RINGS BLOG SUPPLEMENTAL 10/13/95: LUMAX CUP: THE TOURNAMENT OF J '95

Lumax Cup: The Tournament of J '95
October 13, 1995
Tokyo, Japan

WHY WAS TSUYOSHI KOHSAKA ABSENT FROM THE 10/21/95 RINGS MEGA BATTLE TOURNAMENT 1995: FIRST ROUND well how can any of us truly claim to know anything with certainty given The Problem of Knowledge however I will speculate that the reason he was not on that show is that he had only very recently (then-recently [like eight days then-recently) competed in the LUMAX CUP: THE TOURNAMENT OF J '95, an early kakutogi tournament long known by the lore-wise as an æsthetic triumph rarely matched since. Instead of not wearing dogi, everyone does, which is better; instead of fighting in a dumb cage or a (way-better-but-even-so-come-on) ring, Lumax Cup bouts are contested on tatami, which is at least as much better as the dogi situation is and realistically probably way more so. If for whatever reason you have any doubts, however ghostly-faint, about the taste levels operating in any aspect of this endeavour I trust that you will be able to put all of them aside after you see this image of Alexander Otsuka with terrible tracking:

I am so pleased that we are all in agreement now as we begin. I suppose we should also address ourselves to the rules, as well; here, let's:

Ok good so now that that's straight let's see, alright, so the athletes have all made their way to the tatami; one from among their number holds his hand high as he stands before the microphone and recites what I choose to believe is a kind of athlete's pledge of the sort we are accustomed to seeing before the games of an Olympiad. The crowd is almost improbably sparse but there is a huge taiko drum in the corner so who cares, this is awesome. Our first match sees Yuuichi Odtuka (I am spelling like they are giving it out, man), who from dogi-thickness (by which I mean thinness) and short-sleevedness I adjudge to be a probable karateka, take on Isamu Odsugi, whose brilliant red kurtka (куртка, it just means jacket) announces his sambist leanings. The fighters are instructed to shomen ni rei (bow to the front) before they are instructed to hajime (begin) and I feel so at home in all of this right now; they don't even have to do matches, I love this (they should still do matches though).  Odtuka throws some front kicks that confirm, I think, my suspicisions of karate; Odsugi throws with near-immediate ura-nage and finishes with an ude-hishigi-juji-gatame armlock in 0:42 to suggest that he is indeed a sambist, yes, as he is declared the winner by ippon (I will note here that I think the Sherdog page [remember them?] for this event has the result of this match backwards.)  

Egan Inoue vs. Alexander Odtuka (it is not my place to tell them how to transliterate) is next and how great is that! Egan, seconded by his I guess better-known brother Enson, is a racquetball world champion (for real) who took bronze twice at ADCC (there is no shame in losing there to Sanae Kikuta, winner of next year's Lumax Cup in fact [against Inoue!], and there is much esteem in besting Renzo Gracie under those or indeed any rules, he is the Gracie we all like best [Roger also excellent imo]), and who hung around mixed martial arts for years and fought well without any wins over truly big names, I guess you would have to say in all frankness, but I think Egan Inoue is regarded rightly as a doughty græppler and true. Alexander Otsuka is how we generally know Alexander Odtuka, and we have grown to love him for his Battlarts (aka BATBAT) work and also for getting just ruined pretty much every time out in PRIDE all the while wearing tights that said DIET BUTCHER on them (catch him soon at an Inoki Genome Federation card near you!). He arrives to this match already very much bandaged around the head, which is completely decorous with his ethos and whole deal. Otsuka eats a solid punch straight away and decides it would be a much better idea to shoot low for a takedown; Inoue stands up strong, though, clinches, and throws with a beautiful left osoto-gari (大外刈 major outer reap) or perhaps osoto-otoshi (大外落 large outer drop) which is to say * S P A C E * T O R N A D O * O G A W A * and then takes his time working into a match-ending ude-hishigi-juji-gatame for the win at 0:55. This is the best show.

