RINGS 8/27/95: RISING SERIES: HAZUKI

Rising Series: Hazuki
August 27, 1995 in Tokyo, Japan
NK Hall drawing 4,680

TRULY THOUGH OUR ELEMENT IS TIME we are not suited for the long perspectives open at each instant of our lives; they link us to our losses: worse, they shows what we have as it once was, blindingly undiminished, just as though by acting differently we could have kept it so, is how Philip Larkin felt about going back and watching two 1992 RINGS shows in the middle of a run of 1995 ones. It was neat to do but also hard for him, much as it has been for us. But now we return to the then-present rather than the then-past with RISING SERIES: HAZUKI (Hazuki (葉月, "Month of Leaves") (the Rising Series has been using all the old Japanese month-names and it is a bold move in the right direction [the past's inherent poesy]).

Dimitri Petkov is so ungodly thick that he makes the 100kg+ Tsuyoshi Kohsaka look almost dangerously slight. This does not prevent Kohsaka from wrapping Petkov up and rolling him over with a lovely yoko-sutemi-waza (橫捨身技, side sacrifice technique) until a rope break dashes my briefly-held hope for a quick submission off of so ill a nage-waza (投げ技, throwing technique). Petkov gets all the underhook he needs and launches Kohsaka avec souplesse; he also throws with the deep, major hip throw of o-goshi (大腰). That there are several attempts at the arm-crushing-crossmark-hold of ude-hishigi-juji-gatame (腕挫十字固) is utterly expected and yet still wonderful to me and I cannot account fully for the mechanism by which both of those things are true. Kohsaka seems to have made the kouchi-makikomi (minor-inner winding) to ashi-kansetsu (leg bone-locking) combination that brought us all such joy upon its recent début a part of his repertoire going forward; such is our good fortune. Petkov, in his immensity, hoists Kohsaka onto his very shoulder, only to be cannily countered with the corner-reversal of sumi-gaeshi (隅返) from a front face-lock that is held throughout and becomes a mae-hadaka-jime choke attempt. The crowd, which has liked everything here (for they are knowing), likes this particularly. The end comes at 11:35 when Petkov, hurls Kohsaka to the mat, maintaining his grip to secure a kubi-hishigi (neck crush/neck crank) that looked both deeply horrible to be any part of at all AND a lot like how Kaori Matsumoto finishes the osaekomi (押込技) at the end of her Matsumoto Roll (these are not contradictory facts):

TK is more light-hearted about it all than you might expect in his post-fight locker-room interview; a question of disposition as much as anything else, I suppose.

The next match seems to come and go so quickly even though 5:43 is not instantaneous or anything; Christopher Hasemen looked quite good in this (I think his first bout) but the day is Mikhail Ilioukhine's by means of the straight ankle lock of ashi-hishigi (足挫). Yoshihisa Yamamoto takes little more time and in fact now that I check exactly how much time in fact he takes less (a mere 5:00) to dispatch of Herman Renting (uhhh whatever, Herman Renting) with ude-hishigi-sankaku-gatame (腕挫三角固), an armlock whilst triangling:

In the Q&A segment we catch up with Hans Nijman, who is asked whether or not he enjoys the films of Bruce Lee (he does, very much: he enjoyed them in his youth and now has them at his home and shows them to his children), and is offered nunchaku ("Japanese: ヌンチャoften 'nunchuks',[1] 'chainsticks',[2] 'chuka sticks'[3] or 'karate sticks'[4] in English" lol karate sticks, this is no less funny to me the second time around) which he then goes to town with, not that any of this will save any of us from being gunned down in Volkswagen Golfs (Golves), R.I.P. Hans Nijman:

He takes to fight against the comparatively tiny but no less game Mitsuya Nagai. Don't look now (totally look now) but Mitsuya Nagai has been kicked in the groin: 

 

Nijman does not shy away from further low kicks in the wake of this but does seem to avoid the groin to Nagai's satisfaction as things progress. There is certainly no shortage of opportunity for such mishap, as this has been almost exclusively an affair of kicking, except for when Nijman had Nagai on the ground and harassed him with a forearm choke that was never going to get anywhere but which might have allowed Nijman to improve his position had Nagai not been quite so steely about it all. It looks like Nagai is going to fail to make his feet on first a gross punch to the sternum and second a kick to like his ear but he beats the count both times only to be bested by the single-leg crab style of ashi-hishigi at 8:59. Quite a cheer for Hans Nijman! Of little comfort in the grave I'm sure but still.

