April 22, 1997 in Osaka, Japan
Furitsu Gym drawing 4,870
The opening bout sees the stout and steady Christopher Haseman against ALEXANDER OTSUKA THE DIET BUTCHER HIMSELF:
I believe this is Otsuka's first RINGS appearance but it is not his first RINGSblog appearance, as he was, as you will surely recall, eliminated swiftly in the opening round Lumax Cup bout to which he arrived seemingly having already been cut and hurt. He is the best. Otsuka was, I think we will probably agree, among the highest-level Battlarts græpplists and holds one of the weirdest terrible shoot records ever ((what is a "shoot," though; TOM's question reverberates throughout the ages [this blog]), in that he is something like 4-13, depending on what you want to count, but went the distance against strikers as horrifying as Igor Vovchanchyn, Anderson Silva, and almost Wanderlei Silva (he lasted well into the third round against Wanderlei Silva at a time when Wanderlei was on that like five-year run of finishing everyone at 205 except Hidehiko Yoshida [a timeless champion]), and græpplers as skilled as Renzo Gracie and Sanae Kikuta. Surely he ranks among the best terrible fighters of all time? Here, he loses what might well be a shoot to Haseman on a doctor stoppage at 7:03 after a knee opens up a reasonably hideous cut. Here's what it looked like after they tried to clean him up:
It's not great! Otsuka is in tears in the locker room over it all. Hey have you watched One Punch Man? I saw the first episode last night and really liked it and maybe part of the reason why is that One Punch Man and Alexander Otsuka are physically identical? Also I liked its tone.
Next we have Tony Halme (will we never be rid of his tyranny?) vs. Dick Vrij and it is perhaps wrong of me to hope this is a shoot so that Tony Halme will be "shoot" thumped in it but that is nevertheless my hope and since we are actually talking about the past I don't think hope counts. Vrij is bare-handed, Halme in boxing gloves. AH HAAAAA Vrij connects with a little snapping left kick to the head and it seems to hit Halme right in the eye and he is down like three seconds in. He's down again about ten seconds later, too. Halme seems horrendous at actual fighting if this is what this is (I am convinced that it is). Halme takes Vrij down but is forced to the ropes a juji-gatame later. Vrij is styling all over him and this is not the way it looks at all when Vrij is shoot-styling (paradox/dialectic) so I am utterly convinced of this fight's truth. A couple of leg-kick knockdowns later and Halme is all out of points to spare. His eye is super swollen, too, and I bet the doctor is going to stop it yyyyyep your winner at 2:42 is Dick Vrij who strikes a blow against Finnish-non-eco-fascism.
Mitsuya Nagai and the enormous Joop Kasteel are next in what I hope for Nagai's sake will be the first worked bout of the night because Kasteel is enormous and not awful enough for that to not matter. He has Nagai down and extremely pinned in the early going. It would have been better for Mitsuya Nagai had it stayed that way, because when they are stood up he just gets swatted around and it's brutal. There are several knockdowns, one of which doesn't count because Kasteel just totally clocked Nagai with a closed fist (that's a yellow card). Kasteel wins by TKO at 6:27 and I am pretty sure we are three for three as far as shoot shoots go.
I don't know if any of the other matches will be shoots but I can tell you that Tsuyoshi Kohsaka is a shoot excellent teacher following his treatise on ashi-hishigi (let us say the Achilles lock) at the previous FIGHTING-EXTENSION and this time around he demonstrates the heel hook (they call it heel hold). Unlike ashi-hishigi, which you should definitely mess around with with your pals if you are so inclined (who is not?), I would suggest leaving heel hooks alone unless you are well and truly a person of the mats because they are gross (the heel hooks, not the mats [they kind of are too]) and although there are those who will insist the heel hook is no more inherently dangerous than other kansetsu-waza (bone-locking-techniques) I am much more comfortable with our disagreement on this point than I am with blue belts ripping each other's knees to shit. Word is a nationally-competitive græppler from this part of the country whose waza I have long admired recently had his knee ripped up by a quick heel hook at a high-level græppling tournament and that's probably it for him as a competitor; this is just not a thing that happens from other kansetsu, you heel hook apologists.
