September 21, 1998 in Yokohama, Japan
Bunka Gym drawing 4,170
AFTER ANOTHER REVOLTING AUSTRALIAN INTERLUDE WE RETURN TO YOKOHAMA FOR YET MORE FIGHTING INTEGRATION (this time the sixth one) AND WHY DELAY EVEN SLIGHTLY when we could instead attend at once to its promise of Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Yoshihisa Yamamoto as highlights of their improbable 12/21/96 "shoot" and Tamura's borderline-majestic triumph by tobi-juji-gatame 飛び十字固め flying arm-lock remind us of that glory. If their match here turns out to be a shoot, I will be no less stunned this time than last, I just don't see it (prove me wrong, guys!). RINGS Official Rankings this time around tell us the following: 10. Kopilov 9. Zouev 8. Naruse 7. Nijman (R.I.P.) 6. Vrij 5. Kasteel 4. Han 3. Kohsaka 2. Ilioukhine 1. Tamura with Champion:Tariel.
I have high hopes for this opening bout between Yasuhito Namekawa, who has only had good matches so far, and U-File Campist Ryuki Ueyama, who goes on to fight kind of forever, but who, it would seem, sensibly stopped doing that in 2014. Skimming through his record for his best win I think it might be a decision loss to young Kazuo Misaki at a Pancrase show in 2002? I do not say that dismissively in the least: Misaki was very good, and good for Ueyama for going the distance with him. We're still with five points to a TKO here in 1998 RINGS, if you had been wondering, except for when it is a thirty-minute bout and they decide to make it ten. Ueyama's second here is no less a U-Filist than Kiyoshi Tamura himself, arms folded on the canvas as he leans in, head low, quite handsome. I am not here to tell you how to feel but I am pretty sure that I feel, for my part, that this is a shoot, and also that it was good, and, finally, that Namekawa wins the fifteen-minute decision on points.
Kenichi Yamamoto and Lee Hasdell are next and Hasdell is kicking the knee. He shouldn't, in my view, because it's mean (this is my real belief, I am not being lighthearted [though I do feel lighthearted and merry right now generally]). Hey just the other night I finished watching the series of shows in which Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira (who will join us here in RINGS in time) travels all over to learn about different martial arts! It's called The 3rd Degree and it has episodes on wrestling, Muay Thai, judo, sambo, tae kwon do, and karate, and I think in order of greatness the shows go 1. judo 2. karate 3. tae kwon do (tie) 3. sambo (tie) 5. wrestling and 6. Muay Thai, but they are all ****+ (or at worst at worst ***3/4). He goes to Oklahoma, Thailand (I forget where, forgive me), Tokyo, Osaka, Okinawa, Seoul, Russia (again I forget where, I am monstrous) and brings with him his love of learning and his wonderful heart. In March, he spoke about the show on Wrestling Observer Radio with Bryan Alvarez and Dave Meltzer, and you can listen to that here. The series itself is on the UFC's streaming service, but if you wish to see it without materially supporting fascism there is at least one torrent of it out there (I know this factually) and I believe in you. Lee Hasdell, though he kneels and bows in I am sure sincere apology, has just punched Kenichi Yamamoto so hard in the face, in clear violation of the longstanding RINGS rule where you're not supposed to punch people in the face at all. He just came right over the top with it! That's a red card, and the loss of two points. Yamamoto is looking drug out as we approach the ten minute mark whereas Hasdell borders on sprightly as he oh dear as he palm-strikes Yamamoto to such an extent that the count is not answered and our winner at 10:56 is very much Lee Hasdell.
