RINGS 6/27/98: FIGHTING INTEGRATION 4th

Fighting Integration 4th
June 27, 1998 in Tokyo, Japan
NK Hall drawing 4,240

WORLD MARTIAL ARTS EXCELLENCE it says on the tag of my Fushida judogi (their "Icon" model in the "lean" cut is as much of a Mizuno Eurocomp as we are ever likely to know again in this our benighted post-Eurocomp era [R.I.P. Mizuno Eurocomp; I believe I had no fewer than five of your kind over the years including the three I bought Elaine-buying-sponges-style when I heard they were discontinued {Fuishda really does make great judogis though and shipping from Vancouver is not that bad}]) and what I would suggest to you now is that the Fighting Network we have come to know as RINGS offers very much that same thing; my hope is that, given the amount of time we have now spent together addressing this subject, we will be able to agree on at least that much, you and me, but if you remain as yet unconvinced, perhaps you will be swayed by how this one has the greatest professional wrestling match ever contested on it? For this is RINGS 6/27/98: Fighting Integration 4th, site of Kiyoshi Tamura vs.Tsuyoshi Kohsaka, a bout that I addressed at considerable length (forgive me) when we began. In that piece, I suggested that Wallace Stevens had watched this match, and that in one corner he saw "Kiyoshi Tamura, beautiful would-be ace, highest-born of any boar-fierce prince, generous of holds and niggardly of cowardice, noble of mien. In the other, Tsuyoshi Kohsaka, whom all name one who knows much well." It went on like that, or very much like it, for six-thousand words (please do not stop forgiving me). My approach this time will be different, in that I intend to be briefer, and to mention Leo Burke less frequently, although I can promise little. 

We begin with highlights of a packed 6/20/98 Korakuen Hall that does not exist as its own tape but is instead included on the tape that is this tape (in fact a disc) but that carried the worthy name BATTLE GENESIS Vol. 4. We are shown first Tsuyoshi Kohsaka defeat Kenichi Yamamoto by hiza-juji knee-bar at 9:19; then, Hiromitsu Kanehara over Wataru Sakata by juji-gatame at 0:56 of the second round; Yasuhito Namekawa and Minoru Toyonaga are revealed to have fought to a time-limit (fifteen-minute) draw; I can tell you, too, thanks to the results posted at the estimable prowrestlinghistory.com, that Akihiro Gono bested Tomoki Kanuka by technical knockout at 2:27 of the first, and that Masayuki Naruse forced Daniel Higgins to yield at 10:46. I would that there were more tape! Photos of the RINGS Australia debacle (æstethically) that we derided briefly the other night. Our prefatory matters close, fittingly, with the RINGS Official Rankings, which position at 10. Kopilov 9. Zouev 8. Naruse 7. Nijman 6. Vrij 5. Kasteel 4. Han 3. Kohsaka 2. Ilioukhine 1. Tamura CHAMPION Bitsadze Tariel.  

Yasuhito Namekawa has about him the look of the yungmost young boy as he readies himself for the hulking Troy Ittensohn of RINGS Holland:

Although Namekawa fought to that draw mentioned a moment ago at the Korakuen Hall show mentioned that same moment (ago) this is our first proper look at him, and honestly the first I have ever heard of him but I will search to see what I can learn. Ah ok so he has like a million fights in RINGS and then also DEEP; he was stopped by Shogun Rua on a Pride Bushido show, and fought Katsuyori Shibata to a draw in his final contest (Namekawa's, not Shibata's). Three minutes into this totally solid shoot, Namekawa scores first with a juji-gatame that forces Ittensohn to the ropes. Looking at his record a little more, he was also Wallid Ismail's last fight (Inoki Bom-Ba-Ye 2002), and Namekawa went the distance in the loss, so it is fair to say, I think, this unimposing fellow can græpple. He certainly has in round one, which has drawn to its five-minuted close. As to striking, a subject on which no one should ever take me even slightly seriously for a second, Namekawa gets the best of that, too, as he lands a pretty solid head-kick early in the second. Knees put Ittensohn down at 1:43 as the referee waves it off. Good fight! Young lion Yasuhito Namekawa is legit.

