RINGS 6/21/97: FIGHTING EXTENSION IV

Fighting Extension IV

June 21, 1997 in Tokyo, Japan

有明コロシアム Ariake Koroshiamu

(Ariake Coliseum) 

Drawing 9,188

AT ONCE A VOICE AROSE AMONG THE BLEAK TWIGS OVERHEAD IN FULL-HEARTED EVENSONG OF JOY ILLIMITED AN AGED THRUSH FRAIL GAUNT AND SMALL IN BLAST-BERUFFLED PLUME HAD CHOSEN THUS TO FLING HIS SOUL UPON THE GROWING GLOOM of us having no more RINGS shows to consider together as fellows in fellowship but can you believe that the full-hearted evensong that lies before us now with happy good-night air is one no less sikk than RINGS 6/21/97 which is to say DISC 73 which functioned for precisely none of the original RINGSboxists (my best to you all eternally) but whose ecstatic carolings are known to us now through the cleverness yes but far more importantly the generous spirit of Young Kelley aka @DenimAssemblage whose plumage may or may not be blast-beruffled I don't but it is true of so many of us that it may well be WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN IN THIS RINGS SHOW I DON'T EVEN REMEMBER WHERE IT FITS IN REALLY. But thank you once again, Kelley, for this great gift; I offer all that meagerly follows as tribute to your kindness. And here is the show itself; why would you do otherwise than partake of it. 

You know what though let us pause for a moment first and listen to something together maybe? I think it's pretty remarkable and if you're reading this the odds that you will find it of at least passing interest are pretty good so I say let's do it. A little while ago I was listening to old Wrestling Observer Radios and Bryan & Vinny Shows, searching for ones where they talked about Pride FC or RINGS or really anything on the subject of what we have come to mistakenly know through interpretative errors and misguided thoughts entirely of my own as Tadashi Tanaka's "Long UWF" (he never said any such thing) and I would remind you before we go any further down this road that only God can judge me (I suppose anyone else can too though). But it was really fun to do! I mean, there was way less of it than you'd maybe expect, but I think this is because the old shows are not necessarily tagged as well as they might be in the archive, maybe? And there are like nine-thousand shows (that is a "shoot" number) so it's not easy to just, like, leaf through them, as it were. The Bryan and Vinny ones were really very merry, I must say, and I enjoyed those most of all. HOWEVER the most interesting part was definitely Big Dave Meltzer's answer to a mailbag question (mine never get through, nor, much more disturbingly, do Tosh's) on the subject of the Americ(kkk)an mixed martial arts enthusiast's simultaneous loathing of professional wrestling and love(ing) of Pride FC (paradox . . . or dialectic?). I post here both the question, asked by Bryan Alvarez (who I identify pretty hard with as a small-to-medium-sized martial arts instructor living in a coastal city whose interests in events occurring along the work/shoot spectrum persist inescapably) back before his voice or the way it is recorded (probably both) changed significantly, like he totally used to sound like a muppet and now he sounds good, but anyway here he reads the question and then Dave answers at length; hear what comfortable words our Meltz sayeth:

HERE IT IS IT IS RIGHT HERE CLICK TO LISTEN IT'S REALLY GOOD

It is probably only polite to at least bullet-point this in case you are unable to listen to this until later or maybe you just feel the need for read I don't know but here are the areas addressed and some of the points made:

• Pride FC was supposed to be the next generation of UWFi, a vehicle for Nobuhiko Takada, (our dear dear dearest boy) Hiromitsu Kanehara (who is our precious boy), and Kazushi Sakuraba. If they'd had their way, Takada vs. Rickson Gracie would have been a worked fight, but Rickson Gracie, who I remind you was exceedingly gracious at the seminar I was very kindly invited to attend, did not care to do that.   
• The first Pride shows had both works and shoots but *and this is crucial* it is a mistake to understand these to have actually been different things (for more please re-read Tadashi Tanaka's greatest Observer letter ever, the foundational text of many if not all of my terrible ideas on this matter).
• This leads to Dave recounting a tale of mid-1997 RINGS (we are in mid-1997 RINGS right now!), where there was for sure a mix of worked and shoot matches, and Dave would understandably try to figure out which ones were which. This leads to "someone there" saying to Dave, "You're a mark."
• Dave is like but why.
• The guy is like "well, when you really understand the business, you'll realize it doesn't matter, because it's all the same anyway."
• And Dave is like woah.
• Tangential but also not really: Pride's draws were Takada, Sakuraba, Hidehiko Yoshida, and Naoya Ogawa when they could get him, never guys like Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira or Fedor Emelianenko.
• And then he says about six more minutes of good and worthy things but I am no transcriptionist. 

You really might want to give it a listen I think! Or maybe I listen to so much HerbMeltzAudioNetwork material that I really have no idea what's good or bad on it anymore; that possibility is distinct.  

BUT ON TO THE FIGHTING NETWORKS RINGS THEMSELVES SHALLN'T WE and oh wow(wow) WOWOW (wow) is I guess showing Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield after this? Stay tuned everybody for boxing! One wonders if commentary for that bout will be handled by WOWOW EXCITE MATCH's Kenichi Takayanagi, who of course guides us through this our present Fighting Extension alongside Gong Kakutogi's Hideyuki Kumakubo and also one other fellow who we have seen before but whose name I don't think we have managed to catch yet (we haven't super tried). Hey it's the RINGS OFFICIAL RANKING: 10. Mikhail Ilioukhine 9. Masayuki Naruse 8. Hans Nijman 7. Mitsuya Nagai 6. Yoshihisa Yamamoto 5. Bitsadze Tariel 4. Akira Maeda 3. Tsuyoshi Kohsaka 2. Kiyoshi Tamura 1. Volk Han and man oh man that is quite a crew isn't it! No wonder we so much like to watch this sort of thing together!

