RINGS 6/29/96: MAELSTROM 4th

Maelstrom 4th
June 29, 1996 in Tokyo, Japan
NK Hall drawing 6,700

HE STANDS BEFORE US AN ELF-KING CLAD IN LIVING FLOWERS KIYOSHI TAMURA HAS COME AT LAST and appears before even the opening Fighting Network RINGS credits and theme; his is the first WOWOW image we see; "RINGS Japan: Tamura, KIYOOOOOSHIIIIIIIIIII" the first WOWOW sounds we hear; all is bathed in glory. The Union of Wrestling Forces International (UWFi)'s sad misfortune is our great boon as RINGS enthusiasts as it is here that Tamura's art, in all its strange beauty and hyper-real transitional fluidity, will now unfold. What might we even say of Kiyoshi Tamura by way of introduction other than to note that when all is reckoned he will hold as strong a claim as any to the title of greatest shoot-stylist to have ever so styled? My knowledge of his UWF and UWFi years is deeply imperfect, I confess it freely; I have seen only what is most widely available in this our streaming era, and sometimes not even that: I did not even know, for example, until just a moment ago that the match where Akira Maeda breaks Tamura's orbital bone (the spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling/an accident) was even a thing we could see. I have so much to learn; please help me. 

With news of this magnitude why not open your show with clips from a press conference, I totally get why you would do that. Flashes flash as photographers ply their soul-stealing trade and we begin to wonder if what happened in Russia was not the simple matter of Maeda being slightly out of sorts but instead is the much more complex situation of Maeda thinking this hairstyle was for sure the way forward:  

Maybe he was right, what do I know? All I can say with certainty regarding this matter is that I do not think it suits him as well as his previous styles, several of which I found handsome.  

NO TIME FOR THAT NOW as the RINGS Official Rankings are upon us and they are as follows: 10 Dick Vrij 9 Ilioukhine 8 Kohsaka 7 Nagai 6 Kopilov 5 Tariel 4 Zouev 3 Nijman 2 Han 1 Yamamoto. Our first match is without consequence as regards those rankings but will likely be far from inconsequential with regards to our enjoyment as it sees Wataru Sakata and Cobra-Kai-era Willie Peeters engage in shoot-style. They fall in a heap immediately. Peeters does well to flatten Sakata out whilst ensnared in the niju-garami (double entanglement) of his "half-guard" and as you know flattening your partner out is the first step on the road to sikkgræppz from that position. He progresses no farther, though, as to reveal me a liar, and they are stood. They return to that very same position we discussed only moments ago once Sakata's low takedown attempt is flattened. The corners say FILA now and while I am no brand loyalist (I don't think I have ever had sportswear that said FILA on it) it is a stylish logo not unpleasant to behold. Wait, it's South Korean? I thought it was Italian? Ah ha yes ok I have now read beyond the first several lines of its Wikipedia entry and yes I understand now. Sakata's ashi-kansetsu leg-lock sends Peeters to the ropes as a desperate seeker; Peeters yelps as Sakata does not releasee the hold as swiftly as Peeters would have preferred and things are briefly testy before everyone remembers that part of Willie Peeters' whole deal is he is a slight dikk as regards the rules sometimes (I am not claiming he is a shoot-dikk in the least, merely that it is an aspect of his shoot-styleart). The referees' shirts now say LUCKY STRIKE on the back of them (not unlike the Pancrase rings of around this time?) and I am not a suggestible person and consumerism is a disease but surely I am not alone in thinking how ill it would look and be to smoke a cigarette in a tracksuit right now. Willie Peeters has punched Wataru Sakata in the face with a closed-fist in plain violation of protocols of the elders of RINGS; see what I mean about him? He pummels Sakata with many perfectly legal shoteeeeiiiiiis as well though and Sakata is knocked out at 10:08 of this very fine opening match. 

