being greater than speed and strength!

Sakuraba, Eat Your Heart Out!
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Now it's time for a kickboxing bout between the legendary Rob Kaman and newcomer Adam Watt. Watt debuted at the last RINGS event, putting up a good showing against Hans Nijman. Kaman, of course, is coming into this as the major favorite, so I don't expect Watt to last long. Watt shows some good strategy from the outset by using his reach advantage to quickly attack Kaman from a variety of angles. Kaman was clearly off his game by having to constantly adjust to different attacks, which was wise on Watt's part, as the last thing you want to do is be stationary long enough to be a target for Kaman's brutal leg kicks. Watt finishes the round with some nice crisp shots to Kaman's face, including a tasty uppercut, and spinning back-elbow. Good round for Watt.

Round 2 is another demonstration that there is no substitute for experience. Watt started strong, producing some good work from both the clinch, and then disengaging to fire off some nice shots down the pipe, from a distance, and was winning this fight, until that sudden moment…. where he wasn't. Watt stepped in to clinch with Kaman and ate a hard shot to the side of his head as he was engaging and got knocked down for an 8-count. He showed a lot of heart by getting back up, but you could tell that his equilibrium is now off. A couple of seconds, and a couple of punches from Kaman later, it was all over. Despite the loss, this was a great showing for Watt and showed that he has the skills to hang with the very best. This could have just as easily swung in his direction, so no shame here. If he can stay focused and healthy, then Watt has a bright future ahead of him.

ML: I thought Kaman was looking good here. He was patient, taking what Watt was giving to him, and forcing Watt make things happen. Watt had a nice right straight early and some good moments down the stretch when he had a half clinch, but Kaman mostly circled off and landed the right hook when Watt attacked or landed a low kick if he didn't. Watt probably won the round, but Kaman was forcing Watt into a fight where he had to be attacking constantly, which meant he had to chase Kaman and take a lot of risks. Watt continue to do well, but finally Kaman landed clean with the right hook counter he was setting up all fight, and that was all she wrote.

Next is a karate bout between Willie Williams and Nobuaki Kakuda. Williams only seems to have lost some of his speed and agility from his '70s glory days but has still retained some good power. This makes for an interesting contrast to Kakuda, who keeps attacking with hyper flurries but is giving up size, strength, and reach to his opponent. Kakuda is also one of the most intense fighters that you could ever witness, as he always comes across as someone who would rather die in the ring than lose in one. This was a karate slugfest for three rounds, before being called a draw. Fun.

ML: Williams probably has a foot on Kakuda. Even though he is past his prime, he's just too big. Williams keeps leading with the left/right body punch combo or the left middle knee. Kakuda has a couple good flurries of body punches and a nice low kick, but really as long as Williams wants to stay active and use his reach, there's almost nothing Kakuda can do. Kakuda does a little better in the 3rd when the big guy begins to slow down, but it still wasn't exactly competitive.

Now, time for the main event between Maurice Smith, and Seidokaikan darling, Masaaki Satake. The last time we saw Maurice Smith was his stellar performance against Stan “The Man” Longinidis, where he survived a total massacre for the first two rounds and managed to slowly climb his way back up, until he had exhausted Stan, and won a split decision. Satake on the other hand has been hanging out in Rings, somehow being even more of a jerk than Gerard Gordeau.

Round 1 sees Maurice fighting a lot more aggressively than usual, keeping constant pressure both from the outside and the clinch. Satake did a decent job defending but didn't land anything significant. Good round for Mo.

Round 2 starts with a shift in the rules. Apparently, we are now in RINGS rules, but Satake gets to take off his gloves, which would theoretically put Smith at a disadvantage, but I don't know if Satake possesses any notable grappling skills by this point. Satake does better in this round, as he starts to approach it more like a Seidokaikan fight and sticks to targeting Smith's midsection. He is also countering some of Smith's shots with some well-timed low kicks of his own, but is still being out-struck by Smith by roughly a 2-1 ratio.

The gloves are back on Satake for round 3, and honestly, by this point, I have no idea what the rules are. Smith is on fire for this round, and completely clobbers Satake in every range until he knocks him down completely. Satake gets back up, only to get knocked right back down, by an unstoppable Maurice.

Round 4 goes back to gloveless Satake, and even though this was Maurice's least productive round, he still managed to land a lot of hard shots to Satake's midsection. If this had been a normally judged bout, then Smith would have taken the decision in a landslide, but it would appear, as we saw witht her previous match, it was contracted to go to an automatic draw if there wasn't a KO win. Nice, and entertaining showing from Smith, despite the bogus decision to protect Satake with an automatic draw.

ML: Satake's general advantage was that he was one of the only Japanese fighters who was over 6 feet tall and something of a legitimate heavyweight. However, he didn't have much chance fighting a taller fighter who was a far superior athlete, with a huge speed advantage. The rules gave Satake a little bit of hope, in that Smith wasn't allowed to punch to the head every other round because that is illegal in karate. He opted to leave his gloves on, while Satake would spend the time in between rounds with the old on/off, but this was largely irrelevant beyond allowing him to put his finger in Smith's eye, which I'm assuming wasn't part of the plan. Smith really dominated the kickboxing rounds, but the karate rounds were more competitive because having to punch the body naturally leads to fighters standing in front of each other more, which helps the slower and shorter fighter. Smith knocked Satake down twice in a row in round three, and if that happened today, the fight would likely have been stopped, but the Japanese were never big on protecting the fighters. Though Smith presumably wins this fight 40-34 if there were judges, the fight was nonetheless entertaining.

Conclusion: This was entertaining, and more importantly, a highly historic event. I hadn't thought about it until now, but this marks the first full-blown MMA event in either North America or Japan (excluding anything under the Shooto umbrella) if we subtract Maeda's exhibition and Kakuda's karate match. While I felt that the rules needlessly jumped around too much, I liked the format of the rounds that they used for RINGS matches here, as they seemed to force a faster and more aggressive fight, compared to their usual 1 round x 30mins. A great glimpse into the future greatness of both companies, and MMA in general.

* This incredibly rare event, can be found in its entirety over at www.patreon.com/KakutogiRoad . If you enjoy our work, then please consider becoming a patron, and together we can continue to chart the unsearched galaxies of early MMA history! *

*In other news*

Koji Kitao is set to debut at an upcoming event for the Japanese UWF-I promotion. This comes as a surprise as when we last heard from Kitao, he disgraced both himself, and the SWS promotion, by throwing a tantrum during his match against John “Earthquake” Tenta, where he refused to cooperate in the ring then quit, but not before grabbing the microphone to tell the audience that pro wrestling is fake. Reportedly, he has been working a lot on his karate skills and is ready to bring his name value, which is still considerable in Japan, to Takada's promotion.

Real estate investor and former karate practitioner, Bob Wall, recently called out Steven Seagal in an issue of Prevue Magazine. In this article, he mentioned that he has amassed 12 different personalities that all claim that they would be willing to fight Seagal, to prove that he is nothing but talk. His list includes notable martial artists such as Bill Wallace, Benny Urquidez, Gene LeBell, Howard Jackson, and Dennis Alexio. However, this has not been without some controversy. The 59-year-old LeBell initially agreed to be part of Wall's list, but is now having second thoughts because he feels that it is hurting his opportunities for stunt work within the film industry. LeBell was quoted as saying, “It's nice to be the toughest man on the planet, but that doesn't pay the bills.” Wall realizes that it is highly unlikely that Seagal will accept any challenges, but he is simply wanting to embarrass him, and is content with that.

Wall, working alongside the legendary, Bruce Lee
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mbetz1981

Active Member
Jul 27, 2020
82
59
Kakutogi Road: The Complete History of MMA Vol.32 "Death to the Flesh"

*Editors Note: Mike Lorefice's comments will be preceded by his initials. *

In the final scene of David Cronenberg’s oft unheralded masterpiece, Videodrome, James Woods’ character is told that to ascend to the next level, he must first “leave the old flesh.” After hearing this, he puts a gun to his head, and proclaims, “Long live the new flesh!” before ending his life in a seemingly drastic action that presumably destroys his nemesis, Videodrome, in the process. This is similar to where we are at now in April of 1992, as for pro wrestling to soar to new realms of greatness, it must first shed the mortal coil of what it is and has been heretofore, so that it may be rebirthed into a higher plane of nobility.

ML: The battle for the mind of Japan will be fought in the video arena: the Videodrome. The wrestling ring is the retina of the mind's eye. Therefore, the wrestling ring is part of the physical structure of the brain. Therefore, whatever appears on the wrestling ring emerges as raw experience for those who watch it. Therefore, television is reality, and reality is less than television.
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We have been witnessing this gradual phenomenon for the last year now, and in our last adventure we were able to behold a watershed event in this transitional process, where the Sediokaikan organization teamed up with RINGS to bring us what may arguably be considered the first true MMA event in either Japan or North America, excluding anything done within Shooto. Sadly, Shooto, despite being the true pioneers of this upcoming shoot-revolution, are doomed to forever trudge through a veneer of obscure respectability, as they lack the means, star-power, or marketing apparatus, to break through to a wider audience. It also hasn’t helped that Sayama’s falling out with the pro-wrestling media outlets in Japan, basically killed whatever chances of creating buzz about his new sport, in these halcyon days sans internet/social media.

Thankfully, this paradigm shift that is taking place is now getting a proper outlet with the deft command of the media that both Akira Maeda and Kazuyoshi Ishii possess, thus ensuring the continued explosion of MMA, and the forever changing of the martial arts landscape as a result.

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The date is 4-3-92, one week since the Battle Sports Olympic took place, and already RINGS is ready for another show, this time with the rematch between Maeda and Volk Han being the main event. This will be taking place in the Hiroshima Sun Plaza, a 6,000+ capacity venue, that is mainly used for indoor athletic events but also hosts an annual coming-of-age celebration, known as Seijin Shiki. Before the festivities begin, we are taken to a tour of various gyms in Holland that are RINGS affiliates, and we are seeing firsthand that true MMA training has not just been isolated to Sayama’s infamous Super Tiger Gym, but is alive and well in the Netherlands, also. Mike Lorefice recently observed that Dolman’s gym was the real star in these early days, and he is correct, as these clips show that all of these gyms in Holland while focusing primarily on one aspect of fighting, they are cross-training in a way that shows awareness of the other ranges of combat. They also seem to have a lot of communication with each other, and the main difference between then and now is that instead of having to migrate from gym to gym, oftentimes modern MMA centers will have various experts on staff, in order to have everything under one roof. The scene ends with Dick Vrij getting a chance to train with Peter Aerts and Thom Harinck at the infamous Chakuriki Gym.