Our opening bout sees Watura Sakata, eternal young lion, encounter the remarkably obviously Kyokushin (極真) karateka Yuri Bekichev, whose very keikogi pants (he wears no shirt, no jacket [but a long black belt]) say K Y O K U S H I N down one leg And Also Have A Throwing Star On Them. You can tell at once that this match is a work but you can also tell that Bekichev is kicking Wataru Sakata way too hard for a work which, if you follow me, totally ensures that this is a work. I am reminded here of something I may well have told you several times (forgive me) over during the course of our treasured time together and that is that a great judo pal of mine trained Kyokushin for a while and described it as a rec centre room full of like otherwordly-hard dads just blasting each other with unprotected head-kicks like it was regular. I have so much respect for karate. And not just the unreasonable kinds: I think they're all great! I think Shotokan is wonderful and I admire Gichin Funakoshi a great deal! Pine waves; pine waves. My best to all of karate as it prepares for its Olympic début at Tokyo 2020; may it make known it's true spirit there. TOBI-SANKAKU-JIME YEAH THAT'S RIGHT 飛び三角絞 THE FLYING TRIANGLE CHOKE and it is a submission win for Wataru Sakata at 3:54 and one wonders if Yuri Bekichev's ear on the knee-side of the choke (if you follow) will be devastatingly cauliflowered (or gyoza'd) from this waza as one of my pals' was when he was assailed by this very technique at I believe the Atlantic Canadian Judo Championships in probably 2007? Some of the details have faded but it was a good trip I can tell you that much for sure. In the end they are announcing it as a victory by yoko-sankaku-jime or "side" triangle choke . . . and I can see why!

Next we have Lee Hasdell (seconded by the great Maurice Smith) and Masayuki Naruse (seconded by the great Tsuyoshi Kohsaka [Alliance Cornering!]) and these guys are not at all the same size are they. I cannot read the kanji tattooed on Lee Hasdell chest but I would like to be able to and I am working towards that goal (through the twin arts of "haiku translation" and also "writing my judo notes in terrible Japanese"); in time, yes, I will know Lee Hasdell's chest and all the tales it tells. Recently a judo pal had a hat with kanji on it and I was like hey what does your hat say and he said "ne waza!" which is What The Lady Told Him and I was like hmmm well I am still unbelievably bad at this but I know the ones for ne waza (寝技) and these are not those! I looked it up though (this is still hard for me to do but it is getting easier) and it meant "persistent" so you could do a lot worse, we agreed. Let me tell you, please, what it is I am most enjoying about this ne-waza-heavy pretend match (I am pretty sure [I am still "a mark" in this way I suppose or am I in fact a scholar which is a different *kind* of mark) between Lee Hasdell and Masayuki Naruse: it is the serenity of it all as the crowd is still, the commentary muted, the mat a calming soft blue hue. Akira Maeda sits at ringside as peacefully as his nature will permit which is to say that at this moment he is kicking no one in the eye through treachery. 

This.

Is.

RINGS.

Although we have together enjoyed, have we not, both textures and moments of great energy and ample vigour (so to speak) throughout our long exploration of this our cherished Fighting Network, it is the low-key feel of these quotidian mid-card bouts that I have missed most in their absence, I think. A nifty north/south hadaka jime 裸絞, announced as a shoulder neck lock(u), ends this worthy contest in Masayuki Naruse's favour at 12:58.  

Ok ok real quick don't think about it just say the first name to come into your head when I say Masayuki Naruse ok Masayuki Naruse, JUST SAY, GO: it was totally Mitsuya Nagai, wasn't it! I know right? Well it has taken him but twenty seconds to best Dutch kickboxer (that's a good kind of them for sure) André "Man Art" Mannart (a nom de guerre or sobriquet rouge we have only now bestowed upon him but I think this is going to take, I really do) by heel holdo! heel holdo desu! in what I swear to you was a shoot. Mannart is super good-natured about his loss and seems like a fine guy to me. And Mitsuya Nagai, it's like, if you don't know my feelings about Mitsuya Nagai by now, you will never never never know them; no; you won't; ooh; ooh woah. Akira Maeda is so proud!

You may recall (you also may not which is also totally fine) that the thing that pained me most about the failure of disc 73 (or perhaps we failed it, I don't know) was that I believed it to contain the further græppling instructionalz of Tsuyoshi Kohsaka and specifically the most august waza of 腕挫十字固 ude-hishigi-juji-gatame which is to say my favourite guy teaching my favourite technique. However it turns out that this excellent primer, containing fundamentals of application, escapes, and grip breaks (so crucial) is instead ably taught by young Masayuki Naruse. I could not tell you how many beginner lessons on juji-gatame it has been my privilege to teach over the many years I have been blessed by a position of judo instructorship but I believe that it has been a lot and I also believe that the one Masayuki Naruse offers here is lovely! Topics include:

• saying both "judo" and "ne waza" (I too emphasize these points in my teaching)
• ensuring the elbow is secured well past the hips
• positioning the thumb upwards to align that which needs be aligned (I usually put this in terms of cracking lobster but this is a regional reference that might not be more broadly applicable [would probably be good in 日本 though])
• squeezing one's knees together (nothing could be more crucial)
• attacking the wrist as a simple break of uke's sub-optimal "s-grip" defense 
• rolling hard-in and stacking to defend sensibly
• rolling backwards to defend somewhat desperately (do not attempt with dry old shoulders) 
• tobi-juji-gatame, the flying armbar, correctly presented as not a big deal, we can all do this if we work together carefully ps never do this in randori please

Well that was great! And since we mentioned the prospect of TKinstructionalz(.blogspot.ca) a moment ago, why not enjoy a whole folder of them? Also before we move on I would ask you to consider the degree of hardness with which two spectators seated on either side of Kenichi Takayanagi in this shot gaze into the camera and indeed our souls:

Our next bout is a vale-tudo rules contest betwixt Yuri Korchikin and Ricardo Morais, a literal ogre of yore-day myth and fable. If my memory serves me, I believe every bout announced as "vale-tudo" has indeed been a shoot and I expect nothing otherwise here, nor do the nine-thousand-or-so people of 有明コロシアム Ariake Koroshiamu who are abuzz as these two poor humans meet in the centre of the RING(s) for final instructions from referee Yuji Shimada; holy moly Ricardo Morais is big:

He is listed here as 205 cm and 123.5 kg so that's just a hair under 6'9" and just a smidgen  over 272 lbs. If this helps you, he is a centimetre taller than Teddy Riner, but 7.5 kg lighter; that is the order of his magnitude. Ricardo Morais, unlike Teddy, I don't think could pass WADA drug testing, nor could any of his descendants for probably like three generations, probably, but that is utterly irrelevant to the monstrosity that looms before the comparatively wee and yet objectively quite large Yuri Korchikin (185 cm 105 kg / 6" 230 lbs). Maeda Akira is announced as I believe the lone judge for this bout, perhaps? I think that is what just happened but I am not at all certain, forgive me yet again. I am reminded by this announcement, though, both that i) the RINGS ring announcer is my all-time favourite ring announcer by a lot, and ii) Akira Maeda is loooooooooooved and not just be me or my weird friends (though that is also true [what's up guys]). 

