February 26, 2000 in Tokyo, Japan
Buodokan Hall drawing 13,000
Heavyweight:
1. Igor Vovchanchin
2. Pedro Rizzo
3. Mark Kerr
4. Carlos Baretto
5. Kevin Randleman
6. Tsuyoshi Kohsaka
7. Pete Williams
8. Enson Inoue
9. Francisco Bueno
10. Maurice Smith
Middleweight:
1. (tie) Frank Shamrock
2. (tie) Kazushi Sakuraba
3. Bas Rutten
4. Tito Ortiz
5. Ebeneezer Braga
6. Allan Goes
7. Akira Shoji [tremendous pick--ed.]
8. Jeremy Horn
9. Dan Henderson
10. Vitor Belfort
Lightweight:
1. Jose "Pele" Landi Jons
2. Pat Miletich
3. Carlos Newton
4. Hayato Sakurai
5. Flavio Moura
6. Nilson Castro
7. Alexandre Barros
8. Milton Bahia
9. Mikey Burnett
10. Claudio Luiz Dores
"The man who whipped Tim Lacjik and Kimo Leopoldo and decisioned Pete Williams also gave Rutten all he could handle," Quadros writes of TK. All true! But he has fought an absurd schedule against high-level competition and been worn down this last year to an extent that I do not hesitate to declare woeful. Mercifully, Kohsaka is not booked on this card, and not because he was off fighting under even more brutal rules somewhere else. Rest up please TK!
AND WITH THAT BEHIND US let us turn now to the live WOWOW broadcast that has become customary when it is time for the annual tournament finals; no two-hour window for a pre-taped show here, we are going super long! Two slightly wacky characters who we have encountered at least a couple of times previously but who are neither Kenichi Takaynagi nor Hideyuki Kumakubo welcome us to the 日本武道館 Nippon Budōkan as the beat to what was once known (a lifetime ago!) as the RINGS rap plays (sans lyrics) whilst the card is announced and the fighters parade.
Unsurprisingly the focus is extremely on Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Renzo Gracie, and it is deeply unlikely that many of the readers of this blog (thank you once again, I must say) will be unfamiliar with the result of this bout but how recently have you watched it? If you are anything like me, and my strong suspicion if you are here right now is that you are at least a little, it has been for sure ten years or more, or maybe never; maybe you have only ever heard of it. Ah, excellent, here now are Kenichi Takayanagi and Hideyuki Kumakubo, joined by Hiromitsu Kanehara and someone else also. The parade of fighters is still going on, and Tamura gets a huge ovation from what sounds like a pretty huge Budokan crowd. Volk Han takes the microphone to address the crowd, and it's like he's doing material out there, the people love him. Akira Maeda, red-jacketed, speaks too, and I was thinking the other day about how Maeda had the business sense to bring in Aleksandr Karelin, the ego to the think he himself should be the one to face him, but the taste-level to resist the temptation to book himself the winner, but the ego to have it be a decision, and maybe it was taste-level as much as business sense to bring Karelin in at all, and maybe business sense to book himself against Karelin as much as ego, and maybe business sense to take the decision loss, as a win might have proven unaffordable or simply impossible. So I came to no conclusions, as you can see, but I was thinking about Akira Maeda and Aleksandr Karelin while I was doing the dishes, as one does.
The content is sort of obvious but I want to say that the little RINGS pre-fight videos that we get here are very close to the tone that we come to associate most closely with PRIDE; I don't remember early PRIDE shows being any great shakes for that kind of stuff but, in time, they ended up being the best at it by far. We begin with Mikhail Ilioukhine, whose route to these quarter-finals took through Justin McCulleyville and Brad Kohlertown (I'm sorry, I won't do it again), against Renato "Babalu" Sobral, hereafter only ever called Babalu, who beat both Grom Zaza and Lee Hasdell. Babalu is yellow carded for deliberately hucking Ilioukhine over the top rope right in front of Volk Han (the gall, the temerity). Ilioukhine seems in over his head here, at least in the early going: he is out-struck, and on one of his several knockdowns seems to scooch and scurry out under the bottom rope to get out of trouble. I should note that when the yellow card was assessed, the referee was clearly saying "one point, one point" so maybe this is being scored on the ten-point system that I think most if not all of us reject? I do not especially want to get into saying what I think the scores should be. Not a great round for Ilioukhine, but Babalu was penalized, so who knows! Wait, there are rings girls for this? What is this, RINGS Holland? (It is in truth nowhere near that dark, but I still do not care for this development, and am pretty sure it does not stick around.) Hey Ilioukhine turned his hips and got perpendicular for a juji-gatame from beneath his not-yet-as-handsome-as-he-will-be-in-time foe and he doesn't get it but the crowd was like hwoooooaaah at the merest shrimping (of his hips). Ilioukhine is a strange guy to watch fight, because he looks terrified pretty much the whole time: like, until the instant Brad Kohler tapped, you felt like Ilioukhine was probably going to literally run away. But he's a really good fighter! I am thinking now about how the great Yasuhiro Yamashita, who is also an excellent prose stylist (at least in translation), has written about how before every tournament his nerves would be so horrible that he would have to confront the question "Am I a coward?" anew again each time. Then he would throw everyone or defeat them in crushing yet subtle ne-waza so it worked out for him, don't worry. Look at how beautifully he writes about osoto-gari, and about real technique, and also real emotion:
--but Ilioukhine gets stalled out, and Babalu exploits Ilioukhine's grip to finish with ude-hishigi-juji-gatame, in the mode of Kimura:
In the first one, Ilioukhine is Kimura; in the second, Babalu is Kimura; really though nobody is ever really Kimura except for I guess maybe Kimura? And even then, who knows. I have only just now found out that it was Tomita Tsuneo (富田常雄), writer of Sanshiro Sugata (and also Yawara, another judo novel, though unrelated to the fashionable judo girl of the same name), and son of Tomita Tsunejirō (富田 常次郎), 8th dan, one of the Kōdōkan Shitennō (講道館四天王), the Four Heavenly Kings (or Guardians) of the Kodokan, who wrote "Kimura no mae ni Kimura naku, Kimura no ato ni Kimura nashi." It's a good line, and I think it will catch on. I'm thinking again about the time Doug Rogers was back in town to visit family and he taught a class at my old sensei's club and we all went and he was moved nearly to tears telling stories about Kimura and he showed us not just osoto gari but Kimura's osoto gari and when he grabbed my collar for a moment you could still feel the strength in his hands even though he was seventy. I went into all of this in some detail a while back, I'm sure, and will not belabour the point here other than to say that it's late and I'm thinking about all of that again. The Sanshiro Sugata novel, I have recently read, is still in print in Japan but has never been translated, except for excerpts into French and English by Henri Plée, a major figure in French karate and a judo 5th dan, in Judo Kodokan Revue in the late 1950s, and nobody has those, and we only know that that even happened because of Joseph Svinth (the finest judo researcher I know of writing in English). And this is from akirakurosawa.info: "In his autobiography, Kurosawa writes how he one day saw an advertisement for an upcoming novel about a 'rowdy young judo expert' and instantly felt that this would finally be the material with which he could make his directorial debut. The ad was for Tsuneo Tomita’s novel Sanshiro Sugata, a copy of which Kurosawa purchased on the day that it came on sale, read it in one sitting, and then immediately visited producer Nobuyoshi Morita, asking him to purchase the rights as soon as possible." I haven't watched Sanshiro Sugata in forever, I really should (the public library bought the best of Video Difference's excellent collection when it went out of business, so the public library's film collection is all of a sudden tremendous; there are two holds on the four-film boxed-set of early Kurasawa but I am a patient man).
THE TIME FOR SANSHIRO SUGATA IS NOT NOW THOUGH as Dan Henderson is about to fight Gilbert Yvel, who first embraces a beautiful young woman who is I assume his wife or girlfriend but perhaps I should not speculate so wildly as this. The new(ish) referee whom all cheer referees this bout and sees Henderson actually tag Yvel early and then just smother him on the ground as he prepares for first gyaku-ude-garami and then, from that grip, juji-gatame as Randy Couture and at least one other voice in his corner yells armbar, Dan, armbar and it really looked like Yvel tapped a little before he rolled out and escaped! I think it is just a trick of the eye though as Handerson clearly didn't feel anything. YYYY VEL YYYY VEL is this super-hot crowd's chant. These Budokan RINGS shows are the best! Holy moly, Gilbert Yvel, you definitely can't elbow people in the back of the head when they're on the ground in RINGS rules or really under pretty much any rules in any sport or human endeavour governed by rules; that's a strong yellow card, the yellowmost card I have yet seen assessed. Henderson gets Yvel down but Yvel reverses him and stands! The crowd loves Gilbert Yvel! Ah okay so the pattern that is quickly emerging here is that Henderson takes Yvel down, can't really control him, and the crowd loves it when Gilbert Yvel proves uncontrollable. As the first round ends I think one would have to say that while Dan Henderson is winning, Gilbert Yvel is making this totally compelling. Well round two is far less compelling and Dan Henderson rightly wins the decision. I am not sure how many times exactly Yvel was yellow-carded for elbows to the back of the head in the second round versus how many times he was less formally chastised for it but he was sure throwing them! The crowd seems not that won over by Dan Henderson but they cheer Yvel as he bows to all cardinal directions and says words of seeming apology to Akira Maeda.
