1992 was perhaps the best year to be a shoot wrestler. You presumably were paid pretty well to perform about once a month rather than the dozen or more times wrestlers worked in NJPW, AJPW, or especially AJW. Very few people knew about Shooto, so there was no real pressure to actually shoot, as any chicanery they came up with was going to look way more realistic than a trancing voodoo man sporting a smoking skull causing one of the actual performers in the match to lose via falling of the apron, convulsing on the floor trying to decide whether to sell his stomach or his beloved stolen wristband that led to the curse, until he's wheeled to the back, where he proceeds to vomit green gunk on the medical attendants.

Pretty much all of the shows seemed like big events because there were so few of them, and while attendance may not have been that great when you stopped to consider that the 2,000 plus they drew for the smaller shows were all the tickets they were selling for the entire month, the stars were increasingly developing that larger than life combat icon status that had previously largely been reserved for boxers. Though PWFG was the most modest and conservative of the promotions, they managed to be the only promotion to run a card in the USA, or anywhere outside of Japan for that matter, as well as the only one to run the Tokyo Dome, a feat no one would have expected from them, especially when it was predictably Akira Maeda headlining and Nobuhiko Takada in the semifinal on the lone Dome show U.W.F managed on 11/29/89.

1991 was largely defined by the three new promotions just trying to get organized, figure out what their roster would be, and who they could run out against the promotion leader. With every promotion needing new stars, the younger wrestlers from the U.W.F. era such as Minoru Suzuki & Kiyoshi Tamura began to come to prominence, but it was in 1992 that we really began to understand what gems the new promotions had unearthed. In fact, three of the four best workers- Volk Han, Hiromitsu Kanehara, and Masakazu Maeda - debuted in December 1991. These fighters, and other new faces, really changed how the sport was evolving.

Han truly revolutionized the complexion of the submission game. Before him, submissions, which were largely cobbled together from a mix of practical judo training and impractical pro wrestling fantasies, mostly seemed little more than a very predictable means to the end. Someone would grab a crab, and either the fight would impractically end, or the opponent would eventually grab a rope. I'm using the worst possible scenario, but even in the best cases, the submissions were really a liability in trying to win over the pro wrestling crowd because the big payoff was so visually lacking in comparison to what they were used to (unless they still loved Pedro Morales). It wasn't so much that Han introduced a series of new submissions from his practical sambo training, and his own wild imagination, although that was the case, but rather that he was constantly a threat because he would chain submissions together, endlessly adjusting and using the opponent's position and offensive attacks against them. Tamura's rise to prominence had some parallels, as what he lacked in inventive submissions, he more than made up for by being the first performer in the genre to overwhelm his opponent through grappling speed (we'd seen Sayama beat people through speed and athleticism, but in the standing game). Both had styles based on being one step ahead of the opposition that were great to watch, with Han changing the position through a new submission, while Tamura beat the opponent to the position then applied the submission.

Kanehara & Masakazu Maeda offered a "new" brand of cardio based reality. There was nothing revolutionary about what they were doing if you've ever watched or participated in any competitive real bout in any form of fighting, but because pro wrestling is a lazy form of showbusiness where people endlessly lay around telling the opponent where they are hurt rather than actually defending themselves, an entire match where the competitors actively refuse to let their guard down or be sluggish in seizing positions that are so obviously there for the taking was something largely unheard of even in the more prideful wrestling variation the shoot leagues provide. We've seen aspects of this before from other fighters, particularly Tamura is always relying on speed and explosions, but no one else always makes such a specific effort to constantly push maximum pace.

In terms of quality pro wrestling, UWF-I finally really ran away with the lead, which is actually what we had expected them to do from the get go because they maintained most of the U.W.F. roster when the league splintered into three. While in 1991, PWFG had both 3 of the top 6 matches and workers, in 1992 there was so much depth on the UWF-I roster that even though Yuko Miyato was screwing a lot up booking wise, just pulling straws to determine the matches couldn't have failed to put a few potential winners in place. Certainly Han, Suzuki, Masakatsu Funaki, & Ken Shamrock did good work in 1992, but it was ultimately hard for their output to compete with their comparable UWF-I counterparts because there were so many more talented performers in UWF-I to keep things fresher, more varied and interesting. That being said, all Maeda's hard work in assembling a worldwide roster of discipline experts really began to pay off in the second half of the year, to the point that they actually had one more recommended match during that period than UWF-I did, 10 on 5 shows compared to 9 on 6 shows for UWF-I.

Although UWF-I was the least realistic promotion and PWFG was the most realistic, it's wasn't so black and white, and UWF-I, whether by accident or through the luxury of selling enough tickets they could afford to pay an extra 6-8 workers to appear on their shows, began to trend in some more positive directions as the year progressed. While I prefer the longer match format of the PWFG from a pro wrestling sense, the UWF-I was far more unpredictable when it came to match lengths and finishes, and that helped to hold things together from a "shoot" sense, and make the general movements and progressions feel more urgent and important. While removing much of the cooperation, PWFG definitely clinged more to the pro wrestling concept of the big matches being very long, if not just draws to avoid a loser. PWFG generally had more build to a predictable finish, while UWF-I tended to vary the lengths of the matches outside of the opener a lot more, and guys could just lose from getting caught in something, which is the most important break they actually made from pro wrestling. It's shocking that this never caught on, and in 2022, with 10,000 examples of MMA fighters rarely winning with the same hold more than a few times to every one Aleksei Oleinik Ezekiel choke specialist, that pro wrestling still can't get beyond the idea of the finishing hold. Getting back to 1992 though, this is part of the reason that PWFG was frustrating because they never elevated any of their capable young fighters through a "fluke" finish where they made a good move to catch the veteran or the veteran simply got caught in a mistake. Similarly, Gary Albright seemed especially boring because a Kazuo Yamazaki match, for instance, can almost go any way (except the path that leads to him being of box office value) at any time, whereas you know Gary's match is going to be super short, one-sided, and end with a big suplex. To a lesser extent, Takada suffers from always winning with the armbar, especially since it's so sloppy, whereas his kicks probably carry the highest impact of anyone in the genre. All this being said, the most urgent and realistic UWF-I matches, and overall the most similar works we saw to actual shoots, did come in the first half of the year, with the Kanehara vs. Maeda matches being the best examples of both fighters going all out all the time that we've seen in pro wrestling. If the more patient mat style that PWFG increasingly developed into looks more realistic in 2022 than the create and seize the opening style of Tamura, Han, or Kanehara, that probably has more to do with both the evolution of BJJ and amateur wrestling in Japanese fighting coming later on, and the eventual trend toward the much safer position over submission style of grappling being an influence of the UFC.

Reality is certainly the area that set RINGS apart, as with RINGS, we don't need to talk about shoots only in conceptional terms. Though Akira Maeda could barely hobble through a worked fight most of the time, he at least saw the value in testing the true meddle of the fighters on his undercard, and we began to see a core of fighters including Mitsuya Nagai, Nobuaki Kakuda, Willie Peeters, Koichiro Kimura, & Masayuki Naruse who were not only a possibility for a shoot, but even an entertaining one. RINGS was truly a mixed bag, running the gamut between the most real fighting and the most horribly executed works, but overall, they had a really compelling mix of real and fake, actual and entertaining, while PWFG, for all their good intentions, really had a hard time getting beyond the same hard gym sparring where the guy who would win the shoot would dominate the work because they weren't surrendering positions to make the match more back and forth and competitive, hence losing the excitement of both the work and the shoot. There was definitely a lot of merit to what PWFG was doing, but it was less effective because for the most part their only alternative to that was Yoshiaki Fujiwara's semi comedic shenanigans. All in all, I'm most optimistic about the overall product RINGS is presenting going into 1993, but I'd still expect UWF-I to once again be the overall best promotion to watch because they aren't totally reliant on Tamura to deliver every time out the way RINGS are with Han.

MB: Alfred Hitchcock once famously quipped that cinema was simply life with the boring bits cut out, and if our ongoing quest to seek out shoot-truths has taught us anything, it's that MMA is simply pro wrestling with all the laziness and illusions removed. 1992 was a great year to see this maxim unfold as we saw two sides of a same coin, namely a group of unconventional pro wrestlers striving to redefine the concept of martial art sport, both within the real and fake, the sacred and the profane. The shoot-style movement saw two parallels emerge, both with fascinating revelations. One path showed us how much more entertainment value could be achieved within the traditional Japanese model of pro wrestling by adding realistic footwork, submissions, fast striking, and a sense of urgency. Secondly, we saw plenty of true MMA take place due to the strides that Akira Maeda's RINGS promotion made. We also saw what was perhaps the most avant-garde take on professional wrestling until Kenny Omega decided to tangle with a sex doll when Yoshiaki Fujiwara's PWFG continually put out matches that had only a modicum of both cooperation and entertainment. This bizarre fare produced the same satisfaction as a cozy night with your favorite copy of the Wall Street Journal, interesting but dreadfully bland. Of course, Sayama had them all beat with his dreams of Shooto taking over the world, but in this era he was hard pressed to even sell out the infamous Korakuen Hall, which sadly meant that his tireless efforts were largely under the public's radar.

While Sayama had angered the ensconced pro-wrestling apparatus to the point of being unable to get any positive attention towards MMA/Shoot-Fighting, thankfully Akira Maeda was starting to deliver the goods this year, even if his motives were not as pure as Satoru's. Maeda blessing the world with several shoots, along with a lot more submission savvy in worked matches, was an invention born out of necessity, as his roster was so thin and reliant on foreign help that experimentation within the format was the key to successfully moving forward. While RINGS' growth pains didn't lead to the highest of highs that the UWF-I's better moments did, they were by far the most interesting of the three promotions and the only one that was able to put out the first non-Shooto professional MMA event with their Sediokaikan co-promoted Battle Sports Olympic. And while the output of their main cards was very hit or miss, it was far more satisfying to see a mix of work and shoot than the almost pure chicanery of the UWF-I, even if their action was more sugar-coated.

Things started to get interesting for the PWFG right before their demise when they not only started authorizing more real fights but started to receive an influx of highly skilled Eastern European wrestling talent. Had they continued in this vein and eventually came to their senses with the main event that everyone wanted to see (I.E., Funaki/Suzuki), they could have easily squeezed another year of solid output, although it's hard to say if they were ever close to achieving probability. Their main undoing was the financial rug being pulled out from underneath them as their chief benefactor, Megane Super, had sworn off the lavish luxuries of bank-rolling pet puroresu companies when a recession snapped them back to fiscal reality. It's unclear as to how Takada and his motley crew were paying the bills as they were roughly in the same bracket as the PWFG in terms of overall attendance, although this humble scribe suspects that the Yakuza were keen to provide a helping hand.