ML: The reason Dolman's stable stands out is that you have judo experts and kick boxing experts training under one roof. Plus, they all learn more from these various MMA sort of competitions they are becoming involved in. Admittedly, there are much better kickboxers elsewhere in the Netherlands, but I don't think these guys really have to go outside of their own umbrella so to speak (there are multiple gyms involved as we see from the clip where they start at Dolman's then go to Nyman's), not that it wouldn't help, but they are ready for the basics of what each style can throw at one another through sparring and preparing with one another.

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The match is underway, and my initial ponderings as to the worked/shoot nature of this contest are quickly answered by some feather-light kicks from Tengiz, which were quickly followed by a most polite inside-trip takedown from Kimura. Perhaps, I shouldn’t be too hard on Kimura, as the last time we saw him on a RINGS event he was shooting his heart out against shootboxing alum, Mitsuya Nagai, in which he lost to the point of tears. After the takedown, Tengiz grabs Kimura in a way that makes me think he is going to do a fireman’s carry, only to pull off what may be one of the strangest moves we’ve seen yet, in which he stood up with Kimura in tow, and channeled his inner Ultimate Warrior, in what can only be described as a shoot-style gorilla press. The rest of this match was bizarre to say the least, as we had Kimura move around like an experienced judoka, whereas Tengiz spazzed around hitting suplexes from odd angles, and acting like what you would expect from someone pulled out of a sambo dojo, having to try and work a pro wrestling match for the first time. It didn’t help that he comically oversold some very light offense from Kimura, and generally looked like he was lost out here. Kimura eventually ends this farce via an armbar around the 9 ½ min mark. Not boring, but way too amateur hour to be considered for prime time.

ML: Tenguiz insisted on lifting Kimura endlessly. I started to say he tried just about every fireman's carry move save for the airplane spin, but then he even did a mini version of that. He clearly went to the Scott Steiner school of just hoist the opponent up and heave them , set-up and logic be damned. Kimura answered with a nice backdrop and a scoop slam. Kimura, at least, would try to go right into a submission once he deposited the opponent, including a pretty slick fishermen's suplex into an armbar for the win. Needless to say, this was not the most realistic encounter. Some of it was fun, but it never felt like anything beyond an exhibition, even by non WWE standards it wasn't particularly realistic.


Next up, is an AQUA BOUT featuring Nobuaki Kakuda and Tom Van Maurik. Sadly, we only have another year to enjoy Maurik's work, as he met a tragic ending on 4-19-93 in which he was reportedly killed by a local pimp in a dispute over a woman. When we first witnessed Maurik he was delivering some super stiff shots to Chris Dolman in a worked bout, but someone must have chastised him over it, as he is now pulling everything in the most painfully obvious way possible. Kakuda is pulling his punches too, but looks much better doing so. I'm surprised to even see Kakuda in a work, so I hope this is not the start of going back to a purely phony format. This was a very striking focused match, which made all the cheesy attempts from Maurik all the more distracting. Kakuda looked good, but since all of his prior outings saw him go with 100% intensity, it wound up making his half-speed output (which would normally look good by pro wrestling standards) fall flat. Because of all this, this wound up being pretty awful, despite the energy that both men brought to it. Maurik wins with a flying leg-scissors, followed by a heel-hook, years before Ryo Chonan did it to Anderson Silva, but wound up not even looking 10% as cool doing it.

ML: This match was frustrating! Kakuda brought the stiffness and intensity, and Van Maurik performed reasonably on his feet, but his ground and pound, or any type of body shot, was below porn fighting level of pathetic, looking like he was afraid to even graze Kakuda. Van Maurik gave us one our first Anaconda chokes, at least.

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Just when I was thinking that all hope was lost, and we would be doomed to spend the rest of the evening witnessing a clinic on how not to throw a punch, Yoshinori Nishi saves the day by getting into a full-blown shoot with everyone’s favorite cartoon character, Willie Peeters. This will be the first of many shoots to feature Peeters, despite him already sort-of-shooting even in most of his matches, so far. This will be a FIRE BOUT, contested in 5 rounds, as opposed to the usual 1x30min format.

Round 1 starts with Peeters firing off some flashy roundhouses, before being palm thrusted in the face by Nishi for his efforts. This seemed to calm Peeters down, who then tried to work a takedown from the clinch, but with no success, as Nishi’s experience is clearly showing here, and he is very composed. Peeters spent the rest of the round trying to bully his way in, but Nishi did a great job of stifling all of his offense with well-timed counterstrikes.

Round 2 sees Peeters immediately charging and securing a bodylock takedown, but to no avail, as Nishi quickly started working a fast open guard, and it didn’t take but a few seconds to secure an ankle lock on Peeters, forcing a rope-escape. Nishi shows his strong judo chops for the rest of the round, warding off many of Peeters’ attempts to wrangle him back to the ground from the clinch. It wasn’t all one-way traffic for Nishi, Peeters did land a few hard shots, but Nishi did an excellent job of using technique to defend against the stronger opponent.

Round 3 begins, and it’s clear that Peeters's only advantage is his strength and unpredictability. Both Nishi’s judo and striking are superior to Peeters, but this didn’t stop Willie from getting Nishi in a guillotine choke, and when Nishi fell to escape it, Peeters responded by landing some hard shots that prompted a knockdown. Nishi was probably hurt after this, as Peeters was able to quickly get Nishi back down and mounted him. After the mount, he rained down some palm strikes, which may have ended this fight, but seemed to put one of his fingers in Nishi’s eye, which forced a standup by the ref. First-round that was solidly in Peeters's favor.

Round 4, and Peeters is starting to look tired, which is causing him to leave his face more open. Nishi gladly takes advantage of the situation, and at one-point knocks Peeters down with a swift palm strike, which of course prompts Peeters to do what any classic 80s bully would do, and that’s complain to the ref about how unfair it is. The round ends with Nishi punching Peeters in the jaw with a closed fist, and then apologizing about it. Good round for Nishi.

Round 5 starts with Peeters seemingly knowing that he is in scorecard trouble and is showing a great sense of urgency. He had to fight for it, but he was eventually able to get a headlock takedown but wound up in the closed guard of Nishi, who is doing a great job defensively, preventing most of Peeters attempts at some pre-UFC ground and pound. A few shots are sneaking through, but Nishi is showing some serious skills by utilizing a strong guard to keep Peeters tied up, and close, thereby removing any distance needed to do any significant damage. This is serving as an example of how strong judo is at being a well-rounded martial art, and possibly how strong Rickson Gracie really was, who made Nishi look like a white belt in their future encounter. The round ends, which would presumably end the fight, but the judges call for an extra round, which makes me wonder how they are scoring this, as any reasonable interpretation would have Nishi as a clear winner.

An overtime round is called for, and this time it’s Nishi who presses the attack, as he was always on the defensive before this. He overextended, however, and Peeters was able to capitalize by wrangling him down to the canvas, but Nishi pulled off a beautiful move, where he fainted in a way that implied that he was going for a full guard, only to quickly shift into wrapping his legs around Peeters’s knee and secured a heel-hook. Peeters was standing when this happened, and simply held onto the ropes for dear life, and I can’t tell if this prompted a rope escape, or the ref just got tired of Peeters standing there and called for a break. This aggressive strategy from Nishi is backfiring. While he is landing some nice shots, he is also allowing himself to be off-balance enough for Petters to manhandle him down to the ground and make him eat some hard blows for it. The round ends, and I would say this round was even. The judges on the other hand call it a draw, which if they are only using the OT round as the determining factor, is a fair call, but it should never have got that far, to begin with. Good fight. The best part was seeing judo in action. For if it wasn’t for judo and its winning ways, Nishi would have surely been rag-dolled down to the mat in round 1 and been slapped into oblivion.

ML: This is one of those fights is where Peeters gives the illusion of winning because he is the aggressor, but isn't really having any actual success. He tries to press forward with his kickboxing, then use his wrestling to tie Nishi up, but either Nishi uses better low kicks to back him off, or it just ends up being a stalemate against the ropes. The problem is Nishi really doesn't have any idea of how to stop Peeters from endlessly doing what he's doing, so eventually Peeters really is winning through control and pressure. Peeters decides he will need to be Sneaky Peeters, trying to use some different timing and feints to catch Nishi off guard. Ironically, it's a crazy jump spinning heel kick that allows him to continue pushing forward until he ties Nishi up against the ropes and gets a takedown. Nishi shows good balance to fend off most of the takedowns, and it certainly helps that Peeters is trying more for upper body Greco throws rather than dropping down for the waist or legs, but even though Nishi is able to land a few good low kicks per round, he is on the defensive 90% of the time. I can't really tell what Nishi's plan to win actually is, he really doesn't even try anything offensively but low kicks, which he mostly uses to reclaim territory after Peeters has backed him near the ropes. Peeters pulled way ahead with a knockdown off a knee. However, Nishi got lucky in the 4th when the ref ruled an obvious slip by Peeters when Nishi countered a low kick with the right slap a knockdown. Despite Peeters winning 4 of the 5 rounds, it goes to an extra round, where Nishi quickly tries to fire up by tossing his mouthpiece to his corner after failing on a leg lock, but still spends most of the round on his back. Peeters once again rightfully claims victory, but now I'm wondering if there are really even judges, as the fight is a draw. This was okay, more or less want would become your standard boring modern shoot where a non wrestler has no real answers for the wrestler's control.


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Now it’s time for the requisite AIR BOUT featuring Dick Fly (Vrij) and Marcel Haarmans. When we last saw Haarmans it was at the inaugural RINGS event, where he was being bullied around by Willie Peeters, as he was trying to put forth a straightforward work, whereas Peeters was oscillating between stiff non-cooperation and begrudging civility. The match has barely started when Hsarmans hits a tasty seo-otoshi (shoulder drop) to kick things off with some nice judo. He then attempts to follow this up with an armbar but fails. Fry fails to show any decency, as he sneaks in a 12-6 elbow to Harrmans’ face before standing back up.

What followed was a lot better than I expected it to be. It was a work, but a respectable one, that told a good judo vs kickboxing story. Fry looked solid throughout, and while Haarman’s strikes were laughably bad at times, he more than made up for it with some ultra-smooth judo. It would have been better with some more stiffness from Marcel, but even with that flaw, it still wound up being a solid ***

ML: An odd bout, as Vrij was on the defensive throughout. He just couldn't even get started, until he almost immediately won. Haarmans outwrestled and outgrappled him decisively, unfortunately employing some of the same pitiful body shots as Van Maurik. Eventually, someone must have said "Hello DickFly!", as he randomly woke up, pushing Haarmans off and finally beginning to land low kicks. Haarmans unconvincingly went down after a handful of kicks. Vrij now went to town with high kicks with Haarmans doing little more than urging him on, surprisingly finishing with a rear-naked choke despite hilarious clapping and mat pounding by Haarmans to show he was still awake. This match was pretty bad. It was basically Nobuaki Kakuda vs. Tom Van Maurik minus all the good aspects, though at least there was a lot less of the terrible body punches.

