RINGS 4/20/00: MILLENNIUM COMBINE 1st

Millennium Combine 1st
April 20, 2000 in Tokyo, Japan
Yoyogi Gym drawing 3,600

THIS RINGS TAPE BEGINS WITH A FREAKY LADY WHO IS ABOUT TO STAB US IN A NIGHTMARE WORLD FREE OF ETHICS AS WE FALL IN LOVE IN THE INSTANT BEFORE IT ENDS and I don't know what is coming up next on WOWOW exactly but it is terrifying. As is the prospect of Kiyoshi Tamura defending his RINGS Openweight Championship title against Gilbert Yvel! But that's the deal! Joining our friends Kenichi Takayanagi and Hideyuki Kumakubo on commentary is our other friend Tsuyoshi Kohsaka, a bigger and better fighter than Tamura who Yvel has sort of ripped up in their earlier encounters, a living symbol of why Kiyoshi Tamura definitely shouldn't fight Gilbert Yvel.

With little delay we are offered the RINGS Official Ranking and one wonders how they will reflect our newfound shoot reality? Because we just watched a whole WORLD MEGA-BATTLE OPEN TOURNAMENT KING OF KINGS-worth of shoots, not a work to be found among them, you've got to wonder. Previously, only Kiyoshi Tamura and Yoshihisa Yamamoto had ever been granted shooting privileges (if that is what they are) in an annual tournament, and so this was totally different; let's see where things stand; there's no going back: 10. Kanehara 9. Overeem (Valentijn) 8. Han 7. Zaza 6. Ilioukhine 5. Yamamoto 4. Yvel 3. Kohsaka 2. Tariel 1. Kasteel with Tamura our champion and oh okay so they are in a weird place with the rankings in that they do not yet fully enjoy the new freedoms, do they. In time, I trust, they probably will?

As he readies himself for his opening match against Yasuhito Namekawa, Alistair Overeem somehow appears even more boyish than he had when we saw him several months before:

He's taken down by Namekawa within the first five seconds but grabs a mae-hadaka-jime front choke on the way (one recalls, or looks towards a future that includes, depending on how you choose to situate yourself right now, the guillotine of utter doom with which Overeem ran amok in a PRIDE tournament that one time? 2005? [Yes, I have checked]). He doesn't finish with that waza here but instead with a juji-gatame executed with great ease:

There are seemingly endless ways to execute juji-gatame (as well you know) but forms in which the hips follow the legs rather than the other way around are great to do if you're leggy! And Alistair Overeem is certainly that. You'll notice from the above images that we have moved to a ten-minute opening round (followed by a five-minute second one). Had PRIDE gone to 10-5-5 by this point? (I have the shows but they are in the basement; you understand.)

Wataru Sakata is up next and it is the first we have seen of him since Renzo Gracie changed everything you thought you knew about 腕挫腕固 ude-hishigi-ude-gatame! Well not really I guess but it was a beautiful technique that set up juji-gatame thrillingly. Speaking of juji-gatame, as we are super wont to do, Wataru Sakata has just attacked well with one in his bout with Brandon Lee Hinkle (recently bested by Maurice Smith [there is no shame in that, plainly]), but Brandon Lee Hinkle escaped and passed to the scarf hold of 袈裟固 kesa-gatame and attacked in turn with a juji-gatame of his own, only for Sakata to escape and take the back and attack with his own rolling juji-gatame! When one thinks of shoot-style (and to a slightly lesser extent the shooting that came of it [in what I have decided to totally start calling The Long UWF; let s/he who would dare stop me try]) the first submission holds to come to mind might very well be ashi-gatame (leg holds) broadly but the next time I go through all of the RINGS shows in order (this will never happen) I am going to keep track of and classify all distinctly recognizable kansetsu-waza (bone-locking techniques) and I trust it will reveal 腕挫十字固 ude-hishigi-juji-gatame to outrank any other (I will never do this). TK SCISSORS WATARU SAKATA and he finishes with an ashi-kansetsu that is far enough removed from the appearance of the banned heel hook or heel holdo to escape scrutiny but which totally acts in the same way and Brandon Lee Hinkle's knee is a mess and he is in agony:

We have discussed this waza previously and we even looked at pictures of its archetype from Kyuzo Mifune's nobly weird Canon of Judo, where it is included in his section on 足絡 ashi-garami, which is fitting as hekk as one of the seemingly-minor-yet-to-me-surprisingly-major revelations of this study we have embarked on together (again I thank you) is that TK Scissors are essentially a form of ashi-garami (leg entanglement), so much so that they totally fit with the approach to ashi-garami that we find in katame-no-kata, the Kodokan kata of græppling. So this is all of great interest to me but also Brandon Lee Hinkle's knee seems to have exploded so everybody please be careful out there.