Ricardo Morais is chomping at the BIT in his eagerness to debase himself through barbarism and who can blame him. The opening exchange, in which Morais ducks in for an ungreat takedown attempt only to be ineffectually flying-guillotined by Korchikin before Morais can seize Korchikin's hand behind his back and assail him with like a standing (or tachi-waza) variation of ファイヤープロレスリング Fire Pro Wrestling's "cruel mounted punches," would seem completely over-the-top in a worked match and yet here it unfolds before us, as real as you or me. When the two become entangled in the ropes, Morais throwing punches I would not enjoy to be hit with into Korchikin's turtle (or kame [or かめ {or 亀}]) defense, the two are stopped and restarted in the same position in the centre of the ring -- I mention this to you because Maeda, red-jacketed and fat, enters the ring to help with this reordering and the crowd goes wild for it. Akira Maeda's presence is overwhelming. 

Yuri Korchikin is hanging in there, though, and one cannot help but wonder what horrors he has seen elsewhere in his life that allow this to be cool for him. Morais has him flattened out from behind, which is a terrible place to be (and super uncomfortable even without hitting, if tori uses his hips correctly) but Korchikin buys himself more time than you might think by trapping both Morais' meaty hocks beneath him. They stand, but remain in largely the same position, if you follow, and Morais drives Korchikin into the corner, still standing. He is yellow carded! But why? Oh, I see: Morais has one hand very much grasping the top rope (it is black) whilst face-hitting from behind with the other, and Akira Maeda is there to literally point it out. 

Five minutes have passed, we are told, as Morais attempts another takedown poorly, but after a minute or two of standing he manages to just, like, push him over. Morais makes no attempt to pass, but his hitting seems good (for hitting [which is always bad]) and Korchikin goes feet-on-hips and pushes away to create a scramble. And there is the bell! We have a draw! Korchikin clearly got the worst of that whole deal, but was never close to being finished by the much larger manbeast and so his performance here is a credit to him. 

We remain in the dark realm of vale tudo (or so it is claimed; and yes it totally is [it is not a work, I mean]) for a contest (for real) between Alexander Fedorov who I believe was a Detroit Red Wing and well regarded jiujiteiro Adilson Lima who I believe lost brutally to Igor Vovchanchyn twice in the same night after being transported to a hell dimension where that is even possible. This Fedorov, about whom "combat sambo" is definitely said, is an immediate favourite of the sporting people here assembled once he walks across the ring to not only shake Lima's hand but embrace him warmly; Lima accepts this unexpected kindness with a gracious air. And now they are fighting, Fedorov's pendulous gut pouring out atop the vivid purple tights that, in their folly, seek to contain it. And holy shit he just hit the illest little yoko-otoshi [横落] / lateral drop, look at how happy his corner friends are:

The elation shared here amongst Nikolai Zouev, Mitsuya Nagai, and their other friend in the nice sweatshirt takes me back to the days of packing all our pals into little cars and driving around to all the tournaments and being so into everybody's matches and just having such a spirited time of fellowship it takes me back there so hard man this is what it is about. The crowd agrees! Lima is a very skilled guy though and it is not long before he finely executes a "butterfly" sweep of the most basic kind and those who know me well will understand before I even say it that to describe the waza here employed as basic is not to diminish but rather to exalt Lima's performance of it. Might we do better to say "fundamental" than "basic"? Might we recall that one of the funniest things on East Bound and Down before it became unbearably cruel was the fake-audiobook excerpt that said "fundamentals are a crutch for the talentless"? There are indeed so many things that we might do, that we might be. 

As we ponder them, Lima advances inexorably to tate-shiho-gatame (縦四方固), announced here, quite reasonably, as mounto though I do not favour the term myself. Good for him -- he's doing great! He seems to have half a mind (or maybe more; I mustn't presume) to sneak in an ude-garami 腕緘 of precisely the kind some say not to try from tate-shiho-gatame lest you be swept (which can totally happen, sure) but sometimes it's just there for you and you would be a fool not to take it. Yes okay that is totally what Lima is after and I say go for it. Perhaps he will use the same grip but extend to ude-hishigi-ude-gatame 腕挫腕固 with maybe a little slicer just the teensiest little slicer right under the triceps just to check in with the triceps and see what it is up to this fine evening of June 1997? There has been a small amount of punching but thankfully little. Ah! Just as Lima postured up to begin to punch anew, as his efforts towards the bone-locking of kansetsu-waza had proved fruitless (let us here credit the wiles of our new friend Fedorov), the towel came flying in from the corner. TOWEL! GIVE UP, DESU! is Kenichi Takayanagi's extremely correct and artful call. That's a TKO at 10:10 and as an enemy of ground-hitting I would put the finish of this ***3/4 match at no worse than like ***1/4 but I would understand how others, in their savagery and contempt for life, might see it all as a DUD but also then I would use this space to denounce you. 

Yoshihisa Yamamoto! Maurice Smith! This is a great idea! I was thinking about Maurice Smith as recently as yesterday as TOM and I addressed the many moments of near-peerless glory that marked Hidehiko Yoshida (吉田 秀彦)'s mixed-fight post-judoing . . . though can his way of judo be said to have ever ceased? Was it not but a year ago that an unreal-fat Yoshida at the age of 47 tore up the 第67回  全日本実業柔道団体対抗大会（2017/6/3-4）1日目　男子第3部　決勝戦 67th All-Japan Business Judo Group Counter Competition (2017/6 / 3-4) Day 1 Men’s Part 3 Final Fight with an osoto gari  大外刈 of distinction representing the Park 24 team? Oh wait it totally was:

There are several other Yoshida gifs (and photographs!) you might well enjoy at the almost-venerable let's play judo tumblr but among them you will not actually find the one that I am thinking of right now which is the one where he defeats Maurice Smith (a stout foe, ever and always) with a crushing kesa-gatame 袈裟固 (held as though by a Buddhist's surplice!), which I hope you have seen before but maybe you haven't so let's: 

That is how you waza, I am sure we can all agree! Would you believe (and you may well struggle to, and that's okay) that it has always bothered me that everywhere you might look for such things, this submission win is listed as a submission win by neck crank (kubi-hishigi) despite the fact THE FACT that Maurice Smith said his neck was fine but he had to tap due to the compression of his chest and inability to draw breath? Which is to say that he tapped to kesa-gatame? BUT NOBODY TALKS ABOUT THIS it is really just me. On a related note: I am DLing 109gb of all of the Prides because I have almost all of them on discs in my basement but not all, and all of a sudden it really felt like I should have all. All of a sudden!