Wataru Sakata comes out in a soccer shirt that says OKANO 14 on the back and I have used internetcræft to determine that this is the shirt of Masayuki Okano, who, "[i]n the final qualifier match for France 98 against Iran, [...] scored the golden goal that brought Japan to their first ever World Cup finals.[2]" Also he had a kind of sex-energy in his Panini 1998 World Cup soccer sticker (I loved Panini hockey sticker books as a lad! they were better than cards; they were stickers):
He seems like a star, and I am sure attempts must have been made to bring him into RINGS based on his look and also his kicking (imagine it) but as far as I know it never happened (let's find out together). Here, Sakata, his shirt-admirer, is matched with Christopher Haseman in a rematch of a bout cut-off of the RINGS Australia tape I most recently denounced. I think this match is like extra-stiff shoot-style, but not shooting proper, and I know it is very good, and also that Sakata wins it at 12:21 with an iffy knockdown that cost Haseman his fifth and final point.
HIROMITSU KANEHARA IS THE BEST and Willie Peeters has slowly emerged to be the worst and also a dumb faker so it's hard to know whether or not to believe him when he claims to have been booted in the groin mere seconds in: the replay is inconclusive, and all we can see for sure is that Peeters was already being admonished by the referee for holding onto the top rope whilst kicking for some reason. Willie Peeters is a villain. Kanehara rides out Peeters' hip throw, takes the back, and digs in deep for a pretty gross and grinding hadaka-jime attempt; Peeters sensibly grabs the rope. He is charged with another rope escape when he hooks his arm over the top rope to avoid a takedown. I don't like him. Kanehara has bested him by hadaka-jime strangle at 6:57. Good.
Mikhail Ilioukhine vs. Tsuyoshi Kohsaka! Work or shoot, this should be great! Here comes TK now, pausing in prayer before entering the ring, as is his custom:
Kohsaka must be getting close to his next UFC fight, right? Yes, I have just now checked, and he is to fight Pete(y My Heart) Williams in São Paulo in less than a month (RINGStime) so we'll probably talk about it next time (RINGSblogtime) which is to say tomorrow (time as understood in the primary world). WHAT THE HEKK THAT WAS A TOBI-ASHI-SANKAKU-GARAMI or flying "omoplata" if you prefer that nomenclature, but either way what on earth:
IT IS WILD THAT THIS HAPPENED. Ilioukhine had caught one of Kohsaka's kicks and wasn't letting go of the leg (1), TK leapt up, in reply, I'm sure for a tobi-omote-sankaku-jime, a flying-front-triangle-choke (2, 3, 4), the very same waza that turned my old training partner Bryan's ear into just an ungodly mess of cauliflowering when a great ne-wazaist from New Brunswick I have long admired utterly cranked him in the side of the head with it at I think maybe I want to say Atlantics? Eastern Canadians? Something inter-provincial, surely. When Ilioukhine cannily slips under Kohsaka's soon-to-be-strangly right leg (5), Kohsaka works on the arm that is left to him (6) until Ilioukhine begins a forward roll to relieve the pressure (7). What else could TK have done once Ilioukhine was face down to the mat with his arm extended? Perhaps an Iatskevich roll, for the greatest finish to anything ever, if he could have gotten his right leg under and squared his hips to the mat en route to pointing them (his hips) towards Ilioukhine's feet and scissoring to force the roll, but that would be about it:
That first bit was so great and so heavy despite its flying entry that I totally thought this was a shoot for a minute (well a little less than a minute probably) but I am disabused of that notion by the ease of Ilioukhine's rolling hikikomi-gaeshi sacrifice throw. This is really really good though. I think we have talked about this before but I don't really understand Dave Meltzer's lack of enthusiasm for Ilioukhine's work? Like, he just went uchi-mata (inner thigh throw) to kani-basami (crab scissors) to hiza-juji (knee-bar) and it looked tremendous and the people were in; also Ilioukhine won some truly gross no-holds-barred matches in Russia, so he's upsettingly credible, I don't get it. He has just caught another of Kohsaka's kicks, but this time Kohsaka opts for a flying hiza-juji knee-bar instead of the flying sankaku-jime/ashi-garami like at first. It owns also.