Bobby Hoffman, who was later found guilty of terrible crimes, knocks out Boris Jeliazkov in eight minutes.  

"Renato" Babalu "Sobral" has a match with Travis Fulton, whose name was not immediately familiar to me when I saw it on the card but as soon as I saw his face I knew for sure that he is the guy who slammed that poor little taekwando fellow in a huge mismatch that never should have happened and none of us should have watched but we all watched it; all of us did. Here, Fulton loses by juji-gatame in 4:49 after Babalu first came close with the reverse arm entanglement of gyaku-ude-garami only to maintain that grip to finish the juji. It was lovely! 

Andrei Kopilov is coming off a tremendous WORLD MEGA-BATTLE OPEN TOURNAMENT KING OF KINGS tournament, and really about as good as anyone's, in that he won his first two bouts by ashi-kansetsu (leg-bone-locking) in a combined twenty-four seconds (the first against a reigning Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu world champion, the second against a dangerous kickboxer), and then lost a split decision to Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. That's sort of better than Dan Henderson did, and he won the whole thing! Here he faces a young and eerily shorn Ricardo Arona, look:

This is Arona's first professional fight, it would seem; it's just after he won his first of three submission græppling titles at ADCC, and I guess five years before he would face Kazushi Sakuraba, who memorably drew muscles on his body on that occasion:

 

It wasn't all fun and games, though, as our great and dear best friend Sakuraba was beaten so horribly that it was genuinely upsetting to everybody, and then PRIDE used a picture of the ruin of his face as an event poster: 

But then you never knew what you were going to get from a PRIDE poster, did you: 

Anyway, it comes as no surprise that Ricardo Arona proves too young, too strong, too skilled, too aggressive, (too enhanced?) for Kopilov to deal with, and Arona takes an easy unanimous decision win (Chris Dolman is one of the judges!) over his game but over-matched and arguably nobler foe. It is also no real surprise that Arona was unable to finish, and never really came all that close to finishing, as he really was way more of a positional/points græppler than a true submissionist, regardless of the rules he competed under. Kopilov fought bravely throughout, even with a pretty clearly injured knee or ankle (something crucial to walking) late in the second round.  

We can be sure that yet another head-shaking indignity is about to visited upon the Yoshihisa Yamamoto of whom we remain fond but whose career has been baffling at every turn as he comes to the ring in his satin robe that reads TOTAL FIGHTER on the back to face Jeremy Horn, and while I have no memory of ever seeing this match before, the thought that Yoshihisa Yamamoto would do anything but be caught in a match-ending hold by Jeremy Horn nearly at once is so absurd as to seem a complete impossibility. Maybe he walks into a punch and it never gets that far, but that would be it, that's the only other way this could go. Yamamoto comes out looking for a takedown and I am not sure whether or not he really finished one or if Horn was simply very pleased to fight off his back, I don't know. They're back up before long and Horn tries both ouchi-gari (the major inner reap) and kosoto-gari (the minor outer one) but Yamamoto has always been steady on his feet, let us never deny him that. Horn has better luck with a low single-leg, but Yamamoto pops back up in short order . After much clinching Horn ouchi-garis to the mat and we're halfway through the ten-minute opening round with Yamamoto keeping Horn at bay with feet on hips and Horn backs off. They stand again, and Yamamoto does better striking than you'd think! And on the ground, it could be way worse: Yamamoto's hips are lively and he keeps his feet active on and around the hips and Horn decided to stand instead of working to pass. Aside from half-hearted cartwheel pass the next time they're down, Horn doesn't do all that much to pass the whole round, oddly. Did you know cartwheel guard passes are super old? Here's Tsunetane Oda, for example:

   
It is said (like on wikipedia) that his name is properly Oda Join but the kanji that spell his name (小田常胤) are easily misinterpreted as Oda Tsunetane (we have seen before how tricking kanji can be!) and he is best known by that incorrect name. It's probably either Oda or Yaichihyōe Kanemitsu (金光弥一兵衛) who innovated sankaku-jime, the triangle choke, a technique for which there is no evidence in any koryu jujutsu. Katsuhiko Kashiwazaki goes into this in some detail in his Shimewaza Ippon Books Masterclass volume, which I recommend just as highly as his Osaekomi and Tomoe-Nage ones! Or Attacking Judo, co-authored with Hidetoshi Nakanishi! 

