RINGS BLOG SUPPLEMENTAL: 5/26/00: COLOSSEUM 2000 (C2K)

Colosseum 2000 (C2K)
5/26/00 in Tokyo, Japan
東京ドーム Tōkyō Dōmu

NO YOU SIGNED UP FOR AN ACCOUNT AT (ANOTHER) RUSSIAN MARTIAL ARTS TRACKER SO YOU COULD GET A COPY OF COLOSSEUM 2000 NO YOU DID but let us not bicker and argue about who has signed up to how many martial arts trackers (Russian or otherwise) either over the years or just now, at the very time it would be meet and right for us to examine as part of our seemingly endless endeavour (and yet its end draws all too near) of watching all of the RINGS shows available to us through the majesty of the RINGSbox that sat unwatched in two houses before finally finding its true home (nailed this sentence) here at tkscissors.blogspot.com, a blog that I am for the most part writing, it's true, but that we have truly built together in friendship, and so I thank you once again for your gift of that to me. Those of you who have been attending with all due rigour to what Dave Meltzer has had to say in the build-up to this strange event (or is it, truly?) will no doubt recall many of these words excerpted already from the pages of the Observer but let us revisit them here, let us revisit them now:

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."

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 ["kakutogi" is a useful term here--ed.], Royce Gracie is a headliner on one show and Rickson is the headliner on the other."

May 8, 2000:

"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."

It is entirely possible that Dave had other things to say in the run-up to the event and I would go so far as to say it is a certainty that he had things to say after the event however we have reached the end of the online Observer archive so we are flying blind! When the appropriate Observers are all posted I will edit in whatever they have to say at the end of the post but for now we must trust in ourselves and in each other. 

AND WE ARE LIVE except this can't have been the live airing, it must be an edit for commercial release because the picture is very clear, so this probably isn't even the TV Tokyo tape-delayed broadcast and I say this because you can really see the blood splattered on the camera after Yuki Kondo, an utterly essential man of Pancrase, knees and then further batters Saulo Ribeiro, defending ADCC champion and Jiu-Jitsu World Champion many times over, to a grisly end only twenty-two seconds into this opening bout before an unreal crowd:

I have said before in these pages but will gladly say again how much I admire Saulo Ribeiro as a græppler and as an author and teacher: Jiu-Jitsu University really is one of the best martial arts instructional books I have ever seen, and old (and current!) martial arts instructional books (chiefly judo as you would expect) are a real enthusiasm of mine so I have seen a lot of them, I think. Watching Saulo just sliced up here puts me in mind of Marcelo Garcia's lone mixed fight, in which he was stopped on a cut twenty seconds into the second round against Kim Dae-Won, a Korean judo player of no real repute, after Garcia had spent much of the first (as I remember it; it is likely I am mistaken; please forgive me) on Dae-Won's back, unable, for whatever reason, to do any of the amazing things he is obviously and demonstrably capable of doing when he is on someone's back. I don't point these both out to be puerile about Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (although, I mean, obviously, train judo [R.I.P. Quincy Rice, July 25, 1975 – October 11, 2016]) but instead to say how mixed fighting is probably dumb and wrong and these beautiful græpplers should have just kept on græppling beautifully instead of doing whatever it is they're doing here, whatever it is we're doing here; I mean, my God. 

I just checked and Yuki Kondo last fought in March of this year, like as in 2017. He is a second-dan in Shorinji Kempo, a truly esoteric martial art I encourage you to read about at the place we all go to to read about things in a preliminary way. I will not be drawn into writing about all the Pancrase shows I simply will not be but I should probably do some key shows or matches of note at some point, maybe just all kinds of Sanae Kikuta, who we were (I was) incredibly surprised to find on a handful of these RINGS shows, and who would, less than a year from the time of this Kondo/Ribeiro 東京ドーム Tōkyō Dōmu match, best Saulo Ribeiro and indeed everyone else in the -88 kg division at ADCC as he won the world's biggest no-gi submission græppling tournament as a Koga-trained judoist, no big deal to me or anything. These Pancrase guys are making it rough on Saulo, though, and I feel bad for him; I like Saulo.

