September 26, 1997 in Sapporo, Japan
Nakajima Sports Center drawing 4,820
OUR TAPE BEGINS WITH WOWOW'S PROMISE OF AN ANAHEIM MIGHTY DUCKS VS. VANCOUVER CANUCKS GAME TO FOLLOW and what an era it was with Paul Kariya and Teemu Selanne one one side of that affair and Pavel Bure on the other. I once saw Pavel Bure play in person and he was really very fast! Also Paul Kariya was my brother's favourite hockey player (mine was Joe Sakic [that is neither here nor there]), and everyone loves Teemu. This is the fall of 1997 and so I suppose right around the time of the release of the excellent NHL '98 which I played a lot of on a computer I had then. It was no NHL '94 on Sega, but what was before, what has been since. However let us turn our thoughts away from the hockey of the nineties and towards the shoot-stylings and indeed shoots of that same decade for FRANK SHAMROCK VS. TSUYOSHI KOHSAKA is upon us, or nearly so. Is this the birth of the Alliance? You will recall we last wondered that aloud when Kohsaka and Maurice Smith took to fight but now we must ask it again. Why, here's handsome young Frank Shamrock now:
We all know what Frank Shamrock would become in time but what was he then, exactly, let's see: ok yeah so by this time he had traded wins with Bas Rutten and Masakatsu Funaki, had beaten Minoru Suzuki, had been kicked very much in the head by Yuki Kondo, and was only a few short months away from becoming the UFC Light-Heavyweight Champion. That's about what you'd think, probably! It seems pretty unlikely that I have never seen Frank Shamrock vs. Tsuyoshi Kohsaka but at the same time I have no clear memory of it so maybe I didn't! I'm excited!
RINGS Official Rankings this time fall out like so: 10. Ilioukhine 9. Naruse 8. Nagai 7. Tariel 6. Kohsaka 5. Maeda 4. Tamura 3. Nijman 2. Han 1. Yamamoto. Maeda is really doing his best for Yoshihisa Yamamoto these days, isn't he. It is touching, really. Our opening bout between Malcolm Nay and the gi-pantsed-and-obi'd Yuri Korchikan is utterly without implication for those rankings, plainly; it is a shoot between two large men who fight with a dull (not to them, probably, or maybe it is, what do I know of their inner lives) earnestness. Both men look pretty messed up in the face when Korchikan ends it with a kata-ashi-hishigi leg-lock at 4:33.
PETEY MY HEART IT IS PETEY WILLIAMS of the same Lion's Den as the Shamrocks! Surely anyone reading this will know the tale already but in case they do not, here is my meagre retelling of it: Ken Shamrock, in maybe his second fight back after his (not that great) WWF run (in which they had him doing, like, hurricanranas and stuff instead of shoot-style the hekk out of everybody, I don't get it), ran out of steam in a fight he was winning against Kazuyuki Fujita at Pride 10 (by far the best Pride tape to rent from the Suspect Video that was tucked in under Honest Ed's, grab some FMW that had Mr. Pogo in it while you're there, too, and bring the guy behind the counter to an unreal level of shame when your bride-to-be asks if they have a tape of The Karate Kid only for the dude to discover to his absolute horror that they do not). Shamock was done, and the thing to do when you're done is to tap the mat or your pal--or, I guess, in the case of Mark Coleman whilst ude-hishigi-sankaku-gatame'd by Anotonio Rodrigo Nogueira (I think that was who and by what, but I am not going to check), the referee--but instead Shamrock started pleading with his corner to the throw in the towel. And they were understandably like, what? And so the pleading continued, including, in part, the phrase "Petey, my heart!" This is that Petey! and just as I finish telling this tale, Joop Kasteel, an enormous body-builder, lies on the mat exhausted after a rope break and informs the referee he can't continue, he's too tired, this is uncanny: Pete Williams, who is likely a witch, by TKO at 8:25.