What is crystal clear, however, is the amazing potential that the UWF-I had during this run. To this day, their core roster of performers in late 1992 would be the envy of any self-respecting wrestling company, and would have paved the way for U-Styled Japanese pro wrestling to be around even 30 years later, had they not constantly insisted on snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. There is no denying the overwhelming amount of talent that oozed out of guys like Kiyoshi Tamura and Hiromitsu Kanehara. Legends that had the ultra-rare ability to be not only top-tier level performers in the world of stiff works but top-shelf MMA fighters, also. This outfit was not short on hot American talent either, as 1992 saw them largely eschew mining the Tennessee hills for rookie gaijins, instead pulling off the highly impressive coup of grabbing wrestling legends Dan Severn, Gene Lydick, Steve Day, and Dennis Koslowski. While these acquisitions were arguably too top-heavy in the one dimension they were good at, there was no denying the impressive resume's that they all possessed, and the potential they carried if cultivated properly. Of course, as we peer into the hazy mist of 1993, it is unlikely that the UWF-I will be able to nurture anything beyond some hefty paychecks for its star, Nobuhiko Takada, but they certainly have the talent on board to win the shoot-style wars if they play their cards right. We at Kakutogi HQ are excited going forward into what '93 has in store for us, as things should get very interesting now that Fujiwara is in abeyance and RINGS has really started to find its proper format. So, for now, let us embark on one last look at all the craziness that 1992 gave us before jumping headfirst into this upcoming new year.

UWF-I 1/9/92: Hiromitsu Kanehara vs. Masakazu Maeda 15:00. These two stole the show a couple of weeks prior, and while I’m surprised they would go back to the well so quickly, I won’t complain as any day Kanehara is in action is a good one, indeed. They don’t waste any time, and other Maeda is looking a lot more confident this time out, as he immediately goes guns blazing towards Kanehara with a litany of palm-strikes, but is taken down quickly when he misses a Ushiro-Tobi-Mawashi-Geri (reverse jumping roundhouse kick). Maeda was able to quickly get out of Kanehara’s mount, and ended the rapid sequence with a soccer kick to Kanehara’s back. We aren’t even a min into the match, and this is looking good, so far. Maeda continues to press the action with a variety of strikes that Kanehara is able to parry before closing the distance and executing a tasty Ippon-Seoi Nage (one arm throw). Kanehara looks for a quick Kimura, but other Maeda does a good job of scrambling, and his constant movement stifles Kanehara’s submission attempts, which causes Kanehara to simply stand back up, and give several soccer kicks of his own. What followed was nothing short of excellent, as there was a total non-stop flow between two men that, outside of a few questionable suplexes and a couple of Boston crab attempts from Kanehara, never felt hokey. It also helped that other Maeda exuded a lot more confidence this time around, and while you can tell that Kanehara is the better athlete, unlike their first bout where there were sequences that felt like Kanehara was just letting Maeda do what he wanted, everything here felt organic and earned. There was one great spot where Kanehara was on his back, reaping the knee of other Maeda, looking for a leg-attack, in which Maeda countered by twisting around on one leg while stomping the body and face of Kanehara with the other. This sequence, along with others in this match, started to show an evolution in pro-wrestling logic that had rarely been seen up to this point, where a wrestler had to find creative solutions to a submission as opposed to simply crying and screaming until he inched closer and closer to the ropes, looking for an escape. Speaking of which, there was a great moment in this match where Kanehara had other Maeda in an armbar, and as soon as he arched his back to put pressure on the elbow-joint, Maeda shrieked in pain, and immediately exploded towards the ropes, in what came across as a realistic approach to being put in this predicament, as opposed to the usual contrived theatrics. The fight ends in a 15min draw, and this was a great way to start the year. I suspect that this will wind up being in the 1992 year end highlight reel, and if they can manage to keep Kanehara, and give him a proper spot as a main player, then that coupled with Tamura, could be enough to push them over the top into the preeminent shoot-style promotion going forward.

ML: I can't in good conscience call this a rookie match given it's more evolved than at least 95% of the matches we saw in '91. Maeda made incredible strides in just a few weeks, now fighting with the confidence of a seasoned performer. That's really the difference here, as Maeda can be aggressive, taking it to Kanehara in standup where he has the advantage because he now has the belief to let it rip. While Kanehara is still the superior performer, the gap has lessened enough that they can do an organic, back & forth counter laden bout where Maeda has the advantage in standup & Kanehara has the advantage on the ground, but from the viewer's perspective, it doesn't matter where they are because the quality is very high regardless. The matwork was better in the 1st match because it was more focused on Kanehara working his magic, and thus had some more evolved transitions, but the standup was 10 times better here, with some impressive flurries in the later stages, mostly by Maeda. While an incredible match for fighters a few weeks into their career, this in no way hinted at the amazing matches we'd see between these two over the next 4 months. The chain grappling was nice, but rather than transitioning between breakneck paced standup, it largely stayed in that domain, and never felt incredibly urgent or desperate the way their great matches would. ***1/2

UWF-I 1/9/92: Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Yuko Miyato 8:11. Both men brought a great explosive energy to the ring. Right off the bat, Tamura charges in with a high kick, and a relentless palm-strike assault, but Miyato stands his ground and fires back with several stiff slaps of his own, before downing Tamura with a spinning back kick to the stomach. So far this is very intense, and believable. Tamura gets back up, and Miyato tries to clinch with him while throwing some knees, but Tamura slickly switches behind him, and nails a standing rear naked choke followed by a takedown. Yuko spent a while deflecting the choke from being fully sunken in before being able to pry out enough to attempt a straight-armbar against Tamura, who countered with a beautiful cartwheel, and right back into a rear naked choke. However, Tamura made the same mistake that many BJJ white-belts do when he crossed his feet while attempting the choke, which allowed Miyato to attack one of his ankles. They are now both back on their feet, and Tamura quickly goes for a wrist tie-up with Miyato, and after he gets it, starts to shift his bodyweight side to side, in something similar to a feint, as if he is weighing his next move, when suddenly Miyato explodes into the finest fireman’s takedown we’ve yet seen.  Miyato then gives us some interesting ne-waza when he controls Tamura’s head with a modified leg-scissor while fishing for a Kimura. Once he gets the Kimura, he quickly forgoes the head control and explodes into the submission, causing an instant rope-escape and a cry of anguish from Tamura. The rest of this bout was total fire, as it saw Tamura dwarfed on the scoreboard by Miyato, as his occasional submission was worth a lot less than Miyato’s knockdowns. Eventually, Tamura was able to get Miyato in the center of the ring and secure an ankle-lock for the victory. This was another excellent match, and it really has me rethinking my opinion of Miyato. Before this, I kind of just looked at him as an unassuming, and middling figure that could be good, but was too tethered to the old UWF ways to be of much interest, but he proved me wrong here, as a motivated Miyato is capable of a top-tier performance, and really shined here tonight.

ML: The much-anticipated rematch of the 2nd best UWF-I match of '91 was total fire, as these two just blitzed each other from start to finish. One of the great things about Tamura is he's able to up the speed, pace, and intensity in a manner that is not only believable, but based on the urgency that's so lacking in ordinary pro wrestling, where fighters are more concerned with playing to the crowd & posing, just stalling at every opportunity when the opponent is down so they have to do less. His pythonesque execution of submissions in this match is as impressive an example of exploding into submissions as I have ever seen. You first notice the speed in which he's moving to secure the holds, but what's most impressive is that his movement to change the position until the opponent's body is jerked into the prone spot corresponds almost equally with him gaining more and more leeway by coiling tighter and tighter around Miyato. It's never just a takedown or a sweep, it's always at the same time a tighter and tighter squeeze until the hold is in so deep in all areas by the time they've settled that the opponent would be done before they knew what hit them if it were a shoot. I really believed in the early near finishes because they were working at the rate that others can only approach when they kick it into high gear for the last minute or so. There was a great early sequence where Miyato countered into a hammerlock when Tamura was trying to pull him back into the center to reapply the rear naked choke, but Tamura did one of his crazy one-armed headstands to pivot into a position where he could retake Miyato's neck. Another great sequence saw Miyato do a hip toss into an armbar, but Tamura countered with a backwards roll into an Achilles' tendon hold. The whole match was back & forth like this, with Tamura ultimately getting the better of the grappling, but Miyato being scrappy and having fast flurries of strikes. The only downside is it was even shorter than their 1st match, which was perhaps the shortest match I've ever rated great. I'm glad they never slowed down, the whole match had the feel of a finishing sequence because of that, and it was really brilliant, though their previous match was perhaps a little better because it was longer, or I was slightly disappointed that they ran through the points so quickly it was obviously not going to last much longer. Regardless though, this was one of the most amazing examples of why an all out short match is far more riveting than a stalling "epic", and it will surely wind up being one of the top matches of '92. ****1/4

PWFG 1/15/92: Naoki Sano vs. Jerry Flynn. A welcome matchup, as Sano has been a hit every time we’ve seen him thus far, and Flynn gave us a fantastic 30min broadway with Takaku Fuke not long ago. It will be interesting to see how their styles are going to mesh, as Sano doesn’t come from a pure shooting background, and this somewhat hindered his ability to carry Bart Vale during his last appearance, so hopefully Flynn will be a better fit for him. The fight starts with Flynn attempting to pepper Sano’s thigh with a low-kick, to which Sano responds by catching the leg and tripping him down, but gets quickly reversed when he tries to follow this up with a mount. Flynn instantly goes for a Kimura, but Sano does a good job of defending it before getting back to his feet. Once the fight restarts, Flynn starts to utilize his significant reach advantage to wail away against Sano with a variety of kicks at different angles. After taking a rather nasty spinning back kick to the stomach, Sano wisely opts to blast Flynn down with a double leg, as the vertical plane does not seem to bode well for him. Sano tries to keep things on the ground by pressuring Flynn with some different submission attempts, but to my surprise Flynn is too fast and explosive to be kept in any real danger for very long. A bit of a standstill followed until Sano took an enziguri to the head after catching a kick from Flynn’s other leg, and from this point forward the dynamics of this match quickly shifted into more of your standard puroresu territory. The rest of the contest was taken right out of the pro-wrestling drama 101 playbook, and featured a lot of back and forth moments between Flynn and Sano trading rope escapes with Flynn maintaining the upper hand with striking, and Sano with submissions, Everything culminated with a poorly choreographed spot where Flynn misses another enziguri, only to meet his doom via half-crab. I don’t want to make it sound like this was bad because taken in isolation this was an exciting, somewhat stiff, and fast paced pro wrestling match. Rather, the issue I take with this is that coming off the Kazuo Takahashi vs. Wellington Wilkins Jr. opener that set a much more realistic and subdued tone, it wound up being a case of stylistic whiplash. Flynn looked sharp, especially with his kicks, but Sano’s offense seem to oscillate from solid to silly, and he suffered the same problem that he did with Vale, in that he isn’t versed enough in this style to carry a rookie within that framework. To me it was like a film that has several good scenes, but is undermined by the lack of a consistent tone. As such, I find this difficult to rate, as it was good, but not really in the context that they were going for.

