Kakutogi Road: The Complete History of MMA *Mega-Thread*

[Mbetz1981]

Vol. 35 Continued...

Now for the main event, Don Nakaya Neilsen vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara. Don Neilsen was an exciting and overlooked fighter from his era, as he was someone that bridged the gap from the shiny pants WKA days into the beginning of the K-1 era. He didn't have the skills to quite make it to the top of the heap, but he was always a game fighter and deserves a lot of credit for being willing to branch out and fight in different styles, including stints in NJPW and PWFG. His last match was a rematch against Masaaki Satake at the 1993 K-1 Illusion event.

I'm hoping that this will be a shoot, but I highly doubt it. Sadly, if Fujiwara is being lazy enough to go right back to 1988 to try and generate some interest for this card, then I can only brace myself for a repeat of that showing. As I mentioned earlier, that was one of the better of the late 80s Kickboxer/Wrestler showings that NJPW/UWF put out, but is not what is needed right now, especially when their competition in the UWF-I has been forcing their boxing guest stars to have real competitions.

This was over almost as quickly as it started, and is very hard to assess as a result. Things started normally enough, looking like it would be another typical NJPW styled work, but shortly into the fight Fujiwara got kicked in the head, causing a nasty gash, and also served to completely disoriented him. The doctor examines Fujiwara, and it's clear to everyone that he is in no condition to keep fighting. While this was too short to glean much information from, I would venture a guess and say that this was a work-gone-wrong, and Fujiwara accidentally got punted much harder than what was intended.

ML: This was a work gone as awry as possible. Nielsen was almost retired at this point, focusing full time on his groundbreaking chiropractic clinic in Thailand, so Fujiwara was almost surely supposed to win to avenge his 7/29/88 loss to Nielsen in New Japan and keep up with the UWF-I beating pro boxers. To make things worse, the main event really never even got started. Fujiwara surprised Nielsen ducking down to try to catch a kick, but wound up eating what turned into a knee to the head, getting a godawful gash that was essentially a second eyebrow. The commercial tape correctly awards Nielsen a TKO victory at 1:07, but I've also seen it listed as a no contest, so I'm not sure if the result was later changed because Nielsen wasn't supposed to win, or was simply incorrectly reported. In an interview William Colosimo did with the late Don's brother Jon Nielsen, Joe said, "It wasn’t supposed to end like that, but the cuts with the kick to his head, I mean that’s just the unfortunate side of things. But, that was supposed to go I believe three or four rounds...All I know is my brother goes 'Yeah, I kind of f**ked up' (laughter).... He gave two low kicks, and the second one (Fujiwara) bent down in to, and it just split his forehead...He just threw the kick, and he didn't expect him to lean into it, I should say. He wasn't trying to end the fight, let’s put it that way."

Conclusion: While not perfect, this was one of the better PWFG shows that we've seen in a while, simply because they were willing to change things up, and give us some new matches. The biggest crime was having two newcomers try and carry each other to a 30min broadway. As coma-inducing as the Vale/Shamrock match was, that at least showed some promise on paper, and could have been decent had Vale bothered to put in any effort. We did get some great moments from matches 2-4, so while this was far from ideal, it was mostly worthwhile.

ML: This was probably the second best PWFG show of the year behind 1/15/92, but normally the main event is at least a good long match. This show started promising, but quickly turned disastrous. The positive is that Yanagisawa is already the real deal, and definitely has a chance to wind up being one of the top five workers in the promotion for 1992.

You can relive all the moments of this event, in addition to the original meeting between Fujiwara/Neilsen as well as Antonio Inoki/Chuck Wepner over at www.patreon.com/KakutogiRoad Join the Shoot-Revolution!

*In other news*

It would appear that Akira Maeda's recent trip to Bulgaria paid dividends, as he has reportedly signed on several new fighters from that country, including 2 contenders for the 1992 Olympics.

Back in Vol.23, we mentioned that reports were coming in that when pressed by the Japanese media contingent following his loss to Billy Scott on 12-22-91, James Warring claimed that his match was supposed to be fixed in his favor, if he went the full ten rounds, but was double-crossed by Billy Scott. Recently, Gene Pelc, a talent liaison for the UWF-I wrote into Dave Meltzer's Wrestling Observer Newsletter, to comment on Warring, Berbick, and some of Meltzer's reporting. Here is a verbatim quote of his comments in addition to Dave Meltzer's rebuttal: “I represent the UWF International in several areas, mostly in regard to foreign (non-Japanese) matters. I am involved in making arrangements with foreign fighters that participate in UWF International promotions and directly negotiated all the details with Trevor Berbick and James Warring in regard to their appearance in Tokyo on December 22nd. Your report on them, how they performed and why, was unfortunately, quite inaccurate. You gave the impression that they had been double-crossed. I assure you that I personally, in the presence of both their managers and their attorneys, explained to them exactly what they were getting into and what was expected of them. I told them they were coming for a "shooting match" and they accepted those terms. They then performed less adequately than promised. In the case of Berbick, the word "defraud" would be the best description of his actions.

In a later newsletter, you reported that Koji Kitao has signed a multi-bout contract with each fight in excess of $150,000. This is wrong. He has a one-time deal making much less than you reported.

On May 8 in the Yokohama Arena, Matthew Saad Muhammad will take on Kiyoshi Tamura in a mixed-match. Saad Muhammad is a former WBC light heavyweight boxing champion. He has been told exactly what to expect. I have sent him a videotape of several UWFI matches which he has received. His people tell me he will put on "one helluva fight." The fight will be 100 percent on the level. A total shoot. I'm hoping for a really good, exciting match and the best man will win. Tamura is using a sparring partner who was a great fan of Saad Muhammad's and preparing him for what to expect. Saad Muhammad's manager traveled to Tokyo many years ago with the Muhammad Ali people when he fought Antonio Inoki, so he knows a little of what this is all about.

Gene Pelc

UWF International booking agent

Tokyo, Japan

Now here is Dave Meltzer's rebuttal: “Warring himself claimed after the fight he had been double-crossed in complaints to the Japanese press after losing the decision. We reported that Billy Scott (Warring's opponent) and Nobuhiko Takada (Berbick's opponent) were shooting. Berbick did make comments to Japanese reporters in preparing for the fight, which weren't printed, which indicated he was taking it as an exhibition. We did get reports that when Berbick got to Japan, he was trying to get someone to change the rules to ban the kicks to the knees which indicates he may have realized differently when he got to Japan or didn't want to go in the ring with someone who he thought would go after his knees. We reported Kitao's deal as $75,000 per match, not $150,000.”

*For the record, our official position at the Kakutogi Road is that both the Warring and Berbick fights were legit shoots, and this is sour grapes on the parts of Berbick and Warring, respectively. *

Kathy Long fires back….at Bill Wallace that is! Wallace wrote a column in the March/1992 issue of Black Belt Magazine , where the essence of his thoughts was that he disapproved of women's combat sports and didn't feel like they had any place in the sports landscape. Decorated kickboxing champion Kathy Long took exception to this and wrote an open letter in response.

Here is her letter in full: “When I first saw that Bill Wallace had written a Front Kicks column on women's kickboxing, I knew that I wouldn't be thrilled with what I read, he's never been a fan of that end of the sport. I endorse his right to have his opinion, but he made several statements in the guise of fact that are utterly ridiculous.

His statement that women aren't designed for combat started everything off on an amusing note. Men aren't designed for combat either. Nobody is. Human hands are fragile, the skin above our eyes tears, and our knees are subject to damage. If in fact humans are designed for anything, it is for the perpetuation of the species. This trend appears throughout the animal kingdom, where, by the way, females are the predominant fighters and hunters.

Wallace's comment about men's muscles being better suited for high bursts of energy is also interesting. After four weeks of lifting weights, I was able to bench press 210 pounds. Considering that I weigh 123 pounds, I think that my percentages stack up against most men lifting weights for a similar period of time.

If the point of the article was that Troy Dorsey can beat Kathy Long, then I have no argument. I agree. He can also beat Jorge Paez and just about anyone else his size that is stupid enough to get inside the ring with him. However, while training, I've broken the ribs of a 165-pound male sparring partner, given a nine-inch gash to a World Karate Association champion, and have knocked out several sexist black belts who couldn't believe that a woman could really fight.

Regarding Wallace's comment about promoters not taking female fights seriously and consider them just entertainment between the more legitimate men's matches, when I fought in France, I was the main event. I sold out 5,000 seats and more than 1000 people stood outside in the rain to watch through the windows. I recently fought in the main event in Hawaii, and the undercard was made up of men's fights. The truth be known, Wallace's little exhibitions with Tommy Hearns and Joe Lewis were just entertainment between the more legitimate fights on the same card.

Wallace shouldn't kid himself into thinking that a broken nose gives a man character any more than a bald spot does. Character is a trait which grows from within and not from the groin. Men and women can wear it equally.

 

[Mbetz1981]

Footfighting fans rejoice! Over at www.patreon.com/KakutogiRoad we have recently put up a look into the life and career of Toshio Fujiwara, a legendary Japanese kickboxer who was the first non-Thai to win a stadium title in Thailand. It’s a great examination of his legacy, and there is rare bonus footage as well!


Click this image to sho

 

[Mbetz1981]

Kakutogi Road Presents: Sayama's Corner "The Story of Shooto Vol.6"

* Note: This is a continuation of where we left off, as we continue to rappel the depths of all shoot-mysteries. In this case, as we forge ahead with our translation of "Shooting: The Technical Shooting Fight" from 1986. *

Previous Page (partially) Translated

The sudden trip to Mexico:

With the start of 1978, he was met with a different kind of trial. Suddenly talk of a trip to Mexico came up.

He had just bought a punching bag and [p. 16] held his wish to progress in his pursuit of a real combat sport. But for a pro wrestler, orders from above were to be obeyed absolutely.

Even the man who lives by his convictions could do nothing about this. He had to put aside his ideal for the time being. The trajectory he had in mind was significantly off.

The Mexican mat world was a world infinitely far from his ideal. The shows were for the entertainment of the poor citizens. The matches were primarily filled with aerial techniques centered on leaping and jumping.

Lucha libre (what prowrestling is called in Mexico) that without hesitation does what is the most utterly distinct from his own ideal was the worst situation for Sayama.

Nevertheless Sayama travelled to Mexico in June 1978. He never imagined, even in his dreams, that in only three years he would step on Japanese soil again as Tiger Mask. In fact, no one had imagined this [at the time].

Sayama was clever enough to clearly distinguish his Mexico trip as for the sake of making a living. So in regard to prowrestling itself, he didn't care so much.

For the rest he focused on finding his own time so he could gain more striking skills. In the afternoons when he was free he would visit an acquaintance who manages a karate dojo or go watch boxing matches in order to control himself to direct his consciousness towards striking techniques.

There is an aspect among Mexican citizens that takes as its creed that one should live by taking it easy without working. When a Japanese person enters into this milieu, he takes one of the two paths of either becoming thoroughly lazy or rejecting Mexico.

Sayama took the latter path. Sayama did not want to lose to Mexican society that would shred to pieces any ambition. He bought a punching bag and kicked it as much as he could. As a result he tore it into two.

During the second year of his stay in Mexico, he defeated Ringo Mendoza, the local hero from Indio, to become the NWA world middle weight champion.

This was a great achievement for Satoru Sayama as a prowrestler, but he didn’t feel any deep impression or joy over it. For Sayama was instead earnestly immersed in his study of striking techniques.

Objectively viewed, to become a champion in another country shows that Sayama had the gift of satisfying his audience. Needless to say, significantly, this had to be supported by techniques, but Sayama possessed both talents.

One was the talent of a popular wrestler who brings prosperity to shows, and the other was talent in the pursuit of martial arts [combat sports].

Becoming the NWA world middle weight champion, Sayama suddenly became a big star. He thus exhibited to the world the foundation [preliminary] and premonition to his [future] transformation as Tiger Mask. But the more Sayama got out into the world, the further away shooting remained.

The fateful encounter with Karl Gotch:

The one who saved Sayama, when he became sick in Mexico and was cornered up against his limits, both physically and mentally, was Karl Gotch.

When he met Gotch, they got along well, and when Gotch invited him by saying, “Why don’t you come over to my place to train?,” without a thought he bowed his head and answered, “Thank you.”

The three months he spent at Gotch’s gym in Tampa, Florida, passed in no time. But what Sayama learned from Gotch during this period was the first step for Sayama as a fighter.

He listened to Gotch’s words as carefully as he could without missing a word or phrase. If there was something he didn’t understand he asked him until he could understand. Gotch’s soft way of explaining was full of charm.

This included basic training methods necessary for combat sports and the structure of the human body, the scientific explanation of joint submissions, his theory of techniques based on experience, and even the future of combat sports.

His technique of joint submission progressed quickly, and with the combination of a mild climate with delicious meals, Sayama’s body rapidly recovered and became built up in comparison to when he was in Mexico.

One day as the day of his [Sayama’s] departure approached, Gotch unexpectedly uncorked a bottle of red wine. He was in a cheerful mood, but suddenly with a serious look on his face, he started to speak: “Prowrestling today has degenerated. You, young fellows, can change prowrestling for the better!”

Sayama was in a state of shock. He had no words for some time as he felt Gotch’s words sink into his heart.

“Should I change prowrestling? Or should I make it anew?” That was the choice that he held as a question when he traveled to Mexico to begin with.

Even after this, the anxiety concerning this question held Sayama for a long time and wouldn’t let him go. It continued until he renounced prowrestling.

It was not until he reached his present situation when he could devote everything to shooting, cutting his ties with the prowrestling world, that he was able to find words to respond to Gotch’s wish:

“Pro wrestling continues to exist as pro wrestling. And there are many fans who support pro wrestling as such. It would be impossible for me to change pro wrestling with my own power and I think it would be meaningless to to do so. In pursuit of a new possibility, I decided to create a new combat sport, shooting.

The rising storm of Sammy Lee in England:

As he left Gotch’s gym, he traveled to England. This was through Gotch’s introduction. For Sayama, who had been devoting himself to combat sports since he can remember [p. 17], being a prowrestler was the most convenient occupation to make a living.

Strictly speaking his lifework was to create a real combat sport [martial art] but the path was extremely difficult. Sayama succeeded in England as well. It was an even bigger success than when he was in Mexico. He did prowrestling with the ring name of Sammy Lee.

The audience was happy when he used showy moves and flying techniques and his earnings increased to an unbelievable degree.

Yet again he had demonstrated his talent in the occupation of prowrestling. For Sayama, prowrestling was a way to make a living. To wrestlers who specialized in hooking [joint submissions], he thoroughly responded with hooks [submissions] in the match, provoking promoters to view him with a peculiar eye.

Or before matches he would hang a punching bag in the arena and make loud noises, “bang!, bang!,” hitting it. Or he would put on gloves and shadow box, throwing straights and hooks.

He was viewed as a strange wrestler since he would passionately practice moves that he would never use in matches. So it’s understandable that he was treated as a weird fellow.

The two-sidedness of his making a living to eat and his lifework—this heterogeneity confused his fans and fellow wrestlers. To Sayama who had a solid lifework [in mind], to become a popular wrestler was not necessarily the better path.

