August 20, 1994 in Yokohama, Japan
Bunka Gym drawing 4,587
But there is very little time for any of that right now because we are called at once to attend to the RINGS début of Tsuyoshi Kohsaka (spelled Kousaka here, and for some reason in Fire Pro A when I changed all the names on it like fourteen years ago, no idea why I did it that way), the central man of our project, in Wallace Stevens' sense (How was it then with the central man? Did we find peace? We found the sum of men). "Asides on the Oboe" is actually an insanely good poem and I encourage you to consider it. Or, if we are without a central man (The prologues are over, it is a question, now, of final belief, so say that final belief must be in fiction, it is time to choose) we are certainly not without a central waza, and can there be any question that that waza is the TK Scissors under whose banner we assemble? But it is in my view worth atteast considering that this "Kakutogi Kai no Kenja" ("Sage of the Combat Sports World") might well be the impossible possible philosophers' man, the man who has had the time to think enough.
My god, his trunks are orchid:
He is so young here, a mere 24 -- he has not yet so much as Lumax Cup: Tournament of J '95'd -- but his youthful schoolboy days of friendship with Hidehiko Yoshida (and, I have once read, Jun Akiyama) at Senshu are already long behind him, and so too his time as a company player for Toray Industries (東レ株式会社 Tōre Kabushiki-gaisha), after the explosion of his knee into an infinity of minute knee-shards, each hostile to the other. There is going to be so much TK to consider in the fullness of time that I do not want to overburden you (or my heart) immediately so let us proceed from a position of no ideas but in things and let us agree to set aside for now ideas and agree further that the thing to address ourselves to at present is this contest between Tsuyoshi Kohsaka and Nobuhiro Tsurumaki just now underway. Thirty seconds in it is clear that Kohsaka moves better in ne waza than anyone who has done this yet, and by "this" I mean not only RINGS but to my knowledge shoot-style wrestling broadly (if I am mistaken and there is someone I am missing please tell me). Whilst tangled up in a Tsurumaki's weird niju-garami double-leg entanglement, Kohsaka (his boots spell it "Kohsaka" already) attacks with gyaku-ude-garami/reverse-arm-entanglement/double-wrist-lock/figure-four-armlock/Kimura for much of the first (of a scheduled five) three-minute round(s). On commentary (which for this show, at least, exists) they are saying "judo" an awful lot, which is to say the correct amount. In round two, Kohsaka uses his ude-garami grip to attempt juji-gatame (a great control! I taught it just last week!) but to no avail. In round three he attacks with the shoulder-hold/arm-triangle of kata-gatame so thoroughly and uses it to pass through niju-garami (you can call it half-guard if you want and I will not be upset) in so judo a fashion that the heart soars. In round four he comes out with pummeling palm strikes (Kodokan atemi-waza) and the crab(non-TK)-scissor of kani basami and continues to work towards kata-gatame on the nearside and again gyaku-ude-garami on the far. Tsurumaki clinches up in the corner and I am convinced Kohsaka is about to launch him but the bell sounds to end the fourth before that can happen and I feel aggrieved. The fifth round is all palm strikes and knees to the body and 1:30 Tsuyoshi Kohsaka has won the day and there is so much promise right now.
Good luck to either Satoshi Honma or Masayuki Naruse trying to look at all good at this right after TK but such is the burden of all who remain on this card I suppose. Naruse's tights are way way better than normal, a purple and black leopard-print seemingly produced by Champion, and as a man himself in the market for tights currently these appeal to me very much (I think I might get a pair that have ukiyo-e [浮世絵, "images of the floating world"] art atop them). It occurs to me that they are many minutes into this totally fine match at this point and I have no idea who is winning it at all. It is a perfectly generic RINGS match and as an admirer of that genre (I will not say the foremost admirer, as that title must surely belong to the person on Twitter photoshopping Akira Maeda into all that comes before him or her; the rest of their twitter is about hiking and visiting old castles and temples and shrines, it's great) I do not say that as any kind of complaint about this match but instead as praise of its workmanlike-yet-better-than-almost-all-other-wrestling-ever ways. This goes the full thirty minutes, and Honma takes the decision on points, which shows what I know, because my impression by the end was that the tide had largely turned towards Masayuki Naruse.