Wait, Akira Maeda is working third from the top? What is going on here? Is this a NJPW show from well before he kicked anybody in the face for real? How might we account for this? Don't worry though, he has Andrei Kopilov down and kesa-gatame'd (scarf held) pretty much right away so it is not as though the world has gone completely mad. Kopilov is no slouch as you know and so he gives as good as he gets! There has been a lot of ashi-kansetsu leg-locking in these early minutes, a fair measure of juji-gatame, and even the arm-triangling shoulder hold of kata-gatame, nice work, everybody. Kopilov tried ude-garami (entangled armlock) from beneath a pin for a little while and it seemed a little far-fetched but let us agree that Kopilov knew as much himself and was merely trying to create movement (who among us). You can pretty much always count on Andrei Kopilov to at least attempt an Iatskevich/Yaskevich roll juji-gatame and because you can pretty much always count on me to attempt the same I feel a kinship; also Kopilov wears a moustache, which I too did for about a year or so, a great big dumb one, and people would say friendly things about it a lot, for it is a friendly thing to have on your face, I guess, and also (non-judo) students would on occasion comment on it in official university course evaluations, one going so far as to draw it in (not unflattering) caricature. On the whole I prefer my current state of having a big dumb beard, but the big dumb moustache era is one I am glad to have had, if only because it seemed nice for others. NO-GI TOMOE-NAGE (巴投, circle throw) is no mean feat even in a worked-shoot context, and Maeda has achieved it! For his next ma-sutemi-waza (真捨身技) sacrifice technique though he attempts the more conventional (in this context) corner reversal of sumi-gaeshi (隅返) HOWEVER (or sukashi) Kopilov traps and entangles the sweeping leg to secure a form of hiza-juji (knee-bar):

That was a great finish, holy cow! It has literally never occurred to me that a sumi-gaeshi could go wrong in that particular way, and I say this despite literal thousands of them attempted by me and around me for more than a decade, as this throw is an even bigger part of things at our club than they are in judoings more broadly (and sumi is all over and everywhere, please do not mistake me; we just do it an absurd amount at our club due to certain gripping strategies we favour; in time I will no doubt tell you them), and yet this finish is immediately and completely plausible. It was probably hard for people in the building to quite discern so Kopilov celebrates extra big and Maeda is like fffffvvvvvvvkkkkkkkkkkkk for all to see. EXCEEDINGLY NEAT.

This RANKING MATCH between Dick Vrij and Tony Halme is going to have a hard time following that finish unless for example Dick Vrij just brutalizes Tony Halme righteously and at once. And he might! OK yes he pretty much does: a body-kick knockdown about a minute in, and then Halme's left biceps goes all weird (like visibly so) at 2:43 for the TKO, so Halme was undone in the end by his own idiot muscles I guess?

It is just so weird that there is still another match! Maeda hasn't always been in the main event -- in his humility he has semi-mained previously -- but two whole fights after a Maeda match, how might we even theorize that. Bitsadze Tariel and Volk Han is a perfectly legit main event in my heart and also in the lived reality of 1995 RINGS though so please do not think I have set out to malign it in any way by expressing my surprise that it does not contain Akira Maeda. Bitsadze Tariel wears his black belt slung low and loose around his hips, unusually so, and I am not entirely sure why but this calls to mind how a very nice man, a friend of an old judo friend (and rival!) who is himself I guess no longer even just a National "A" level referee but I am quite sure an International "C" or International "B" these days (he taught me to referee but he is blameless in what I have become), used to say to those of us who were being slightly casual before stepping onto the mats or warming up for a match with our belts doubled, hanging loose around our necks, "I don't know why you boys ever have your belts like that, you work so hard for them" but it was like perhaps you have not considered how sikk it looks generally and also perhaps you have not fully considered the question of ab-vanity? Of course I voiced neither of these points to this nice man who was correct but instead I tied up and said "That's true, Donnie, you're right." Volk Han feints his flying scissors (kani-basami) on his way into a clinch and an ouchi-gari (major inner reap) to juji-gatame that convinces the crowd it could be the finish no more than twenty seconds into the bout; such is the depth of his art. Not one to dwell on the past, Han has already moved on to brutal leg-locking, though, and so should we. It should be said that even with the emergence of Tsuyoshi Kohsaka as the finest shoot-stylist in these RINGS of 1995 that Volk Han remains very excellent very nearly every time out, and keeps coming up with novel entries and kansetsu(bone-locking)-weirdnesses. I would not accept an argument that Volk Han's style is realer than Kohsaka's (I would not denounce this idea as objectively false but would suggest that a sufficiently græppz-informed subjectivity would accord with my view in this matter) but I can totally see why one might simply prefer Han's elaborate, free-flowing dynamism to Kohsaka's restrained technical weight. Volk Han is super exciting! Also he takes a great Kyokushin ultimate-truth-fist to the sternum, like every time he takes one it is great, and he has yet another occasion to demonstrate that skill here, for Bitsadze Tariel has laid him right out. And here come the kicks. Bitsadze in his great enormity is doing exceedingly well here but of course could be rollingly-leg-locked at any instant. There's another solid punch to the gut, though. And a ten count! A knockout at 8:46! The crowd is shocked! As am I! This is wild! A lot of good stuff on this show!