In the ring he was Sammy Lee but when he returned to his own room, he became one martial artist. This is enough to make Satoru Sayama a fascinating human being.

Tiger Mask and Satoru Sayama:

But the pro wrestling world, playing with fate one after another, ordered Sayama, who had been living gracefully in England, to return to Japan. This was in April 1981.

Moreover he was to return as a masked wrestler called Tiger Mask. This time around he sent a reply of refusal to return. For the first time Sayama asserted himself against New Japan Pro wrestling to which he belongs.

He believed that for someone who aims for a real martial art [combat sport], masks or special characters [gimmicks] were unnecessary.

In order to persuade Sayama who was stubborn, New Japan Pro wrestling used a clincher: “The match is scheduled for April 23rd(1981). If you do not return to Japan, you will annoy a lot of people. Return to Japan immediately…”

Moreover the international phone call also asked him to “…think of Mr. Inoki’s position.” With this he had no choice but to withdraw his own assertion.

As long as he is making a living in the world of pro wrestling, he had to follow its rules. While dragging his heavy heart, Sayama boarded the plane. He arrived in Japan two days before his debut as Tiger Mask.

Sayama transformed into Tiger Mask and achieved the success that people would envy. And yet the more he became famous, the more he was troubled by the gap between the ideal and reality.

For by that time Sayama had already abandoned/renounced living as a pro wrestler. This was the beginning of Sayama’s inner conflict.

To Be Continued...

 

[Mbetz1981]

Kakutogi Road: The Complete History of MMA Vol.36 "Manifest Destiny"

*Editors Note: Mike Lorefice (of MMA/Puroresu mega-center quebrada.net) will have his comments be preceded by his initials. *

Manifest destiny was a contested, yet widely held, belief in 19th -century American politics that American settlers were destined to settle North America, and reform the wild west into a landscape with superior social values based around agrarianism, and the nobility of the farmer. People that subscribed to this philosophy believed that an irresistible destiny drove these actions, and they were simply parts of a greater mechanism, thus their collective success would be inevitable. In a way, one can see parallels with this and where we are now in mid-1992, as the Japanese shoot-revolution is now officially a year old, and on an unstoppable trajectory that will forever change how martial arts are perceived. While each of the different figureheads of these four major promotions that we’ve been covering in these columns (RINGS, UWF-I, PWFG, and Shooto, respectively) had different motives and opinions of what the true essence of “shooting” was/is, all could agree that with the birth of the original UWF in 1984 there was a void in traditional pro wrestling that could not be filled by continuing with the typical flashy nonsense.

ML: In actuality, manifest destiny was simply more propaganda calculated to justify stealing the land from the original inhabitants, their displacement and internment leading to the eventual genocide of the natives who actually understood how to live off the earth without destroying it in the process. Martial arts certainly has more than it’s share of gangster & Yakuza involvement, but it would thankfully be near impossible for even their shady tactics to reach that level of grand scale dubiousness.

It has now been roughly a year since the inaugural RINGS event, and almost a 1 ½ years since the implosion of the 2nd incarnation of the UWF at the end of 1990. Even in this short period, we have seen a lot of collective movements from the three shoot-style promotions, where each in their own way have been making contributions that will help move everything closer to what would later be known as MMA. This phenomenon may suggest that there is an unstoppable force moving the destiny of combat sports by turning the conventions of pro-wrestling on its head.

It has now been roughly a year since the inaugural RINGS event, and almost a 1 ½ years since the implosion of the 2nd incarnation of the UWF at the end of 1990. Even in this short period, we have seen a lot of collective movements from the three shoot-style promotions, where each in their own way have been making contributions that will help move everything closer to what would later be known as MMA. This phenomenon may suggest that there is an unstoppable force moving the destiny of combat sports by turning the conventions of pro-wrestling on its head.

The date is 5-16-92, exactly one day ahead of our last column, where the rival PWFG promotion had an event in Osaka, with a reported attendance of 4,520. So far, RINGS has embodied the “Go big, or go home!” maxim, as they have almost tripled the attendance from that show, with an impressive gate of 10,369. This will not only be the “1st Anniversary” event for RINGS. but will also mark the 4th MEGA-BATTLE event that we will witness. We are instantly greeted by a hilarious montage that wouldn’t have been out of place on an episode of Highway to Heaven , where our hero, Akira Maeda, presumably reflects on the last year of RINGSness showing various clips interspersed with an ocean backdrop. Michael Landon would be proud.

Yoshihisa Yamamoto and Masayuki Naruse will be the debut of both men. Yamamoto (not to be confused with the Stanford physics professor of the same name) is only 20 years of age here, and his only notable experience going into this was being a judoka in high school. He would later go on to receive what was one of the most undeserved mega-pushes from the shoot-style years when Maeda rewarded him for going not only one, but TWO rounds at the VTJ’95 tournament, where he ingloriously clung to the ropes for dear life, until Rickson was able to eventually get him to the center of the ring for a rear-naked choke victory. Maeda’s love eventually cooled off when Yamamoto got absolutely squashed in a vale tudo fight against Ricardo Morais, and instead transferred his affections to Kiyoshi Tamura, whom he had recently acquired. Naruse, on the other hand, is only 18 here, and had a background in Shotokan karate. He would later transition into more and more shoots as his Rings career progressed and was probably a better fighter than his record would indicate. Like many other Japanese fighters from his era, he was constantly thrown to the wolves and forced to oftentimes fight fighters that far outweighed him.

The fight starts with Yamamoto putting his reach and height to good use with his first notable attack being an exceptionally smooth double-underhook suplex, which he quickly converted into a side-headlock. Naruse is showing good speed, but lacks the size to really stand and trade shots with Yamamoto, he does however show some nice waza of his own, with a slick kata-guruma (fireman’s carry). The rest of this match had a good blend of judo and striking, but the two main issues were the length and intensity. Nothing they did looked cheesy, but it always had the feel of being way too polite, with only occasional flashes of intensity in some of the striking portions. Also, this was a 15min draw, which was about 8 mins longer than it needed to be. It accomplished its goal of introducing two new fighters, who both look like they could be promising prospects with some time, and at least it was half the time of yesterday’s 30min showing between Berto and Ishikawa. **

ML: I wouldn’t say Yamamoto’s push was undeserved in any way. Arguably the biggest problem with RINGS is that Akira Maeda perpetually held the other natives back to the point the promotion had no real chance of surviving long term without him. While they were able to utilize the myth of Rickson Gracie to make more out of Yamamoto’s performance in the Vale Tudo Japan match than it was actually worth, it was finally the nudge that got Maeda to actually sort of promote in Japanese fighter other than himself. Though the argument could be made that Tsuyoshi Kosaka or Mitsuya Nagai were more worthy of being the number two native at that point, but Yamamoto had some size and was a good worker and decent shooter. He was able to give good showings in worked matches, at least, that justified his push over the next few years, becoming a fighter who you would more or less expect to have a classic when he was matched with Volk Han, Kiyoshi Tamura, or Tsuyoshi Kosaka. As far as their debut went, I mostly liked what I saw. They had the framework for a good match, and the grappling was pretty good, all that was really missing was some impact on their strikes. It is much much easier to learn how to get away we have hitting harder than it is to learn how to move fluidly or transition, so I’d say these guys were off to a good start. They obviously weren’t great, but they felt professional, and amazingly weren’t running out of steam despite the length. Actually, Naruse was a much better in the second half, picking up the intensity and the impact on his strikes, though that did result in him accidentally fingering Yamamoto in the eye.

 

[Mbetz1981]

Vol.36 Continued...

Next up is Georgian freestyle wrestling legend, Zaza “Grom” Tkeshelashvili vs Volk Han. It has been a completely bizarre experience witnessing Volk Han oscillate between the main event (he defeated Akira Maeda at last month’s show) and jerking the curtain, but it should be entertaining all the same. Grom Zaza was a man of a considerable wrestling pedigree, and would even wind up competing in the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, GA. He had a respectable run in real MMA fights as well, with notable wins over Ricardo Morias, Volk Han, and Travis Fulton.

Zaza doesn’t waste any time before giving us the 2nd fireman’s carry of the evening, in which he tried to use it as a way to set up an entry into an ude-hishigi-juji-gatame (or back-lying perpendicular armbar for the uncultured among us). This doesn’t work as Han’s sambo-honed ‘spidey sense’ is triggered, and wisely runs for the hills. After fleeing for his life, Han returns to show some interesting footwork, parrying strikes as a way to sneak inside and eventually attempt a back suplex, only to be countered by a kneebar-gone-toehold by Zaza. So far, this match is hardly realistic, but top-shelf entertainment nonetheless. Han draws first blood with some kind of weird variation of the STF, deducting a rope escape from Grom. Han then follows up with a step-over armbar that morphed into a triangle choke attempt, but Zaza wasn’t having anything to do with it. This match continued in its winning ways until Han went back to his bag of tricks and finished Zaza with what I can only describe as an inverted STF combined with a bully choke. While this isn’t exactly the first tape you would grab if you wanted to show your buddies how realistic the 90s shoot-style was, it had to seem revolutionary in the context of 1992. Han carries himself like a man that knows counters to submissions that haven’t even been invented yet, and with that in mind, the entertainment value of this cannot be denied. Also, a special mention has to be made for one of the coolest moves we’ve seen so far, when Han feinted his way to set up a beautiful spinning-back-slap. Great fun! ****

ML: Unlike Han’s previous opponents, Zaza has the speed, quickness, and footwork to hang with him in standup. Han couldn’t simply slap Zaza then move out of range, no matter who led, it was basically a strike for a strike. Thus, as the match progressed, the best thing you could do was throw combinations, with Zaza making this adjustment first, and soon dropping Han with a right front kick right palm combo. Han began showing his standup diversity, and came back with the next two knockdowns. Oddly, in a match with submission master Han against future Olympic freestyle wrestling competitor Zaza, there actually wasn’t that much wrestling or many transitions on the mat. Zaza had a few throws, and his submission game was much better than I expected, but they weren’t really going back and forth on the mat that much, and Han wasn’t doing anything too flashy or crazy. I liked this match, but I was also expecting it to reach a level it never hit before they went home. This was the best match Han has had so far from a technical standpoint, but the last match against Akira Maeda was ultimately slightly more entertaining. ***1/2

Now we are in for another treat with a shoot pre-K1 meeting between Peter Aerts and Adam Watt. Watt looked very game to me in his last showing where he fought Rob Kaman at the 3-26-92 co-promoted Sediokaikan/RINGS event. He was winning that fight right up to the point that he got knocked out, but his constant aggression from multiple angles was impressive. Here he will be facing someone with a similar physique, so he won’t enjoy the same reach advantages that he has had for his last two outings.

Round 1 starts with Aerts going right for a nice high/low combination, but Watt nicely counters the low kick with a straight right down the pipe. This seems to shake up Aerts, who quickly sought the safety of the clinch, but isn’t allowed to hang out there for long. Other than a few big kicks that missed, Watt’s timing looks great, and he really had Aerts on the defensive for the entire round.

The real Aerts shows up at the beginning of Round 2, and he presses Watt hard for about a min and ½ which even prompts Adam’s corner to shout, “Adam, watch out!!” After the initial assault, Watt started to regain his composure, and began to turn the tide with some nice counters, which allowed him to start shifting the fight back into his favor. The final sequence was hard to see, but after replaying the video several times it looks like Aerts gave a short/hard shot to Watt’s chin with his elbow, which I believe was illegal under these rules. (I could be wrong, but it seemed like the ref was warning the fighters in the first round about using elbows). If that’s the case then this was a disappointing ending to what was, up to this point a great fight. Aerts probably would have won anyway, but that was by no means a forgone conclusion. Watt deserves a lot of credit, however, as he is still a young rookie, and he has already been giving the best in Kaman and Aerts some serious competition. Before starting this project, I didn’t realize how promising of a fighter he was, having only seen some of his fights from the late 90s, I looked at him as a decent, if middling figure. Seeing him in 1992 has shown me the error of my ways and makes me wonder if personal problems robbed him, and us, of a much better career.

ML: Peter Aerts was the WMTA World Heavyweight Muay Thai champion at this point, and while I didn’t see any rules listed, the way they were working out of the clinch with knees and throws/trips, it was clearly a muay thai bout. Aerts talked about winning with the elbow in his post a match interview, so clearly he wasn’t trying to get away with anything. As far as the fight went, Aerts seemed to have watched the Watt vs. Kaman fight, and use a similar strategy of allowing Watt to be overaggressive until he made a mistake. Aerts is also a self proclaimed slow starter. Watt won the first round, but I didn’t think he stunned or hurt Aerts at any point.

Back in 2018, there was a high school janitor named Dick Peck, who was arrested for threatening to kill students, presumably for their incessant mocking of both his name and profession. I can only wonder if the same fate could have easily befallen our resident hero, Dick Fly, that is if he didn’t look like an 80s video game boss. Yes, our favorite Dutch henchman has returned for another AIR BOUT, this time against neon knight, Mitsuya Nagai. For a bizarre reason only known, perhaps, to Maeda, this will be a shoot, which is almost a crime considering the size disparity between the two.

In the early 90s, the flying jump-kick was always the weapon of choice in Beat’em’up side scrollers, and knowing this, Nagai opens the fight up with such a foray of deep wisdom. He doesn’t stop there, however, as he continues to stick & move, quickly putting his sharp shootboxing skills to work on the much bigger Fly. His momentum quickly comes to an end, though, as he was stopped dead in his tracks by a thunderous dick kick, courtesy of Dick. This should have led to a DQ win for Nagai, but after a couple of mins of excruciating pain, Nagai musters all the strength he can from the spirits of his ancestors and gets back up, looking pissed. Nagai charges in, with a lot more spirit to his slaps, but is quickly negated in the clinch from the much stronger Dutchman. Nagai continues to give his all but is constantly swatted, kicked, and punched back down to the canvas, racking up 5 knockdowns, before this perverseness is put to an end. This equated to a shoot-style version of a black comedy, and was thus super entertaining, albeit for the wrong reasons. *** ½

ML: Dick finally lived up to his moniker, especially with a savage kick to the pecker that Betz insists he should have been disqualified for. Vrij gave his best performance so far here, fighting with much greater urgency and having so much more impact on its strikes because it was a shoot. That being said, because he for some reason insisted on throwing his leg kicks through the upper thighs, and the rules forced him to strike with open palms, it was actually much more difficult for him to land a big shot than expected. Most of his damage came when Nagai was caught in a prone position, against the ropes or sitting because he so desperately needed to get it to the ground. Nagai had no takedown game, so despite putting himself in bad positions trying to get it to the mat where he would have had the advantage, holding on what you should have been getting back to his feet, and even just falling into Vrij’s trip, Nagai could never get the opportunity to get his submission game going. Nagai was giving up what they claimed to be 15 kg, although probably at least another 5kg, so he tried to be super aggressive, using wild, low percentage flying kicks because he knew he couldn’t beat his much stronger opponent in a conventional kickboxing match. Vrij was finally really badass here, and I suppose pretty Fly (for a Dutch guy), just mauling Nagai with powerful strikes. I enjoyed this match for what it was, but it was very short, and completely one-sided.