Early in the second round, Yamamoto kicks Horn in the groin, but it is one of those delayed-onset groin things, and Yamamoto fires in like three or four more strong kicks to the groin before Horns is like hey come on and Yamamoto agrees that yeah he should come on. When they resume, Horn gets the best of the boxing and staggers Yamamoto before knocking him totally to the ground and getting atop him in tate-shiho-gatame. Yamamoto tries TK scissors (they are so noted on commentary) but they avail him not amidst this smothering, and in the end he is strangled from that selfsame tate-shiho-gatame in the mode of kata-gatame (shoulder hold/arm triangle/head-and-arm choke):

Let us give credit where it is due (what base animal would not?) and say that Yoshihisa Yamamoto did really well for himself here against a very fine fighter and certainly fared much better than I had expected! Also let us note that Jeremy Horn beat Yoshihisa Yamamoto in less time than Rickson Gracie did; isn't that weird.

Gilbert Yvel is in very high spirits as he tell us backstage that he feels like this is the day he gets "the big belt and the trophy"; he predicts a knockout, and comes to the ring with "Let Me Clear My Throat" before him and an overalled Alistair Overeem camcordering behind:

Alistair Overalls is the æsthetic. 

The crowd claps along to Tamura's "Flame of Mind" entrance theme in extra parts, it sounds like, as he comes to the ring the white-accented trunks he debuted in the WORLD MEGA-BATTLE TOURNAMENT OPEN KING OF KINGS. Akira Maeda comes into the ring to speak words of officiality and I think he is introduced as Fighting Network RINGS taisho which is a noble rank. All due formalities are observed, anthems national are stood for. Yvel takes the centre of the ring for his introduction rather than waiting in his corner, and he seems supremely confident and also somewhat lurid as he flicks his tongue at the camera like a serpent. Not satisfied with the potential for unreal violence a ten-minute first round provides, this title match appears to open with a fifteen-minute one, although at the pace Gilbert Yvel is unleashing his horrors upon Kiyoshi Tamura's head it does not seem we will get to ten minutes let alone fifteen. Ah, but Tamura tackles him to the mat, and passes first to the side and then to the top! Tate-shiho-gatame! With great hips, too; that's the closest I think Tamura ever comes in a shoot to showing the transitional speed in ne waza that everybody else loves and that I think was altogether too much. They stand again and it doesn't look good for Tamura, whose face is not awesome right now (imagine what it takes to make that face not awesome) but he does manage to finish a takedown despite Yvel hooking an arm of the ropes (I believe Ryogaku Wada yellow carded him for this), and Tamura makes a reasonable attempt at juji-gatame. Tamura does well in ne waza, as you'd expect, but Yvel is much improved defensively on the mat, and is even able to sweep and reverse, at which point he stands right up, of course. A little over five minutes in, Tamura seems either tired or beaten up enough that it is like he is tired, but he still manages to drive through his biggest, tacklingmost takedown yet. Yvel is able to keep one leg entangled in niju-garami, though, and in time Wada calls for a stand-up, which amounts to calling for a number of scary blows to Tamura's head. Tamura is still able to take Yvel down, but Yvel either ends up in the ropes or is able to shut down ne waza to the point of a restart, and Tamura is flagging, and shying slightly from the contact (he is only human). His takedowns still look good though! And he passes effortlessly to the side this time, and then again to tate-shiho-gatame. Maybe he is thinking juji-gatame from there? But Yvel just hugs him tight and Wada calls for the standup as Tamura just shakes his head. And then his head is shaken by a huge knee, and I can't believe Tamura is still able to dive in low for the takedown, and then another. Is that ten takedowns so far? It might be more. But Wada is killing him with the stand-ups! And Yvel is killing him with his stand-up. The end comes at the ominous time of 13:13 from not one especially bad blow but just a bunch of them in the corner and that's it. Overeem is there with his overalls to share in his joy.

I think he looks awesome in the overalls, for the record, please do not mistake me: it's a bold look and he is on top of it. Chris Dolman has mirth and comfortable words to offer his countryman, and it is good to see Chris Dolman looking well. Yvel is a sportsman in victory and attempts to make much of Tamura but Tamura just seems very badly embarrassed. He cannot reasonably prevent Yvel from hugging him up into the air, though:

Yvel is "shoot" delighted to receive the belt and trophy (trophies, in fact) from Akira Maeda in a tasteful ceremony. Yvel has come a long way from the infamous Bijlmermeer neighbourhood in Amsterdam, where he was raised an orphan (I am reading his wikipedia for the first time). 

