RINGS 12/19/96: MEGA BATTLE TOURNAMENT 1996: SEMI-FINALS

Mega Battle Tournament 1996: Semi-Finals
December 19, 1996 in Fukuoka, Japan
International Center drawing 5,680

THE UTTERLY INOFFENSIVE HOOTIE AND THE BLOWFISH COVER OF "I GO BLIND" ORIGINALLY RECORDED BY 54-40 WHO ARE FROM VANCOUVER SO IT IS ON THE RADIO ALL THE TIME IN CANADA BECAUSE OF CONTENT REGULATIONS PLAYS as dolphins swim in the sea and also in the interstitial WOWOW thing that tells us which programme is next and this case it is RINGS MEGA BATTLE TOURNAMENT 1996: SEMI-FINALS and as you can see from the above graphic our once-replete field of guys has been harvested or something I guess and there remain but four who escaped the gleaners' sieve (this fell apart, forgive me): Bitsadze Tariel, Volk Han, Kiyoshi Tamura, and the grim shade of Yoshihisa Yamamoto. Volk Han is seen backstage holding a book; Kiyoshi Tamura wears trackpants that are red.

Our first bout is upon us at once! It sees Masayuki Naruse and Dick Vrij knock each other down a couple of times each, which is not surprising, nor was it especially so to see Naruse kip-up after one of them as his lush thick head of hair billowed about him, a halo of glory; but that Naruse emerged the victor at 6:01 by means of knocking out Dick Vrij with a knee is a shock from which I am unlikely to fully recover. That this happened in a work and not a shoot makes it if anything more shocking. 

Because Masayuki Naruse's match is over it is customarily time for Mitsuya Nagai's, and sure enough here we are. Gogitidze Bakouri, who has impressed so far in his as-yet brief time with us, shall be his rival this day. Nagai has let hair return to its natural colour, and has allowed a light scruffy beard to grow in, and also he has allowed himself to be thrown with a fairly massive ippon-seoi-nage (一本背負投 one-arm shouldering throw). I like this Bakouri very much! He attacks at once with the shoulder hold/arm-triangle of kata-gatame (肩固) as though to reward me for my enthusiastic support of him with one of my preferred waza. If you look on the scoring summary you will see that Bakouri is kind of getting rolled here but if you look to the scoring summary of the heart which adjudges chiefly on the (ritual) purity of the waza one would be hard pressed not to declare him the winner in an unsightly romp. See, there's an ura-nage (裏投 rear throw) right there! And another! And oh ok good actually he has just one with a tidily cranking mae-hadaka-jime front choke at 8:59! Nice match! Good job both guys!

Next up we have Hans Nijman (R.I.P. I saw people pushing a dead Volkswagen earlier just yesterday R.I.P.) and TSUYOSHI KOHSAKA who looks to continue his streak of having all of the best matches in a row (I think he's gonna make it!). No one has ever accused Tsuyoshi Kohsaka of being a little fellow but Hans Nijman is really a lot bigger, isn't he (yes). In keeping with all of the other Mega Battle Tourament bouts, and not just tournament bouts proper but all bouts on these full cards full of bouts, this bout is shoot-style rather than shooting; I probably don't need to note that that is the case for you again but here we are. Kind of a lot of kickboxing so far and of course Nijman is better at that; there is also some græppling to be found, if fleetingly, and Kohsaka is better at that; and so they dance. Kohsaka has forced a rope escape with juji-gatame, the first of what one expects to be many. So much kicking, though, and I blame Hans Nijman for that even though both are doing it. Kohsaka is knocked down at about five minutes but this seems only to anger-up the blood or perhaps the waza as he fires in for a low takedown and wraps up a leg in ashi-kansetsu until Nijman wisely grabs a rope at right around six minutes. A return to the feet means a return of the feet in the form of kicking with the legs attached to them and again this (kicking) is not really what I want to see right now. A good thing about throwing a tonne of leg-kicks in a shoot-style match, I bet, is how they would still totally hurt like hell even though you're not fighting for real. Koshaka is down again just after eight minutes and he is quickly running out of little squares that get filled in with colour when bad things happen to you (both literally . . . and figuratively). Kohsaka gets Nijman down and goes kesa-gatame to ude-garami to juji-gatame to hiza-juji-gatame (scarf hold to arm entanglement to cross arm-lock to cross knee-lock) and it was all terrific OH NO he has been knocked out by a spinning kick that seems to have shoot totally brutalized his head at 9:24; that was a wild kick to have taken, I reflect, as they show Kohsaka's head snapping around atop his big thick neck (no pee wee, this TK) pretty frighteningly. The reaction to all this by Nijman and by all those who attend the ring is way different than the usual way a shoot-style knockout is handled; the whole aspect of everyone here suggests Kohsaka was shaken up for real. So too does the way his head wobbled, and also the not-so-lucid-maybe look in his eyes as he is interviewed in the locker-room. 