ML: One of the last holdovers from the more entertaining but less credible 1991 style of PWFG. This was a fun bout that was fast paced and exciting, with explosive bursts of striking, despite being pretty long. While it wasn't advancing martial arts, it was one of the only mostly striking oriented matches we've seen in PWFG, especially at this length. The match would have played better on a UWF-I show, but PWFG needs some entertainment once in a while. My biggest gripe with the match, outside of the finish once again being pretty random, is Flynn was a bit erratic with his strikes, with some of the knees barely connecting. What made this more interesting, and to a certain extent more believable than the old UWF style, was simply that they kept moving. While this wasn't Sano's best performance, largely because he was forced into the role of the grappler due to Flynn being a superior striker with the reach advantage, Flynn showed good improvement here, and was flowing really well in standup. Overall, this was slightly long, as their slowing down towards the end was probably more than just selling, but it worked for the most part.***

PWFG 1/15/92: Masakatsu Funaki vs. Wayne Shamrock. Their 8/23/91 meeting was a great match that really put Ken over as a force to be reckoned with. Tonight's fight starts off with a bit of a measured kickboxing approach, as Funaki is doing a good job peppering Shamrock’s legs with both inside and outside thigh kicks. Funaki then tries to shoot in deep with a single, but Shamrock sprawls off to the side, forcing Funaki to opt for attacking Ken’s left leg with a rolling kneebar that fails, and puts Funaki on his back in the guard position. Ken’s idea of passing the guard includes grinding his elbow on his opponents chin, and attempting several Kimuras, which of course don’t work, but did create enough space for him to slide over into a side-mount where he tries an Americana/armbar combination, but is simply too slow in his execution to catch Funaki. Next we get a long sequence where Ken is forced into his guard, but quickly slides out and takes Funaki’s back, He continually attempts a rear choke, but is forced to be more concerned about protecting his ankle, as he initially crossed his feet around Funaki’s stomach leaving them vulnerable for attack. This is starting to feel like a basic BJJ roll, which doesn’t sound like much now, but considering that this is still almost 2 years away from UFC 1, this must have seemed completely esoteric to anyone that got to see it outside of Japan. After a couple more minutes of fighting for position and toe-hold attempts, they are back on their feet, but not for long as Shamrock quickly takes the fight back down to the ground and attempts something of a half-baked arm-triangle choke. We can see that Shamrock still has a ways to go in developing his submission arsenal, as he hasn’t honed his craft to the point where he is going to catch Funaki with any of these. The ground attrition wages on for a couple more minutes before Funaki gains the first submission by getting a toehold on Shamrock. Once back on the feet, Funaki comes out swinging with some lethal palm strikes, and after connecting with several, quickly takes the fight back to the ground. The next several minutes follow the same pattern as before, only this time they are both moving with a lot more intensity and urgency, even occasionally striking each other on the ground to try and create an opening. Shamrock is the next to gain a point as he was able to secure a kneebar on Funaki, which was more a result of pure brute force, as opposed to slick technique. Once the fight restarted it turned into a kickboxing war, with Funaki out landing Shamrock by a 3-1 ratio. This continued until it appeared that Funaki got accidently eye poked when exchanging with Ken. After recovering from the eye attack, the fight quickly goes to the ground again, and now the ground strikes are starting to get more frequent as we are now past the 20 minute mark, and the desperation is taking hold. A frantic footsie battle takes place, until Shamrock is now ahead on points, this time by securing a heel-hook. This probably doesn’t mean anything as I’m assuming that like the UWF-I, matches will go to an automatic draw if there isn’t a conclusive winner. The match ends at the 30 min mark, just as Shamrock was inches away from securing a back choke.

ML: A nice step forward for Funaki, as he managed to do more without sacrificing realism. The stand up in this match was at a much higher level. Both men were very light on their feet, engaging with caution while looking to avoid. Funaki was clearly the far superior striker, as he kicked Shamrock's lead leg at will, and because Shamrock was fighting out of a side stance yet only kicking with the back (right) leg, Funaki could have been avoiding most of these kicks if he really wanted to because there was just too much distance to cover without any leads, fakes, or diversions. The grappling, which was the majority of the contest, was pretty slow, but in a sense almost too fast because they randomly gave up positions just to do something. For instance, Shamrock inexplicably released an arm triangle. The problem with no closed fist punches on the mat is that you almost have to annoy your opponent into a mistake. They really fired up for about 30 seconds down the stretch, and I felt that if they could give us even 8 minutes like that they could do a match of the year, but for the most part this was almost totally devoid of intensity. While still better and more eventful than their first match, it was still somewhat dull and felt overlong and too laid back. It felt like the first true Pancrase match, but that is to say a chess match that had merit, but isn't likely to be something anyone is dying to watch again. ***

RINGS 1/25/92: Mitsuya Nagai vs. Koichiro Kimura. Kimura impressed me last time with both good footwork and a solid judo repertoire, but was unfortunately hampered by an overly long match with another rookie, which negated his ability to properly shine. Here, he will be facing Nagai, who was on the receiving end of a one-way drubbing at the hands of Gerard Gordeau last month, in what was this promotion's first proper shoot. Kimura immediately takes two nasty thigh kicks before blasting Nagai down with a double-leg takedown, but when doing so, it placed Nagai too close to the ropes and thus prompted a quick restart. Kimura continued to take some more leg punishment before getting the fight to the ground again, but he quickly found himself at a loss while inside Nagai's open guard, and his only answer was to try a rudimentary ankle-lock. This elementary attack not only failed, but prompted Nagai to secure a heel hook, which led to our first rope escape. The next several minutes saw a continuing pattern of Kimura getting lit up by Nagai on the feet before securing a favorable position via takedown, but finding himself unable or unsure of what to do once he had the superior position. After a string of mat failures, Kimura eventually just opted to soccer kick Nagai after his takedowns, at least until the ref could intervene and stand Nagai back up. The last few minutes saw Nagai ratcheting up the intensity of his striking until he unleashed a never-ending torrent of palm strikes, which eventually prompted the ref to call for a knockdown. Kimura was able to get up for two more servings of this before being eliminated for good.  Despite Kimura's only weapon being his takedown skills, this was an exciting match due to the intensity on display, especially from Nagai, and it was good to see him back in form after his humiliating loss to Gordeau last month. I'm not sure if apprehensiveness to strike his grounded opponent is what held Kimura back, or his grappling skills aren't as good as I originally deemed them to be, but the only thing he really showed here today was a solid wrestling base, and I'm confident that he is capable of a lot more. Good match

ML: This was a shoot, but, for the most part, they didn't really manage to get any big shots in until the final minutes. The fight was very intense though, and the transitions, scrambles, and takedowns were very fast and urgent. It was Shootboxing vs. SAW, and while Caesar's skills are clearly more interesting than Tobin Bell's, Kimura should have owned this match once he was able to get Nagai down, which was a regular occurence. Kimura had some pretty neat takedowns where he kept twisting Nagai until he spun him down, but didn't have much of an arsenal of submission arts once he succeeded. In the days largely before striking created the opening for the submission, Kimura found himself doing too much waiting for the opening. In his defense, Nagai was a dangerous striker even off his back. The problem with this match is they just kept seeming to negate each other. Nagai couldn't really kick because Kimura would just catch it and upend him. Whether Kimura got a takedown off a body lock or off catching Nagai's kick, he really didn't have any method of opening up a submission, and the match just stalled out. Nagai had much better luck using his hands, but without gloves it was difficult for him to do a big damage. He swelled Kimura's eye, but probably could have scored a late knockout if he could have used closed fists. Kimura nonetheless seemed about ready to just quit, hunching over, and still wasn't ready to restart after the Ref gave him an eight count, but finally threw some fierce palms of his own. Still, Kimura was just out of gas, and eventually wilted to Nagai's superior cardio. While this had more than its share of downtime, Nagai's comeback finish was exciting, and I think this was a good shoot given the time period. Good match.

UWF-I 2/15/92: Hiromitsu Kanehara vs. Masakazu Maeda 15:00. Normally, I would be prone to gripe about the same match three times in a row, but these two just keep getting better. If they can keep improving their match, I would be fine with them opening as many events as they please. Things start off with Kanehara taking the initiative as he bull rushes Maeda with a litany of stiff palm strikes, but after being initially taken off-guard, Maeda was able to regain his composure and return a volley of his own. Kanehara started to find himself on the losing end of this slap-fest, so he wisely opted to shoot in with an explosive double-leg, however Maeda is continuing to increase his skills from match to match, and was able to effortlessly switch from standing firepower to an effective sprawl. Kanehara is simply too crafty with his grappling however, and was able to negate the sprawl by continually “turning the corner” until he was at an angle where he could forgo the takedown altogether, and shift to attacking the leg of Maeda. He used this leg threat just long enough to create an opening to move to side mount, all the while subtly throwing in strikes on his grounded opponent so he could continue to move and tweak his positioning. So far this is light years ahead of what anyone in the game has produced outside of Tamura/Funaki/Han, which is amazing considering these two are “rookies” and this is only their thirst match. Kanehara squandered his superior position with a failed armbar, which allowed Maeda to get up and start soccer kicking at will. Kanehara was able to fight his way back up and get the action back down to the ground, but not before taking another barrage of palm-strikes for his trouble. The next couple of minutes saw the two go back and forth on the mat, exchanging positions and submission attempts, but unlike most matches up to this point, or even a lot of future Pancrase matches for that matter, they would be willing to strike each other on the ground in an effort to create an opening for an attack. We have seen a little bit of this so far, but not in such a fluid and sustained way from both competitors, so this really gets a nod for being far ahead of the curve. Even the old and tired Boston crab got a breath of new life here, as there was one sequence where Maeda was going for the single-leg variation, and unlike every other pro wrestler in history, Kanehara was actually not cooperating with this, so Maeda started frantically kicking Kanehara in the back to try and force a way for him to continue to finish the maneuver. It didn’t wind up succeeding, but was brilliant all the same. The next 10 minutes wound up being total lava, as they went to a 15 minute draw with a non-stop barrage of strikes, positions changes, and submission attempts that were traded between both men, with absolutely no let-up or dead space in-between. This might be one of my favorite matches so far, and will surely go down as one of the best matches of '92, and even if the rest of this card winds up being hot garbage, it won’t really matter as this was worth the price of admission all on its own. ****3/4

