January 21, 1998 in Tokyo, Japan
Budokan Hall drawing 9,200
LET US GO THEN YOU AND I TO THE 日本武道館 which is to say the Nippon Budōkan for that is the appropriate venue not just for this weekend's upcoming 全日本柔道選手権大会 Zennihon jūdō senshuken taikai All-Japan Judo Championship (it is always held on April 29th!) but also and indeed far more relevantly to our endeavour the WORLD MEGA-BATTLE TOURNAMENT 1997: GRAND FINAL as we crown not just a tournament champion as we have in previous years but also, and for the first time, a RINGS heavyweight champion in an ongoing sense (I think this is a mistake). But before we can get to that, our door must first be darkened, it would seem, for the first time in a while by Herman Renting, who longtime readers will perhaps recall I don't like. He is in with an unusually tanned Wataru Sakata, who defeats him mae-hadaka-jime in I believe a shoot in a mere 3:24 and there seems to be some animosity between the two as Sakata held the choke an instant longer than one might otherwise, and then he goes like this:
I don't know if the usually level-headed Wataru Sakata has been in some way wronged by Herman Renting to bring all of this about or if maybe he just can't stand him and can't even say why; I have heard that can happen with regard to Herman Renting.
Dominque Deligny, who some of us may recall from a fairly recent Korakuen Hall, is here at the Budokan to see about Masayuki Naruse, our Light-Heavyweight Champion (this remains an error in my view). These fine fellows appear to be going pretty long so why not take a minute to look at gifs of Takashi Ojitani winning last year's All-Japan, his second in three years (still didn't make the team for Rio, so harsh)? His osoto-gari 大外刈 was really humming! These first two are against no less a foe that Ryu Shichinohe (the third gif is an alternate angle of the second throw):
Then in the final, he scored big with it on Daiki Kamikawa (the last person to defeat Teddy Riner!) fairly early:
It's really quite magnificent!
I would understand if you feel like you maybe would have preferred to have learned more about Masayuki Naruse's win over Dominque Deligny by kata-ashi-hishigi (an Achilles hold) at 19:24 of a match in which Naruse had Deligny on the run throughout (as demonstrated by the lop-sided score before the eventual finish), but at the same time, we really are very close to this year's All-Japan, and to hold the RINGS event we are currently discussing in the very Budokan itself is nothing short of entrapment for judo telling. And so here we are. If things lag even slightly the rest of the way, I am posting the draw.
Sionne Latu enters to the theme from the Mortal Kombat movie, and it would be absurd to pretend that you didn't eagerly see that movie the instant it opened at the suburban movie theatre by the water that you could walk to from from your then-house but which doesn't exist anymore, just down from the Dairy Queen you would usually go to after, which doesn't exist anymore either. I remember thinking the movie was okay but that I would have liked Sub-Zero to have been featured more prominently. The film's director, Paul W. S. Anderson, I have just learned, is married to Milla Jovavich and they have two girls, and it sounds like things have worked out very well for them in their life together. Sionne Latu kind of stomps around and yells to the crowd and they love him; he is super intense, a kind of Wanderlei Silva-esque figure to the extent that he has a bald head and then also all of his muscles look like bald heads. But his energy is not really the same and it is a poor comparison that I apologize for. He is doing a lot of shadowboxing and so one expects him to be a striker . . . like in Mortal Kombat. It does not seem as though he will pose too many problems for TSUYOSHI KOHSAKA, however, who takes him down with a low, tackling morote-gari (two-hand reap) and comes pretty close to a juji-gatame and then hadaka-jime and then juji-gatame again, so he is going arm to neck and back to arm before things seem to settle out a little with Latu betwixt TK's legs but without much idea what to do there, I don't think. Kohsaka swings through for an ashi-gatame (leg hold) of some kind or another, works through an option or two, and settles on the toe-hold of ashi-dori-garami. He has time, because Latu is just kind of holding on, and that's the finish at a pretty wild 1:58. Good match! This has all been good so far.