BUT TO RETURN TO THE MATTER BEFORE US I see that Maurice Smith is wearing boxing gloves whilst Yoshihisa Yamamoto is not and so my assumption is that what we have here is shoot-style? I haven't watched any RINGS in a while, and not much wrestling at all really (my NJPW World subscription lapsed but I have every intention of renewing, please do not worry), but I really had forgotten how hard these guys would kick each other when they weren't even fighting for real. On twitter today I saw a compilation video of Katsuyori Shibata (whom all rightly admire and wish well) doing his finishing kick after he has engrogged uke with hadaka-jime or suleeper holdo and while the whole point of the video was how hard he kicked guys, I've got to say, compared to RINGSguys, he didn't kick many of those guys all that hard at all. I am as sad as any of you (probably) about how hurt Shibata got in that Okada match but let's be frank here. Hey on the subject of hadaka-jime, still fresh: Yoshihisa Yamamoto just finished with the "short" version of it (a longstanding friend of the club shared some great details with me recently!) after doing a great job of flattening Maurice Smith out by pushing down with his hips. I am pretty sure that match was a work and I am equally sure that it was an excellent display of waza! 

KIYOSHI TAMURA AND NIKOLAI ZOUEV IS A MAIN EVENT IN ANY BUILDING IN THE WORLD no of course not but it is among the mainest events possible to anyone drinking green tea in a deer-mug whilst currently sitting on my couch. Tamura's music is so sikk. It certainly does put one in the right flame of mind, doesn't it; yes; yes. Once again Tamura has tied his t-shirt off to the side lest it droop out too much at the front and hide his elegant waist and let me tell you again that I support this boldly effeminate move wholeheartedly:  

Have you ever tucked a t-shirt in at the back, like, just at the back, because other wise it would droop out at the front too much rather than sit across just so? I am talking about when you are wearing it under an open shirt or trackjacket or unzipped hoodie. I know I have! But I have never once tied it off to the side; I feel like it might be easier now to find that courage. I don't know. I will tell you if it happens, though.

Zouev rolls all over looking for ashi-kansetsu as Tamura floats in and out of positions with hyper-real fluidity (both praise and diss) in the definitely-for-sure shoot-style bout that I was enjoying a great deal even before Tamura's rolling juji-gatame against Nikolai Zouev's turtle of kame defense (the kanji for turtle, I remind you, looks like a little turtle, sort of: 亀). The 有明コロシアム Ariake Koroshiamu crowd loves it! And Zouev's escape from it! This crowd should come out to judo later this week because we're probably going to do that exact roll! They will be like huwaaaaaaaayyyyyyy as we get our reps in!  

As we near the four-minute mark, Tamura is the first to seek refuge in the rope-eaves because of how he is leg-locked ah but it is no more than twenty seconds later that what has been sauce for the goose if proven very much sauce for the gander. Zouev throws with a fine tai-otoshi 體落 (body drop) which may have started life as a harai-goshi 払腰 but that is how it goes sometimes in these Fighting Network streets. Tamura rope-escapes soon thereafter, wisely fleeing ude-hishigi-juji-gatame 腕挫十字固, and actually just as I relay this news to you he has done so once more, this time with his legs all tangled up, too. Zouev is streaking out ahead in terms of the little-yellow-box tally. 

Tamura's approach now is to kick Zouev about the knee many times over as though he were a (his) future (our past) Cro Cop and Zouev a (his) future (our past) Yoshida and whilst this is a work these kicks are awful, awful acts. Was it not Frank Shamrock who said Tamura's kicks were harder than Bas Ruten's? I believe it was. We are ten minutes in as the rope-breaks draw even THERE IS NO TIME TO TALK ABOUT ANYTHING OTHER THAN HOW NIKOLAI ZOUEV JUST WON WITH A HUIZINGA ROLL:

IS THIS NIKOLAI ZOUEV OR INSTEAD URANTSETSEG MUNKHBAT OR KAORI MATSUMOTO OR INDEED MARK HUIZINGA HIMSELF I CANNOT SAY FOR I DO NOT KNOW:

HOLY MOLY WHAT A FINISH not that it was the first Huizinga roll to have been seen in RINGS nor would it prove to be the last but what can I say to you other than that I treasure each; I treasure each.

That show was a lot of fun! Thanks once again to Kelley for sharing this with us in the wizardry of his internetting but also in the deeper magicks of fellowship! I am thinking about maybe watching some old judo tapes and writing about them here, I don't know! I'll figure it out! Thank you once again for your attention and for your time! I hope to speak with you again on matters very much like this if I am spared! I hope we all are for at least a while more! Good night!

RIZIN FIGHTING WORLD GRAND-PRIX 2017 バンタム級トーナメント＆女子スーパーアトム級トーナメント Final ROUND 12/31/17: 高阪 剛 TSUYOSHI KOHSAKA vs. ミルコ・クロコップ MIRKO CRO COP

高阪 剛 TSUYOSHI KOHSAKA vs. ミルコ・クロコップ MIRKO CRO COP
RIZIN FIGHTING WORLD GRAND-PRIX 2017 バンタム級トーナメント＆女子スーパーアトム級トーナメント Final ROUND 
December 31, 2017 in さいたまスーパーアリーナ Saitama Sūpā Arīna 
Tokyo, Japan

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE MAY ALL THAT IS GOOD AND TRUE AND OF COMFORT BE VISITED UPON YOU IN 2018 I HOPE YOUR 2017 ENDED HAPPILY AS WELL and let me tell you that right at the very end of an absurdly-blessed-beyond-all-sense-or-reason 2017 for me and my family (all praise to the most high; catch a vibe always) a lovely thing that happened like right at the very end is that as I prepared for my nidan (弐段 or 二段) grading [and one of my students prepared for his long-overdue (for he has long been good!) shodan (初段)] I reconnected in a real and meaningful way with my old judo sensei who is a true character of a seventy-five-year-old godan (五段); to say that they do not make them in his manner anymore is to speak a truth none who have known or have ever even beheld him could contest. We talked together like old judo friends remembering old judo days because that's what we were when we spoke as we did those dark December nights and it was of great value to me and I treasured it and what I would like to suggest to you now is that together we -- you and I right now (and here let me thank you again for your time and attention to these matters) -- might too be old judo friends who remember old judo days as we reconnect with a figure no less towering atop/central to our study than 高阪 剛 TSUYOSHI KOHSAKA, he of the very scissors under whose banner we convene once more, who, though no seventy-five-year-old godan (五段), is every bit a battle-scarred forty-seven-year-old yondan (四段); and it is perhaps worth here noting that it is no mean feat to have attained a rank of yondan (四段) when Kohsaka did so in his mid-twenties (more than two decades ago); and I will add at this point too that I like the kanji for chi/yon because it is square with two little legs inside it like this 四. What I wish to suggest to you my friends and what I can in truth assure you given my recent experience is that there is much to be gained for our hearts by reconnecting with our dan-ranked betters at this time of year so oft and so rightly given to the raven-pair Huginn (thought) and Muninn (memory). AND SO IT IS TO RIZIN WE TURN BECAUSE OH DEAR GOD TK HAS TO FIGHT CRO COP GET IN THERE REF PLEASE NO.