Wataru Sakata is in next against Valentijn Overeem, who has put on some size but still not so much that he is Alistair Overeem. The intense shoot-energies of the previous two bouts carry over into this one; or are they created anew each time; who can say. Sataka takes Overeem down with a slick little kouchi-gake (minor outer hook) to finish off a morote-gari (two-hand reap) and in the ensuing rolling about he really, really grabs an ashi-tori-garami (we can say toe-hold), look at the angle (and indeed ankle) on this thing:
That was quick, too, a mere 2:16. That's a big win for Wataru Sakata! Overeem seems pretty hurt, though, which is too bad.
Masayuki Naruse is back with another neat waza segment. This time he begins with sankaku-jime 三角絞, the triangle choke, before moving onto a heel holdo variation, then the very ashi-dori-garami Sakata employed above to gruesome effect. He is really running through a bunch of stuff! Hiza-hishigi, the knee-crush or calf-slicer is next, and his uke (little buddy) is really feeling that one. Next the standing front choke or fronto necku lock of mae-hadaka-jime. Then they show a little montage of the various techniques Kohsaka and Naruse have shown us over the last several months and I think this has pretty clearly been the best intermission feature ever.
HERE WE GO THOUGH IT IS TIME FOR SHAMROCK KOHSAKA LET'S TALK ABOUT IT
Kohsaka hits another morote-gari, Shamrock tries another front choke and I think makes kissy faces towards one of the cameras (not the one whose work we are currently being shown, so it is a mostly lost kissy face, if that is indeed what it is, and I do not claim any certainty in this), and TK pops out because these guys are super sweaty right now. Koshaka flattens Shamrock out in tate-shiho-gatame again and would like, it seems, to get something going in the direction of a kata-gatame/shoulder hold/arm-triangle but Shamrock is canny.
 |
| this is a lot of the fight: and it is great |
Ah, and their fellowship continues in the locker room (as is so often the case, is it not), as Shamrock has comfortable words for Kohsaka: "Thank you, Kohsaka. You are very, very strong. I am surprised! Power, in your striking! Strong! I am surprised, thank you. Strong. You played a very good game." Kohsaka says "thank you" and shakes off the compliments affably and I am moved by all I see.
I don't know what Kohsaka says in his long post-fight interview other than that he said the word kakutogi 格闘技 (combat sports); please be sure to visit tkscissors.blogspot.ca for all the latest on which individual words I recognize when Japanese people give interviews.
Weirdly this is not the end! There is still Akira Maeda vs. Andrei Kopilov and oh yeah Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Volk Han yet to come.
I really do think Maeda is trying to get his weight back under control, but doing a lot of ne-waza wearing only trunks and boots under the exacting eye of the WOWOW camera with its exquisite attention to detail is an unforgiving circumstance under which to undertake such a journey. He is brave to appear before us this way (one might make light of this and say we are braver still for our willingness to behold it but I refuse such unkindness). This is a totally good Akira Maeda/Andrei Kopilov match. There have been holds, there have been rope breaks, and just now there has been a kani-basami 蟹挟 (crab scissors) by Akira Maeda that looked like the work of a much younger, lighter man! Well I should not say younger, really, because at 38 you really should still be able to do kani-basami for sure if you were ever able to do it before then. Hadaka-jime! Sleeper-holdo! Maeda Akira! 8:32! Nothing wrong with that one!
Imagine having a Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Volk Han match about to unfold before you and not being certain it will be the best match on the card it headlines. Imagine that impossible position and yet here we are, very much in it. HERE WE GO let's see about this contest between the third- and second-ranked fellows in this entire Fighting Network! I disapprove of people flipping out of Volk Han's wrist-locks but I approve of transitions to juji-gatame so that first exchange is redeemed almost at once (rope break, Tamura). A bit of an ippon-seoi-nage 一本背負投 from Han! But a juji-gatame from Tamura this time! This is already really good and feels like it is going to get really really good! I DON'T KNOW WHAT VOLK HAN IS DOING WITH HIS LEGS but that's not all that unusual. He attacks with gyaku-ude-garami in the mode of Masahiko Kimura, the t-shirt of whom I ordered from ebay so gloriously shabby one of my pals at judo said it looked like a DOS game of Masahiko Kimura (that's true). Tamura is so good at artful hiza-juji knee-bar attacks, I think probably the all-time best at shoot-style knee-bars, even better than Han (Han: also good). Tamura is down two rope-breaks though after another fine gyaku-ude-garami.