Bitsadze Tariel, no less enormous than in any of his many earlier appearances, will face Hans Nijman (R.I.P.), who comes out to the version of "Aces High" from Live After Death, prefaced, even, by Churchill's speech about where we will fight them. For more on Churchill's Georgism, why not read this 1909 speech? Andrew has recently become a Georgist and I think it is important to support him in this. Tariel wins by doctor stoppage when Nijman tweaks his knee on spinning kick, and while I hope Nijman's knee is ok (well it's not ok now, R.I.P.), it is remarkable to see Tariel loom over him in pitiless karate-guy readiness:
It would seem that we are intermission at the Budokan right now as highlights of seemingly every tournament match are shown so I think it is time for us to look ahead to this year's All-Japan brackets, ever-so-lightly annotated at the lovely judofan.com site:
The Judofan writes:
"The noteworthy athletes’ names have been translated and can be seen in red. Before looking at those athletes however, let’s first discuss how they got here. The champion and runner-up from the previous year get the top 2 seeds going into the tournament as well as an automatic invite. Therefore, you see Takeshi Ojitani (#1) and Daiki Kamikawa (#23) at the top of each half of the bracket.
3 additional players were awarded special entries and were not required to participate in a qualifying tournament. Those slots were awarded to Mashu Baker (#9), Shohei Ono (#31), and Hisayoshi Harasawa (#34). To be selected in this way, one must: (I) be a 2016 Olympic Champion, (II) be a 2016 Olympic medalist in the +100kg category, (III) be a 2016 Tokyo Grand Slam champion in the +100kg category, or (IV) be either ranked in the top 22 in the +100kg IJF rankings, or be specially selected by the All-Japan Judo Federation (source). Everyone else was required to enter through a regional preliminary tournament(s)."
Yeah it is only an extremely lofty few who don't have to fight their way in according to the strictures of their prefecture. Much of the excitement this year surrounds Shohei Ono, who skipped the All-Japan Selected (weight class) tournament, and therefore the Worlds this year, so he could get more work done on his thesis. I totally get it: the All-Japan openweight is just one day, you go, it's amazing, and whatever happens, you're done. If he entered the Selected and won (which is by no means definite but reasonably likely), then he's got a whole trip to Budapest to take him away from his studies again. Who needs it? At a certain point either you finish your thesis of your thesis finishes you. The Judofan write-up is really great, and I totally recommend it. To summarize his excellent work very briefly, as the RINGS intermission now draws to its close: Ojitani and Kamikawa should both make the quarter-finals; Shichinohe is in tough; Ono's bye in the first round probably won't do him much good in the second against either Kensei Ikeda of the Japan Racing Association Team or Sosuke Matsumura who is a 142kg 17-year-old who just won the All-Japan High School Championship; Hirotaka Kato who everybody loves and who won in 2012 is still there lurking with his weird style and strong ne-waza; and, finally, this year could be big for YUSEI OGAWA, son of Naoya, who is very proud of him already:
AND WITH THAT WE TURN FROM THE BUDOKAN THAT IS TO BE ON APRIL 29 2017 TO THE BUDOKAN THAT WAS JANUARY 21 1998 as Akira Maeda is welcomed as the great hero he has long been to so many of us who admire realer-than-usual fake-fighting and here he is battling Volk Han for third place in this WORLD MEGA-BATTLE TOURNAMENT. Say what one might of Maeda's struggles with his physique in recent months (really the last year or so, ever since the most recent knee problems), he is a man of admirably mighty thighs, and certainly not many of us are that. Volk Han, in his ever-wolfish leanness, has Maeda on the run with ude-kansetsu, arm-bone-locking, as he pursues with both the reverse entanglement of gyaku-ude-garami commonly called Kimura and the arm-crushing-cross-mark-hold of ude-hishigi-juji-gatame commonly called the best. MA-E-DA MA-E-DA MA-E-DA though is the Budokan's view of this. Han looks too to the leg-bone-locking of ashi-kansetsu but it is Maeda whose ASHI-GATAME (as the commentator rightly exclaims) forces the first rope break.
And we know, don't we, that Volk Han's knee has either fakely or really (who can say?) been not so great of late, so it should come as no great surprise when Maeda finishes with another ashi-gatame only seconds later in a narratively-satisfying 4:24 to claim third place.