 

[Mbetz1981]

Vol.36 Continued...

Now it’s time for a THUNDER BOUT between Willy Williams and Ameran Bitsadze. Bitsadze is the brother of the (unfortunately) more infamous Tariel Bitsadze, who would later haunt Rings for most of its duration. This appears to be under RINGS rules, only broken into rounds. You would have thought this was just a jacketless karate match until Williams somehow got Ameran in a primitive version of a D’arce choke.

The rest of the fight continued to play out like a karate fight that would occasionally break out into odd things like palm strikes to the face, or grappling exchanges by two men that didn’t know how to grapple. I don’t really know what to make of it, other than it felt kind of pointless, but at least the action stayed moving. * ½

ML: Bitsadze also has a full contact karate background, so this match didn’t look too different from what they normally do, other than being half contact. Thankfully, this Bitsadze is at least in shape, and capable of moving. Still, except by comparison to his brother, he was pretty bad, either striking slowly and softly or trying weird flashy strikes with no setup such as a spinning wheel kick and a sort of climb up enzuigiri . There was a funny spot where Ameran grazed with an axe kick, but Williams caught his leg and charged forward, dumping him over the top a rope. Williams was hardly had his best and the most intense here. He didn’t have much to work with, and just seemed kind of bored. Easily the worst match so far.

It’s a sad reality indeed when the universe is centered around Masaaki Satake, but here we are with a UNIVERSE BOUT between him and the ever polite, Bert Kops, Jr. This appears to once again be broken down into a rounds format. Kops starts things off with an ever-pleasant takedown, followed by an armbar attempt, but is too close to the ropes. Kops goes for another takedown, but Satake shows some surprisingly decent sprawling technique, which would later serve him well in his short stint in PRIDE. Kops was able to sneak in a straight ankle lock just before the round ended.

Round 2 sees Satake win via KO just past the 2min mark. I’m surprised at how decent Satake is looking in the worked-shoot format. His striking looked good, which isn’t a surprise, but he also showed some fine grappling, especially in the realms of takedown defense. Kops, on the other hand, was simply serviceable, as he lacks the intensity that’s needed to excel in this format. Also, his strikes weren’t horrible compared to some of the guys we’ve witnessed, but looked silly when juxtaposed against Satake’s. Decent, but would have been a lot better with someone besides Kops. ** ½

ML: A boring and predictable fight. In the first round, Kops would just fall on Satake’s ankle, and get the take down, but fail to really progress on the ground, except for coming close to an armbar when Satake was an inch from the ropes. Kops finally got a barely threatening leglock off the takedown to start the second round, but after that, he just mysteriously started standing around and eating Satake’s shots. Satake then quickly dropped him twice for the win. Satake did seem interested, and showed some potential.

Now for the main event, an ASTRAL BOUT between Akira Maeda and Hank Newman. I know next to nothing about Newman, other than he is Dutch, had a sporadic run in RINGS and won a bronze medal at the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. The match starts and right away two things are clear, the first is that Akira Maeda wants you to know about his bad knee, and the 2nd is that Newman appears to know how to fight for real, but not how to really fake a fight. His movements and rhythm are very awkward, as he forces Maeda into the corner, but is thankfully taken down quickly. Newman may know something about the vertical plane of fighting, but he looked completely lost once things went horizontal. There are a lot of pitiful armbars to be found in the shoot-style, but this had to be one of the worst, not to mention the slowest, entries ever attempted.

Thankfully, this farce ended quickly afterward, as the fight stood back up and Maeda just wailed away at Newman’s thighs with some slow-motion kicks that Hank hilariously sold for like he was Ricky Morton. This was bad, but ended quickly, and shows that Maeda needs a much stronger vetting system in place before just letting any rando jump into his main events. * ¼

ML: Newman represented the Netherlands in sambo at 95kg in the 1980 Moscow Olympics. His ground work may have been good, but we barely got to see any of it. Instead, we saw a lot of clueless pro wrestling overselling of Maeda’s strikes, where Newman did an odd wobble or completely fell virtually every time he took a kick, leading to a quick knockout. This was truly dreadful, and serve no purpose beyond Maeda being able to say he defeated another Olympian.

Conclusion: While far from being particularly important from a historical perspective, this may be the most entertaining RINGS event, so far. Even its lesser moments were over quickly, and while the first match was overlong, it was interesting and credible. This didn’t do anything to move the needle in an MMA sense, but it was a marked improvement for their overall watchability. Not something I would go out of my way to recommend, but a much better way to spend two hours than any Jan de Bont film.

ML: This show started decently, but ended terribly. Had Volk Han’s match been near the end of the card where it belonged, the show might have felt a little less unfulfilling, but even if we want to try to look past the fact that the last three bouts out and out sucked, they were really thin and insignificant. The additions of Yoshihisa Yamamoto & Masayuki Naruse were good, and Grom Zaza & Dick Vrij are potentially improving, but RINGS doesn’t seem like a promotion that is going to have a card with a handful of quality matches, much less an interesting top to bottom show, any year soon.

*This entire event, along with many other treasured rarities, can be found over at www.patreon.com/KakutogiRoad

*In other news*

David Carmona, a gang member who killed Sonny Rodriguez, the son of famous kickboxer William “Blinky” Rodriguez, was recently sentenced to 37 years in prison by a San Fernando, CA, court. Sonny was sitting in his car on 3-3-90, where he was learning to drive a stick shift when he was mistaken for a rival gang member by Carmona, and was shot to death as a result.

This story at least had a touching ending as William (who is an outspoken Christian) forgave his son’s killer at the courtroom. When he arrived at the courtroom, he was met by several of the killers’ friends and associates. Here is a quote from him, regarding this event: “I was beat up in regard to the way my son got killed. Then we get to the courthouse and 30 guys are there supporting them. They were looking at my wife and I like WE did something wrong, like we were a piece of garbage. This hatred was trying to consume me. It was choking me. I tried to not feed it. I tried to not do war. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal. We came into an agreement to forgive.”

Blinky was also allowed to stand up and address the Pacoima gang member who shot and killed his 16-year-old son where he told him, “David, we forgive you, man. You may have taken Sonny’s life, but you didn’t take his soul. You deal with God now.”

This ordeal prompted Blinky to start working with several groups that are devoted to keeping kids out of gangs.

A company out of Garden Grove, CA has started production of a new style of book to appeal to martial arts fans. The name of the company is Fantasy Mountain Publishers and will be putting out a book, entitled, Target Six . This book will be personalized to each customer that buys it and will de facto make the owner of the novel the protagonist of the story. Similar concepts in literature have been marketed towards kids in the 1980s, but so far no one has tried to appeal to an adult market. The book is set to be in a hardcover format and will retail for $85.

 

[Mbetz1981]

As our usual custom, we will now update our WALL OF PRE-UFC SHOOTS, thanks to the newest addition of Nagai/Vrij. This list doesn't cover anything from Shooto, as that was all-shoot. Here is the updated list:


Freek Hamakers vs. Charlie Lieveld (A Free-Fight that took place on 11-20-88 at a Dutch kickboxing event)

Gerard Gordeau vs. Dick Veldhuis (A Free-Fight that took place on 2-19-89 at a Dutch kickboxing event)

Yusuke Fuke vs. Lawi Napataya (PWFG 7-26-91)

Minoru Suzuki vs Lawi Napataya (PWFG 8-23-91)

Ken Shamrock vs Kazuo Takahashi (PWFG 11-3-91)

Nobuaki Kakuda vs Herman Renting (RINGS 12-7-91)

Gerard Gordeau vs. Mitsuya Nagai (RINGS 12-7-91)

Minoru Suzuki vs Takaku Fuke (PWFG 1-15-92) This was a shoot, but there were no strikes. It was similar to a ADCC match.

Billy Scott vs James Warring (UWFI 12-22-92)

Nobuhiko Takada vs Trevor Brebick (UWFI 12-22-92)

Mitsuya Nagai vs. Koichiro Kimura (RINGS 1-25-92)

Nobuaki Kakuda vs Rob Kaman (Rings 1-25-92)

Masaaki Satake vs Gerard Gordeau (Rings 1-25-92)

Adam Watt vs. Hans Nyman (RINGS 3-5-92)

Nobuaki Kakuda vs. Rudy Ewoldt (RINGS 3-5-92)

Masaaki Satake vs. Fred Oosterom (RINGS 3-5-92)

Gus Garcia va Richard Carle (PWFG 3-20-92)

Ozzie Alvarez vs Pedro Goderich (PWFG 3-20-92)

John Lana vs Herman Cicedo (PWFG 3-20-92)

Pieter Smit vs. Mikoki Ichihara (Sediokaikan/RINGS 3-26-92)

Herman Renting vs. Yoshinori Nishi (Sediokaikan/RINGS 3-26-92)

Naoyuki Taira vs. Eric Edlenbos, (Sediokaikan/RINGS 3-26-92)

Maurice Smith vs. Masaaki Satake (Sediokaikan/RINGS 3-26-92)

Yoshinori Nishi vs Willie Peeters (RINGS 4-3-92)

Kazuo Takahashi vs Yuki Ishikawa (PWFG 4-19-92)

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Mathew Saad Mohammed (UWF-I 5-8-92)

Mitsuya Nagai vs Dick Vrij (RINGS 5-16-92)

 

[Mbetz1981]

Kakutogi Road Presents: U.W.F. 1984 Year In Review




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*Editors Note: Mike Lorefice (of MMA/Puroresu mega-center) will have his comments be preceded by his initials. *

No one could have known that in September of 1984, a group of disgruntled professional wrestlers from Japan would change the world by doing something as seemingly simple as injecting some much-needed realism into the wrestling landscape, digging into their various influences in “real” martial arts to bring a breath of fresh air into “fake” fighting. Like many other examples of events that altered history, this had less to do with any sort of formal calculation on the parts of the participants but was more of a case of serendipity abounding once again. To understand the dynamics that led to this cataclysm, we must first go back a year.

In 1983 the New Japan Pro Wrestling promotion was doing record business, going as far as to sell out 90% of all their events. However, its founder Antonio Inoki had recently invested a lot of money into a failing biotech company based in Brazil which prompted him to skim a considerable amount of revenue that the New Japan promotion was bringing in to try and offset his losses. These financial shenanigans eventually became known to the rest of the company, where certain members prompted a coup, thereby forcing Antonio Inoki and his head booker, Hisashi Shinma, to resign. Since its inception in 1972, NJPW was based around its hero and main attraction, Inoki, but in June of 1983, he suffered an injury, which going by historical precedent would normally lead to a downturn for a pro-wrestling business. However, this wound up not being the case as business continued to boom, despite his being sidelined by injury, thanks to his other stars within the promotion, especially guys like Riki Choshu, Tatsumi Fujinami, and Jr. Heavyweight sensation, Satoru Sayama.

This forced people to take notice and see that Inoki wasn’t the only one responsible for the successes of New Japan, but this newfound respect given to other members of the roster did not do anything to increase their pay, and in fact, some had even received pay cuts due to money being funneled into corrupt side ventures by Inoki and Shinma. This perfect storm was all it took to prompt Inoki and Shinma to want to seek a fresh start, thus the idea of the U.W.F. was born, not out of artistic desire, but rather a necessity borne of self-preservation. The wheels were in motion to make the transition when Japanese television company, TV-Asahi, stated in no uncertain terms that they would refuse to continue to air NJPW without the involvement of Inoki.

In those days, Japanese pro wrestling was dead in the water without a tv-deal, and no amount of personal indiscretions on the part of Inoki would be enough for the brass of NJPW to be willing to lose out on one. So, this leads to all being forgiven, and Inoki being reinstated as president. This surely had the side-effect of disillusioning many of the up-and-coming stars within the promotion as their time in the spotlight would have to now be curtailed, or at least blunted, to make room for Inoki, once again.

While Inoki was back in the good graces of television executives everywhere, Shinma, on the other hand, was still persona non grata . He was now being forced to trudge into the unknown, this time without the star power of Inoki. Because of this, he was now in dire need of a fresh face to build his new promotion around, which is where Akira Maeda came into play. Maeda was a Sediokaikan karate practitioner in the late 70s and was allegedly discovered by Shinma at a karate tournament in 1977. Maeda was actually of Korean descent, which helped gift him with an athletic 6’3, 240-pound frame, which many of his Japanese contemporaries lacked.

At first, it looked like things were doomed for the U.W.F. from the get-go, as when Inoki was still on-board Fuji Television expressed interest in televising the product, but when Inoki left, so did Fuji. Maeda was deemed to be an unproven commodity, and thus too risky for their investment. To make matters more bizarre, when the U.W.F. held their first event on 4-11-84, it was a dog’s breakfast of styles, ranging from tepid puroresu where Japanese natives would square off against Americans that seemed like they mistakenly missed their flight to Amarillo, TX, and wound up at the Korakuen Hall instead, to inspired, hard-hitting, Lucha Libre. To view the first U.W.F. event would make someone think that this outfit had an identity crisis on its hands. Surely, one would have never gotten the impression that this promotion would have led to being one of the most important to ever exist, not only for its influence on Japanese pro wrestling but even to the effects it has had on modern-day MMA.

Thankfully, hope was around the corner when an influx of disaffected talents joined forces with Shinma and Maeda. After three months of languishing without a clear sense of direction, Yoshiaki Fujiwara, Satrou Sayama, Nobuhiko Takada, and Kazuo Yamazaki all joined the roster, and almost instantly breathed purpose and life into this fledging outfit. All of the above, with the exception of Takada, had notable experience with “real” martial arts, in addition to their professional wrestling training, which proved to be an instant complement to Maeda’s natural abilities. This shift to a direction based around realism and martial arts was further accelerated when performers like Rusher Kimura, Ryuma Go, Mach Hayato, and Gran Hamada (who were all part of the original roster) all felt like their styles didn’t mesh with the new direction the company was taking, and all, eventually, bailed as a result.




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Besides their martial arts camaraderie, the glue that bound this upstart group had to be that each one of them felt held back to some degree under NJPW and Inoki. Fujiwara was a standout collegiate judoka before joining the New Japan Dojo and becoming one of their first graduates in 1972. However, he never received much in the way of a main event push during his initial run with New Japan but did manage to garner some respect behind the scenes for his judo acumen, even prompting Inoki to have him tag along in his corner for his infamous bout against Muhammed Ali.

Sayama was the biggest surprise here, as he had quit NJPW over Shinma’s financial mismanagement. However, he decided to go all-in for the U.W.F. even going as far as to blast NJPW in interviews with the Japanese press, claiming that Inoki held his younger wrestlers back. Wisely, the newfound U.W.F. didn’t let a good controversy go to waste and took this opportunity to proclaim NJPW and other wrestling companies as pure hokum, and brazenly declare that they were providing real shoots to the public. Long before Eric Bischoff was deemed a revolutionary for giving away RAW results on live television, the U.W.F. crew engaged in guerrilla warfare, by breaking all the unwritten conventions of kayfabe at the time, by not only acknowledging the existence of other wrestling promotions but even taking the time to blast them as well, decrying them as frauds and charlatans.

