RINGS 10/14/97: BATTLE GENESIS Vol. 2

Battle Genesis Vol. 2
October 14, 1997 in Tokyo, Japan
Korakuen Hall drawing 1,860

HOW WISE IT IS TO FOLLOW THE HIGH-LEVEL ENORMITY OF OUR PREVIOUS RINGS SHOW with a humble Korakuen Hall before we head into Mega Battle season to end the liturgical year; Akira Maeda's understanding is vast. That last one really was something, wasn't it! Tsuyoshi Kohsaka and Frank Shamrock had I think the best RINGS shoot so far, Akira Maeda and Andrei Kopilov put in solid early-RINGS-style work in the next bout, and Kiyoshi Tamura and Volk Han lived up to their well-earned reputations for shoot-style preeminence in a main event that I think had them recover from a blown finish beautifully (or perhaps I have been worked on an even deeper level than usual? either way I salute both men). We open with a long interview with Akira Maeda in a good jacket and tremendous hair, then move on to footage of the weigh-ins before we head to the ring for the parade of fighters. The first three introduced are Sanae Kikuta (who we discussed at great length when he first appeared a few short months ago), Minoru Tanaka, and Alexander Otsuka; this is the level of taste we are operating at right now. The crowd thrills at Kiyoshi Tamura's name, as one might expect, but there is a concentrated shrieking of ladies when Masayuki Naruse arrives, which one might not, necessarily? And then when Maeda takes the ring to address the crowd everyone goes nuts because Akira Maeda, despite the many reasonable grounds upon which one might assail him, is unassailable. 

OPENING MATCH sees the now-venerable Minoru Tanaka (in that I watched him wrestle in a match this very month, this April of 2017, which I did not expect to [wait, we already talked about that, it was in IGF]) against Sanae Kikuta, who, again, we said a lot about when he débuted at BATTLE GENESIS Vol. 1, so I do not wish to belabour it, but it really is remarkable to me that he had these two matches in RINGS! No less remarkable is that if the big patch on his judogi is any indication, he is being sponsored by eggs:

EGGS

Also his belt is so beautifully tattered and worn around the edges and I really admire it. Mine is getting super-shabby looking and worn, too, because I have been a black belt for kind of a long time as I am old (they give black belts to the people who never stop showing up and who keep on græppling so my advice to you if you would like one of your own is to first I guess start showing up and then once starting I would say never stop showing up and keep on græppling and I can all but guarantee you will have one too if you don't die within the next ten years or so and if you do you've got bigger problems than belt colour in all honesty) and it is kind of to the point now where I think I should probably order a nice crisp new one for, like, judo formal occasions (don't act like those don't exist) because my everyday one is as I have mentioned already quite worn but not as beautifully as Kikuta's or, say, Yoshihiro Akiyama's:

all memes aside this is a very handsome man

But it's getting closer every day! Ah, belts, and their whole deal. Hierarchies are unavoidable because we are born into time; what can we do but seek knowledge from the lore-wise. It's weird (not actually weird) how you fully romanticize the black belt (often because the wearers of it are destroying you six nights per week at both clubs you train at and then again on the weekends when there are tournaments; many of them are quite nice, but that has not kept them from destroying you) and it is totally your quest to get one when you are mudansha (without rank) and then you get one and it's like ah ok so I am still terrible, that's a shame. But we must continue to train diligently in hopes that our waza will someday resemble that of the great Sanae Kikuta who puts Tanaka on his back with a tidy kosoto gake 小外掛 minor outer hook, establishes the chest hold of mune-gatame (the Kodokan feels it is not sufficiently distinct from yoko-shiho-gatame to warrant its own name and I can respect that view), shifts to tate-shiho-gatame, and just grinds the noble Tanaka down with relentless weight. Tanaka escapes! And stands! And he is squished right back down, Kikuta is the best. Round one ends (I guess there are to rounds on this day) and Kikuta looks good whereas Tanaka looks like a guy who just got squished for a round. In round two, Tanaka, bless his heart, comes out firing, and, once grounded (this is immediate), totally tries for stuff, but it is not happening. Kikuta harries him with the double-knuckle choke we can dignify by calling the double-hand strangle of ryo-te-jime 両手絞 but it is a technique that, while legal, is so heinous that you only do it against people you are totally already friends with so you can laugh about it after they are done yelling at you for doing such a dikkkkk move to them. Tanaka is to be saluted for his escape of a rolling juji-gatame, and is not to be blame for his loss by mae-hadaka-jime (front choke) at 3:08. Kikuta makes his way from the ring quite merrily, and that's a RINGS-wrap on Sanae Kikuta, as I understand it; he will grace the WOWOW stage no more. It was great to see him though! I really hadn't expected to! 