The early energies of Masayuki Naruse vs. Yoshihisa Yamamoto argue strongly for shoot-styling rather than shoot-shooting. OK I seem to have slipped into a trance of some kind because the finish (Yamamoto, juji-gatame) just came at 21:20 and I can tell you pretty much nothing except for how at one point Yamamoto jumped up on Naruse's back whilst standing and attacked with the naked strangle of hadaka-jime but drove him to the mat with it like a pro wrestling bulldog; it was weird. This was totally fine but felt more like a long and pleasant Wataru Sakata opening bout than a match between two contenders of rank and tenure. Yamamoto's juji-gatame finish looked great, certainly; it was well and truly on there.
TSUYOSHI KOHSAKA clasps his hands together, eyes shut fast in prayer (what is his faith? Japan is a land of ever-deepening religious mystery to me ever since I learned Toshiro Mifune was a Presbyterian and a wildly disproportionate number of Japanese Prime Ministers have been Christian; what is going on over there) before he enters the ring to face KIYOSHI TAMURA in a bout that is always listed on both men's shoot records, but I have seen this one before and did not think it belonged there (its place in the annals of sikkness is, of course, assured). I am of the view that the Tamura vs. Kohsaka matches are, taken on the whole, the best shoot style ones ever! I began this RINGSblog, you may recall (it is ok if you do not, or if you have joined us more recently and rightly have no idea what I am talkig about), by holding forth excessively on that precise subject. In that opening essay (in the original sense of attempt) I suggested that Tamura is the greatest shoot-stylist of ever, and that TK was his best opponent, but, as we have discussed before, I have come to wonder whether or not I had that the wrong way around! But maybe not! NEVERTHELESS I am ready for art.
Tentative kicking, I knew it! Ah but it is not long at all before Kohsaka clinches, which is extremely what I would like to see (yes, clinching), and Tamura is soon on the mat after TK's Mongolian-style uchi-mata (内股) inner thigh throw, a variation first shown to me by someone who finished second in his age-group nationally, losing only to a now years-long international competitor who I have seen beat a world champion (the guy I knew has largely moved on to high-level international academia, I think; judo burnout is real for the true achievers, less so for the putterers about [guess which I am]). Kohsaka's top-pressure is met by Tamura's attempt at the triangle choke of sankaku-jime but we are in the ropes--all of us, together, there we are, in them--and are restarted on our feet for more kicking. Tamura: is better at the kicking. Some of his palm-striking comes in pretty hot, too. Kohsaka, wearying of this, goes low for the two-hand reap of morote-gari but Tamura sprawls and ends up atop his large-more foe in the double-entanglement of niju-garami hard at work towards the reverse arm-entanglement of gyaku-ude-garami but I don't see it. No, it isn't there at all; come on, Tamura. AH HAAAAA it is fitting, is it not, that Tsuyoshi Kohsaka's first in-RINGS TK Scissors (he hit them relentlessly in the shoot Lumax Cup, you will recall) are enscissored against no less a foe than his great rival Tamura yes:
 |
| t |
 |
| k |
 |
| scis |
 |
| sors |
HOLY SHIT only now after I have seen this technique who knows how many times, trained it, taught it, hit it myself in shoot context, that it occurs to me that it is obviously and fundamentally a form of ashi-garami (足絡) (leg-entanglement [the position, not the kansetu, or finishing lock]):
The bad news is that I have been a fool forever; the good news is that every time I teach ashi-garami for the rest of my days I will end with TK Scissors as a sweeping application of the principle, taking uke safely back or to the side rather than bringing him forward and ruining his leg. And each time, perhaps, my pals will doubt me until I hit in on them for real in randori oh my goodness it is even more absurd than I thought that I have not made this connection before now in that when I hit TK Scissors for real on a way-better-than-me-guy to ultimately convince him of the efficacy of this waza it was out of a failed tomoe-nage just as in that classic application of ashi-garami above; only then did I scooch in, entangle my leg (garami my ashi) and let loose my battle cry ("it's TK Scissors time"). "I can't believe that happened," said he; but I could: because of the waza.