And with that all that remains are the finals of this really very good TOURNAMENTOOOO between Kiyoshi Tamura and Mikahil Ilioukhine and I come into this optimistic about the shoot-style taste-level possibilities inherent in such an encounter and instantly am rewarded for that optimism by Ilioukhine's takedown attempt that Tamura did not go up to lightly for but instead dead-weighted him a little so Ilioukhine had to finish with the minor-outer-hook of kosoto-gake. By the time I am finished telling you this, Tamura has gone up too lightly for the next pick-up, and so my enthusiasm is muted but only slightly because that's one takedown each way, and I can live with that. I am less into Tamura doing a flip to escape a standing gyaku-ude-garami like all of a sudden Aikido was viable but at least Ilioukhine punished him for it at once with juji-gatame (I take this kind of comfort in NJPW Junior Heavweight matches quite often, in that the division at present contains several people whose work I do not enjoy even slightly, but KUSHIDA punishes them for their [aesthetic, græppling, moral] failings with arm-locks [he and Hiromu Takahashi are the best guys in that division by so much {Taguchi is good and Liger is still a king}]). Six minutes in, Tamura is down by two points but he is striking well so who is to say who truly holds the advantage. Well I mean clearly it is Ilioukhine, who has just sent Tamura to the ropes again, this time with juji-gatame. Ah, but Tamura has nearly drawn even with a knockdown! What had we just noticed about the striking! We sure know how to watch things! Tamura's kicks are really snapped in there. I don't know if I remembered to mention that Kohsaka's kicks seem to be exactly as hard whether he is working or shooting? Tamura's are the same way. Hey there's another one of the wrong kind of super-light pick-up, and the crowd, which had been shrieking moments ago and would be that way again soon after, were utterly silent during it and I do not understand how this can persist. ILIOUKHINE STEPOVER JUJI-GATAME AS THOUGH THE KIND OF HAN HE IS IS A VOLK ONE but Tamura makes the ropes. This is very good! And Tamura's rolling gyaku-ude-garami/double-wrist-lock escape from a waist-lock is the best thing yet! Now they are super into leg-locks! Ilioukhine makes the ropes. That's five points lost for Tamura, three for Ilioukhine, and we are about eleven minutes in. Some very fine græppling exchanges follow until Tamura just pounds the stuffing out of Ilioukhine with knees so we're tied at five at 15:32! Ilioukhine kind of tried to throw with waki-gatame (armpit-hold/Fujiwara armbar) which is pretty dangerous! The commentator said WAKI-GATAME in both excitement and, I think, maybe dread? That's cetainly what I felt, anyway. Don't worry though, everybody seems to be fine. Tamura kicks so hard for a match where it is pretend, my goodness (that's another knockdown). JUJI-GATAME DESU JUJI-GATAME DESU TAMURAAAAAAAAA KIYOSHIIIIIII FINISHING HOLDOOOO
Tamura is awarded a belt and a laurel diadem and a medal and three trophies and a mountain high and a valley low and a chaise longue.
WHAT DID DAVE MELTZER SAY ABOUT THE CHAISE LONGUE (there wasn't one really, I am being lighthearted):
February 2, 1998:
"1/21 Tokyo Budokan Hall (RINGS - 9,200): Wakaru Sakata b Herman Renting, Masayuki Naruse b Dominique Deligny, Tsuyoshi Kousaka b Sione Latu, Bitzsade Tariel b Hanse Nyman, Akira Maeda b Volk Han, Battle Dimension tournament championship: Kiyoshi Tamura b Ilioukhine Mikhail. OTHER JAPAN NOTES: The biggest show of the past week was the finals of the RINGS Battle Dimension '97 tournament on 1/21 at Budokan Hall which drew 9,200 fans. Previous Battle Dimension finals at Budokan have drawn between 11,000 and 14,000 which tells the story of both the current popularity of RINGS and of the attempt to build the future around Kiyoshi Tamura [this seems unduly harsh, I don't know, that is lots of people to have at the Budokan--ed]. Tamura wasn't helped when his final was against Ilioukhine Mikhail rather than the more respected Volk Han, who Tamura had two classic matches against. Tamura won with the armbar in 18:12, while Akira Maeda won the third place match beating Han in 4:24 with a kneelock. People could believe in that with Han selling the knee so big at the December show, and the short match may also be because Han really was hurt."
not RINGS but I saw it, and needed to share:
"At the Battlarts show on 1/20, Yuki Ishikawa said that he wanted to wrestle on the New Japan 4/4 Dome show, and if not, just wanted to be able to watch Inoki's final match from ringside as one of Inoki's seconds."
Who wouldn't want that?
Also R.I.P. Maurice Smith in RINGS:
"Maurice Smith has signed a two-year contract with K-1 which starts with a match on 4/9 against K-1 Grand Prix champion Ernesto Hoost. Smith is expected to do the UFC PPV show in March, and his K-1 contract allows him to continue to work UFC but means he's done with RINGS. Smith has made a demand that he won't fight in UFC if John McCarthy referees his match."