To the extent to which RIZIN is not just PRIDE FC's spiritual but actually just pretty literal heir, I support Nobuyuki Sakikabara's probably-slightly-less-yakuza'd mixed-fight promotion without reservation (aside from the general and obvious reservation that no one should be doing this and we certainly shouldn't support them doing this), and yet I don't think I have ever watched an entire RIZIN show, not even the one with the unreal Kiyoshi Tamura/Wanderlei Silva vs. Kazushi Sakuraba/Hideo Tokoro tag-team submission græppling bout, and that is almost certainly not going to change this day or any other that I can foresee. The time of life in which I would not just willingly but gleefully greet the next day's dawn after a night of streaming Saitama Sūpā Arīna (GONG) kakutogi is no less irretrievably behind me--behind us?--than is the very AIM through which we then furthered our fellowship, having first gotten on it at Cory's behest (hi Cory). AIM is fvkkn dead, man. And so too the past. OR IS IT because Cro Cop and Kohsaka are fighting; isn't that wild. 

It would seem our commentators are "Showdown" Joe Ferraro, who I seem to remember as being perfectly pleasant but not entirely to my taste (I cannot fault him for this) and Frank Trigg, which puts me in mind of an excellent anecdote I heard recently and it must have been on a Dave Meltzer podcast (if not it was someone relating a Dave Meltzer-gleaned anecdote and so all roads lead to him and his Wrestling Observations once more) and it is that the wrestler known to all as Sting but who is known to his mother and good lady wife as Steve Borden also had a successful real estate career when not enstinged and he went by "Real Estate Steve" because real estate is fvkkn dumb so why wouldn't he. Anyway the story is that when Frank Trigg, who I guess "shoot" lived in the same area as Steve Borden, worked for the Total Nonstop Action wrestling promotion (I never saw their shows except for the clips of A.J. Styles getting mad at Mike Tenay over having been poor [****1/4]) he saw Sting backstage without make-up and was like "my god--you're Real Estate Steve" and Sting was like "yup yup." (That's it, that's the whole story.) Here, Frank Trigg has a few things to say about Tsuyoshi Kohsaka, and they are that he asked TK why on earth are you doing this and TK explained that he wanted to fight Cro Cop in the high days of PRIDE, but that he wasn't good enough, he couldn't get to him (you will recall that he did get a fight against Fedor, so that Fedor might avenge his RINGSloss, an event we have discussed here previously; meetly; rightly). But now he can! Because of how nobody else would take the fight against Cro Cop because Cro Cop geared-to-the-fvkkn-gills is super dangerous but as a young fighter one can only look awful getting lit up by old-man Cro Cop so it is totally hard to find fights for him! But TK is even older than Cro Cop so it's okay! Except it's not okay as both Trigg and Ferraro acknowledge that Cro Cop is the heaaaaaavy favourite. "There's no pressure on TK," they agree, except for the natural pressure you would feel just as an animal who doesn't want to be beaten horribly now or ever. WELL EITHER WAY TOO LATE NOW HERE HE COMES.

  

That he enters to the bluesriffery of the Stone Roses' "Driving South" is obvious; that his name as shrieked by Lenne Hardt is sikk, no less so. Trigg mentions TK's nine-years away from competition before returning to wallop "The Colossus" James Thompson a little while ago (he does not mention Thompson by name, nor does he mention that Kohsaka lost a decision to Baruto but managed to TK Scissor him; baffling oversights) as RYOGAKU WADA HEY REMEMBER HIM OF COURSE YOU DO attends to last-minute matters outside the ring. Kohsaka clasps his hands in prayer for he is a man of faith. 

That all of this extremely high-quality video is available to us immediately and at the low cost of "lol nobody actually pays for this stuff do they?" is truly remarkable, but at the same time, the crispness of these images carries with it too a coldness, does it not, when we consider these stills alongside/set against the badtracking (forgive me) warmth of our previous TK encounters in these same pages? But time is an arrow and there's nothing to be done. And you wouldn't want to go back: Kohsaka may no longer exist in the swirling æsthetic haze of barely-there VHS, but in the time that has passed he has gained a daughter, has gained a son. You might not think one has anything to do with the other but what you're failing to do right now is to have weird thoughts when it's pretty late.

Cro Cop's shirt says "Dice Wallet," no doubt a sponsor I do not and perhaps cannot understand. Would you like one of TK's t-shirts though? I think I would. The commentators remain silent in their reverence as Cro Cop enters to Duran Duran's "Wild Boys" but as much as I enjoy Duran Duran (this is real) I have never felt anything for this entrance that apparently many like a great deal; I do not begrudge them that (that would be sick) but I have never much cared for Cro Cop, as he was first an enemy of pro wrestling (he won), then an enemy of judo (he lost), then a guy in the UFC (I don't remember much of this), and now again an enemy of judo; and all the while a cop (in aspect and spirit if not in praxis). The one largely positive association I have with him is that I was working as a substitute high-school teacher supervising a computer lab (don't worry, this tale lightens soon) when I saw a huge lad looking at Cro Cop's Sherdog Fight Finder page (which I assume still exists but imagine looking at it today; it is inconceivable) when I was like hey if you like martial arts you might like judo and he was like actually I have been doing kickboxing but I would love to try judo and anyway he turned out to be quite good at it and also a really nice guy and now he is a pretty accomplished EDM artist because life is strange. 

