The one thing I've lamented about the ever increasing popularity and exposure of the real thing is it brought a quick death to the fake thing. It figures, since worked shoots are like the one fake thing I don't totally despise. As a whole shoots are way better than worked shoots because, like basically everything else, every gain the fake thing has is more than offset by the half dozen or so things that are now lost and the half dozen or so that are no longer right. Nothing in any real or fake combat sport beats the great worked shoot though. It's the hardest to pull off because the workers are in a kind of limbo, caught in the middle of entertainment and reality and being crushed by the limitations of both because they are doing the former yet always being measured by the later. There strikes have to look as good, without actually doing any damage, while their submissions can be cooler, but only if they can somehow manuever into a position they could be applied without it seeming like their opponent let them. When worked shoots are bad they are really bad, but on the extremely rare occassion when everything comes together they are as beautiful and artistic as wrestling gets.

The men that have been able to make it come together - Kiyoshi Tamura, Volk Han, Tsuyoshi Kosaka, Norihisa Yamamoto, & Nobuhiko Takada - have not faired nearly as well in the real deal. On the other hand, no great shooter that tried his hand at working was even close to as good either. It's not really surprising because usually you are going to be best at the style you've spent most of your career doing, especially styles like this that are always evolving and can never truly be mastered. More than anything else, what Kiyoshi Tamura bringing this style back does is potentially provide a home for the guys that have been lost in the shuffle. Even if I'd rather see a shoot, I'd rather see each individual doing the style they are most proficient at. There's nothing more frustrating than seeing a guy like Naoki Sano get demolished shoot after shoot when you know almost every pro style match would be improved by his addition, and almost every shoot match would be improved by his subtraction. Of course, it's always good to try different things and diversify, at some point you just have to know what's worth sticking with and what isn't.

Tamura's first show was hardly nostalgia. Sure we heard the classic U.W.F. theme, by far the best original theme any promotion has to offer. However, there were no UWF or UWF-I guys other than Tamura. Most fighters on this show are only known by hardcore shoot fans - mainly guys from Tamura's camp or Sakata's camp - and the STYLE was more a modernized version of what Tamura was doing before RINGS went all shoot. The points system was definitely in that vein, none of that deduction for getting suplexed stuff like in UWF-I. The main difference from RINGS is you lose one of your 5 at a time rather than knockdowns being worth double. The time limits were also reduced, which was probably necessary to stay in line with the real leagues, but 20 like PRIDE would allow for better high end matches than 15 like UFC.

Echigo is from Tamura's U-FILE CAMP and has done Battlarts, while Fujii is a UFO guy that's worked Pancrase, DEEP, & ZERO-ONE. This was an odd way to start the show. It was all spots with no wasted time. Fujii did a few good things like going from suplex right into submission, but he seemed like a guy that has an arsenal but isn't very precise at executing it yet. Echigo basically didn't get a chance to do anything. It seemed like these two went on first because they were two of the worst, and the hope was if they got them out quick enough they could do something passable without exposing themselves. Fujii got the submission with a double wristlock.

1:33

Naoki Kimura vs. Manabu Hara

Kimura is from Sakata's EVOLUTION and has done Pancrase, while Hara is from Battlarts. I liked what I saw from Hara, who was very competent on the ground and executed well. Kimura was one of those strikers that doesn't know how to fake them, but his hands were quick enough that his shotei's weren't embarrassing. Where the style is still a little crusty is the guy on the bottom would basically wait until he had something to defend rather than getting guard using that to prevent or even to work from the bottom. Hara did a nice German suplex then rolled Kimura to his stomach and choked him out.