Alexander Otsuka returns! Here he is to face Christopher Haseman and I think I hope for Otsuka's sake this is shoot-style rather than shooting proper because Haseman is pretty good and the last time these two took to fight one against the other, Otsuka got cup up pretty badly, like this is how he looked after they tried to clean him up:

Maybe this time will be more about just taking it easy? I don't know, though, the mae-hadaka-jime front choke Haseman is cranking on suggests this might be all too real (for Otsuka). We have well and truly entered the stage of RINGS where you have to at least wonder about nearly every (non-Maeda) match, at least until it starts and you can feel its energies. As we enter tournaments season, one would assume there will be more worked bouts than there have been of late, but who could forget the shoot semi-final between Tamura and Yamamoto, the broad lines of which are clear to us but the specifics still shrouded in mystery, or maybe it's the other way around really (I have not actually persisted in asking Dave about it on Wrestling Observer Radio; I sent it in once but have not done so again; but perhaps I should). This one settles into a pretty clear work and really quite a good one, I think! They go fairly long, too. Otsuka is cut up a couple minutes in but I think he spends most of his day that way, it is his normal. There is a great sequence where Haseman grabs a gyaku-ude-garami grip and throws with a sumi-gaeshi from it, which should like something like this: 

this is Masahiko Kimura when he was pretty old

But instead Haseman pretty much DDT's Otsuka on his huge head and then pursues him with the arm-lock for ages until Otsuka comes up on top. The crowd was so in! In the end Otsuka wins by knockout at 18:10 but it was weird: Otsuka had Haseman in the scarf-hold of kesa-gatame, and he added the nifty little entangled arm-lock from there that we often call kesa-garami, and so Haseman put a foot on the rope for the escape, but then he just never stood up! Otsuka was draped over the ropes in his own exhaustion while this strangeness unfolded. I am pretty sure this match was a work (I really feel like it was pretty clear) and so this is a deeply odd finish. This is not to suggest that I didn't like it, though, as I totally did!

Wataru Sakata is coming off what certainly appeared to be a shoot win by especially gnar ashi-dori-garami (toe hold/ankle lock) and is set to face Dominque Deligny, who is polite in his pre-fight interview, thanking the RINGS organization for bringing him in to fight. He seems to be a kickboxer! Sataka takes him down early, and Deligny palm-strikes him in the face from the bottom but immediately recognizes on his own that this is not appropriate under RINGS rules and he is contrite. I am not even sure Yuji Shimada charged him a point for it. That rope escape to avoid a heel hook, though, that's a point. SAKAAAATAAAAAAA is the cry of Wataru Sakata's biggest fan at Korakuen. I don't think Deligny has much experience græppling, maybe? He seems to have really snappy kicks though I am of course the worst judge of such things. There is no on-screen graphic for points loss (nor is there commentary) on this low-key show but I am sure Deligny is down a bunch right now. Not that it will come into play, really, as the match has ended on mae-hadaka-jime front choke at 4:02, another good win for Sakata! He kisses Deligny atop his nice head.