Forgive me, I have neglected you briefly while I wrestled my cat (she entered the room and demanded it through flopping) but the only thing we have really missed was Han's rope escape on a knee-bar but we are back in time for Tamura's Double Dragon-looking jump-kick to the head which Han insists merely made him slip and sure enough Yuji Shimada is like fight. Tamura throws with ippon-seoi as well! Volk Han applies an ashi-kansetsu (leg-bone-lock) that borders on lucha libre levels of submission nonsense (I mean no disrespect: it works in lucha libre but is here displeasing [to me]). Tamura puts Han down twice with strikes in short order and then mae-hadaka-jime front-chokes him for another rope break so this is bad news for Volk Han UNLESS HE FINISHES THIS JUJI-GATAME HWWOOOOAAAAHHHHHHH Tamura made the ropes though! AAAAAHHHHHH VOLK HAN'S GROSS STANDING GYAKU-UDE-GARAMI COUNTERED BY TAMURA'S JUJI-GATAME and woah it felt like that was going to be the finish but Han's arm slipped out in a really weird way and I wonder if that really was supposed to be the finish but they "shoot" messed it up? Either way the people of Sapporo are dying a thousand deaths. Han has Tamura stalled out in kind of a butt-lock and Yuji Shimada in his wisdom is like break, break, this is going nowhere and they stand. KOSHI-GURUMA HIP-WHEEL TO JUJI-GATAME TA-MU-RA TA-MU-RA TA-MU-RA TA-MU-RA TA-MU-RA TA-MU-RATA-MU-RA TA-MU-RA TA-MU-RA TA-MU-RA TA-MU-RA TA-MU-RA TA-MU-RA TA-MU-RA TA-MU-RA TA-MU-RA
You know what, I am totally convinced that the previous juji-gatame was meant to be the climatic one, but it slipped and they couldn't get back to it plausibly just then, got lost for a second and stalled out in the butt-lock Shimada stood them up out of, and they went to juji-gatame in its purest application, a fast transition from a nage-waza (throwing technique). That was great!
WHAT A SHOW!
WHAT DID DAVE MELTZER SAY:
September 22, 1997:
"Maurice Smith vs. Royce Gracie isn't completely dead, although it won't take place on the 11/9 Tokyo Dome. Smith is hoping to do the match after his contract with RINGS expires at the end of the year."
September 29, 1997:
"JAPANESE TELEVISION RUNDOWN
8/13 RINGS: 1. Mitsuya Nagai beat Mikhail Simov in 6:38. This match was mainly standing and it was worked to look like a shoot. The main telling sign during the body of the match is that Simov was taking something off of his punches whenever he went to the head, which it was legal for him to do since he was wearing gloves. On their feet Simov appeared to be the stronger fighter of the two even though Nagai was the one going over. The finish stemmed from two screw ups in the match. Simov was throwing hard kicks, and he accidentally kicked Nagai low twice, both times having to halt the match while Nagai recovered. After the second one, for obvious reasons, they went right to the finish which looked totally fake where Nagai did this easy take down and heel hold that Simov let him have; 2. Wataru Sakata beat Minoru Tanaka of Battlarts in 5:03 with a front guillotine in a battle for third place in the under-209 weight class tourney. This was a shoot, and as it turned out, the only one on the card, with Sakata being the stronger of the two, but it was a good match; 3. Masayuki Naruse beat Christopher Hazemann to become the first under-209 champion. This was a good match in that it looked very close to legit. The pro wrestling booking where they threw in far too many submissions and rope breaks back-and-forth to run down their points and create excitement was obvious. Both men were down to their final points when Naruse got a knockdown with a straight palm to the face at 14:26 and Hazeman was out of points. Crowd wasn't super into it because the two aren't big stars but it was a very good match; 4. Hanse Nyman beat Kiyoshi Tamura in 9:03 when Tamura ran out of points. There was a 59 pound weight difference between the two (246 to 187) and because Nyman isn't that great on the ground but very good standing, they did most of the match standing. Tamura's strength is on the ground, and he did show brief glimpses of his brilliance, but mainly was overpowered fighting "out of his game." Pretty one-sided, which is in a sense a surprise because of how much Tamura gets pushed, but logical given they did most of the match standing with Nyman kicking the hell of out Tamura in a very believable looking fashion, but well below the level of most of Tamura's matches; 5. Akira Maeda beat Tsuyoshi Kousaka in 9:14 with a front guillotine. This match looked more real (it wasn't) than most of Maeda's matches. But it wasn't exciting at all, even though Kousaka probably ranks right with Han and Tamura as the best worker in the company; 6. Yoshihisa Yamamoto beat Volk Han in 11:30 when Han ran out of points after being knocked down with a series of kicks to the head. Han is a total artist on the ground and may be the best technical wrestler in the world today. The two traded submissions, with Yamamoto also using striking. Excellent main event that the crowd was really into with Yamamoto putting on his best performance in a long time with the "upset" over the group's top rated guy after several knockdowns."