This is the first time we have been in the Tokyo Dome in all of this RINGSblogging (and of course RINGS itself never made it there, did it, though Maeda and Dolman did have their match on that huge Bridge Of Dreams ~ Dome Spring Full Bloom thirteen-promotion show in 1995) and it's pretty great! The ring announcer's voice echoes around like crazy, and the crowd reaction to Yuki Kondo's win was wild, and the ramp is absurd, and the ring looks great, and oh also here comes Genki Sudo dressed as a dragon billowing smoke as he is carried in on a littler by monks:

We are still firmly in the era in which Genki Sudo had dreads, which I am sure was your first question. That he is dancing and otherwise being Genki throughout his fifteen-minute draw with Nova União's André Pederneiras (or it André Pederneiras's Nova União?) is of course beyond question. Are there maybe no judges for any of these matches? Because Sudo would normally have been the winner under any criteria I am familiar with. The elfin Caol Uno was in his corner, I should add, as SHOOTO pals stick together; the referee was the RINGS one with the flat-top. 

Next we have Masato (Kobayashi) vs. Melchor Menor in a kickboxing match that Masato wins by referee stoppage late in the fourth round. They both seemed good at it! And then an exhibition of board- and ice-breaking by a Kyokushin karateka is shown only in highlight, which is kind of a shame because this guy seemed awesome and I am in no real rush. But before you know it we are onto Kunihiro Suzuki and Luciano Basile in a full-on karate fight! Kyokushin is amazing, they just stand there blasting the hekk out of each other from the neck down whilst the referee wears a bow-tie like everything's cool (it is expressly not). Suzuki wins the decision after several rounds of onslaught and one can totally see why the karate that was selected for inclusion in the Olympic movement is the point-fighting (and also kata! there is going to be an Olympic karate kata competition!) of the World Karate Federation as opposed to the relentless brutal rush of Kyokushin. By all means--by all means--continue to employ Kyokushin when abusing large animals who do not understand at all why you are hitting them (please do not continue to do this, I take it all back) but let Olympic karate unfold in the manner of, say, Shotokan. Also, how about this: "Etymology[edit] Calligraphy of Shotokan
Shotokan was the name of the first official dojo built by Gichin Funakoshi, in 1936[3] at Mejiro, and destroyed in 1945 as a result of an allied bombing.[4] Shoto (松濤 Shōtō), meaning "pine-waves" (the movement of pine needles when the wind blows through them), was Funakoshi's pen-name,[5] which he used in his poetic and philosophical writings and messages to his students. The Japanese kan (館 kan) means "house" or "hall". In honour of their sensei, Funakoshi's students created a sign reading shōtō-kan, which they placed above the entrance of the hall where Funakoshi taught.[5] Gichin Funakoshi never gave his system a name, just calling it karate." Olympic Karate 2020: let us ready ourselves; if we dare.

NOW IT IS TIME FOR RINGS as the ineffable Hiromitsu Kanehara sees action against Mario Sperry whose office in the realms of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is I believe a popeship of some kind (in reference to Tsuyoshi Kohsaka's [later, PRIDE] victory over Mario Sperry, I saw once where someone referred to Sperry as the BJJ Pope and I liked it then and I like it still now). Mario Sperry's old VHS instructional tapes are very good, I should note here (I have probably noted as much previously in these pages), and made quite an impression on me not in terms of any one particular technique or waza but just in how great it is when he explains that one way to break the hold of uke's legs around you in do-osae (trunk-pin) is to get low . . . an' you pooosh, you poooooooooooosh; it's tremendous. When I work with people about my age, and specifically people who have been græppling long enough and who are of the right disposition to have probably watched the old Mario Sperry VHS tapes, I often make explicit reference to the an' you poooooosh moment. I am a lot of fun! Anyway, I like Mario Sperry, and have always liked Mario Sperry. To what extent is he a part of the long tradition of Jiu-Jitsu in Brazil wherein the sons of the rich learn how to beat up the sons of the poor with the knowledge that has been bought for them? I don't see how it could possibly be my place to say, frankly; I would not so presume. This match is awesome right away, the level of græppling immediately high. Sperry is able to take the back with seeming ease, but is unable to hold it. That Hiromitsu Kanehara is slipperier than a fish! Also he comes reasonably close (not to a finish but to a catch) with a yoko-sankaku-jime side-triangle choke whilst held in yoko-shiho-gatame, which is a fundamental movement. But for the most part Sperry goes a great job with position, and Kanehara does what he can to stay out of even more serious trouble. I have read that Sperry was a Georges Mehdi student, and Mehdi is an interesting figure: "Born in Cannes, France, George originally came to Brazil on a vacation in 1949 and did not return.[5][6] A trained judoka, he went to the jiu-jitsu school of Carlos Gracie, but left it after some time due to differences with the Gracie family. They taught very little throwing claiming that it was less useful than groundfighting, while Mehdi believed that they did so because they did not know how to throw.[5] He also was uncomfortable with which he perceived as lack of honesty by the family, as they had been publiciting him as a French judo champion despite he was just a beginner. He then traveled to Japan to train in the Kodokan school in 1952.[5]" I enjoy the typo "publiciting" very much and feel it should be a new word that we use in the contexts to which it obviously and immediately seems relevant. The first five-minute round ends in Sperry's favour for sure, I would say if there are indeed judges but again I don't know what's going on here. The canvas says "SAMMY" on it, and that is what one of the rings says in ファイナルファイヤープロレスリング～夢の団体運営 (Final Fire Pro Wrestling: Yume no Dantai Unei! [Final Fire Pro Wrestling: Organization of Dreams {Final Fire Pro Wrestling: Dream Organization Management}]), and things are coming together here for me personally right now. The second round is I think closer but the decision (so there are judges?) rightly goes to Sperry, who, in celebration holds a black flag with diagonal white stripe and a red iron cross on it. I don't know. Always nice to see Mario Sperry, though! Get this get this get this: you get low . . . an' you poooooosh oh man it's classic, you need to see it (it's very good). 