ML: Kanehara arrived as one of the top 5 worked shooters in the world in this truly revolutionary bout! This was the first UWF-I match that came out of the gate looking like a shoot, and somehow it never really stopped, because they never stopped going full force, even for a second. This seemed a truly amazing test of stamina at the time even if it were simply a 5 minute match, and they certainly went the whole 15 giving all they had and then some, but honestly, while it still looks nothing like basically any pro wrestling match you'll see today, it essentially looks like every MMA match outside of the useless lardass division where they more or less either nearly die over the course of 15 minutes of standing around doing nothing or one fighter collapses from exhaustion the first time a punch actually connects. That is not a knock on Kanehara & Maeda by any means, but simply to point out that, arguably before anyone else, Kanehara realized that what separated real fighting from show fighting was that both fighters were always trying to attack and defend themselves at all times. This was one of the most intense worked matches you'll ever see! The speed and aggression were just off the charts. That was absolutely the difference here, and totally the key to their success. They were throwing really fast open hands, and scrambling hard and fast on the canvas. There was simply no sense of cooperation at all, anywhere. Everything one fighter did, the other fighter fought against, as if for their life. If every worked match looked like this, there almost would have been no need for actual MMA. While this doesn't have the I need to rewind this awe factor of Tamura's works, it was the most relentlessly aggressive fight we've seen until this point in time. These guys were pretty nasty too, it always felt like they were trying to hurt each other because that's how you open win through strikes or open things up on the mat, and there were some particularly nasty shots to the ribs, and soccer ball kicks. Maeda was dead by the end from going so hard for so long. A classic! ****3/4

UWF-I 2/15/92: Kiyoshi Tamura & Yuko Miyato vs. Tatsuo Nakano & Mark Silver 18:23. The fierce challengers from last month, Tamura and Miyato, will now be teaming up. Miyato and Nakano start first, and Miyato opens fire with some crisp kickboxing, but is completely overpowered in the clinch, and just winds up on the ground where Nakano can put all his weight on him. For whatever reason, Nakano just decides not to bother with it, and tags in Silver, who is able to move a lot quicker than his size would seem to suggest. After a brief back and forth, Miyato tags in Tamura, who takes a minute or so to feel out his opponent, before taking it to the canvas and giving us our first memorable moment when Silver tried a primitive toe-hold attack while being seated behind Tamura’s back, but found himself quickly countered with a slick armbar entry. Tamura and Silver continue for a couple more minutes, and Silver is moving well for a rookie. At this stage, he is showing some decent wrestling and kicking skills, placing him above Burton and Boss, but beneath Scott, so with some more refinement, I could see him being a solid addition to the roster. Silver tags Nakano back in, which prompts Tamura to really turn up the volume, as Nakano desperately tries to get a takedown, but Tamura scrambles and contorts in every way imaginable to prevent him from being successful. The fight eventually winds up on the mat when Tamura dives in for a kneebar, but only winds up plopping down on his backside, which allows Naknao to smother him, before eventually securing a kneebar of his own, prompting both a rope escape and a tag back in for Miyato. The match continued to be an entertaining and brisked pace affair, which really shined every time Miyato was in the ring. He brought all the same fire and intensity that he was showing us last month, and because of this, he was able to really elevate this match from standard boiler plate to an above-average entry. That’s not to say that the others didn’t do a good job (they all did), but he really brought his A-game, which forced Silver and Nakano to have to rise to the occasion as well. Tamura was a bit more subdued than usual, taking on more of a counter-fighter role, but even though this wasn’t his flashiest showing, it was still Tamura, and thus good. I would give this a solid *** 1/2 , as the only real drawback here was the randomness of the match/contestants, which caused it to lack any real emotional satisfaction, and simply served as a high-quality time killer.

ML: The biggest problem here was the pairings. We didn't get to see more of the best rivalry in the UWF-I (although after the opener, they probably ceded that mantle to Kanehara/Maeda) because Tamura and Miyato were on the same team. On one hand, the debuting Silver did pretty well, but they kind of sacrificed Tamura & Miyato to achieve that. Nakano was more lively than one could have expected, and actually everyone was really doing a much better job tonight with the scrambling, as if they got a memo about being more urgent. While Tamura was, of course, good, it was really Miyato's energetic striking exchanges that made the match. While hardly a classic, it was a great example of a great team being able to still have a good match despite lackluster opposition. ***

UWF-I 2/29/92: Hiromitsu Kanehara vs. Masakazu Maeda 17:25. We are now set for round 4 in the never-ending magma stream that is Hiromitsu Kanehara and Masakazu Maeda. After their last outing, I am now fully in favor of them opening every wrestling card on every single promotion from here on out, as it was one of the best shoot-style matches I’ve seen, only coming behind some of Tamura and Han’s best work. No time is wasted as other Madea charges in with a plethora of kicks and palm strikes, but to his credit, Kanehara stands his ground, and fires off several kicks of his own. You can see that he is somewhat out of his element compared to Maeda in the striking dept, but he was able to fend off Maeda long enough to close in and execute a lovely koshi guruma (headlock throw). Things did not stay static on the mat however, and Kanehara constantly tried to attack both the ankle and then the arm of Maeda, but Masakazu was simply too wily, and was able to defend himself from every submission entry until he got back on his feet and soccer kicked Maeda for his efforts. After his first submission barrage did not work, Kanehara takes Maeda down again, only this time opting for a Kimura attack, but now Maeda is wisely starting to make Kanehara pay for every failed attempt on his elbow joints. After escaping the Kimura, Maeda jumped back to his feet, soccer kicked Kanehara again, but did not stop there, he kept kicking and kneeing Kanehara as he was standing back up, even to the point of wearing himself out, and eventually succumbed to a desperation throw by Kanehara. The next 16mins were a total non-stop war, where neither opponent gave any pause and were constantly attacking or actively defending. What was really neat about this, is that it was a play on your classic grappler vs striker match, only both the grappler and the striker were also proficient in the other’s discipline, just not to the same degree. So, while Maeda was usually having to defend Kanehara’s submission attacks on the ground, he was able to launch several credible threats of his own, and while Kanehara is not as sharp on the feet as Maeda, he too was able to get some nice shots in. There were also plenty of nice subtleties throughout the match. For example, there was one nice sequence where Kanehara was standing up and grabbing Maeda’s ankle to attack and used that as a way to fake a swift kick to Maeda’s face, and later Maeda was able to return the favor, when Kanehara had him in a variation of a single-leg crab, and his response was to spin around and smash his foot into Kanehara’s head, which got a great pop from the audience. The last minutes of the fight saw Maeda throwing palm strike after palm strike, until the point of exhaustion, but his show of heart was so profound that the crowd had a Rocky IV moment when they shouted their support with chants of “Mah-eh-da! Mah-eh-da!” This was the beginning of the end however, and it was not long afterwards that Kanehara secured a submission victory via half-crab. Another excellent match, and I’m thankful as this will keep forcing the rest of the roster to take notice, and hopefully follow suit. While this may have been a smidge below their last outing, by virtue of the extra length and the somewhat contrived finish, make no mistake, this was still fire and well worth your time. Easily ****.

ML: I'd highly doubt that at any other time in history a feud between two rookies would be the best thing going on in pro wrestling. After three 15 minute draws, they've graduated to a 20 minute time limit for the latest fantastic chapter in this rivalry, which was even more urgent than the previous encounters. Maeda gets a little better at executing, and seems to have a little more stamina with each encounter. The urgency is always so out of control that they got a bit wild and sloppy at times with their striking even before Maeda gasses, but overall they are becoming more precise with their chaos. This had a bit more of a striker vs. grappler feel, as Maeda was so aggressive, just non stop blitzing Kanehara in standup the entire match, forcing Kanehara to mostly just try to fend him off and rely on his submissions. Kanehara still had a couple good flurries, particularly to the body, but clearly they seemed more evenly matched in standup in their previous encounter. If ever there was a match where both workers were possibly trying to hard, it was, well, any match between these two. I mean, as impressive as it was, it probably would have been a little better with a bit more patience, precision, and control of their emotions, as Maeda really exhausted himself by the final stages. The pace they kept was simply insane! They took everything to the max, if not beyond. After a series of full time draws, they utilized nearly every point at their disposal before Kanehara finally broke through. I kind of liked the draws more than having an actual finish, it just seemed more fitting, but regardless this was a really crazy all-out match! Though it wasn't as good as their match 2 weeks earlier, it's still one of the better matches we've seen, and some of the best displays of heart and desire you'll ever come across. ****1/2

UWF-I 2/29/92 Standing Bout: Makoto Ohe vs. Pat Kane 5R. Tthis is the first time we’ve seen Ohe this year, and if he had been on the last couple of cards (replacing JT Sothern for instance) we probably would have went from 2-classic fights to an over-the-top 3 great matches, which would have pushed those events into legendary status. Unfortunately, I have been unable to find out any information on Pat Kane as of press time, but since Ohe is coming off of two back-to-back loses, I wouldn’t be surprised if they went back to the jobber mill to find an easy opponent for Ohe. Both fighters come out of the gate aggressively, but while Kane is landing some good combinations, he seems to leave his face out in the open while doing so, and is eating some hard leather because of it. The rest of the fight shows an aggressive Kane varying his attacks, and showing some strong power in his fists, whereas Ohe seems to be content in patiently waiting and setting up his thunderous kicks. Even round. Round 2 starts with more hyper-aggressive behavior from Kane, but he is still adhering to the ancient proverb that punches are best blocked with your face. While he is landing a lot of volume, Ohe is doing a great job of being the counterpuncher and setting up some truly nasty answers, both by vicious straights down the pipe, and nasty knees from the clinch. This round came down to quality vs quantity, with the former going to Kane. Round 3 was Ohe’s turn to lead the attack, and he quickly laid into Kane with everything he had, prompting a knockdown early into the round. The rest of the round saw Kane make a bit of a comeback by wisely utilizing the uppercut whenever Ohe would try and get into clinch range. Still, this is now going to be an uphill battle for Kane to try and win this fight on points. Round 4 has Kane coming on strong again, being the one landing the majority of the shots, but he still leaves himself wide open, and continues to suffer some very stiff counters from Ohe, particularly his left straight. Despite a strong early showing, Kane kept eating more and more counters until succumbing to another knockdown late in the round. Kane was able to get back up, right before the bell rang, but he is going to have to pull out a magic trick to win this fight in the 5th. The final round was a strong showing for Kane, who kept pressing the attack, and continued the wise strategy of unloading uppercuts whenever Ohe tried to clinch. His impressive offensive output came at the cost of a good defense though, and he walked right into the game of a patient fighter like Ohe. Still, this round belonged to Kane, but it wasn’t enough to turn the tide, and the decision had to go to Makato. I give the UWF-I credit for continuing to find game opponents for Ohe, and this was a good match, as well as a strong showing from Kane.