February 9, 1998:
"1/21 RINGS: 1. Wataru Sakata beat Herman Renting in 3:24 with a front necklock submission. Renting is a RINGS veteran from Holland who hasn't been around much the past few years after being something of a name foreigner in this promotion during its infancy. This match was obviously a shoot because you can't fake that intensity with Sakata dominating the match and looking good, with quick, solid matwork, in doing so; 2. Masayuki Naruse beat Dominique Deligny, a kickboxer from Australia in 19:24. Deligny weighed 200 pounds with a good physique, but didn't look roided. This also looked pretty realistic, a shoot at least at some level [I am no closer to understanding what Dave means when he says things like this--ed.] or perhaps Naruse carrying Deligny, who was shooting, before putting him away. Even though Naruse had the decided advantage, Deligny got a few reversals and it was competitive, with Deligny actually coming close to getting a shoulderlock and staying near the ropes so he was able to escape whenever he was in trouble. Deligny wanted the match on his feet of course, but Naruse kept taking him down. Naruse had a 7-0 lead in points before getting the submission with a heel hook in a good match; 3. Tsuyoshi Kohsaka beat Sione Latu in 1:58. This also looked like a shoot. Latu, who weighed 201, is an American bodybuilder said to have boxing and judo experience. The crowd got into his look, with shaved bald head and great muscle structure and he had a lot of natural charisma. Kohsaka took him right down but Latu got over escaping a few submissions. Kohsaka intensely started working for an armbar but Latu got away, but then Kohsaka got the ankle lock for the submission. Really exciting. Even though it was evident from the start that Latu was totally outclassed, he made an impression; 4. Bitzsade Tariel beat Hanse Nyman in 6:35. This was a worked match and was the worst match on the card. At one point Nyman even had Tariel's back and just let him up. Really neither wanted to go to the ground, and when they got down there, Nyman would get the positioning edge and then just let him get up. Finish saw Nyman go for a spinning back kick but his left knee went out and he laid on the mat in pain and the match was stopped. Nyman was walking around fine backstage after the match; 5. Akira Maeda beat Volk Han in the third place match in the Battle Dimension tournament in just 4:29. Obviously this match was worked but unlike the previous match, it was good RINGS style. Everyone seemed to know the story of Han going in with the bad knee. Since this match was exchanging submissions, where Han is the master, as opposed to stand-up, where Maeda gets tired and looks bad, they played to their strengths. Maeda kept going for the knee, and then finally got it, and Han did a tremendous sell job before making the ropes. When he got the knee a second time, Han immediately tapped; 6. Kiyoshi Tamura beat Ilioukhine Mikhail in 18:12 to win the Battle Dimension tournament '97 and also become the first RINGS world heavyweight champion. When it comes to the ability to make a worked match not only look like a shoot, but also within that context deliver more often than not the excitement level of a classic story pro wrestling match, Tamura may be the best worker I've ever seen and he is definitely the best around right now. Everyone knows and respects his ability within Japanese wrestling and even within the martial arts world which usually puts down people of this type because they made their reputation in worked matches and he's even respected by the types that put down Pancrase because of the occasional work. He's going to need all the help he can get being 194 pounds and being world heavyweight champion and being groomed to be the top star of a pro wrestling company (Akira Maeda is still the top draw, but he'll be retiring this year). His career and this promotion over the next year are going to be very interesting to follow because of such a small man being put in this position in a promotion that purports to be a shoot. His role is also interesting because he was a great underdog because of his size and because his top matches were against people that because of rep he was expected to lose to. He's had some great matches against much bigger men, and as champion, he's now beaten everyone of any substance in the company already. Tamura definitely lived up to his rep here as this match was a total work, yet looked more like a shoot than most shoots do. Mikhail is a colorless performer, but he was good enough in taking, reacting and executing that it was the best RINGS match in months and very close to the level of the Tamura-Han classics. Before the match started, Bobby Heenan said how neither of these guys would ever give up, thus making sure everyone knew all the submissions were just restholds. At one point Mikhail was even working to get a figure four leglock and in the context looked so believable that nobody laughed. Of course at that point Heenan piped in with that Mikhail wasn't using the hold trying to win the match, just showing that he could do that. Mikhail got several near submissions and Tamura's selling was world class before dramatically getting to the ropes for a break. Of course at that point Tony Schiavone said that neither one really wanted to win at this point in the match to make sure nobody took those spots too seriously. Built great to the finish as Tamura started dominating throws lots of knees to the chain and getting two knockdowns with them before catching Mikhail in the armbar for the submission. At that point Lee Marshall piped in with how the finishing sequence was reminiscent of the Lucha Libre style of wrestling. I thought this was a better "pro wrestling" match than Flair-Hart. That says something because of the limitations of doing a totally realistic as compared with serious American style and because not only was it better pro wrestling, but it looked like a shoot and when was the last truly great pro wrestling match that would fit into the latter category?" [what an unbelievable mess that turned into; what possessed him?--ed]
Maeda's name brings us the sad news of Kingdom:
"A return of the biggest drawing Vale Tudo match of the modern era between Rickson Gracie and Nobuhiko Takada was announced by Kakutogi Revolution Spirits (KRS) for 10/11 at the Tokyo Dome, exactly one year after their first bout in the same location.
