RINGS 8/1/91: ASTRAL STEP 2nd: AQUA HEAT

Astral Step II: Aqua Heat
August 1, 1991 in Osaka, Japan
Furitsu Gym drawing 6,100

Imagine, if you are able, my great delight that Astral Step 1st: Spirit U unfolded before me--before us all, certainly--not as a tentative first gesture towards the shoot style apex that we know in time comes to us through the Fighting Network we celebrate as RINGS, but instead revealed itself from the very outset to be sweet as wildberries and richer than the tended fruits of gardens. It would not have been in any way reasonable to have asked of RINGS to begin as it did, expounding a fully realized vision of what pretending to fight could be like if we all really pretended to fight, but it did; in every respect, it did. It has been at least several days, and I am not that over it. Indeed, and very much to the contrary, I have been letting a Fire Pro A simulation of a RINGS league run while I get ready for bed (I do the Kohsaka matches myself). That is not the act of a man who is the least over how good the first RINGS show was, but one who is demonstrably in thrall to its ways, to its offerings.

Nearly three real-life months later, RINGS returns, and the real-life copy of this show that I am blessed to have in my possession begins by saying "Hi-Fi" in the top right corner as though it were VHS-taped to maximize playback quality rather than playback quantity, a choice I myself literally never made because you can't get as many Next Generations on them that way and while your tireless mother has always and without fail gotten you a new VHS tape at the Sobey's whenever you have asked her to get you one, please, there is no reason to get cocky about any aspect of that situation; instead, you need to respect that situation. What is clear is that this is not going long. PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING (not yet Fighting) NETWORK scrolls across the screen as thoughtful piano and (synth) strings offer us fleeting black-and-white impressions of the men whose first Astral Step we witnessed--or perhaps astrally strode beside them?--not long ago. RINGS PRESENTS. 1991.8.1. OSAKA. ASTRAL STEP 2nd. AQUA HEAT. My god. 

Akira Meada is shown walking hallways amongst and amidst t-shirted and track-pantsed Young Boys and looks simply enormous. The locker room reveals light-hearted low-key fellowship among foreign fighters as knee-sleeves are hauled and wrist tape applied not sparingly but not wantonly, either. A track-suited Maeda stretches lightly in the sky-blue ring bounded by white (as though by the clouds themselves) at what we are shown through on-screen graphic to be 4:30 PM; the Dutch follow soon thereafter. By 5:30 PM the crowd begins to file into the Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium (it and the Furitsu Gym, mentioned above, are the same--I had to look that up; I had no idea), a near-sellout crowd, it would seem, in this smaller venue. Was it a mistake to run Yokohama, sell but 11 000, and paper not a whit? As business, who could know, or say, or care; as art, every movement, however subtle, made by and in RINGS is a poem. The parade of fighters is free of commentary this time, except for the ineffable comment offered by the RINGS theme that has a rap in it, which I promised last time I would find and share with you; please enjoy it, excerpted, fittingly enough, from this very Aqua Heat. Maeda tosses his towel into and addresses a crowd no less receptive of one volley than the other, and we are all but underway.

It is perhaps worth noting that we have spent nearly ten minutes immersed utterly in the world of RINGS without a single word of commentary; there is such art in the visual presentation here that it shames nearly all that has followed in the fields of sport, entertainment, and really just culture broadly. This is a high-end presentation of a kind I am going to assume was commonplace on HOME THEATRE CHANNEL WOWOW whose colours and house words adorn the ring apron for the first time, although the signature WOWOW (Fire Pro "NONON") does not yet appear on the canvas itself. We know that it will, though, and we hold that knowledge dear. 