There are these little steps now that the fighters come down as they enter, and I am pretty sure this is the first time Tokyo Bay NK Hall has been set up this way? I have just now learned that NK Hall closed in 2005, and that it had only been open since 1988. Isn't that strange? Wataru Sakata vs. Willie Peeters is our present situation, and now that I am no longer uploading these shows to Youtube (there were complaints from an agent of RINGS and I of course complied [un-non-compliance is my calling card]) I do not have to concern myself with the persistent claims regarding the (excellent) Willie Peeters Blzck Box song. Willie Peeters, we have come to know, is just a complete asshole, and so it should come as no surprise that he and his increasingly goony tattoos made a big show of coming over to Sakata's corner to, I don't know, say some things and look at him in a dumb aggressive way before their match. I hate stuff like that. Like, they're already going to have a martial arts fight, right? Are they now going to extra have one? Fvkkoff, Willie Peeters, nice job complaining to the referee about some nonsense instead of warding off Sakata's TK Scissors sweep into kata-ashi-hishigi. I have no idea what he's even complaining about. Now he's taking it up with Maeda! Is he complaining he was heel hooked? Has heel hooking been banned? If so, I support that ban (we have talked about my feelings about heel holds before), but this was a straight Achilles lock, and Peeters was already complaining during the sweep. I have gone from liking Willie Peeters very much at the outset of our time together to really thinking very little of him as a sportsman. I do not say any of that lightly and take no pleasure in it but there you go, I am a shooter shooting a shoot and I cannot be contained. 

YES, HIROMITSU KANEHARA, YES:    

I LOVE HIM. Here he is set to do (shoot?[style?]) battle against the comically taller Sander MacKilljan:

Kanehara gets push-kicked from pretty much the other side of the ring and decides a takedown is in order (for he is wise). I am not sure how much ne waza this extremely tall fellow has but he does scramble well enough to end up in some weird places before Kanehara finishes with juji-gatame at 3:25 and then he is so happy:

I LOVE HIROMITSU KANEHARA. 

Hans Nijman (R.I.P. he is with Our Lord Christ and all His saints [maybe]) is in next with Vladimir Klementiev who is nearly Hans Nijman's size and yet not quite. Klementiev is throwing the shoot-style karate kicks we long to see of a man in gi-pants and an excessively long black belt and yet no dogi. My thoughts turn to an old training partner who returned to the mats after years away and in his absence he had "packed on the pounds" such that when he returned his black belt was really very short indeed and few (if any, I don't exactly recall) of the letters in his name--embroidered, as they were, upon that selfsame obi--could even be seen beyond the square knot. In time, as he got way less fat (he had gotten so fat), his name re-emerged. It was neat! I haven't seen him in years so who knows where things now stand. (I am not a name-embroiderer, I like an unadorned belt [it is ok if it says "Mizuno" or something], but some people like to have them [not me though]). Hans Nijman wins with a fairly gross hadaka-jime strangle at 4:44.  

Masayuki Naruse defends his RINGS Light-Heavyweight Championship that I am still not even slightly convinced should exist against Kenichi Yamamoto; Naruse actually has the belt with him here, and the kind-looking white-haired man in the red jacket speaks before the match. Yamamoto hits TK Scissors! That is the second TK Scissors of the night and we are not even to to TK-proper yet! Even aside from the scissors, this is a very pleasant ne-waza-heavy shoot-style affair, and I delight in it. An ude-garami first entangled and then straightened into a state of ude-hishigi-ude-gatame 腕挫腕固 (arm crushing arm hold!) sees Masayuki Naruse retain his belt (ps dismantle it). Maeda, leaning forward at ringside, listens attentively to his post-match words. 

