RINGS 3/5/93: BATTLE DIMENSION '93 OSAKA METROPOLITAN CIRCUIT #1

Battle Dimension '93: Osaka Metropolitan Circuit #1
March 5, 1993 in Amagasaki, Japan
Memorial Park Arena drawing 4,870

Because the infallibility of Akira Maeda is a central tenet of my faith, I am not about to suggest to you that it is in any way less than essential to have two RINGS shows in five days, but I will readily admit to finding it surprising that it happened (in this respect I am surprised by joy). One wonders if this exacting 1993 schedule of events was drawn up before it became clear that Maeda would be out until October from the reconstructive knee surgery made known to us only through Dave Meltzer's augury? But to even wonder at such a thing would be to entertain the notion that something existed outside Akira Maeda's knowledge, an absurd proposition, forgive me. Oh neat they do official rankings now, look:

I am functionally illiterate and so only know through listening that Dolman, Vrij, Maeda, Renting (an affront), Kopilov, and Nijman sit atop the tables, with other notables (this is to say, names I could make out) including Grom Zaza at eight, Volk Han at ten, and the in-most-ways-incomparable Willie Peeters at eleven (I have misplaced the image for eleven through fifteen and so can offer no proof of this claim). I could back the tape up and listen again and again to catch everyone's name but realistically that is time I could be using to actually learn how to read Japanese which is also something I will never do (I do not value learning or growth). The lesson of the parade of fighters that follows the publication of these rankings is that Dirk Vrij remains the real non-Maeda star to this point of RINGS; Volk Han is greeted warmly but it is not at all the same. In the absence of Maeda, it is Mitsuya Nagai who addresses the crowd as the parade ends, which is more than a little disappointing to everyone, I think, even, and perhaps especially, to Mitsuya Nagai. Everyone then stands in silence as a taped message from Maeda plays, but we do not see it; we see only the fighters in mute tribute. Representatives of the various international RINGS bodies are named, and acknowledge the crowd, and are received rapturously, and I cannot account for it, though naturally I welcome and encourage it. The already-iconic-though-we-have-only-just-seen-it-like-a-week-ago KO TKO GIVE UP graphic accompanies an overview of RINGS rules and methods.  

Masayuki Naruse, with whom no one's problem could ever be, readies himself for Nobuaki Kakuta, who still seems weird. Kakuta has endeared himself pretty severely of late by taking a series of savage beatings, though, and I am not about to diminish that achievement. Off of Naruse's attempt at a double, Kakuta grabs a mae-hadaka-jime front choke that barely threatens anything or anyone at all, and the crowd roars, like just totally roars. Between this, and their earlier response to RINGS dignitaries, I think it is fair to say that the people of Amagasaki are pretty much the best, as regards liking RINGS. This is a good match, and Naruse just threw with a tidy (but not too tidy) kubi-nage headlock takeover as though to illustrate as much just as the words were on my lips (the lips. . . of my fingers), but it is not outstanding in any way, other than how outstandingly it is being loved. Kakuta is clubbering Naruse pretty thoroughly  and also arrogantly and I do not like young Masayuki's chances. Proving I am a fool, Naruse nearly does a murder to Kakuta by means of a semi-botched shoot(style) Northern Lights Suplex at once. No, it's okay, I am right about all kinds of things, as Kakuta continues to pummel Naruse quite alarmingly. Naruse compels Kakuta to the ropes a bunch of times with assorted kansetsu-waza (joint-locking techniques) as the crowd thrills to every bit of it but in the end can there be any doubt that Kakuta emerges the victor by means of kicking Naruse in the head? Kakuta leaves with a baby that simply must be his own.

    
Sirra Fubicha (red trunks of no distinction) and Kalil Valvitov (blue trunks of somehow even less distinction) emerge from the random RINGS RUSSIA/BULGARIA name generator (I mean no disrespect) to do battle (dimension '93). Fubicha lanuches Valvitov immediately with a high arching ura-nage variation and immediately both men seem to me as champions. Ashi-gatame (leg-lock) attempts are ineffectually traded for a time but so it goes. Valvitov unites thousands in one voice with his deeply odd and prolonged stepover-toehold-facelock attempt that never really comes together but that was somehow quite compelling. The bell sounds to remind us that this bout is to be contested in three-minute rounds, presumably five of them. Fubicha opens round two with a glorious kata-guruma of the kind that has found its fullest articulation and development in the post-leg-grab era of IJF judo; like fifteen seconds later he ura-nages Valvitov with true majesty. Valvitov likes ura-nage as well! What were the chances! He comes closes on his facelock this time, but still no. He recovers from this disappointment through further ura-nage! Two rounds in, this match is super!   