Their unconventional antics led to them being very popular in Tokyo and other major metro areas, but the lack of a television deal limited their ability to break out to a wider audience. Two major problems began to arise behind the scenes, the first was a growing wave of resentment from many of the wrestlers of how Sayama would constantly insist on winning all of his matches, and the other was their inability to become more than a cult promotion. This 2nd problem was the biggest obstacle as it led to poor ticket sales whenever they would tour more rural areas of Japan. To compound matters, Sayama’s concept of a sport based around shooting (which later became Shooto) was already in his heart, and he was trying to encourage the UWF to move to an entirely shoot-based format, with “shooting” rules. Sayama also wanted to only stick to major markets, and run shows once a month, as anything more than that would be problematic as shooting takes a harder toll on the body than cooperative pro wrestling matches.

Sayama was already financially stable when he went into the UWF, due to the success of his Super Tiger Gym, but the rest of the wrestlers on the roster, in addition to the back office, were struggling financially. This caused many of them to be leery of Sayama’s ideas, as they felt that it would be unable to draw enough money with only real fights and didn’t want to risk not frequently traveling to different cities like most standard pro-wrestling companies. Sayama was dogmatic and adamant about his philosophies which irked many in the company but was too popular to just be dismissed outright. This problem would soon rectify itself as Maeda and Sayama (who were also increasingly bickering about the direction and essence of the promotion) eventually came to blows on 9-2-85 when what was supposed to be another routine match led to a shoot, Maeda being fired, and Sayama quitting pro wrestling in disgust. (We cover this incident in much greater detail in Kakutogi Road: Volume 1). Of course, with their two main stars out of the picture there was no way to survive going forward, and the company soon folded. Perhaps the greatest irony was that the UWF would later adopt Sayama’s booking philosophy of only having one monthly show, when they reformed in 1988.

With all of this said, we are now ready to examine the best that 1984 had to offer. We are doing this because Mike Lorefice, and myself, would continually find ourselves with lingering questions while doing our regular columns. Was Suzuki always good, or did he slowly grow into it? Did Fujiwara always look like a 70-year-old crypt keeper? How much has the style changed between 84 and 92? These are just some of the things that we seek greater clarity on, which in turn should not only provide us a better context to work with but our readers as well. We will be punctuating our regular columns with an examination and highlight the best moments of the UWF’s life from 84-90. So, without further ado… let us proudly present:

UWF: 1984’ Year in Review.

 

[Mbetz1981]

Kakutogi Road Presents: U.W.F. 1984 Year In Review continued...

Chronological List of the best matches of 1984 UWF:

4/11/84: Gran Hamada vs. Perro Aguayo 13:17

ML: The first UWF card beared no resemblance to shoot wrestling, but was rather a standard New Japan card of native vs. gaijin battles plus a couple lucha libre matches with performers who toured with New Japan. To show just how far we are away from what we’d come to expect from this promotion, the highlight of this show shockingly started with outside interference, and ended with the heel bludgeoning the face with scissors until he was disqualified. This may not be the UWF we know and love, but this was a very effective lucha libre brawl dominated by the dickish Perro Aguayo, with Gran Hamada looking great when he was actually allowed to do anything. Hamada was so far behind, really before the match even started, as Perro jumped him before the bell, then his seconds, including El Texano & El Signo, mauled him on the outside. Hamada had massive speed and athleticism advantages, but even when they were on the move, was just as often bowled over by the larger heel. Aguayo was much better as a rudo, as his offense has never been more than serviceable, but he can gain some traction with sort of dickish, low skill maneuvers. Hamada finally made his hot comeback, including a nice tope, but Aguayo brutally cracked him with an open chair, sending Hamada to the floor where his second, Mano Negra, very obviously bladed him. Perro than gored the bloody Hamada with scissors the ref finally had enough of his dastardly tactics, a very unsatisfactory early finish to a match that seemed to be building to something quite good, though it didn’t prevent Perro & friends from several more minutes of beating Hamada down & further opening the wound. ***

4/17/84 2/3 Falls WWF Light Heavyweight Title: Perro Aguayo vs. Gran Hamada 13:10.

ML: While similar to their previous match in terms of what they did overall, they ordered things better here, so it felt more like an actual wrestling match, and generally made it a faster and more entertaining. One thing that was surprising is Aguayo didn’t win a fall, especially since he was completely dominant in their April 11 match, and was still doing quite well here other than on the scoreboard. Aguayo started out trying to wrestle, charging at the bell into a back body drop and soon going for a senton atomico that Hamada avoided. Hamada hit a nice pescado, but rather than let him start to go off, Aguayo immediately came back with a low blow and brought out the scissors, once again bloodying Hamada. Again, Aguayo was disqualified, but since he had nothing to lose, he was able to go wild with the scissors in between falls, which set him up to dominate the second fall. The start of the second fall was mostly Perro punching the cut open further, until Hamada made a nice comeback with a tope, and posted Aguayo for revenge. From here, they picked things up for more or less a lengthy back & forth finishing sequence, thankfully in the Japanese style. This brought things back to an actual wrestling match, and did a much better job of showcasing both men’s abilities. There was a pretty nasty spot where Aguayo didn’t catch Hamada properly trying to counter his reverse diving body attack off the 2nd, so he decided to just slam him on his head. The actual finish seemed weaker than many of the near falls, but ending with a clean pin was a big improvement. Though Hamada had the best match on the first two big shows, this was to be his last match with the company, as the arrival of Satoru Sayama & Kazuo Yamazaki shifted the promotion away from the flying lucha libre style. Hamada ended up jumping to All Japan (later followed by Rusher Kimura & Ryuma Go), a promotion that ironically never cared about wrestlers his size or style, which sadly put a damper on his career in Japan until he began the lucharesu revolution in 1990 by starting his own version of Universal. ***3/4




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7/23/84: The Tiger & Nobuhiko Takada vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara & Akira Maeda 16:24

MB: Herein marks the true debut of this promotion. After their inaugural event on 4-11-84, Shinma ran 4 more events that month, all of which were minor variations of the first. Then they ceased activity for three months, presumably to regroup, with Sayama, Fujiwara, Takada, and Yamazaki now the core ensemble of featured performers. Even young Betz had little tolerance for tag-team matches, but this was a good choice to present the new direction of the company, and put Japan on notice that there was a new posse in town. It also helped establish the ancient booking style that the UWF-I would become so fond of, where they could appease the ego of Takada by occasionally having him to lose in such a format. Because, as we all know, tag-team losses don’t count. What followed was fun, refreshing, and way ahead of the curve for 1984. This was still a nascent and developing style, so while it wasn’t a good example of a real fight, or even what a shoot-style one would look like 8 years later, it was a huge stride towards injecting more realism into the proceedings. Gone are the Irish whips and comically fake punches, and we are instead treated to more realistic takedowns, nice judo, and submissions like the heel-hook and ankle lock (as opposed to the surfboard and spinning toe-hold). Clearly, it was still pro wrestling, and in what was perhaps its greatest irony, it was Sayama that was the biggest offender in this regard. The Tiger provided flying knee drops, flashy kicks, and plenty of theatrics, which is amusing since he probably had the greatest heart towards real shooting of anyone when compared to his contemporaries. This was 16min of silly fun, and because of its fast-paced/loose nature was more entertaining than a lot of the more “serious” matches that followed, but it’s the first glimpse into this outfit finding their unique voice. Graded on 1984 pro wrestling standards I would give it *** ¾

ML: The Tiger & Nobuhiko Takada vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara & Akira Maeda 16:24.Satoru Sayama made his debut here at the start of the second tour in one of two matches he worked as simply The Tiger before realizing he was Super. While he is clearly the best kicker in the promotion, initially he didn’t shift the UWF toward the realistic style it would become known for, as he was still doing much of his athletic Tiger Mask style. This was still just an energetic big New Japan tag match with all the signature high spots of that time, the diving headbutt (more than halfway across the ring), missile kick, powerbomb, and so on. Even though Sayama is a junior heavyweight who hadn’t wrestled in a year going up against two heavyweight stars, he was treated as more than an equal, something we would continue to see here, with the match designed to feature him to set up the two key programs from the early UWF, Super Tiger vs. Fujiwara and Maeda. Tiger was massively over, with the crowd being surprisingly vocal for everyone, and pretty much single handedly made the match. Takada, on the other hand, was the weak link with only three years of experience. He was still a bit awkward at times, but certainly game, and showed great potential as a junior style kicker. Maeda stayed in the background to some extent, while still clearly being the big gun for his team with his Kwick-Kicks and somewhat bomby offense .Fujiwara didn’t do a lot to stand out offensively, as expected, but he was the glue that held the match together, adding some realism and doing a good job of making the opposition look good. I liked that Fujiwara was able to block Takada’s suplex and use the underhooks to set up his own German suplex, but his bridge was poor, and this just seemed so random and out of nowhere as the finish. ***1/2




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7/24/84: The Tiger vs. Mach Hayato 9:17.

ML: Purely a high flying New Japan junior heavyweight match, with the first moonsault attempted in the UWF, though Hayato avoided. It was great to see Sayama doing his thing again after a year away from the sport, but he was obviously a bit rusty, Hayato is certainly no Dynamite Kid, and the match also suffered from the lack of familiarity between these two, as I believe this was their first pairing with Hayato coming over from All Japan. This had by far the most action of any UWF match we’ve seen so far, but it was also the sloppiest. Hayato wasn’t a great worker by any means, but he also had a lot of offense, including a sweet slingshot senton to the floor, so this wasn’t one of those matches that stagnated when the babyface wasn’t on offense. A fun match, but certainly below the high level of the typical Tiger New Japan match. ***

 

[Mbetz1981]

Kakutogi Road Presents: U.W.F. 1984 Year In Review continued...

*

9/7/84: Super Tiger vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara 19:07.

MB: As we continue deeper into '84, we can see that Karl Gotch’s role has expanded from being a mere guest of honor to that of a full-fledged brand ambassador. He greets the crowd while a vignette of him training with Takada & Fujiwara plays, and he is fully embracing this new direction. Right away we can see a greater step into more realistic waters, with Sayama carefully feinting before engaging, and both men giving us mat-work that leads to actual submissions. Oddly, Sayama is the gentle one here, putting Fujiwara in a correct armbar, but slowly, giving him plenty of time to escape. Fujiwara, on the other hand, cranks his Kimuras with far more torque than seems appropriate for a work, making Sayama’s rush to the ropes feel legit. I must award more points to Fujiwara for putting Sayama in a legit armbar-to-triangle entry, where he squeezed with real pressure, only he was shrewd enough to angle Sayama close enough to the ropes for an easy escape. This was before the days of point deductions, and with unlimited rope-escapes, it was easier to execute submissions properly, as long as your opponent was close enough to a rope. This still had plenty of pro wrestling moments with some piledrivers, flying knee drops, and even a figure-four leg-lock, but in spite of that, it holds up better than some of what we’ve been witnessing in 1991-92 because they managed to create and maintain an air of intensity, almost feeling like a grudge match at times. *** ¾

ML: The UWF as we know it more or less began here. While far from a perfect martial arts match, this left many of the shenanigans behind, and aspired to deliver a new, real fight oriented style. Granted, it was more of a soft transition than a hard one, as Tiger still tried the diving kneedrop and moonsault, but now while it was maybe still half a New Japan match, most of the non piledriver craziness missed. Tiger really had to change his game dramatically, and all the high flying acrobatics he shelved were what made him one of the most popular & successful wrestlers in the world during the previous 3 years. Given how far ahead of his time he was in the junior heavyweight style, this was probably never going to be his best style, but he also really couldn’t take things much further in the junior style than he already had, and his interest was an innovation rather than stagnation. Meanwhile, Fujiwara was an easy choice to lead the way, as he wasn’t really gaining a lot from the pro wrestling style anyway, much of it was a compromise to fit in with the other showmen. Fujiwara did a nice job of both using his size advantage and being a sadistic badass here. He really owned Tiger on the mat, beating him by working the arm early, then catching kicks, which were the main part of Tiger’s game that actually translated to shoot style, when Tiger tried to actually play to his own advantage. Fujiwara injuring Tiger’s left knee later also provided an excuse for less gymnastics than the crowd surely expected. The match was well laid out when Fujiwara grinding away for the majority, making Tiger work for everything, but Tiger delivering energetic bursts when he could actually work at distance to thrill the crowd. Fujiwara controlled a lot more than one would expect, especially coming off the 7/23/84 tag match where Takada did all the selling so Tiger could get the star treatment, but Tiger eventually countered Fujiwara holding his foot with a spinning kick, and hit two high kicks into a crossface chickenwing for the win. ***1/2

9/11/84: Super Tiger vs. Akira Maeda 18:58.

MB: Only four days have passed, and we are already getting to see another giant step forward in this style. For the first time since…ever, we get to see two personal wrestlers move and act like they are in a real fight. As soon as the bell rings, both men are parrying, feinting, and generally acting as if their actions had consequences, as opposed to the ancient tradition of most pro wrestlers who stay dormant and allow their opponents to do whatever they please. From the onset, it’s clear that Sayama has to figure out how he is going to get inside the perimeter of his much larger foe. He does this wonderfully about a minute into the match when, in an excellent display of subtle ingenuity, he rapidly chains together a series of quick feints, first with a palm strike, then a takedown, and lastly a quick low kick followed by a single leg. Maeda is flowing better with Sayama in the standing portions compared to Fujiwara, perhaps due to his karate background, but the ne-waza had its credibility stretching moments. Whereas Fujiwara wisely waited until he was already close to the ropes before attacking a joint, both Sayama and Maeda were guilty of slapping on a half-force submission in the center of the ring, and then practically having to drag the other one to the ropes for an escape. Theatrics aside, this was a very entertaining and solid early showcase for this style. Thankfully, despite the combat being dipped in an entertaining syrup, the intensity of these two never allowed the action to become farcical. *** ¾

ML: This was the first UWF match that felt like actual shoot style. I mean, it was probably still 25% New Japan, but it finally mostly had the air of noncooperation, and a real sense of danger to the big kicks and submissions. The basis of the match with some great standup movement, footwork, and feints from Tiger leading into primitive takedowns was very good. One of the problems was both are miles better on their feet, and while Tiger was mostly losing on the ground again, as he did in the Fujiwara match, Maeda is somewhat bland and random there. The heat was tremendous with both men being super over, and the match was very intense, which along with the novelty of the style, went a long way toward making up for Maeda’s liabilities. Still, this was mostly better than Tiger vs. Fujiwara because the standup was great, and it was more unpredictable. On the ground, Fujiwara certainly brings a lot more than Maeda, both in terms of craft and guile, but whereas Fujiwara mostly ground Tiger out on the mat, Tiger was allowed to show a lot more offense here, and looked typically outstanding. In the end, this match was actually more believable while also being a lot more exciting, and even the few crazy highspots such as Tiger’s tombstone into the moonsault didn’t take me out of the match this time. Tiger again won with the chickenwing crossface, and this was one of the biggest upset wins of his career, as while both Tiger and Maeda rarely lost in New Japan, Tiger did it in the junior heavyweight division. The win over Fujiwara showed Tiger’s potential as a heavyweight, but beating the promotion’s top star in his first attempt really showed that this promotion might finally be one that value skill over weight. ****

10/5/84: Akira Maeda & Super Tiger vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara & Osamu Kido 25:35.