A false note is struck when Ilioukhine kind of Northern-Lights-suplexes Kohsaka (it's not just me, the crowd does not react even slightly) but it is immediately rectified by Kohsaka's yoko-sankaku-jime as I reflect again on how it is weird that sankaku-jime is his Fire Pro finisher but I guess something has to be! Ilioukhine attacks with the major-inner-reap of ouchi-gari, and juji-gatame, too, and I wonder if this match is on Dailymotion or anything, you really should see this (apparently it is not). AH HA YES there's an Iatskevich roll from Kohsaka, I knew he had one in him somewhere. I don't even know where we are as regards time or rope breaks (ah ok they just said ten minutes passed) but I can tell you that they're playing with the ten-point rather than five-point rules (I don't know why but I support it). Three points each at 11:33, there, that I can also tell you. MAE-HADAKA-JIME FRONT CHOKE TK YOUR WINNER AT 12:00 AS ILIOUKHINE BURIES HIS FACE IN AN ICE-BAG THAT HAS THE BODY GLOVE LOGO ALL OVER IT. That was great!
If our main event of Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Yoshihisa Yamamoto can equal or surpass that last match I will be very pleasantly surprised indeed! Well, they're going like absolute hell and the people of Yokohama love them both, so far so good. A tidy koshi-waza or hip technique from Tamura, who doesn't throw often, but when he does, I usually like it a lot (other times I like it well). Yamamoto is still a perplexing figure to me, or maybe not "still" so much as "again," I don't know: when he started he had this great energy about him, then the surprisingly strong (in its way) showing against Rickson Gracie (so weird, right?) in the Vale Tudo Japan shoot was probably a very good thing for his standing in the RINGS but was, at least temporarily, ruinous for him æsthetically as he began to ape Rickson's stoicism, which did not suit Yamamoto even slightly; and then he was brutalized by Ricardo Morais, which didn't do him any good (how could that do anyone any good; it's terrible); and then when he went out with an injury a little while later his absence was not felt all that acutely, I am sorry to say; and then when he comes back all bleached and shorn for Maeda's retirement match it was like but why? All the while, he has remained really very good at shoot-style wrestling, like for example how he just escaped Tamura's omote-sankaku-jime triangle choke (from the front, as I have belaboured today, forgive me) to swing through for a hiza-juji knee-bar and the crowd lost it. That's the first rope escape and we're nearly seven minutes in! OH NO MY TAPE IS ABOUT TO RUN OUT oh ok it is not a tape but a disc of a tape of course and the last twenty minutes of the show are a separate file on the same disc and it is all working fine, I was worried over nothing. Yamamoto is all fired up! First he palm-strikes Tamura to the ground (that's two points), then sends him to the ropes to escape ashi-gatame leg-locks (that's two more) and he's now down by five! We're about twelve minutes in. Tamura's "selling" is so great, by the way, but you knew this, what am I doing. Tamura finally gets on the board with a knockdown off of a knee to the body (that's two) and then a kata-ashi-hishigi Achilles-hold for a rope break (that's one more).
The crowd likes this one very much and I cannot fault them. I notice for the first time Akira Maeda taking it all in in the corner in his nice red jacket:
Knockdowns abound! Tamura has lost eight points to Yamamoto's five! A minute or so later they're restarted on their feet due to inactivity but the crowd is roaring the whole time. HIZA-JUJI KNEE BAR TAMURAAAAAA oh man I didn't think Yamamoto was going to get out of that one but he did, he made the ropes! He didn't get out of the mae-hadaka-jime FRONTO-NECKU-LOCK at 18:52, though! Two great matches and some good ones before!