October 6, 1997:
"The RINGS show on 9/26 in Sapporo drew 4,820 with Kiyoshi Tamura scoring his first career win over Volk Han in 12:48 with the armbar submission, which would be the first time Han has put anyone over using a submission finish in more than one year. No doubt RINGS has had the top guys trade off wins with lots of upsets over the past few months to make the upcoming Battle Dimension tournament, which starts on 10/26 at Tokyo Bay NK Hall and ends in January with the annual biggest show of the year at Budokan Hall, that much more interesting. The tournament will crown RINGS' first ever world heavyweight champion. This will make an interesting tape, because judging from the results and what we've heard, there is a good chance that the first four matches on the show were shoots but the top two were works. RINGS is generally doing this pattern because shoots are unpredictable as far as entertainment value, and that even though the most highly anticipated match on the show was the Frank Shamrock vs. Tsuyoshi Kousaka match, which Shamrock ended up winning 1-0 by getting one rope break escape after the two went 30:00, there is no guarantee a shoot match won't be boring so you put the shoots on early, and put Tamura on in the main event and you're almost guaranteed a great end of the show. Speaking of the Shamrock-Kousaka match, it'll be interesting to see how both are physically for the 10/11 IWF PPV show that both are fighting on coming off such a long match. Akira Maeda beat Andrei Kopilov in 8:32 with the choke sleeper in what was almost assuredly the other worked match, while the other Lions Den fighter, Pete Williams, beat Holland's Joop Kasteel in 8:25 when Kasteel blew up and couldn't continue in a match described as not being very pretty.
Lots going on behind the scenes in regards to the Pancrase vs. RINGS promotional feud. The basic deal is that there is a very popular late night weekly show on the Fuji Network in Japan called SRS. The people who produce that show also do the Pancrase home videos. SRS is a 30-minute show and every week they talk about some combat sport, generally K-1, Pancrase, shooto or Vale Tudo. While they had never publicly said it, RINGS had never been featured on the show since so many of the matches are worked. Well, the Fuji Network executive, whose name I believe is Kie Hara, must have said that the reason they don't cover RINGS is because some of the matches are worked, which actually started the RINGS-Pancrase feud because Maeda responded to that, and then Yoshiki Takahashi at the last Pancrase show did the grandstand challenge to Maeda. Anyway, in the strangest twist of all, Hara this past week was forced by the network to write a public apology letter to Maeda and RINGS for that statement as I guess the Fuji Network has some sort of a policy about telling the truth (you have to apologize on the rare occasions you tell it). Speaking of Maeda, he did a major magazine interview this past week where he referred to himself as a pro wrestler and not a martial artist, which would be the first time in years he's used that term to describe himself. He also said that he would be retiring in 1998 and again talked about wanting to have his final match against George Foreman or Mike Tyson of which there is little or no chance of that happening. I'm not sure if this had anything to do with it, but Fuji Network was negotiating to air the 12/20 Pancrase show on prime time network television, which due to the exposure levels, would have changed the balance of power and been an incredible boost to the promotion, but the deal fell through. The last time SRS did a Pancrase show it did a 4.6 rating, which for a show that airs post-midnight on a weeknight is phenomenal. This may hurt the chances of Pancrase bringing in Tom Erikson for that show.