It is quite a moment! And then like two months later he would be fighting in PRIDE and RINGS would be without a champion for over a year. 

WHAT DID DAVE MELTZER SAY: 

March 20, 2000:

"There was a show billed as International Mixfight Association on 3/5 in Rotterdam, Holland which featured many fighters known in Japan for DSE or RINGS. In the main event, Bob Schreiber knocked out Brazilian myth Hugo Duarte in 3:30 with a ref stoppage after a series of punches to the face. Heath Herring, who was a regular with Steve Nelson's old USWF, went to a no contest with Rene Rooze, who continually fouled Herring before it turned into a brawl with people coming out of both corners due to the dirty tactics. Gilbert Yvel destroyed Brian Dann in 21 seconds with punches from the mount. Top rated lightweight in the world, Jose Pele Landi won a decision over Martin de Jong of Holland, who got a great crowd reaction in fighting a competitive fight to the distance. RINGS veteran Valentijn Overeem choked out Dennis Reed of Extreme Challenge in 28 seconds."

and

"Saulo Ribiero, who won the Abu Dhabi submission tournament at 191 pounds, is expected to face Yuki Kondo of Pancrase on the 5/26 Coliseum 2000 Tokyo Dome show." This is not directly RINGS related but I like Saulo news and notes because his Jiu Jitsu University is a first-rate græppling book in my estimation and a year from now (from then) Saulo faces judoist/GRABAKA-founder/RINGSist Sanae Kikuta in the -88 kg finals of the 2001 ADCC; Kikuta's win over the worthy and admirable Saulo is, I remind you, a major point of troll-interest for the judo player who has friends who enjoy and indeed prefer the jiu-jitsu stylings of Brazil.

March 27, 2000:

"Akira Maeda said upon returning from Abu Dhabi that Kiyoshi Tamura was not going to jump to Dream Stage Entertainment and said that Pride doesn't understand how to make matches that fans want to see."

and

"OTHER JAPAN NOTES: RINGS announced its next show for 4/20 at Tokyo Yoyogi Gym, which is six days after UFC Japan has the same building booked. It's a pretty strong line-up with Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Gilbert Yvel for the RINGS world heavyweight title as the main event which is going to be an awfully tough test for Tamura, Yoshihisa Yamamoto vs. Jeremy Horn, Volk Han vs. Bobby Hoffman, Hiromitsu Kanehara vs. Renato Babalu, Andrei Kopylov vs. Ricardo Arona (who won the recent Abu Dhabi tournament but is much smaller than Kopylov), Wataru Sakata vs. Brandon Lee Hinkle and Yasuhito Namekawa vs. Allister Overeem. Yamamoto and Sakata will also work on the WEF shoot show on 5/13 in Muncie, IN against Hinkle and Lewis Burgett respectively." 

and

"Besides the Vanderlei Silva vs. Tito Ortiz main event, also on the 4/14 UFC show (4/21 U.S. air date) from Tokyo will be Eugene Jackson vs. Sanae Kikuta of Pancrase, Ikuhisa Minowa of Pancrase vs. Joe Slick (who was on the last UFC Japan show in the match where Jason DeLucia get the Joe Theismann on his knee from a throw by Slick) and Yoji Anjoh vs. Murillo Bustamante, a highly regarded Jiu Jitsu fighter from Brazil who has never lost in MMA competition. Kenichi Yamamoto, who won the UFCJ tournament last year, is out of the show and possibly out of MMA for good due to a problem with bleeding in his brain which made him susceptible to be knocked out. Akira Maeda forced him to retire from RINGS some time back for that very problem."

April 3. 2000:

"MMA: The Coliseum 2000 promotion, which is running the 5/26 Tokyo Dome show headlined by Rickson Gracie vs. Masakatsu Funaki, is going to work with Pancrase, RINGS and UFC Japan. Both UFCJ and Coliseum held press conferences on 3/22 and announced the three promotions were joining forces to feud with Dream Stage Entertainment for supremacy in the promotion of mixed martial arts in Japan, and realistically, the world. Both shows will air live on PPV in Japan and air on a tape delay on TV Tokyo. It appears Rickson Gracie may be setting up his exit from doing the fight or they are working some sort of an angle, since he's now demanded that there can not only be no doctor or referee stopping the match, but that he doesn't even want the match to be allowed to be stopped if his second throws in the towel. Theoretically that means if he's knocked out and laying there unconscious, the match would continue because nobody has the power to stop it. So you can take the logic from there. Also added to the show is Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Jeremy Horn. Horn is a dangerous opponent because unless they go in with a prescribed weight limit, he'll outweigh Tamura by close to 35 pounds and he's a good enough wrestler that may be able to control Tamura on the ground like he did Frank Shamrock before Shamrock got he submission. It's dangerous because they are sending Tamura into so many shoots so quickly that the sheer constant training for these matches is going to burn him out, and he's got something of a name from pro wrestling to where he should be protected for marketability, plus for credibility as RINGS world heavyweight champion. With his 4/20 match with Gilbert Yvel, it'll be his fourth shoot against a world class opponent so far in 2000, although in the case of Horn, he fights even more often.