NEEDLESS TO SAY, Kohsaka is on top now and flattening Tamura out with merciless hips (the worst kind). Tamura is in no immediate danger of a submission hold but wants out of here all the same (this is wise) and grabs a rope to effect that. We are I believe seven minutes in and that was our first break; clapclapclapclapclap this is so good. Kohsaka chases Tamura again then slips out of his sankaku (triangle) attempt to pass the legs but they are tangled in the ropes and restarted. Every time that happens it is doubtless to Tamura's kicky advantage. Another low tackling takedown, another rope entanglement, and restart, and this time a knockdown for Tamura as Kohsaka goes whirling into the corner after some pretty gnar palm-strikes. Once he answers the count, Kohsaka wrangles Tamura down and takes his back but rides too high and Tamura slips out "the back door," moves from between TK's legs all the way to the top position of tate-shiho-gatame in the blink of an eye (for he is Tamura) and swings through for a juji-gatame that Kohsaka turns in hard (elbow to the mat, everybody; elbow to the mat) and ducks under to come up on top and then--and I mean why wouldn't he--grab hold of a leg for enough ashi-kansetsu (leg-locking) to send them both rolling to the ropes for another stand-up. Let us breathe.
Are names being shrieked? Certainly. Are people saying HWAAAAIIII? Of course they are. Kohsaka would like a mae-hadaka-jime front choke but Tamura would like to slip out of one and work his way forward into tate-shiho-gatame again; TK attempts once more the scissors that bear his name but this time he scissors naught. Tamura tries the sankaku from the top, the triangle that you have to roll through to your back to really finish, which is not usually the wisest triangle (we have all tried it for fun if for no other reason [fun is an excellent reason]), but he sort of fails upwards in that he is pushed to the side control of mune-gatame which is actually a great place to attack with a much safer step-over yoko-sankaku-jime in the mode of the great (yeah that's right the great) Akira Kikuchi, one-time SHOOTO Welterweight Champion and forever man of judo (once you've got it, the step-over triangle, you can gyaku-ude-garami/Kimura to your dark heart's content, too!). I kind of think Kohsaka might be trying to feed Tamura an arm so Tamura can work a kata-gatame shoulder-hold/arm-triangle? Am I reading to much into this cross-face from underneath that I otherwise cannot account for? Is this merely a function of my ignorance of waza (wazignorance)? I am intrigued by this but nothing comes of it. HEY GUESS WHAT THIS MATCH IS GREAT. Tamura threatens with some leg-locks and oh yeah this is their one that ends by ashi-dori-garami or the ankle lock you might as well call a toe-hold (many do). Kohsaka sells it like "shoot" leg-death (maybe it is: shoot of work [this was a work], what do I know of how this hold felt?) and your winner and still handsome at 13:57 is Kiyoshi Tamura!
 |
| this tenderness is a shoot I think |
So dramatic has been the year-on-year decline in Maeda-physique that one cannot help but be tempted to make a dark Fire Pro edit to reflect this grim reality, but who has the time, given the realities of our modern world (except for me, I totally do, and I trust you will believe this at once when I say it to you). This opens well enough, with Han attacking with a standing choke, Maeda getting low and grabbing an ankle, and Han taking the upper-hand in the ashi-kansetsu leg-lock situation that ensues until a rope break. Next, Volk Han spends several weeks setting up a standing leg-lock whilst Maeda just lays there looking at him and this part of the match is way less good. I do not mean to suggest they have lost the people, though, as they seem very much invested in whether or not Maeda will be able to finish this juji-gatame, and I am too. Han grabs the ropes for he is learned. Maeda tries juji-gatame again! But Han finds his own one of them! And it takes Maeda like thirty seconds to escape it, which is the right amount of time to have spent doing that, because the crowd loved it, they loved it. Maeda tries a waki-gatame (think Fujiwara, think arm-bar), Han escapes it by choking him, more juji . . . this is good! HIZA-HISHIGI KNEE-CRUSH/CALF-SLICER AT 8:47 THAT'S IT HANNNNNUUUUU GREAT JOB BOTH GUYS
WHAT DID DAVE MELTZER SAY:
April 28, 1997:
"At press time the only thing we've heard about the RINGS 4/22 show in Osaka is that Volk Han beat Akira Maeda by submission in 8:47 so Han retains his top ranking in the promotion.
