RINGS 2/28/93: KORAKUEN EXPERIMENT '93: ROUND 1

Korakuen Experiment '93: Round 1
February 28, 1993 in Tokyo, Japan
Korakuen Hall drawing 1,969

But December made me shiver with every paper I'd deliver (I have not delivered a paper in more than twenty years), bad news on the doorstep: "Dropped from next year’s ballot due to the 15 year/50% rule: Seiji Sakaguchi, Volk Han." Even if we set aside Seiji Sakaguchi entirely--and we shouldn't, because the 1965 All-Japan Judo (openweight) Champion almost certainly threw a bout against Matsuo Matsunaga in like ten seconds at Koji Sone's behest at that same year's World Championships (Rio de Janeiro) to better the Japanese odds of overcoming the unovercomeable Anton Geesink ("immediate cries of outrage by the Dutch camp," the venerable Black Belt magazine reports in Vol.4 No.2) before serving several noble decades in New Japan as Antonio Inoki's little buddy (he is 6'5", 290lbs), and thus should hold a place of privilege not only in New Japan's NJPW GREATEST WRESTLERS (which he does), but also and perhaps especially in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame, even if he hadn't thrown a toilet at Chuck Norris in 1982's Forced Vengeance, but he did--this is almost certainly an outrage. That Sakaguchi's name would appear on only 10% of the ballots cast is itself a scandal, but for Магомедха́н Аманула́евич Гамзатха́нов (Magomedkhan Amanulayevich Gamzatkhanov [Volk Han])'s to achieve no more than 38%, which is actually down from last year's 52%, is perhaps the darkest taste-level self-condemnation possible amidst/amongst a deliberative body. Shame on literally everyone except I guess the 38% who agree with me very particularly about who pretends to fight well. Shame. And Kiyoshi Tamura isn't looking too good either at 24% (but up from 22%! The momentum builds!).  

What in God's name is going on here? I listened attentively to the Hall of Fame episode of Wrestling Observer Radio (in truth this is how I listen to every episode of Wrestling Observer Radio) and was intrigued by an exchange between Dave Meltzer and his guest Matt Farmer wherein Farmer made the case for waiting until a performer's career is far behind us before voting so that we might take its full measure, which seems reasonable enough. But Dave countered that the examples of Volk Han and Kiyoshi Tamura show us the limitations of that approach, in that, at the time of RINGS' demise, both of these græpplØrz were much more highly (and more properly) esteemed. Tamura, he noted, came very close to election many years ago, but his candidacy for a thing he has probably never heard about and even if he has there is no way he would care but I care has since faded alongside the memory of the shoot style he once mastered and championed. And so it was with no less attentiveness that I turned to Twitter, where a reader asked Dave if he would be willing to speak openly and in fullness regarding Volk Han's candidacy now that it is gone forever (think about that, you monsters), and Dave replied, "Was a big fan, didn't vote for him because not enough matches compared to others on the ballot. But, I did come close because he was really great and didn't exactly have the easiest people to work with most of the time." I understand this, though I disagree, in that part of the whole reason RINGS seemed as shoot as the style has ever permitted is that they weren't running touring shows all over (not that they could have, I am not suggesting that, please stop) and having five matches a week or whatever, which is a super fake thing to do. But I understand. "To me," he continued, "Tamura was better and more versatile all-around, shame his style died because in context he was one of best ever." When asked if Han's removal from the ballot could lead to a swell of support for Tamura next year, Dave writes "No, think Tamura is dead because RINGS & UWFI died so legacy didn't carry.  Perfect example of why voting 15 yrs later has major flaws." Asked next (who can say or know by whom) if Tamura's name had appeared on Dave's own ballot, he replied, "Yes, he was one of the best in-ring guys of the 90s, and best I ever saw at making a match look real." So say we all.

But enough of this mess, what good could come of any of it. Let us turn our attention instead to the super-intriguingly titled KORAKUEN EXPERIMENT '93: Round 1. Everybody loves Kōrakuen Hall (後楽園ホール Kōrakuen Hōru), host to Olympic Boxing at the 1964 Tokyo Games and then like a million wrestling and fighting shows since. Think of it as a teensy Budokan! (That's not right at all!) I guess the idea with this is EXPERIMENT is maybe low-key Korakuen Halls to fill up the hours between Yokohama Arena/Tokyo Bay NK Hall-level undertakings? The parade of fighters seems so humble compared to those that have come before. Akira Maeda, though not on the card itself, is there to speak to his public, tracksuited. 

Masayuki Naruse is probably not wearing lipstick for his opening bout against Serguei Sousserov, who totally might be:

Maybe Naruse is too, but has opted for a "nude lip," if I have my terminology correct? Sousserov has nice throws and determined juji-gatame attacks to go with his other charms, and puts them all to good use in the early going. As I have mentioned previously, I think he is about ten percent too jump-kicky for 1993 RINGS: in 1991 RINGS it would have been at home; in early 1992 RINGS it would have seem scarcely out of place; but in 1993 we have already come to know too much. His kani-basami (flaying) crab scissors, however, are exquisite in any era, and the Korakuen Hall crowd is delighted by it, by him, and by Naruse, too, who ends up taking Sousserov's back out of the whole deal and coming close with hadake-jime, that most naked strangle. It is so great they're in Korakuen Hall! I really like the New Japan shows from Korakuen these days, which is good, because they probably run like thirty five of them a year (all available through NJPW World, a service to which I happily subscribe despite my inclination to be disgusted at getting and spending [we lay waste our powers]). Pretty soon it will be time for the Korakuen Halls right before Wrestle Kingdom! Those are some of the best ones all year! The ones just after are good too! Then they do Fantastica Mania! What an age! Sousserov, whose pretty mouth has been busted up quite thoroughly, catches Naruse with a legit/shoot-snazzy standing entry into a heel hook at 12:35 and everyone was totally into it. 