Round three opens with a sukui-nage/te-guruma/legit-body-slam and then some, like, spine elbows from Valvitov. I would argue that while the crowd is tolerably into it, Fubicha kind of blows it (the "it" of art) with a flying head-scissors into a rolling takeover that looked awfully (though perhaps not irredeemably, I don't know) lucha. By what mechanism was Valvitov to have fallen, I ask? You will perhaps think I am overstating the matter to suggest that what has just occurred is to me akin to the Canadian Destroyer, a now-commonplace flipping piledriver maneuver that is just the dumbest shit and an enormous indictment of anyone who has ever involved themselves with it on any level, in that both the physics and the emotional energy of it are distractingly nonsensical, and if there is one area of my life in which I will not abide distracting nonsense it is in the field of disingenuous yet plausible grappling, shape up everybody. Valvitov and Fubicha have gone back to much better things in this bout that holds within its bounds much to be admired but the spell has been broken, I am sorry. The match ends in a draw.    

Yoshihisa Yamamoto is here now though so I am not worried about a single thing regarding taste level or plausibility or any of that; we are in sure hands (also his acne really does seem to be clearing, good for him). Pieter Oele and his extremely taped fists will oppose him. Have we here the ageless struggle between grappler and striker? It sure looks that way! Yamamoto throws beautifully, archingly, but Oele makes the ropes before Yamamoto can press the natural advantage conferred upon him by the sickness of this waza. Oele chops him to pieces with kicks and knees for two (no wait, three) knockdowns in quick succession, and this brings the crowd extremely into it. Perhaps surprisingly, it is Oele who trips Yamamoto down from a tight clinch with the outer-hook of kosoto-gake, and forces a rope escape with what we might charitably call a variation of kata-gatame, the shoulder hold/arm triangle. Yamamoto is fired up though! Throws! Facelocks! Oh no he is getting kicked again! I am pretty worried about Yoshihisa Yamamoto right now! (His person, not his art.) With Maeda off the card for months, Yamamoto senses the time is right for a spinning heel kick, but he is half-blocked and then squished (Oele, though quite lean, is just way bigger, I should have mentioned that earlier). Oh no, Yamamoto has lost to a head-kick in the corner at 7:56! I know he will be back like a thousand times and take some measure of consolation in that knowledge but I would have liked to see him win here of course. This was another good Yamamoto match (maybe the only kind he ever had? I will update).

Willie Peeters' half-checkerboard singlet constitutes a heroism. Please behold it:

He is in against the young and chiseled Serguei Sousserov, whose (pretty, let's be honest with each other and ourselves) face appears to have been marred in some kind of training incident because his right eye is a mess and it looks recent. Sousserov has shown real promise, and Peeters is an unsung (except for here) champion of these years, so my hopes right now are very high. Peeters I think nearly knocked Sousserov out for real with an ill-timed (expertly timed) kick to the head as Sousserov came in low for a takedown. People getting accidentally knocked out in worked matches is one of the most compelling things we have come up with so far as a species, and we were tantalizingly close to it here, I think. Peeters throws with a great te-guruma (hand wheel) of a sort that flourished as a gaeshi-waza or counter technique for decades then faded only to re-emerge . . . with different grips! (Ask Me About Different Grips!) WILLIE PEETERS HEAD-KICK KO AT 4:49 and that is easily the most convincing head-kick KO in these early RINGS years, Sousserov's head wobbled around expertly, and this match totally delivered on its considerable promise. 