Speaking of Space Tornados and Nayaos Ogawa, here's Kazunari Murikami, his little buddy for a while there, former Takushoku University judo player turned mixed-fighter/professional wrestler, who holds the distinction of winning the very first match on the very first Pride show (by armbar in under two minutes, no less! Against John Dixon! I don't remember that at all!). He faces Akihiro Gono, one of the first two or three people you think of when you think of GRABAKA, surely, and who really fought forever, didn't he, but it's been a little over a year so hopefully he's done for good now. Murikami takes Gono down but is quickly reversed; Gono's search for a leg-lock though means Murikami has a chance to get back on top and he jumps at/in the opportunity. Murikami has Gono pinned pretty solidly in tate-shiho-gatame or so I thought until the exact moment Gono bridged and escaped, so what do I know. Gono cartwheels around Murikami's legs but also off of the tatami and indeed off of the raised platform upon which the tatami rests and so that is a restart. Gono kicks him right in the head, yeah, and Murikami stands again almost at once but he is also walking in a weird way and the referee rightly waives it off at 2:25. It is unreal how good this is. I don't even like kicking. 

Kazuhiro Kusayanagi and Susumu Yamazaki, I confess to know nothing of either man, let's see what I can find. Ok, Kusayanagi fought almost exclusively in SHOOTO, so I have pretty much all of his fights in a (non-RINGS) box in my basement; he lost nearly all of them, but does hold a win over Akihiro Gono at maybe the best named SHOOTO ever which is SHOOTO: Let's Get Lost. He has just been tai-otoshi'd (體落 body dropped) expertly by Susumu Yamazaki, about whom I have learned nothing other than that he shares his name with Yamazaki Susumu (山崎 烝, 1843? - February 6, 1868) who "was a Shinsengumi officer and spy, otherwise known as a kansatsu (監察 inspector)[; h]e was a ronin from Osaka and an expert in Katori Ryu." He is very nearly hiza-juji knee-barred by Kusayanagi while both of their seconds shriek instruction as time expires. The decision seems to be that they should fight another round? Kusayanagi seems to want to play off his back, and Yamazaki is happy to settle in on top in niju-garami (double-entanglement/half-guard) and do some light hitting until he is swept some time later. Kusayanagi has lousy pressure on top, though, so Yamazaki just stands up and pushes him over for more hitting. Kusayanagi has good sweeps! This is a really good match. Time expires with Kusayanagi on Yamazaki's leg for a kata-ashi-hishigi straight angle lock but it's not really a threat, I don't think. In the end the decision goes to Yamazaki, but it felt really close!

OK HERE WE GO IT IS TIME FOR TUYOSHI KOSAKA YEAH THAT'S HOW THEY SPELL IT EVEN THOUGH HIS BOOTS SAY OTHERWISE WHEN HE WEARS THEM IN RINGS against Hiroyuki Yoshioka about whom little is known other than that he was bold enough to compete in three Lumax Cups so here is to him, good for him, for real. TK opts for his dogi and tight shorts and for hitting until he can take the back standing and just kind of wrangle young Yoshioka down. Yoshioka turutles, and Kohsaka attacks the back with such heaviness, such pressure; you can see how awful it must be. It is the greatest mystery of ne waza how people who weigh 160lbs can feel heavier than people who weigh 250lbs if they do everything right and the bigger person does fewer things that way. I am not at all big, and this is I think of great rhetorical advantage in my teaching because the only way I am throwing these big people and the only way I am holding them down or really doing anything at all is because of whatever meagre waza it is that I am able to muster and has nothing to do with size -- this helps convince big new guys that what we do is good to do! Then they learn how to do it too and smoosh me but that is the dream of any educator. Kohsaka, in time, looks to roll through for a leg-lock but Yoshioka stands up and Kohsaka slips off the edge, so that's a restart. They throw wild punches until Kohsaka is staggered and receives the referee's count! Yikes! Yoshioka is clearly a man of judo: we can tell from his attempt at harai-goshi (払腰 sweeping hip), here unsuccessful, and yoko-tomoe-nage (巴投 side circle throw), pretty much here successful, in that he gets Kohsaka to the mat, though not on his back, but Yoshioka sits up and tips Kohsaka over so what more could he really have asked of it? He rushes his juji-gatame attempt, I think he would agree, but these things happen in the heat of the moment. As the referee breaks them near the edge, the discerning RINGS enthusiast will note that Kohsaka held in his mind and in his aspect the faintest hint of . . . the TK Scissors. After a restart Kohsaka hits with a hard uppercut for a knockdown, and another soon after for the stoppage at 3:40. IPPON the referee declares. Some close calls for TK! OMG we are then shown an alternate angle of the finish, which pulls back to reveal Yoshihisa Yamamoto and Mitsuya Nagai taking it all in and feeling relieved! 