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Now it’s time to witness some THUNDER as it’s Shootboxing vs Kyokushin. A bout between Mitsuya Nagai vs Willie Williams is underway, and it was only a week ago when Williams was bludgeoning Nobuaki Kakuda in a shoot karate fight, and a few months since Nagai was in a shoot with Kimura. We are told that this will be done in a 3x5min round format.

Round 1 starts with Nagai flying across the ring with a somersault kick, which made me think we were in for a work, but the rest of the round was super stiff with a seeming 100% intensity, so I’m unsure. What I’m not unsure of is that Williams, despite not having any noticeable grappling ability, is much stronger than Nagai, and is able to neutralize all of his grappling entries, by simply clamping ahold of him, and not letting go.

Round 2 sees Nagai going back to the spectacular well of flying kicks but is so small compared to Williams that he just sorts of ricochets off of him. He did manage to follow up with a quick takedown attempt, which got too close to the ropes and almost caused both men to spill out of the ring. This seemed to irritate Williams, who then swiftly dispatched with Nagai, first with a knee to the head, and then the final blow, a stiff palm strike, which put Nagai away for good. I’m now convinced that this was a shoot, just a really weird one. This kind of fight is kind of immune to any rating, as it was over almost as fast as it started and was a total size mismatch from the start.

ML: I thought this fight was a work, as I didn't see a single shot land solidly. It had good intensity, at least. As usual, some of the wrestling is legitimate in these works, as no one is getting hurt in those positions, so often they just let them play out naturally (as we saw in Funaki vs. Roesch). In this case, though Nagai had a big grappling advantage, there wasn't much chance of him getting to utilize it given Williams had at least 100 pounds on him. Nagai did some silly wild kicks, but with Williams having a foot or more reach advantage, they were no more unrealistic that trying to close the distance conventionally. This was just a quick jobber match to set Williams up for a big match with Maeda. It was more interesting than Gary's squashes, at least.

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Things probably can’t get any weirder from this point forward, but then again, Masaaki Satake is involved in tonight’s UNIVERSE BOUT, so anything is bound to happen. The first couple of mins see Renting continually take Satake down, only to see him be far too determined to stay down, and sorts of just wills himself to stand back up. The third times a charm when Renting is able to secure a rear-naked choke, forcing the rope escape. The rest of this match was rather odd, as the grappling portions seemed legit, but they weren’t going at each other full speed in the stand-up. I was ready to write this off as another glorified sparring session, those weird matches that really don’t exist in either the worked or shoot space, until the ending, which was both contrived and abrupt. Satake just moderately kicked Renting numerous times in the thigh for a knockout victory. Not good, and hard to assess, as I wish they would have just committed to either a full shoot or full work. As it stands this was just pointless.

ML: Satake showed more grappling and submission ability that I was expecting. Renting still had the advantage of the ground, but Satake wasn't overwhelmed, and was capable of going on the offensive. In standup, Renting would lift his leg to check Satake's low kicks, resulting in a little actual contact. Similar to Vrij vs. Haarmans, the grappling was early then once Satake got going, he finished it in short order with three knockdowns in a row. Forgettable match.

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Now, for the triumphant return of the Volkster! Here he comes back to have a repeat of his debut match, where he narrowly lost to Akira Maeda, in what was a fantastic debut from this sambist turned pro wrestler. Maeda has proven that he can still pull off a good match in small doses, so it will be interesting to see what he does here. We are treated to full entrances by both performers, and the crowd is absolutely nuts for Maeda. I'm getting the impression that the undercard doesn't even matter to the fans at this point, as Maeda seems to single-handedly be enough to carry this promotion if the crowd reaction is any indication.

The energy of this place is unreal, and the Hiroshima public is captivated by every move these two are making. Things start with a lot of feints and the two feeling each other out. First blood is drawn in the form of a headlock takedown by Han, in which he tries to convert into a choke, but Maeda easily reverses it into an armbar attempt, followed by a failed leg-lock battle by both men. They get back up, but in no time at all, they are right back to a battle to see whose ankle will succumb first. Han wins round one, with a heel-hook forcing the first rope escape. The rest of this was fast-paced and exciting, which saw Han try and contort Maeda's limbs from just about every conceivable angle. This was a very submission-heavy affair, but it was full blast the entire time, and while that didn't exactly make for the most realistic outing from a real fighting standpoint, it didn't matter as the creativity and flow were off the charts. Han eventually wins via a calf-slicer around the 17 ½ mark, and while this would normally be about ten minutes too long for a latter career Maeda showing, here it worked splendidly. In my opinion, this was better than their first outing, and it wouldn't surprise me if it winds up being the last great match that Maeda has. ****1/4

ML: I would prefer a better undercard, obviously, but if we are to have a one match show quality wise, it's nice when that match is at least the one that drew the crowd. Maeda is surprisingly in fine form here, actually moving fairly well compared to what we've seen in RINGS. It is Han's movement that is outstanding. He clearly has a massive speed advantage, which Maeda tries to stifle through low kicks, and is largely doing his best to work around Maeda. Right away, even though this is a work, we can see how far ahead of the shoot game Han is in terms of combining striking and grappling, using a 1-2 to accomplish his goal on securing a bodylock. Maeda does a good job of fighting for underhooks, so Han essentially does a standing arm-triangle in order to trip Maeda, though what he ultimately works on the ground is more of a headlock. Maeda draws first blood, knocking Han down with a liver shot, but Han responds with a leg-trip into an Achilles' tendon hold on the bad leg for a rope escape. This isn't the most realistic battle, but it is a fine work, one of the best of Maeda's RINGS career. Here, he does the right thing in putting Volk over, finally establishing a rival for himself in the promotion. He has the out that his bad knee eventually did him in, as Maeda was on the offensive going for his own leg submission when Han countered with the hizagatame, causing Maeda to tap immediately, whereas a healthy individual would have survived longer, and probably had a chance to escape. This felt like the first major match in the history of the RINGS promotion, with Han showing great diversity and endless creativity, while Maeda was a bit repetitive, albeit he at least stuck to his plan. A definite improvement over their first match, which was RINGS MOTY for 1991, though not as awe inspiring since we now have an idea of what to expect from Han. ***3/4

Conclusion: Sadly, after coming off a great event with their co-promoted show with Sediokaikan, this wound up being a pretty weak follow-up. It did have a good shoot with Nishi/Peeters, and to my total surprise, an excellent work with Maeda/Han, which was the best match of the night. The problem is that some of these hired guns have no business working. They would probably be fine in shoots, but really shouldn't be allowed on the flipside without first proving some ability behind the scenes. Still, that's probably easier said than done, as you have to fill the card with something, but when there are real fights on a card, it serves to make the bad-looking fake stuff completely jarring, by comparison. To Maeda's credit, he's been allowing shoots on every card for the past several months, which may seem trivial now, but was mind-blowingly progressive in early 1992. He also deserves a lot of praise for being willing to put Han over, especially at this early stage of his career. Takada could certainly learn a lesson from him, in that there are times where it's best to put your ego aside for the long-term health of your company, which is something that he sadly never learned. Maeda succeeded in officially putting Han on the map for years to come by this smart booking decision, as he would get at least a solid 6 years of strong performances from him as a result.

ML: I agree with your assessments, it's just that Maeda and shooting are at cross purposes. Since he presumably has no plans to actually do real fights himself, his primary goal is to develop main event opponents, not real life killers who then have to suddenly figure out how to not make him (and themselves) look bad while at the same time putting him over. Fighters like Williams, Kakuda, and Satake would be quality wins for Akira, so they have to figure out the fake game somehow, and less meaningful undercard bouts are the most reasonable way.

*This entire event, can be seen in all of its splendor, over at www.patreon.com/KakutogiRoad *

*In other news*

The recent PWFG show that took place in Miami, Florida on 3-20-92 was considered to be a success by both Vale (who helped promote it) and Fujiwara. It pulled in an almost 3,000-person attendance and was marketed to more of a karate/kickboxing crowd, as opposed to a pro wrestling demographic. Roberto Duran was also in attendance, and reportedly weighing close to 250 pounds (he won his first pro boxing title in 1972 at 135), which may be problematic as he is set to have a fight against Maskatsu Funaki on 4-19-92 in Tokyo.

A near-riot broke out recently at a WKA kickboxing card, during a match between Hector Pena and Roney Lewis. Inside leg kicks were legal for this bout, but groin shots and elbows, were not. Former full-contact karate champion Cecil Peoples was officiating this fight, and had to warn Lewis repeatedly about groin shots. Still, despite this, it seemed that Pena was on his way to a clear victory when he was given a hard elbow to the temple. Peoples told the judges to deduct a point, which enraged Lewis to the point of shoving People's and kicking him in the groin. This is where the pandemonium broke out, as it was reported that shortly after this, some of Lewis's handlers rushed the ring, with one member going as far as to throw a stool out to the crowd hitting several people with it. Even WKA president Howard Hansen got involved as he was hit in the head while trying to protect a female timekeeper from the melee. Eventually, the order was restored, and Lewis was fined $200 and given a 45-day suspension for his actions.

The All Japan Kickboxing Federation recently held another exciting card on 3-28-92 which featured 5-thrilling bouts! Let's check in with ace reporter Mike Lorefice, for some analysis:

The most entertaining fight on the card was a Featherweight Next Challenger Decision Tournament match between Takashi Nakajima vs. Michiaki Yamazaki. Takashi Nakajima vs. Michiaki Yamazaki R3. This fight was pretty wild! Nakajima had the height advantage and appeared to be much more skilled and diverse as well. He was landing naked high kicks from the outside, so Yamazaki just started rushing in, trying to clinch. Nakajima was much more versed in a Muay Thai though and would drop down the vaunted 12 -6 elbow, Yamazaki was probably lucky to escape with his life! There was an amazing sequence where Nakajima did a right high kick into a right straight, hit a jumping knee after backing Yamazaki into the ropes, dropped an elbow to the back of his head, which literally caused Yamazaki to run away to the other side of the ring, but Nakajima ran at him and hit a jumping high kick. Though this was essentially a job rematch, Yamazaki did have a few good punch flurries on the inside, but his head was a stationary target even when Nakajima wasn't using the clinch blasts him with knees. When Yamazaki tried to back Nakajima into the corner to start the third, Nakajima just worked him over with knees and elbows, buckling him with a knee to the midsection then dropping the elbow down on his head for a knockdown. Nakajima obediently got another knockdown with clinch knees, and the Ref wisely waived it off even though Yamazaki did make it up. Good match.