ML: An interesting match in the evolution, with Sayama continuing to adapt his junior heavyweight style by developing his striking game, on one hand really setting himself apart with his speed and athleticism and seeming a truly unique performer, on the other hand seeming by far the most New Japan of a bunch. Sayama is nonetheless a savant, and the problem was the other three aren’t very inventive, to the point of almost seeming interchangeable by all basing their offense around getting the opponent down so they could work a Kimura. Sayama, on the other hand, wanted to spend as little time on the mat as possible, both because the opponents were arguably better there, and definitely because it basically negated all his athletic advantages. Kido was a good addition, as he is a technically proficient worker who has always been more fiery than flashy. There’s a problem with the video at the very end, but somehow Fujiwara goes from being in the crossface that Sayama has been beating everyone with to using it on him to hand Sayama his first defeat in the UWF, somewhat avenging his singles loss on 9/7/84. ***

10/17/84: Nobuhiko Takada vs. Kazuo Yamazaki 26:48.

ML: Yamazaki was the most realistic fighter in the promotion this year. He probably knew less about shooting than Sayama, his teacher, but he was barely known in New Japan, where he was just a young boy, having debuted just two years earlier. This was actually a benefit in the sense that he wasn’t hampered by feeling compelled to stay true to the high flying style he made famous like Sayama was. In the first main event we’ve seen to feature Yamazaki, we can quickly see that he’s actually fairly well rounded, understanding the footwork necessary to get his strikes in, as well as to set up his single-leg takedown. Yes, Yamazaki was literally the only wrestler here who seemed willing to utilize a proper takedown. Takada, for his part, was much more active this year than in his supposed heyday, and that willingness to scramble, or even just keep turning to maintain the opponent’s back made a huge difference over his main technique in the later years, which was to disguise his cluelessness by laying there calmly, appearing to be plotting his next move. Takada’s high workrate was definitely an asset here, that went a long way toward making up for some of the holes in his technical game, though at this point, he was one of the better grapplers in the league, kind of by default of having been in the junior heavyweight division where you had to be versed in all styles. Right now the undercard style was still more towards New Japan style, but the main event seemed to be the one match that was mostly martial arts oriented. Here, we saw the first real resistance to the (backdrop) suplex, with Yamazaki putting up enough of a fight that Takada wound up coming down on his own head. Yamazaki nearly lost control of his powerbomb, but did manage to pull it of, setting up the bizarre finish where he tried for an Americana, but Takada somehow finished with a no leverage Kimura off his back. This match was truly a huge step forward, as (outside of a couple pro-wrestling high spots that were close enough to being realistic in their opinion) they managed to do a really long match that was never a dull despite not having any of the flourishes it would have included had it been done in New Japan. ***3/4

 

[Mbetz1981]

Kakutogi Road PresentsL U.W.F. 1984 Year in Review continued…




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10/22/84

Akira Maeda vs. Kazuo Yamazaki 17:23.

MB: Despite being Sayama’s number 1 pupil, Yamazaki patterned himself towards a more cerebral style than that of his sensei. Perhaps Sayama felt trapped within his Tiger Mask gimmick, and believed he still had to pepper his matches with flamboyant spots, so we probably never got to see the unfiltered Satoru. Because of this, I wonder if Yamazaki turned to be a purer distillation of what Sayama wanted to be. Still, regardless of why the apple fell somewhat away from the tree, the fact remains that Kazuo had a ton of potential, which was sadly never realized to its fullest. Gone are the planchas and somersaults, but the creative footwork and measured approach remain. That’s not to say that Yamazaki is a strictly better version of Sayama, however. Sayama had a ton of charisma which isn’t something that can be taught and was something that Yamazaki lacked. The chemistry between Maeda/Yamazaki led to a more realistic outing compared to Sayama/Maeda, but it was drier as a result. The first noticeable thing is the matwork, where Yamazaki shows creative ways to fight submissions, with lots of bridging, rolling, and kicking to try and fight his way out, as opposed to just crawling across the ring for 10 minutes looking for a rope to cling to. Maeda on the other hand shows a lot more athleticism, but is prone to stretches of meandering, seemingly content to pad things out when he can. This wasn’t a barn-burner for the ages, but I felt that it moved the needle in a positive way for what was possible in this format. For example, there was one nice sequence where Yamazaki was feinting a tie-up, and when Maeda reached out his hand, Yamazaki unloaded with a low-kick, staggering Maeda. Now we are seeing what can happen when pro wrestlers are acting like the guy standing across from thems is an actual living threat, as opposed to a pliable toy that will conform to whatever they may desire. Like a lot of Maeda matches pre-RINGS (when he still had a useable knee) this was a little dead in spots, but still a solid *** ¼

ML: Yamazaki was always one of Maeda’s best opponents, but being so inexperienced here in their 1st singles match, it was more difficult for him to command enough respect to pull much out of the established superstar. Normally, their matches were more striking oriented, and that’s one of the reasons they were so good. This match was way too mat oriented though, and really exemplified the divide between the interesting standup portions of Maeda’s matches, and the dull matwork. Yamazaki kept inciting Maeda, and they would start to build up some good intensity on their feet, only to go right back to the mat, where Maeda ground things to a halt with almost complete inactivity. Each good moment where you thought it’s finally about to become an excellent match just seemed to evaporate with another lengthy grasp of the arm. This is one of the best matches of the year in terms of being cautious about committing to strikes, and avoiding them, a signature of Yamazaki. However, it felt like they believed there simply couldn’t be too many strikes landed, so where I was looking for the lead to set up a big follow-up (that we got from the 12/5/84 Yamazaki vs. Takada), they were instead using it to set up the takedown into the submission attempt, which would have been OK if they actually did anything with the ground positioning or submission holds, rather than just kind of lying across the opponent, holding something. Good, but also frustrating. ***




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10/22/84 Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Nobuhiko Takada 17:27. ML: Comparing this to the previous Akira Maeda vs. Kazuo Yamazaki match, it’s very clear that Fujiwara’s matwork is much more viable, dramatic, and dynamic than Maeda’s because he explodes into the arm lock, while Maeda barely moves or exerts any energy. Fujiwara’s match is sort of starts and stops, in the good sense of him doing a big takedown into the arm lock, getting what he can out of it, and then making another dramatic move. These big moves are well timed and set up, so they actually work, even when they perhaps shouldn’t in a more realistic sense. Maeda’s match, on the other hand, was kind of all stops, in that neither the takedown nor the submission hold were impressive in any way, it all seemed more a mask for another period of inactivity until a few more good kicks. Takada may not possess any counters you wouldn’t see in a World of Sport match, but he was so much more active than Yamazaki was, always resisting or reversing what Fujiwara was trying to do. Takada’s energy and enthusiasm really went a long way towards making his work interesting at this point, as well as covering his technical deficiencies. This match wasn’t fancy (arguably a good thing for this style anyway), but it was snappy, with Fujiwara bringing enough technique to balance Takada’s pure speed & athleticism. It just has so much more forward thrust than Maeda vs. Yamazaki, and much more consistent energy & activity. ***1/2

12/5/84 No Fall Death Match: Super Tiger vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara 25:34 of 27:19

MB: The grudge match atmosphere intensifies as they have declared this a “No-Fall Death Match” which I assume is a fancy way of saying, “submissions-only.” This was very similar to their first encounter, only with the volume turned way up, and the stakes feeling much higher. I’m still blown away by how intricate Sayama moves and feints the entire time he is engaging Fujiwara. It reminds me of how Igor Vovchanchyn used to constantly move his hands to disguise his attacks, but in Sayama’s case, it’s not just his hands, but all the other nuances he adds to it, as well. You don’t know if he is going to palm-strike, shoot in, or kick you because he effortlessly feints all those attacks simultaneously. Fujiwara, on the other hand, plods around like you would expect your average judoka to do, taking Sayama’s fierce kicks without any sort of defense. The match was framed as Sayama being deadly from the outside, while Fujiwara was the greater threat once the distance closed with his throws and submissions. That’s not to say that Sayama didn’t have some nice grappling moments, there was one especially nice moment where he reversed a throw from Fujiwara with a standing Kimura, followed by a throw of his own, but this was mostly a striker vs grappler setup. The intensity continued to ratchet up as the match progressed with Sayama eventually fighting like a man possessed, kicking a downed Fujiwara at every opportunity. Sayama’s acting was just as important as his physicality for making this work, and he did a great job conveying having to wage an almost impossible war to eventually achieve his goal of victory. Fujiwara also did a decent job, coming across as a sadistic veteran, but undercut himself with his insistence on giving us the most dubious of attacks, the infamous winding-headbutt. The ending was strong, with Fujiwara eventually being unable to get up from too many kicks while down, but the best part was the end where Sayama had a look on his face that he just barely escaped this monumental challenge. ****

ML: This was the first true UWF match, losing the flying, running, tombstone piledrivers, and other New Japan staples in favor of truly vicious striking and hardcore struggling on the ground. It wasn’t the most outwardly exciting UWF match we’ve seen so far, but this style was now working because instead of relying so heavily on pro wrestling highspots, they were instead able to create more drama by making the submissions seem so dangerous and the strikes seem so deadly that you had to escape urgently or die. Fujiwara may have lost their first encounter, but he learned that he had a big advantage on the ground, and that Tiger was proud enough to get sucked into the losing battle of trying to match Fujiwara on the mat, rather than just destroying him in standup. This was evident very early, as Tiger landed a big high kick, but then wound up grappling because when Fujiwara charged in and tied him up, Tiger opted to try to counter with a Kimura rather than simply disengage, which worked for a few seconds until Fujiwara predictably just took the top. Tiger showed some better strategy at times, kicking Fujiwara’s leg out then going to the mat on his own terms by dropping into the leg lock. That being said, it was clear that his mentality, which became the basis for the Shooting style, that you finish with a submission rather than just knocking the opponent out mostly got him into trouble against the superior grappling of Fujiwara. Fujiwara made an attempt to be more competitive in standup in this encounter, but his laughable big flurry of body blows belonged in the WWF, as they basically all missed or grazed. Tiger then savaged him with some soccer ball kicks and knee drops that already would have led to a Ref stop in current MMA. Fujiwara did somewhat redeem himself with three rabbit punches when Tiger was sideways against the ropes waiting for the Ref to break, leading to the shady Fujiwara taking his back and dropping into a rear naked choke, which Tiger sold magnificently with some disturbing coughs. Though Fujiwara was no real threat to hurt Tiger in a fair striking exchange, he was able to be successful enough with his striking by increasingly playing heel in a manner that actually didn’t ruin the match in the process, nailing Tiger when he was in the ropes rather than giving an honorable clean break. Tiger would only take so much of this though, and when he totally turned the match with a spinning heel kick, he just savaged Fujiwara with another brutal series of soccer ball kicks and knee drops. Fujiwara almost came back quickly, but now that Tiger finally committed to fighting smart, Fujiwara was ultimately just outgunned, and could do little beyond try to cover up to keep Tiger from cracking his coconut with some of the most vicious knee drops you’ll ever see, as well as fierce head kicks. Tiger’s onslaught was an awesome sight to behold! And it is doubly fantastic seeing him make big bully Fujiwara hopelessly cower in fear. Fujiwara finally managed a comeback with a few punches in the ropes, and sacrificed himself with his patented headbutt in all-or-nothing desperation move, as it was the only potential equalizer he had in a standing arsenal. Tiger recoved first though, and continued to do what was working, with Fujiwara finally seeming to not beat the 10 count, only to have the Ref simply stop at 8! It is obvious by now that Fujiwara could no longer really defend himself, but it had yet to be established that living to fight another day actually made sense, so he kept trying to continue only to force Tiger to deliver another concussive beating. It was pretty shocking that Tiger not only beat Fujiwara again, but did so much more convincingly, in arguably the most brutal beating of the entire pro-wrestling year. A huge improvement over their first match, as we really got to see an uninterrupted shooting display, and ultimately an all out striking beatdown for the first time. ****1/4

 

[Mbetz1981]

Kakutogi Road PresentsL U.W.F. 1984 Year in Review continued…



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12/5/84 Kazuo Yamazaki vs. Nobuhiko Takada 23:18 of 23:57.

MB: Being the padawan of one of the most iconic Japanese wrestlers to walk the earth had to have been a double-edged sword for Yamazaki. On one hand, you couldn’t have asked for a more knowledgeable trainer than early 80’s Sayama, as he was a wide repository of pro-wrestling in addition to the wide range of martial arts that he studied. Also, many of Yamazaki’s early opportunities surely came from his connection to Sayama, and it probably allowed him to be considered on equal footing with Takada in these days. Unlike his NJPW run, where he spent most of his first two years losing to anyone with a pair of wrestling trunks, here in the UWF he was a prestige player, even if he wasn’t in the same sphere as veterans Sayama/Maeda/Fujiwara. Also, in NJPW he lost to Takada more times than I can count, but here (despite having lost two hard-fought battles in the UWF to Takada prior to this) he is being presented as an equal, and we can only presume that his sitting under the shadow of Sayama had a lot to do with this. The downside, of course, is Sayama quitting pro-wrestling in disgust in September of 1985 (which we covered in detail in Vol.1 of our first Kakutogi Road column and will do more so in our 1985 Year in Review) and basically telling the industry to get bent while he started what would now be considered the first true MMA promotion had to have negative repercussions on his career going forward. This will be their 3rd encounter in the UWF, and while we are prone to rag on Takada in our normal columns, there is no doubt that he was a talented and charismatic performer that could give a great pro-wrestling match when he felt motivated to do so. The match starts by telling us that these two are on very equal footing, but that Takada has the edge in quickness, and Yamazaki must find a way to overcome this. The first few minutes saw Yamazaki have to fight off an onslaught of armbar attempts from Takada, which was all done in a surprisingly credible fashion. Yamazaki would grab his wrist and stack his weight on Takada, which accomplished both deflecting the armbar and passing Takada’s open guard. Again, this may seem elementary in 2021, but had to be mind-blowing technology to a pro-wrestling audience in 1984. Takada spent the next 8-9 mins constantly applying pressure, forcing Yamazaki to be purely on the defensive. Just when it would seem that the only way out for Kazuo is to either outsmart or out-cardio Takada, it was actually untamed aggressive that started to turn the tide. Something snapped in Yamazaki after almost being finished with a Kimura, and this prompted him to start wailing away at Takada’s legs, effectively chopping the tree down. Yamazaki overextended his assault by opting for a single-leg takedown, which turned the momentum back to Takada, who continued to put Yamazaki on the run up until the last minute where Yamazaki was able to chain a couple of suplexes together for the victory. This was easily the best match that the UWF had in 1984, and is still a classic today. The only minor complaints would be Takada’s inability to squeeze his legs together when attempting an armbar, and a couple of appearances from the Boston Crab. (To be fair that nefarious crustacean from the northeast plagued us all throughout the 90s as well, so it’s hard to criticize.) Easily **** ¼, and wouldn’t be topped until their final UWF match on 9-11-85. Sadly, Yamazaki would only be given three more singles wins against Takada in his career, none of which came by the time they were in the UWF-I, where it would have been one of the smartest moves they could have made. When I wake up in the night and find myself lamenting the wasted days of Yamazaki’s later showings, I am reminded that in the bizarre world of professional wrestling, hard work and talent can usually only take you halfway up the mountain, but without a special je ne sais qua there is no way to get to the very top. This is likely why the lazy Takada was able to stay ahead of Kazuo almost every step of the way throughout their careers, as despite his rock-star attitude in the '90s, he had a charisma that connected with the public, and was able to leverage that to his advantage.