The UFC Japan show on 4/14 at Tokyo Yoyogi Gym which airs on 4/21 on PPV in the United States. For Japan, they are billing the Yoji Anjoh vs. Murillo Bustamante match as the main event, while in the U.S. for PPV, they are billing Tito Ortiz vs. Vanderlei Silva as the main event. Ortiz vs. Silva on paper looks to be a great match since Silva is a strong striker and knocked out Mike Van Arsdale, who is a lot better wrestler than Ortiz. To The other matches announced are Sanae Kikuta vs. Eugene Jackson, both quality fighters; Satoshi Honma vs. Ron Waterman, Ikuhisa Minowa vs. Joe Slick and Daijyu Takase vs. Laverne Clark. Kenichi Yamamoto, a former pro wrestler with UWFI and later as part of the Golden Cups, before going into RINGS and being retired, who later won the UFC Japan tournament, was offered a spot on the show. He turned it down because he didn't like the offer given to him. It is not because of internal bleeding. He is susceptible to concussions which makes it easier for him to get internal bleeding, which is one of the reason RINGS pretty well retired him."

April 10, 2000:

"Another RINGS wrestler was added to the 5/26 Coliseum 2000 Tokyo Dome show when 1998 Abu Dhabi heavyweight and absolute champion Mario Sperry, a many time world heavyweight champion in the sport of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, faces Hiromitsu Kanehara, who started out as a pro wrestler in the old UWFI. Kanehara joins RINGS' world heavyweight champion Kiyoshi Tamura in matches that will be fought under the same rules as the recent RINGS King of Kings tournament, which allows closed fist punching standing, but no head punches or kicks while on the ground. In the recent RINGS tournament, Kanehara beat Jeremy Horn via decision. Horn is Tamura's opponent on this show. Kanehara lost in the second round to eventual champion Dan Henderson. Tamura won his first three matches, including a decision over Renzo Gracie, to make it to the final four before losing a close and perhaps even controversial decision to Renato Babalu. The interesting politics is that means the top RINGS wrestlers and the top Pancrase wrestlers (Masakatsu Funaki and Yuki Kondo as well as charismatic rookie Genki Sudo) would be appearing on the same show. Those two promotions, from the start, have hated one another. The explanation for this is probably similar to the Russo/Bischoff tandem. They have a common enemy in DSE and everyone seems to be looking at the 5/1 show and the 5/26 shows as competing events. What is interesting in that in a 'real fight' promotional war, Royce Gracie is a headliner on one show and Rickson is the headliner on the other."

and

"K-1 will be running an eight-man tournament on 4/16 in Birmingham, England with the winner going into the K-1 Grand Prix world tournament. Lee Hasdell, who has fought many matches with RINGS, is among those entered."

April 17, 2000:

A reader well known to me writes:

"RINGS

As RINGS slowly becomes a shoot promotion, one must consider ringing the bell ten times for the death of shoot style pro wrestling.

This is truly a sad day. Although the style has left an indelible mark on mainstream pro wrestling in Japan, this is the first time since the second UWF debuted in 1988 that there is no true major league shoot style promotion in Japan.

Personally, I feel this is a terrible mistake. We will be losing two of the all-time great workers in the style, Volk Han and Kiyoshi Tamura. Sure, Tamura will stick around, slowly losing prestige in an all-shoot promotion. But I'd much rather see Tamura in pro wrestling than shooting.

As RINGS goes all shoot, the question also must be raised. Why this style? The modified Pancrase shoot style is dead as disco. Even Masakatsu Funaki and company realize that the faster paced NHB action is the wave of the future. RINGS prohibition of striking on the ground will lead to fiascos like the King of Kings finals or the ADCC submission competitions, with the fighters trying to control, not to win.