EARTH BOUT MITSUYA NAGAI vs HERMAN RENTING is how we will begin our true time together here and whilst Nagai is new to us you might well recall Herman Renting from his Fire Bout loss to Dutch judoist Pieter Smit's juji-gatame when last we spoke. To his immense credit, the ring announcer really does say "Earth Bout(o)" before introducing the competitors. Herman Renting's kick-pads are worn over bare calves and I have never enjoyed that look even slightly, I cannot even say why. Renting has Nagai down and almost at once and takes his back from underneath in what surprises me greatly given the admittedly little I already know about Herman Renting and yet it is not nothing that I know about him. The idea is perhaps that Nagai is a young boy? He seems overmatched, but not shoot-overmatched, if you are willing to entertain that distinction here (please do). Nagai hits the first rolling knee-bar attempt in all of RINGS which is a mark of distinction certainly. (Rolling knee-bars, just to drill them, are really super easy to get a handle on, maybe try it some time and see, if you have access to quality grappling instruction or, failing that, some dumb little buddies?) 

It is no doubt unfair and probably in some way mean and petty that I enjoy all dueling-leg-lock situations in the context of 1990s Japanese shoot-style wrestling and yet think sort of ill of the current no-gi Brazilian Jiu Jitsu vogue for them, even while I am pleased that John Danaher's insistence on the Japanese terminology ashi-garami (leg entanglement--why not enjoy it as part of the katame-no-kata of Kodokan Judo?) has really taken. Are my feelings about leg-locks as complicated as leg-locks themselves? No I don't think, but I have a bunch of them, chief among them that nobody should ever do heel hooks. I recently heard Yves Edwards (remember him?) say that he doesn't even like to look at heel hooks in old matches where he knows the outcome and where everybody is fine, and he is plainly a marital artist of greater cræft and fortitude than me, so I forgive myself this squeamishness (not really; cast upon me the shido of cowardice). Just the other night an old friend, a black belt in both judo and Brazilian jiu jitsu, was all taped up and incapable of tachi-waza (standing technique) randori (sparring, but literally "chaos-taking") because some blue belt had recently gotten a little too excited with the usually very safe straight angle lock (kata-ashi-hishigi) so none of us are safe from anything ever, is I think the lesson here. 

This is a pretty interesting match in that Nagai is not doing particularly well kickboxing with Renting, nor is he doing well on the ground positionally, but despite these flaws in his nascent martial character (in two senses) he is proving himself a leg-lock adept, and forces two rope escapes in really not that much time at all. Holy cow he threw him with a lateral drop and finished with a juji-gatame! Nagai out of nowhere! He is your winner in 11:12! There was a season of The Ultimate Fighter where one of the contestants--let us say Jonathan Brookins?--hit several lateral drops, and I remember this particularly because we had one student at the judo club at that time who was especially interested in whatever techniques had appeared prominently in that week's episode of that program that is apparently still on (I only get CBC). I do not say that as a criticism of this former student, for what could it lead to but a deepening of his judo? What is a lateral drop if not yoko-otoshi? What is a Peruvian necktie if not a fine Tony D'Souza-ian variation of gyaku-kata-gatame, considered in the fullness we owe that technique? Hey remember when Yarden Gerbi, great champion of Isreal, used suso-jime to win a World Championship before everybody remembered suso-jime has been illegal pretty much forever? And so it went. Also Jonathan Brookins said something one time to the effect that as long as he had his bicycle and his library card he would be alright, and it is impossible not to value that kind of wisdom that I now find inseparable from the lateral drop as exhibited here by young Nagai.         

There is no play-by-play commentary on any of this, is there, as though we are watching the unadorned feed of an Olympics. The extent to which this is right up my alley is so extensive right now that it is hard for me to capture it. 

UNIVERSE BOUT already? This is wild. Ton Van Maurik--boxer, freestyle wrestler, sambo practitioner, and undefeated full-contact kareteka--says he is going to have to move and be quick, but thinks he is going to be able to defeat Chris Dolman. It is no slight towards Van Muarik to say that I doubt this very much, because of the sheer existential fact of Chris Dolman. Both blonde, curly fighters adorn themselves with black shorts and calf-exposé kick-pads and look about as Dutch as possible in the absence of actual or "shoot" tulips. Plainly I mean no disrespect as the Dutch and Canadian peoples share bonds forged during the wartime hardships of the previous century; you will recall that the maternity ward of the Ottawa Civic Hospital was for a time declared extraterritorial so the birth of Princess Margriet there would not trouble the lines of succession. Also Canada liberated Holland from fascist tyranny. And when the Royal Dutch Navy is in port, you can expect excellent singing at hockey games, let me tell you! Nobody else is winning the six-foot party sub that night! It is going to the able men and women of the Royal Dutch Navy! Halifax welcomes you! 