Andrei Kopilov, you will surely recall, fought a total of twenty-four seconds in his two ashi-kansetsu (leg bone-locking) victories over first Leonardo Castello Branco and then Ricardo Fyeet. One assumes Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira will prove a taller task? He really is quite tall. Nogueira makes the sign of the cross or "sains" himself (From Middle English, from Old English seġnian, from Latin signō, from signum, cognate to German segnen, Irish séan [“sign, omen”] and Scottish Gaelic seun [“a charm”]) before walking to the ring accompanied by his twin brother, and this was probably, for a lot of people, the first time they had seen that he had a twin brother, and maybe for a second they were like this is wild (a natural reaction to twins). Kopilov is accompanied by his RINGS Russia teammates Nikolai Zouev and Volk Han and the people love him, this is awesome! On Twitter, where I shared the gif of Kopilov's compete match against Leonardo Castello Branco (there were even some extra seconds at either end!), my old friend Lee noted "'Looks like your uncle, the shop teacher/wrestling coach' fighters were the most underrated great thing of the 90s," to which he added that Kopilov was the "Platonic form, but there were a lot of Russian versions. Only modern fighter who's close is Tim Boetsch." Cory suggested Timothy Johnson, who was totally new to me, as an heir to this lineage, and at first glance he totally checks out. And yet there can be only one Andrei Kopilov and here he stands opposite the great and lovable Antonio Rodrigo Noegueira with only able referee Ryogaku Wada between them. Nogueira opts for gloves; Kopilov forsakes them. I am super excited! Nogueira tackles Kopilov to the mat early on and the crowd erupts as Kopilov makes the merest hip-gesture towards juji-gatame. Nogueira, as you have perhaps heard or seen, is very good at græppling and before long passes to the side, at which point Kopilov turtles up. From here, Nogueira first tries to take the back in a hooks-in sort of way, and even rides a little high as though to roll for juji-gatame from there, but has a change of heart a little later and works one leg in from the side to set up a hiza-hishigi (knee-crush) or "calf-slicer" in exactly the way Alexander Iatskevitch describes "Leglock II" in the Ippon Books Masterclass Russian Judo volume that I really will return to my friend at judo tonight HOWEVER Kopilov leans back and grabs a choke! This crowd is amazing by the way!
This is all really great! Kopilov doesn't finish the choke but it's a solid control and Nogueira is forced back and flattened out. Kopilov wants to hiza-juji knee-bar from here so badly, you can just feel it, but it's not there so he grabs an arm for gyaku-ude-garami and the Budokan chants KOPI LOV KOPI LOV but Nogueira always seemed impossible to finish arm-locks on until that time his arm totally snapped and we were all so sad about it. Remember that? It was Frank Mir who caught him, and there is no shame in getting caught by Frank Mir (or anyone: this is all just a neat little game we are playing guys, remember?), and so it really would have been okay for him to tap (it is literally always okay to tap, and not tapping is honestly kind of rude in that it puts someone in the very awkward position of having to [well I guess not having to; we are free] break an arm or choke a person right out and it is unpleasant to do either of those things unless one has a specific personality disorder where that's fine for them). I have just now watched the clip for the first time since it happened, and I was mistaken: Nogueira totally did tap, it's just that his arm was already very much broken already at that point, having tried to roll his way out of the technique. Tap early, tap often, everybody! Nogueira was looking at his arm like "man, if that's not broken, I don't know" and then the x-rays revealed that it was totally broken, yeah:
BUT THAT IS NEITHER HERE NOR THERE in that it is either twelve years in the future or six years in the past as the first round that is now before us comes to a close with Nogueira working diligently towards the shime-waza (strangulation technique) that presents itself from kata-gatame (shoulder hold/arm triangle). That round was AMAZING. Seconds out, seconds out, and round two is here. Nogueira is the better striker, for sure, and Kopilov looks to be tiring badly in the first minute or so. Well, he is pretty old! Kopilov looks for his rolling hiza-juji knee bar and the crowd loves it but Nogueira will not follow him to the ground: such is Nogueira's respect for Kopilov's ne-waza and his disregard for his atemi-waza (striking). Kopilov is so worn out right now. But he rice-bale reversals Nogueira right over off of morote-gari (two-hand reap), it was a pure 俵返 tawara-gaeshi (rice-bale-reversal), just like this:
You can do it as a counter to morote-gari, but it only works if their morote-gari is pretty terrible (Nogueira's was here; he is getting tired, too) but you can totally throw with it off of a snapdown, like Toshiro Daigo shows as sono-ichi in Kodokan Judo Throwing Techniquese (an indispensable tome). +78 kg World and Olympic Champion Idaylis Ortiz of Cuba threw with it for ippon in Rio! There is no ippon to be had here though as Kopilov and Nogueira both kind of stagger across the finish line. Great match, though! Lots of fine waza and both guys kept working hard even after they were clearly exhausted so great heart, too! Two judges declare the bout a draw, and the third rules in Nogueira's favour, so that's it, there will be no third round (this is a mercy), Nogueira advances. I prefer this to the "majority draw" thing, by the way; I have never liked that at all.
As soon as the weary Kopilov and the weary but exultant Nogueira leave, the lights dim and the crowd roars in the knowledge that the only match left in this round is Renzo Gracie vs. Kiyoshi Tamura. A video package demonstrating that both are awesome plays, and Renzo enters to techno I do not recognize but which employs Mortal Kombat-esque synth stabs and seems to say "Renzo Gracie" in it at times so I guess it is a commissioned piece? Tamura comes out not to his customary "Flame of Mind" (that most perfectly Fire Pro of all entrance themes [we have gone into this before and it got weird) but to the UWF theme! HWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH TAM U RA TAM U RA TAM U RA TAM U RA is the Budokan's response to this high-level selection! Let's maybe pause for just an instant to remember where we are at this exact moment of the UWF vs. Gracies "angle" which is pretty much the heart of the late-90s/early-00s kakutogi æsthetic peak (and commercial peak, but such concerns are beneath us): Rickson Gracie has already defeated Nobuhiko Takada twice, Yoshihisa Yamamoto once (as a man of RINGS Yamamoto is a man of Maeda and as such of UWF considered broadly), and of course the loved but misguided Yoji Anjo in Anjo's worst-case-scenario dojo storm, but had yet to face Masakatsu Funaki; Kazushi Sakuraba has run through Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belts but so far the only Gracie proper on the list is the smaller Royler (Royce is a few months away, Renzo a few months after that); Royce has been out of the picture, as I mentioned parenthetically; and Renzo is still undefeated, with wins over RINGS/Pancrase/Fujiwara Gumi/Battlarts (togther "the long UWF," maybe?) players like Sanae Kikuta, Alexander Otsuka, and most recently and spectacularly Wataru Sakata (that ude-gatame! into juji-gatame! magnificent). That he fought a thirty-minute draw against Akira Shoji is the worst thing you could say about Renzo Gracie at this point. This is a pretty big deal.