Pride One held a press conference on 9/24 for the Tokyo Dome show. We've heard a lot of conflicting reports on how ticket sales are doing but most reports seem to indicate the advance for this show is poor with less than 10,000 tickets having been sold. Rickson Gracie is in Japan training for the match and is said to be weighing 198 pounds, which is about 13 pounds more than he weighed for previous fights in Japan. Nobuhiko Takada is either training in secret or taking time off from training due to an injury. It's been reported he has a stomach injury and he didn't show up at the most recent Kingdom card on 9/20 where he was supposed to do an autograph signing. The injury could also be a cover story to give him an out in the event he loses badly."
and
"9/26 Sapporo Nakajima Sports Center (RINGS - 4,820): Yuri Corchikin b Malcolm Nae, Pete Williams b Joop Kasteel, Wataru Sakata b Valentine Overaim, Frank Shamrock b Tsuyoshi Kousaka, Akira Maeda b Andrei Kopilov, Kiyoshi Tamura b Volk Han"
and
"Mitsuya Nagai of RINGS had a kick boxing match on 9/28 at Korakuen Hall for All Japan Kickboxing but lost via decision to a 20-year-old American kickboxer."
and
"The IWF PPV show was shockingly banned in Canada by Viewers Choice of Canada. With no striking of any kind allowed, this will probably be the single least violent contact sport PPV event of the year but it appears that since Canada has a hard-on [Dave, please--ed.] for the promoters of the event since they were the same promoters of the now-defunct EFC that ran into all kinds of problems running that show on the Indian reservation in Quebec when the Canadian and Quebec government didn't want them in the country, that VC-Canada is banning the show. They held a press conference in Sioux City, IA during this past week and among others things, announced that the three judges for the show would be Kurt Angle, the 1996 Olympic gold medalist in wrestling, Russ Hellickson, the current wrestling coach at Ohio State (which produced Mark Coleman and Kevin Randelman) and a 1976 Olympic silver medalist and Gene LeBelle, the former long-time pro wrestler, announcer and promoter and in a later martial arts magazine incarnation, the toughest man in the world during his prime. The rules for this event and point scoring system favor the wrestlers above the submission fighters and were designed to favor the wrestlers in order to get the seal of approval of USA wrestling. Just like UFC, IWF is looking for approval from an outside agency to satisfy the written qualms of TCI Cable that the sport isn't independently regulated like pro boxing as its excuse to not carry NHB. Tsuyoshi Kousaka of RINGS, who faces Tom Erikson in the main event on the show, is currently in California training for the match at Lions Den. The tentative date for a second IWF PPV show is 1/31."
October 13, 1997:
"It also appears Pancrase and RINGS may be working together and all the grandstanding was setting the stages for this big angle. Or maybe they are still grandstanding. Pancrase had a press conference on 10/4 where Yoshiki Takahashi challenged Akira Maeda to a Vale Tudo match. Takahashi and Pancrase President Masami Ozaki said they would hold the match on neutral grounds, on an All Japan Kick Boxing Federation show (both Pancrase and RINGS have a loose affiliation with that group) and suggested dates that group has booked at Korakuen Hall between November and February as possibilities. Takahashi said that if Maeda doesn't respond to the challenge, that he would go to a RINGS house show and issue the challenge live. A note from last week. The SRS television producer who had to apologize to Maeda's name is Kunio Kiyohara, the top sports division executive at the Fuji television network, which is Japan's No. 1 network."