WHAT DID DAVE MELTZER SAY:
September 21, 1998:
"Kingdom announced its Re-birth show on 10/13 in Tokyo although who knows who is going to appear. Virtually every top Kingdom star has either gone to KRS, All Japan or RINGS and Yoji Anjoh, who went to K-1, is out for the rest of the year after breaking his leg. It is believed the top stars will be Koki Kitahara and Shooto heavyweight champ and former UFC competitor Ensen Inoue"
and
"RINGS 9/21 line-up for Yokohama Bunka Gym has Kiyoshi Tamura (who suffered a broken nose in his 8/28 match with Masayuki Naruse, although Naruse suffered a bad achilles tendon injury as well) vs. Yoshihisa Yamamoto, Ilioukhine Mikhail vs. Tsuyoshi Kohsaka, Naruse (if he's ready) vs. Hiromitsu Kanehara, Hazemann vs. Sakata (probably to return the favor for Hazemann winning in Australia), Lee Hasdell vs. Kenichi Yamamoto and Minoru Toyonaga vs. Yasuhito Namekawa in a rematch of one of the best shoot matches of the year."
and
"MMA: As far as a future of UFC, if there is one, seems dependent more upon co-promotions with foreign promoters. The 10/16 show is being partially financed by Globosport in Brazil, and if the show goes well, the feeling is Globo will make a long-term commitment (five shows) to UFC and Brazil would become its new home. But there are so many problems with running Brazil, but the potential of crowd problems and Brazil being yet another country in economic disarray (50% interest rates this week). At this point nobody is even hinting of a follow-up date and more and more of the fighters are talking about trying to get into pro wrestling. They are negotiating for Pete Williams vs. Tsuyoshi Kohsaka (although that would take place only one week before the start of RINGS' Battle Dimension tournament and Kohsaka is one of the top stars in the promotion) and Vanderlei Da Silva vs. Jeremy Horn matches to go along with what has already been apparently finalized. The situation with Mark Coleman is that he needed a cyst removed that was on a vein and he lost a lot of blood and it required him to miss a few weeks of training and it would be stupid to go into a fight under those circumstances."
and
"Pro wrestlers Yuhi Sano (facing Satoshi Honma) and Shunsuke Matsui (facing Sanae Kikuta), who are both from the Takada camp, have been added as prelims on the 10/11 KRS Tokyo Dome show. Also confirmed on the show are Gary Goodridge (9-6) vs. Igor Vovchanchin (22-1) and Akira Shoji (2-1-3) vs. Wallid Ismail (7-1). More reports from Los Angeles regarding Takada training continue to make the Rickson match seem like a million-to-one-miracle shot. Apparently even some of the beginners with less than one year of training are able to make him tap."
September 28, 1998:
Huge news!
"RINGS officially announced the new change in its annual Battle Dimension tournament that starts on 10/23 in Nagoya and ends on 1/23 at Tokyo Budokan Hall.
The tournament, which for years has been a 16-man singles tournament lasting four shows from October through the biggest show of the year in January at Budokan, has changed to a team format and has also resulted in yet more rule changes for RINGS.
In the sense of trying to book a more realistic product, and also have rules that make sense for genuine shooting matches of which close to half of the current RINGS matches are, during this tournament they are cutting down the allowable "near falls" once again, following the new rules Pancrase starts with on its next show which were largely taken from USWF rules formulated by Steve Nelson in Amarillo. The new rules will allow one rope escape and one knockdown, but the second of either will results in the end of the match.
The team format, pretty much unique to pro wrestling, will consist of eight three-man teams who will playoff against each other in a best two-of-three series leading to an overall team champion, as opposed to individual champion, at Budokan. In Nagoya on 10/23 will be the Japan A team (Yoshihisa Yamamoto, Hiromitsu Kanehara and Wataru Sakata) against Bulgaria (Todor Todorov, Vladimir Bekchev and Boris Juliaskov) and Russia A team (Volk Han, Ilioukhine Mikhail and Sergei Susserov) against Netherlands (Hanse Nyman, Dick Vrij and Joop Kasteel). In Osaka on 11/20 will have Australia (Christopher Hazemann, Dominque Deligny and Troy Ittensohn) against Gruziya (Bitaszde Tariel, Grom Zaza and Bitaszde Amilan) and Japan B team (Kiyoshi Tamura, Tsuyoshi Kohsaka and Masayuki Naruse) against Russia B team (Nikolai Zouev, Andrei Kopylov and Vladimir Klementiev). The winners go on the tournament semifinals on 12/23 in Fukuoka and the 1/23 finals. It appears the tournament is designed for a Russia A vs. Japan B finals at Budokan.