ML: I liked the concept of the opening here with the side-headlock and traditional pro wrestling armbar failing, so Takada had to step it up and use an actual amateur wrestling takedown, chaining a single-leg attempt into a double-leg. While it’s true that they didn’t do all that much early on, that was really by design to show how difficult the new style is now that people aren’t cooperating, and thus the usual nonsense no longer worked. They built everything around and out of a few basic positions, essentially starting in the same couple places but doing different counter sequences out of the base position. What they did was still pretty loose, but it was at least more a combination of wannabe amateur wrestling and judo than of New Japan junior division matwork. The match was extremely paired down, with both hesitant to commit to their strikes, and thus barely landing any early on to avoid the risk of exposing themselves. In the second half, they became less cautious and more willing to open up. They did a really nice job of building the match up, but at the same time, I feel like I undoubtedly was more impressed by what they finally weren’t doing than what they actually replaced it with. Takada definitely showed more willingness to help create the new style than Maeda, who was still busy doing body slams, but at the same time, Takada is far less effective when you remove even most of the strikes, and a lot of his speed and athleticism, all of which are among his biggest strengths. Yamazaki was good, but more due to actually being somewhat technically sound for the time period from training in real fighting. This was more his match than Takada’s obviously, but he never really felt in control the way he did in later years when you could really very easily see all the things he was doing to make the opponent better. They saved the big explosion for the finale, and they certainly found the extra gear. The match became incredibly intense as Takada was just blistering Yamazaki, and it kept looking like Yamazaki would lose any second. The fans were just eating this up, and it only made them pull harder for Yamazaki. After taking two tombstone piledrivers and several crushing kicks, Yamazaki finally turned the tables, causing the fans to go nuts. While they worked up to the fireworks well, by that point I’m not so sure I really wanted to see an overhead belly to belly suplex anymore. After seeing Tiger nearly murder Fujiwara, Yamazaki kind of randomly winning with a German suplex seemed pretty feeble (I believe this match went on first on the actual show, which would make it come off better given it was nowhere near as intense and high stakes). In the end, this isn’t the sort of match that really ages well. I mean, most of the excitement about it is that it was closer to a shoot than anything we have seen before it (other than Tiger vs. Fujiwara), but I don’t think that it was a match that really came close to bringing out the best in either, and I would rather see most of their later 1980’s matches from New Japan or U.W.F. if I were just watching something purely for enjoyment. I think it was actually fairly comparable to their 10/17/84 match quality wise, as that was more action packed and exciting, while this was more credible and well developed, but at a cost. Actually improving on the mat would be a much better path than finding the balance between their two matches, but they had to start somewhere, and it isn’t fair to expect them to go from constantly assisting each other to being a well-rounded ground fighting experts. This was definitely a good start. And obviously, though a very good m xciting, while this was more credible and well developed, but at a cost. Actually improving on the mat would be a much better path than finding the balance between their two matches, but they had to start somewhere, and it isn’t fair to expect them to go from constantly assisting each other to being a well-rounded ground fighting experts. This was definitely a good start. And obviously, though a very good match, over the course of history, it mainly showed the stupidity of the 2nd U.W.F. & UWF-I bookers. Even if not a golden boy like Takada, Yamazaki had all the potential, ability, and fan respect to succeed as at least a legitimate 1B to Takada’s 1A, if only the victories weren’t lacking as the years progressed. ***3/4

 

[Mbetz1981]

UWF Top 5 Wrestlers of 1984

Mike Lorefice’s picks:




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1. Super Tiger. Satoru Sayama is often considered the Sandy Koufax of puroresu, so amazing (as well as style changing and innovative) in the New Japan junior division from 1981-1983, where he produced so many great matches, especially against Dynamite Kid & Kuniaki Kobayashi, that no one argues against his hall of fame credentials despite his “career” being so short. As the most breathtaking wrestler ever to grace the squared circle up to that point in time, it’s hard not to be initially disappointed with his shoot style work. After all, it was his graceful flying more than anything else that truly set him apart, and obviously that was not going to be allowed in a “real” fighting scenario, though he was pretty lax about that, especially early on. However, in many ways, his work in the the first U.W.F. that’s largely been ignored actually further sets him apart as one of the great innovators, as it gave him a platform to utilize his explosive speed and amazing quickness in both similar and different manners. Once you get past the fact that he’s not going to be as exciting in shoot style as in junior style, it’s hard not to be impressed by the thrills he provides in this forum, as his speed, quickness, and athleticism still sets him dramatically apart from the rest of his contemporaries. Sayama at #1 is really the only given and inarguable ranking on this list, as even in a style that theoretically negates and eliminates many of his advantages, he’s still light years ahead of the pack. If there’s a flaw in Tiger’s U.W.F. style, it’s certainly that it’s at least a bit too much like pro wrestling, until December. Tiger isn’t usually landing backflips, though he tries, and his m.o. is certainly to choose entertainment over realism at most turns, but that makes it even more amazing just how well he’s able to make these moves that would be silly to anyone outside of Michael Pereira work within this “shoot” setting. Tiger arguably has enough discipline to not get too out of control, and as such is more akin to a precursor of Volk Han in terms of making shooting exciting without being preposterous. Almost every match he is involved in is at least good, which isn’t close to the case with anyone else in the promotion, and he’s really dramatically more interesting than the others, with an ever evolving style that proves him to be one of the few wrestlers that has been able to employ technically sound striking based on footwork, movement, feints, fakes, and generally things that work in a real fight rather than when the opponent is standing there begging to be clobbered.

2. Gran Hamada. Outside of Sayama, Hamada was the only truly excellent wrestler in this promotion in 1984. This ranking is surely highly controversy because he only worked the first tour, 5 out of the 40 U.W.F. shows, and his matches weren’t remotely shoot style. That being said, he appeared to be one of the best workers in the world in 1984, which cannot be said for anyone below him. His match was by far the best match on the two shows he wrestled on that we have footage of, whereas Fujiwara vs. Maeda was considerably mediocre. The promotion ultimately wasn’t the right fit for him, but he was a far better worker in both the lucha libre and the New Japan style than any of the original batch.

3. Kazuo Yamazaki. Yamazaki debuted with the promotion in the opening match of the July tour, their second series, against Mexican wrestler Gallo Tapado, but with the style quickly changing as the luchadors exited and the style became more realistic with every tour, Yamazaki quickly broke through to main events status, having one of the memorable programs of the year with Nobuhiko Takada. Though he was only two years into his career, in some ways that with an advantage, as he was essentially an unknown quantity, so he wasn’t locked into doing the same old routine that everyone loved. At this point, he had probably spend more time training in real fighting than in pro wrestling, so it was easier for him to alter his game to what he did when the bright lights weren’t on. As a whole, he was the most realistic performer in this league. He was very well rounded, definitely much better in standup, but very capable on the ground. His striking was really good because he focused more on using his footwork and feints to set it up, making it seem difficult to connect without just eating a just as powerful kick back.

4. Yoshiaki Fujiwara. Fujiwara was definitely better suited for what the U.W.F. was becoming than for New Japan, as his realism on the mat had a home here, and his setup and timing worked much better in a style that wasn’t supposed to be constant excitement. Even in the days when he could arguably pass for 45 years old, he was not particularly athletic, certainly not flashy, and the weakest striker of what would become the core stars of the league. He was a very solid meat and potatoes performer though. He could lay out a nice match, delivering the substance, and leaving the style for his opponent. He was the most technically proficient mat wrestler in the promotion, and while his submission style wasn’t exactly thrilling, he could really eat the clock grinding away in between explosive moments, while leaving the thrilling comebacks to the opponent. He was a smart worker, and in these days he mostly took himself and his matches seriously.

5. Nobuhiko Takada. Takada was more suited for what the promotion starting out as than for what they became, but he was young enough to really be willing to try to change his style. His effort, energy, and activity, especially on the mat, were much higher than in 1990’s, and he was generally fun to watch. Physically, he just had so many advantages, as he was more or less big enough to be considered a heavyweight, but at the same time athletic enough to be a junior. Just a nice combination of power and speed, with a kick oriented style that really carried the day. He was definitely better in the later stages of the match that in the developing portions, but he had a lot to offer those such as Yamazaki & Fujiwara who understood how to mostly use him to the matches advantage.

 

[Mbetz1981]

Michael Betz’s picks:

MB: Due to the real style of this promotion only starting to take shape in mid-September of this year, it didn’t seem like I had enough information to make a proper “best-of” list when it came to the individual performers, but I will examine the main 5 performers, and see what we can takeaway from all of this, especially with how it compares to where we are at in the '90s.

Satoru Sayama: Sayama was the superhero of this outfit, and it’s almost a shame that we didn’t get to see how his style would have evolved going into the '90s. Of course, he evolved more than anyone by being the first to give us a true MMA promotion, and therein lies the conundrum with assessing him. Seemingly, he had the greatest desire to see real shooting take place, going as far as to abandon the soft pleasures of being a Japanese superstar to forge ahead on a thankless and difficult road, promoting real fights about 8 years before the rest of the world cared. He was the flashiest of the original UWF performers, but also showed some of the best footwork and nuance in shoot-style history. Even in '92, we haven’t seen anyone move, parry, or feint, like Sayama, but perhaps like Volk Han after him, he was always looking to try and take things in the most entertaining direction possible. With Sayama you could always count on an entertaining match, if not the most realistic. Still, it’s not really fair to overly criticize him for this because he was going into this as the embodiment of a high-flying daredevil, and for him this was actually a paired down version of his usual persona.

Akira Maeda. Out of all the main performers this year, I feel that Maeda is the hardest to assess. That’s because we haven’t seen much of the real Maeda, yet. He spent most of the year wrestling a more traditional pro-wrestling style against whatever random American/European that had a free weekend to spare, so his matches with Yamazaki and Sayama are the few glimpses that we got to see of him in this new style. One clear thing was that his karate background served him well, and in his match against Sayama, it looked like two pro fighters that understood that they couldn’t simply walk right into the other’s space without paying a harsh penalty for it. We will have to wait for 1985 to run its course to get a better analysis, but I fear that the problem with Maeda is that he is content to kill time in his matches, and doesn’t seem to carry the same sense of urgency that the rest of the roster has been maintaining in their bouts.




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Kazuo Yamazaki. Yamazaki is probably my favorite performer in the history of the UWF, and 1984-1985 was where his star shone the brightest. While he isn’t as charismatic or athletically skilled as his mentor, Sayama, he has an awesome cerebral persona about him, like at any moment a wave of repressed emotion is going to boil up to the surface and cause problems for his opponent. He was always subtle, nuanced, and did whatever he needed to do to make the match better, and falls into the category of professional wrestlers that were the glue that kept the middle-of-the-card together, despite never getting to taste the glories of being in the top spot. Yamazaki is also the wrestler out of this group that seems to have changed the least from here to the '90s. It’s still the same Kazuo, only his bulkier future physique being the main difference. He was great from 84-00, and it’s almost a crime that he was squandered in the UWF-I.

Nobuhiko Takada. As much as Mike & I deservedly rag on Takada in our normal columns, I fully support the 1984 version of Nobuhiko. He was a well-rounded performer who put a lot of effort into his work in these days. Interestingly, he didn’t rely on a lot of kicks as he did in later years, but wrestled a lot more, constantly looking for a quick takedown and submission. He did strike, but sparingly, and was more effective because of it. Takada probably showed the worst devolution from '84 to '92. If this version of Takada showed up in '92 era UWF-I, he wouldn’t exactly be cutting edge, but would still be a nice fit. Stardom was sure to breed laziness, and by the time the UWF-I ended in '96, he may as well have been wearing spandex and a cape to the ring.




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Yoshiaki Fujiwara. While my suspicions are correct that Fujiwara always looked ancient, he was a much more palatable presence these days. By the time the PWFG rolled around, he didn’t seem to take himself as seriously, which was probably good for his real-life state of mind, but bad for his promotion. He was far less comical here than he would become in later years, and even his absurd headbutt wasn’t as offensive in these days. He did a good job of conveying himself as a sadistic submission machine, going as far as to sometimes sink submissions in far deeper than what you would expect in a worked contest. As it stands, he is someone that you have to have a certain amount of begrudging respect for even though his lack of athleticism pushes the boundaries of credulity.

 

[Mbetz1981]

Kakutogi Road Presents: U.W.F. 1984 Year in Review continued…

Top 5 U.W.F. Matches In Order

Mike Lorefice’s Picks:

1. No Fall Death Match: Super Tiger vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara
   
   
2. 9/11/84: Super Tiger vs. Akira Maeda
   
   
3. 4/17/84 2/3 Falls WWF Light Heavyweight Title: Perro Aguayo vs. Gran Hamada
   
   
4. 12/5/84: Kazuo Yamazaki vs. Nobuhiko Takada
   
   
5. 10/17/84: Kazuo Yamazaki vs. Nobuhiko Takada

Honorable mention. 9/7/84: Super Tiger vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara

Michael Betz’s Picks:

1: 12/5/84: Kazuo Yamazaki vs. Nobuhiko Takada. This was hands down the best match that the UWF put out in 1984, and was probably one of the best of that year in any style. The added drama, both with the story in the ring alongside the knowledge that Yamazaki was finally getting a chance to shine, was enough to push this over the top. It didn’t hurt that Takada brought his A-Game here, constantly pressuring Yamazaki with his speed, crafting a narrative that Yamazaki had a hopeless quest in front of him. It wouldn’t wind up being their best match, and Takada can’t execute a proper armbar to save his life, but it was great nonetheless and still holds up today.

2: 12/5/84 No Fall Death Match: Super Tiger vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara. A much better version of their prior match, with extra intensity, and very few pro-spots outside of Sayama’s knee drops. Even those felt nasty in the context of this match, so there wasn’t much wrong here, outside of Fujiwara’s headbutt nonsense. A great blend of pro-wrestling energy with a martial arts flavor.

1. 9/11/84: Super Tiger vs. Akira Maeda. I felt that this match was groundbreaking in several respects. Firstly, this was the first time since he was fighting for real that Akira Maeda moved and acted like he was in a real fight. It wasn’t just him though, as seeing these two stick, move, feint, and generally act like two people in a professional fight, was revolutionary in the world of 1984 professional wrestling. In fact, this was a glimpse of of what real MMA would come to look like, as it showed that fighters had to have footwork and a game plan on how to set up their attacks, even if they were planning on winning with a submission. Yes, their idea of having to get a fight to the ground via suplex rather than your more standard wrestling or judo based takedowns may seem hokey to the modern eye, but this was truly a sign that they were starting to tap into a much deeper well than they could have possibly fathomed.
   