Jonathan Snowden"

HI JONATHAN!!!

and another (this time unknown):

"OGAWA

In your 3/27 Observer you stated that Naoya Ogawa was a three-time world judo champion, when in fact, he has four titles. He won the open weight class in 1987, 1989 and 1991 as well as winning the 95 kilogram (209 pound) class in 1989. I've also noticed that on a number of occasions you have called Grom Zaza a mediocre wrestler when he has a far superior international record to Mark Coleman, Mark Kerr and Tom Erikson.

Michael Stringer

DM: I'm well aware that Zaza has wrestled in the Olympics and I would never ref to someone who wrestled in the Olympics as a mediocre wrestler. Because he's a pure wrestler with limited experience in submissions and no stand-up skills, he's not nearly as strong a free fighter as a wrestler."

and Tadashi Tanaka:

"We witnessed an historic moment in legitimizing the world heavyweight pro wrestling championship belt. The RINGS title is one of the top world titles in the pro wrestling industry and the champion, Kiyoshi Tamura, went into a slightly different rule MMA competition along with 31 other big name real fighters, and made it to the final four, including getting a strong win over Renzo Gracie, the best of the Gracie fighters.

There is an interesting comparison of the U.S. and Japanese pro wrestling scene. WCW right now is in big trouble, with declining ratings and popularity. One of the reasons is the lack of respect they've given to their own championships. Even fans who follow Nitro tend to forget who the world champion is the day after a title change. One night we saw Chris Benoit as a world champion and a few weeks later he's on Raw. Tamura went back to the turn of the century tradition of a pro wrestling world champion being a true shooter.

Tadashi Tanaka

New York, New York"

April 24, 2000:

"OTHER JAPAN NOTES: Satoru Sayama claimed that there would be a joint show with Dream Stage Entertainment and his own Seikendo promotion on 6/11 at the Yokohama Arena headlined by Masaaki Satake. . . RINGS will be running a 5/20 show in Russia which will include the return of Masayuki Naruse, who has been out of action since August due to injuries, as he faces Ilioukhine Mikhail. The 4/20 show in Tokyo has had two changes as Volk Han didn't come for his first actual shoot match in RINGS so Boris Jeliaskov, a very good wrestler, faces Extreme Challenge heavyweight champ Bobby Hoffman. Hiromitsu Kanehara has a right leg injury so his opponent, Renato Babalu, faces Travis Fulton from the U.S. who has had more than 100 legitimate MMA matches over the past few years. There are some rule changes starting with this show. In two round fights, the first round will be 10:00 and the second round 5:00. If one judge rules a guy a winner and the other two vote draw, it'll be ruled a majority draw just like in boxing. At the King of Kings, because it was a tournament and someone had to advance and they couldn't have draws, they'd advance someone on one judges call. For title matches, just as the Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Gilbert Yvel match, the first round will be 15:00 with the second round 5:00."

An unreal report from UFC Japan 4/14 at Tokyo Yoyogi Gym II:

"6. In the main event for Japan, pro wrestler Yoji Anjoh, trimmed down to his best condition in years at 196 pounds, lost to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu former world champion Murillo Bustamante, 199. Anjoh, the only Japanese mainstream name fighter on the show, got the biggest pop coming out. Anjoh is the managing director of the UFC Japan company but nobody takes him seriously as a legitimate opponent for such a high level fighter. When Bustamante started taking control, the crowd began to catcall Anjoh, saying he should try and sucker punch him, or screaming at Anjoh that Akira Maeda (who Anjoh sucker punched backstage in the hall at the last UFC show in Japan and was later brought up on charges for it) was there. Bustamante, who is undefeated in MMA competition, dominated him throughout the fight, winning at :38 of the second round with a katagatamae, a head and shoulder side choke. Japanese reports were that Bustamante looked far better than Rickson Gracie has ever looked fighting in Japan. Anjoh got little offense in, and in frustration, tried a haymaker punch that Bustamante easily sidestepped in the second round."

May 1, 2000:

"4/20 Tokyo Yoyogi Gym II (RINGS - 3,600 sellout): Allister Overeem b Yasuhito Namekawa, Wataru Sakata b Brandon Lee Hinkle, Bobby Hoffman b Boris Jeliaskov, Renato Babalu b Travis Fulton, Ricardo Arona b Andrei Kopylov, Jeremy Horn b Yoshihisa Yamamoto, RINGS hwt title: Gilbert Yvel b Kiyoshi Tamura. OTHER JAPAN NOTES: The problem with going to what appears to be an all-shoot format in RINGS was evident with both Yoshihisa Yamamoto and Kiyoshi Tamura losing in the top two matches on the 4/20 show at Tokyo Yoyogi Gym II. Tamura, in a world heavyweight title defense, was knocked out in 13:13 by Gilbert Yvel. According to reports, Tamura took a terrible beating from punches to the head, as Yvel is a world class kickboxer with a great reach advantage and 20-25 pounds on Tamura. The reports we got is that the match should have been stopped much earlier, but the referee, being that Tamura is the company hero, let it go to give him a chance to mount a comeback. After the match it was felt due to the beating it's unlikely he'll be ready for his next scheduled match, which is an important one since it's on the 5/26 Tokyo Dome show against Jeremy Horn. But a few days later it was announced Tamura would do the match, as he was cleared by doctors. In the U.S. for boxing, after losing on a TKO, generally speaking you have a mandatory 45 days off. The idea of Tamura going in another fight in five weeks shows why the Japanese fighters burn out at such a young age, usually from a combination of overtraining and fighting too often. Yvel actually lost in the first round at the recent King of Kings tournament to Dan Henderson, which again shows there is a tremendous lack of predictability in shoots under these type of rules. Horn, who also lost in the first round of King of Kings to Hiromitsu Kanehara, beat Yamamoto with a side choke in 2:50 of the second round (12:50). In other matches on the show, Ricardo Arona beat Andrei Kopylov after they went the 15:00 (two rounds 10+5) via unanimous decision as Kopylov once again blew up and was hanging on at the end. Renato Babalu made Travis Fulton tap out to a reverse armbar in 4:49. Bobby Hoffman scored his second straight knockout of an Eastern European amateur wrestling champion over Boris Jeliaskov in 8:00. Wataru Sakata caught Brandon Lee Hinkle in an ankle lock at 7:45 and in the opener Allister Overeem arm barred Yasuhito Namekawa in 45 seconds. Next RINGS show is 6/15 at the same building."

May 8, 2000:

A brief excerpt from the Kazushi Sakuraba/Royce Gracie match:

"The sad part of the show is that this appears to be the peak of the sport for Japan, because the last conquest, the final absolute victory by a Japanese fighter over one of the two "unbeatable" members of the Gracie family (Royce and Rickson) under the Gracies' own hand-picked rules has been achieved, thereby ending the myth. Even though this had the toughest one-night tournament ever, it didn't draw as well as the 1/30 first round show because even after everything that has happened, Takada is still more of a drawing card against Gracie than Sakuraba due to his past success in pro wrestling, and in Japan, the audience for these shows is mainly pro wrestling fans, and there wasn't as much drawing appeal for a tournament in Japan that everyone expected would come down to either Coleman or Mark Kerr against Vovchanchin, even with the return of Shamrock as part of the show. Some also felt that the quality of the 1/30 show, in particular because of the disastrous Gracie-Takada main event, led to a lot of fans who bought tickets to that show not caring about seeing Gracie fight again."

On the upcoming Colosseum show:

"Coming at the same time as his brother suffered the family's most crushing defeat since their father suffered a broken arm in a match when he was past 40 years old in a legendary three hour match in the 1950s, what is expected to be Rickson Gracie's toughest modern test on 5/26 at the Tokyo Dome is in jeopardy.

There are problems going down regarding the 5/26 Tokyo Dome match and with former pro wrestler and now Pancrase biggest draw Masakatsu Funaki. Masami Ozaki, the President of Pancrase, has threatened to pull all the Pancrase fighters, which would include Funaki, off the show, which would kill the show, because the Coliseum rules committee wouldn't allow head-butts or elbows to be used in the main event since Gracie nixed them. There is amazing irony in all this. Years ago, the Pancrase fighters, when Pancrase was doing very well in Japan and MMA style was just beginning to take hold, used to talk about UFC in derogatory terms as being brutal fighting because of the lack of rules and the fact a lot of people who shouldn't have been involved have been used, and theirs as being sport fighting with well trained athletes. The Gracies used to protest every rule change claiming it was taking the Vale Tudo out of the game. Now, a few years later, when the biggest myth of the pre-UFC era, Rickson Gracie, now 40, meets the original star of Pancrase, Funaki, 31, but having fought far tougher opponents during his career, with both long past their fighting primes, it is Funaki's side that wants everything legal and Gracie's side that wants head-butts and elbows taken out. This is also scheduled as a no time limit match and the referee, doctor and even his own seconds can't stop the match for Gracie (they can for Funaki), so even the clean finish of Royce losing wouldn't happen in this match because Gracie has in his contract that the corner can't throw in the towel, all rules demanded by Rickson, which he claimed was stemming from the referee stoppage of brother Royler's match with Kazushi Sakuraba last November. They were lucky with the last match because any form of fight where the referee and doctor, let alone your own corner, don't have the power to stop it is ridiculous in any day and age.