Japanese media reports indicate that the Tokyo Dome show with the Rickson Gracie vs. Nobuhiko Takada match is now being talked about for 8/15."
March 5, 1997:
"Pancrase is a strange combination of both working and shooting that is hard to actually comprehend. Unlike its rival RINGS, which is predominately working matches with an occasional shoot, Pancrase is largely a unique shoot sport but with a mentality that appears to place a higher priority on a Japanese brand of honor ahead of actually winning and losing, with occasional works, mainly done for political reasons."
and
"Still don't have a lot of details on the 4/22 RINGS show in Osaka before 4,870 fans with Volk Han over Akira Maeda in the main event. The other top matches saw Kiyoshi Tamura beat Tsuyoshi Kousaka (those are the two best Japanese workers in the company so it was likely an awesome match) in 13:57 and Yoshihisa Yamamoto beat Masayuki Naruse in 21:20 which also may have been a very good match. Tony Halme (Ludvig Borga), who is in the next UFC, was brought back and lost to Dick Vrij in about 2:00 when the doctor stopped the match.
4/22 Osaka Furitsu Gym (RINGS - 4,870):Christopher Hazemann b Alexander Otsuka, Dick Vrij b Tony Halme, Joop Kasteel b Mitsuya Nagai, Yoshihisa Yamamoto b Masayuki Naruse, Kiyoshi Tamura b Tsuyoshi Kousaka, Volk Han b Akira Maeda"
and
"Ricardo Morais, the 6-9, 265-pound Brazilian who won the second Russian Absolute (UFC rules) tournament and also destroyed Yoshihisa Yamamoto of RINGS in 40 seconds in a shoot match last year in Japan will be the replacement for injured David Beneteau in the next UFC heavyweight tournament."
May 12, 1997:
"The rematch that never took place may take place sometime within the next year at a Dome show. Riki Choshu and Akira Maeda, the two principles in the famous shoot kick non-angle in 1987 that, in hindsight, totally changed the entire face of pro wrestling, have been talking about trying to make the one big payday from that incident that never happened. With Maeda planning on retiring in 1998, he and Choshu, who had never met or spoken since Maeda was fired from New Japan after the incident, went to dinner and then got a face-to-face interview in the Japanese language version of Playboy magazine where the two came to the studio and met for the first time in ten years to start building up publicity for a singles match. Back in November of 1987 when Maeda was with this promotion, there was a six-man tag at Korakuen Hall with Maeda's team against Choshu's team. During the match, Maeda on purpose while Choshu had the scorpion deathlock on and his hands weren't free, kicked Choshu hard in the eye, breaking his orbital bone and basically ruining the tag team tournament tour that they were in the middle of. New Japan was set to heavily punish Maeda for basically breaking the only sacred pro wrestling trust (when you give a guy your body and leave yourself wide open, they aren't supposed to hurt you on purpose). Instead, Maeda quit and formed his own company and got over the idea that he wanted to shoot (sucker kicking someone is hardly shooting) and that his company would be a shoot and formed the UWF, which quickly became the hottest wrestling promotion in the world and paved the way for shoot style working that has become part of the All Japan and New Japan style and is what the RINGS and UWFI style were based on. Pancrase and UFC took that style steps farther and that's how we got to where we are today."
"Reports are the 4/22 RINGS show in Osaka was said to have been awesome. We should have a tape in the next few days. Report is that the Christopher Hazemann vs. Alexander Otsuka match was a shoot, that Dick Vrij vs. Tony Halme wasn't but the finish wasn't worked due to the accidental kick to the eye by Vrij which shut Halme's eye and they had to stop the match, Joop Kasteel vs. Mitsuya Nagai was said to be a pure shoot, Yoshihisa Yamamoto vs. Masayuki Naruse was said to be a dojo style match which was good since it wasn't a work but not entertaining. Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Tsuyoshi Kousaka, who are the two best Japanese workers in the group, had what was reported as the expected classic. Volk Han vs. Akira Maeda was an obvious work on top. After the show, Tamura was critical of RINGS current booking and said that he wouldn't renew when his contract runs out unless they doubled his salary. Next RINGS is 5/23 in Sendai with Akira Maeda vs. Bitzsade Tariel, Han vs. Kasteel, Kousaka vs. Nagai, Tamura vs. Grom Zaza (who wrestled freestyle in the Olympics), Naruse vs. Andre Mannart (Holland), Yamamoto vs. Herman Renting, Naruse vs. Willie Peeters. Chris Doleman will be promoting another RINGS show in Amsterdam, Holland on 6/29 with Kasteel vs. Pedro Palm as the main event. The RINGS Holland shows based on the previous few years appear to be all complete and often vicious shoots.
