RINGS 3/28/97: FIGHTING-EXTENSION 1997 Vol. 1

Fighting Extension 1997 Vol. 1
March 28, 1997 in Tokyo, Japan
NK Hall drawing 6,872

WHEN LAST WE SPOKE the sun was sinking behind the mountains, and the shadows were deepening in the woods; our paths led through thickets where the dusk had already gathered. But this one is going to have Akira Maeda vs. Kiyoshi Tamura! And not for the first time, as we are reminded at once in this first-rate WOWOW presentation, just look:

That's right, 10/25/1989 in UWF! So that means Tamura was all of nineteen at the time against one of the biggest pro wrestling stars in the whole world! I wonder how that went!

Ah yes, of course. If you need more than the tale told by those two (very telling) images, you can see the whole match here, but I can tell you all you are really missing is Maeda unloading with knees and also aloofness and Tamura, in his tender youth, is unable to withstand either. Speedo, poweru, techanique will be the factors in their rematch nearly eight years later, though, I glean from the legitimately helpful commentary (they really do a great job of yelling body parts, holds, and throws, the only words I recognize; beyond that it could all be racial invective, for all I know . . . and I love it!). For the first time in what seems like ages (probably before the most recent tournament?) we are offered RINGS Official Rankings and they are as follows: 10. Zouev 9. Ilioukhine 8. Naruse 7. Nijman 6. Nagai 5. Kohsaka 4. Yamamoto 3. Tariel 2. Tamura 1. Han and really that all adds up doesn't it.

Our opening bout sees judo/sambo stylist Todor Todorov, who is always at least quite good and sometimes really quite good, against Minoru Tanaka, who perhaps you know from Fujiwara Gumi, or BattlARTS, or NJPW as part of Jushin Thunder Liger's CTU stable (Control Terrorism Unit), or AJPW as a member of first VooDoo Murders and later STACK OF ARMS, or maybe from Wrestle-1? (I am on his wikipedia page.) Well add RINGS to the list! He is totally at home in this style and has a fine little match with the ever-able Todorov, and wins by totally convincing head-kick knockout at 15:49 (it felt much shorter!) as Todorov nearly beats the count but alas cannot. Tanaka celebrates with a back-flip off the second turnbuckle. A fine début! And good job as always, Todor Todorov! I am already way way happier than I was at any point in Amsterdam. 

Willie Peeters has knocked Christopher Haseman down pretty early on in their shoot-style engagement. Hasemen's name has been coming up with greater frequency in the old Observers I have been perusing (mostly the sort of perusing one does with "Ctrl+F") as a participant in shoot tournaments. My assumption is that were this a shoot Haseman would get on top of Willie Peeters and hit him a lot, but there is really no way for me to say that with any measure of certainty unless this breaks down entirely which of course I hope it doesn't but at the same time obviously very much hope it does (such is the dark tension inherent in this our entire enterprise [of existence probably]). Peeters finishes with the naked strangle of hadaka-jime at 6:12 and remains the most wildly inconsistent of any of the main or even semi-usual RINGS guys, I think. Also his use of that Black Box song gets these videos hung up for a little while now and although that is clearly not his fault I think it is creeping into my assessment of his work, forgive me.