Sandor Telgen's lips look pretty wild too so I am now convinced this is all a feature of VHSness as Sandor Telgen's lips' proprietor squares up to Mitsuya Nagai for a fight(ing network bout). Telgen is tall and somewhat lanky, and his choice in shorts reveals him as one who favours kickboxing over the gentler arts. His fists and wrists are taped an awful lot, too, so the case I am mounting here is I believe quite strong. Also he is hitting Nagai really hard to the body. Having had at least enough and possibly too much of that, Nagai rolls awkwardly for an ashi-gatame (leg-lock) of some kind but who could say or know of which variety in this mad jumble. The next time around he more clearly attempts the ashi-dori-garami some know best as a toe-hold defeats Telgen at 5:27

Next we are shown never-WON-Hall-of-Fame-member Volk Han and Vladimir Berkojin in a demonstration of COMMAND SAMBO. They probably mean combat sambo, and I say that with the sambo knowledge and authority of someone who was once contacted by a somewhat suspicious-sounding sambo governing body (aren't they all) to see if I wanted to have our judo club certified as a centre of sambo excellence of some kind (I passively declined through silence), and as someone who enjoyed the at times quite gruesome combat sambo sections of Judo: History, Theory, Practice (2004) by Vladimir Putin (THE SAME), Vasily Shestakov, Alexey Levitsky. So I think it is fair to say I know one hell of a lot about sambo. (Steve Scott's Sambo Encyclopedia: The Throws, Holds and Submission Techniques of Russia's Fighting Sport (2015) is an excellent recent volume on the subject by the way). Here, Volk Han kicks a man in the groin:

Much as this fellow in Putin's Judo: History, Theory, Practice does:

It is often said in judo that the best counter to osoto-gari (the major outer reap) is osoto-gari and my contention is that in the above we see an extension of that truth into hitherto unknown realms of martial being.


Naoyuki Taira and Toshiyuki Atokawa, both of whom are new to me, seem to be undertaking a five-round bout in which the rules alternate between those of some form or another of kickboxing (I know literally nothing of the sport obviously but appreciate that there are a bunch of different rule-sets) and then RINGS. They are clearly working very hard and the crowd is appreciative but it is not super duper for me, other than how Akira Maeda looks on approvingly as (tracksuited) referee of the RINGS rounds (not the kickboxing ones), and how the WOWOW people switch periodically to the mid-range corner camera angle that turns the square ring into a beautiful diamond and calls to mind Fire Pro at once every time it happens. I can't see why I wouldn't take a moment now during this break in the (fine) action (that is not especially to my taste) between rounds four and five to show you the author photos on the back of Putin's judo book:

Putin's judo book is really not bad at all, and does a fine job of visually representing "hub" positions which branch off into renraku waza (combination techniques) but it comes up most often in my teaching (and this is not often) when a newcomer will wear their socks on the mat, not knowing any better, and then they feel embarrassed, and I tell them not to worry, it is a common-enough technique amongst beginners, and, for some reason, Vladimir Putin, as can be seen on the front of his judo book.   

What these new students generally find stunning is that Vladimir Putin has a judo book at all, but I have been largely over that for more than a decade; it is no less shocking to me these many years later, though, that he wears socks on the mats on the front of it. I should have read this image at once as a clear sign of what he had been, what he was then, and what he would come to be. It is a dark, dark move.

Okay that's a five-round draw! And it was the main event! We're in and out in under an hour! I enjoyed this first KORAKUEN EXPERIMENT as the small experiment that it was, a low-key hanging out with RINGS rather than an utter RINGS ravishing. Maybe both are good? 

WHAT DID DAVE MELTZER SAY: 

March 8, 1993: "Perhaps an even more devastating loss [than Jumbo Tsuruta, whose kidneys had I guess failed], one of Japan's one-man promotions, Akira Maeda's RINGS, is going to have to survive for the next several months without the one-man. Maeda is scheduled to undergo reconstructive surgery (similar operation to the ones suffered in recent years by Mitsuharu Misawa, Sting and Robert Gibson among many others) on 3/4 and is not expected back in the ring until October at the earliest. RINGS is going through with its scheduled monthly cards, which include a few major arena promotions, while Maeda is absent. The first show, which will be 3/5, will be headlined by Volk Han vs. Andrei Kopilov. While some of the former Soviets, Dutch and Bulgarians have picked up a following from their association with Maeda, who is still a pretty major celebrity and thought of as a major sports star in Japan, one wonders how well the company will be able to draw without a Japanese superstar as a headliner and with names that are largely known only to the hardcore wrestling audience."

In response to a reader who wrote in to lament that André the Giant never competed in legitimate athletic competitions, Dave writes: 

"The only time I ever saw him in something mildly resembling a competitive wrestling situation, the Maeda match, which came when he was 39 and an old and out-of-shape 39 at that and he possibly was drunk as well, exposed that while he probably would have been very difficult to knock out in a street fight situation because of his size, that he had no balance. Maeda, who was not a great amateur wrestler but had some amateur training, was able to take him down time after time with ease. But it looked like he still couldn't hurt him once he got him down, although he wasn't allowed to try, either."

1993 is totally full of RINGS shows and I thank you for your attention to this small one!