Cro Cop is nineteen pounds heavier than Kohsaka and is listed as three inches taller even though they appear to stand at exactly the same height; I bet Cro Cop has started shrinking and just hasn't measured himself in a while. Judge judge judge ready fight and we are underway and thirteen seconds in Kohsaka gets the clinch with a legitimate grip from which he can and has thrown no less unthrowable a foe than Randy Couture; we have seen this happen; there has definitely been harai goshi (払腰) from here in the TK-past:

That it does not exist in the TK-present is not an indictment of the TK but of the present; what on earth are any of us involved with this in any way doing right now. Ah but who are we to deny Kohsaka if his heart's true wish is to enter into a contest in which seconds after an ill-fated clinch he is punched predictably hard and, despite hooking an arm deep to attempt a sweep or indeed an ashi-kansetsu, is brutally pounded out in precisely a minute; who are we to deny the RIZIN Christ:

  

This was difficult, and not just for me because I am too tender-hearted: look at the grimacing wince (maybe it's a wincing grimace; who can say) on the corner referee who throws in the little yellow baton to signify the symbolic death of ippon:

This got dark. 

And there had been signs. It was not the commentators' pre-fight apology that alone augured so ill; extremely sophisticated computer simulations like the Fire Pro Wrestling (ファイヤープロレスリング) one I ran on the very couch on which I now sit foresaw the very same outcome. Look:

Ah, but what no simulation could have told us was that despite the hideous brutality of all we for some reason chose to bear complicit witness too, when all was said and done, whatever suffering may have been endured, all is redeemed in fellowship:

For Tsuyoshi Kohsaka and Mirko Cro Cop, I mean; not for us: we remain gross.

OR DO WE yes we totally do but nonetheless let me restate my earlier earnest wish that you enjoy in the truest sense a Happy New Year; my best to you now and always, my friends. Thank you once again for your time. I hope we will speak with one another again soon. 

IGF NEW 5/4/17: 藤原 喜明 YOSHIAKI FUJIWARA vs. 青木 真也 SHINYA AOKI

藤原 喜明  YOSHIAKI FUJIWARA vs. 青木 真也 SHINYA AOKI 
IGF NEW Opening Series
May 4, 2017 in 後楽園ホール Korakuen Hall
Tokyo, Japan
Drawing 1,435

SEASON OF MISTS AND MELLOW FRUITFULNESS CLOSE BOSOM FRIEND OF THE MATURING SUN CONSPIRING WITH HIM HOW TO LOAD AND BLESS WITH FRUIT VINES THAT ROUND THE THATCH-EAVES RUN TO BEND WITH APPLES THE MOSS'D COTTAGE-TREES AND FILL ALL FRUIT WITH RIPENESS TO THE CORE TO SWELL THE GOURD AND PLUMP THE HAZEL SHELLS WITH A SWEET KERNEL TO SET BUDDING MORE AND STILL MORE LATER FLOWERS FOR THE BEES HOW WAS YOUR SUMMER EVERYBODY MINE WAS GREAT WELCOME TO AUTUMN and if you will indulge me in this our first TK Scissorsing of the post-RINGS era may I please share with you something Dave Meltzer recounted on last night's Wrestling Observer Radio which is purportedly "subscribers only" but we are all of us here (Dave himself too) tape traders of the soul are we not and so here it is as he offered final thoughts on having gone to a Bellator show Friday night as we ask ourselves yet again and not for the last time (should we be spared) WHAT DID DAVE MELTZER SAY: 

"[A]aaaand I'm trying to think if there's any other . . . notes . . . nothin' really . . . I . . . uhm . . . I guess the one thing is, is Akira Maeda was there to talk business, uhm, he wants to start somethin' in Japan, and, y'know, use Bellator fighters, Bellator supply some talent, so Maeda looks like he's gettin' back in the fight game, so I talked to Maeda for a while, I haven't talked to him in like twenty-five years. So, uhm, anyway, he uhm [inaudible] we were more talking pro wrestling. Obviously, y'know, if you know his version of what pro wrestling is he's very disappointed in the direction of Japanese pro wrestling even though it's making a comeback, just feeling that uhm Japanese wrestling could have gone its own way, and he just said, y'know, we were taking it its own way, this was, y'know, RINGS and UWF and his stuff, UWFi and, y'know, the original UWF and it's all gone and now it's like American pro wrestling. That's his take on everything. So. Uhm. And just the MMA scene's dead there and he's trying to revive it. And, y'know, that's the deal." 

There are several things to address here and first among these is the dark fact that in response to my twitter question "dave is maeda there and if so will you tell him I love him" he said nothing to me and, I worry, nothing to Maeda about me, so it was a complete waste of eight seconds to have even asked (except that two of my friends "liked" it and it is important to spread joy). Also it seems wild to me that this is the last thing he wanted to say about going to the Bellator instead of the first, revealing that, despite the extent to which I admire his work, Dave Meltzer and I are in at least this one regard, and possibly several other ones too, really quite different people (he is certainly much heavier [I mean no disrespect; he is admirably lean at his size]). He didn't talk about Akira Maeda until he and Bryan were into the fifty-eighth minute of their show! I don't even have a podcast and I am already talking about Akira Maeda at the very beginning of it. Oh hey on the subject of podcasts I should definitely tell you that there is one now in the field of shoot-style called Fighting Network FRIENDS (you will never guess who suggested this demonstrably sikk title), and look at the extraordinarily high-taste-level graphics they (Andy and Bren, of twitter) have come up with for it: 

  

  
I should remind you too, dear readers, of how there is in addition to this present blog you are reading right now (and I thank you once more for doing so) also very much our friend Dan's Kick. Submission. Suplex. exploration of the second wave of UWF; my old pals Jonathan and Lee's Hybrid Shoot inquiry into the ways of Pancrase; and I should note too that most recently young (I assume; I am old) Kelley's Kingdom of Shoot has appeared on the scene (as Sartre, in L'existentialisme est un humanisme, suggests we all do) to address Kingdom. Together I am pretty sure we will in time cræft The Anatomy of Shoot-Style Criticism in our every word and, indeed, deed. I think it's neat that we're all enjoying these old matches!  