Masayuki Naruse's hooded black and silver robe says NARUSE on the front and PHANTOM on the back and then it has the grim reaper, look:

EVERYTHING IS NARUSE

I am in no way used to how Todor Todorov looks yet with his long hair but I admire his waza as ever and that is what I am here for, the waza; the waza (I am here for the waza). AH HAA it is Masayuki Naruse who throws Todorov! How unexpected! This crowd is wild already, especially one lady shrieking in a tone that is new to me in the world of Japanese lady wrestling shrieking and let me tell you, this is not the first Japanese wrestling lady I have heard shrieking at Japanese wrestling. There is lots of quality hitting to go with the early throwing of quality; Todorov sinks a nice deep hadaka-jime choke standing and falls to the ground with it but, alas, ropes. This lady is shrieking, my word, she is just wild for the shoot-style (me too). MASAYUKI NARUSE FLYING ARMBAR TOBI-JUJI-GATAME 飛び十字固め:

tobi

juji

gatame

Todorov rolls to the ropes in a way that is convincing and not at all lame as it can be sometimes when a a juji-gatame is so near to extension but these fellows are both excellent so it is achieved finely. Some high-level back and forth includes a nice rolling hikikomi-gaeshi (pulling reversal) from Todorov but in the end it is a knockout win at 8:36 for the newly-floppy-haried Masayuki Naruse. This was the first Naruse match in months; I wonder if he was hurt? 

It pleases me well to see massive Dutch judo Olympian Dennis Raven here once more, this time against Bitsadze Ameran. Tentative kickboxing opens the bout but before long Raven has spun Ameran to the mat with a form of 浮技 uki-waza, literally "floating technique" (in practice it is often much more of a jarring whip to the mats than a float, like say when Teddy Riner does late in his matches once he has exhausted his foes and forced them into several penalties due to his tactical brilliance, physical dominance, and cool clear waza). A rope break ends the ne-waza that ensues. Ameran keeps knocking Raven down, why is this being allowed to occur? Shouldn't Raven be winning? Don't they know how much more interesting he is? WOAH the finish comes at 4:21 by way of enormous spinning kick to the face and that connected I think more solidly than either of them probably wanted:

I am not at all of the view that that match was a shoot, but I am pretty sure the knockout was for real, perhaps not unlike the time Kiyoshi Tamura seemed to have accidentally knocked out Nobuhiko Takada in PRIDE only to be shoot-mortified that it had happened? A too-oft overlooked moment in the storied annals of Pride FC in my view (ps never die).  

SPEAKING OF KIYOSHI TAMURA HERE HE IS NOW AND THE CROWD IS INSANE FOR HIM AS THEY HUNGER FOR HIS HUNGER FOR THE FIGHT and in this they are blameless. This is a legitimate Maeda-level reaction, like a good Maeda reaction. Remember when Gary Albright would not cooperate with Tamura and that one UWFi match of theirs fell apart and then Tamura choked him and cried and then the Lord took Gary Albright? Again my knowledge of UWFi is on the whole deeply unsound but I am pretty sure that timeline checks out. Perhaps the Lord will look upon his servant Dick Vrij more mercifully? I cannot imagine this will be a shoot but this era of RINGS is so great it is so great because as each match begins you can think you have a pretty good idea if it will be a work or a shoot and often your idea is exactly right but sometimes it isn't and it's thrilling. To say it that way makes it seem as though the hope is always that it will be a shoot and there is disappointment should it turn out to be instead shoot-style but that isn't really the whole of it: when you recognize, seconds in, that they are working, it's like ah ok let's see what they come up with in this kata-like display of unfettered waza, won't it be interesting to see what they build towards both within this match and for future RINGS (pronounced here "rings-izz"). EITHER WAY YOU WIN AND IT IS THE BEST. Dick Vrij flexes his pectorals as he approaches referee Yuji Shimada at centre-ring but we all know who those pectorals are truly being flexed at (it is Tamura). Tamura, though of a tremendous build right now, elects not to flex them back, which strains credulity but also signals much about who and what this young Tamura is an will be. 