OK NOBODY FREAK OUT but this next one is the best shoot-style professional wrestling match ever and also and indeed therefore (this follows quite logically) the best professional wrestling match ever. Like a fair number of RINGS matches from this period (as well you know), this one always gets listed as a full-on shoot, and if that were true, it would instead be the best fight ever, but no, it is not that, it is the other thing. Again, an excessive (in any number of ways) consideration of this, my favourite match, can be found at this link; here, now, I choose to just see about it. Tamura comes to the ring once more with his U-STYLE t-shirt tied off in the corner to make it fit tighter and I enjoy the extent to which he employs a feminine technique or waza to reveal his near-ideal physical masculinity. Is Kiyoshi Tamura making you rethink gender things? I bet he is. The bell rings both at Tokyo Bay NK Hall and also in my heart. Ah, the first takedown is kind of scrambly, and Kohsaka takes the back with such weight, hooks-in, none of these new turtle-attacks where you pinch your knees at their hips and start rolling before a single hook has been set (speaking of being set I am set in my ways, I am too old to learn). If these newer, faster, and yeah ok probably better rolling entries against the turtle come to dominate, what will become of all of your guys off at the side of the mats yelling hooks, hooks every time you have even an instant's opportunity to attack the back? Judo will sound different, and I will not allow it. TK SCISSORS FROM KESA-GATAME and the tangle of a yoko-sankaku-jime (side triangle choke) that is not there and so a switch to juji-gatame, this match does not take long to get high-level. Tamura just koshi-kiri/hip-cut his way through TK's "TK Guard" guard (the TK guard-guard [nobody really knows what this is]) and dropped his hip to the mat in the (newly-Kodokan-recognized-as distinct!) reverse scarf-hold of ushiro-kesa-gatame in what is I think the best use of Tamura's unreal (in both senses) quickness in his whole career of being unreal-quick. 

These leg-locks, though, these ashi-gatame: they are endless, and because I do not know the names for all of them, nameless. Oh man I can feel the TK Scissors coming, Tamura is sitting up arrogantly in tate-shiho-gatame, it has to happen yes it happened before I finished the sentence and I suppose that maybe I did not so much read the moment as remember the moment, in that I have watched this match really a bunch of times (I don't know how many).  Kohsaka's rolling juji-gatame was so pure and yet it got so stacked. We addressed this stacking and how to deal with it at the club just last night: a young lion of great promise attacked with juji-gatame from beneath, and I stacked him and asked "ok, what you would do right now if suggested you finish 'out the backdoor'" and he went one way and I said "ok, that would be the front door" and then we all worked on it together as a class later (our head instructor does this so beautifully, I was so pleased to have cause to ask him to teach this precise movement again). Every one of the high-level and emotionally gripping waza thus far have been escaped or countered, I should note; not a single one gets rope-escaped until, well ok, until Tamura just grabbed a rope almost fourteen minutes in. Everything has been worked into and worked out of with the highest degree of credibility. Like, even if this wasn't a legitimately gripping work of art that thrilled the thousands in attendance and then the literally several dozen other people who traded for the tape, like even if this had no emotional resonance at all (this is absurd to even imagine but please try just for an instant), just on a purely technical level of sheer græppling this is the best that we have ever managed in the vast and ageless halls of pretending to fight but not really fighting. But what I have just asked you to do, to consider these elements independently, is itself a falsehood: it is not so much real techniques + real emotion in simple sum that we seek, is it, my weird friends, so much as the real emotion that arises from real techniques, and just as importantly, and maybe even primarily (both i] hierarchically, and, paradoxically [dialectically?] or at least counter-intuitively, ii] maybe also chronologically, like in the way that Lyotard insisted that a work [perhaps also a shoot, he does not go into it] can only be modern if it is first postmodern in the Report on Knowledge] the real techniques that arise from real emotion. It is entirely possible, even likely, that I have said absolutely nothing just now but man I am feeling all kinds of things watching this match! 