KIYOSHI TAMURA VS. JEREMY HORN and Tamura is a month and six days removed from getting torn to shreds by Gilbert Yvel, who, as new RINGS champion, left at once for PRIDE. What an awful situation! It would be absurd to have ill feelings or to mind in any way what anyone did here, of course: Gilbert Yvel should not be fighting, nor should anyone, obviously, but if he is going to, he should do so where and for whom he likes; PRIDE should not be having people fight for money, nor should anyone, obviously, but if they are going to, they should try to have the best people doing it; much like Gilbert Yvel, Kiyoshi Tamura should not be fighting, nor should anyone, obviously, but if he's going to, he can't be expected to win matches against Gilbert Yvel, nor even to contest them. So it is not a question of wrongdoing (though we are all of us wrong) so much as an unfortunate happenstance (we are all culpable in this). Let's see how it goes against Jeremy Horn! Horn, you will recall, recently lost a decision to Hiromitsu Kanehara, but then beat Yoshihisa Yamamoto with a nifty 絞技 shime-waza from 縦四方固 tate-shiho-gatame in the mode of 肩固 kata-gatame! So yeah he arm-triangled him. HERE THEY COME NOW:

Despite his recent loss, the crowd remains way in on Kiyoshi Tamura, for they are not faithless. I am pleased to see that Tamura has returned to the higher-cut trunks he had worn exclusively until he donned slightly leggier, striped trunks for KING OF KINGS (trunk of trunks?). Horn sprawls down atop Tamura's low, tackling morote-gari, and that could prove to be a problem for Tamura throughout, given the size difference here (Jeremy Horn always turns out to be bigger than I think of Jeremy Horn being; this is entirely on me, clearly). Or maybe not, what do I know: Tamura's next takedown does the trick, and he passes halfway to where he would like to be, but gets stalled out there pretty thoroughly, and referee Ryogaku Wada (we know him!) stands them up. Tamura, who is not wearing gloves, really slaps the hekk out of Jeremy Horn, who is, and I am genuinely surprised that Tamura is getting the best of the striking here. Tamura puts him down again, but they are restarted pretty quickly. As the round ends they are down again, this time with Horn passing to the side just as the bell rings. That round was Tamura's if there are judges! But I am still very ignorant and also a fool. I notice only now that the ring is of an interesting yellow tone and yeah okay this canvas is totally totally in the Fire Pro I (we) have been playing on my (our) phone(s) of late, it is not merely that both say Sammy; this is remarkable:

Rather than succumb to weird thoughts I will tell you that I admire how snugly Horn keeps an ear to Tamura's shoulder in this butterfly-/hooks-/TK-guard/hikikomi, because that is exactly how to do it: ball up, get off to a slight angle, enjoy the kaeshi-waza (counter techniques) that await you (and your partner!) from that dynamic position. I would also like to note how none of the bouts this evening have had commentary at all; we are left only with the sounds of the athletes and the referee and the crowd as they echo throughout the 東京ドーム Tōkyō Dōmu vastness. Things stall out and they stand (or are stood), and when next they are down it is Horn attempting to pass Tamura's legs. "Be decisive," is his corner's græppz-wise advice (it's probably Pate Miletich, right?). Horn makes the side, Tamura turns, and Horn for a moment looks like he would like to go to the crucifix or 地獄 jigoku/hell position and rather than succumb to weird thoughts this time I will instead tell you that it doesn't really take and time runs out. Ryogaku Wada raises Tamura's hand as the decision victory is announced, and Tamura raises Horn's in a gesture of fellowship. You could tell for a fraction of a second that Jeremy Horn was not thrilled with this judges' decision, but he is a sportsman and also probably has like three fights next week that he's already thinking about, there's no time to dwell. 