The crowd reacts, though--and I do not blame them for this--as though Kiyoshi Tamura in fact is Yamashita, and victory is imminent and assured. Renzo is definitely not in a good position, and seems well and truly stuck. Tamura gives it up to hit a little and then choke not the neck but the face for a little while as this second round ends. There will be no third, as the judges unanimously have it for Tamura, and Renzo is a good sport about it as TK wanders into the shot:
The crowd is well pleased! And yet Tamura's celebration must be muted as he is not done for the night and must conserve not only his energy but also his feelings. What better time could there be for an intermission! Did you know there's an Oscar De La Hoya EXCITE MATCH SPECIAL coming up?
We need a non-tournament bout to give our potential KINGS OF KINGS adequate time to rest and so here now is Grom Zaza, who regrettably loses by knockout in thirty-five seconds to Bobby Hoffman, who we would later know to be an unstable and dangerous person. The worst story about Bobby Hoffman is the one that landed him in maximum security prison for a year, but there are plenty of others, too. He did some awful things.
LET US RETURN TO THINGS LESS AWFUL like for example a fine sporting contest between Antonio Rodrigo Nogeuira and Dan Henderson, who is wearing gear with the (future?) Team Quest logo that says "Ringmasters Athletic Club" on it. You are no doubt wondering about the size difference between these two and I can tell you that Nogueira comes in at 105 kg, Henderson at 90 kg, so it is not inconsiderable, certainly. Nogueira takes Hendeson down right away! Henderson didn't do much to fight it though, really, but grabbed a front face-lock and just sort of went with it, I think; in the ensuing scramble he comes up between Nogueira's legs and settles in there nice and low (either posture way up or get super low, broadly speaking). Nogueira looks for a gyaku-ude-garami reverse arm-entanglement but there is none to be had and the fighters are asked to stand. This time it is Henderson who initiates the takedown but the end result is the same: low, leg-bound holding unto stopping and restarting. Nogueira jumps guard, which looks pretty lame against someone you outweigh by thirty pounds, I do not hesitate to say. That Nogueira soon ends up on top (and all the way up top, tate-shiho-gatame), working on a (sleeveless) sode-guruma-jime sleeve-wheel-choke as the round winds down, does nothing to change this. If you are like "your objections here are merely æsthetic" I would reply that the entire edifice of sport with its the voluntary acceptance of arbitrary constraint is inherently artificial as in replete with artifice and so it is æsthetics all the way down and so the argument you never even really made (because I invented it for you) seems very poor to me, I'm afraid. Henderson comes pretty close, I think, with a mae-hadaka-jime front choke at the start of round two! But Nogueira plays it cool and pops out and up on top and even when Henderson manages to roll away from tate-shiho-gatame a little, Nogueira is all over him with a lovely juji-gatame attack until they are too tangled in the ropes for more. A minute to go, "a sixty-second sprint left," Randy Couture advises from the corner. Nogueira comes up on top in the græppling that ensues after Kenichi Takayanagi says survivial battle. The bell sounds and Nogueira raises his arms in victory which seems presumptuous of him but at the same time I get it, he did very well. Jon Bluming is one of the judges? I think that's what they said, and if so, they have probably been saying it all night, but this is the first time I've caught it. Bluming and his two fellow judges are unanimous in their desire to see a third round and I have no objection. Nogueira has Henderson down and gyaku-ude-garami'd at least in a preliminary way when their proximity to (or indeed beneathness of) the ropes demands a restart. Henderson takes Nogueira down but Nogueira gets such a deep hook in niju-garami/half-guard that he is definitely going to yes okay he has just now swept and this is a firm-looking tate-shiho-gatame from a guy a lot heavier than Dan Henderson and who also happens to be Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. A bad place to be! Nogueira moves to the side, to the knee-on-belly uki-gatame or "floating pin" and back again to tate-shiho-gatame and he's not finding anything but all Henderson can do is lie there. After a restart, and further græppling, Henderson spends the final ten seconds or so on top and then raises his hands as though he is the clear winner. It was lame when Nogueira did it earlier and it is lame when Henderson does so here (it is always lame when people do this). Henderson does take the decision, though, while the commentators are surprised, Nogueira is baffled, and the crowd is unthrilled.