I think my favourite part in the whole match, at least the last few times I've watched it, comes at sixteen minutes when Tamura loses his second point grabbing the ropes to escape a hiza-juji knee-bar, and Kohsaka stands and raises one finger to the crowd for maybe three seconds before fixing his gaze back on Tamura, and the crowd is like hwaaaaaaiiiiii. I have tried to screen-cap it a couple of ways and it just looks like nothing when it is separated from the sound and I guess just the movement but it is a remarkable moment of connecting with people (I am people). It is wrong to say that the pace is picking up, because the pace has bordered on incredible throughout, but the rate of scoring picks up around twenty minutes in as they trade juji-gatame escapes, and Tamura puts Kohsaka down with hard slaps. This camera shot really jumps out at me this time, I feel like I have never seen them shoot from this angle before:

It anticipates PRIDE more than it belongs truly to the WOWOW era, right? 

It would be wrong to say that the crowd really gets into it when Kohsaka escapes a hiza-juji knee-bar that turns into an ashi-dori-garami (figure-four-toe-hold), because they have been shrieking at all the appropriate times throughout, but now that we're about twenty-five minutes in, every rope break weighs more heavily. OH SHIT HARAI-GOSHI:

But it's an overthrow, Tamura rolls through and comes up on top! Kohsaka's first throw took twenty-five minutes and it was an overthrow! But it is Kohsaka who sends Tamura to the ropes to escape juji-gatame! The crowd is just constant now. They're pretty sure it's the end when Kohsaka rolls Tamura through with a sutemi-waza (sacrifice technique) from a mae-hadaka-jime front-choke and holds position (and the strangling!) whilst Tamura searches for the ropes with his toes. My goodness. Kohsaka tries another hip throw but slips off (they are so sweaty) and attacks instead with a rolling hiza-juji knee-bar (once again I really do recommend doing rolling knee-bars with your friends, it's really a great pleasure) and the sequence that follows is pretty much outlandish: Tamura tate-shiho-gatame, Kohsaka TK Scissors, Tamura juji-gatame, Kohsaka hiza-juji, Kohsaka ashi-dori-garami, Kohsaka hiza-juji, TAMURA HADAKA-JIME, KOHSAKA HIZA-DORI-GARAMI (Tamura is too wise to cross his ankles; but he left one too deep; he is only human), TAMURA JUJI-GATAMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE and there's the bell. It's all just too much, we are left reeling. Maeda brings the scores over to the timekeeper's table. The ice-bags are from Body Glove. I don't know what to say. Kohsaka is to his feet first, although none too quickly. The crowd. The fighters. Their fellowship. My dumb heart. 

You can watch it here if you would like.
WHAT DID DAVE MELTZER SAY:

June 29, 1998: 

"6/20 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (RINGS - 1,880 sellout): Akihiro Gono b Tomoki Kanuka, Yasuyito Namekawa d Minoru Toyonaga, Hiromitsu Kanehara b Wataru Sakata, Masayuki Naruse b Daniel Hingis, Tsuyoshi Kohsaka b Kenichi Yamamoto. RINGS ran 6/20 at Korakuen Hall with a minor show drawing a sellout 1,880 with Tsuyoshi Kohsaka going over Kenichi Yamamoto in 9:15 with a kneebar on top. RINGS has a major show on 6/27 at Tokyo Bay NK Hall with Kohsaka vs. Kiyoshi Tamura on top."