Kingdom Promotions debuted on 5/4 at Tokyo Yoyogi Gym before 3,800 fans. Kingdom style is supposed to be a combination of Ultimate and UWF-style wrestling, although judging from the results and who is involved, it is almost surely worked. To give it a different twist, they fight with six ounce gloves and face punching is legal, which differs from traditional UWF, Rings and Pancrase rules. Yoji Anjoh beat Masahito Kakihara in the main event. Nobuhiko Takada only did a 5:00 exhibition with rookie Ryuki Kamiyama.
Rickson Gracie was on the cover of this past week's Weekly Pro Wrestling magazine regarding his 8/15 match at the Tokyo Dome with Takada. That match is going to be a total shoot and Gracie will supposedly receive $1 million for it which would be the largest payoff for a single match in pro wrestling or shootfighting that we've ever heard of. The hardcore martial arts fans are really upset with the idea that since Gracie, 38, who by reputation is the toughest fighter in the world although he hasn't fought a name opponent in many years, instead of facing a guy who has been winning in UFC, is instead facing a "fake" pro wrestler. Last year Royce Gracie turned down $1 million to do a worked finish loss to Antonio Inoki at a Dome show."
and
"In regard to Halme, he had a RINGS match on 4/22 in Osaka against Dick Vrij that only went 2:40 before it was stopped. Judging from the photos in the Japanese magazines and a report from someone who saw the event, what happened is that Vrij kicked him stiff right to the eye and the eye began to swell shut and the match was stopped as the referee showed the doctor the eye and the doctor stopped the match which didn't appear to be a planned finish. That's the one thing about RINGS being a worked stiff shoot is that when you work like that, sometimes things happen and the end result sometimes doesn't take place as planned. Don't know how the eye will affect him in UFC as it's a little over five weeks to heal, but his eye looked a hell of a lot worse than Mike Tyson's when they called that off."
The greatest of letter writers writes once more:
"PANCRASE
If you write that Pancrase is a strange combination of both working and shooting that is hard to comprehend, then K-1 would have to be classified the same way because it is much more working than Pancrase.
Japanese kickboxing as a sport was established as a combination of both working and shooting from the beginning. K-1 claimed that it wasn't sport kick boxing in order to avoid being painted with the image of being a worked sport.
My feeling is that as journalists we should classify K-1 and Pancrase as shoot sports but not RINGS.
The Osami Shibuya vs. Bas Rutten match was a result of sportsmanship, not of a form of working, under the Japanese martial arts standards. Nobody instructed Shibuya what to do or what not to do in that match. He is paid on a salary so winning and losing isn't that important and you don't want to hurt your friend who may miss the next show because you injured him.
To me, UFC and Vale Tudo are strange because they are basically human cock fighting. The Japanese don't classify them as martial arts because there is no beauty in them.
Pancrase's biggest rival for live attendance right now is K-1, not RINGS. K-1's only rival, however, is New Japan. RINGS is unique. For the live gate, it largely draws pro wrestling fans who go to cheer Akira Maeda. But for television viewership, I believe many know what RINGS is all about but still like it because of the Olympians and many top name fighters. They are completely different audiences. The very expensive WOWOW channel is like HBO. It draws mainly upper class people watching the television show while the arenas are filled with younger people who may attend a New Japan house show the next week.
Tadashi Tanaka
New York, New York"
WELL THIS WAS FUN! Another great show! And lots of good Meltz! Join me again soon, won't you? It is my sincere hope that you do, and I would only in closing that I once again and in all sincerity thank you for your time.
No comments:
Post a Comment