Van Muarik comes out game with hard knees from the clinch, and, once unclinched, a racing jump kick that elicits the bout's first "HWAAIIII" from the crowd. He has sunken dead-skull eyes that unsettle me as Dolman takes him over with a harai-goshi hip sweep that is notarized. Dolman is heavy on top, and works Van Muarik over pretty thoroughly and comes close enough to a choke that he must escape; he must rope. Dolman then knees Van Muarik thunderously in the corner for a knockdown and these knees are not crisp so much as thick. Van Muarik decides it is best to keep his distance with (karate) kicks and then some straight (karate) punches to the body that I love the look of so hard and Dolman is felled for his first knockdown. As a youth we always (wrongly) told my friend who did karate that in a real fight if he tried to kick us we would simply grab his leg and Chris Dolman shows that we were right (we were wrong) as he scores an ashi-dori-ouchi-gari (leg-grab inside trip) and lets slip the headbutts-to-the-gut of war and I am totally onside with Van Muarik's decision to rope escape his way out of this disgusting scenario. It did not take Mark Kerr mashing his brow into the soft middle-faces of Brazilians to show us the vale tudo limitations of guard play; some of us learned these lessons from Chris Dolman in the RINGS of 1991 (not me I was twelve).  

Oh god he's doing it again, headbutts to the gut, the same takedown to set them up, too (a signature renraku-waza, or combination technique?) then hauls Van Muarik away from the ropes and finishes with a straight ankle-lock, kata-ashi-hishigi, from a position I can only begin to describe as Recumbent Lateral Boston Crab.  

Next a FIRE BOUT (I am no closer to knowing what any of these designations mean but I am no further from love) which positions Pietr Smit--Dutch judo champion of yore, vanquisher of Herman Renting only months ago--against Wilhelmus "Willy" Wilhelm, beaming giant, kind-eyed, who says things so pure and so true I will transcribe them in full: "I know him, I did some games with him, judo games, I play judo games with him, judo competition, and I, always I win, but he was a little light, he was not so heavy, that time, and now he is heavier, and this is my first fight in two years again; he is heavy, this is maybe a little problem for me. I think I can beat him with throwing, no kicking, throwing, judo throwing, and then after that I go armlock or maybe strangle him." A World Championship bronze medalist in Seoul, his World Championship silver medal in Moscow came after a loss in the finals against Yasuhiro Yamashita, and those don't even really count as losses (it's not fair to have been asked to judo him). Judo Inside tells me he is "a world traveler" who "owns a bar in Portugal"! I love him. 

In a match of purest judo waza contested under the auspices of the relevant national governing body (the All-Japan Judo Federation, in this, the Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium, surely), there would be little doubt Wilhelm would hold the advantage. But this is RINGS, a different game altogether, and at this moment Smit is literally as experienced under this rule-set as anyone can be (he had a match under it one time). I am intrigued. As is the crowd, which makes low "hwoooooooo" sounds as Wilhlem removes his t-shirt to reveal his great, manful bulk after a nifty little hip-switching warm-up in the corner. He towers over Smit, himself no small man, but one who seems destined to be, in time, and as so many before him, within Wilhelm's belly. 