On 5/2, Ozaki met with TV Tokyo, which is broadcasting the show live, and the Coliseum 2000 (which is running its first show ever) rules committee demanding head-butts and elbows be legal. The station said because it was airing live, there was a violence concern because many young children would be watching the match, which is expected to draw a monster television rating. Ozaki countered by saying pro wrestling, which kids also watch, features elbows and head-butts as routine moves.

The ban of the two moves came at the demands of Gracie, who if he pulls out, would mean the show couldn't take place and the feeling is everyone involved felt forced to agree with his terms.

There is general feeling that despite the demand, that Pancrase and Funaki can't pull out of the show. From a monetary standpoint, this will be the company's highest profile event and biggest income event of the year. In addition, the belief is that with a signed contract with TV Tokyo, that the station, if Pancrase pulls out and the show would have to be canceled, would sue the promotion.

Funaki suffered a large cut above his right eye in training on 4/26, needing seven stitches. He said it would be no problem as it pertains to the 5/26 date of the fight. Rickson Gracie began training on 5/3 in Japan at Hakuba Village in the mountains of the Suwa prefecture. That Funaki injury story may also be a case where you have to read between the lines."

May 15, 2000:

"In a major blow, RINGS world heavyweight champion Gilbert Yvel, who captured the title on 4/20 in Tokyo with a victory over Kiyoshi Tamura in a shoot match, announced on 5/3 that he had jumped to Dream Stage Entertainment. This now makes sense since at the Pride show two days earlier at the Tokyo Dome, Yvel posed for photos shaking hands with Mark Coleman, which would have been the world champion of RINGS posing with the world champion of PRIDE, which are warring organizations. It would seen to make sense by pro wrestling standards to book an Yvel vs. Coleman match, although booking in shoot organizations usually makes even less sense than in pro wrestling."

and

"Dan Henderson, coming off winning the RINGS tournament on 2/26, placed second in Greco-roman at the U.S. Nationals in the 187 pound weight class, losing to Quincey Clark 11-6. Clark, who placed fourth in both the 1998 and 1999 World Championships, was also named outstanding wrestler in the tournament. This makes Henderson the second seed in the country going into the Olympic team trials which take place 6/22 through 6/24 in Dallas."

and

"Some notes from the autobiography of Kazushi Sakuraba. He said that in his first UFC tournament (which he won when he tapped out Marcus "Conan" Silveira with an armbar even though he gave away 50 pounds), he felt going into the match with Silveira, because Yoji Anjoh had lost a decision to Tank Abbott where he got virtually no offense in, that if he also lost, that Kingdom (the pro wrestling company they both worked for) would be finished (even with him winning, the company ended up out of business not that long afterwards). He praised Tsuyoshi Kohsaka, but not Kenichi Yamamoto. Regarding Kazuyuki Fujita of New Japan, he said that he first met Fujita when Fujita was in college, and noted that at the time Fujita was smaller than he was and asked what Fujita did to get the body he now has (Fujita is 237 of muscle and looks almost like a Japanese Kevin Randleman). Regarding the period he wrestled for New Japan in the New Japan vs. UWFI feud, he said they were debating whether to do the angle (which led to the famous Keiji Muto vs. Nobuhiko Takada match in 1995 at the Tokyo Dome which was one of the biggest in Japanese pro wrestling history) and the decision was made to try and get mainstream exposure for their UWFI style by working it within New Japan big shows. He said at that point Kiyoshi Tamura (who was one of the top stars of UWFI, but refused to do the feud with New Japan) turned his back on the angle and company because he didn't want to do it. He said the others all debated whether or not to do it (virtually all did). Sakuraba said he enthusiastically wanted to do it because he thought he'd be able to get a match with Riki Choshu. Regarding the Gracies, he wrote, "Rickson and Royler are people who just don't get it. They should rant and rave among themselves. I'd like the Gracies (he excluded Renzo in this statement) to entertain me some more with their obstinant childish theatrics."

And that's it! We have reached the end of the Observer archive! Every Monday a new (old) issue is posted to the archive, and we will of course keep on ctrl+f'ing our way through them to try and round out the story of this Fightning Network we have long known as RINGS, and I will update all posts as these materials come to light. Okay then! Thank you once more for your time and for your attention to these matters! But when next we meet it will be Meltzless, alas.