Mitsuya Nagai really has a lot of support here in Amagasaki, a place I admit I had never heard of until an hour ago, but it cannot match the adulation and just hard techno that accompanies Dirk Vrij to the ring. On this night he has added a backwards Raiders hat to his whole situation, and it seems good. Vrij may be a beast but he is no monster (maybe reverse that, I don't know), and he apologizes in all contrition when he accidentally closed-fist-punches Nagai in the nose early on. I think Vrij has maybe put on some size? I think it might be that he is thicker at the waist than he had been previously, and lacks the extreme-V shape that characterized 1991 Vrij? Either way he was, and remains, cartoonishly huge. Nagai dives for a leg and comes as close as one can to an ashi-gatame leg-lock before Vrij makes the ropes; Nagai's corner seems to think Vrij actually tapped (this is really good stuff). Vrij keeps hitting so hard and Nagai keeps diving for legs only to get hit so hard and this is intense! Nagai makes his feet before the referee's count of ten but the referee is like look there is just no way and that is extremely that. Spirited! 

AND NOW VOLK HAN WHO LOVES ONLY WAZA BUT LOVE HAS MADE HIM CRUEL which is the only way to explain that te-gatame tie-up he does that ends in an elbow to the chest that resembles nothing so much as an execution (by sternum-elbow). Will he perform that technique here? I both hope for and dread it. Andrei Kopilov is a stout man in every sense and is no doubt up to the task of being hit like that without dying; I shouldn't worry. Kopilov comes out to some pretty full-on techno, too; perhaps we have entered an era of RINGS dark techno all at once. Han is garbed in blue boots and knee-pads atop black tights and I miss the baby blue, to be honest, and Andrei Kopilov probably misses his chest which has just now been punched through for a surprisingly early knockdown. You will recall I was concerned about chests just a moment ago. Kopilov fires off a low kick that sweeps Han to the mat, and dives in fearlessly in the interest of legs but it is not long before Han has not only escaped and evaded all such attacks but has countered with a reverse figure four of some kind: 

to him it is like breathing

Kopilov is no slouch (he does kind of slouch a little though) and is not shy about any of this. He gets right in there with a fine little juji-gatame that fails but I mean so have most of them ever. He compels Han to flee to the ropes, which is something, or at least not nothing. Back on their feet, Han grabs a wrist, steps over it, and then throws with the motion of sumi-gaeshi or hikikomi-gaeshi much in the manner Masahiko Kimura demonstrates here, ending not in the gyaku-ude-garami that would come to bear Kimura's name but instead the ude-hishigi-juji-gatame cross-arm-lock that we treasure even more highly. The crowd approves of this so hard. After a rope break and restart, Han comes in with his expected kani-basami flying crab scissors, but, perhaps unexpectedly, comes in so high with them that that are less a leg-scissor than a body one, and it's pretty odd. Kopilov somehow ends up with another juji-gatame attempt out of that mess, and so that's a couple of rope escapes for Han so far. And then a hiza-juji-gatame knee-bar for another! Kopilov is holding his own! Wait that's false: Volk Han enters with ashi-garami about as classically as anyone ever could-- totally the way it appears in katame-no-kata, by the way, I might add, did you know, actually, have you considered, isn't it curious--and finishes with kata-ashi-hishigi in the mode of the straight-ankle-lock with maybe like 1/8 of a heel hook in there too, just to make everyone uncomfortable. The match was good, the finish was great, Volk Han is your favourite.

WHAT DID DAVE MELTZER SAY:

March 15, 1993: "RINGS drew sellouts without Maeda on 2/28 at Korakuen Hall and 3/5 in Amagaseki, although no doubt most of those tickets were sold before fans knew Maeda was going to miss the show. Volk Han beat Andrei Kopilov in the Amagaseki main event. 

2/28 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (RINGS - 1,969 sellout): Sergei Susselov b Masayoshi Naruse, Yoshiniro Nishi d Kenichiro Yukimura, Sambo exhibition: Volk Han d Vladimir Berkojin, Mitsuya Nagai b Sandor Telgen, Naoyuki Taira d Satoyuki Atokawa

3/5 Amagaseki (RINGS - 4,870 sellout): Nobuaki Kakuta b Masayuoshi Naruse, Kiril Barbutov d Siera Khvitcha, Peter Ula b Yoshihisa Yamamoto, Willie Peeters b Sergie Susselov, Dirk Leon-Vrij b Mitsuya Nagai, Volk Han b Andrei Kopilov

That is very little Meltzer, and I am sorry. But I thank you for your time!