The singles Battle Dimension tournament, largely based on previous pro wrestling tournaments, was actually the model used by K-1 in creating its annual Grand Prix tournament since Kazuyoshi Ishii of K-1 worked in the front office for RINGS during its initial tournament. The feeling of breaking tradition with the tournament is just to try something new for the box office, combined with the fact that RINGS now has a world heavyweight title which it didn't have in years past for singles wrestlers to chase."
and
"9/21 Yokohama Bunka Gym (RINGS - 4,170): Yasuhito Namekawa b Ryuki Ueyama, Lee Hasdell b Kenichi Yamamoto, Wataru Sakata b Christopher Hazemann, Hiromitsu Kanehara b Willie Peeters, Tsuyoshi Kohsaka b Ilioukhine Mikhail, Kiyoshi Tamura b Yoshihisa Yamamoto. RINGS drew 4,170 on 9/21 in Yokohama with Kiyoshi Tamura beating Yoshihisa Yamamoto in the main event in 18:52 with a neck lock submission and Tsuyoshi Kohsaka over Ilioukhine Mikhail also with a neck lock in 12:00. The win means Tamura will get the next shot at the heavyweight title. I'd presume both of these were worked matches. Apparently the reason Kohsaka didn't win the title from Bitaszde Tariel on 7/20 is because he didn't sign a full-time contract with RINGS [this is amazing, I had never heard this--ed]. Kohsaka is now living in Seattle and training under Maurice Smith to improve his kickboxing because his goal is to win the UFC heavyweight title. He's working RINGS on a show-by-show basis rather then under a long-term contract, and there were even feelers in regards to him jumping to Pancrase but nothing happened as Pancrase only offered to match what he was making in RINGS so why jump? The legendary Russian wrestler Alexandre Karelin will be competing in Japan in October and RINGS is going to make a big play to bring him in, but he may be out of their price range."
and
Dave
gets
tape
of 8/28/98:
"8/28 RINGS: After a series of the best shows of the year, this was a step backwards as nothing was that good. 1. Yasuhito Namekawa beat Daniel Higgins of Australia in 14:28. This was a shoot. Higgins is very good standing but Namekawa kept taking him down and all he could do on the ground was defend. He was smart enough to stay near the ropes when he'd be taken down, and was able to get a break whenever Namekawa would lock him. Namekawa got four points on him before getting the ankle lock where Higgins couldn't make the ropes; 2. Hiromitsu Kanehara beat Grom Zaza. Kanehara is a good worker and can be in great matches with the right opponent, but Zaza is generally described as a Russian Dan Severn in that he's a fantastic amateur wrestler and can take someone down and hold them there and maintain control, but not much when it comes to working [an appalling position to take regarding either Severn or Grom--ed]. They laid out a good match with points going back-and-forth, but it just wasn't any good. Kanehara was ahead 5-4 before getting the choke for the finish. 1/2*; 3. Yoshihisa Yamamoto beat Nikolai Zouev in 13:30. This was the best worked match on the show and even it wasn't good. Yamamoto's matwork was good and he did a decent job of carrying Zouev, but Zouev didn't show much here when it comes to working ability. Zouev was ahead 4-1 when Yamamoto came back with a knockdown from open hand blows to make it 4-3. Finally Yamamoto used a half crab, and then made a great move into a choke for the submission. *3/4; 4. Wataru Sakata beat Kenichi Yamamoto via 2-1 score after the 20:00 time limit expired. This certainly appeared to be a shoot. It's also been speculated that Sakata was shooting but Yamamoto wasn't trying to win, because Yamamoto lost and he'd certainly be the favorite between the two in a shoot. Yamamoto lost a point quickly for an accidental low kick. Sakata got a second point with a choke in 10:10 but Yamamoto made it 2-1 with a choke in 15:17. It was a hard fought even match, although not that exciting as it was mainly ground work; 5. Bitaszde Tariel beat Volk Han in a non-title match in 4:06. It was good for what it was, but too short. Han scored three points immediately with two chokes and an ankle lock. Tariel came back with a knockdown with palm strikes, a second knockdown with palm strikes and when Han went down after a low kick, he ran out of points and the match was