To return though to Dave, and to Maeda, and how Dave failed to relay my message to him, it is interesting that Dave says that Maeda is looking to get back into MMA, because he has of course persisted with RINGS: The Outsider for really many years now, has he not? But that is a happening that is happening in extraordinarily low-key fashion and I am not here to pick nits; we know what Dave means. But the really interesting thing here is Maeda's of-course-totally-right-thing about the lost direction in Japanese pro wrestling, a massive missed opportunity (æsthetically) to further what we have come to call, in the spirit of Tadashi Tanaka's unreal letters of the mid-to-late-90s, The Long UWF (please remember Tanaka never ever called it this so if this is a bad idea [definitely] the blame is mine and mine alone and none is due to Tanaka, whose missives were, and remain, as poesy to me). No matter what one makes of contemporary NJPW (I like it very well though some parts of it drive me nuts!), or the resurgent AJPW (I hear it has been good!), or the continued low-level fineness of DDT and BJPW (I have seen barely any of either but I wish them well since we are all just people trying to be happy!), and I am sure other ones that I don't know about at all other than in an "OTHER JAPAN NOTES" sense, I think it is fair to say that the ethos of contemporary puro or hey why not let's just go ahead and say プロレス (something I did this summer was learn the kana, which you can do in a weekend and I am telling you it is extraordinarily worthwhile if you are a person who is interested in Japanese things enough to be the person you are right now doing this thing that you are doing right now with what little time we are given; the kanji are a vastly greater project but they have been neat to learn so far) ANYWAY the whole deal of contemporary Japanese professional wrestling is that it pretty much presupposes that the UWF, long or short, never really happened. It's weird! The only person who persists in anything resembling it is, in a dark twist, Antonio Inoki, the defiance of whom gave rise to Maeda's UWFism to begin with (you will perhaps recall). The skein of both shoot and strong style are forever tangled, are they not my friends, and we have been talking about that at least a little ever since our first time together nearly a year ago when, for better or worse, in the course of introducing this our shared endeavour broadly, it was written that:

"To the extent to which it occurs at the point of intersection between legitimate grappling and the aesthetic, shoot style pro wrestling is literally crucial (this is obvious). If, in keeping with Shinsuke Nakamura's recent yet yore-wise suggestion that strong style (and, by extension, probably also Romanticism) is best understood as real techniques plus real emotion, what shoot style offers—indeed, insists upon—is a realer technique in the hopes of a realer emotion and a style stronger still. What is the history of shoot style if not the spontaneous overflow of strong style feelings until strong style is itself incapable of bounding them? What becomes of that excess? Akira Maeda kicking unsuspecting people in the eye for real, initially. And from thence the several iterations of this style we call shoot: UWF, UWFi, Pro Wrestling Fujiwara Gumi, Pancrase, Kingdom, Fighting Network RINGS, BattlARTS, U-Style, in several instances Pride FC; who can say where it ends (it ends pretty much there). Whenever and wherever strong style, though worthy, is deemed insufficiently strong, and yet no one wants to actually fight for real, shoot style emerges, to be supplanted in time, perhaps inevitably so, by shooting proper. Shoot style—a season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, but an ephemeron—cannot and perhaps must not last. Death is the mother of beauty, mystical, within whose burning bosom we devise our earthly mothers waiting, sleeplessly [. . .]"

And it went on like that, forgive me, and while you are doing so please also forgive me for quoting from an earlier blogging, I beg you, but it is wild that Keats (and the same Keats!) made its way into that one too, isn't it? I had totally forgotten. 

But yeah Inoki, right? Things have gotten weird lately though, even for him. In recent Observers, it is written that: 

September 11, 2017: "Antonio Inoki’s Ism promotion will have its second show on 10/21 at Sumo Hall. Inoki closed down the old IGF promotion and fired everyone working there, including Simon Inoki, who has since started his own promotion as well. It’s expected to be the Inoki brainchild of some real matches, some pro wrestling matches worked to look real, and some pro wrestling matches using fighting stars of the past who were big names in Japan during the fighting heyday. This format nowadays is Inoki’s vision of pro wrestling, but doesn’t really appeal to hardly anyone now, as if you want real, you have MMA, and if you want pro wrestling, you want exciting matches. Perhaps former fighters doing it badly is okay once in a while if you’ve got the right guys and right stories, but not an entire promotion of it. But they are also opening it up and looking at adding a Lucha Libre element with four to six wrestlers from Crash, as well as debuting younger wrestlers."  

September 25, 2017: "Antonio Inoki announced a Peter Aerts vs. Scott Norton main event for his 10/21 Inoki Ism show at Sumo Hall in Tokyo. That’s an awfully big building to book for that weird product mix of the former kickboxing legend vs. New Japan’s top foreigner from another era. Inoki talked about stepping down as a public figure and hinted that this may be his last show in this position. Inoki made a lot of mainstream news this past week, including the New York Times, for going to North Korea. He held a press conference to promote the show on 9/14. He said that Don Frye, Stan Hansen, Yoshiaki Fujiwara and Tiger Jeet Singh would be appearing at the show. There will also be a four-man Karl Gotch Cup tournament with first round matches of Shinichi Suzukawa vs. Diego Anzaki and Ryuta Sakurai vs. Yasshi"

All is in flux! In genuinely promising fashion, it sounds like, and yet change is hard.  

These several things and moments and feelings I have described above have caused me to wish to share with you the best match I have seen from either the IGF (Inoki Genome Federation) or its super short-lived heir NEW (Next Exciting Wrestling), which is one I have in truth been meaning to tell you about since I began the long summer break but now here we are, finally, to enjoy together YOSHIAKI FUJIWARA vs. SHINYA AOKI from earlier this very year and indeed from May 4, 2017 in 後楽園ホール Korakuen Hall. It can be seen in its sikk entirety streaming from a Russian site so I guess tuck your e-pants into your e-socks and enjoy it here.

What need we even say by way of introduction? Yoshiaki Fujiwara we have discussed previously in these pages, like when he had that match against Maeda that had the finish cut off of and then it wasn't until Maeda's (first) retirement where they replayed the finish of literally all of Maeda's RINGS matches that we actually saw the finish (I think it was a leglock!) but it is probably worth noting that, unlike then, Fujiwara is fifty-eight years old at the time of this IGF appearance UPDATE: Dan in kindness and charity notes that Fujiwara is in fact SIXTY-EIGHT; please forgive me and also please consider how amazing this is. Shinya Aoki is known to all, an indifferent collegiate judoka of considerable katame-waza (grappling technique; to say ne-waza would refer specifically to ground techniques, and as you know much of the fun of Shinya Aoki is his flyingness) who parlayed that strength into a fine run of SHOOTO where he snapped a guy's arm with an absurdly gross standing waki-gatame that while not illegal is plainly unethical, and then he became a fellow who wore interesting tights and employed esoteric ne-waza (often of 10th-Planet JJ provenance) in high-profile bouts you have likely all enjoyed. The only thing I would add to any of this relates to TOM's complete rejection of Aoki on the grounds that he was a cop: I am not suggesting that Aoki should not be rejected utterly if that is what in anyone's heart, but I read recently from someone who had read (in translation) the PRIDE FC Secret Files book, and apparently Aoki was never actually a police officer but instead sat a test for the academy once and either didn't pass it or chose not to go or something (I am not going to check). Please note this is offered only as a point of clarification on cop-status and I am not advocating forgiving Shinya Aoki any of his transgressions up to and including having wanted to be a cop, however fleetingly or incompletely. THIS IS NOT AOKI-APOLOGISM AND I BEG YOU NOT TO RECEIVE IT AS SUCH. This was new information to me recently and so I thought perhaps it might be to you as well? But perhaps this was already better known than I knew. 