ALRIGHT THEN OUR MAIN EVENTO IS UPON US and it sees Rickson Gracie, in his last match before he retires and then keeps pretty quiet and only really pops up years later to say it would probably take him a little longer to beat Fedor Emilianenko, a fighter of "so-so" waza, than it would take him to beat Brock Lesnar, but that he would certainly finish either. Just Rickson stuff, you know. One wonders if he ever got his win back against Ron Tripp, who threw him with uchi-mata for a total victory at the 1993 U.S. Sambo Championships wait no there is no win to get back because Rickson said it shouldn't count as a loss because he didn't understand the rules. That you could lose on a throw. In a sambo match. In a sambo tournament. In sambo. I kid Rickson Gracie about this and about the many claims he has made that seem to me absurd and about how, in my view (it is worth little), none of his kakutogi bouts hold up as evidence of either those claims or the claims made on his behalf (Yuki Nakai is tiny and had been blinded earlier in the evening; Yoshihisa Yamamoto lost a thousand fights; Nobuhiko Takada was handsome but awful) but let me say this: one of his black belts, a very accomplished one, teaches around here and is a friend-of-a-friend (I have never met him but I have heard only good things, the best things), and one of my judo students trains there and it sounds like a great club with first-rate instruction and beyond that and at the base of everything fundamentally we are all just people trying to be happy, right? But at the same time come on man. Ah, such is the way of Rickson! Either you are all-in on him or you are hugely skeptical of the whole situation; I don't think many people are halfway. Or maybe lots of people are, what do I know (nothing). Let's see how he fares against Pancrase founder Masakatsu Funaki, who so far has only ever lost to Jason DeLucia, Manabu Yamada, Ken Shamrock (twice), Frank Shamrock, Bas Rutten, Yuki Kondo, Guy Mezger, Semmy Schilt, and Kiuma Kunioku. Those are the only guys who have done it. Funaki comes out dressed as a Pancrase samurai, like with a sword and everything; Rickson arrives in an extremely comfy-looking hooded robe with weirdly long sleeves:

Hey do you remember when Renzo Gracie said that he didn't consider his "loss" to Kiyoshi Tamura in WORLD MEGA-BATTLE OPEN TOURNAMENT KING OF KINGS a loss because it wasn't contested under vale tudo rules? This match, as per Rickson's insistence, allows neither elbows nor headbutts nor knees to the head so we don't need to worry about the result, it's like whatever happens (or does it) doesn't even happen (how could it). If any of this were to have happened, though, it would have begun with clinching in the corner, and then Rickson trying to drag Funaki down with a single-leg whilst still clinched but it did not go well. They throw knees to each others' legs; this is a permissible technique. After several minute of this, Funaki grabs hold of a mae-hadake-jime front choke; it does not look dangerous but the crowd roars as they fall to the ground from there. Funaki stands and kicks Rickson's legs while Gracie lies on his back and throws the odd kick of his own from there as though he were a minor Antonio Inoki. In time, Rickson stands, drags Funaki forward, and secures a solid tate-shiho-gatame atop him. He postures up and punches, eventually trapping one of Funaki's hands in what Fire Pro has long called "cruel mounted punches" (it is an art of suppleness and yielding, this jiu jitsu) until Funaki turns, gives up his back, and is finished by hadaka-jime, the naked strangle (Rickson's legs are crossed, look out for the hiza-tori-garami counter, Rickson!):

AND THERE IT IS, MASAKATSU FUNAKI'S ELEVENTH LOSS COMES AT 12:49 BUT RICKSON GRACIE HAS BECOME ONLY THE TENTH MAN TO BEAT HIM BECAUSE KEN SHAMROCK DID IT TWICE SO THAT IS WHY IT WORKS OUT A LITTLE BIT ODDLY LIKE THAT.

This was an interesting show to me! I hope you found it that way as well. Let us return to RINGS-proper when next we meet! Thank you as always for your attention, for your time.

[IN TIME, THE WORDS OF DAVE MELTZER WILL APPEAR HERE; THE ARCHIVE MOVES SLOWLY]