Elvis Sinosic, I remember that guy! He is discernibly Australian in his pre-fight interview as he reveals that this is his first time in Japan . . . and he loves it! He explains that his first martial art was Tae Kwon Do so he likes kicking and punching but that now he is training a lot of jujitsu. A cursory look at his record reveals that he fought way less often than I would have guessed, and that he once lost to Christopher Haseman (at "Caged Combat 1 – Australian Ultimate Fighting," 22 March 1997) by "TKO (chin to the eye)" which is similar but I guess not exactly the same as when Igor Vovchanchyn lost to Mikhail Ilioukhine by "Submission (chin in the eye)" two years earlier. AND HIS FOE SHALL BE KIYOSHI TAMURA and I bet this one will be a shoot! Let's find out together. Yes ok I think it is! The snap to the striking, the tension in the early græppling: I am convinced. They both seem pretty interested in ashi-kansetsu (leg-bone-locking) but is Tamura's waza that takes hold first, and so it is Sinosic who is first to the ropes. The sound of Tamura's kick smacking into Sinosic's lead leg is hideous and it just keeps happening; I would like them both to try something else. Five minutes have passed, claimeth the ring announcer (I believe him) and it feels like four minutes of it have just been Tamura's kick making me feel bad for Elvis Sinosic. Tamura's hands hang arrogantly at his side as I guess he would like to bait Sinosic into doing something other than stand there and be kicked and I would very much like him to take that bait. Sinosic seems to inadvertently poke Tamura in the eye but much like Deligny before him his apology seems sincere and all receive it in that spirit. Ah, at last, Tamura has taken him down and so the tyranny of kicking is at an end. Tamura finishes with a gyaku-ude-garami (reverse-arm-entanglement) that he straightens all the way out until it becomes a form of ude-hishigi-ude-gatame (arm-crushing-arm-lock, not the most edifying description, I grant you) for the win at 10:11 of a fairly one-sided match HOWEVER MAY I DIRECT YOUR ATTENTION TO A WEIRD THING FROM EARLIER and that is that Elvis Sinosic claims (it says so on his wikipedia page) to be the first person to have attempted the kakago jime 踵絞 (shin choke) or "gogoplata" in the context of what many would come to know as mixed martial arts when he did so in an early græppling exchange in this very bout, and who could deny it, look: 

The two became tangled in the ropes and Yuji Shimada called for a break, but how neat is that! Stop me if you have heard this one before but one time I hooked up a kakato-jime at a judo tournament and one of my judo pals at the side of the mat was like "ooooooh GOGO" (this was years ago; he is now an electronic music maker of some note and richly-deserved esteem) and my wife, who was there amongst my judo pals, was like "yes, go, go!" and it was a lovely and light moment and although my foe hoisted me up for the referee's call of mate and indeed I ended up totally blowing that match, losing by ippon with only seconds to go after I was up a waza-ari and a bunch of yukos, this is one of my favourite memories from competition ever. I like this technique! Look at this whole article about its provenance a fool in his folly wrote nearly a decade ago at a long-deleted website; such folly.

It strikes me as maybe a little odd that the Willie Peeters vs. Masayuki Naruse match is going on after the Kiyoshi Tamura match, but who am I, RINGS promoter Akira Maeda? Plainly I am not, nor was meant to be. And did not the ladies of Korakuen Hall shriek alarmingly during the parade of fighters at Naruse's name? Indeed they did. So what do I know. I do not expect Naruse's Light-Heavyweight Title to be defended here, as Willie Peeters is probably too big for it, and also may I say that I am uncomfortable with their being a RINGS champion with a RINGS championship belt and everything; I think RINGS is better than that; I think this is a misstep (not that Naruse is defending his belt here or even has it with him). Naruse and Peeters go at it pretty well, I would say, but the best part in the early going is when the bout is stopped so the doctor (I think he's a doctor) can see about Naruse's cut, and Peeters grabs a drink of water in the corner, and some guy yells something that sounds to me like Oi Oi Oi and Peeters raises his water to him and everyone loves it. Blood running from his pretty messed nose, Naruse is kicked in the groin, right in the very dikk of it. Peeters is really getting the best of this! And indeed the day is his as the match is stopped at 16:44 by the doctor (I think he's a doctor) because of Naruse's almost certainly broken nose. 