July 6, 1998:

"6/27 Tokyo Bay NK Hall (RINGS - 4,240): Yasuhito Namekawa b Troy Ittenson, Wataru Sakata b Willie Peeters, Hiromitsu Kanehara b Killian, Hanse Nyman b Vladimir Kuramenchev, Under 209 pounds title: Masayuki Naruse b Kenichi Yamamoto, Kiyoshi Tamura d Tsuyoshi Kohsaka 30:00. OTHER JAPAN NOTES: RINGS ran 6/27 at Tokyo Bay NK Hall before 4,240 fans in a 7,000-seat building, a figure that has to be a big disappointment since the main event was Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Tsuyoshi Kohsaka, the two top Japanese stars of the promotion, and they went to a 30:00 draw. Ever since Tamura got obliterated by Valentijn Overeem, his drawing power has taken a major hit and they needed him strong because with Akira Maeda retiring soon, Tamura was the most charismatic and biggest mainstream name left in the promotion. Masayuki Naruse retained his under-209 pounds title beating Kenichi Yamamoto in 11:07 with an armlock submission. In an undercard match, Wataru Sakata gained revenge beating Willie Peeters in just 1:45 with an ankle lock after the ridiculous match they had in Holland in February where the ref was so blatantly favoring Peeters and overlooking his fouls (and at one point refused to accept Sakata as the winner after Peeters tapped out from a facelock calling it an illegal move) that Sakata basically quit. In Holland it was ruled as Peeters winning but all the Japanese press because of how ridiculous it was reported the result back home as a no contest. The next show will be 7/20 at Yokohama Arena with Akira Maeda in either his last match or next to last match of his career against Yoshihisa Yamamoto, plus Bitzsade Tariel defends the RINGS world heavyweight title against Kohsaka, which should be a title change, Volk Han vs. Kenichi Yamamoto and Tamura vs. Sakata. Originally this card was to feature a Tamura vs. Overeem rematch, but it was canceled with no explanation given. After that will be 8/28 in Niigata with Han vs. Tariel and Tamura vs. Naruse already announced." 

and

"Tsuyoshi Kohsaka is scheduled to move to Seattle full-time in August to train with Maurice Smith and is trying to dedicate himself more toward MMA rules than RINGS rules."

July 13, 1998:

"Kenichi Yamamoto of RINGS opened up his own Gym called Power of Dream Gym on 7/1."

and

"It looks as though Akira Maeda's retirement match will be against Nobuhiko Takada. Not all that long ago, that match would have easily sold out the Tokyo Dome, but considering that Takada is probably going to get drubbed again by Rickson Gracie in October and if the two do a match it's after the Gracie match, it probably won't have anywhere that kind of box office. They started the angle where Takada officially challenged Maeda and have gotten the magazines to start building the match up."

July 20, 1998:

A reader writes (in part):

"I'm amazed that Pride can still be in existence after the poor houses for their last two shows. From the photos of the Nobuhiko Takada vs. Kyle Sturgeon match, you could tell it was a work. Kazushi Sakuraba's domination of Carlos Newton is not that surprising when you consider that Sakuraba came in with at least a 30 pound weight advantage. Both men have similar skill, but most insiders felt it would come down to Sakuraba's weight advantage. Also, Sakuraba won with a kneebar, not an armbar.

It is sad the way RINGS has taken a nosedive in attendance. Just two months ago they sold out 7,600 in Osaka. Of course, that was the show with the now infamous Valentijn Overeem vs. Kiyoshi Tamura match. Actually, if you think about it, that was the RINGS equivalent of the Shawn Michaels vs. Bret Hart match in that it changed the course of RINGS forever.

Jonathan D'Antoni
Bellerose, New York

DM: Don't believe fictitious weights. Sakuraba's weight edge over Newton was closer to five or ten pounds. Newton was 177 at the last UFC and looked the same here. I bumped into Sakuraba that same night at a Subway Sandwich shop and he was much smaller than you'd think, I'd guess 180-185 and he didn't look any different in the match. Both men are tremendous technical fighters for their weight."