TSUYOSHI KOHSAKA vs. Bitsadze Tariel and you can tell who I favour in this bout by the relative size of the letters I have just now used or also by quickly consulting the name of this very blog of RINGS or by guessing what my græppling way is (my græppling way is judo). Kohsaka is looking big and strong at 102kg; Tariel is 143.5kg though and that is just so huge. (I don't think anyone in RINGS is using worked weights, or at least not any wildly worked weights, because the people whose weights we know well from their later/concurrent shootings seem right on, and we can kind of scale from there.) Tariel as you know enjoys to kick, whereas TK prefers to græpple, and so at the heart of this contest we find a fundamental disagreement in waza (atemi vs. katame). Kohsaka sends Tariel to the ropes on a hadaka-jime, and then, just before he does the same with ashi-kansetu leg-locking, he tries an arm-lever turnover, which is the single most judo ne-waza thing he could ever do, and if he had not been my favourite guy before that arm-lever turnover than at the moment of recognition (did Aristotle call this anagnorisis? am I making things up? possibly I am) of that arm-lever then I guess I would have found a new favourite guy. Tariel is down by three points fairly early on but answers back by clobbering and indeed clubbering Kohsaka in the corner; TK answers at the count of nine, but that's two points right there. Kohsaka again attacks with hadaka-jime, because the deal is he comes in for these takedowns, Tariel sprawls and flattens out given his girthstrength, but Kohsaka, in the nimblenesses of his waza, takes the back with alacrity as he has just now done with juji-gatame and that is I guess five points gone for Tariel as the ring announcer tells us five minutes have passed (this is quite good). Tariel sure isn't shy about using rope escapes--that's six now! If I could get out of one submission per minute just by sticking my hand out, randori would be a lot different, haha! Kohsaka has been kneed super hard for knockdown number two. TK is down again seconds later and sells it like death; not theatrical pro-wres death but shoot death and this is the best Bitsadze (bestadze?) match in a few years I guess? Maybe the best one ever? It is ended at last by the hadaka-jime Kohsaka has pursued throughout, following fast after a slumping koshi-waza hip technique. The extremely slow-motion replays reveal what I had suspected to be the case and it pleasing to have it confirmed: the reason all of Tariel's usually kickery (and punchery, certainly) looked unusually great was that TK was snapping his head around like crazy to make those shots look super real. He is really good!

Next up: TK explains the ashi-hishigi (leg-crush) or Achilles lock! He covers fundamentals of attack, escape, and even a nice little entry from ashi-garami (leg-entanglement). It's like a seven-minute segment! I loved it!

I hope we get something like that every show!

Ah, yes, Yoshihisa Yamamoto. It will be interesting to see where he stands after washing out (in a unique combination of worked and shoot wash-outs) of the MEGA BATTLE TOURNAMENT 1996 that a few short months ago seemed set to be his shoot coronation (of works). That in the end he lost even the third-place bout is one of the darkest things in all of RINGS and I remind you that there have so far been not one but two Free Fight Galas. A loss to Hans Nijman here would be hideous for him, or rather, as it is work, it would be indicative that things have already gone hideously for him; it would mean Maeda is pretty much over him (this is hurtful to write). Nijman puts him down with a head-kick early, and for the first time in a while (note I have not yet been able to see the third-place bout itself so I could be off on this) the crowd seems fairly into Yamamoto's plight, so that much is progress (or welcome regress) at least. Yamamoto has been knocked down, let's see, three times by the five minute mark? But he harries Nijman (R.I.P., I am still a little shook by the footage of his young family) with the very ashi-hishigi from ashi-garami Kohsaka demonstrated only moments ago (perhaps he lurked in the corner whilst it was taped). Nijman is lighting into him pretty well here and yeah that's knockdown number four and a barely answered count dig deep Yamamotooooooo like yeah absolutely take him down and finish with juji-gatame, that's exactly the thing to do:

The look on Yamamoto's face in victory reminds me of a thing I read Steve Yzerman say in probably 1998 or so, I guess around the time of the Red Wings' second cup of that era, when he was asked about the joy of winning or something like that and his answer was that he couldn't really identify with the idea of joy or happiness in winning so much as just relief, relief that of all the things that could have totally gone wrong and totally derailed you utterly and ruined everything, you managed to stave off enough of them to not have failed this time; it was sombre. 

AKIRA MAEDA VS. KIYOSHI TAMURA NO BIG DEAL except it totally is a big deal even though there is an immediate absurdity to the thought of the shit-kneed, aging/aged, and softening/softened Akira Maeda (although month-on-month, he had improved the last time we saw him, let us be fair) against Tamura the young wood-hewn king. But, at the same time, did we not ourselves see grumpy fat Hidehiko Yoshida outlast young strong Satoshi Ishii despite a vast gulf of age and lumpiness that one time? I think of that as a recent occurrence but a quick search reveals it happened in 2009; what have we become in these years since. TAMURAAAAAAA is out first and this crowd is as in on this guy as this guy is handsome and that is not slightly. This crowd also understands a thing or two about loyalty though so they are as MA-E-DA MA-E-DA as you might allow yourself to hope or expect in this context. We are looking at 87kg vs. 115kg for those of you being horrified at people's weights along at home, guess who is the heavier:

HOLY SHIT THE CROWD IS INSANE FOR MAEDA'S ASHI-HISHIGI but Tamura is just standing boldly as he throws the entangling leg aside, what a wild moment! Maeda is dogged in his pursuit of ashi-kansetsu (leg-bone-locking) and it leads to an opportunity to take the back, which he does, and Tamura flees to the ropes to escape hadaka-jime. Tamura kicks Maeda's legs out from under him and the crowd is like HWWOOOOAAAHHHH and then soon after MA-E-DA MA-E-DA MA-E-DA. Tamura's kicks are so much faster than Maeda's that it is hard to credit, like I am only just able to credit it. Maeda is after the ashi-hishigi again but Tamura counters with a heel hook and everybody is losing it! I DON'T KNOW WHY I DIDN'T EXPECT THIS TO BE THIS GOOD I HAVE BEEN A FOOL YET AGAIN. Things calm somewhat as Tamura settles in for a spell on top, working methodically for a juji-gatame that does not come, and in fact he has to burn a rope escape to avoid Maeda's gyaku-ude-garami (reverse-arm-entanglement) from the double-entanglement of niju-garami (if you say half-guard I will listen). That's only two breaks for Tamura, and Maeda has only had one, and we are over seven minutes in! MAEDA HADAKA-JIME COUNTERED BY HIZA-DORI-GARAMI you should never cross your ankles from there, Akira Maeda, in your age and wisdom you should know this OH MY GOODNESS HE GOT THE CHOKE BACK AKIRA MAEDA HADAKA-JIME 7:54 HOW ON EARTH DID THEY MAKE THIS CREDIBLE AKIRA MAEDA'S WHOLE BODY IS A THUMB NOW MY GOD THIS ART

So Tamura's last three matches have been the endlessly fascinating shoot (but to what extent beyond the finish? what on earth did that mean? I must write Dave) over Yamamoto, the tournament final over Volk Han, and this ridiculously good match against pretty much last-legs Akira Maeda (I take no pleasure in saying that but it is getting close). That's a pretty good run! I think he is working out well so far! 
WHAT DID DAVE MELTZER SAY:

February 24, 1997:

Ctrl+F "RINGS" brings us news of no less a champion than NAOYA OGAWA:

"There has been major newspaper press stating that Naoya Ogawa, 28, an Olympic judo star, would be turning pro wrestler shortly and that New Japan is expected to sign him. Ogawa, 6-3 and 285 pounds, was the All-Japan collegiate judo champion as a college freshman, then left college and captured world titles in the 209 pound weight division in 1987, 1989 and 1991. He won a silver medal (losing in the championship match to RINGS' David Khakhaleishivili) at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, and placed fifth at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. Apparently he had negotiated recently with All Japan but the two sides were far apart on money terms. Neither Ogawa's people nor New Japan have announced it but it's getting a lot of press."

This is unrelated but:

"Nobuhiko Takada leaves for Okinawa on 3/10 to start an extensive training camp to build up for his proposed summer match against Rickson Gracie. There are rumors going around that Takada's management is back talking with New Japan about a rematch against Shinya Hashimoto at one of the Dome shows. Apparently there was some sort of a deal when Takada dropped the strap last year to Hashimoto that at some point Hashimoto would return the favor."Nobuhiko Takada leaves for Okinawa on 3/10 to start an extensive training camp to build up for his proposed summer match against Rickson Gracie. There are rumors going around that Takada's management is back talking with New Japan about a rematch against Shinya Hashimoto at one of the Dome shows. Apparently there was some sort of a deal when Takada dropped the strap last year to Hashimoto that at some point Hashimoto would return the favor."