It's largely kicking and kneeing in the early going and Tamura acquits himself very well in the tricky matter of making it look real when you fall down from fake blows; the crowd is losing their minds as he staggers up at nine. Tamura, once a boy of high school sumo and judo (before the sumo, I believe) is very much a man of wrestling and so it should surprise us not a whit that his takedowns are low tackling morote-gari (two-hand-reap), kibisu-gaeshi (ankle-reversal), and kuchiki-taoshi (dead-tree drop); his katame-waza (græppling techniques) this day are the cross-mark hold of ude-hishigi-juji-gatame and the naked strangle of hadaka-jime and it is with the last of these that Tamura finishes Vrij at 3:41. The two embrace at centre-ring; Tamura kneels before Maeda to receive words of shoot(style)ing: 

THE CROWD ENJOYED THIS MATCH; WELCOME KIYOSHI TAMURA.

Tsuyoshi Kohsaka, soon enough to become Tamura's best opponent--and indeed, in time, his partner in the greatest shoot-style match ever shot-styled--is in next against Jacob Hamilton. KOHSAAAKAAAAA cry the people. A shoot? No, a work. As Kohsaka takes Hamilton down and wraps him up tight(ly) with hadaka-jime they tumble into the ropes, and Hamilton is lucky he is lucky he is not charged with a rope-escape but is instead simply asked to stand. A juji-gatame and a little ashi-kansetsu (leg[bone]locking) later, though, he is down by two and if I may be frank I do not expect him to ever recover fully from this predicament. He yelps as he grabs the ropes a third time, and staggers as he stands; such is the inherent power of ashi-kansetsu. Hamilton is charged also with a shido or guidance when he strikes TK in the head during a takedown and it is like please, Jacob Hamilton, be better. A knockdown later and Hamilton is almost comically up against it. The arm-triangling/head-and-arm shoulder hold of kata-gatame leads to I guess the seventh loss of point before a hiza-hishigi knee-crush/calf-slicer ends it at 5:10; TK is all business:

VOLK HAN vs. a freshly-shorn and also dyed Mitsuya Nagai is up now and it feels like a lifetime ago that they had that weirdly incredible match, let me consult the archives . . . yes I believe it was Battle Dimension: Tokyo Bay Area Circuit way back on April 24, 1993 in Yokohama. I may have had to look up the date and event title but let me tell you what I did not have to look up about it: my fond recollection of its art. We begin this time with almost immediate ashi-kansetsu deuling leg-lockery and the crowd is in favour of every bit of it. Not long after, they are excited into great excitement as Volk Han falls to the mat with a hadaka-jime strangle sunk in nice and deep, and they thrill further as Nagai comes up and out of it with a baffling tangle of legs that Han expertly sells like the grimmest death until he makes the ropes. Nagai escapes an inverted-nelson of sorts and we are tied up at one rope break each. This is very good and the crowd is super "hot." Nagai lands a nice little toss, Han grabs a gyaku-ude-garami, Nagai makes the ropes. You know, I should mention this here, I think: earlier today my good-friend-since-forever Cory asked me on Twitter, "Why do u hate the standing kimura" and while I assure you nothing could be further from the truth (not only do I love gyaku-ude-garami from all positions but in fact I am well known for this love of mine amongst the pals with whom I græpple) I understand why Cory or indeed anyone might come away with this impression given the sheer horror with which I invariably respond to Volk Han's particular(ly gnar) standing application of the technique. I think the way Han does it torques the shoulder way too egregiously for the context of a work against anybody, let alone some of the older guys here, whose shoulders are no doubt nearly dust already. And Volk Han should know better, he's like thirty-five! I digress here (but at the same time I don't, do I) but I wanted to clear that up and also to thank Cory for bringing this concern to my attention.

I AM ENJOYING THIS MATCH. At present they have settled into a long sequence of leg-locking! In the midst of it, Han responds to the way in which his leg is ensnared in the knee-crush/calf-slicer of hiza-hishigi by reaching back and wrapping up Nagai's neck for the match-ending hadaka-jime at 11:47; he then walks around like Bret Hart:

ONLY ONE BOUT REMAINS and it is Yoshihisa Yamamoto vs. Maurice Smith, who has thus far in RINGS lost a shoot to Tsuyoshi Kohsaka (possible birth of The Alliance) and seen victory in a shoot-style bout against the rarely-beaten Dick Vrij. Smith wears boxing gloves for this, which surely will make him almost infinitely more arm-barrable but who am I to tell Maurice Smith how to approach any aspect of his life. Yamamoto is still making loving him harder than it needs to be; he has adopted a stance that I can best describe (and this is not adequate) as Safety Dance:

I am not sure anyone outside of my immediate family has ever believed me when I have told them that the live performance of "Safety Dance" captured at the Spectrum in Montréal in 1985 is totally good and worth your time but I try now again. It will probably be a livelier time than the first five minutes or so of this match! Is this some next-level Ricksonism where he takes someone beatable and drags it out for like fifteen minutes? I wonder what Akira Maeda said to Yamamoto as he leaned up against the ring during that last break in the action? Was he threatening him? I assume most of his words to be threats always but I don't speak the language and could be way off. Twelve minutes in, all we have is a Maurice Smith rope-break off a frenzied Yamamoto attempt at a leg-lock, and Yamamoto standing in Safety Dance with what is a pretty solid bloody nose, to be fair, but this is pretty flat so far. Th deal seems to be they do nothing for a good long while, then when they are near the corner or the ropes Yamamoto gets Smith down for a second but to no avail. I am enjoying this so little I begin to wonder if it is . . . maybe . . . a terrible . . . shoot? But even with Yamamoto's impressively wrecked nose and all the blood on his trunks (from wiping his hands) I just don't see it. It is always safer emotionally to say that you think something is a work than to say you think it is a shoot, and the reasons for this are I think obvious (who among us wishes to risk derision as a mere mark), but I am not maintaining that this is a work for that reason alone; it is, instead, just the feeling that I have in my dumb heart. If you know it to be otherwise though please say. EITHER WAY IT'S NOT SO HOT and this is not that big a deal for my overall enjoyment in that we had six quite-good-to-really-good matches in a row, three of which had, in order, Kiyoshi Tamura, Tsuyoshi Kohsaka, and Volk Han. But this main event, which goes to Yamamoto on points after thirty pretty marginal minutes, was a big step down, which is both kind of unfair to even say but also a thing that one must say. The bell tolls just as, for I think the first time in the whole match, Yamamoto had secured the faintest hint of a choke in the middle of the ring rather than in a corner or near the ropes. Not at all a bad finish, to be fair to the match that I was not all that into. 

WHAT DID DAVE MELTZER SAY: 

June 17, 1996: 

"The Japanese wrestling world is about to change with the official announcement on 6/10 at a press conference of the debut of a 24-hour cable channel known as "Fighting TV."

The channel, which will start on 9/1 as a premium channel on cable (as compared with the United States, cable in Japan is still in its infancy, probably a good 15 years plus behind the U.S. and this would be the equivalent of the starting point of ESPN), will fill its programming with pro wrestling and martial arts events. It had been reported here months ago about the plans for this station to launch this September.

Appearing at the press conference included Antonio Inoki, Akira Maeda and Shinya Hashimoto, while an exhibition match was performed by Michinoku Pro's Great Sasuke vs. Tiger Mask as an example of the type of programming offered. With that much time to fill, it is expected that most of the smaller groups in Japan, which have almost no television (save the one hour Champ Forum show which rotates covering the various smaller promotions) will get more of a television presence. In addition, it opens up television time for the various incarnations of Vale Tudo both in Japan and the U.S., and for more exposure of American and perhaps even Mexican (provided the production standards improve) pro wrestling."

June 24, 1996: 

From a Dick Murdoch bio:

"New Japan in the mid-80s was a crazy place to be with all the various styles blended together. It was the infancy of what is now called shoot style, with the likes of Akira Maeda, Yoshiaki Fujiwara and Nobuhiko Takada educating the fans to a new style, which few foreigners could do and even fewer in those days wanted to learn. Yet it was Murdoch, who picked up the exchanging submissions almost immediately and was one of the few wrestlers who could work the new style, and had the respect of the younger wrestlers as a tough enough guy who would have no fear in punching them in the nose if anyone tried to get cute."

Aaaaaand:

"In what in Japan is actually one of the biggest stories of the week (obviously the Murdoch news is the biggest story), Kiyoshi Tamura of UWFI, whose contract just expired, signed with Rings and debuts on 6/29 against Dick Vrij. Tamura, who is 26, has genuine superstar potential and will be along with Yoshihisa Yamamoto, the two wrestlers that carry Rings in the future."