DAVID KHAKHALEISHVILI (დავით ხახალეიშვილი) VS. WILLY WILHELM what a blessing of judo this is, an Olympic gold medalist against a World Champion and at once we see a fine ippon-seoi-nage (one-arm shoulder[ing]throw) from Khakhaleishvili before several unsuccessful attempts at ashi-kansetsu-waza ("leg-bone-locking," as my prized copy of Illustrated Kodokan Judo from 1955 would have it). Wilhlem throws with sumi-gaeshi, the corner-reversal, and attempts juji-gatame; Khakhaleishvili throws with o-goshi, that most major hip, and tries a juji-gatame of his own, because of the inherent genius of the waza and WOAH OK that's it, Khakhaleishvili wins by juji-gatame at 3:09, that's a surprising finish! Surprising in its quickness, I mean; there is no doubt Khakhaleishvili is destined for big things (losing to Maeda).
Yoshihisa Yamamoto and Willie Peeters? Was this card booked for or perhaps by me? Peeters is just now having boxing gloves taped on, which is not great, but they are being taped on by TK, which embiggens the moment. A few moments in, referee Yuji Shimada stops Peeters to straighten out his elbow pads, and it must be noted (perhaps even here, perhaps even now) that elbow pads and boxing gloves is a weird, weird look. It occurs to me that this is a rematch of Peeters' narrow decision win over Yamamoto at RINGS 12/25/93: BATTLE SHOT AT NIIGATA by means of clinched leaning, primarily, in a match in which so little happened that I felt pretty strongly that it was probably real maybe? It is still so hard to say. More is happening here, certainly, and it is quite good, but part of the more that is certainly happening is more and more fiddling with Peeters' elbow pads until Yuji Shimada has had enough and just peels them right off over the boxing gloves (this is no mean feat). Yamamoto, to his credit, is attired in all-black (a Maedaism [itself an Inokism]) and looks just great. I really don't want to suggest to you that there has not been, to this point, clinched leaning, because their totally has been, and in fact that is what is going on at the exact moment I began this sentence, and even though it stopped for a moment in the middle of this sentence it is back on by the time I am ending it. Peeters, always one to play right up to the edge all the while grinning jackalishly like Ville Nieminen (whom I always liked), punches Yamamoto in the face on the ground with one of his big poofy boxing gloves to which Yuji Shimada responds NO FACE NO FACE NO FACE and he's right, Peeters, stop skipping the rules meetings. Unlike their first match, which, again, I kind of think was real, this one doesn't have that feel at all, but instead one of good hard work, but now that I have said that watch the finish come on the most legit and troubling knockout ever. The pace of the striking has certainly picked up, and the crowd admires this rising action. Yamamoto attacks Peeters with the minor-outer-hook of kosoto-gake and Peeters tries to employ the kaeshi-waza or counter-technique of kubi-nage or neck throw but no Yamamoto scurries to his back and the day is his by means of hadaka-jime (the naked strangle) at 21:54 as the seconds and young boys rush into the ring and the crowd loses it as does Yamamoto himself wow that was pretty exciting at the end!
Next we have Tony Halme in against someone no doubt here to be brutalized by Tony Halme. Yes okay it is Thomas Lurosi, known here as Thomas Roelos (say it out loud and you can kind of see it), and he gets hit pretty hard to the body and slapped about the head for a little bit until he doesn't get up from a shot at 2:05 and nobody looked all that good here.
One would expect more of Volk Han versus Georgi Keandelaki (Galdava here this time, that's different) in a battle of great Georgian sportsmen we have come to admire in the time we have had together. How can it be that Keandelaki would find the bout's first opportunity to apply ashi-kansetsu-waza (leg-bone-locking-technique)? And yet it is before us. Not long thereafter, Han not only applies juji-gatame but drags Keandelaki to the middle of the ring before applying juji-gatame which seems wise. Keandelaki's (fake) leglock game has really come along! He is going for all kinds of things! Han is committed to rolling sutemi-waza (sacrifice techniques) in the mode of sumi-gaeshi (corner reversal) and hikikomi-gaeshi (pulling reversal) from a gyaku-ude-garami (reverse-arm-entanglement) grip, and among the advantages of this suite of techniques, apart from the sheer beauty and purity of the waza themselves, is that they end with a tremendous opportunity not just for the aforementioned ude-garami but, should one be able to achieve perpendicularity, the cross-mark hold of juji-gatame (perpendicularity so crucial, so literally crucial). Keandelaki is issued a yellow card (a RINGS first?) for what we would come to know as PRIDE knees because of how proud we were when we would see them (in PRIDE). Han nearly murdered an arm with a standing gyaku-ude-garami before rolling through for a hiza-juji knee-bar and this match seems to be going longer than one might expect though I guess the last one was only like two minutes so they might be out there to eat some innings aaaaaaaaand Han wins by a kubi-hishigi neck crank/crush at 11:35, it is as though I could sense the looming finish. Good match! It has maybe been a little bit since Volk Han has had a profoundly transcendent performance but a totally middling Volk Han match is still a thing that is occurring at a very high level, let's not kid ourselves.