March 3, 1997: 

"OTHER JAPAN NOTES

Pancrase ran on 2/22 at Tokyo Bay NK Hall before 6,500 fans in a 7,000 seat arena headlined by Masakatsu Funaki making Semmy Schiltt submit in 6:47. The biggest news was hardly the results but the fact that Bas Rutten, who was scheduled to return for this show, didn't appear, claiming an injury, which has caused a lot of speculation since Pancrase is losing much of its foreign talent. With Ken Shamrock gone, Frank Shamrock not under contract anymore and the two sides unable to come to money terms for individual fights, Guy Mezger being lured by RINGS and Rutten's status questionable, this has turned into a major problem. It's not a big problem at this point when it comes to drawing since the show was successful, but it potentially could be a big problem. Yuki Kondo retained his No. 1 contendership beating Mezger via decision in 20:00, while Osami Shibuya, scheduled against Rutten, beat Kim Jong Wan in :58. The other foreigners worked underneath, as Serge Narsisyan (MARS NHB show) lost a 15:00 decision to Satoshi Hasegawa; Haygar Chin submitted in 3:46 against Takaku Fuke; and Paul Lezenbee (an NHB fighter from Canada) lost to Ryushi Yanagisawa in 12:39. The Funaki vs. Kondo title match takes place on 4/27 at Tokyo Bay NK Hall.

RINGS on 3/28 at Tokyo Bay NK Hall has Akira Maeda vs. Kiyoshi Tamura, Yoshihisa Yamamoto vs. Hanse Nyman, Bitzsade Tariel vs. Tsuyoshi Kousaka, Mitsuya Nagai vs. X, Willie Peeters vs. Masayuki Naruse and the beginnings of a junior heavyweight (209 weight limit) tournament. They also run 4/4 at Korakuen Hall with Yamamoto vs. Nagai as the main event with a scaled down minor show. On 4/22 at Osaka Furitsu Gym they've got Maeda vs. Volk Han, Tamura vs. Kousaka and Nagai vs. Joop Kasteel already announced.

RINGS and Battlarts have reached a talent trading agreement with Minoru Tanaka of Battlarts in the RINGS "Tournament 21" which starts on 3/28 on the NK Hall facing Todor Todorov. The other first round matches are Valentine Olfraim of Holland against Naruse on 4/4, Youri Bekchev of Russia against another Russian to be announced on the 5/23 card, Christopher Hazemann of Australia (from MARS PPV) vs. Sean McCully of California (WCC PPV) on 4/22."

On the shape of Japanese television broadly:

"Japanese wrestling has flourished with cable and the likes in its infancy, generally because of the stronger print media coverage and larger influence of wrestling magazines on driving the industry, plus, even though the shows air in past-midnight time slots, All Japan and New Japan do impressive ratings and are broadcast nationwide on major network stations weekly, and All Japan women have frequent fringe time slot television specials on a third major network. Both JWP and RINGS have monthly television shows on the WOWOW channel, which would be equivalent in the U.S. to HBO, broadcasting the major shows without commercial interruption similar to what would be a PPV special tape delayed a few days. Gaora, a smaller cable station runs Pancrase on a few days tape delayed about once per month, along with fairly regular coverage, but not on a weekly basis, of smaller groups like Michinoku Pro, FMW, Gaea and others. The new 24-hour wrestling and martial arts Samurai! channel, along with numerous pro wrestling related features, broadcasts live and taped cards also from the smaller offices, however that station to this point has incredibly limited viewership and thus far cable and dish penetration in Japan is exceedingly minimal. Ultimately this will all change and when it does, pro wrestling in Japan in some form will change. The only question is what the changes in television will evolve into being, and how wrestling evolves within that picture."

March 17, 1997: 

I am not going to post all Naoya Ogawa-related news lest we surrender to it utterly but why not share news of his signing in an issue that has no RINGS news or notes to offer us:

"New Japan Pro Wrestling officially announced at a press conference on 3/7 that Naoya Ogawa, the 1992 Olympic silver medalist in judo in the 209 pound weight class, would replace Ken Shamrock as Shinya Hashimoto's opponent in the main event on the 4/12 show at the Tokyo Dome. It was announced two days later that the match wouldn't be for Hashimoto's IWGP heavyweight title because it would be under martial arts rules--no time limit and must be a finish by either submission or knockout with pinning not applicable to the match.