ML: Kane was a strong boxer and athlete. He showed good quickness, and was generally the aggressor. His problem is his kicking game wasn't particularly developed. He basically never kicked after throwing a punch, instead just leading with a kick to control the distance and set up his punch combo. Ohe tried to work on the inside so Kane couldn't just beat him with hand speed. Kane's corner wanted to make certain he was completely refreshed going into the third, with his trainer even spraying water down his pants.Ohe probably lost the first 2 rounds, but started strong in the third, landing a big left straight then following with a series of clinch knees and a left high kick, repeating the sequence until he finally dropped Kane with the left hand. Even though Kane's defense throughout the fight was simply to attack, attack, and attack some more, Ohe still had much more success when he initiated then when he waited to land counters to Kane's open face. Kane had to be really active to make up for his lack of defense, and that was increasingly difficult in the later rounds, as Ohe's knees to the midsection really sapped his energy. Ohe landed a few big lefts in the fourth, but it felt like Kane went down from exhaustion as much as from Ohe's big shots. Kane had obviously trained hard in Xanadu, as he still fought hard trying to pull out the victory, though much of his speed was gone, with his right hand particularly lacking zip. Ohe's power advantage was just too much , especially in the second half of the fight. I had Ohe winning the last 3 rounds. Good match.

UWF-I 2/29/92 Yoji Anjo vs. Yuko Miyato 9:02. Miyato is the one wrestler, that more than anyone else, has changed my perception of him compared to when we first started. This is due to his putting a lot more urgency and intensity into his matches lately, which is something that he only seemed to do sporadically before. The atmosphere starts to gain an intense energy again, as these two are going right at it. Anjo keeps trying to push Miyato back with various kicks but keeps eating slaps to the face for his trouble. After a protracted leg-battle that didn't yield any results, Anjo decides to go for some flying knees, and clinch work, to try and get his point across. He then eventually gets Miyato down and gains a point from forcing Miyato to take a rope escape off a rear naked choke attempt.  The match then took on a disjointed flow that wound up making me like it less than I had wanted to. The stand-up portions where great, with a lot of energy and verve, but the intensity would immediately stall out whenever it hit the ground, mostly from Anjo just kind of chilling until it got back to the feet. The finish was cool though, with Anjo following up a nice throw with an instant straight armbar. A solid ***, but this should have been better, and probably a few mins longer.

ML: I really liked this match. It was realistic and intense, and they really did a nice job of escalating the tensions. The stand up here was quite impressive. They really put the extra effort into their footwork, showing some nice entries and exits, as well as feinting, and generally trying to keep each other off balance. The grappling may not have been quite as impressive from a 21st century standpoint, but that's from lack of proper BJJ training rather than giving anything less than 100% effort on their part. They definitely had some nice counters, and made some nice transitions. Miyato is really on fire the past 6 months, and after seeming rather dated at the start of '91, I'd currently rate him as the most improved veteran overall, as well as the third best worker in UWF-I behind Tamara in Kanehara. The only downside with this match is it was way too short. The 9 minutes felt like 4 because it was so good, but it would have been much more reasonable to give this 5 minutes from the Silver match, or better yet don't waste our time on the junk food man. ***1/2

UWF-I 2/29/92 Kazuo Yamazaki vs. Tom Burton 9:00. Now Kazuo Yamazaki must take a break from the illustrious tag-team scene, to take on the unenviable task of getting a good match out of Tom Burton. Things are underway, with Burton trying to bait the usually patient Yamazaki by verbally goading him to attack. This didn’t work, as Yamazaki wisely just chipped away at Burton’s thighs with some well-timed kicks, prompting Burton to go for a takedown off a back body-lock, which Yamazaki instantly tried to counter with a standing Kimura. This serves to illustrate that before Sakuraba was breaking Renzo Gracie’s arm years later with this same technique, this counter seemed to be in the lexicon of every UWF fighter. Burton was able to get the fight to the ground, but could not seem to manage anything once it got there, as he quickly found himself defending various submission attempts from Yamazaki. The ne-waza finally ended when Burton was fishing for a toehold while Yamazaki was sitting behind him, and in a cool move, Yamazaki took an escape, not because he was in danger, but simply to get the fight back on the feet. Yamazaki then does what we all adore about him and starts setting up feints by offering his hand to try and initiate a tie-up, only to instantly send nasty kicks to Burton’s thighs. He then gives us a nice sequence when he takes Burton down with a shoot-style schoolboy, and transitions off that into a straight ankle-lock. As nifty as it was, it didn’t work as Burton simply stood up, and muscled his way into his own standing ankle lock, forcing Yamazaki to take another escape. The end began when Burton hit an explosive tomoe-nage (monkey flip), but Yamazaki wound up landing on his feet like a cat, and this surprising technique from Burton prompted Yamazaki to start wailing away with kicks, before finishing the fight with what can only be referred to as the shoot-style version of the Million Dollar Dream. I was pleasantly surprised. While the Miyato/Anjo match was a bit of a letdown, this wound up being a lot better than I would have anticipated, thanks to Yamazaki’s subtle and crafty ways. He always looked like the best fighter in the ring, but still wound-up making Burton look like a legit threat due to his size, and power. *** ½

ML: A pleasant surprise. Probably the best performance we've seen from Yamazaki since the restart, combined with quite a bit of improvement from Burton, seemingly out of nowhere. Somehow, Burton was actually flowing here, and Yamazaki managed to pull some pretty nice sequences out of him, whereas the match would normally stall out as soon as Burton got it to the ground with his wrestling. Yamazaki incorporated a lot of nice little touches, such as his ankle momentarily giving out after he escaped from Burton's ankle lock. Burton started off with some annoying cartoonish taunts, but Yamazaki was really on his game here, and played off everything Burton did very well. While this was by far the most pro wrestling oriented match so far, Yamazaki at least set up the fake spots pretty well. Again, the match was somewhat rushed, seeming to just end rather randomly because they suddenly had too many matches to squeeze in. ***

RINGS 3/5/92: Volk Han vs. Gennady Gigant. The 2nd glorious appearance of Volk Han is oddly the 2nd match of the evening, this time facing a man whose exact spelling remains a mystery (as does everything else about him). One thing is certain, which is that Mr. Gigant lives up to his name and is quite the portly fellow. Han quickly moves around Gigant, chopping down his opponent's thighs with numerous low kicks, until Gigant sneaks in a desperation ippon seoi nage. Being a fellow of considerable girth, he was able to neutralize Han by simply smothering him, but unable to do much else, and eventually Han found a way to stand back up. A slick sequence followed where Han hit his patented standing Kimura throw, several years before Karo Parasyian was making it all the rage, but to my shock this was countered by a scoop slam from Gigant, which was countered again by Han, when he simply held on and used Gigant's momentum against him, thereby toppling over him and attempting an armbar right afterward. The fight restarts, and Han quickly hits the tobi-juji-gatame (flying armbar) that he was so studiously practicing in the early vignettes. The rest of the fight saw Han throwing all sorts of submission tricks, from wristlock throws, rolling kneebars, and his eventual finish, which I can only describe as some kind of figure-four variation of an inverted omoplata, which had to be light years ahead of its time. What was most impressive about this though, was Han taking a rather lackluster opponent in Gigant, and getting an entertaining match out of him. ***

ML: Booking wise, this was just RINGS getting Han on the board to set up the rematch with Maeda, but it was another great one man show from Han. Ironically, the aspect that sets Han apart from Tamura, Kanehara, and Suzuki may be his striking. Han's movement is just fantastic; he looks like Lyoto Machida out there. He's not only flowing on the mat, his stand up flows arguably just as well. Early on, Han hit a left front kick into a right middle kick, pushed off with his hands, and was back out of the pocket before Gigant could even think about a counter. Even the kickboxers weren't doing this kind of thing in these days. It may be unfair to say that the 302 pound Gigant was a performer of no particular grace given he's a Russian judo champion, but this was his debut, and he didn't bring a lot on his own to the sport of worked pro wrestling. His offense was all standard real sports fair, and he relied more on his size then precision or attention to detail, but Han found numerous ways to turn these into interactive wrestling sequences to keep the match interesting, and it wound up feeling more like a top notch world of sport technical match that somehow still worked within the context of a shoot because of the standup and generally credible technique. What we got here was a match that focused on the big throw, and they kept it entertaining by quickly resetting after a little bit of submission work. That being said, what grappling we got really flowed together, with chain attacks going back and forth from both, though Gigant would squelch this when left to his devices. Just great brief sequences here all around! Gigant isn't as good as Maeda in a vacuum, but Han could just continually experiment with him because he wasn't locked in to doing certain things. The quality was 99% from Han, but Gigant was clearly a skilled martial artist who was pliable enough that everything was totally coming off. This felt a lot fresher and more experimental than the matches we were seeing from the other promotions because Han is so unique and creative, and one of the things that made Han so great is he just refused to be held to or boxed in by convention. ***3/4

UWF-I 3/17/92: Hiromitsu Kanehara vs. Masukazu Maeda 18:04. The first match will be the 5th conflict between two of the greatest rookies in pro wrestling history. We at Kakutogi HQ are now in full support of this opening pairing from now until the cessation of all things, but sadly this will be the 2nd to last time we get see better Maeda, so we should savor this while we can. Neither man wastes any time unloading kicks into one another, and just when I think that Kanehara has dispensed with any grappling formalities, he quickly shifts gears and gets a takedown off an errant kick from Maeda, and immediately goes for a near naked choke. In the short amount of time that these two have been going at it (around 3 months now) Maeda has been getting smoother in his transitions, and that is evident here, as he manages to not only slither out of Kanehara’s vice grip but is able to convert that into an armbar attempt. This leads to a nice sequence where Kanehara stacks Maeda to escape the armbar and falls back for a straight ankle lock once Maeda’s foot became available. Maeda then countered with an ankle lock of his own, but Kanehara wisely kept slapping Maeda in the face while shifting his body position so that he could rotate into his own armbar attack. This worked, forcing a rope escape from Maeda, and it is nice to see the local Nagoya audience appreciate this fine waza display as much as I am. The greatness did not stop there however, and as soon as Maeda got up, he went ballistic on Kanehara’s face, landing several hard strikes and kicks, until Kanehara was forced to dive in with a desperation single-leg attempt. It worked, but Maeda is getting to be way too wily on the ground, and simply will not stay still long enough for Kanehara to do anything. Eventually, Maeda stands back up and starts soccer kicking Kanehara when he does the same, and if that was not enough, he went into full E-Honda mode by unloading dozens of lightning fast palm strikes. I thought this would be the end of Kanehara, but he managed to respond to this assault with a plethora of his own fast hand combinations. The rest of this bout was…. who am I kidding? I am simply running out of adjectives to describe how good these two have been, and this was their best outing yet! Not only will this be a contender for best match of '92, but in its own way it is also one of the best pro wrestling matches that I have ever seen. It did not have the flashy innovation of a Volk Han, the slick transitions of a Tamura, or the subtle psychology of a Yamazaki, but the amount of abuse these two put each other through is simply unreal. That, and it had just the right amount of pro wrestling theatricality to push the entertainment value over the top while not detracting from the realism of their constant barrage of stiff striking. This was 18minute of pure cataclysmic fire before Maeda eventually succumbed to a crossface neck-crank, and for that I hereby award this my very first *****. Excellent! 