stopped. This was a good example of the new rules limiting the amount of points from ten to five, which is more realistic in a shoot, hurting a worked match because to keep it exciting with a guy like Tariel you have to do quick false finishes and you run out of points quickly. *1/4; 6. Kiyoshi Tamura beat Masayuki Naruse in 23:33. This was rare because RINGS main events are almost always works since at least you can control how the fans are sent home. This looked like a shoot [I really don't think so--ed.] because even when Tamura is working shoots, he still does his magic (quick spins and pivots and his showy stuff both standing and on the ground) and this was a dull, but very real looking match mainly on the mat. In that sense you have to credit Tamura because he was giving up 22 pounds (213 to 191) and still dominated. The first point wasn't even scored until 14:52. Tamura's second point at 16:45 came with an ankle lock and Naruse was injured and the match was stopped. It was interesting at that point, because Naruse was hurt but he wanted to continue and they stopped it for a while and the doctor ruled he could go. After the match Naruse heavily criticized the ref in print almost saying that the ref, who came from a UWFI background, didn't understand officiating shoots and didn't break the rope escapes fast enough and that's why he got hurt. However, at that point Naruse made a quick comeback with an ankle lock for a point which is possible in reality but unlikely. At that point Tamura took over scoring two quick points to go ahead 4-1. Tamura took a shot in the nose and actually broke his nose at this point near the top although he didn't go down from it and it wasn't the typical bloody broken nose you see in wrestling. Since this was a 30:00 time limit main event, they allowed ten points instead of five, although to show just how confusing that is to everyone and not just those of us who don't understand Japanese and are trying to figure out what's going on, the ring announcer himself when Tamura got his fourth point said that Naruse had only one point left. Tamura locked him, knocked him down with a kick, and was finally ahead 8-1 before getting the tap with another ankle lock in the middle. There is also speculation the match was a shoot until Tamura suffered the broken nose, and at that point they were both hurt and worked the last four minutes [this makes absolutely no sense to me--ed.], although there was nothing in the last four minutes other than a lot of quick points that would indicate a change as Tamura still didn't do his crowd pleasing stuff. Definitely a match that would only appeal to hardcore shoot fans as it was long, largely boring and only very brief flurries standing and no spectacular matwork since it appeared to be one of those cautious tactical shoots [I thought it was an excellent shoot-style match!--ed.]. There is dissension in RINGS right now because a lot of the younger wrestlers want to change it more toward pure sport, throwing in things to cut down the injury rate while making it shoot [I get so confused when Dave talks about shoots that have worked elements in them; it is always so unclear to me how that would actually work for the athletes and I can make no sense of it (I love it though)--ed], but Maeda is reluctant to go totally in that direction on the correct belief that over the long-term, doing almost all shoots will, both due to the lack of ability to control things and the top guys will lose too frequently to remain special, and also because the matches will become less entertaining, will be disastrous for the company. The wrestlers, who are around each other and probably the hardcore fans who praise the shoots, probably get a different idea."
Well that was some tremendous WHAT DID DAVE MELTZER SAY, wasn't it? It is too bad that we'll get through all of the RINGS shows (if we are spared) well before the Observer archives are brought up-to-date through early 2002, but my plan is still to just go ahead with all of the shows (obviously) and then update the entries as the Observers go up. But it won't be quite the same, will it. IN ANY EVENT let us reconvene soon to speak more on these matters; let me first thank you once more for your time and your attention.
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