After some early clinching and indeed jostling Smit ducks low for an early kata-gurmua (shoulder wheel) or fireman's-carry takeover, but of the sutemi-waza or sacrifice style that has elements of uki-waza in it and for some reason Neil Adams likes to call many such modern forms yoko-otoshi and if your position is that these distinctions do not merit reflection or consideration then you have definitely come to the wrong Fighting Network RINGS blog and I am sorry you have lost your way but perhaps you have not lost your way so much as found a new one? Smit attempts the same throw but is summarily squished, just flattened right out and squished, as Wilhelm swings across for a juji-gatame that forces a roll and a rope escape. And now Wilhelm, from the clinch, after a couple of knees, just pushes Smit down with a forward throw that is no more than half-attempted but it doesn't matter because this guy is so strong. Back up, Smit slides across for a koshi-waza (hip technique) that doesn't put Wilhelm down but drapes him awkwardly across the ropes and we are so close to the old André the Giant arms-tied-up-in-the-ropes spot here that all I know is joy. Smit kicks to the body and Wilhelm is DOWN 1, the graphics tell us, because there is still no commentary; this is so high level. 

Wilhelm unleashes a mighty roar as he raises his arms high in this match-of-the-year candidate; he has largely forsaken technique and chooses instead to bulkishly maul. Smit, crushed beneath his girth, rope escapes again, then comes out firing with slaps to the face that hold this actual jötunn at bay for a moment, but only a moment, as Smit is tossed down and juji-gatame'd seemingly to completion ah but no! Smit has rolled-in hard and escaped! Clinched yet again, Wilhelm harai-goshi hip sweeps Smit severely and proceeds, perhaps surprisingly, to engage in a leg-lock duel (nobody gets anything). My goodness these throws, though. A big underhook harai/osoto leads to a juji-gatame and then of all things a kata-ha-jime which you don't see a lot of without a judogi but which certainly exists as for example it does here, and while people largely associate that hold in the context of professional wrestling with "Taz" they should replace all such associations at once with WILLY WILHELM your winner in 6:37 and our champion. 

It is 7:30PM and Akira Maeda is getting loose in the locker room whilst Dirk Vrij, for his part, is doing dumbbell flyes (is that really how you spell it? I just looked it up) and curls; he says low kicks and I believe hundred percent, Vrij does, in his pre-taped comments. Maeda kicks pads. 

Our Maeda/Vrij main event is a WATER BOUT? This would suggest that the stakes are lower than in their previous UNIVERSE BOUT encounter? Please believe me when I tell you that if I am obtuse here it is not that I am being willfully obtuse and instead it is merely that we are straining the limits of my comprehension. This is unsurprising, but this crowd is enormously ready to watch Akira Maeda pretend to fight very convincingly as the fighters meet coldly in the middle of the ring. At the bell's sounding Meada stalks forward and throws a high kick that misses by a great margin but the crowd is like "whoooOOOAAAA" in response to its gesture. Vrij, unsurprisingly, looks more dangerous in this early kickboxery but Maeda takes him down and forces a rope escape early. 

Back on their feet, Maeda is in massive trouble right away. A solid kick to the knee sends him to the mat, but he is not charged with a knockdown; moments later, when he is again pummeled to that same low place (I am thinking here emotionally as much as spatially), DOWN 1 is the on-screen graphic's pitiless report. He is getting beat up. 

Maeda clinches and fires back with knees but Vrij is full of high kicks just full of them and that is DOWN 2 as the chants of MA-E-DA urge their hero onward to endure more of this. A Maeda knee from the clinch downs Vrij but I am not taking that very seriously and neither does the knowledgeable Osaka crowd; everybody knows Maeda is not doing well at all.

Until he throws Vrij over and attempts juji-gatame! Except no that didn't really go very well did it and now Maeda is up and on the run, wobbling out betwixt the top and middle ropes, and getting standing-counted for DOWN 3 and lol this is actually kind of upsetting. A woman shrieks as Maeda eats knees in the corner and I join her. DOWN 4 and my god stay down, Maeda, stay down but the strictures of RINGS are exacting and he rises to his feet to be beaten more resoundingly still, just an endless barrage of kicks for DOWN 5 at 8:01 as the crowd gasps, Vrij's countrymen rush the ring and hoist him atop their shoulders, confetti streaming down and nobody else happy. Backstage, Vrij answers "everything, everything" to a question I don't understand and sips a canned (fruit?) beverage while for his part Maeda is being thoroughly iced and cared for in the company of his juniors. 