Virtually all the sports pages in Japan on 3/8 listed the Ogawa-Hashimoto announcement as that day's lead sports story on the front page, which was a level of publicity that a Hashimoto-Shamrock match wouldn't have been able to achieve. As of press time, only two other matches on that show have been announced, the Great Muta vs. Masahiro Chono and the J Crown title defense of Jushin Liger vs. Great Sasuke.

The feeling in Japan from just about everyone close to the situation is that this main event should draw a sellout, which because of raised mid-level prices, would likely be the largest live gate in the history of Japanese pro wrestling. However, with the yen falling as compared to the dollar of late, the gate wouldn't in U.S. dollars top the all-time record of $6.1 million for the Nobuhiko Takada vs. Keiji Muto first match.

While Ogawa, 28, is not the name Shamrock is to pro wrestling fans in Japan, he is a far more famous name among the general public. In addition, he's a legitimate national sports legend since he won three world championships and seven national championships in a sport invented and popularized in Japan. This will result in far more mainstream media publicity for the match as a lot of media outlets that would shy away from coverage of a match involving a pro wrestler against an Ultimate Fight star, would give coverage to the pro wrestling debut of a national legend in judo in a Tokyo Dome match against the IWGP champion. While Ogawa at the press conference hinted that he would be receiving 100 million yen (about $825,000) for the match, it's doubtful that figure is anything even close to resembling a legitimate number as the figure Shamrock was offered for the same position on the same card which would have sold out just as easily wasn't anywhere close to that figure. When Ogawa made the decision to go into pro wrestling, apparently feeling he'd gone as far in judo as he could after finishing fifth in the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, he at first contacted Giant Baba and All Japan Pro Wrestling. Baba turned down Ogawa as he didn't want to offer a huge financial guarantee to someone unproven when it came to pro wrestling since his company is essentially a workrate promotion almost devoid of gimmicks. In addition, a generation ago, Baba did a similar experiment and signed an Olympic gold medalist in judo, Anton Geesink of the Netherlands, to a huge money (at the time) deal and pushed him immediately to the top of the cards as the No. 2 babyface in the company behind Baba himself. While the 6-foot-8 Geesink's presence in pro wrestling drew a lot of publicity in the early 70s, he never got the knack of it, was a poor worker, and his career was over within a few years. But All Japan did get good short-term results at the gate and in casual interest from the two similar experiments in its history in Geesink and a retired sumo grand champion named Hiroshi Wajima in the 80s, who was also a flop in the ring and only lasted a few years but garnered a lot of early interest. However, New Japan jumped at the chance since some of the biggest matches in the history of the company have involved bringing in outsiders from other sports, including former judo stars like Willem Ruska, Allen Coage (Badnews Allen) and Shota Chochyashivili with ballyhooed mixed matches against Antonio Inoki."

March 24, 1997: 

"In a television interview on 3/18, Akira Maeda, 37, announced that he would be retiring in 1998 saying that full contact fighting (which RINGS purportedly is) isn't something he could do at the age of 40. Maeda headlines the next two RINGS shows facing Kiyoshi Tamura and Volk Han respectively on 3/28 and 4/22."

and

"Got a tape of the 2/2 RINGS show from Amsterdam, Holland and it appeared every match was a shoot. Many of the matches were really brutal. Masayuki Naruse got a knee to the eye and his eye was busted open really bad and they had to immediately stop the match. His opponent, Valentine Olfraim, was a lot taller and had a reach advantage although Naruse may have beaten him had he not taken the knee. Mitsuya Nagai just got hammered by much larger Joop Kasteel (6-5, 275). Kiyoshi Tamura had an easy time with Andrei Manatto winning quickly with a choke. The main event with Dick Vrij vs. Pedro Palm was the craziest of all. Vrij was all jacked up, looking like he did when he first showed up in Japan many years ago and basically in 74 seconds violated every single rule he could as quickly as he could as you could see he feared his guy, and finally laid him out on the ground largely and began kicking him in the face and KO'd him so it was ruled no contest. It looked like a UFC match. Actually, the card itself looked more like Brazilian Vale Tudo matches than like typical UFC, RINGS or Pancrase style because of the brutality and the shooting in a smaller ring favoring the striking above the take down guys."