ML: This match is simply outstanding, the best we've seen so far! It's obviously not as groundbreaking as their 2/15/92 match, but they are moving better and connecting more solidly, generally doing a better and more precise job of reacting to what their opponent is doing. If these two just fought every show for an entire year, there is no doubt that these would be the 2 best rookie years ever in pro wrestling! Unfortunately, Maeda won't be around much longer, but seemingly the only things that could keep Kanehara from being the best rookie of all time would be for Miyato to endlessly sacrifice him to the alter of Takada & Albright, or pair him with someone as completely inept as Yoshihiro Takayama. What separates Kanehara & Maeda is they represent a new school of MMA based training rather than pro wrestling based training. Their focus is on fighting all out for the positions, particularly in the grappling, and thus what they are doing looks wholly different then what the old pro wrestlers are doing, as their movements are a constant dance where they adjust to the last adjustment the other made. The number of adjustments these guys make in 3 seconds is more then Takada makes in 3 matches. Of course, there's also their constant pressure and movement, and a very palpable sense of urgency to win by being first, rather than the typical lethargy where someone will hang around in a tearing submission for oh, a minute or two, and then grab a rope and restart as if nothing happened. There's no one in wrestling who's putting in the amount of nonstop effort that these two are. There's simply no downtime in their matches because it's not simply about the highspots, but rather the constant barrage of movement and aggression that actually allows for them. I don't mind that their matches are generally a little sloppy because they are volume striking at the highest pace, but this is definitely the most well executed of their bouts. Maeda is getting better at being able to keep pushing forward with his onslaught of strikes without getting as sloppy trying to maintain the all out assault. These matches are crazy challenges for their cardio to be certain. Though they would probably be more amazing if Maeda ever so slightly backed off from his Diaz level of volume, and focused slightly more on how he was connecting, it feels like nitpicking, especially when we remember he's not even 4 months into his career. Also, the whole give 200% effort at all times philosophy is the main thing that's making these matches so realistic as fights even though the precision isn't always there. Kanehara won again, but it's the more obvious massive improvements of Maeda in confidence and execution that is allowing their matches to reach new heights. These matches are more quantity than quality, in the sense that there aren't amazing individual sequences and counters, but rather just an endless, all out push to seize better positions and overwhelm the opponent by beating them to the next strike or submission.****3/4

UWF-I 3/17/92: Masahito Kakihara vs. Mark Silver 30:00. Kakihara will likely need thousands of dollars in therapy with his resident sports psychologist for the shameful and absurd treatment that was bestowed upon him at the last UWF-I event, in which he had to be squashed out by the gargantuan Gary Albright, who did not even permit Kakihara to have a full minute of offense before smothering him into oblivion. Here they are continuing to put Silver through his paces, as last month he got some invaluable experience going against Kiyoshi Tamura, and now he gets to advance in his training gauntlet by going against aggression ace Kakihara. The great thing about Kakihara is that no matter who you are, when you are getting slapped a hundred times at a hundred mph, you are going to give some honest reactions no matter how entrenched you are in your old way of doing things. After getting blitzkrieged by an onslaught of naked aggression, Silver starts to slap back, and is moving a lot faster than we have seen prior. He clinches up with Kakihara, and gives some knees that would definitely go into the “weak sauce” category, but otherwise he's looking lively, so far. This wound up being a rather strange booking choice in that it went to a full 30 minute draw, which is really too long for someone as green as Silver. Despite the long length, they both managed to be active the entire time and wound up being a lot more entertaining than I would have expected given the circumstances.  Also, the 30 minute length did have some interesting side effects as we got to see that Kakihara is more than just a one-trick pony with his relentless striking skills, but that he has a solid submission/grappling game to go with it, and he nicely balanced his ground attacks with opportunities for Silver to fight back. The last ten minutes of this match were on fire, as Silver got his nose busted open with a really stiff palm-strike uppercut, and despite the blood and the pain neither he, nor Kakihara, would show any quit. This was particularly good, minus some moments of greenness from Silver. His main problem isn’t his instincts, which are good, but rather he is inconsistent with his striking. Sometimes it looks good, but often he is too tentative, which causes some of what he is doing to look too soft and fake. He is getting better though, and if he starts to attack/move with more confidence, in addition to scaling back his output into 8-12 minute matches, then I have no doubt that he can be a good fit here. Still, this was a lot better than anyone could have guessed and managed to hold my interest for the entire 30 minutes. ***¾

ML: I was really surprised by the decision to make this a 30 minute draw given Kakihara has only fought about 36 minutes thus far in his UWF-I career, and Silver is in just his third match. I'm thankful Kakihara was finally given the opportunity to be more than pulsating palms, and this was definitely his most impressive performance so far, as he showed some legitimate ability on the mat. Silver did a better job both with his stand up, and in continuing to work on the ground. I thought this would be more of a striker versus grappler match, but Kakihara was actually initiating the ground game, and doing quite well against the wrestler, putting him on the defensive on the mat. I expected Kakihara to simply overwhelmed Silver with a barrage of stiff palms sooner or later, but this never felt like a draw in the sense that Kakihara mostly had Silver on the defensive, he just never found that one big shot or center of the ring submission to finally finish him. Silver certainly had his moments as well, but Kakihara did a much better job of taking the offensive out of the transition game. I liked the spot where Kakihara ducked a high kick, and clipped Silver's plant leg for the takedown. Though they certainly worked hard for the first 20 minutes, they somehow found the energy to make a big push in the standup down the stretch to really take this to the next level. It always felt like these two were trying for the win, rather than coasting towards the draw. Silver's nose was really a leaking blood, and Kakihara's stomach was being painted red when he tried for the triangle. ***1/2

UWF-I 3/17/92: Mark Fleming & Yoji Anjo vs. Yuko Miyato & Kiyoshi Tamura 20:40. Right now, I’m both excited for this match, and ready to slap booker Miyato in the face, as they could have an all-star event tonight if they had shortened the Nakano/Burton match to ten minutes and split these 4 up into two separate singles matches, which would have surely led to a much better result. Still, I can’t complain too much, as these 4 are surely a recipe for goodness. Mark Fleming and Yuko Miyato are going to start things off, and we are underway with Fleming stalking his much faster prey around the ring. Miyato is able to fire off some rapid kicks, before eventually being caught and slammed down on the mat like a rag doll. They are back on their feet, and while he clearly doesn’t have much experience with striking, Fleming has much faster double-leg takedown abilities than a man of his size would indicate. He is able to blast down Miyato easily, and succeeds in a rudimentary standing anklelock, prompting a rope escape, and a tag in for Tamura. They quickly get into a footsie war, which Fleming had no chance of winning, but didn’t wind up losing either, and is eventually able to tag Anjo in. Now things get turned up to 11, as they are both going full blast towards each other, and Tamura’s scrambling is so fast it has to be seen to be believed. When they are back on their feet, Tamura proves that he is more than just a machine gun, as he slows down and pulls a page out of the Yamazaki playbook by slowly feinting takedown attempts, which serves to take Anjo off guard and is immediately followed up with a quick slam/ankle lock attack. This did not yield fruit however, and Anjo was able to break free and counter with a Kimura from something sort of resembling an open guard. The hyperactive and intense energy was able to stay over the course of this 20 minute match. It seemed like Miyato, Tamura, and Anjo would feed off each other which in turn would amp up the crowd, ratcheting this entire affair into one flaming crescendo. Fleming was also an asset, as while he doesn’t have much in the way of an offensive submission arsenal yet, his wrestling skills are top notch, and he brings a welcome amount of realism with him. The finish was great too, when Tamura tried to hit a rolling kneebar on Anjo, who saw it coming and immediately countered with a lighting quick armbar of his own. While I still maintain that I would have rather seen these 4 in singles competition, I can’t deny the palpable energy on display here. Great! **** ¼

ML: Tamura and Miyato are basically sparring with Fleming, but not only does he have years more wrestling training, he has at least 75 pounds on them. Whenever Miyato makes an adjustment, Fleming just weighs down on him more, usually putting in as bad as, if not a worse position. Tamura is so quick that it's hard for Fleming to get the lead on him or keep him in one place, but he's still able to neutralize him one way or the other. Fleming was apparently taught the STF by Lou Thesz as well, but Tamura manages to get the ropes before he can fully secure it. The match is much more interesting with Anjo in, as he's leaving openings, and thus there is a lot of speedy countering back and forth. The work is definitely a lot looser with Anjo in, but the rapid pace makes up for it, and is what makes the match exciting. I don't have anything against the segments with Fleming beyond them being rather one sided, but they're not in step with the style the others enjoy displaying, which is much faster and more back and forth. As the match progresses, it becomes more and more apparent that they're working interactive segments at warp speed when Anjo is in, then struggling to fend off the control of Fleming. Anjo does his best work of the year so far here, and his segments are the ones that include some nice striking rather than being entirely mat oriented. This is the first time it really feels like he's able to keep up with Tamura, and that's important because his counter of the kneebar role into an armbar for the finish feels believable because Tamura hasn't been a step ahead of him all night the way he usually is. This is basically half a great match, and half Tamura and Miyato getting schooled in Wrestling 101. ***3/4

PWFG 3/20/92: Minoru Suzuki vs. Wayne Shamrock. Now we have the third encounter between Ken Shamrock and Minoru Suzuki, and what will likely be the only hope of getting a worthwhile match out of this American excursion. The last two matches these two had were great, but it will be interesting to see if they are allowed to shine within this venue. After a brief feeling out period, Shamrock quickly dives in for a rolling kneebar, but winds up having his attack stifled by getting stuck under the ropes. Back on their feet, Shamrock shows some nice patience, feinting his way into landing a nice palm strike down the pipe. Equally impressive is Suzuki's quickness and constant minor shifts and adjustments. He quickly finds a way to close the gap and secure an impressive headlock takedown against the slower Ken. Once on the ground, Suzuki shifts and scrambles, eventually positioning himself for a quick armbar attack that was again too close to the ropes, but it's great to see the kind of urgency and quick subtle movements that Suzuki brings to the shoot-style game. I was surprised at what happened next, as Ken was quickly taken down by Suzuki, but Ken responded by slapping on a totally decent triangle choke, even making the proper adjustments to shift it into a more secure and effective choke. Even though the triangle would be occasionally seen in UWF matches going back to 1984, I suppose it was interesting to see this as it is well before Ken's infamous meeting with Royce Gracie and BJJ. The rest of this match was fast, urgent, exciting, and even had Suzuki throwing some elbows and headbutts at Shamrock in the mount. It ended around the 12 minute mark with a victory for Shamrock via straight armbar. This was great, and although it could have used a few extra mins to really flesh out a crescendo, it was entertaining, and probably the best PWFG match of '92, so far.