The main event, Takahiro Shimizu vs. Atsushi Tateshima, was clearly a battle of styles with Tateshima coming forward and blasting Shimizu with debilitating low kicks, while Shimizu tried to time him and answer with powerful hooks. The problem for Shimizu is his lead leg was compromised literally within seconds, and he spent most of the fight hopping backwards on the good leg like a crippled kangaroo, which really limited his punching power. Shimizu's leg gave out after a low kick halfway through the first round, and while the match was entertaining, you already felt the writing was on the wall. That being said, Shimizu was clearly the better boxer, and managed to have a good second round after he gets uppercut going to make this a fight, despite largely fighting without his left leg. In the third round, the inevitable finally happened, Shimizu's leg gave out from a low kick, and you could tell he wasn't getting up anytime soon. Good match.

*Don't miss any of the AJK footfighting action. This event, along with many other priceless gyms, can be seen over at www.patreon.com/KakutogiRoad *

*Special Thanks to Lydia Hoskins, for her amazing art contribution*
 

mbetz1981

Active Member
Jul 27, 2020
82
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*Editors Note: Mike Lorefice (of MMA/Puroresu mega-center quebrada.net) will have his comments be preceded by his initials. *

The lion, despite being Africa’s apex predator, only has a roughly 30% success rate in their hunts. This is due to their preference for wild game that is faster than they are, and in order to achieve victory against their nimbler foes, a considerable amount of teamwork is necessary. In a warped way that is where we now find ourselves with the PWFG, as they have the raw talent in Shamrock, Suzuki, and Funaki, to overwhelm their competition, but only with the proper vision, execution, and a strong support system in place, undergirding them.

ML: Lion prides include two to three males, around a dozen females, and their young. Male cubs remain in a pride for about three years, after which they become wandering nomads for about two years until they either take over an existing pride or form a new one around the age of five. Their life expectancy is considerably shorter than females, so their tenure within a pride is relatively short. Lionesses are the primary hunters, exhausting and killing their often larger and faster prey by hunting together. If we are marking Funaki, Suzuki, and Shamrock as the Lions, one can see why PWFG is already in a lot of trouble.

The Many Chins of Duran…
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The date is 4-19-92 and when we last saw Fujiwara and Co., they were trying their hand at breaking into the coveted American market, thanks to Bart Vale’s Miami connection, with an event catered to the burgeoning karate/kickboxing scene at the time. This was an admirable effort, and to their credit they were the first of the Japanese shoot groups to land on American soil, but failed to follow up in any significant way, or find the proper American media outlets to try and create the needed buzz, going forward. Surely, having an exodus of talent leave in mid-93 completely nullified any chances of them moving forward in any significant capacity, let alone try and compete with the rise of the UFC. For now, however, let us enjoy their next step forward, as they attempt to ride the momentum of the UWFI’s publicity stunt of having professional boxers fight their main talents, in this case, the main event between Masakatsu Funaki and Panamanian sensation, Roberto Duran.

Duran, despite being in his early 40s for this bout, would be an excellent choice for another experiment in the shoot-fighter vs boxer sweepstakes due to his name value, that is, if he shows up in shape. He had attended the aforementioned PWFG event in Miami and was reportedly weighing around 250 pounds, which is a far cry from his weight of 135 in 1972, where he won his first boxing title. Hopefully, he will have managed to come into some semblance of fighting shape tonight, and with any luck, this will be a proper shoot, a la Scott/Warring, although I suspect that Funaki would obliterate any version of Duran without breaking a sweat.

After opening things up with the requisite montage, we are taken to the press conference that took place on 3-20-92, and Duran is looking far worse than I had expected. I am now rethinking the validity of this idea, despite his legit name recognition, he looks simply awful here and wouldn’t be much bragging rights even if someone like me managed to beat him.

ML: Leon Spinks, who when he was still a relevant boxer put Antonio Inoki over on 10/9/86 in a dreadful match the same night Akira Maeda had a memorable mixed match with kickboxer Don Nakaya Nielsen. At this point in time, he had just started his 2nd tour for FMW, capturing the WWA Martial Arts Heavyweight Title from Tarzan Goto on 3/25/92. He would soon, of course, lose the title to Atsushi Onita on 5/24/92. This was a time when boxing was for some reason thought to be the preeminent combat sport, at least in America where kickboxing was never recognized as the top striking sport, and with the success of Nobuhiko Takada in allowing Trevor Berbick to humiliate himself, I don't think PWFG cared much beyond getting a transcendent name on Funaki's resume, even if the win ultimately might mean more to those who didn't bother to watch it than those who suffered through what was sure to be a fiasco.

After some pre-match interviews, we will start things off between Kazuo Takahashi and Yuki Ishikawa. This will be the pro wrestling debut of one of the more interesting characters to come from this era, Yuki Ishikawa. From a modern vantage point, he is primarily known for his work in Battlarts, the promotion that he formed in 1996 out of the ashes of the PWFG and could be considered as its spiritual successor. While Battlarts didn’t wind up strictly adhering to the shoot-style, they did have a tangential relationship with the late 90s MMA scene in Japan with several members of their roster (most noticeably Alexander Otsuka) also having competed in places like RINGS, PRIDE, etc, and even had Quinten “Rampage” Jackson appear at one of their events.
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What isn’t well known is that Ishikawa had originally started under Satoru Sayama and was even featured in Sayama’s debut Shooto pre-event (forever documented via the 1988 Shooto VHS release, “The Shooting”). The exact details are murky, but it would appear that after cutting his teeth in Shooto, he traveled to the United States in order to train with Boris Malenko and Karl Gotch. He reportedly received more training from Gotch and Malenko than any of the other members of the PWFG roster, save for Fujiwara. He would go on to spend his early years bouncing between PWFG and NJPW, even getting a chance to compete in the 1995 Young Lions Cup that NJPW hosted, but was unsuccessful in winning the event. Once the PWFG ran into money problems in 1996, it was rumored that their sponsors were going to completely restructure the promotion, which prompted Ishikawa to convince the roster to abandon ship, and head over to his new Battlarts promotion. He stayed with his promotion until it went defunct in 2011, and continues to work on the Japanese circuit today, as a freelancer.









Right away, we can see that this will be a trial by fire for Ishikawa, as Takahashi has fully engaged his game face, and looks ready to scrap. Takahashi opens with his usual lightning-quick single-leg takedown, but Ishikawa pulls out one of the fastest sprawls we’ve seen to date, and negating the takedown, and winds up scrambling his way into side-control. As they are fighting on the ground we are seeing some very stiff shots being given by both men, probably the stiffest we’ve seen to date if you discount the time that Takahashi got his head punted by Shamrock.This bout saw Ishikawa succumb to the more experienced fighter in Takahashi. Takahashi would put up several valiant attempts but would always wind up being out grappled and caught in a submission. He was able to stay close to the ropes for most of these exchanges, but eventually, Takahashi wore him down and slapped on an armbar.I went into this fully expecting a work, but honestly, after careful review, I believe this to be a shoot. The ground striking was legit but was only used to either set up or escape from a submission, so one could argue that they could have beat on each other more, and while that’s true, I don’t discount the reality of a fight just based on how much two people could have been punching each other on the ground. Otherwise, we would have to throw out the majority of Pancrase fights due to the gentleman’s agreement that most adhered to, of no ground strikes. Either way, I would rate this as a fast-paced, and exciting start to the show, and was a fine debut for Ishikawa, although we can see that he’ll need more experience before he can really hang in a shoot.ML: This was an interesting shoot because Ishikawa actually had some takedown defense to deal with Takahashi's wrestling, and the ability to turn defense into offense on the ground. His problem is his offense was based on kicking, and that would just get him taken down. Takahashi ultimately wound up doing the smart thing, and just waiting for the less patient Ishikawa to attack him, resulting in much easier takedowns then when Takahashi took the initiative. Takahashi's submission game is improving, and while the Ishikawa showed some decent defense and resilience, ultimately he was just outgunned. Otherwise, it's just important because it's the debut of a wrestler who went on to become both very good and very important to keeping the shoot style alive.

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Next up is Takaku Fuke vs a debuting Ryushi Yanagisawa. Yanagisawa and Ishikawa were the last of the “young boys” that competed in the PWFG before Funaki & Suzuki left, and tonight marks the beginning for both. Yanagisawa would become a regular fixture in Pancrase for almost a decade, until migrating back to pro wrestling in 2002, joining NJPW. Anyone that may only know Ryushi for some of his lackluster later showings in Pancrase, will get to see him move splendidly here, even making Fuke look slow by comparison.

After a brief feeling-out process on the ground, these two start really laying into each other with some ultra-stiff kicks, before Ishikawa manages to excuse himself from the melee by forcing Fuke to the mat. Here, the skill disparity is much less significant than the prior match, with Ryushi probably having the edge in the stand-up, but like Ishikawa, doesn’t yet have the experience on the mat. He was put in a heel hook by Fuke, but was positioned close enough to the ropes to escape. The next exchange was like the first, with Yanagisawa’s landing another excellent kick on Fuke, only to get taken down on the 2nd attempt, and put into another heel hook. Credit to Fuke for not falling back for the elementary straight ankle lock like so many of his peers did in these days and rather positioning his hands/wrists correctly as he was falling back, making for a very smooth entry into this attack. They continued to go at it for a few more minutes, with Fuke looking overwhelmed on his feet, but too smooth with his grappling, and he won via heel-hook. Another proto Pancrase fight here. I just wasn’t seeing any overt cooperation, or holes in this, outside of the fact that they were only punching each other on the ground enough to try and keep the grappling from stalling. Does that make it a work? Perhaps, but not in my estimation. Regardless, we have two highly realistic and exciting matches in a row, and if this continues we are on our way to having the most realistic PWFG card, yet.