Now that the semi-finals are set why not have a SUPERFIGHTOOO between oh I don't know maybe SATORU SAYAMA and YOSHINORI NISHI. Sayama you know already: first he was Tiger Mask, and then he invented Shooto. Yoshinori Nishi, already ancient, was the winner of the 1994 Lumax Cup, and is one of those figures from the early mixed fight era that you hear a thousand different things about from the like eight people who have even heard of him. He fought Rickson Gracie at Vale Tudo Japan and did not last nearly as long as say Yoshihisa Yamamoto (how weird was that, so hard to account for). What else do we know for certain of his Wajutsu Keishukai? Pretty much nothing, except that it brings us in time Caol Uno, so it must be sikk. His dogi is white, Sayama's black as the night. Nishi comes out kicking at a distance while Sayama hops around like, well, like Tiger Mask. Nishi puts him down solidly but Sayama comes close with a juji-gatame before Nishi settles in on top, eventually, and cuts his knee through to pass. I don't know why they were restarted on their feet but the crowd applauds! Sayama throws a high kick just as Nishi is coming through with a low one and the overall effect is that we are watching Best of the Best 2 or something and here you are in your junior high friend's basement on a weekend, sleeping over even though you have baseball practice in the morning but it's ok mom you'll just walk down to the field, it's not that far. Another restart standing, who can say why (I think it is just when things stall out, no harm in that), but let us all be thankful for it because it led to this tobi-juji-gatame (flying armlock) from the enigmatic Yoshinori Nishi:

IPPON is the referee's cry as Sayama taps but they start to fight again! Is this a best of three falls match or something? These guys aren't exactly killing each other, maybe the spirit of this is more like a nice randori than a match as such (randori 乱取り, chaos-taking, the most fun thing to do: "The term is described by Jigoro Kano, the founder of Judo, in a speech at the 1932 Los Angeles Olympic Games: 'Randori, meaning "free exercise", is practiced under conditions of actual contest. It includes throwing, choking, holding the opponent down, and bending or twisting his arms or legs. The two combatants may use whatever methods they like provided they do not hurt each other and obey the rules of Judo concerning etiquette, which are essential to its proper working.' [1]"). Time expires after a minute or so of leglockery, and seemingly no winner declared (there is no winner or loser in randori) and on the whole this was very agreeable. 

Inoue versus Gono is our first semi-final and my hopes are high. Inoue takes him down with a double-leg immediately and takes no longer to move to the mune-gatame chest hold of side control. He looks very much set to juji-gatame when the referees decide rightly that they are a little too close to the edge, so the action is stopped whilst three men comically haul them both back to the middle of the tatami:

I can offer you that image but the real genius of this occurrence is in the scooching, and you will need the video for that. Inoue is patient and applies juji-gatame very soundly at 1:33 despite Gono's wild attempt at escape (Gono looks pretty hurt). Egan Inoue to the finals!