I have to admit that felt pretty dark at the end there! What a show though! Mitsuya Nagai has the makings of a neat underdog! Chris Dolman continues to own! Willy Wilhelm has arrived! Poor Maeda, though. He got kicked a lot. 

WHAT DID DAVE MELTZER SAY: 

JUNE 24, 1991: "Akira Maeda's "Rings" runs 8/1 at the Osaka Gym with tickets priced from $45 up to $150 with Maeda vs. Fredrick Hamaker as the main event."

JULY 29, 1991: "Akira Maeda will face former European judo champ Willie Wilhelm on 9/3. It's a rematch of the main event of the November 29, 1989 match at the Tokyo Dome which drew 60,000 fans and set what was then a record with a $2.9 million gate." [RINGS bloggist's note: omg I had no idea]

AUGUST 5, 1991: "The 8/1 Rings card in Osaka will now be headlined by Akira Maeda vs. Dirk Leon-Vrij in a rematch of that great match they had at the first show. Maeda was originally to wrestle Fredrick Hamaker, but he needed reconstructive surgery on his knee."

AUGUST 12, 1991: "Akira Maeda's Rings ran its second show on 8/1 in Osaka's Furitsu Gym drawing 6,100 (building sells out at 7,000) with Maeda doing a job in the main event losing to Dirk Leon-Vri via TKO in 8:01. Since Maeda has such a small amount of potential foes to work with, it appears he believes he has to do jobs on a regular basis to keep interest alive. A few days before the match, Maeda sent telegrams to all the major magazines that he had torn knee ligaments (no doubt a work sent to give a prior excuse for him doing the job) in training for the match. Willie Wilhelm (6-6, 300), former European champ in judo beat Peter Smit in the semifinal. Wilhelm, whose match with Maeda drew 60,000 fans to the Tokyo Dome in 1989, main events against Maeda on 9/3 in Sapporo. Nobuhiko Takada's UWFI runs 9/26 in Sapporo while Yoshiaki Fujiwara's PWF runs 8/23 in Sapporo, so all three UWF-style promotions are running shows in the same city within a five-week period.

UWFI drew a sellout 2,000 fans at the Hakata Star Lanes on 7/30 with Yoji Anjyo & Jim Boss (indie worker from Tennessee) beating Takada & Kiyoshi Tamura in 31:02 in the main event, plus Kazuo Yamazaki beat Billy Scott (indie worker from Nashville area) with a facelock submission and Shigeo Miyato beat Tatsuo Nakano.

Maeda announced he would be running a show in December at the Ariake Coliseum in Tokyo Bay which is the same building where he sold out all 12,000 seats the first few hours tickets went on sale in 1989 when he was the hottest draw in wrestling."

AUGUST 19, 1991: "Saw the Akira Maeda vs. Dirk Leon-Vri match from the 8/1 Osaka show and the televised version was awesome technically. Not the match, but the drama built in before the match started. The work they did in getting Vri over as a killer heel puts anything done in the U.S. to shame. Of course it helps to look the part like Vri, with the Aryan face and sneer and a body so filled with steroids that it isn't even funny and hand and foot quickness that is just scary for someone so muscular. He looks like he should be in one of those martial arts movies as a heel. What's the achilles heel (no pun intended)? The match itself wasn't good at all. It was nothing compared to their Tokyo match of a few months back. It was evident Maeda's knee injury was a shoot because he really didn't do a thing. Vri looked great for about three minutes, and then he blew up like nobody's business and it was pretty pathetic the last five minutes before Maeda was KO'd. But the aura built into both the television and the live show created dramatic heat on the level of the Hulk Hogan-Ultimate Warrior match of 1990."