ML: Ryushi Yanagisawa is an important, if overlooked figure, the most exciting big shooter of the era. He was everything Yoshihiro Takiyama wasn't, a fast, skilled, talented striker who could hang with anyone. Though his record in shoots wasn't that great, most of the fighters he lost to, including Bas Rutten (0-2), Masakatsu Funaki (0-2), Ken Shamrock, Jason DeLucia (1-2), Guy Mezger (0-4-1), Frank Shamrock, Evan Tanner, Randy Couture, Fedor Emelianenko & Mirko Cro Cop (in kickboxing), would be considered among the best of the era, if not all-time. This fight had some explosive scrambling and intense moments, but it wasn't a shoot. The strikes, Yanagisawa's kicks especially, were rarely designed to connect properly, even though he had success with the few low kicks he threw, often he would throw middle kicks with the top of his kick pad almost to where the knee pad starts, and then go with the takedown when Fuke predictably caught the leg. He even cooperated for a clean ipponzeoi. If the kick wasn't off high, it would basically be with his toes. Fuke also threw a mount elbow that purposely missed entirely, or almost entirely (Fuke brought his arm right back towards Yanagisawa's nose just after it passed to close the visual gap), which they did their best to make look brutal. Both fighters would concede positions and holds easily once the opponent was close. Fuke even managed to drag Yanagisawa, who must outweigh him by close to 50 pounds, to the center of the ring for the final submission. Stylistically, this was pretty much the same match as the previous, with the debuting fighter being the better kicker, but just being taken down and threatened with heel hooks and arm bars until he was finally caught. It was a pretty good match.

It looks like I may have spoken too soon, as another apex predator in the form of “Killer Whale” Kiraware is set to fight the newly christened “Champion of the World,” Bart Vale. It's amazing how after winning such a prestigious title, his first defense is against this portly behemoth. All we can hope for now is a quick and merciful death, as surely this match will surely be torturous if taken beyond a few minutes. Things start with Kiraware rushing Vale into a corner and both men trading heavy slaps back and forth, before a protracted ground battle. To be fair, this was passable, and would have been a reasonable bit of filler on a late 80s UWF card, but held up next to the first two bouts, let alone some of the output from their competitors, it is obvious that this does not belong. Thankfully, it ended quickly at the 7 ½ min mark. **

ML: The dreaded Vale vs. Whale matchup wasn't as atrocious as expected, though I'm sure Free Willy wasn't the only one rushing for a refund. No one will ever accuse Kiraware of being fast as a shark, but because the killer whale was on the attack, he at least kept Vale from humiliating himself with too many of his movie kicks where he is like Jerry Trimble, except at 1/100th the speed. Vale's kicks were extra fluffy today though. You'd think an opponent as gigantic as Kiraware could at least absorb more than a grazing impact. There was one funny spot just before Vale won with a high kick were Vale did a ridiculous jumping hook kick that cleared Kiraware's head entirely almost looking like an odd sort of leapfrog, but for the most part, this was a clinching and grappling battle, which while not particularly exciting, was less laughable than the typical Bart match.

Now to continue to push the envelope and risk the goodwill that the first two matches generated for us, is Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs Jerry Flynn. This has the potential to be adequate if Fujiwara can keep the comedy to a minimum and give us a quick match. Things start with Flynn showing some tasty kicks, while Fujiwara responds with his usual unathletic variations. Thankfully, it went to the mat quickly, and Flynn is looking good here, by showing a lot of intensity, and it’s clear that his confidence is growing. Tto his credit, Fujiwara allows himself to be a grappling dummy/punching back for Flynn, until there was a good moment where Fujiwara looked to have no answers for Flynn, before restoring to a desperation single-leg takedown. Fujiwara would get moments of mat control, but spent most of the match trying to ward off Flynn’s aggression. Eventually, Flynn succumbs to an ankle lock, but thanks to Fujiwara he looked good throughout, and his intensity led to a *** outcome.

ML: There was a huge discrepancy in the quality of kicks, with Flynn throwing some snappy low kicks, while Fujiwara looked more like a dog who had found an appealing tree. Fujiwara had a better attitude here, at least, and was willing to allow Flynn to show growth, dominating the stand-up, and even having good moments on the ground, early on. As the match progressed, it began to durdle, with Fujiwara controlling until he found the finisher. It was ** if you want to be really generous, but when you follow the Bartman, all you really have to do is something that bares some resemblance to an athletic contest and you will probably seem like a return to form.



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Now for the 4th conflict between Suzuki and Shamrock, which has always led to a satisfying result, but can they continue their winning ways. They put on the best match at the prior Miami event, so this may be a bit soon to go back to this well, but hopefully, it pays off. The first thing I am noticing is how impressive Suzuki’s movement is. He constantly bounces up and down, feinting the takedown, and using it to set up a thigh kick. Shamrock responds by impersonating Don “The Dragon” Wilson, awkwardly shifting into a side-stance, which rightfully gets him immediately taken down. What followed would be akin to a chess match minus the boredom. Suzuki was constantly trying to explode but was stifled by Shamrock using his strength and weight to try and keep him stationary. There were some slick skills on display from Suzuki throughout, at one point he escaped a standing rear-naked choke by doing a backward somersault as Shamrock was falling back to finish the choke. Shamrock was not without his charms as well. At one point, he was grinding his forearm/elbow into Suzuki’s face back and forth, in what was a painful way to get him to move and make a mistake. It did cause Suzuki to eventually turn and give up his back, but he was too quick to be punished by Ken over it.

The stand up was also a treat. While it was never a full blitzkrieg, there were a lot of shifts and feints from both men, as they were trying to find the right moment to force their way in. Things eventually end when Suzuki secures a weird variation of a guillotine choke for the victory. This was an excellent match, and a rare example of a match that can equally work on multiple levels. It was both urgent and methodical, exciting and thoughtful, and nuanced without being boring. This had the least amount of traditional pro wrestling spots in their matches so far, so while that may have taken down the entertainment value a notch, it made up for it by being more serious. ****

ML: I'm assuming someone was impressed by their Miami match, and decided to have them run it back in Japan. Again, this is the sort of match that is difficult to rate. It was an intense and thoughtful work that was very much ahead of its time, especially positionally with Shamrock, in particular, doing a lot better job controlling with front and rear mounts. Because there was minimal ground striking, and they were setting their submissions up rather than just going wild on the ground, to the modern viewer, a lot of times it may just seem like an even duller version of an early Pancrase match. It was an important match, and it had its moments, but again, their 1991 matches are far more entertaining from a pro wrestling perspective, while their 1992 matches are more transitional matches between the old UWF style and the new Pancrase style. Suzuki looked much better than Ken on his feet, showing a lot more footwork and explosion. Ken's side stance was pretty bad because he didn't strike with the lead leg or hand to keep Suzuki off, so it was really just slowing down his right kick, which now was further from the target. He was the better grappling though, with Suzuki mostly being there on the defensive looking for a way to sneak around and take the back, and grappling was most of the match. I didn't really buy the finish where Ken tried to slam after his double leg failed, but Suzuki managed to choke him out flat on his stomach without any body control whatsoever. ***

Now for the main event: Duran vs Funaki. I am desperately hoping that this will be a shoot, although I am not getting my hopes up. The first thing that is evident (outside of Fuanki’s gloriously huge hair) is that Duran did lose some weight in the month leading up to this, but not enough to want to take his shirt off. This will be contested under a round system, and I’m not sure, but I assume that the rules are in the normal PWFG style.

Funaki dances around Duran for most of the round, until finally taking him down, when I hear the ref start to count, which makes me think that the rules only allow for 8 (?) seconds of ground fighting. Duran is able to land a couple of shots before the round ends, but nothing significant.

Round 2 starts, and it’s obvious that Funaki can end this fight anytime he wants to, but is presumably trying to carry Duran to try and pad things out. He continues to dance around Duran’s jabs before finally blasting him down and grabbing an ankle, but refrains from really torquing the hold, thus allowing Duran the 8 seconds needed to be restarted. Funaki ate a few decent body shots from Duran, before heading into round 3, but was mostly unscathed.

Round 3 sees Duran start to take this more seriously, and land some nasty body shots to Funaki when he was attempting to clinch. After several of these, Funaki seems to have had enough, and quickly takes Duran down, and submits him. This was a disappointing and needless affair. At first, I thought that Funaki was simply carrying Duran, and was going to try and toy with him for a while before ending things, but the finish was contrived, Duran disgracing himself with a blatant work. Funaki facing a real boxer in a shoot was a good idea at this stage of the game, but beating a ridiculously out-of-shape 42-year-old was not. This was one of the dumber ways of trying to pull off what Takada accomplished with his Berbick stunt. At least that was a shoot that had the potential of backfiring on the UWF-I, even if the odds were in Takada’s favor. This was just a silly cash grab for Duran, and left a sour taste in my mouth, especially when things were going well with the rest of the card.

ML: At some point, Duran decided if he cant beat Sugar, he'll just eat sugar. I never expected this to be a shoot. I'm not really sure what to think of it. It wasn't good by any means, but it wasn't an embarrassment, as most of these matches, especially the New Japan ones, usually are. From a story perspective, they fought a smart match telling the logical, if predictable, tale of Duran trying to use his jab to keep Funaki off, and getting to the ropes as fast as he could once Funaki managed to get hold of him. On one hand, the problem is the match was mostly air, as very little of significance actually happened. On the other hand, because there were so little actual contact, Duran got away with not having to learn to actually work, which for a one off was never really going to happen. This was pretty forgettable, but at the same time, it was a lot less unrealistic because they didn't try much, which again, I suppose, shows the low standard of the show, in general. Funaki was light on his feet, and showed a good head movement, so Duran barely touched him. Meanwhile, Funaki only had seconds to do anything to Duran even under the best of circumstances, so he wasn't getting anything done either. In the end, this was mostly shadowboxing, which is better when Burt Young is around to get in his digs like "He can't train to the jungle junk music."

Conclusion: Despite the absurd ending, and the mediocrity of Vale/Kiraware, this was one of the best PWFG shows, so far, and probably the most realistic feeling. It’s also the first show in a while, that gives a glimmer of hope for the future of this promotion. There are still obvious problems, but the addition of Yanagisawa and Ishikawa accomplishes what they need most, and that’s more worthy talent on the bottom end. We still have to accept that every card will have Fujiwara and Vale on it, thus leading to two mediocre-at-best matches, but if they can book smartly from here on out, and add 1 or 2 more key players, then they have a chance to take the lead. Overall a good event.

ML: I thought this card was basically as uninspiring as PWFG has been for the past several months. It had the usual one good match involving Shamrock, with most of the rest being forgettable. At least the additions of Ishikawa and Yanagisawa give some hope, as the undercard could potentially be much better with Fuke having some actual opponents, but the match making is so ridiculously lacking in creativity that every show feels almost exactly the same.

*This entire event, along with many other bonus treasures, await you over at www.patreon.com/KakutogiRoad *

*In other news*

Some good news for the PWFG, wWhile promoting their latest event to feature a matchup between Roberto Duran and Masakatsu Funaki, they had to compete with the SWS promotion using Ric Flair vs Genichiro Tenryu as the main event (on 4/17/92 at Yokohama Bunka Gym). As of 4-3-92, the PWFG has reportedly outsold the SWS event by a 10-1 ratio.