AKIRA MAEDA IS HERE THE WAIT IS OVER and he is in against Tskhadadze Zaouri, sometimes known as Chabadze Zaour, just a complete and total hoss, a truly massive hoss of a Georgian and hoooooly shit he just threw Maeda so hard with a piledriving death-variation of koshi-guruma (hip wheel) into kesa-gatame (scarf hold) and were it not for ropes that is where Maeda would still be in 2017. A yellow card for kicking Maeda insanely hard whilst he was grounded is issued and my goodness this guy is as big as a house, it really is something. At present he is trying to rip Meada's head off with a nelson of some kind on the mat; next, he hoists him aloft with a slow, arching ura-nage in the mode of the German suplex. Maeda survives all of this and shoots a low flopping double that works only because this is not real and then finishes with a heel hook that I think he "shoot" held onto a little long and a little too deeply because when Tskhadadze Zaouri kicks him away slightly after the bell that part felt super real MA-E-DA MA-E-DA MA-E-DA.
WHAT DID DAVE MELTZER SAY, PROBABLY NOT ENOUGH ABOUT TK I BET:
August 29, 1994: "Tony Halme debuted on the 8/20 RINGS card in Yokohama.
8/20 Yokohama Bunka Gym (RINGS - 4,587): Hanma b Masayoshi Naruse, David Hahareshivili b Willie Wilhelm, Yoshihisa Yamamoto b Willie Peeters, Tony Halme (Ludvig Borga) b Thomas Lurosi, Volk Han b Georgi Gandelaki, Akira Maeda b Zaour"
Whaaaaat TK didn't even make the results.
September 5, 1994: "Rings ran a very successful show in Russia on 8/28 in Ekaterinbul, drawing a packed house of 7,000 fans. This came just two weeks after FMW bombed in Russia. The difference was said to be that the FMW show had no Russians, only Japanese wrestlers plus it was promoted as blood-n'guts street fight and the Russians had no concept of it. Rings was promoted as a sport and they loaded the show up with Russians. In fact, Akira Maeda didn't even work the show (said to be recovering from a knee injury suffered on his last show) and they used Nikolai Zuev, a local who was a national champion in sambo (submission) wrestling as the top draw.
8/28 Ekaterinbul, Russia (Rings - 7,000 sellout): Todor Todorov b Masayoshi Naruse, Veckchev b Peter Daigman, Bitarze Tariel b Mikhail Shimoff, Hans Nyman b Grom Zaza, Volk Han b Sotir Gotchev, Kuremenchev b Peter Ura, Nikolai Zuev b Mitsuya Nagai"
That sounds . . . that sounds so sikk.
September 12, 1994: "Rings announced its complicated Battle Dimension '94 tournament which starts on 9/21 in Osaka. Akira Maeda and Volk Han are the top two seeds, so they don't have to wrestle in the tournament until the quarterfinals on 11/19 at the Ariake Coliseum (finals are in January at Budokan Hall). The next highest seeds, Bitarze Tariel, Willie Williams, Chris Dolman, Dirk Leon-Vrij, Nikolai Zuev and Yoshihisa Yamamoto, join the tournament in the second round on 10/22 in Fukuoka. First round matches are 9/21 in Osaka headlined by Tony Halme vs. Dimita Petkov and Andre Kopilov vs. Grom Zaza while Maeda vs. Vrij in the non-tourney match headlines. They also announced a show on February 19, 1995 in Amsterdam, Holland."
BATTLE DIMENSION BECKONS SEE YOU THEN AND THANK YOU ONCE AGAIN FOR YOUR TIME AND FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER . . . OF RINGS.
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