Susumu Yamazaki versus TSUYOSHI KOHSAKA then will determine who will face in the finals the guy who has totally looked the best so far this day. Woah, harai-goshi right off the grip:

don't worry his leg isn't whipping around broken (VHS artifact)

Kohsaka rolls through and ends up on bottom, which is not a problem because he attacks immediately with juji-gatame and, when that turns out to not be happening, gets an arm in nice and deep on the nearside leg and would you look at that, it's a heel-hook for the win at 0:55. Replays from alternate angles reveal that that harai-goshi was just as pure as we had initially thought:

AND NOW THE FINALS, let us attend to them at once, Egan Inoue vs. Tsuyoshi Kohsaka, why wait. (Enson Inoue is so jacked in Egan's corner by the way, just huge, and his sleeveless shirt suggests he is not shy about how this is so.) Kohsaka comes in looking steely and ready to engage in LUMAX. Inoue shoots in low(ish) but Kohsaka has none of it, stays upright and strong, and throws fully and completely with the inner-thigh throw of uchi-mata. Inoue is of course super wily, though, and half takes the back in the ensuing scramble. Kohsaka's posture is strong, so he stays on his knees and nearly passes to the side immediately just as maybe (probably?) the same guy we have been hearing at RINGS shows yells KOHSAKAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. Inoue rolls Kohsaka over with the classic escape from yoko-shiho-gatame (side control, loosely [or tightly]) and secures tate-shiho-gatame which should and would be very much the place to be except for how this is precisely the place for TK SCISSORS which Kohsaka hits as soon as Inoue rears up to think about anything other than pinning. It looks like this (this is a gif I made a while ago; it is not a RINGS-blog-Lumax-Cup-specific gif but is from my regular supply of waza gifs):

Needless to say I love this, and let me revisit briefly, if I may, the time last summer where there only a few of us at judo, brown and black belts all, and I was like, you know what, the time has come, let us TK scissor, and people were delighted by but at the same time somewhat skeptical of this technique as I demonstrated it with a compliant uke; it was not until I hit the technique in randori after a failed tomoe-nage against someone who is definitely better than me that all truly believed (and ALL saw the technique unfold because I had loudly exclaimed "TK SCISSOR TIME" before attempting and then, perhaps improbably, executing the waza). It seems almost too fanciful! And yet here the technique lies before us, not it in the shoot-style waza-dreamspace of RINGS, but upon the authentically-contested tatami of Lumax Cup: Tournament of J. It is quite a thing! The position reached at the end of the above gif lasts only an instant as Inoue scramble to his feet and TK follows; to Inoue's great credit he soon takes Kohsaka down with a deep kosoto-gari (minor outer reap) that borders on the valley drop of tani-otoshi (not quite though) and assumes a sturdy mune-gatame (chest hold). His brother Enson (I think it is Enson's voice) calls out "Take your time, take your time" which is exactly the thing to say right now without question in my view, that's good coaching and very nice brothering. Inoue moves to tate-shiho-gatame (top-four-corner-hold) which I honestly feel is a less advantageous position for him here than to be off to the side but he knows his own waza better than I ever could, surely. TK threatens at once with the scissors that bear his name the instant Inoue straightens up, but Egan wisely squooshes right back down at this first sign of very real danger. He is super high on Kohsaka's chest, probably thinking juji-gatame, if I may venture a guess into another man's thoughts, and if I may venture a further such effort in my arrogance, I think TK is feeding his arms slightly, baiting, in hopes that Inoue will swing across for the juji and give him a chance to pop up and out in the ensuing scramble should Inoue's control not remain masterful throughout. Or, another approach would be to wait an instant longer until Inoue is just way too high, and TK scissor out the back door, posture up and pass to your own mune-gatame chest hold and then yoko-shiho-gatame side-hold, as Yoshihisa Yamamoto looks on approvingly right next to Enson Inoue and his sikk peaks:

This is an unbelievable time in the history of a particular kind of græppz, isn't it, that four such men of it (græppz) should be so contained within one mere gif shrunk down small enough so that it might be posted within the upload limits of one's judo tumblr. Let us not lose ourselves utterly to reverie though but instead focus on how Egan Inoue is undaunted and shrimps in hard in his attempt to escape, only for TK to cut his hips through (koshi-kiri) into the scarf hold of kesa-gatame (kesa is king, kesa is queen). In his excitement over all of this, surely, TK throws a leg across for juji-gatame but it is too headlong, and Inoue stands up and out and assumes his favoured tate-shiho-gatame top position again -- only, it soon happens, to be TK scissored once more, this time subtly (watch the left side, then TK's kesa-hips as he comes up; please do not give in to astonishment if you are at all able to resist that condition in the face of this):

Inoue does a fine job of keeping TK from improving his position any further in the final seconds before the round expires. The judges decree that another round follow, and also that Enson Inoue serve as the Yoshihisa Yamamoto's butler haha no of course that part is not true. As the second round begins, Inoue gamely enters for a high-crotch takedown but is soon thrown with uchi-mata; this is not his fault, as TK would throw 99%+ of all humans who have ever lived had any of them grabbed him this way. Koshaka is in the double entanglement of niju-garami (half-guard) but can't get Inoue flattened out as he would like and so before long Inoue has him not just in his guard but in fact assailed (however briefly) by sankaku-jime, the triangle choke. Kohsaka pops out and around (he "tips his hat to the lady" in the classic defense), attacks with the arm-entanglement of ude-garami, is scrambled away from, throws with tai-otoshi (body drop), attacks with gyaku-ude-garami to juji-gatame . . . this is all so pure. Inoue is up and out and on top as we move into the contest's final minute; he assumes the head-and-neck north/south pin of kami-shiho-gatame and makes an excellent attempt at juji-gatame with only seconds remaining, but Kohsaka rolls away with the kind of backdoor-escape that has come to hurt my shoulders even to behold; Inoue turtles up, Koshaka makes the earliest approaches to the side-triangle-choke- turnover of yoko-sanaku-jime, and time expires. The athletes take counsel from their seconds as the judges insist on a further round (there is no real reason for this to stop ever, as I see it). 

Inoue throws a punch (oh yeah right, punches, I remember those) as the third round begins, but Kohsaka slips around and takes the back standing and drags him down. He takes the back in ne waza, too, but Inoue is able to roll through and keep Kohsaka between his legs. That the pace has slowed in this third round is only natural. Inoue's triangle attempt leads to Kohsaka's leg-lock attempt and then a reassertion of TK's on-topness. With thirty-five seconds to go, TK is firmly on top and punching reasonably well to the body as Egan's corner implores him to go for the arm, but he's just too spent to do much of anything but hold on and be punched. The decision is rightly awarded to Koshaka but our decision that this was the best surely is owed in near-equal measure to both men.

In a post-fight interview, Egan Inoue says he thinks TK is strong, and he would like very much another chance to fight him, perhaps with punching to the head allowed on the ground (this is bold of him to say and I believe that he feels this in his heart but it would go quite badly for him I fear). What a showing by Tsuyoshi Kohsaka on behalf of the Fighting Network we call RINGS! This leaves us, I think, with much to consider as we return together to RINGS proper when next we gather at this blog of RINGS; for now, perhaps it is enough to ask ourselves what effects this will have on Kohsaka work for and position in RINGS: will he move up the shoot-style card based on his shoot-fight performance? Stylistically, what, if anything, will change? Will he attack with TK Scissors openly and freely? (I am hoping for that.) Will he avoid the pitfalls of Yoshihisa Yamamoto, who has weirdly adopted Rickson Gracie's mannerisms since their bout? Surely that won't be a problem for him, I don't know why I even mention it. I had a look through the old Observers of this time but cannot find mention of Lumax, so if you were wondering What Dave Meltzer Had to Say I am afraid it is either nothing at all or it is lost somehow, and I am sorry not to have more for you in this regard. But what a tournament! What a final bout! What a performance by TSUYOSHI KOHSAKA!  Look at how happy he has made Mitsuya Nagai!

Thank you for your time!