The only problem at this point - aside from the still pervasive culture of silence surrounding Japanese MMA and the early era works - is Ken's memory. It's so long ago that he doesn't remember things that well. I noticed in this podcast that he repeated a story that he's told before about him winning the Pancrase title and defending it by knocking out Takaku Fuke. First, he didn't knock Fuke out - he choked him out - and second, they hadn't created a Pancrase title yet. He doesn't remember his own timeline well because of how much he did and how long ago he did it.
And then yes to the second two points. Pancrase was literally called "hybrid wrestling," it was all about combining styles and techniques. And obviously injury played a significant part in the first Tito fight. Ken was literally fighting on one leg, and it even buckles on him at a couple of points during the fight. He could barely move, hence his barely moving when Tito was beating him up and throwing him around. Even in his prior fight against Don Frye, Ken's knee was so bad he couldn't shoot TDs, hence that drop down leg lock in the first round. Ken's body was completely shot when he came back from pro wrestling, which made his comeback bittersweet: He was in his technical prime but not his physical prime, so he looked good with everything that he'd put together but he couldn't actually execute. The Fujita fight's also an anomaly: He was going through a divorce and his wife dumped the kids with him when he was supposed to be in training camp so he just didn't train for Fujita. He tried to put him away but they didn't call Fujita "Ironhead" for no reason, and then he gassed.
No, the skinny nerd with glasses is not Paulson. See my earlier post.