The UWF-I has a major show coming up on 5-8-92 that is set to see the first championship match in the company with Takada vs Gary Albright. Also, Koji Kitao has signed on, to a reported $75,000 per match deal, and will be debuting at this event as well.

The recent Sediokaikan/RINGS event was a success with a sellout crowd of 8,500 being reported.

The PWFG is reportedly in negotiations with Don “Nakaya” Neilsen to fight at an upcoming event. No word on his opponent yet, but the rumor is that it will be Yoshiaki Fujiwara.

Akira Maeda has reportedly taken a trip to Bulgaria, in an effort to scout out possible new talent for RINGS.
 

mbetz1981

Active Member
Jul 27, 2020
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Kakutogi Road: The Complete History of MMA Vol.34 "Swan Song"

Swan song: A metaphor stretching back to ancient Greece, denoting one’s final performance, act, or gesture, shortly before their death or retirement. This legend was borne of the ancient belief that swans, who are seemingly non-vocal (or at least non-musical) during their lifetimes, get to have their final act be one of creative release.

Fittingly, that is where we are at now, with an event that will bring us closure to one of the greatest rookie feuds in pro wrestling history, the 6th and final conflict between Hiromitsu Kanehara and Masakazu Maeda. These two have completely turned the conventions of wrestling upside down, by pushing the boundaries of what can be done in a worked pro-wrestling environment, by turning them from choreographed routines based around telling a physical story, to all-out assaults where the only connection to standard pro fare would be the predetermined winner. Yes, as my colleague Mike Lorefice once pointed out, had shoot-style pro wrestling continued in this vein, then there would have been no need for actual MMA, but that’s part of what makes these two so great, is their ability to turn up the physicality volume to 11. In their last couple of matches, they managed to put forth the same urgency that one would have in a real shoot, which is something that requires a full-throttled commitment that very few performers would be capable of.

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The date is 5-8-92 and we are at the brand-new Yokohama Arena. This 17,000-capacity venue was built in 1989 and has wound up becoming a popular venue for musical acts that want the ability to provide complex set designs and lighting arrangements, but don’t have to commit to trying to sell out the Tokyo Dome, due to its more modest size. Little time is wasted before we are taken to the opening matchup, again the 6th opening in a row to feature Kanehara and other Maeda, and sadly I can only wish that we had 600 more. Their last bout got a ***** and ****3/4 rating from each of us, and while it would be unreasonable of me to hope for another outing of that magnitude, I’m sure that this will be good.

As expected, Maeda charges in like his life depended on it, and starts wailing away on Kanehara, but is quickly stifled by a suplex. Kanehara tries to keep him contained to the mat, but Maeda is looking very slick here and instantly slithers back to his feet. The next couple of minutes may be Maeda’s best showing yet, as he constantly keeps the pressure on Kanehara both on the feet and on the mat. Eventually, Kanehara is able to utilize some fast palms to get Maeda down long enough to acquire an armbar/rope escape, and while it’s still clear that Kanehara is the superior submission artist, that may not be enough to keep the relentless aggression of Maeda at bay.

This continues to move at such a breakneck pace that it’s hard to give a play-by-play, but Maeda continues to go all-or-nothing, thus keeping a lot of pressure on Kanehara, but surprisingly it’s Kanehara’s striking that continues to set up grappling opportunities for him, as he is able to counter Maeda’s speed with more precise attacks. After getting him back down on the mat, they entered into the requisite foot-lock battle, before Kanehara’s heel-hook wins over Maeda’s straight ankle lock.

The rest of this match was what we’ve come to expect, non-stop action and unmitigated aggression from both men. While this wasn’t on par with their last showing, due to more pro-wrestling styled submission sequences (with the ever-nefarious Boston crab making several appearances) both the striking and intensity continued to be top-notch. This was a fine way for Maeda to end his career and a great way for Kanehara to start his. One has to wonder why such a fantastic and promising young talent like Maeda would end things just as he put himself on the map, and in the spirit of seeking true knowledge, we decided to take action to find out. Mike Lorefice contacted one of his deep underground sources from Japan, who offered this quote, "I don't know much about Masakazu Maeda’s fights, but he believed that UWF Inter matches were serious competitions. Every time he had a match, his family and friends cheered for him seriously. He thought that he had cheated them. It is rumored that he retired because he couldn't stand to cheat his family and friends."

If this is true, then it cements Masakazu Maeda into the pantheon of general badassery, as it shows that this was a man so committed to the true budo spirit of MMA, that he could not continue to fool people within a worked entertainment sphere, and thus quit, just as his career was taking off. It’s a shame that he didn’t move on to Shooto, or a different organization to forge ahead in a real combat sport, but we appreciate his efforts and wish to immortalize them here. A beautiful and haunting final song, indeed. ****¼

ML: To me, one of the biggest reasons MMA and kickboxing are better than pro wrestling, and the lighter weight classes in them are so far superior to the heavyweight division, is that cardio is so important. I want to see two fighters going full speed ahead for the duration, rest and sleep when they are dead (or at least on their time, don't waste mine). In a real fight, you can't turn your back on the opponent, play to the crowd really, or lie on your side because you will almost immediately get knocked out for letting your guard down. It is so rare that we are treated to something that actually appears to have stakes in pro-wrestling, but Maeda is already one of the greats at just constantly blitzing for the duration. Obviously, it's fine for the action to slow down when it is logical, but what I'm talking about his Maeda showing an endless drive and passion to win the match, his desire increasing my interest, as opposed to the usual where the performers lack of desire dramatically decreases my interest. And obviously Kanehara deserves some credit for this as well. I thought this was Maeda's best performance though, particularly his standup has improved to the point where the speed and consistency of his attacks isn't coming with an obvious decrease in accuracy because of that. Kanehara's striking is getting better as well, and he began to take over in standup, once he started slowing Maeda down with his submission attempts on the ground. I didn't like that Maeda was selling more than ever here to show that Kanehara was breaking him down. If this match wasn't quite as good as their previous encounter, it's because Maeda was portraying that he was injured and/or running out of gas too much of the second half, and thus unable to put up consistent resistance. Though in a sense, the match was somewhat even in that Maeda controlled the first half, while Kanehara controlled the second half, Kanehara was only slightly behind in the first half, while when Maeda hit a German suplex but failed on the armbar only to have Kanehara counter with a kneebar about 11 minutes in, the writing was just on the wall for Maeda to once again be humbled by his fellow rookie. Maeda really limped to the finish, but it's doubtful that he'd do a jump spinning kick if the knee was truly damaged, so it just seemed like foreshadowing the inevitable (though it was a bit suprising he didn't lose to a leg lock). The booking was once again incredibly frustrating, as while Kanehara was in the midst of what is most likely has the best rookie year in the history of pro-wrestling, there is still no reason for him to win every single match, especially when he fights the same almost as impressive opponent literally every single time. Kanehara should win the series, you know, by one, as you would see from really even the worst bookers in the history of wrestling. Another classic, though not quite as amazing as 3/17/92 or 2/15/92. The beginning was awesome, maybe their best stuff so far, but unfortunately, it got less competitive, and thus compelling as it progressed. While this was a fitting swan song for better Maeda, it was a tragic loss for the promotion and the fans, and we should all feel doubly cheated that we didn't even get our 2/2 blue Bird creature token with flying as compensation for our tremendous loss. ****1/4

Now, in true UWF-I fashion, we are greeted to yet another match between Masahito Kakihara and Mark Silver. When we last saw these two a month ago, they gave us an overlong, but good 30 minute match, which showed that Kakihara is more than a man with lighting in his palms, he's a respectable grappler, as well. Silver, on the other hand, has potential but is too green to be put in a format that only the best of the best can pull off, I.E., the 30 minute draw. The match starts with Kakihara unleashing a torrent of palm attacks, and looking even faster than usual, if that’s even possible. Kakihara then utilizes a side-stance to sneak into Silver’s perimeter before unloading another hand volley. Silver is able to eventually just ragdoll Kakihara to the mat before executing yet another crab from Boston, which Kakihara hilariously oversells. This wound up being another 30 minute draw, which is commendable for the opportunity that it gives Silver to learn, but unfortunate for us, as we have to suffer through his on-the-job training. While still rather stiff, Silver is looking more relaxed in this outing, so these outings seem to have their intended effect of growing him as a performer. Unfortunately, this didn’t lead to a better match, but that’s because Kakihara mainly used his ground time to let Silver take the offensive and allowed him to dictate the grappling portions. Kakihara was still all-fire in the standup, but his approach to this match, while probably better for Silver’s learning curve, was considerably duller than their last affair. Not bad but should have been much shorter. ***

ML: I can forgive booking the same match with the same result when it's good, but when you book the same disaster for absolutely no reason, it really just seems like you aren't even trying. Silver may have been giving it to good old college try, but man was he annoying, at times. I mean, every time Kakihara would get him in a submission, usually a leg lock, he would get super hyper and start wailing like a banshee. Yet, almost as soon as he managed to escape, he would initiate another sequence that was very likely to yield the exact same result. I guess when you have 30 minutes to kill, and you really don't have any idea we were doing, it's not surprising. Still, it was better than seeing more of Silver's dull riding time, though that was plentiful as well. Kakihara is a talented fighter who thrives on speed, but it was hard for him to display what makes him special in the match so ridiculously long, especially against a much larger & slower opponent of limited capability who just wanted to ground him. He did the best he could, but he wasn't going out of his way to put himself over here. This match would have been passable at 10 minutes or less, but I'd probably rather suffer through the infamous Vale vs. Whale again then rewatch this just because that would waste less time.

Now for a further demonstration of mind-numbingly inane booking, we have a repeat of Tatsuo Nakano vs. Tom Burton. At least Kakihara/Silver is forgivable, as despite its flaws, they were still somewhat entertaining matches thanks to the power of Kakihara. This, on the other hand, was a rematch that absolutely no one was asking for. Thankfully, this was 9 minutes instead of 30, so it was quick enough to not be an issue. This was a typical late-80s UWF style match, which is fine for what it was, but when compared to the modern technology that we’ve been witnessing lately, feels more and more out of place. **

ML: Wow, at this point I'm convinced that Gedo secretly booked this card, doing his best to figure out how a once mighty promotion could start drawing less than 400 fans at Korakuen Hall and get outdrawn at Budokan by Stardom, despite Stardom's illustrious track record of never drawing beyond the Korakuen level (thankfully Miyato didn't lose or devalue all his good workers and just do endless silly entertainment wrestling shenanigans until they reached this point). Nakano actually seemed a little better here, as he decided to give footwork a try, but Burton still just stood around and just wanted to grab him. This match was on par with the previous match, probably a little worse but at the same time less painful because it was so much shorter. There was one truly hilarious spot just before the finish where Burton fell missing an elbow, yet Nakano skill stumbled backwards across the ring and went flying through the ropes.