WHAT MIGHT DAVE MELTZER HAVE SAID OF IT ALL: 

August 14, 1995: A reader writes: "Now that UWFI has lost its momentum and its stock is dropping they should look at what Genichiro Tenryu did when his company was about to go under. It's easy to see that there is money to be made by co-promoting Maeda vs. Takada, but I'd prefer to see them align themselves with All Japan. UWFI has been closer to pro style than shoot style for some time. I know that Baba lives in his own little world, satisfied with producing the best main events in the world and making good money doing so, but Takada vs. Misawa and Takada vs. Kawada might be worth renting the Tokyo Dome. It would make them look better when comparisons are made with New Japan if they could produce a card that draws 50,000 fans once a year."

August 21, 1995: Another reader writes: "I was at Rings at Ariake Coliseum and UWFI at Sumo Hall. Both were very exciting. I was surprised how entertaining these styles of wrestling were. My lady friend had never been to a wrestling show and she thought Rings was edge of the seat excitement."

September 4, 1995: "8/27 Tokyo Bay NK Hall (RINGS - 4,680): Petkov b Takasaka, Micha b Hezman, Yoshihisa Yamamoto b Herman Renting, Hans Nyman b Mitsuya Nagai, Andrei Kopilov b Akira Maeda, Dick Leon-Vrij b Tony Halme, Bitarze Tariel b Volk Han"

"Rings ran 8/27 at Tokyo Bay NK Hall drawing 4,680 fans with both the top stars doing jobs. Volk Han (No. 1 ranking) was knocked out by Bitarze Tariel, and Akira Maeda (No. 2) lost via kneelock submission to Andrei Kopilov. The latter finish was to create a story because Maeda needs another knee operation and will be out of action. Dick Leon-Vrij, who will debut in the U.S. on the WCC PPV show in October, beat Tony Halme (Ludvig Borga) in 2:43. The new rankings released after the show were Tariel first, Han second, Kopilov third, Maeda fourth and Vrij fifth."

Finally, and tangentially, UWFi/NJPW news: 

"The rapid downslide of Japan's Union of Wrestling Force International (UWFI) was thrown a safety net this past week with the announcement that it would combine with New Japan Pro Wrestling for a Tokyo Dome card on 10/9 and on more shows after that date. The two groups had apparently been working behind the scenes at together for at least one month, possibly longer, for the angle that was made public at a pair of simultaneous press conferences on 8/24 in Tokyo. While not officially announced, it is believed the main event for the Dome show will be Keiji Muto vs. Nobuhiko Takada, or a match of each group's current world heavyweight champion, and the undercard would consist entirely of interpromotional matches. It is believed that both groups will also combine on already scheduled UWFI shows 10/11 in Osaka and 10/28 in Tokyo at the outdoor Yoyogi soccer stadium.

Very little has been made public other than it is clear that the UWFI lawsuit against New Japan regarding the jumping of Kazuo Yamazaki from UWFI to New Japan was a work as an excuse to set up the interpromotional show. Whether the Yamazaki jump was the first part of the work or simply a coincidental starting point is unknown. What is clear is that New Japan has set the stage for a series of mega-gates and pretty much has guaranteed huge business from October through 1996 using interpromotional matches. In exchange, UWFI, which appeared to be in major financial and popularity problems since its popularity began falling in December, will likely be able to use its share from these huge gates to save itself financially, not to mention that its wrestlers will be in prime focus on the wrestling scene and thus have a great chance at regaining a large amount of interest.