The ring announcer's microphone fails and Kenichi Takayanagi says mic trouble, desu. Soon enough, he is back in the game and ready for Babalu, who is bigger than I had remembered at 108.5 kg, and Kiyoshi Tamura ("Flame of Mind" this time, not the UWF theme), who I should probably note is 88 kg, since I have told you how much Babalu weighs. Twenty kilos is not nothing: rarely do I judo, for example, with anyone twenty kilos more than me without noticing they are bigger than me (as a 73 kg person, twenty kilos is a totally regular amount to give up against one's judo pals; as much as forty kilos happens without it seeming weird [it probably looks weird, objectively {and it is not at all like I get a lot of throws in giving up forty kilos, please do not mistake me}]). Tamura is probably noticing at least several of those twenty kilos between them, too, with Babalu all over his back for kind of a while. After a ropes-based restart, Tamura throws a really snappy kick before he is dragged to the mat by a tani-otoshi or valley drop and Babalu is all over his back again. You read different and conflicting things about Babalu's freestyle wrestling past, but that he won at least one national title and competed at the Pan American Games seems to be true? SASORI GATAME KYOSHI TAMURA SHARPSHOOTER ah okay no he actually did not secure it, it was too good to be true. Tamura's having a much better round, though, like for instance he has just swept Babalu over from beneath and I don't know why but I find sweeps from the bottom even more pleasing than submission holds from the bottom when we are looking at a much smaller person being on the bottom sweeping the heavier person on the top. It seems an even greater triumph of waza to me than a submission hold, I don't know. Just last night at judo one of my students hit a couple of sweeps on someone probably thirty kilos heavier? And I loved it! (She is a wonderful student.) Tamura's most crowd-pleasing attacks are a pair of ashi-gatame (leg-holds) that don't really have Babalu concerned at all but Tamura is pushing the pace and that is what the people want to see. Babalu takes Tamura down one last time to end the round and we await the judges' call for a third round that does not come in that two judges have it as a draw but Jon Bluming has it for Babalu! As longtime friends and readers will perhaps recall, I enjoy the works of Babalu, but I do not think this is a good call by Jon Bluming! Tamura takes it in stride, but to think we are deprived of a third round and a chance for Tamura to compete in the KING OF KINGS championship match on the strength of a decision of someone who, in 1958, taught judo at the same university at which I too teach judo, is haunting to me. A long scrum-style interview with Kiyoshi Tamura follows but I am unable to report its contents to you because of the poverty of my knowledge, forgive me.
And now, a complete recap of every match ever fought ever, as we stall to give an appropriate interval of rest to both Babalu and Dan Henderson ahead of their KING OF KINGS final to be contested between these two winners of strange decisions. Here's Jon Bluming now, in fact, addressing the crowd in what sounds to me like totally passable Japanese but few people could be misled on this point more easily than me. He is here to present Akira Maeda sensei with the rank of hachidan (8th dan) in his International Kyokushin Budokai, how's that for kind of understanding what is happening sometimes in Japanese!
Brad Kohler I don't think knows (knew) about swinging around for juji-gatame when your partner is over-committed to gyaku-ude-garami in the way illustrated in the Masahiko Kimura gif from several thousand words ago, or else he probably would have tried it before Christopher Haseman finished the hold at 1:01 of the match they just held to give a little more time to the tournament finalists to get ready. The hold stayed on longer than Kohler would have liked after tapping and he freaks out at Haseman, who is like you didn't tell me stop to which Kohler is like I told you before I tapped you fvkkr to which Haseman is like well I'm sorry then let us shake hands and not part as enemies and Brad Kohler is like okay but I don't like it and peace is restored as Akira Maeda looks on interested but not especially concerned.
TOURNAMENTO FINALS RINGS KING OF KINGS YES IT IS UPON US LET US LOOK TO IT and really there is nothing in the final match that surpasses the camera lingering over Babalu's tattoo of a lady during the Brazilian national anthem:
This is not to say that Babalu and Henderson have anything less than a spirited, closely contested bout that was tight enough in both its striking (there was not that much) and græppling (this was mostly it) that it could not have reasonably been judged to have required a third and final round, and indeed that was Jon Bluming's judgement, but the other judges adjudged not injudiciously that the judgement should rightly be Henderson's. They did really well for it being their third fight each! AND SO OUR WORLD MEGA-BATTLE OPEN TOURNAMENT KING OF KINGS GRAND FINAL KING OF KINGS IS DAN HENDERSON whose awards ceremony is cut extremely short but that's the way it goes sometimes when you are live on WOWOW.
WHAT DID DAVE MELTZER SAY:
March 6, 2000:
"Dan Henderson, a member of the 1992 and 1996 U.S. Olympic Greco-roman wrestling team at 181 pounds, was the surprise winner of the RINGS King of Kings tournament and the $223,000 first prize on 2/26 at Tokyo Budokan Hall.
Henderson was the lone survivor in the most grueling and competitive MMA tournament in history, which started with two 16-man tournaments on 10/28 and 12/22 and finished with the final eight competing before a near sellout crowd of 13,000 fans in the biggest complete shoot tournament in modern pro wrestling history. [wait what--ed.]
In news that was equally big, perhaps bigger, RINGS' gamble of allowing its pro wrestling World heavyweight champion, Kiyoshi Tamura, into the tournament, paid off big, as he made it into the final four before losing a close decision. In the biggest match on the show, Tamura, coming out in this match to the traditional theme song of the old UWF promotion that he started with ten years ago, scored a judges decision over Renzo Gracie in a mild upset in the first round. Thus the storyline from the beginning was made clear as UWF pro wrestling vs. the Gracie myth. Between that win and a draw earlier in the year with Frank Shamrock, Tamura did establish himself as a legitimate top-flight fighter, at least within his own rules, which is quite a distinction considering he doubles as well as being arguably the best technical pro wrestler in modern times. Gracie, who is considered among fighting insiders as the legitimately best fighter in the family, had scored two submission wins in less than 90 seconds in his first tournament over Wataru Sakata and Maurice Smith and some were tabbing him as the tournament favorite.