October 20, 1997:
"JAPANESE TELEVISION RUNDOWN
9/26 RINGS: 1. Youri Korchikin beat Malcolm Nay in 4:33 with an ankle lock. Match was a shoot, but nothing special; 2. Peter Williams beat Joop Kasteel in 8:32 when Kasteel simply quit out of exhaustion. Kasteel, who was the larger of the two, a juiced-up looking fighter from The Netherlands who seemed to be stronger on their feet, simply ran out of gas and collapsed in the middle of the ring. This was pretty clearly a shoot; 3. Wataru Sakata beat Valentine Overeem of The Netherlands in 2:16 with a ankle lock. It was a short match, also a shoot, but the finish was great; 4. Frank Shamrock beat Tsuyoshi Kousaka by a 1-0 score after they had gone the 30:00 time limit. This was probably the most exciting and grueling true shoot match since the Pancrase Bas Rutten vs. Masakatsu Funaki match last year. Mark Coleman vs. Maurice Smith was more dramatic because of the setting and the upset, but these were two evenly matched fighters, neither of whom blew up, who both combined good striking and great grappling skills. The only point scored was Shamrock's at 11:00 with a front guillotine where Kousaka got a rope break. Both had several near submissions during the match; 5. Akira Maeda beat Andrei Kopilov in 8:32 with a choke. After following four shoot matches, the intensity level was so different for a worked match it was obvious the difference. Still, it was a decent match; 6. Kiyoshi Tamura beat Volk Han in 12:48 with the armbar submission. Of course this was a worked match. RINGS style seems to be to put the shoot matches, because of their unpredictability and because they usually aren't entertaining (Shamrock vs. Kousaka was the exception, not the rule) on early and put great workers like Han or Tamura on last so the main event can be counted on to be good. When you put them against each other, you've pretty much got it guaranteed and this was the same type of excellent match as their previous two encounters. It may have actually been more dramatic because of the match, and the realistic looking knockdown kicks by Tamura, and the fact that unlike their previous bouts, he went over, by submission, in the end to a guy who had beaten "
and
"Wataru Sakata of RINGS and Masao Orihara will work the 11/5 Battlarts show at Korakuen Hall with Orihara challenging Minoru Tanaka for the UWA middleweight title."
and finally:
"The first, and perhaps last International Wrestling Forum PPV show was unique to say the least.
It was probably the greatest collection of athletes ever put together on one American wrestling or NHB PPV event. And it was just about the poorest attended and least exciting shows ever.
Before an estimated crowd of 250 fans in Sioux City, IA on 10/11, the latest brainchild of former EFC promoter John Peretti flopped due to poor planning, horrible production, no fans or interest, and rules eliminating striking which made the matches for the most part basically turn into sport Jiu-Jitsu.
The basic theme of the event was to use world-class wrestlers and match them against top-level submission experts. While the calibre of the fighters was good, the rules, largely due to trying to fit in given the current political climate, limited what they could do. And even with striking eliminated, not only did Viewers Choice in Canada pull out of carrying the event, but about 10 percent of the cable systems in the U.S. pulled out giving the excuses that the matches didn't have enough rules or that given the rules they expected the event to be too violent.
Given the letter by TCI to Semaphore Entertainment Group, using the lack of outside sanctioning as its excuse for not carrying UFC events, IWF formed a partnership with USA wrestling to be an outside sanctioning body to recognize the event. But after the show was over, with several post-show arguments, that partnership was very much threatened because the wrestling side was very disappointed that the wrestlers came out of the show not looking very good. That may be a moot point because the show wasn't expected to do any kind of a buy rate, and thus it's questionable whether they would attempt the second show tentatively scheduled for 1/31. In addition, the cable industry, largely due to political pressures, seems as a whole to be backing away from NHB, no matter how many rules are put in place as so-called safeguards, and even though this was promoted more as wrestling than NHB, in some cases it was still being painted with the same brush. While the sport was new for the U.S., it was basically the same rules as Japanese sports of Submission Arts Wrestling (SAW) and Combat Wrestling, neither of which have any real popularity.
Of the seven matches, five were basically similar. The wrestler would wind up on the top of the submission fighter, but being unable to strike, there wasn't much he could do from that position other than keep the position. The submission fighter would work for submissions from the bottom, but in most cases, without any luck, and the match would go the five round (three minute rounds) time limit. How decisions were rendered was just one of the numerous major flaws in the show.