Maurice Smith in boxing gloves versus Bitsadze Ameran: weird! Ameran opts again for the singlet beneath the gi-pants (or zubon [that just means pants]) but this time it is like paint-splatter pattern I guess you would say? It is like promotional Moore's Paint sunglasses that would be given away in 1988 or possibly 1989. Smith is all over this large, uneventful Bitsadze (the least eventful Bitsadze in entire promotion) whenever the fight goes to the ground and holy moly Smith takes it by juji-gatame at 4:54! The guy wearing boxing gloves wins with an arm-bar! It's like a hamburger just took a bite out of you!

You might recall that when last we spoke, I spake in praise of the little feature that ran on the subject of the noble art of sambo (са́мбо; САМозащита Без Оружия) because of how the 1996 World Sambo Championships were contested in Tokyo and, in the +100kg division, won by David Khakhaleishvili (დავით ხახალეიშვილი)? But then the computer I use for uploads wouldn't read the disc at all? Well they are replaying part of it here, and then showing highlights of several non-Khakhaleishvili divisions! What luck we are enjoying right now! 

ON TO THE MEGA BATTLE TOURNAMENT 1996 SEMI-FINALS THEMSELVES THEN and why not begin with Bitsadze Tariel and Volk Han, who attacks his huge foe with the flying crab scissor of kani-basami (蟹挟) in such a way that it serves as a fine reminder of why this throw is (rightly) seen to be pretty dangerous: if tori (s/he who performs the waza) comes in a little short on uke (s/he who receives), even just a little off to the side, it tangles things up on the near leg somewhat grossly and it is, if I may be perfectly frank with you, the pits. The classic example of this is of course Yasuhiro Yamashita (山下 泰裕) getting Sumio Endo'd (遠藤 純男'd) at the 1980 All-Japan, and it is awful (I dare you to listen; not just to watch, which is bad enough, but to listen). The story of the technique's ban in competition and randori gets simplified down to "Yamashita broke his leg, and that was it" but it stuck around for years and years after that, especially in Japan; it was not a snap decision (no pun, I would never do that to Yamashita); please reject the kani-basami myth. Bitsadze Tariel keeps knocking Volk Han down and has done so I guess three times already? Han needs to find his pace! There's the disgusting standing gyaku-ude-garami/reverse-arm-entanglement, good, ok, now it's a fight. OR IS IT as it ends abruptly at 6:17 on Volk Han's hadaka-jime in a kind of poor match really.

KIYOSHI TAMURA VS. YOSHIHISA YAMAMOTO IN A BATTLE TO SEE WHO AKIRA MAEDA LOVES MORE and I have a strong suspicion about who that might be and he isn't not an elf-king clad in living flower and also a UWFi jacket:

If I started sending everyone at my judo club images of great tracksuits throughout history (and there have been so many), do you think that would make them more or less likely to go in on club tracksuits next season? I am unsure which direction it would go but feel that, whichever it was, it would go very strongly in that direction. It is probably worth the risk, in that what is the worst thing that's going to happen? No tracksuits? That is my status already; I can't have fewer tracksuits than none. Though I could certainly have fewer friends and students! Yamamoto and Tamura both come out hard enough in the opening seconds for me to think maybe this is a shoot! Yamamoto crowds Tamura in the corner, Tamura tries a standing gyaku-ude-garami off a waist-lock grip break, and none of that sounds extra shoot and yet the energy of it, my word. Could Maeda have suspended the shoot-style booking of the Mega Battle Tournament 1996? Did he tell Yamamoto and Tamura to shoot to prove who was worthiest of his love? Tamura's rolling hiza-hishigi knee bar is slick; his juji-gatame attempt also good! As time rolls on and the waza unfolds I feel as though this is indeed shoot-style and I was merely swept up in it all a moment ago, forgive me. They really are slapping the hekk out of each other though! This is definitely the best Yamamoto match in a while, and it must be said that it is not just Tamura who is doing things: Yamamoto's palm strikes are really fired in there, and his ashi-dori ouchi-gari (leg-taking-major-inner-reap) I would like to describe to you as tidy. He has taken Tamura's back, but Tamura does not seem all that concerned about it, I think maybe because Yamamoto is riding a little high (thinking juji?). No, he settles back down towards Tamura's hips, attacks with the naked strangle of hadaka-jime, and forces a rope break. When they stand, we see that Tamura's bleeding pretty well from a cut on his cheek, I guess it is, but they clean that up for him. We're at two rope-breaks each as Yamamoto takes Tamura's back for hadaka-jime again and again Tamura rolls to the ropes. OH SHIT TOBI-JUJI-GATAME (飛び十字固め) FROM THE BLOODIED AND BATTERED KIYOSHI TAMURA WHOSE EYE IS KIND OF MESSED UP AND ALSO HIS MOUTH AND IT COMES ON FAST AND TO THE POINT OF HYPER-EXTENSION WAS THIS REAL? AND WAS THAT HIS UWFi JACKET HE JUST THREW INTO THE CROWD? THIS IS INCREDIBLE