Henderson, who is still an active world class wrestler and hopeful of making a third Olympic team for Sydney in 2000, used his superior conditioning combined with at least one very controversial judges decision in a tournament where literally any of the eight, had this same show been held in a few weeks, could have come out ahead since seven of the eight matches ended in judges decisions and the one that didn't was an overtime match.
Henderson, who had former UFC heavyweight champion Randy Couture in his corner, weighed 198 for the tournament. He bested three men via decision, all of whom held weight advantages on him. In his first match, he scored numerous second round take downs to win the most lopsided unanimous decision on the show, by scores of 19-16, 20-17 and 20-15. The fight was said to have been closer than the scores indicate because Yvel, a strong kickboxer, lost points for early fouls. In the second round, Henderson defeated Antonio Noguiera, who had a 33-pound weight advantage on him, via a very controversial decision that the crowd booed. Noguiera was able to use his size to score several take downs on the world class wrestler. After the match was sent into overtime after being ruled a draw after two rounds, it is said Noguiera clearly should have deserved the third round. In the judges criteria for the show, it was stated that a weight difference of more than 10 kilograms (22 pounds) should be taken into consideration when rendering a decision, but it wasn't made clear how much that should be emphasized when rendering the decision. The belief is the judges gave Henderson the decision based on being close enough while giving away so much weight, and that may have played a part in the Renato Babalu final, although nobody booed that decision. This led to questions why it wasn't more of a factor in Tamura vs. Babalu. In the finals, Henderson squeaked by Babalu, who held a 39 pound weight advantage on him, winning a match that would have been called a majority draw under most judging rules, since scores were 20-20, 20-20 and 20-19.
Henderson was the only one making a big payoff for doing five matches over the lengthy tournament, as Babalu only received in the neighborhood of $20,000 for second place. Henderson has never lost in MMA competition, including winning a couple of close decisions enroute to winning the toughest middleweight tournament in UFC history and also winning a tournament in Brazil. He did lose a pure submission match via ankle lock to Frank Shamrock a few years ago.
Tamura vs. Gracie was the match that drew the house and although it was close, there have been no reports indicating Tamura didn't deserve the win. Reports are that Gracie clearly won the first round, but Tamura got stronger due to better stamina and won the second and third rounds, including a dramatic moment late in the fight where the crowd sensed Tamura was going to make Gracie tap with a Yoshiaki Fujiwara style reverse crucifix armbar, although Gracie escaped. After the match, Gracie told reporters that he didn't consider it as a loss because it wasn't under Vale Tudo rules (this tournament was under rules similar to Vale Tudo, but not allowing any striking on the ground and other minor modifications of rules), and wanted a match with Tamura under those rules. Gracie, who had a 17 pound weight disadvantage against Tamura, had never lost previously in MMA competition.
Tamura largely saved the day for the RINGS promotion, that from its start in 1991 had tried to claim it had the best real fighters in the world while presenting what was from the start mainly pro wrestling matches except for occasional shoots in prelims. The percentage of shoots grew as the fighters there from the start were replaced by more skilled younger fighters. The previous tournaments, while exposing a former RINGS world champion in Bitsdaze Tariel, who couldn't handle Yvel at all, still wound up with Kopylov looking like the real deal, Yvel also looking to be a favorite, while Mikhail and Tamura also got out of their bracketing. But the RINGS regulars ended up losing five of seven matches to the outsiders on this show, but luckily for the promotion, their fighter at least prevailed in the match that will be remembered the most on the show.
Babalu had used his 44-pound weight advantage to squeak by Tamura 20-19, 19-19 and 20-20 in the semifinal after Tamura had beaten Gracie. The general feeling was that Tamura was physically and emotionally spent, concentrating all his efforts on winning his high profile early round match. There were also reports saying that although Babalu did deserve a close decision with all things being equal, throwing the weight criteria in could have given a win to Tamura. We'll have a complete report on the show in a week or two after viewing the videotape of the four-hour live broadcast on WOWOW.
The tournament overall was considered a huge success. RINGS had fallen in popularity in recent years. Its percentage of legitimate matches had grown over the past year, which is either good or bad depending upon your perspective. The retirement of its drawing card, Akira Maeda, and the inability to turn its younger stars who were both great pro wrestlers and real fighters, Tamura and Tsuyoshi Kohsaka, into drawing cards saw its fortunes drop. Its future was in question due to WOWOW cutting back its television money and, with the exception of Maeda's final match with Alexandre Karelin in February which was the biggest match in company history, attendance was down all year until this show.
Complete results:
1. Babalu (237, Brazil) defeated Ilioukhine Mikhail (204, Russia) with an armbar in 40 seconds of the first overtime (10:40). Babalu received a penalty point in the first round for throwing Mikhail out of the ring or he probably would have won the decision after regulation.
2. Henderson (198, United States) defeated Gilbert Yvel (222, Netherlands) via one-sided decision. Said to have been a great match. Henderson was able to dominate on the mat and Henderson was much improved stand-up wise.