   
2. 9/7/84: Super Tiger vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara. This was a little weaker than their follow-up in December, but was still a very solid showcase, nonetheless. It suffered from having some added silliness that the rematch didn’t such as a figure-four leglock and Sayama flying off the top rope on a couple of occasions, but it did show some legit submissions being applied, with legitimate intensity, which had to be a first for pro wrestling since the '30s.
   
   
3. 7/23/84 Akira Maeda & Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Nobuhiko Takada & The Tiger (Sayama). The shoot flavors were only starting to get mixed into the stew here, so this was still leaned heavily on the pro-side of the spectrum, but it was incredibly entertaining and still had more gravitas than just about anything else that was going on in the early '80s.

Honorable mention. 10/22/84: Akira Maeda vs. Kazuo Yamazaki. This was perhaps the best match of the year in terms of showing what this style could look like with a minimum of pro wrestling spots. This was still very early into the shoot experience, so this wasn’t void of professional tropes, but there was a lot less of it here than anywhere else this year. This made for a less entertaining experience, but was also fascinating because it showed that there was a lot of uncharted territory within this style, waiting to be discovered.

*Come join us over at www.patreon.com/KakutogiRoad and relive many of these great moments with us. This column has over 8(!) hours of bonus footage, in addition to all the other rare content that is tucked away from the masses. More importantly you will get the inexorable feeling of warmth and fuzziness for helping two dudes who actually care about real MMA history to continue their work! *

 

[Mbetz1981]

*Editors Note: Mike Lorefice (of excellent MMA/Puroresu mega-center quebrada.net) will have his comments preceded by his initials. *

Sun Tzu once observed that “Even the finest sword plunged into salt water will eventually rust.” Surely, he was speaking prophetically of a future epoch, a time when there would be a conflict raging for the hearts and wallets of the Japanese public and the PWFG clan, under the leadership of Yoshiaki Fujiwara, would allow the formidable edge of their blade to become blunt and ineffective via a lack of vision and steady leadership.

We have now made it all the way to the middle of 1992, and the shoot-style wars are starting to heat up, which will have a two-fold effect of both forcing innovation within the combat-sports landscape but will also eventually lead to a culling of the weak by eliminating all challengers until only one victor emerges. Yes, the stage is now being set to force this entire affair into a zero-sum game where the winner takes it all, and the few that are left playing will simply have to be content with the scraps. We are still roughly a decade away from PRIDE FC taking the mantle of being the last meaningful challenger to remain standing, so we will continue to observe how this will all play itself out.

The date is 6-25-92 and we are back within the quaint surroundings of the Korakuen Hall. It would seem that Fujiwara is continuing to take things in a more modest direction, compared to his contemporaries. In fact, this very night, Akira Maeda and his band of RINGS mercenaries are having a rival show just north of Tokyo in the city of Sendai. That event drew almost double the 2,200 people that are here for this showing but is nothing compared to last May, where the UWF-I drew 14,000+ to see Takada/Albright and Rings squeezed over 10k for a throwaway main event with Akira Maeda vs rando-man. An attendance amount is by no means a definitive barometer on the quality of the product, but in this case is probably a sign of a disturbing trend, in revealing that the PWFG has not been able to keep strides with the waves that their two competitors have been making, deservedly or not. The only major show they have been able to put out so far was their event last April with Maskatsu Funaki vs Roberto Duran, which may be too early to tell, but is unlikely to have moved the needle in any meaningful way.

ML: PWFG has run a much more ambitious schedule in 1992 than they did in 1991. Yokohama Bunka Gym, Tokyo Gym, & Osaka Furitsu Gym are all mid-sized arenas, and the Miami show was the first big foreign excursion we have seen from the shoot leagues. This and the 2/24/92 show are more modest affairs, but three of their seven shows last year were also at Korakuen Hall, with Hakata Starlanes and Hamamatsu City Gym also being smaller shows. I definitely wouldn’t say that PWFG aren’t trying, their biggest problem is they simply don’t have that one guy people will show up for no matter what, while RINGS and UWF-I do.

Things are underway with Bart Vale giving a heartfelt tribute to the man that was most responsible for his breaking into professional wrestling, Masami Soronaka. Soronaka was a major figure behind the scenes for the PWFG, being Fujiwara’s right-hand man, handling talent scouting, booking, and training. He had a background in Kodokan judo, karate, and sumo, before joining the original UWF in 1984. He went on to marry Karl Gotch’s daughter, and moved out to Florida to help Gotch, and run a wrestling school. He died shortly before this event took place on 6-18-92, and was surely a major blow to Fujiwara and the organization. Vale talks about how he was a great man who helped him immensely with getting into wrestling, but no amount of words could equal what Fujiwara is saying here, as he silently mourns the loss of his friend.

ML: Soronaka may not have been the most ambitious matchmaker, but his loss was crucial to the decline of PWFG. He was in charge of foreign talent & arguably close to Fujiwara’s equal in running the out of the ring affairs even though he was in Florida most of the time, but now more or less all the behind the scenes activities, which I get the idea Fujiwara considered a burdenous means to an end, now fell squarely on Fujiwara’s shoulders. It also made Vale more important, which can never be a good thing, by virtue of him now being the man in Miami

Our first match this evening will be a repeat showing of Jerry Flynn vs. Ryushi Yanagisawa, which was one of the highlights of last month’s show, although it isn’t encouraging to see them repeat themselves so quickly. The match starts with Flynn showing some impressive footwork, utilizing the side-stance in a most excellent fashion, especially for a man of his size. He seems to be getting the better of Yanagisawa in the opening stages, so eventually, Ryushi opts to go for a deep single-leg takedown, but Flynn keeps his winning ways going with a nice sprawl. Flynn isn’t quick or crafty enough on the mat to keep any lasting pressure on Ryushi, so it isn’t long before the tide turns, and Yanagisawa scores the point from Flynn taking a rope escape. The rest of this match had an excellent flow to it, and I would say that it was better than their last showing from that standpoint. On the downside, the intensity was lacking at times. These two have great chemistry, but too often in this match, it felt like they were having a light sparring session between two friends, which is not what you want to project in a wrestling match, shoot or not. The match ends at 11:46 with Flynn winning via submission. ***

ML: One of the trends we have been seeing is the rookies often fight the same opponent over and over. I assume this is to make things less difficult for them, the more they can train, prepare, and work with the same foe to build familiarity, the less their overall inexperience and unfamiliarity hurt their performances in the short-term. I was expecting them to build upon their first match, which was good because, for once, we had two well trained kickboxers doing a credible standup encounter. While it is extremely important to be well rounded, they unfortunately strayed so far from what they did well in the first match in an attempt to shore up their weaknesses that we just wound up with a rather dull and pedestrian grappling bout. In the long term, maybe this led to some better things, but for today, it was a huge step in the wrong direction. This wasn’t awful, but it was never compelling.

Next up is Minoru Suzuki vs Yuki Ishikawa. Ishikawa is going into this with one shoot and one work on his PWFG résumé. With his shoot he showed some nice takedown defense skills, but was somewhat submission deficient, and in his worked bout he came across as a more plodding version of Kakihara, so having a match with Suzuki (who seems to be something of a loose cannon lately) should be interesting.

Whatever this was, it was intense. Suzuki tries to bang with Ishikawa in the beginning, but gets outclassed when he misses a high kick, which creates an opportunity for Ishikawa to take him down with a low-single. Suzuki is just too quick and slick and is able to reposition himself almost immediately, but instead of trying to sink in a choke from behind while his opponent turtles up, he instead opts to start wailing away with strikes to the back of the head. If that wasn’t enough to punish the rookie’s insolence, he starts throwing in some soccer kicks for good measure. Ishikawa was able to stand up and free himself from this assault, but not for long, as Suzuki took him right back down to the mat. From here, Suzuki just kept riding Ishikawa, keeping the pressure on him, both with his bodyweight, and short hard shots to the side of the head. Suzuki wasn’t trying to bludgeon his foe with major ground’n’pound, but was simply using strikes to annoy his opponent into making a mistake. Ishikawa fought valiantly, but like Fuke before him, he simply doesn’t have the speed or tools to hang with Suzuki, and other than getting a few shots in, this was an easy shoot-victory for Suzuki. Nice to see another shoot, but someone needs to find Suzuki a worthy opponent.

ML: You can really see the appeal of shooting to Minoru Suzuki in a match like this. It’s such a great opportunity to utilize his speed in order to humiliate the opponent in somewhat cruel and sadistic ways. Ishikawa is a game opponent, and does his best to take it to Suzuki, but Suzuki is both too fast and as too much knowledge of how to react to the initial surge to wind up taking right over. This was short and one-sided, but it was definitely interesting and edgy.

 

[Mbetz1981]

Volume 37 Continued....

Now for Masakatsu Funaki vs Kazuo Takahashi. Funaki has been operating beneath his talents for….well, his entire run in this promotion honestly. This has especially been the case these last few months. His fight with Duran could have been good publicity had Duran bothered to take it seriously and show up in any kind of shape, and he looked smooth as silk in his last showing against Takaku Fuke, but it was a completely one-sided squash that didn’t help anyone. He always looks good, but his only matches worth mentioning are those that he’s had with Ken Shamrock, and we’ve already seen that on three occasions now. It will forever be one of the great mysteries of the cosmos as to why they didn’t make a major push around building a series of Suzuki vs Funaki matches that could have torn the house down, but instead insisted that Fuanki just kind of float through his time here in some kind of state of abeyance.

Here we will see a repeat of 10-17-91 where Masakatsu Funaki and Kazuo Takahashi will do battle, once again. This is a fine match on paper, and their showing in October was a solid *** match, but again, this smacks of a promotion without any direction. Why are we going to squander Suzuki in a 4min shoot and place Funaki in a match that we’ve already seen?

With no answers to my burning questions, we start with a nice stiff sequence where both men lay into each other, but unlike his predecessor Fuke, Takahashi’s takedown is on-point and gets the fight to the ground. Takahashi tried to convert a failed armbar attempt into a triangle choke, which may have been successful if he had longer limbs, but his short torso made for an easy escape by Funaki. After this sequence they switch to a stand-up battle, where Funaki tries fighting from long range, using his long legs to kick from afar, forcing Takahashi to try and close the gap. Kazuo was able to do this at times by landing some nice stiff slaps, and in one great surprise moment, gave Funaki a deliciously unexpected headbutt when Funaki was walking into close quarters. Fuanki’s flow and movements have been super impressive here. He feints, bobs, and weaves with a lot of fluidity, and forces Takahashi to work extra hard to try and close the distance. He also showed some remarkable striking skills as he was able to set up a wide variety of offense from different angles, especially his kicks, which included some ultra-low ones targeting the calves. This wound up being an excellent surprise. Their first encounter was 6mins of intense aggression which was mostly one-sided in the favor of Funaki, but this was more nuanced and thoughtful, without losing any of the credibility or stiffness of the original. It flowed like a 15min shoot, that never got dry or boring, and although Funaki doesn’t have the crazy transitions of a Tamura, or the intensity of a Kanehara, out of all the people that we have covered so far, he impresses me as the one that is most likely to be the best fighter of them all. ****

ML: Funaki is increasingly having these fun sparring contests that aren’t quite shoots, but operate under the principle that both men are going to give each other as little as possible. Takahashi being the better wrestler by a wide margin forced Funaki to finally rely more on his kickboxing, which made this probably the most entertaining Funaki match so far even though Takahashi is somewhat dry and predictable. Funaki looked great here, finally showing the full extent of his standup footwork, movement, and diversity. He made the mistake of closing the distance early, and although he was able to score with a few low kicks, Takahashi answered by charging forward with a double-leg takedown before Funaki could get out of the pocket. In their previous encounter, Funaki easily took over once the fight hit the ground, but Takahashi showed improved wrestling today, so Funaki had to defend an armbar in order to gain control. Funaki took that this into account, and was thus forced to fight smarter when he got back on his feet, extending the distance to really make Takahashi have to work to get him down again. Funaki is just so much faster and more athletic that he was often able to make Takahashi looked silly ducking and dodging his strikes. Takahashi eventually figured out that he needed to threaten with a strike to get a takedown, and was able to drop down into a double leg off the right straight. The finish wasn’t very satisfying, but this match stalled out far less than the normal Funaki contest. ***

Now for the moment of dread. The current “Champion of the World,” Bart “America” Vale is back, riding high from his recent “victory” over Ken Shamrock, and is just in time to give Fujiwara a title shot. Shamrock isn’t present tonight, so we must only assume that he has been wilting in a corner, bewailing his current fate. I can only assume that this match is but a noble gesture to give Fujiwara the right to redeem himself, by allowing him to take away this most prestigious title via trial by combat. While certainly not one for the ages, this wound up being a lot better than I expected, which isn’t saying much. With the exception of the ending, this was almost free of any striking whatsoever, which was a two-edged sword as it spared us from Vale’s goofy kicks which would have surely taken us into camp territory, but also served to take a long match (almost 20mins) and make it feel even longer. To be fair, both men were on their best behavior, and both put in a sincere effort to make this work. Vale was as intense as Vale could be while wrestling with Fujiwara, but he isn’t going to be confused for Lou Thesz anytime soon and has no business doing a 20min grappling exhibition. This should have been under ten mins, but except for the ending (which saw Vale “KO” Fujiwara with the lamest chokehold in shoot-style history), it was passable and would have been fine on an 80s UWF card. That, of course, isn’t going to cut it anymore in this new era of advanced shooting technology, as Fujiwara doesn’t have the gimmicks or charisma to get away with being yesterday’s news and his stagnation is soon on its way to cost him dearly.

ML: This is one of the most inexplicable booking choices the PWFG has made. Fujiwara didn’t lose a match in 1991, but now loses three out of four in 1992 (granted the Nielsen match was an accident), dropping 2 in a row to Vale rather than finally putting over Funaki, Suzuki, or Shamrock. I get Fujiwara losing to Vale in his hometown of Miami, but even though Fujiwara did defeat Bad Bart in January, this seems the most obvious get my win back match ever, except that it doesn’t happen. If we ignore the actual matches and just look at the results, Vale is suddenly the hottest fighter in the promotion, winning his fifth match in the row including one over his rival for the top foreigner spot, Shamrock, and two over the arguable top native, Fujiwara. The win over Fujiwara in Miami was more reasonable given the amount of standup in that match, but today Vale was shockingly even able to defeat Fujiwara in a ground based contest. These two did their best to make it less unrealistic than their usual match, but the lack of speed here compared to everything we saw earlier is just so striking. What they did was, I suppose, arguably passable enough by the 1988 standards of the UWF, but was never remotely interesting or exciting, and seemed incredibly dated. As expected, this was the worst match on the show by a mile.