A very fine little Korakuen Hall show!
    
WHAT DID DAVE MELTZER SAY: 

October 27, 1997:

"10/14 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (RINGS - 1,860 sellout): Sonoe Kikuta b Minoru Tanaka, Alexander Otsuka b Christopher Hazemann, Wataru Sakata b Dominic Delaney, Kiyoshi Tamura b Elvis Sinosic, Willie Peeters b Masayuki Naruse

RINGS announced the bracketing of its annual Battle Dimension tournament which starts 10/25 at Tokyo Bay NK Hall, and continues 11/20 in Osaka, 12/23 in Fukuoka and the finals on 1/21 at Budokan Hall. First round matches are Yoshihisa Yamamoto vs. Christopher Hazemann, Akira Maeda vs. Nikolai Zouev, Hanse Nyman vs. Kiyoshi Tamura, Joop Kasteel vs. Leo Hasdell, Illoukhine Mikhail vs. X, Tsuyoshi Kousaka vs. Jerry Askoff (Bulgaria), Bitzsade Tariel vs. Dick Vrij and Volk Han vs. Andrei Kopilov. Judging from the names and bracketing, this should be a total work tournament with Osaka having Maeda vs. Yamamoto, Tamura vs. Kasteel, Kousaka vs. Mikhail and Han vs. Tariel and where it goes from there is more confusing. RINGS ran 10/14 at Korakuen Hall before a sellout 1,860 with Willie Peeters scoring an upset over 95 kg. champion Masayuki Naruse in a non-title match. The undercard featured three fighters from Australia, Hazemann, Domenic Delaney and Elvis Sinosic losing to Alexander Otsuka, Wataru Sakata and Tamura respectively.

Saw the 9/6 Pancrase show. The Yuki Kondo-Jason DeLucia title match was a 27:00 very even match which appeared, as it figured, that it could have gone either way with Kondo scoring a submission just a few minutes before the time limit. John Lober's debut saw him a little confused on the rules and lose a point due to an accidental violation which spelled the difference in what was otherwise a pretty even match against Kiuma Kunioku.


Akira Maeda went berserk about the Pride One show in a RINGS press conference after the Korakuen Hall show. He challenged Rickson Gracie before he retires in September but said he only would do the match in RINGS which I guess is his way to save face."

Pride One you say?

"Reports from people who have seen the tape of the 10/11 Tokyo Dome show from the PPV were not favorable at all. Dan Severn vs. Kimo was said to have been a bad match and Rickson Gracie vs. Nobuhiko Takada was like a one-sided squash with Takada acting afraid of Gracie. The story is that Takada never actually studied Gracie tapes and his manager didn't go looking for tapes of Gracie's previous fights until three days before the match, at which point it was way too late. Apparently Gracie was merciful in not pounding Takada's face any more than necessary before beating him. Because of the way the match ended, it is said that Takada now can't retire because he'd be going out on such a bad note. Right now he's left the country. What was amazing is that it was said that even though the crowd was a total pro wrestling crowd there to see "the funeral" of Takada, that it appeared 75% knew exactly what they were watching when it came to Vale Tudo spots and what they meant. Virtually all the smart fans knew ahead of time that Takada has zero chance to win but there were a lot of fans who were super upset wanting to trash the building because of how one-sided the match turned out to be. The Gary Goodridge vs. Oleg Taktarov finish was said to be sickeningly brutal. There is some talk of them trying to put together a Rickson Gracie vs. Marco Ruas match to headline the Pride Two show on 1/18 in Yokohama. There may have been a lot more than 5,000 freebies at the show because there were tons of postcards at convenience stores in Tokyo that you could redeem for one free ticket at the box office the day of the show."

ALRIGHT THEN only eleven days until the tournament begins! We of course will see to it way sooner than that here at TK Scissors: A Blog of RINGS, won't we. Thank you once again for your time!