3. Noguiera (231, Brazil) defeated Andrei Kopylov (264, Russia) via decision by scores of 20-19, 20-19 and 20-20. Reports are the first round was competitive, matching Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Sambo skills and was an even round. But after five minutes, Kopylov, who scored two submission wins in his previous tournament both under 16 seconds, ran out of gas and he clearly won that round.
4. Tamura (193, Japan) defeated Gracie (176, Brazil) via a unanimous decision.
5. In a non-tournament match, Bobby Hoffman shocked Grom Zaza with a 34 second knockout from a right punch to the head. Hoffman is the Extreme Challenge heavyweight champion while Zaza is a long-time RINGS regular.
6. Henderson in his semifinal beat Noguiera via decision.
7. Babalu beat Tamura via decision. Babalu also had a lot longer between his fights to rest than Tamura, but just had too much size.
8. Chris Haseman defeated Brad Kohler via armbar in 1:11 in a non-tournament battle of a RINGS pro wrestler from Australia who is strong in shoot against an American indie pro wrestler who has a lot of charisma and was a national calibre amateur wrestler. I believe Road Warrior Animal did not come in Kohler's corner this time out as had been billed.
9. Henderson beat Babalu in what most reports had being a close fight, as the judging indicated."
and
"With the success of the 2/26 Budokan show and WOWOW going to back RINGS stronger and it appearing to turn into a total shoot promotion this year, Akira Maeda after the show flew to Los Angeles and met with Rickson Gracie."
and
"The RINGS promotion claims it will be running shows in June in Honolulu, in July in Illinois and in August in Salt Lake City and is also talking about expanding into Brazil."
March 20, 2000:
Dave
gets
tape:
"JAPANESE TELEVISION RUNDOWN
2/26 RINGS: From an international perspective, this was probably the second biggest show in company history (the biggest being last year's appearance of Alexandre Karelin). This was the finals of the annual King of Kings tournament, which for the first year ever, was a total shoot. The show was great, with the exception of some very strange judging. 1. Renato Babalu of Brazil beat Ilioukhine Mikhail of Russia. In the first round, Babalu lifted Mikhail and threw him over the top rope, which was against the rules and he was given a three point yellow card. The problem is between the three points for the foul and the fact he had the ten kilo weight edge, Babalu would have had to nearly kill Mikhail to win a decision. The story of this match is that Mikhail couldn't stand with Babalu because he had little striking skill, and was too small to take him down and use his very good submission skill. Babalu dropped Mikhail with a left to the jaw, then knocked him down a second time with a left. Babalu was killing him on the stand-up until the later stages of the round, when Mikhail went for a takedown, Babalu sprawled and got the top position. With the two knockdowns and total domination of the round, that only made up for the penalty points, thus it had to be a 7-7 round. Second round saw Babalu hacking him to death with leg kicks. Mikhail, while getting creamed, did sneak in a good punch and Babalu, who definitely felt it, immediately took him down. They were back on their feet and Babalu finished the round continually connecting with punches with Mikhail unable to take him down. Easy 10-9 round for Babalu. Since Babalu was the bigger man by more than 10 kilos (22 pounds), you have to take that into account so taking a point away, that makes it 16-16. The judges all ruled it a draw as well and sent it into overtime but in the scheme of things the three points being ruled for a foul made even fair judging give an unfair verdict. Babalu looked shocked and Mikhail looked like he didn't even want to go out for overtime. Mikhail went for a standing armbar but as they rolled to the mat, Babalu made a great reversal into an armbar of his own in :40 for the finish. Real good match; 2. Dan Henderson of the U.S. beat Gilbert Yvel of The Netherlands. Henderson fought a super fight here. He survived standing against a bigger guy who is a top class kickboxer while Henderson is a small Greco-roman wrestler who has learned some boxing and is a surprisingly good boxer for a wrestler. Henderson took him down and nearly got an armbar in an awesome move but Yvel broke it. Yvel hit him with a knee, but Henderson took him down on it. In trying to block the takedown, Yvel hit Henderson a few elbows to the back of the neck, which were illegal and he was penalized three points, which left him doomed when it came to a decision. Henderson caught a kick and took him down again. Henderson scored another takedown. Yvel reversed him on the ground before a stand-up. Yvel slipped in a kick. Henderson nearly got a guillotine choke but Yvel made a great escape. Henderson took him down once more before the end of the round. Between the three penalty points and Henderson easily taking the round, I had him up 10-6. In the second round, Yvel knocked Henderson off his feet with a savage leg kick. Henderson came right back with a high throw. Yvel again threw some elbows on the takedown, but not to the neck. Henderson continued to take him down and dominate the positioning the rest of the round. A 10-9 round for Henderson, plus Yvel should lost a point for his weight edge, so I'd score it 20-14. Even with the lopsided score, since Yvel is so dangerous standing, it could have ended at any time and Yvel was always one good blow away from ending it, so it was a really exciting fight; 3. Antonio Noguiera beat Andrei Kopylov. Kopylov nearly got an armbar in the first 30 seconds but Noguiera had enough submission knowledge to avoid it. Kopylov, who has no stand-up skill and not even good takedowns even though he's 266 pounds, is a Russian sambo master. He was incredible on the ground before his stamina ran out. The problem is this game has evolved past the point where just sambo can get you past the top guys. Match had super heat with Kopylov