The match was announced at a Tokyo press conference on 2/2 with both in attendance. Gracie, who was also in Japan to promote a new clothing line bearing his name, said that this would be his only fight in 1998. Takada, who quit the Kingdom promotion just a few days earlier, said that he would still be open to do other matches as tune-ups before October. Gracie's announcement kills whatever chance there was, and realistically there was no chance to begin with, of Gracie being the final opponent for the retirement match of either Antonio Inoki in April (where there was no chance) or for Akira Maeda in September (where there was also no real chance although Maeda had been promoting the idea of it for the past several months).
Gracie, reputed in some circles as being the best fighter in the world, although he has never taken on any upper echelon NHB fighter since the NHB movement became popular in the United States and Japan over the past four plus years, easily defeated Takada, a pro wrestling legend with a manufactured shooter reputation who had actually never been in a legitimate NHB match before in his career, in 4:47 before a crowd estimated at 40,000.
Last week Takada, along with other Kingdom pro wrestlers including recent UFC tournament champion Kazushi Sakuraba, Yuhi Sano, Minoru Toyonaga and Shunsuke Matsui left Kingdom. Apparently a Nagoya billionaire set Takada up with a Tokyo gym where he'd teach both martial arts and bodybuilding scheduled to open in April and Takada took several of the Kingdom wrestlers with him to help train and open the gym. At the press conference, Takada said that his wrestlers would still do Kingdom and would be open to other martial arts fighting events (such as UFC), but would not do traditional pro wrestling such as New Japan. There had been talk that Takada would join up with Antonio Inoki's World Martial Arts Federation as an NWO type heel group within New Japan and work lucrative Dome dates.
With Takada and Sakuraba leaving, Kingdom was rumored to folding after its 1/28 show in Tokyo. However at that show, Kingdom boss Ken Suzuki, a long-time personal manager of Takada and who at one time was the President of Takada's Fan Club, announced Kingdom would be continuing with a major show in Tokyo in March, plus overseas cards in May in Hawaii and June in Israel.
KRS announced one more match for its 3/15 Pride Two show at Yokohama Arena, which reportedly has a poor advance for Mark Kerr vs. Bronko Cikatic and Gary Goodridge vs. Marco Ruas as headliners with Kerr's appearance still in question due to his New York state court fight ongoing with Semaphore Entertainment Group regarding his UFC contract. That match will pit pro wrestler Sakuraba, coming off his UFC tournament victory, against Royler Gracie, a smaller brother of Royce and Rickson, who has won numerous World championships in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu competing at 147 pounds and is unbeaten in NHB. That match will be intriguing largely because Gracie, having the edge in experience, will be giving up about 35 pounds to Sakuraba, who has a few matches under his belt although did have a somewhat fluky win of a UFC tournament on 12/21 through winning only one match. KRS also announced it would be running Pride Three at a major arena in Japan in June (the only match announced for that show will be Kimo vs. pro wrestler Sano), and that the October Tokyo Dome card will be called Pride Four.
UFC has reportedly been interested in using Takada to headline its planned May return to Japan. With Takada already having the Gracie match on his table, it would necessitate Takada either being put in a worked situation or being put in with an opponent so easy the outcome would be guaranteed as at this point he can't afford a loss. Ken Shamrock and the World Wrestling Federation have a big money contract to the Japanese promoters of UFC and there were assumptions it would be honored in May as well, although it appears any thoughts of matching Takada with Shamrock are out the window as Takada simply can't afford that risk."
AND WITH THAT LET US BID FAREWELL TO WORLD MEGA-BATTLE TOURNAMENT 1997 and with it truly embrace the 1998 that awaits us. More soon! Thank you for your time!
Thank you so much for mentioning my blog. I hope you are able to follow the matches today. Regards, Judofan.
ReplyDeleteI love your blog! Thank you for all your work.
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