August 3, 1998:

Dave 

gets 

tape:

"6/29 RINGS: 1. Yasuhito Namekawa in his pro debut beat Troy Ittenson in 6:43. As with most RINGS openers, this was a shoot match. It's interesting because RINGS almost telegraphs the shoots from the works because the shoot matches have two five minute rounds and the worked matches are like traditional pro wrestling with 30 minute time limits. Namekawa dominated the entire match. In the first 5:00 round, Namekawa scored a point getting a rope escape with an armbar and Ittenson voluntarily gave up a second point as he was being worked over on the ground and grabbed the rope to get a stand-up. Since RINGS allows more lost points than Pancrase and some of the Europeans aren't that great on the ground, you'll see people voluntarily give up points on occasion to get a stand-up. Namekawa wound up with a bloody nose during the round. In the second round, Namekawa scored a third point with another rope break from an armbar. Namekawa stunned Ittenson with a high kick and followed with a flurry of palms but couldn't put him down. Ittenson gave up a fourth point with another rope break and by this time he also had a bloody nose. Namekawa staggered Ittenson again with a series of palm blows standing and connected on a hard knee to the chin for the knockout finish. Really good opener, especially since it was a shoot; 2. Wataru Sakata beat Willie Peeters in 1:45 in a grudge match. This was the return match from February from Amersterdam, Holland where the Holland ref basically overruled a Sakata win via a tap-out finish claiming the facelock was an illegal move, and then allowed Peeters to blatantly foul and continually go after the eyes until Sakata basically quit in protest. Peeters was ruled the winner in the arena and in Holland, but the Japanese ruled it a no contest. The tension was unbelievable between the two as Sakata wouldn't even make eye contact with Peeters before the match. The drama beforehand overshadowed the match itself, where Sakata grabbed Peeters ankle, and Peeters immediately started complaining about a heel hook, which is illegal in RINGS, Sakata wrenched the hold and Peeters tapped. This time it was Peeters complaining to the Japanese commissioner, Akira Maeda about the illegal move. The ref (former 70s pro wrestler Shoji Kai) told Maeda it was an ankle lock and not a heel hook and was a legal hold and that is what it certainly appeared to be. Sakata wouldn't shake Peeters hand after the match. It was short, but it looked to be a shoot; 3. Hiromitsu Kanehara beat Sander McKiljan in 3:26. McKiljan is a 6-7 1/2, 240 pound kickboxer and when he went to the ground, you could see he could wrestle a little as well, although he was nowhere near Kanehara's level on the ground. McKiljan tried to throw to the knee to the chin as Kanehara went for a takedown which has become a very successful strategy for tall kickboxers to use on shorter ground specialists (Kanehara is 5-9 1/2, 209). He threw the knee but Kanehara basically took the blow and came out of it with the leg and went for an ankle lock but McKiljan made the ropes. Kanehara got him on the ground again and got an armbar for the tap out. This was also a shoot and an interesting match; 4. Hans Nyman beat Vladimir Klementiev in 4:44. Even this wasn't bad as the matches between two Europeans are often the worst ones in RINGS because they are often works and not good works either. Nyman got a point for a rope break on a choke. Klementiev knocked Nyman down with two knees but was given a yellow card because he threw the second knee on Nyman before Nyman made it to his feet. Nyman went down another time after really stiff kicks and palms. Klementiev actually tried an enzuigiri during the match. Right after he attempted that move, Nyman got him in a choke in the middle for the tap out. The blows were really stiff and it was a good match whatever it was. 5. Masayuki Naruse retained the RINGS under-95 kilogram (209-pound) championship beating Kenichi Yamamoto, the former pro wrestler with the Golden Cups trio a few years back in 11:07. This was a worked match but was also pretty good for the style except for one spot where almost everyone in the building saw through it. Naruse caught what would have been a killer head kick early. Naruse scored a point at 4:45 with a front guillotine. There were a lot of near submissions, and at 10:00 the two had a great standing flurry before Naruse got the submission with a straight armbar; 6. Kiyoshi Tamura and Tsuyoshi Kohsaka went to a 30:00 draw. I'd been told ahead of time that this was a ***** match and I'd agree with that rating and label as the best match of 1998. This match wouldn't