going for so many submissions early. Kopylov's weight started working against him because he wasn't in good shape. Noguiera managed to get Kopylov's back and work for a choke. This series finished Kopylov. By the end of the round, Kopylov was totally gassed out and just hanging on. I'd give the round to Noguiera 10-9 because Kopylov was out there dying at the end, but it was close enough you could call it 10-10. Second round saw Kopylov out there trying to fight stand-up without gloves (which meant he had to open hand to the head) or stamina. He was game, but getting picked apart and he was as bad as Mark Coleman at the end of the Maurice Smith fight. Noguiera even took him down and mounted him at the finish. Easy 10-9 round for Noguiera, plus Kopylov loses a point because he had the big weight advantage, so it's 20-17 or 20-18. Instead, two judges called it a draw and the third judge gave Noguiera a one point win. What were they watching? So this under normal rules actually would have been a majority draw even though the smaller guy dominated the last 7:00, but as a tournament, at least the right guy advanced; 4. Kiyoshi Tamura beat Renzo Gracie. Tamura came out to the old UWF theme music. The place was electric as this was the biggest pop he's probably ever gotten for coming out in his career. This was mainly the ground game. In the first round, Gracie nearly got a guillotine. By the latter stages of the round, Tamura got in some punches. Overall a 10-10 round. Second round saw Tamura mount Gracie momentarily and dominate the positioning game. Gracie was never in as much trouble of being submitted as reports indicated but the crowd was going crazy when Tamura had him tied up. This was a very close even fight but Tamura did win the second round, so the decision was deserved; 5. Bobby Hoffman of Extreme Challenge knocked down Grom Zaza in 34 seconds with a right roundhouse in a non-tourney match as they were trading. Zaza looked really surprised it was stopped; 6. Henderson beat Noguiera in a totally perplexing decision. The first round was grappling, with Noguiera taking him down and getting side position. Henderson reversed once, but Noguiera got a full mount. Noguiera dominated positioning, so won the round close. Henderson took Noguiera down in the second round, but Noguiera reversed it and had him mounted almost the entire round so it was easily his round. Henderson was giving up more than 10 kilos so it should have been 19-18, but if you rule the first round even it could be a draw. All three judges ruled it a draw and sent it into overtime. Noguiera looked surprised and Henderson knew he got a gift, but neither knew what was yet to come. The third round was more of the same. Noguiera dominated positioning most of the round. Henderson kept trying to roll him but remained caught on the bottom. So Noguiera easily won the overtime. And then, Henderson was ruled the winner. Noguiera looked confused. The fans booed, although a lot of the booing wasn't natural reaction as much as the Brazilians in Noguiera's corner rallying the fans; 7. Babalu beat Tamura. Tamura came in aggressive against his much bigger opponent and had the edge standing. Babalu was too strong on the ground, got Tamura's back and was going for a choke. Once Tamura escaped, he did well on the stand-up again. I'd call it even, but one could give it to Babalu slightly. Second round was Tamura's, dominating the stand-up and even the ground by the end, and he was clearly in the better condition as it wore on. Since Tamura was giving up a lot of weight, it could be scored either 20-18 or 19-18 for Tamura, so, of course, Babalu got the decision; 8. Chris Haseman beat Brad Kohler with a wristlock in 1:11. Kohler took him down and pounded on him until Haseman maneuvered into the move. Kohler tapped. Haseman may have kept the hold on a little long but from the tape it appeared an honest mistake of not knowing he tapped. Kohler was mad, it appeared more about the hold being kept on as opposed to simply falling prey to it, since he tried to stomp him and go after him afterwards. Haseman, who by this point was a little hot himself, still went over to shake Kohler's hand anyway and Kohler did so reluctantly; 9. Henderson beat Babalu to win the $223,000 first prize. Henderson looked good standing in the first round, but really it was an even round. Second round saw Henderson go for a guillotine choke. Babalu got out and took him down. Henderson was better with the boxing but Babalu caught him with several hard leg kicks and took him down. Henderson again nearly had a guillotine, and dominated him as the match wore on, taking the round. Since Henderson was giving up weight, I'd score it 20-18. As it turned out, two judges ruled the match a draw, and the third gave it to Henderson by one point."
and
"OTHER JAPAN NOTES: There are a lot of stories going around that Kiyoshi Tamura will jump from RINGS to Dream State Entertainment. RINGS is changing the nature of their contracts as they run out this year. They in the past had a stable of performers under annual deals, but now as they switch from a worked promotion to apparently a full-time shoot office, they are contracting the fighters one match at a time."
A dark thought to end on! But end we must. See you next time! Thanks again!
I've long struggled to identify RINGS commentators myself (your blog finally helped me find two of them - Takayanagi and Kumakubo). I was always curious about who the third guy was who sometimes joined them with sunglasses from about 1996 onwards. Thanks to the knowledge Google Lens has provided me through its remarkable translation abilities, It appears the "third man" is no other than Shigesato Itoi, the creator of Earthbound and Mother. A tweet also informs me that Shigesato is actually close friends with Maeda, which explains the connection.
ReplyDeletehttps://twitter.com/HandlebarOXD/status/1567906901815353346
The more you know I guess!
This is wild information! For which I thank you!
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