WHAT EVEN HAPPENED OR IS HAPPENING TAMURAAAAAAA KIYOOOSHIIIIIIIIIIIIII

How is that not the main event! Akira Maeda--who, to his credit, comes in looking a little more together physically than he did a month ago, and what more can we ask of that situation (it is a raw deal to have to appear before the masses in just your little trunks whilst the memory of Kiyoshi Tamura, twenty-seven as of like two days ago, still lingers in the crowdmind)--beats Vladimir Klementiev by swarming, smothering hadaka-jime at 3:17 of a fine little striker vs. græppler match. But the extent to which the night belongs to Kiyoshi Tamura is insane.

WHAT DID DAVE MELTZER SAY ABOUT KIYOSHI TAMURA: 

December 16, 1996:

"Maurice Smith will wrestle Bitzsade Tariel on the 12/21 Rings show in Fukuoka."

December 30, 1996:

"It's been largely a slow week with the major show being the Rings on 12/19 in Fukuoka before 5,680. In the semifinals of the Mega Battle '96 tournament, Volk Han beat Bitsaze Tariel in 6:17 with the choke sleeper finish and Kiyoshi Tamura beat Yoshihisa Yamamoto in a major upset in 9:49 with a cross armbreaker. The latter result was a shock since Rings has spent most of the past two years building Yamamoto up as the next top star with the group and this year's tournament appeared specifically designed for him to go over, after finishing second to Akira Maeda last year. What is most interesting about the match is the report we've received that the two actually went into the ring without a finish so the result of the match was a shoot although the match itself wouldn't be a pure shoot [what does this mean, I need to know everything, please spare no detail however slight, you cannot possibly know how much things means to me -- ed.]. In the other major matches, EFC champion Maurice Smith beat Bitsaze Amilan via armbreaker submission in 4:54 and Akira Maeda beat Baroji Kuramenchev in 3:17 with a sleeper. This sets up RINGS traditional biggest show of the year on 1/22 at Budokan Hall with Han vs. Tamura in the tournament finals, which most likely Han will go over in, Yamamoto vs. Tariel in the third place match and a surprising main event with Maeda vs. Maurice Smith. Rings also runs its annual big show in Amsterdam, Holland on 2/2. I believe that David Khakhaleishvili (RINGS) won the superheavyweight division in the world Sambo wrestling championships that were held last month in Tokyo. On the RINGS television show, they aired clips of five of his matches and he won all five, although since it was in Japanese I couldn't tell for certain whether he had won the tournament or not but it appeared that he did [He sure did, and won it again in 1997!--ed.].

12/19 Fukuoka (RINGS - 5,680):Gokitezu Bakouri b Mitsuya Nagai, Hans Nyman b Tsuyoshi Kousaka, Masayuki Naruse b Dick Vrij, Volk Han b Bitsaze Tariel, Kiyoshi Tamura b Yoshihisa Yamamoto, Maurice Smith b Bitsaze Amilan, Akira Maeda b Baroja Kuramenchev"

Ok then, on to the MEGA BATTLE TOURNAMENT 1996: GRAND FINAL between Volk Han and Kiyoshi Tamura! Which will be held in 1997! Such is the custom of these oddly-timed annual tournaments! But what more could we ever ask! My best wishes to you and also my thanks! TAMURAAAAAAAAAAA