UWFI was one of three companies formed in 1991 when the Universal Wrestling Federation (UWF), a group which sold out virtually every house show over a three year period, many the first day tickets would go on sale, including the fastest sellout in wrestling history of a stadium show (selling out the Tokyo Dome in three days in 1989). UWF changed the Japanese wrestling world and awoke the wrestling world in general to a style of working that is generally called "shoot style," because the idea is that the match contains no overt showmanship and no moves done in a match are moves that aren't legitimate moves that would be used if pro wrestling was real. The idea UWF tried to create is that they were real, and because other groups used maneuvers in the ring that wouldn't hold water in a real contest, that the rest of pro wrestling wasn't. UWF matches had worked spots and pre-planned finishes, although it was far more realistic looking than any pro wrestling ever in Japan and in the U.S. since working evolved, allowing for the greatest degree of suspension of disbelief while watching. Still, anyone with any experience in amateur wrestling could see it wasn't real true competition as in a sport sense but it was good enough to swing the pendulum in Japan to a more realistic style of working almost across the board. It created more emphasis on submission maneuvers, a trend that has grown over the years, in the two major offices, All Japan and New Japan, and also led to both groups implementing 100% (All Japan) or just slightly lower than 100% (New Japan) clean finishes as opposed to the traditional double count out or disqualification finishes that both groups utilized to what in hindsight was an amazing level during many of the most important singles matches of the 70s through the late-80s.

However behind-the-scenes financial problems and internal squabbling let to the group folding, and its three biggest stars, Akira Maeda, Yoshiaki Fujiwara and Takada went their separate ways, each forming their own promotion. Since it was the group which kept the "UWF" initials and grabbed most of the key names, Takada's UWFI appeared to be the most successful of the three, peaking in 1993 and 1994 where it averaged more than 15,000 fans per monthly show making it by that standard one of the most successful promotions in history. UWFI was also the first Japanese office to break into the PPV market in the United States, running three shows which ultimately didn't catch on due to weak marketing and the inability to garner attention for a new product competing for the same market as UFC.

The factors which led to the rapid decline of UWFI has been written here before, but among them were: 1) The opening of the Pancrase office, a group of pro wrestlers (which came from Fujiwara's split off from the original UWF) who initiated a new shoot style, one that looked far more legitimate than UWFI; and the popularity of Ultimate Fighting Championships from the United States on home video which exposed the UWFI style as not completely legitimate and educated Japanese audiences at what true shooting really looked like; 2) UWFI wrestler Yoji Anjyo's barging into Rickson Gracie's Jiu-Jitsu studio in Southern California and demanding a fight with Gracie, after bragging for months that he could beat Gracie in less than two minutes, and promptly getting his head handed to him. The fact that in Japanese tradition, that should mean that UWFI's top guy, Nobuhiko Takada, should regain company honor by facing and defeating Gracie and for obvious reasons when that didn't happen, the idea that even if UWFI wasn't totally legit, if it's top guy was it would be enough, but it made it appear the top guy wasn't either; 3) Takada, the group's only real drawing card's decline in popularity based on the aforementioned scenario, not to mention his talks of retirement and his almost embarrassing attempt at running for the national diet (senate). It was obvious at the 4/2 Tokyo Dome show that Takada's level of popularity judging from crowd reaction was nowhere near the level of the top stars of the other major offices, and he was even booed when he tried to psychologically build a six-man tag match by tagging out when Gary Albright tagged in. Some wrestlers in UWFI also blamed the company's usage of a major pro wrestling star, Leon "Big Van Vader" White, called Super Vader, as another factor in the decline, however I'd rule that out since Vader was a tremendous draw with UWFI and gained them much attention, particularly for his first match against Takada which sold out a 46,000-seat baseball stadium. Others saw using a major name pro wrestler as something of a sign of lack of credibility to the product as being something other than pro wrestling. In addition, while Takada was the company president, most of the business was handled by the threesome of Ken Suzuki, a former president of Takada's Fan Club in the 1980s, and mid-card wrestlers Yoji Anjyo and Yuko Miyato, who gained a bad reputation in Japan during the glory years of being almost impossible to do business with by companies interested in Takada for television and print commercials, major media stories (it was said that unless Takada was guaranteed a magazine cover, they wouldn't cooperate with major magazine stories during the peak of Takada's popularity) and even movie offers. Thus, unlike Atsushi Onita and Akira Maeda, who used the media to become the two most famous current generation wrestlers in Japan, Takada, who had more in the way of looks, style and athletic ability than either, never came close to their level of mainstream notoriety.

This year, the money problems from the decline in interest appeared at an shocking pace. Yamazaki left. Vader didn't return after losing his "rubber" match with Takada in April. Albright's contractual situation got weird to the point that rumors were that he would be leaving. Lou Thesz quietly left over money problems. Rumors were strong the group wouldn't last the year.