ML: I expected this show taking place in America would make it wind up being more pro-wrestling oriented, but in spite of a backbreaker by Roesch, it actually wound up being PWFG's most realistic show thusfar (the fan screaming "DDT!" whenever Shamrock was controlling through a front facelock clearly didn't get the memo). I don't feel that really helped this particular match, but given the direction the promotion was going in, it's more of a plus that it was far more interesting than the previous Shamrock vs. Funaki matches than a negative that it wasn't as good as the previous two Shamrock vs. Suzuki matches. Certainly, a lot more happened in the first 5 minutes tonight than in the entire 30 or 40 we got from Shamrock on the last 2 shows, and overall, it was one of the only PWFG matches from 1992 that mostly worked both as realistic combat and entertaining pro wrestling. They made the right moves to negate each other's threats, but it was a lot more uptempo, and there was almost always something going on with Suzuki, in particular, striking his way into the clinch as a way to set up the takedown, which might instead by countered by one of Shamrock's big suplexes. They showed much more urgency and intensity than the Shamrock vs. Funaki matches, and just appeared to be a lot more focused and less meandering, with both fighters doing a nice job of setting things up and quickly pouncing on openings. My favorite moment was Shamrock knowing the takedown was coming, and nicely timing a palm strike to stop it. I also liked Shamrock disengaging on the ground to stand and get some cheap kicks in before Suzuki could also get back to his feet. I'm not sure it felt as though they were building to anything special, but it definitely randomly ended 15 minutes earlier than I was expecting when Suzuki blocked the Dragon suplex, but then submitted to a horribly applied wakigatame. This was an energetic sprint though, so while it may not have been as long as I hoped, they at least made the most of the time they had. ***1/4

RINGS 4/3/92: Akira Maeda vs. Volk Han. The Volkster comes back to have a repeat of his debut match, where he narrowly lost to Akira Maeda, in what was a fantastic debut from this sambist turned pro wrestler. Maeda has proven that he can still pull off a good match in small doses, so it will be interesting to see what he does here. We are treated to full entrances by both performers, and the crowd is absolutely nuts for Maeda. I'm getting the impression that the undercard doesn't even matter to the fans at this point, as Maeda seems to single-handedly be enough to carry this promotion, if the crowd reaction is any indication. The energy of this place is unreal, and the Hiroshima public is captivated by every move these two are making. Things start with a lot of feints and the two feeling each other out. First blood is drawn in the form of a headlock takedown by Han, in which he tries to convert into a choke, but Maeda easily reverses it into an armbar attempt, followed by a failed leg-lock battle by both men. They get back up, but in no time at all, they are right back to a battle to see whose ankle will succumb first. Han wins round one, with a heel-hook forcing the first rope escape. The rest of this was fast-paced and exciting, which saw Han try and contort Maeda's limbs from just about every conceivable angle. This was a very submission-heavy affair, but it was full blast the entire time, and while that didn't exactly make for the most realistic outing from a real fighting standpoint, it didn't matter as the creativity and flow were off the charts. Han eventually wins via a calf-slicer around the 17 ½ mark, and while this would normally be about ten minutes too long for a latter career Maeda showing, here it worked splendidly. In my opinion, this was better than their first outing, and it wouldn't surprise me if it winds up being the last great match that Maeda has. ****1/4

ML: I would obviously prefer a better undercard, but if we are to have a one match show quality wise, it's nice when that match is at least the one that drew the crowd. That hasn't been the case in RINGS due to Maeda headlining all the shows, but he was in surprisingly fine form here, actually moving fairly well compared to what we've seen in the past year. It's Han's movement that is outstanding, and he largely did his best to work around Maeda. He clearly has a massive speed advantage, which he relied on to either enter and exit before his larger opponent could land the counter strike, or to strike his way into the clinch/leaping takedown so he could initiate a grappling sequence. Maeda tried to stifle Han's advantage through low kicks, while Han, who is a leglock master to begin with, was more than happy to attack Akira's bad left knee when they were rolling, which added to the urgency of the contest. Right away, even though this was a work, we could see how far ahead of the shoot game Han was in terms of combining striking and grappling, using a 1-2 to accomplish his goal of securing a bodylock. Maeda did a good job of fighting for underhooks, so Han essentially did a standing arm-triangle in order to trip Maeda, though what ultimately worked on the ground was more of a headlock. Maeda drew first blood, knocking Han down with a nice hand combo where he went to the head to open up the liver shot, but Han responded with a leg-trip into an Achilles' tendon hold on the bad leg for a rope escape. This becomes something of a pattern, with the larger Maeda having the knockdown power, leading Han to respond with a takedown into a bad knee submission. This wasn't the most realistic battle, but it is a fine work that told a reliable pro wrestling story, one of the best of Maeda's RINGS career. Here, he did the right thing in putting Volk over, finally establishing a rival for himself in the promotion. He, of course, had the explicitly played out excuse of his bad knee eventually doing him in after struggling his way to several rope escapes. Ultimately, it was Maeda's willingness to risk the predictable leg submission counter that did him in, and once Han locked the hizagatame in the center, Maeda finally tapped immediately, whereas a healthy individual would have survived longer, and probably had a chance to escape even from the center (granted moreso in pro wrestling where fans allow the performers to get away with spending a minute slowly sliding themselves to the ropes). This felt like the first major match in the history of the RINGS promotion, with Han showing great diversity and endless creativity, while Maeda was a bit repetitive, albeit he at least stuck to his plan and told a good story. A definite improvement over their first match, which was RINGS MOTY for 1991, though not as awe inspiring since we now have an idea of what to expect from Han. ***3/4

PWFG 4/19/92: Minoru Suzuki vs. Wayne Shamrock. Now for the 4th conflict between Suzuki and Shamrock, which has always led to a satisfying result, but can they continue their winning ways. They put on the best match at the prior Miami event, so this may be a bit soon to go back to this well, but hopefully, it pays off. The first thing I am noticing is how impressive Suzuki’s movement is. He constantly bounces up and down, feinting the takedown, and using it to set up a thigh kick. Shamrock responds by impersonating Don “The Dragon” Wilson, awkwardly shifting into a side-stance, which rightfully gets him immediately taken down. What followed would be akin to a chess match minus the boredom. Suzuki was constantly trying to explode but was stifled by Shamrock using his strength and weight to try and keep him stationary. There were some slick skills on display from Suzuki throughout, at one point he escaped a standing rear-naked choke by doing a backward somersault as Shamrock was falling back to finish the choke. Shamrock was not without his charms as well. At one point, he was grinding his forearm/elbow into Suzuki’s face back and forth, in what was a painful way to get him to move and make a mistake. It did cause Suzuki to eventually turn and give up his back, but he was too quick to be punished by Ken over it. The stand up was also a treat. While it was never a full blitzkrieg, there were a lot of shifts and feints from both men, as they were trying to find the right moment to force their way in. Things eventually end when Suzuki secures a weird variation of a guillotine choke for the victory. This was an excellent match, and a rare example of a match that can equally work on multiple levels. It was both urgent and methodical, exciting and thoughtful, and nuanced without being boring. This had the least amount of traditional pro wrestling spots in their matches so far, so while that may have taken down the entertainment value a notch, it made up for it by being more serious. ****

ML: I'm assuming someone was impressed by their Miami match, and decided to have them run it back in Japan, but this was a far more positionally oriented version, with less payoff. Again, this is the sort of match that is difficult to rate. It was an intense and thoughtful work that was very much ahead of its time, especially positionally with Shamrock, in particular, doing a lot better job controlling with front and rear mounts. Because there was minimal ground striking, and they were setting their submissions up rather than just going wild on the ground, to the modern viewer, a lot of times it may just seem like an even duller version of an early Pancrase match. It was an important match, and it had its moments, but again, their 1991 matches are far more entertaining from a pro wrestling perspective, while their 1992 matches are more transitional matches between the old UWF style and the new Pancrase style. Suzuki looked much better than Ken on his feet, showing a lot more footwork and explosion. Ken's side stance was pretty bad because he didn't strike with the lead leg or hand to keep Suzuki off, so it was really just slowing down his right kick, which now was further from the target. He was the better grappling though, with Suzuki mostly being there on the defensive looking for a way to sneak around and take the back, and grappling was most of the match. I didn't really buy the finish where Ken tried to slam after his double leg failed, but Suzuki managed to choke him out flat on his stomach without any body control whatsoever. Another good match from these two, but definitely their worst so far. ***

UWF-I 5/8/92: Hiromitsu Kanehara vs. Masakazu Maeda 15:08. The closure to one of the greatest rookie feuds in pro wrestling history, the 6th and final conflict between Hiromitsu Kanehara and Masakazu Maeda. These two have completely turned the conventions of wrestling upside down, by pushing the boundaries of what can be done in a worked pro-wrestling environment, by turning them from choreographed routines based around telling a physical story, to all-out assaults where the only connection to standard pro fare would be the predetermined winner. Yes, as my colleague Mike Lorefice once pointed out, had shoot-style pro wrestling continued in this vein, then there would have been no need for actual MMA, but that’s part of what makes these two so great, is their ability to turn up the physicality volume to 11. In their last couple of matches, they managed to put forth the same urgency that one would have in a real shoot, which is something that requires a full-throttled commitment that very few performers would be capable of. Their last bout got a ***** and ****3/4 rating from each of us, and while it would be unreasonable of me to hope for another outing of that magnitude, I’m sure that this will be good. As expected, Maeda charges in like his life depended on it, and starts wailing away on Kanehara, but is quickly stifled by a suplex. Kanehara tries to keep him contained to the mat, but Maeda is looking very slick here and instantly slithers back to his feet. The next couple of minutes may be Maeda’s best showing yet, as he constantly keeps the pressure on Kanehara both on the feet and on the mat. Eventually, Kanehara is able to utilize some fast palms to get Maeda down long enough to acquire an armbar/rope escape, and while it’s still clear that Kanehara is the superior submission artist, that may not be enough to keep the relentless aggression of Maeda at bay. This continues to move at such a breakneck pace that it’s hard to give a play-by-play, but Maeda continues to go all-or-nothing, thus keeping a lot of pressure on Kanehara, but surprisingly it’s Kanehara’s striking that continues to set up grappling opportunities for him, as he is able to counter Maeda’s speed with more precise attacks. After getting him back down on the mat, they entered into the requisite foot-lock battle, before Kanehara’s heel-hook wins over Maeda’s straight ankle lock. The rest of this match was what we’ve come to expect, non-stop action and unmitigated aggression from both men. While this wasn’t on par with their last showing, due to more pro-wrestling styled submission sequences (with the ever-nefarious Boston crab making several appearances) both the striking and intensity continued to be top-notch. This was a fine way for Maeda to end his career and a great way for Kanehara to start his. One has to wonder why such a fantastic and promising young talent like Maeda would end things just as he put himself on the map, and in the spirit of seeking true knowledge, we decided to take action to find out. Mike Lorefice contacted one of his deep underground sources from Japan, who offered this quote, "I don't know much about Masakazu Maeda’s fights, but he believed that UWF Inter matches were serious competitions. Every time he had a match, his family and friends cheered for him seriously. He thought that he had cheated them. It is rumored that he retired because he couldn't stand to cheat his family and friends." If this is true, then it cements Masakazu Maeda into the pantheon of general badassery, as it shows that this was a man so committed to the true budo spirit of MMA, that he could not continue to fool people within a worked entertainment sphere, and thus quit, just as his career was taking off. It’s a shame that he didn’t move on to Shooto, or a different organization to forge ahead in a real combat sport, but we appreciate his efforts and wish to immortalize them here. A beautiful and haunting final song, indeed. ****¼