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Now for another singles match featuring newcomer, Mark Fleming, and Yuko Miyato. I’m thankful that we get to see Fleming in another singles match, as when we last witnessed him, he was in a tag alongside Yoji Anjo, whereas this should be a better format to showcase his skills. Miyato has been totally on fire so far this year, so we may be in for a sleeper of a great match. Things start with Miyato going straight for the kill, firing off some heavy palms, and while Fleming is clearly not in his standard element, he does a good job of cutting off Miyato’s offense with a quick clinch, before tossing him away like a frisbee. Miyato shows some strong judo in response, with a nice kata-guruma (fireman’s carry) into a hammerlock.

The rest of the match was a treat, as these two had good chemistry with one another, with Miyato having the edge in speed, striking, and submissions, and Fleming with wrestling and strength. What’s refreshing is unlike other wrestlers similar to Fleming, who would simply get a takedown and smother the opponent for 10 minutes, we saw some nice variety from Mark, who was using his wrestling skill to slow Miyato down, but would also generate plenty of attacks with his own submission entries and throws. Also, unlike other big men like Tom Burton/Mack Roesch, Fleming seems to be taking the submission game seriously, and we’ve already seen a huge skill jump between now and when he debuted against Takada. They are still not his forte obviously, but unlike his first outing where you could tell that he had no idea how to execute any submissions outside of the STF, here he put forth admirable attempts at the heel hook, and other leg attacks, showing that he is working hard on learning outside of his matches. This was fun and exciting, with the only major drawback that it could have gone on for a couple more minutes. *** ¾

ML: As with the previous match, this was more about the American who is learning getting ring time than something designed to feature the good native worker. The obvious difference being that Fleming actually has skill. Fleming is far from a finished product, but he appears to have a genuine desire to learn. His submissions aren't great yet, but he is always trying to think about finishing the match, rather than just controlling on the mat, and he showed some skill, for instance a nice roll into a kneebar. Similarly, his standup block is a bit robotic, but at least he has his hands up in is trying to protect himself, which puts him above the majority of the promotion, even though they certainly should know better. This match actually had a lot of interesting countering back and forth, and was much less predictable and repetitive than Kakihara vs. Silver. Fleming was ahead on points the whole way, but Miyato was always competitive, and was finding ways to put Fleming on the defensive enough that you believed he could come back. Miyato rolled through the wakigatame, but was a bit lackadaisical in the ensuing scramble, which could have resulted in him securing a guillotine, but instead wound up with Fleming taking his back and dropping down into a chickenwing facelock for the finish because apparently people still didn't realize how inferior this was to the rear naked choke. Not quite recommendable, partially because it was rather short (though that probably helped the quality overall by not extending Fleming), but definitely a fun match, probably **3/4 or so.

Next is the 2nd match from what may be the best pure wrestler that we’ve seen so far, in Steve Day, facing Yoji Anjo. While he lacked charisma and any sign of striking skills in his debut, Day more than made up for it in great wrestling, and a surprising understanding of submissions, especially for a debuting westerner at this stage. Day had a commendable debut against Takada, so it should be interesting to see what Anjo can pull out of him.

Before it became all the rage for BJJ guys with no striking skills in the late 90s circuit, here Steve Day pulls the tactic of covering one side of his face with his elbow, while he tries to carefully close the distance on Anjo. As you would expect, he eats some shots from his very quick opponent, but is able to secure the clinch and toss Anjo with some lovely Greco-Roman skills. This pattern repeats itself, only Anjo is showing surprising amounts of balance in the clinch, probably due to his judo background. Still, no amount of judo is likely to prevent you from being taken down by Steve Day, so it only served to make him work for it.Still, despite his submission game being better than your average American newb, he is no match for Anjo and lacks the firepower to ever give him a serious threat. This regulates him to being a mostly one-trick pony, as he has 0% stats in his striking column. This was fast-paced, but never really felt like a contest as Day just didn’t have the tools to threaten Anjo. This was somewhat frustrating, as I like seeing someone with the legit skills of Day in this kind of format, but he is going to have to improve on areas outside of his wheelhouse if he wants to get above mid-card status. Tough to rate, but my final verdict is *** due to the fast pace and some excellent wrestling technique from Day.ML: Though it is embarrassing seeing someone whose only standup tactic is to plod in while covering up like a vampire, this match had by far the most intensity and urgency we have seen since the opener. Both men were very explosive when they did something, adding to the sense of realism, and the general importance of succeeding in their tactics. Day may not have all around skills, but he fakes the things he's good at a lot less than any of the other wrestlers we have seen, really not dampening the power and drive necessary to to legitimately jerk the opponent around. Anjo had big advantages both in striking and submission, but there wasn't much you can do to keep Day from depositing him on the mat. To his credit, Day wasn't simply trying to control Anjo. On the contrary, he was taking too many chances (if this weren't a work), leaving his solid base to chase after ankles. This wasn't on par with Anjo's best work obviously, but was certainly one of his most realistic matches, and I really liked the aggression that both men displayed. ***

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Now for something that I wish we got to see more of over the years, an exhibition between two legends, in this case, Nick Bockwinkel and Billy Robinson. Things start with Lou Thesz (who at this point was fully committed to seeing the UWF-I thrive) talk about how the WWF and WCW were a joke, and just considered by Americans to be show business, which is a shame. He then mentions that although Nick and Billy aren’t in peak physical shape, that he was confident that they will put on a great show of “pure international wrestling.” These two had faced each other several times within the 70s and 80s, with their encounter on a 12-11-80 AJPW event being particularly noteworthy. We then get two quick, but heartfelt interviews from both men, and Robinson was emphatic that he would be happy to do whatever he could to put real wrestling back on the map. Things are underway and Nick Bockwinkel still appears to be in great shape, which isn’t surprising as he was an active competitor up until his retirement in 1987. Robinson, on the other hand, looked flabby even back in the 70s, but that didn’t stop him from always being a game performer. Things slowly build-up, until the first great moment where Robinson gets his underhooks in and it seems like he is going to suplex Bockwinkel, who knows what’s coming, and instantly backs up into the ropes to escape it. A nice subtle exchange that got a great response from the audience.

The next memorable moment was when Bockwinkel kneed Robinson, which seemed to legit piss him off. Robinson yelled and curled his fist, to which Nick responded by saying, “It’s just a knee Robinson!” to which Robinson threatens to punch him in the chin. The exhibition ends at 10min with Robinson finally getting his underhook suplex. While this was obviously hampered by Robinson’s physical shape (Bockwinkel looked like he could still go full speed if he had to) it was still obvious that these were two masters of their craft, and it was a treat to see them, even at this stage.

ML: We should first look at their great 30 minute draw from All Japan 12/11/80 Tokyo Kuramae Kokugikan. This match more or less encompasses the best of what serious 1970s style wrestling has to offer. They did a great job of working for the holds with desperation, wasting no time or motion, and building the match up in the most logical and dramatic manner. A lot of these techniques may be outdated, for instance, all the lock ups were upper body based, but the struggle was real, and that pulled you into the contest and allowed you to believe in what they were doing, regardless. The first half was more towards Bockwinkel's match, trying to get the absolute maximum out of what little they did than a Robinson match where they spice things up a lot more with tumbling and roughhousing, though obviously there were some aspects of both styles, with the former shifting to the later as the match progressed. The first portion of the match was Robinson trying to find some way out of the elbow lock, but no matter what sort of leverage he applied, how he twisted or turned or tossed Bockwinkel, Nick still refused to relinquish the hold. A great example of the styles melding was when Billy finally made a move to hip toss Bockwinkel to break the lock, but Bockwinkel continued to hold onto the right elbow and remained in control after both took the bump. Finally, Robinson managed to slowly increate the pressure on Bockwinkel's left shoulder to the point that Nick had to finally release Robinson's elbow to save his own shoulder. This match had so many great, organic transitions. Robinson progressed into an octopus, but when he tried to roll to the mat, Bockwinkel beat him in the scramble and momentarily regained the elbow lock. Robinson finally seemed poised to get his more active offense going, but made the mistake of trying the hip toss again, only to have Bockwinkel essentially pull the same trick again to come out of it with the elbow lock. The second portion was more of a Robinson segment, built around him controlling with headlock, broken up more frequently by rope running and tumbling. The third segment was another shorter segment where the rope running led to Bockwinkel hitting a leg-trip, and working on the knee. The match shifted more towards Robinson's style after this, with Billy increasingly trying to make something happen, but his overaggression would just send him flying to the floor. Though plunging to the concrete isn't exactly advisable, the more chances Robinson took, the more he got Bockwinkel to open up, and was thus able to make it more of a bombs away brawl. Though he took some big offense in the process, given Robinson was losing the slower paced technical battle, this was a worthwhile strategy that got him back into the match, as he was at least able to get his suplexes in a lot more readily now. Robinson finally hit his signature backbreaker, but it reinjured the knee Bockwinkel had worked over earlier, so he wasn't able to capitalize. Bockwinkel worked his way into a figure 4 to make the knee worse, and it wound up giving out again when Robinson tried a body slam on his comeback. Both made a big push for the finish during the final minute, but the only downside of the match is the 30 minute time limit really just cut things short. Though obviously a draw, it felt like a win for Bockwinkel. ****1/2

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ML: Lou Thesz gave the classic this horrible fake American crap doesn't represent me speech, which is one that can never be stated enough as far as I'm concerned. Though it's still dubious to bill serious fake wrestling as real by virtue of being less nonsensical, at least they have presented us with two of the absolute legends that any wrestling fan should be proud to say they admire. Unfortunately, this wasn't anything Robinson or Bockwinkel were planning or training for, from what I gather Robinson said they basically just informed them that they were wrestling. The match was basically the condensed, greatest hits version of their classic match minus most of the big bumps. It obviously wasn't done quite as well because they are more broken down and less athletic by this point, as well as simply out of practice. Their match is also one that gains a lot from the length, as they really understand how it to you mileage out of working the body parts. That being said, this was still a lot of fun, and for anyone who had a little while to forget, much less several years, this is an excellent display of a now mostly lost style. In my case, while I possibly saw Robinson in AWA when I was seven or eight years old, this is the first match of his I can say for sure that I saw, and it definitely put him on the map for me. These are the most difficult matches to rate because while it is not good by the great standard they set in their primes, it was still entirely compelling, and better than anything on last weekend's AEW DUDExplosion PPV. It held my interest throughout and didn't have me rolling my eyes at all. ***


Yamazaki During His GQ Era
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As if Kazuo Yamazaki’s career couldn’t get any worse, now he must face Koji Kitao in what will surely be a dreadful exercise in putting the former sumo star over. Kitao, despite no one in the western hemisphere ever taking him seriously, was still a star in Japan, and reportedly the UWF-I just signed him on for a $75,000 per match (!) contract. This was even after he embarrassed both himself and his former employer, the Japanese SWS wrestling promotion. That move may have been in the UWF-I’s interest here, as they could easily spin this as Kitao being sick of WWF/SWS style fake wrestling and now wanting to test his skills in the “real” UWF-I. Regardless of the logic, $75,000 is a lot of cash to throw away per match, so hopefully, this isn’t the start of some really poor business decisions.