AND WITH THAT WE BEGIN and the pre-match video that readies us for Shinya Aoki does so by showing any number of kansetsu (bone-locking) and shime (strangulation) techniques as the announcer plainly utters "kakutogi" just to let us know that we have all made the right choice with our evening. "BAKA SURVIVOR" is as ever his theme, which I had totally forgotten about, and all of a sudden I am thinking about Takanori Gomi's old entrances to "Scary" by Mad Capsule Markets, which was definitely the best entrance of that era, I would tell you if you asked me. Yoshiaki Fujiwara, a man of taste and learning (to say nothing of discernment) enters to Walkürenritt or Ritt der Walküren. The play-by-play person says kansetsu-waza, just like I did a moment ago, so we are on the same page, the is good. After what I choose to describe as an encounter in the corner, Aoki takes Fujiwara to the mat in the middle of the ring with a low kibisu-gaeshi heel-trip but in the time it has taken me to tell you that that happened, Fujiwara has attacked with an ude-hishigi-juji-gatame that forced a rolling escape to the far side (Aoki did not turn in, but went the other way. The other way). I am really impressed with how many times the commentator has said kansetsu-waza! I appreciate that he is doing that. Aoki juji-gatames his way out of a radically severe pretzeling from kesa-gatame but Fujiwara has been there before like a million times so it is ok, he escapes. TREACHERY as Aoki's proffered hand becomes a takedown attempt (how dare he) but don't worry, it is not successful, nor is his standing gyaku-ude-garami. Ah ha, dueling ashi-kansetsu! They would each like a leg-lock! Enough of that though as Aoki looks for gyaku-ude-garami from the more conventional position of "on the ground" but hey that grip is to be found in as many places as you care to look for it, I get it. I don't know if I have mentioned yet that Yoshiaki Fujiwara is fifty-eight years old (UPDATE: sixty-eight, thanks to Dan once more) and that, because he is Yoshiaki Fujiwara, and started looking fifty when he was about twenty-six, looks about eighty here? And yet everything that is happening here looks real and great? 

HEAD BUTT(O) TO THE SHOULDER after Fujiwara returns from a brief powder on the outside and now he visits upon Aoki the gentle brutality of kesa-gatame until Aoki escapes with a shrimp (ebi) and bridge in totally the same way I was showing our white belts just last night (summer judo was absolutely great, thanks, and the fall is going well!). Fujiwara needs the ropes to get out of trouble and it occurs to me now for the first time that they are not doing anything with regards to points for rope breaks, I don't think, and I cannot say that I miss it; everything is just going really well. Fujiwara lures Aoki into what looks like is going to be a lock-up but instead head butts him again man I love this guy. Aoki's hadaka-jime is rolled out of and into Fujiwara's ude-gatame and they trade a series of NEVER MIND ANY OF THAT IT IS THE FUJIWARA ARMBAR OF WAKI-GATAME but no, Aoki makes the ropes, belay that. Aoki floats from kami-shiho-gatame (around the head and neck) to mune-gatame (about the chest), all the while looking for juji-gatame UNTIL HE ISN'T and sneaks into kata-gatame, the shoulder hold one might equally name "arm triangle" or "head-and-arm choke." Referee Ryogaku Wada (we know him! remember?) peers in as closely as he is able but Fujiwara does not yield before time expires in this our fifteen-minute time-limit draw! Fujiwara is bloodied lightly about the nose and mouth, we see as Aoki comes up easy from atop him. It all looked very much like this:

HERE IS THE THING I LOVE MOST ABOUT THIS AND IT IS SUBTLE AND YOU CAN TELL FROM THE WAY I AM TALKING RIGHT NOW HOW SUBTLE IT IS but not only is kata-gatame just an inherently noble waza of the highest order (which it extremely is) but let us reflect for a moment, if you will indulge me, on the most well-established counter to that technique and I can nearly promise this will be worth it ok ok here we go: what is so tried-and-true an escape from kata-gatame that you might go so far as to refer to it as BASIC ESCAPE in the Ippon Books Masterclass series volume on Osaekomiy you penned whilst your were 1981 World Champion (Maastricht) Katsuhiko Kashiwazaki:  

That's all pretty small (forgive me) but you will note that after you have done the unusual (though usual when escaping kata-gatame) and turned hard away from the osaekomi rather than turning into it, Kashiwazaki notes in step "e" that "[i]t is possible to grasp your opponent's arm as you roll out and move straight into waki-gatame." 

WAIT ISN'T THAT THE FUJIWARA ARMBAR

WAIT ISN'T THIS FINISH LIKE A THOUSAND TIMES BETTER THAN YOU WOULD HAVE BELIEVED POSSIBLE

YES THAT'S TRUE IT IS ISN'T IT

When Aoki slips into kata-gatame as time winds down, it isn't just whether or not Fujiwara can last; it's that if he (basically) escapes (with the basic escape), it's right into the Fujiwara armbar that has already sent Aoki scurrying to the ropes not long before because of how Fujiwara could defeat and in all probably at some point already has defeated the devil himself with that hold. I LOVE THIS FINISH. Lest you think I am overthinking this, I am 100% sure I know less about ne-waza than either of these guys, so if this escape is implicit in the hold when I see it, I mean, these fellows are no less on top of the implications here than I am, and arguably slightly more. Or maybe it's all just an extremely fortuitous and also sikk happenstance but that is how art works sometimes.

And so there it is, my favourite bout of the IGF era that is I guess now behind us? I'm as surprised as you are that that is so; I thought everything was probably ok. But I guess we never know, do we, no matter how thoroughly we subscribe to the Observer, or how diligently we keep up with Observer Radio whilst we do our chores. I feel like there is a lot to reflect on right now. 

In closing, my friends, I thank you as ever and always for your attention to these matters and for your time, and I again plead that if anyone has footage of the Februrary 2016 IGF show where Shinya Aoki was stretchered-out after a near-fatal s p a c e t o r n a d o o g a w a please, please make this footage known. But mostly I want to say again my best to you.