April 7, 1997:

Arise, Kingdom:

"A new Japanese promotion which will basically be a reformation of the old UWFI, but apparently with a style change to being worked UFC-style matches, called "Kingdom" will be debuting with a show on 5/4.

Takeshi "Ken" Suzuki, the long-time business manager of Nobuhiko Takada, announced the new promotion, which had been rumored for several weeks and reported on in the past both in Japanese newspapers and here, in a press conference on 3/30 in Tokyo. They announced that unlike UWFI, which Suzuki basically ran from a business standpoint, although it was Takada's name as President, and went out of business at the end of 1996, that Takada would not have an executive or behind-the-scenes role in the new group, although he would remain the group's top star.

The first show will be 5/4 in Tokyo at the Yoyogi Gym. The matches will differ from the traditional UWF style, that was popularized in a big way in Japan in 1988-90 and largely continues in RINGS. This group will allow punches to the face and allow fighters to wear gloves, and also allow both punching and using elbows down from the mount position on the ground. The only difference between the rules of this and UFC rules are banning of blows to the base of the spine. In initial reports regarding the formation of this promotion, the belief was that it was largely being done to set up for a Tokyo Dome match later this year with Takada vs. Rickson Gracie, although nothing of the sort was even hinted about in the press conference.

Besides Takada, other former UWFI wrestlers signed with the group are Yoji Anjyo, Yoshihiro Takayama, Yuhi Sano, Masahito Kakihara, Kazushi Sakuraba, Hiromitsu Kanehara, Kenichi Yamamoto, Ryuki Kamiyamato and Shunsuke Matsui. With the exception of Takayama, who worked for All Japan at Budokan on 3/1, and Sano, who worked the All Japan show in Nagoya on 3/30, all the aforementioned wrestlers have been inactive this year after UWFI closed up shop in December. Anjyo, Takayama and Yamamoto worked numerous indie shows in 1996 for a number of promotions as the Golden Cups.

Apparently the group was put together by Anjyo's older brother who got the money together, largely through major financing from Nishin Kensetsu, a real estate development company."

and

"The major show of the week was the 3/28 RINGS show which drew a sellout 6,872 at Tokyo Bay NK Hall for the Akira Maeda vs. Kiyoshi Tamura match which Maeda won with the choke sleeper in 7:54. On one hand this result is ridiculous but it does fit with Japanese patterned booking. Tamura is the best worker in the promotion and Maeda totally lacks credibility in a supposed worked shoot environment because he's so slow and not in good shape. However, it is still the Maeda name that sells the tickets and besides being the head of the promotion, keeping him strong is the right thing for business. Last year, a lot of the wrestlers resented Maeda bringing in Yoshiaki Fujiwara for a big show in Osaka, but that show drew more than 8,000 fans. They did a storyline of the Maeda-Tamura match in that Tamura wouldn't do anything to attack Maeda's often injured knees, and after the match Maeda praised Tamura for his sportsmanship in doing so. Besides, the short-term is building up for a Maeda vs. Volk Han main event on the next major card 4/22 in Osaka, so from that standpoint the Maeda win also makes sense, however Maeda does need to put Tamura over once before his retirement. Both Mitsuya Nagai and Masayuki Naruse missed the show due to still being out from injuries from appearing on the shoot show on 2/2 in Amsterdam, Holland. Naruse is said to be suffering from rubella. Battlarts wrestler Minoru Tanaka worked the RINGS show in a first round match of the 209-pound weight class tournament beating Todor Todorov.

3/28 Tokyo Bay NK Hall (RINGS - 6,872 sellout):Minoru Tanaka b Todor Todorov, Willie Peeters b Chris Hazemann, Tsuyoshi Kousaka b Bitszade Tariel, Yoshihisa Yamamoto b Hanse Nyman, Akira Maeda b Kiyoshi Tamura"

OK, lots and lots of great stuff from Meltz aka H E R B today! And a pretty great show, this FIGHTING-EXTENSION Vol. 1! Please accept once more my sincere thanks for your time.