Even armed with a blowtorch & sledgehammer, it’s doubtful that Kitao could ever hurt Yamazaki, but here we are. Kitao starts out taking a karate stance, and the crowd is eating this up. Yamazaki must be given great credit, as he is taking this seriously, and right away starts crafting a David vs Goliath narrative, going right after Kitao’s legs with numerous thigh kicks. Yamazaki skillfully weaves in and out, attacking Kitao’s legs from different angles, until he opts to try and take him down, in which we see Kitao respond with one of the laziest sprawls in history. The rest of this farce saw Yamazaki do everything he could to make Kitao look like a million bucks, instead of just slapping him in the face for a 40-second victory, a la Mark Hall at UFC IX. Yamazaki proved to be worth every penny and then some by eventually allowing Kitao to pummel him with several ultra-slow leg kicks for a KO victory. From a pro wrestling 101 standpoint, this was a great example of how to put over a lesser opponent, but it’s a crime that it had to be Kitao, who would end up diminishing Yamazaki’s reputation even further

ML: From the opening intense stare to putting over the KO, Yamazaki used his acting ability as much as his wrestling ability to craft an urgent and intense match where each of his actions was important because of the potential repercussions, and get bad boy Kitao over that much more than he already was. This was truly a brilliant performance by Yamazaki, who has always been great at these sort of mixed matches against specialists from other combat sports, devising a logical and reasonable match that was intense and a highly compelling, while at the same time doing his best to keep Kitao from embarrassing himself by doing any more than he absolutely had to. Yamazaki saw a huge slow opponent, so he tried to use his speed to kick his legs out before Kitao could fire back. The problem was that Kitao was so much bigger and stronger that he could take a lot more of Yamazaki's blows than Yamazaki could take of his. Kitao is so awful, he even almost fell landing on his own ill advised jumping spinning kick, but Yamazaki is so smart & talented that he got a good match out of him because he knew how to play things. Kitao's offense was horrible at times, even a low kicks he won with could best be described as labored, but Yamazaki mostly had him standing in the center threatening, and sold what little Kitao did so well that it didn't kill the match like it should have. Yamazaki used every trick in the book to solve the puzzle, but 200 pounds is an awful lot of sheer mass to overcome. In the end, Kitao came off as being really impressive (in a real behemouth of a fighter sense, not as a worker) because of his imposing presence and the things Yamazaki did to make his offense somehow look deadly despite Kitao's lack of grace and coordination. Of course, all the fans desperately wanted Yamazaki to win, and had UWF-I been willing to shell out the cash to help anyone but Takada, Yamazaki's career could have been salvaged here with a precursor to Keith Hackney vs. Emmanuel Yarborough, as Yamazaki was still massively over, even if largely because the crowd hated Kitao. Though this wasn't a total one man show that somehow managed to be a great match like Kenny Omega vs. Kazuchika Okada by any means, even with the great atmosphere and all the smoke & mirrors Yamazaki employed to make it come off way closer to a shoot than I would have possibly believed it could, it's just barely good, but you have to realize just how are truly terrible Kitao is, really a 0 out of 10, to understand just how amazing it was that Yamazaki somehow managed to come up with almost eight minutes of heated and compelling action involving him, especially in a style Kitao is completely unfamiliar with. ***

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Now for another early pre-UFC shoot, this time between Kiyoshi Tamura and Mathew Saad Mohammed. Mohammed was a legit boxer with considerable skills and even held the WBC Light-Heavyweight Championship for 2 ½ years. This event was another big push from the UWF-I to make some waves, so it makes sense that they again tried to gain traction through a boxer vs. wrestler shoot. This may have also been partly done as a response to the PWFG’s recent humiliation of Roberto Duran.

In any event, it’s hard to say how this was pitched to Mohammed, and how seriously he trained for this fight because it was over almost as soon as it started. Tamura instantly forced him to the canvas with a couple of brutal leg kicks, before instantly acquiring a rear-naked choke for the win. A historically important shoot, and a nice feather in Tamura’s cap, but its “blink-and-you-miss-it” nature has forced it to be a mere footnote in time. This was probably not the outcome that the UWF-I had in mind, based on the war that was Warring vs Scott. You could see Warring’s skill and versatility as a martial artist, as he was every bit a kickboxer that happened to make a living boxing, as opposed to the other way around. Still, Tamura was so quick and well-rounded that it probably wouldn’t have mattered what boxer they put in front of him, the result was likely to be similar. Also, it’s great to see the UWF-I give us a serious shoot, instead of the Fuanki/Duran farce that we just had to witness.

ML: Tamura was really impressive here. He used the smart strategy of staying on the outside, but man he really had a ton of zip on his kicks, which he rarely even throws in a work, and then the speed in transitioning to taking the back for the choke was just amazing. Granted, his opponent didn't really have a clue beyond punching, but a slower fighter or one who wasn't immediately ready to pounce on the 1st opportunity probably would have had to spend a lot more time chopping down the tree to get the victory. Other than that, let's just say it certainly should have been no secret to the Gracie family just how unprepared for real fighting One Glove Jimmerson was going to be.

The spectacle can’t end now, as we must now endure the culmination of the major push that the Albright monster has been given for the last 9 months. Yes, it is now time for the gaijin Godzilla to face our intrepid hero in Nobuhiko Takada, and while there is no doubt about the conclusion, the question of how entertaining this will be, remains.

Right away I’m impressed that Takada seems to have shown up ready to put in work, as he is moving with much more urgency than usual. He comes out the gate swinging, but is quickly smothered by the gargantuan Albright-monster. Takada quickly reverses his dilemma and winds up in the side-mount but seems unsure of what to actually do with his foe from here. After contemplating his situation for a while, he goes into action mode and starts hitting the suplexes and submission attempts. This wisely keeps the Albright-monster at a close distance, thereby stifling his offense. The rest of this bout was a back-and-forth seesaw battle until Takada eventually succumbed to the human suplex machine. I won’t lie, this was a fun and entertaining match, from a pro wrestling standpoint, and easily the best match from either man in the UWF-I, so far. I may not like the direction that they are taking their main-event scene, but they can hardly be blamed, as Japan loves their monsters and freak shows. After all, this is the same country that has given Bob Sapp an eternal home, in addition to an everlasting wellspring of cash, so I’m clearly not the target audience here. Still, this kind of direction will be a boon in the short-term but is surely doomed to fail once the novelty of Albright wears off, and they don’t have any other reasonable challengers for Takada to vanquish.

ML: This was nowhere near a classic, or even good, but both fighters brought their A game, such as it was. Albright got the battle off to a great start, rushing Takada like a sumo and using a flurry of body punches to set up the big belly to belly suplex. This was clearly designed to make it look like another shoot, perhaps under the false pretext that no one would lay down for the other when the unofficial title of "Best in the World" was on the line. Problems quickly set in when Takada managed both to escape from the bottom, and to get a sweep without any technique whatsoever, and literally nothing else in the match was remotely realistic. On the bright side, Takada wasn't in the mood to just lay around contemplating, as usual. Takada was much too showy with each standup barrage, getting a quick knockdown to set up a big backdrop with the first one, and quickly descending this into the realm of sort of entertaining in the goofy pro-wrestling sense. Unfortunately, this same cannot be said for their corny arm manipulations on the mat, which were not useful in any sense. This was mostly fireworks though, for better or worse. It should have blown away Yamazaki vs. Kitao, but while it was essentially a longer version of the same match, it had none of the strategy, craft, guile, selling, or storytelling. It just felt rushed. I mean, they blew through the high spots basically without even setting them up because they had nothing else to offer. Albright showed some ability to step up his game in a realistic way, even though he was constantly pulled in the other direction. I'd say this was his best performance so far in UWF-I and he was clearly the more useful of the two here. I don't feel I'm exaggerating in the least when I say that Takada has learned absolutely nothing since the UWF closed. He has just been so surpassed by everyone that all we can do is look forward to the fun silliness his matches contain, such as Albright catching a kick & powerslamming him, but most of it feels so unearned and out of place that the charm is minimal. I'm not sure if Shinya Hashimoto's matches are more realistic overall than Takada's given his opponents aren't trying to do anything beyond the usual pro wrestling, but at least he brings an air of credibility, and a certain hard (bloody) nosed toughness. Takada, at this point, is so cartoonish in his big offense ways that he barely even seems to care about the illusion. They burned through the points until Takada just needed one more knockdown, but Albright came back with a couple more huge suplexes to hand Takada his first loss in the promotion. This may have been better than Nakano vs. Burton, but at least that felt like the match that fit into the U-style during the 20th century.

Conclusion: This was probably the 2nd or 3rd best event we’ve seen from the UWF-I so far, and only the lack of a standing bout, and their one shoot ending as quickly as it did, stopped it from going into legendary status. While this was a fun and entertaining event, it is also a further example of some of the bad decisions that did them in. During our recent interview with Mark Fleming, he talked about how Lou Thesz felt that their major problem was the wasteful spending of money on people like Vader, and numerous sports cars for their stars, and that’s easy to see when they are willing to drop almost a hundred grand on 8 minutes of Kitao. Still, they are the most entertaining outfit around, and still have a lot going for them. We also got to see the farewell match of other Maeda, who will be forever canonized as one of the best rookies in this sports history. It’s mind-boggling when put into perspective… this was in early 1992. The same year that Papa Shango, IRS, and Tatanka were running amok in the WWF, and Kanehara and Maeda have been putting on matches that have been ahead of the curve, even by today’s standards of pro wrestling. Recommended event.

ML: This was that definitely one of the best UWF-I shows so far. Although we didn't always agree on which matches were good, out of the 8 worked matches, there were only 2 that neither of us enjoyed. Unfortunately, Albright is now firmly cemented as the other main eventer in the promotion, and Yoshihiro Takayama is about to rear his crooked nose.

*If you wish to see this final and fitting swan-song in all of its glory, then head on over to www.patreon.com/KakutogiRoad Also, you can witness rare footage of Billy Robinson vs Nick Bockwinkel from their 1980 conflict! *