Conclusion: I don’t mean to beat a dead horse and keep harping on how the PWFG is making all the wrong moves, but it’s frustrating seeing the potential they have within their roster not be given the catalyst it needs with some vision and strong booking. The brass at this outfit seems content on just meandering through each card without any real strategy or purpose. I had never given it much thought until today, but if Fujiwara gave Ken Shamrock the kind of stratospheric push that Albright is being given in the UWF-I right now and tried to base the rest of the card around finding good opponents for Funaki and Suzuki, then they may have had a real chance. Ken had the charisma, look, and gravitas to be a good candidate to build your promotion around, even if he hadn’t paid his dues with years of experience. Still, this may be a moot observation as there may not have been anything that would have stopped Funaki from enacting his vision of starting his own promotion based around shooting, but it would have made more sense than what I’m seeing now. At this point, I’m more interested in what will happen when this starts to morph away from being based around the UWF-style and turns into a more standard puroresu promotion, after the great exodus of talent in late 92.

ML: Albright fits into the monster gaijin role that the pro-wrestling promotions, who shall we say rarely reinvent the wheel, have been successfully promoting for years, while Shamrock, despite being aggressively roided, still looks like someone who should be fighting Funaki and Suzuki on an even level, especially in the days before weight classes. In many ways, Shamrock really is the star of the promotion because he has a tough featured match on every show, whereas the other top 4 guys kind of alternate, but there’s really no particular reason for him to be a bigger star then Funaki or Suzuki, especially in Japan where having one key native draw is almost make-or-break for the smaller promotions. To me, the big problems are that they won’t first pick between Funaki and Suzuki by having one beat the other, and then secondly have Fujiwara put the winner over. Since none of that ever happens, there’s a sort of perpetual limbo where Fujiwara is #1 but not really, and Funaki and Suzuki are #2A & #2B, mainly based upon similar results against Shamrock, who trades wins & draws with them but never fights Fujiwara (until the end of '92), and Vale (who loses to Funaki & Suzuki but beats Fujiwara).

*Editors Note. You can see this event along with tons of other rare events, along with bonus columns and other rare treasures over at www.patreon.com/KakutogiRoad *

 

[Mbetz1981]

Volume 37 Continued...

*In other news*

Rumors are circulating that World Karate Association Heavyweight Champion, Maurice Smith, will have a mixed match against Masakatsu Funaki in October.

The drama within the pages of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter continues to heat up as it pertains to Nobuhiko Takada and Trevor Berbick. Gene Pelc wrote in once again to take Dave Meltzer to task. Here is his latest letter, quoted verbatim:

“Living in Japan, I unfortunately don’t get a chance to see your newsletter but a friend informed me you printed my letter in which I explained my connection with UWF International and first-hand understanding of the agreement between UWFI and Trevor Berbick and James Warring. He also said you again asserted that Berbick didn’t accept the rules and was made to fight under adversarial conditions and that Warring was somehow double-crossed.

Concerning Warring, I again repeat that I always said the fight was a “shoot.” There was absolutely no incentive for Warring to “go the distance” and not knockout Billy Scott. He would have realized the same purse if he went the distance, knocked Scott out in any round, won by decision, or lost. The only condition was that he participate honestly to the best of his ability. If, as you wrote, Warring thought it was an exhibition but was surprised to find Scott shooting, why didn’t he knockout the kid? Everyone I knew was amazed that a world champion boxer couldn’t take out a young amateur wrestler who had only studied UWF style for a few weeks. Again, Warring had absolutely no incentive to carry a kid who was trying to shoot on him. This makes no sense.

Concerning Berbick, I’ve enclosed two letters from people to whom Berbick said that he was ready for Takada and that if Takada tried kicking the legs, he would destroy Takada. Jim Dougherty was the television interviewer and announcer who spoke with Berbick several times. Pat McCarthy was a judge for the match. Both gentlemen’s letters clearly explain that Berbick knew the rules and was prepared to make Takada pay dearly for kicking the leg. I also enclose a copy of a photo which shows Berbick wearing karate-style leg protectors in the ring. A boxer never wears this type of protection. Only someone who knows he is going to defend kicks to the legs wears this type of gear. This is proof that he knew and accepted the rules going into the ring. The shame on him was when ran out of the ring. I also enclosed a copy of the rules which were read, signed and accepted by Berbick, his manager and his lawyer. These rules were attached to the contract. Paragraphs one and five couldn’t be more clear, could they?

Gene Pelc

UWF International

Tokyo, Japan

And here is Meltzer’s response, also quoted verbatim.

DM: According to a letter sent by Jim Dougherty to Gene Pelc on Jan. 16, he spoke of a television interview before the fight in Korakuen Hall in Japan. “Mr. Berbick and his lawyer were told during my interview that kicks to the lower legs were in the rules and both Berbick and Warring sat in the stands as an official of the UWF explained the rules to the fans. Trevor, in fact, stated that if he was knocked down on the mat that he could take care of himself. He referred to growing up in a very tough neighborhood and having learned how to wrestle and street fight. In the dressing room hallway, downstairs, Berbick exclaimed in a very loud voice that if he was kicked in the legs that it would be the start of World War III and that he would tear Takada’s head off. If Warring or Berbick claim that they were not aware of the kicking rule, they certainly forgot their remarks, my remarks and the UWF demonstration they witnessed one week prior to the fight. It is my opinion that Berbick is a bad loser and Warring is a bad loser as well. We saw a similar attitude demonstrated by Mr. Lee Iacocca of Chrysler last week, so this behavior is not unexpected of the fighters in question.” Judge McCarthy wrote: “Having been a part of the Takada vs. Berbick mixed match, I find it somewhat unbelievable that rumors suggest that Berbick was unaware of the low leg kick rule. I was witness to a number of conversations where Mr. Berbick, in a boastful manner, described what and how he would handle the wrestler kicking low.” The two key rules Pelc referred to were: 1) The bouts shall combine the techniques of wrestling, kickboxing and boxing. Such techniques shall include punching, kicking, kneeing and wrestling with submission holds included. All fighters shall wear the equipment as is usual for his sport as practiced in the U.S. and Japan; and 5) Strikes are permitted to all parts of the body except the groin, and such strikes may not be delivered to a joint of the body with intent to disable. Wrestler may apply submission holds to such joints.

The use of head-butts and elbow strikes shall not be permitted. I never wrote that Berbick was unaware that it was legal for Takada to kick his legs so that really isn’t an issue. In fact, he, according to Lou Thesz, spent much time before the fight complaining that he wanted that rule out so obviously he was aware of it and wanted it out and when he didn’t get it out and Takada kicked him in the legs, he walked out of the ring. But I can also cite an interview by a wrestling reporter with Berbick before the fight when he was looking for quotes and told Berbick that “Takada says he’s going to knock you out in the first round, what do you say?” and Berbick’s response was, “Isn’t this just an exhibition?” This was never reported in Japan because the reporter was trying to “protect” the legitimacy of the fight in Japan. The same reporter he told me how stupid it was for Berbick to say that because if he said it to a reporter who wasn’t going to protect the business and how would Berbick have known one from another, it would have exposed the fight.”

 

[Mbetz1981]

The infamous hall of pre-UFC shoots continues to grow, with the latest addition of Suzuki vs Ishikawa. (This excludes any/all Shooto fights, as those were all-shoot.)

Here is the latest list:

Freek Hamakers vs. Charlie Lieveld (A Free-Fight that took place on 11-20-88 at a Dutch kickboxing event)

Gerard Gordeau vs. Dick Veldhuis (A Free-Fight that took place on 2-19-89 at a Dutch kickboxing event)

Yusuke Fuke vs. Lawi Napataya (PWFG 7-26-91)

Minoru Suzuki vs Lawi Napataya (PWFG 8-23-91)

Ken Shamrock vs Kazuo Takahashi (PWFG 11-3-91)

Nobuaki Kakuda vs Herman Renting (RINGS 12-7-91)

Gerard Gordeau vs. Mitsuya Nagai (RINGS 12-7-91)

Minoru Suzuki vs Takaku Fuke (PWFG 1-15-92) This was a shoot, but there were no strikes. It was similar to a ADCC match.

Billy Scott vs James Warring (UWFI 12-22-92)

Nobuhiko Takada vs Trevor Brebick (UWFI 12-22-92)

Mitsuya Nagai vs. Koichiro Kimura (RINGS 1-25-92)

Nobuaki Kakuda vs Rob Kaman (Rings 1-25-92)

Masaaki Satake vs Gerard Gordeau (Rings 1-25-92)

Adam Watt vs. Hans Nyman (RINGS 3-5-92)

Nobuaki Kakuda vs. Rudy Ewoldt (RINGS 3-5-92)

Masaaki Satake vs. Fred Oosterom (RINGS 3-5-92)

Gus Garcia va Richard Carle (PWFG 3-20-92)

Ozzie Alvarez vs Pedro Goderich (PWFG 3-20-92)

John Lana vs Herman Cicedo (PWFG 3-20-92)

Pieter Smit vs. Mikoki Ichihara (Sediokaikan/RINGS 3-26-92)

Herman Renting vs. Yoshinori Nishi (Sediokaikan/RINGS 3-26-92)

Naoyuki Taira vs. Eric Edlenbos, (Sediokaikan/RINGS 3-26-92)

Maurice Smith vs. Masaaki Satake (Sediokaikan/RINGS 3-26-92)

Yoshinori Nishi vs Willie Peeters (RINGS 4-3-92)

Kazuo Takahashi vs Yuki Ishikawa (PWFG 4-19-92)

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Mathew Saad Mohammed (UWF-I 5-8-92)

Minoru Suzuki vs Yuki Ishikawa (PWFG 6-25-92)

 

[Mbetz1981]

Kakutogi Road Presents: Sayama's Corner "The Story of Shooto Vol.7"

* Note: This is a continuation of where we left of last week, as we continue to rappel the depths of all shoot-mysteries.*

(Previous Page Translated)

Tiger Mask and Satoru Sayama:

But the prowrestling world, playing with one fate after another, ordered Sayama, who had been living gracefully in England, to return to Japan. This was in April 1981.

Moreover he was to return as a masked wrestler called Tiger Mask. This time around he sent a reply of refusal to return. For the first time Sayama asserted himself against New Japan Prowrestling, his employer.

He believed that for someone who aims for a real martial art [combat sport], masks or special characters [gimmicks] were unnecessary.

In order to persuade Sayama who was stubborn, New Japan Prowrestling used the clincher: “The match is scheduled for April 23rd(1981). If you do not return to Japan, you will annoy a lot of people. Return to Japan immediately…”

Moreover the international phone call also asked him to “…think of Mr. Inoki’s position.” With this he had no choice but to withdraw his own assertion.

As long as he is making a living in the world of prowrestling, he had to follow its rules. While dragging his heavy heart, Sayama boarded his flight. He arrived in Japan two days before his debut as Tiger Mask.

Sayama transformed into Tiger Mask and achieved a success that people would envy. And yet the more he became famous, the more he was troubled by the gap between his ideal and reality.

For by that time Sayama had already renounced life as a prowrestler. This was the beginning of Sayama’s inner conflict.

After worrying himself about this for some time Sayama made the following conclusion: “I am going to throw Tiger Mask away. So let me pursue my own lifework. Shouldn’t I be allowed now to do what I want to do?”

Epilogue:

If we look up humanism in the dictionary, it is defined as “the doctrine that aims at the progress of humanity’s peace and happiness. Humanitarianism.” It also provides another meaning as “the doctrine that emphasizes the free development of human individuality and the dignity of humanity.” Satoru Sayama’s lifework, shooting, is something that was born of his emphasizing the free development of his individuality and the dignity of humanity.

(Previous Page Translated)

Shooting System:

Here I will introduce, for people who are interested in trying out shooting or who have some knowledge of shooting but do not know its training methods, the training system I teach at my gym.

The training system is made not only for building basic physical fitness but also for the correct comprehension of the essence of shooting. I would like you to endeavor on the way of the “shooter” without rushing yourselves.

Shooting is the combat sport that compiles techniques already developed in the various fields of “striking, throwing, submitting.” Those who pursue shooting must polish each his own shooting technique on the basis of the essence of a variety of fighting techniques of boxing, kickboxing, sambo, judo, full contact karate, amateur wrestling, and so on.

In order to master the techniques of the mixed martial art of shooting in which the means of fighting (the fighting style) is free, a lot of time and effort is necessary.

When told, “ready, fight,” but faced with an enormous mountain of striking, throwing, and submission techniques, it would be natural to be confused about how to. begin and from where.

And so we divided the many techniques into different classes with stages, systematizing them in a way that they can be made sense of rationally.

· Basic physical fitness class = Building the body to endure combat sports.

· Basic combined class = The general basics of shooting

· Preshooting class = Mastering each technique

· Shooting class = Fighting art making full use of the techniques

Furthermore, from out of the shooting class those who passed the ability test (for tecniques, manners, fight record/results, and mental strength), will be certified as “shooters.” This has the same kind of significance as dans[belt rankings] in judo or kendo. The ability test will be certified by the Shooting Association at the “Shooting tournaments” held several times a year. Together with this those who had made great achievement for the [further] development of shooting will receive the honorary degree/title of “shootist.”

Previous Page Translated

First Stage: Basic physical fitness class:

Now start from today!

At the gym, every beginner joins the basic physical fitness class.

In this class, the goal is the cultivation or promotion of basic physical fitness necessary and indispensable for not only shooting but for starting any sport.

As represented by the three words, “striking, throwing, submission,” shooting contains the elements of all combat sports.

Thus in order to prevent risk and to endure intensive training, we need to cultivate stamina, explosive power, and flexibility throughout the whole body.

Stretching:

So that trainees can stretch at any time, we play a video of stretching fundamentals throughout training sessions.

To eliminate inadvertent injuries we should not forget to sufficiently loosen the body by stretching.

Footwork:

This exercise is not for gaining stamina but rather to foster a sense of balance. It is undertaken 10 minutes each from a low center of gravity in the upright stance (see p. 47), front and back, left and right.

Squats:

One does this leg exercise, generally called Hindu squats, 200 times or more. Body weight training is indispensable for gaining flexible muscles (see p. 38).

Pushups:

From a handstand, using a wall (or having a partner hold one’s feet up), holding one’s weight up only with the arms, do pushups 20 times or more. This exercise is the most suitable for strengthening one’s power.

Do pushups combined with stretching 50 mines or more. This is done by putting the hands shoulder width apart, the legs spread wide apart, on all fours, and while stretching the body, moving from back to front.

Wall tackles:

Facing the wall, correctly perform a tackle. To lose any preference for right or left, always perform it the same number of times (30 times each). This can be said for anything else in training, but if you only practice the easier side, in a real fight the opponent will see through one’s habits and one would be placed in a very disadvantageous position.

Bridges:

The strengthening of the neck is an absolutely necessary criterion for shooting (especially for grappling). Bridging, which cultivates the body’s flexibility along with the strengthening of the neck, is one important training exercise for gaining basic physical fitness.

Work on perfecting a flowing bridge supported by the feet and nose and with the waist turned inward.

In the basic physical fitness class, one engages in weight training by fundamentally using one’s own body [weight]. Work on improving your strength on the basis of clearly grasping the limits of your body.

One needs to understand that even if one learns techniques disproportionate to one’s fitness, they will not be effective.

Bridging is the basis of wrestling. With the use of effort, this depicts a fine arc. Depending on the training, one can improve one’s body.

To Be Continued...