July 8, 1996: 

"Besides the Rikidozan show, the biggest shows of the week were Pancrase on 6/25 and Rings on 6/29. The Pancrase show drew a sellout 7,500 in Fukuoka, largely due to the Ken Shamrock vs. Masakatsu Funaki announced main event. Shamrock blew out his left knee in training and underwent surgery on 6/20, thus couldn't wrestle although he did go to Japan to attend the show. Funaki beat Vernon White via submission in 2:34. The biggest shock was in an underneath match where Yuki Kondo, who debuted in January, won a split decision after going 15:00 with Minoru Suzuki. In addition, 20-year-old Osami Shibuya, who had the great PPV match against Jason DeLucia, held Guy Mezger to a 10:00 draw with judges calling the match even. In the other top matches, Bas Rutten beat DeLucia in 8:48 when the referee stopped the match and Ryushi Yanagisawa beat Takaku Fuke 2-0 on points after they went the 30:00 time limit. On a seven match card, the first five matches all went the time limit. With things like that, Kondo beating Suzuki, and the fact that when you watch the tape, the holes just aren't there, I'm pretty well of the belief that Pancrase is legitimate sport. The next Pancrase shows are 7/22 and 7/23, which I believe are at Korakuen Hall and will be the Neo Blood tournament which is a tourney for the underneath wrestlers. The next major show isn't until 9/7 which would be the next PPV taping provided PPV of Pancrase would still exist in the U.S. by that point, with Rutten vs. Funaki for the King of Pancrase championship and Ken Shamrock vs. Suzuki. There were lots of rumors swirling around this show that Ken Shamrock would be going to New Japan next year after his Pancrase contract expires, and Funaki even addressed them publicly. I don't think there's anything to them, and they got started simply because Oleg Taktarov is a friend of Shamrock's and he worked the show in Los Angeles which even though it wasn't a New Japan show is basically considered as a New Japan show by a lot of people and it is known Inoki wants to create a shooters promotion as part of New Japan.

Rings had its hottest show in a long time drawing a sellout 6,700 to Tokyo Bay NK Hall, with the big crowd largely due to the debut of Kiyoshi Tamura. Tamura, who appeared to have been trimmed down to 180 pounds and was ripped, beat Dick Vrij in 3:41 with a choke sleeper. The main event saw Yoshihisa Yamamoto and Maurice Smith go the 30:00 time limit with Yamamoto winning a judges decision. The next show will be 7/16 in Osaka Furitsu Gym with Yamamoto vs. Vrij on top, plus Volk Han vs. Hans Nyman, Bitzsade Tariel vs. Mitsuya Nagai and Tamura vs. Willie Peeters.

The sport of shootboxing has a show on 7/14 at the Ariake Coliseum in Tokyo which will have two UFC rules matches--Kazushi Sakuraba of UWFI faces Kimo, which one would think promises to be a bad night for Sakuraba, and Illoukhine Mikhail of Russia, who won a Russian version of a UFC tournament last year, faces Meister Hulk of Brazil, who is the guy who destroyed Amoury Bitetti in the finals of this year's Brazilian Vale Tudo championship.

UWFI drew an announced 8,000 at Nagoya Rainbow Hall for a main event where Tatsumi Fujinami & Yoshiaki Fujiwara beat Masahito Kakihara & Nobuhiko Takada in 17:10 when Fujiwara made Kakihara submit to the achilles tendon hold."

"6/29 Tokyo Bay NK Hall (RINGS - 6,700 sellout): Willie Peeters b Wataru Sakata, Masayoshi Naruse b Todor Todorov, Bitzsade Amilan b Lufkin, Kiyoshi Tamura b Dick Vrij, Tsuyoshi Kousaka b Jacob Hamilton, Volk Han b Mitsuya Nagai, Yoshihisa Yamamoto b Maurice Smith 30:00"

OK THAT'S IT! KIYOSHI TAMURA! THIS IS HUGE! Thank you for your time and your attention; let us reconvene as soon as we are able.