No point scoring rules were announced to the crowd. During matches, point scoring rules were vaguely dispensed, but as the matches went on, viewers were given no idea if points had been scored. The idea was that there would be points for take-downs or throws, however the submission guys, to avoid the take-downs and throws, would simply grab the wrestlers and fall backwards to the ground and hold them in a guard. And for the most part, there the match would end. Dan Gable, the famed Olympic gold medalist, who did the announcing with Dave Bontempo and Peretti, was totally unfamiliar with the names and basics of submission, although to his credit, he appeared to be a quick learner as the show went on. But that was still no excuse to go in so unprepared that he didn't even know the names of the fighters, and continually would refer to RINGS' Tsuyoshi Kousaka as "The Japanese fighter." The production was really schlock, with just two camera shots. The pre-fight interviews were worse than atrocious, particularly lengthy interviews by Kousaka and Pedernarias in Japanese and Portuguese respectively with no translations whatsoever being offered.
The two matches that didn't go that way were really the only exciting matches on the show. Unlike most of the submission fighters, largely Brazilian Jiu Jitsu experts who fought a passive style from the bottom waiting for the wrestlers to make mistakes that just didn't happen, Frank Shamrock came out aggressively looking for the leg submission on two-time Olympic wrestler Dan Henderson, and made him tap from an ankle lock in 56 seconds. The win highly elevated Shamrock's stock in NHB. In the past many had questioned his success in Pancrase due both its different rules from NHB and also because many in that world question the legitimacy of Pancrase. Those who questioned his ability were given more ammunition when he lost a decision to John Lober in his first and only NHB match to this point. However in quickly making Henderson, coming off winning an NHB tournament in Brazil, tap out, he answered a lot of skeptics and SEG immediately became interested in putting him against Kevin Jackson to create UFC's first middleweight champion on the proposed 12/21 UFC show from the Yokohama Arena. The other pitted former EFC and Pancrase fighter Matt Hume, against Kenny Monday, the 1988 Olympic gold medalist in wrestling and generally considered very close to the top of the list of the best wrestlers of this generation. Monday went for a submission of his own, left his leg behind, and Hume took advantage with an ankle lock in just 45 seconds scoring what on paper would have to be considered a gigantic upset.
Kousaka, the other big-name pro wrestler on the show, battled Tom Erikson, the USA superheavyweight freestyle champion, for five rounds with Erikson getting the decision. No announcement was made as to why Erikson, who outweighed Kousaka 283 pounds to 217, got the decision, as even though he controlled the top position throughout the match, he did nothing while on top and Kousaka was continually working for submission and got him in two dangerous positions in the fifth round. Based on the scoring system, Erikson should have won the first round by momentarily passing the guard, and Kousaka should have won the fifth round with the near submissions, and the other three rounds, with nothing of note happening, should have been even rounds.
In the most dramatic match of the show, which actually took place before the PPV went on live but the final two rounds of which were inserted into the show on top, Carlos Newton, a Canadian Jiu Jitsu champion [a true man of true Ontarian judo and true Ontarian Japanese Jujitsu and a true martial artist and we love him--ed.] defeated former wrestling All-American Chris Barnes from Oklahoma by getting him in an armbar at 2:47 of round five, or just 13 seconds before the end of a match that Barnes largely controlled and appeared on the verge of winning an easy decision in. In other matches, Townsend Saunders, an Olympic competitor and World Cup silver medalist in freestyle wrestling, was awarded a 3-2 decision on points over Andre Pedernarias, a famed Brazilian Jiu Jitsu expert in a boring match. Wrestler Mike Van Arsdale was awarded a 3-0 decision over Brazilian Jiu Jitsu competitor Renato Verassimo, a late replacement for Igor Zinoviev, who had to cancel due to herniated discs in his back. The other results saw a surprise in that it went the time limit, but the Brazilian captured a 2-1 decision with Joao Roque beating 1996 Olympic silver medalist Dennis Hall in a match that surprisingly saw Roque reverse Hall and get his back."
OK THAT'S IT, I LOVED THIS SHOW and hope that I have been able to hint of its spirit to you despite the poverty of my art as I thank you once again for your time and for your attention to the matters addressed here in the name of RINGS.
No comments:
Post a Comment