7:41

Rating:

Kyosuke Sasaki vs. Yasuhito Namekawa

Sasaki is a Tamura student that's done Pancrase, RINGS, & DEEP, while Namekawa is RINGS turned free agent who has done PRIDE & DEEP. Namekawa didn't use the same old moves. He might not have been the most realistic fighter, but he was in there with a guy that was a head shorter than him (Sasaki is billed at Liger's height of 170 cm, but probably an inch or two shorter and 45 pounds lighter) so he decided to toss him around. He did a more believable version of the sidewalk slam and a towerhacker bomb like suplex where he threw the opponent to the side rather than drop them in Ligerbomb position since there isn't any pins. Sasaki is quick and moves smoothly on the mat. His strikes had no impact, but he mainly tried for arm bars, including a flying one. There was a funny spot where Namekawa mounted and they took turns slapping each other in the face. Good finish with Sasaki having Namekawa against the ropes and going for a double leg takedown, but Namekawa did a half turn to get to the side of Sasaki then jumped on Sasaki's back. This forced Sasaki to fall to the canvas, and allowed Namekawa to do arm bar and crossface for the win.

9:14

Hiroyuki Ito vs. Ryuki Ueyama

Ito is RINGS turned free agent who trains with Namekawa and has done DEEP & GCM, while Ueyama is Tamura's best student and the DEEP middleweight champion. Ueyama hardly did any worked matches in RINGS, so I was surprised at just how good he was. He's so quick and athletic, but the thing is he understood how to make that work for him in this setting. In particular, he did all kinds of fakes. I hadn't seen a spectacular attempt at a standing guard pass to avoid kicks in a work before (probably because the worked leagues had about had it by the time everyone learned about the dreaded butt scoot). His mount striking was excellent too, with hard punches straight down into the stomach to open up palms (closed fists to the head were illegal) to the head, and then he'd go back to the stomach when Ito defended his head.

Ito wasn't nearly as good, he would get to the position he wanted before he had his hold locked unlike Ueyama who was really explosive in applying his holds and had good tight locks. Ito showed a lot of potential though. I liked him right away because of his ring entrance. No stupid dancing and posing, none of that Lee Smith taking 5 minutes to walk a few hundred feet stuff, he just ran out and jumped over the top rope. He was able to follow Ueyama, which was not easy. In particular, the opening sequence was too fast to keep up with, as they'd either counter or fire right back. The rest of the fight couldn't even follow this opening, but Ueyama had really slick movement on the mat and did an very good job of faking real situations. Ueyama won impressively with a neat move from his flurry of mount strikes into the ashikubigatame.

8:47

Rating:

Takehiro Murahama vs. Kazuki Okubo

Okubo is a Tamura student who started at the end of RINGS and has done PRIDE, Pancrase, & DEEP. I'm a big fan of Murahama's pro wrestling, but I found him annoying here. I don't have any problem with him trying to incorporate his PuroLucha stuff into the worked shoot, but it was like that was all he wanted to do. He tried to make it dramatic and he was the only one selling and trying to build his match, but it was too short for these to have the desired effect. The only things I wrote down about the match were the pro wrestling sequences because the other stuff wasn't given any meaning and came off as a distraction in between us finding out whether he could have any success running the ropes. The sequence where he eventually caught Okubo with an enzuigiri was nice though, and he showed his usual quickness and smoothness in spots, like the German suplex into udehishigigyakujujigatame finish.

7:11

Rating:

Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Wataru Sakata

Vintage Tamura with both guys working for everything and having to make a series of moves to attempt one manuever that probably didn't work anyway. I enjoy the early portion of Tamura's matches the best. His matches are more about movement than anything else, so this is the purest portion because it hasn't built up to much of anything being successful. It's just about reacting and trying to positioning yourself out of trouble and/or into a spot where you can try something.

Sakata had no problem following Tamura. He's one of those guys that's been real solid for a long time, but he was stuck in the undercards because he's small and isn't much of a shooter. He never had an opportunity like this before, but he proved he could deliver when he finally got the chance. This was the best match of his career.

I thought the short time limit kept this from being an excellent match. It took 5 1/2 minutes for something to work, which was satisfactory. The thing is at that point it became a different match where far too much worked. 6 minutes being success oriented would be okay if there was a middle section of similar length to bridge the two we got.

Tamura did more damage with striking than in the past. He probably wanted to show a little more of this because it's what he used to beat Nobuhiko Takada in PRIDE. In any case, his strikes were really crisp and he did a nice jumping high kick. Sakata came back with a discus chop, high kick, and akiresukengatame then both played dead. The "fatigued" Sakata was lazy on his takedown attempt, so Tamura was able to guillotine him for the victory.

11:44

Rating:

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