get over with fans who don't know the style, but the reason I'd say it was the best match of the year is that within its particular style (the worked shoot), it was the best match I've ever seen and I can't say any other match this year would come close to that statement based on its particular style. It's funny because some people don't consider RINGS as a traditional style of pro wrestling, but this match is really just a more modernized and advanced version of the 70s Dory Funk Jr. vs. Jack Brisco matches than almost anything of the past two decades in that they work a believable style and don't work a crowd at all but spend the match eyeing each other and working the match. Many people consider those matches as something of a standard for the best of traditional pro wrestling. And since the people live knew what it was they were doing, it had almost the level of intensity in the last few minutes of an overtime in an NBA playoff game. It was a class above Misawa-Kawada at the Dome even though you are talking apples vs. oranges in a comparison and the latter match had more heat particularly in the last three minutes. In RINGS, as a general rule, although this is changing because people are figuring out the pattern, the worked matches have frequent points scored to make them exciting while points a harder, obviously, to score in a true shoot. So since they were going so long and in an attempt to give the match credibility, they didn't even score a point until 13:35 which under the style unless people believe it's real is a risky attempt because under most circumstances it would come across as boring, particularly since it was almost entirely on the mat before the first point was scored. The first 12:00 were all on the mat, but it was so unbelievably great technically and Tamura's quickness on the ground was incredible that it was great. As mentioned, this part of the match wouldn't get over as well in some environments although I believe it would have gotten over with any Japanese crowd and real hardcore U.S. crowds because I've recently seen similar attempts at building that weren't half as good get over of late in Japan, the U.S. and even Mexico in their long singles stip matches. The matwork was so advanced and credible that it made Dean Malenko on the mat look like Jim Duggan. Seriously, these two, Tamura in particular, did expose just how hilarious the idea that Malenko is the best technical wrestler in the business really is, and that's no knock at Malenko because he is great but the bar has been raised. They finally got to their feet and Tamura caught a kick from Kohsaka with his hands and took him down and went for a kneebar, but Kohsaka reversed him into a cross heel hook on the mat and Tamura grabbed the ropes for the first point. The energy expenditure from all the quick matwork was incredible and they grabbed a momentary breather, but Kohsaka scored a second point at 16:04 with an ankle lock. Tamura got an armbar for a rope escape to make it 2-1 at 18:23. Both guys were really tired standing up although it ended up adding drama to the match by the finish. Kohsaka went up 3-1 with a rope break from an armbar at 20:04. After a great standing flurry, Tamura knocked Kohsaka down and Kohsaka barely beat the ten count for a two-point knockdown tying the score. After another hot standing flurry, Kohsaka avoided the knockdown by going low for a takedown but Tamura reversed him. Tamura ended up standing hitting three straight kicks and a guillotine choke to go ahead 4-3 at 24:04. Tamura went up 5-3 with a kneebar and rope break. Both guys were exhausted by this point and I don't think the exhaustion was as much selling as reality, but it played into the drama. Kohsaka made it 5-4 with an armbar at 26:06 and tied the score at 5-5 with a guillotine at 27:10. The intensity was tremendous with the story of two warriors fighting for the last point with three minutes left. Just before the finish, Tamura got Kohsaka in position for a choke and was working it and got it on but the bell rang basically saving Kohsaka. Easily from start to finish the best RINGS show of the year but I wouldn't go so far as to rate is as the card of the year overall because UFC and even WCW have so much better top-to-bottom balance and WWF, which doesn't have good undercard but puts on "shows" and great main events, not making any pretense of legitimacy, has so much more when it comes to storyline dimensions."

This is, I believe, a high-point in Dave's taste level.  

OK thanks everybody, that was fun! Now that we've talked about the best match ever (once more), let's talk about some other ones again soon! Thanks again for your time!