But the real story here is the continuation of a pattern by New Japan Pro Wrestling to give the illusion of matches "people aren't supposed to see" between wrestlers from different companies which thus given the theory, even if pro wrestling isn't real, these matches must be because too much pride is on the line for somebody to lay down. This psychology dates back to the early 70s, when Japan was a three major mens promotion country, when New Japan raided Shozo Kobayashi, the top star of the IWE (probably equivalent to the AWA during its strong period) to create legendary "dream matches" against Antonio Inoki. It continued in the early 80s, when the same IWE folded, taking in three of its top stars, Rusher Kimura, Animal Hamaguchi and Isamu Teranishi, for a heated and big money feud against Inoki. The most recent example was the huge business an interpromotional feud created in 1993, perhaps saving the unpopular WAR promotion when its top wrestlers, in particular Genichiro Tenryu, were used for matches against the top stars of New Japan. When that ran its course, New Japan went so far as to create its own competing promotion, Heisei Ishingun, for lower level matches of this same variety.

To New Japan's credit, they've been able to pull off and profit greatly, particularly with the Tenryu series, by checking their company ego at the door and doing the right thing for business, which translates into making the most money possible and creating the most interest. It's one of the most valuable lessons American offices can learn from their Japanese counterparts, as on a national scale the big promotions due to ego and nothing else, have never been able to create and correctly continue scenarios that would rival these for similar box office. In this case, because of past bad blood, it would have been very easy for New Japan to allow UWFI to die on the vine, since UWFI attempted to embarrass New Japan several times in the past with grandstand challenge angles. In the United States, the major companies won't work together, despite the fact if it was done correctly it would multiply the buy rates on each side because they live in mortal fear of ever acknowledging on their television that the other exists and fear that even if they make money, they may make the other company stronger in the process. In this case, it is guaranteed New Japan will make UWFI stronger, but they'll also make more money themselves so it's the correct business move. To a point, SMW and USWA this year have proven that handled correctly, an interpromotional feud can work in the United States, and the traditional sports world does what amounts to the same thing all the time with babyfaces (home team) vs. heels (visiting team) in just about every single game rather than teams working to crowd to create heat and fans understand their babyfaces get booed when they go on the road, which only makes the hometown fans want to cheer them more when they get them in their ballpark. WWF in 1991 had a situation handed to them by Jim Herd when Ric Flair, who was WCW and NWA world champion at the time, was fired. But the WWF squandered most of the effectiveness the Flair-Hogan series should have had because of the refusal to play up Flair's career accomplishments and present Flair as a non-WWF performer invading the scene rather than simply another new challenger. WCW had a similar opportunity when Hogan signed in a sense, but the situation was different in that WCW wanted to build its company face around the other group's former biggest star and thus couldn't position him as the outside force invading. With New Japan, the guys in these past and present situations, whether they be Kobayashi, Kimura, Tenryu or Takada, were never being groomed to be the new face of New Japan or to supplant Inoki, Choshu or Muto as the top star in the respective time frame.

While no matches have been announced, it is rumored three of the matches will be Takada vs. Muto, Yamazaki vs. Tatsuo Nakano and Riki Choshu vs. Yoji Anjyo (which would be a match of each company's booker). There are not even hints at this point where UWFI's second and third top stars, Kiyoshi Tamura and Masahito Kakihara, who wanted to change UWFI's style into a style similar to Pancrase, fit into this. It is believed that when New Japan officials return from their vacation in the Saipan Islands, they will get together with UWFI officials and come up with a card. The Dome tickets are priced at what if there is a sellout (and reports we get are that there is a lot of confidence it will sell out rapidly), would be a record gate as the traditional cheap seats that have been priced at 3,000 yen (approximately $30.70 since the dollar has made a strong comeback against the yen in recent weeks) for all previous Dome shows are 5,000 yen, and the middle deck seats traditionally 10,000 and 7,000 yen are all at 10,000, with ringside at the traditional 30,000 yen. UWFI had a series of interviews building up the Dome show at Korakuen Hall on 8/26 where they had a large photo of Yamazaki, and Nakano kicked the photo into oblivion and downed Yamazaki for quitting UWFI for New Japan saying he was a top star in UWFI but that the younger guys were improving to where they could beat him and he left and challenged him to a Dome match.

We don't have full details on how the angle was actually pulled off but based on what we were told ahead of time of what was going to happen, it went something like this. Both groups held press conferences in different places in Tokyo at the same time. The main focus was supposed to be the Yamazaki "lawsuit." It wound up with phone lines of communication taking place and Takada got to play peacemaker by suggesting that wrestling shouldn't settle its differences in the court room but should do so in the ring, which led to talk of an interpromotional show and by the end of the press conference, led to announcing 10/9 at the Tokyo Dome."

Shoot changes to the shoot-style landscape shoot-loom as I thank you once again for your time and wish you well!