ML: Their final match might not be their best, but it was their most brutal and grueling. This was simply another incredible display of heart and desire, the sort we unfortunately rarely see elsewhere. To me, one of the biggest reasons MMA and kickboxing are better than pro wrestling, and the lighter weight classes in them are so far superior to the heavyweight division, is that cardio is so crucial. I want to see two fighters going full speed ahead for the duration, rest and sleep when they are dead (or at least on their time, don't waste mine). In a real fight, you can't turn your back on the opponent, play to the crowd really, do one more per minute like C.M. Punk (though admittedly that was way more than he managed in his jokey MMA career), lie on your side because you will almost immediately get knocked out for letting your guard down, or stay down because the ref will stop the fight. It is so rare that we are treated to something that actually appears to have stakes in pro-wrestling, but Maeda is already one of the greats at just constantly blitzing for the duration. Obviously, it's fine for the action to slow down when it is logical, but what I'm talking about Maeda showing an endless drive and passion to win the match, his desire increasing my interest, as opposed to the usual where the performers lack of earnestness dramatically decreasing my interest. And obviously, Kanehara deserves some credit for this as well. I thought this was Maeda's best performance though, particularly his standup has improved to the point where the speed and consistency of his attacks wasn't coming with an obvious decrease in accuracy because of that. The striking was incredible here because they threw volume striking speed, but really laid into each other with their flurries in a beliable manner as well (both were always moving and trying to attack and/or defend). Kanehara's striking is getting better as well, and he began to take over in standup, once he started slowing Maeda down with his submission attempts on the ground. I didn't like that Maeda was selling more than ever here to show that Kanehara was breaking him down, but at the same time, Kanehara was putting such a beating on him that some of it was probably legit, especially Kanehara's body shots giving Maeda trouble given Maeda was trying to continue at warp speed . If this match wasn't quite as good as their best encounter despite this being the best version of them we saw, it's because Maeda was either injured and/or running out of gas too much of the second half, and thus unable to put up consistent resistance, particularly in the final minute. Though in a sense, the match was somewhat even in that Maeda controlled the first half, while Kanehara controlled the second half, Kanehara was only slightly behind in the first half, while when Maeda hit a German suplex but failed on the armbar only to have Kanehara counter with a kneebar about 11 minutes in, the writing was just on the wall for Maeda to once again be humbled by his fellow rookie. Maeda limped to the finish, but it's doubtful that he'd do a jump spinning kick if the knee was truly damaged, so it just seemed like foreshadowing the inevitable (though in that case it was a bit suprising he didn't lose to a leg lock). The booking was once again incredibly frustrating, as while Kanehara was in the midst of what is most likely has the best rookie year in the history of pro-wrestling, there is still no reason for him to win every single match against an almost as impressive opponent. Kanehara should win the series, you know, by one, as you would probably see from even all the worst bookers in the history of wrestling, apart from Gape Sapolsky, who would probably book them in 2/3 fall matches just so Kanehara could go over 2-0. The beginning was truly awesome, maybe their best stuff so far because the striking had all the aspects that made their previous matches great in addition to a lot more ferocity and impact, but unfortunately, the final stage was less competitive, and thus compelling. Another classic, and while not quite as amazing as 3/17/92 or 2/15/92, these matches all exemplify what makes me want to watch pro wrestling, which like any singles sport whether it be MMA or tennis is to see two top notch highly skilled competitors giving 200% the whole time because the stakes are so high (at least in their mind) that they can't afford to offer any less than their best. While this was a fitting swan song for better Maeda, it was a tragic loss for the promotion and the fans, and we should all feel doubly cheated that we didn't even get our 2/2 blue Bird creature token with flying as compensation for our tremendous loss. ****1/2

UWF-I 5/8/92: Yoji Anjo vs. Steve Day 11:48. While he lacked charisma and any sign of striking skills in his debut, Day more than made up for it in great wrestling. He may be the best pure wrestler that we’ve seen so far, and possesses a surprising understanding of submissions, especially for a debuting westerner at this stage. Day had a commendable debut against Takada, so it should be interesting to see what Anjo can pull out of him. Before it became all the rage for BJJ guys with no striking skills in the late 90s circuit, here Steve Day pulls the tactic of covering one side of his face with his elbow, while he tries to carefully close the distance on Anjo. As you would expect, he eats some shots from his very quick opponent, but is able to secure the clinch and toss Anjo with some lovely Greco-Roman skills. This pattern repeats itself, only Anjo is showing surprising amounts of balance in the clinch, probably due to his judo background. Still, no amount of judo is likely to prevent you from being taken down by Steve Day, so it only served to make him work for it. Still, despite his submission game being better than your average American newb, he is no match for Anjo and lacks the firepower to ever give him a serious threat. This regulates him to being a mostly one-trick pony, as he has 0% stats in his striking column. This was fast-paced, but never really felt like a contest as Day just didn’t have the tools to threaten Anjo. This was somewhat frustrating, as I like seeing someone with the legit skills of Day in this kind of format, but he is going to have to improve on areas outside of his wheelhouse if he wants to get above mid-card status. Tough to rate, but my final verdict is *** due to the fast pace and some excellent wrestling technique from Day.

ML: Though it is embarrassing seeing someone whose only standup tactic is to plod in while covering up like a vampire, this match had by far the most intensity and urgency we have seen since the opener. Both men were very explosive when they did something, adding to the sense of realism, and the general importance of succeeding in their tactics. Day may not have all around skills, but he fakes the things he's good at a lot less than any of the other wrestlers we have seen, really not dampening the power and drive necessary to to legitimately jerk the opponent around. Anjo had big advantages both in striking and submission, but there wasn't much you can do to keep Day from depositing him on the mat. To his credit, Day wasn't simply trying to control Anjo. On the contrary, he was taking too many chances (if this weren't a work), leaving his solid base to chase after ankles. This wasn't on par with Anjo's best work obviously, but was certainly one of his most realistic matches, and I really liked the aggression that both men displayed. ***

UWF-I 5/8/92 Special Exhibition Match: Billy Robinson vs. Nick Bockwinkel 10:00. Now for something that I wish we got to see more of over the years, an exhibition between two legends. Things start with Lou Thesz (who at this point was fully committed to seeing the UWF-I thrive) talk about how the WWF and WCW were a joke, and just considered by Americans to be show business, which is a shame. He then mentions that although Nick and Billy aren’t in peak physical shape, that he was confident that they will put on a great show of “pure international wrestling.” These two had faced each other several times within the 70s and 80s, with their encounter on a 12-11-80 AJPW event being particularly noteworthy. We then get two quick, but heartfelt interviews from both men, and Robinson was emphatic that he would be happy to do whatever he could to put real wrestling back on the map. Nick Bockwinkel still appears to be in great shape, which isn’t surprising as he was an active competitor up until his retirement in 1987. Robinson, on the other hand, looked flabby even back in the 70s, but that didn’t stop him from always being a game performer. Things slowly build-up, until the first great moment where Robinson gets his underhooks in and it seems like he is going to suplex Bockwinkel, who knows what’s coming, and instantly backs up into the ropes to escape it. A nice subtle exchange that got a great response from the audience. The next memorable moment was when Bockwinkel kneed Robinson, which seemed to legit piss him off. Robinson yelled and curled his fist, to which Nick responded by saying, “It’s just a knee Robinson!” to which Robinson threatens to punch him in the chin. The exhibition ends at 10min, with Robinson finally getting his underhook suplex. While this was obviously hampered by Robinson’s physical shape (Bockwinkel looked like he could still go full speed if he had to) it was still obvious that these were two masters of their craft, and it was a treat to see them, even at this stage.

ML: Lou Thesz gave the classic this horrible fake American crap doesn't represent me speech, which is one that can never be stated enough as far as I'm concerned. Though it's still dubious to bill serious fake wrestling as real by virtue of being less nonsensical, at least they have presented us with two of the absolute legends that any wrestling fan should be proud to say they admire. Unfortunately, this wasn't anything Robinson or Bockwinkel were planning or training for, from what I gather Robinson said they basically just informed them that they were wrestling. The match was basically the condensed, greatest hits version of their classic match minus most of the big bumps. It obviously wasn't done quite as well because they are more broken down and less athletic by this point, as well as simply out of practice. Their match is also one that gains a lot from the length, as they really understand how it to you mileage out of working the body parts. That being said, this was still a lot of fun, and for anyone who had a little while to forget, much less several years, this is an excellent display of a now mostly lost style. In my case, while I possibly saw Robinson in AWA when I was seven or eight years old, this is the first match of his I can say for sure that I saw, and it definitely put him on the map for me. These are the most difficult matches to rate because while it is not good by the great standard they set in their primes, it was still entirely compelling, and better than anything on last weekend's AEW DUDExplosion PPV. It held my interest throughout, and didn't have me rolling my eyes at all. ***

UWF-I 5/8/92 Special Match: Kazuo Yamazaki vs. Koji Kitao 7:44. As if Kazuo Yamazaki’s career couldn’t get any worse, now he must face Koji Kitao in what will surely be a dreadful exercise in putting the former sumo star over. Kitao, despite no one in the western hemisphere ever taking him seriously, was still a star in Japan, and reportedly the UWF-I just signed him on for a $75,000 per match (!) contract. This was even after he embarrassed both himself and his former employer, the Japanese SWS wrestling promotion. That move may have been in the UWF-I’s interest here, as they could easily spin this as Kitao being sick of WWF/SWS style fake wrestling and now wanting to test his skills in the “real” UWF-I. Regardless of the logic, $75,000 is a lot of cash to throw away per match, so hopefully, this isn’t the start of some really poor business decisions. Even armed with a blowtorch & sledgehammer, it’s doubtful that Kitao could ever hurt Yamazaki, but here we are. Kitao starts out taking a karate stance, and the crowd is eating this up. Yamazaki must be given great credit, as he is taking this seriously, and right away starts crafting a David vs Goliath narrative, going right after Kitao’s legs with numerous thigh kicks. Yamazaki skillfully weaves in and out, attacking Kitao’s legs from different angles, until he opts to try and take him down, in which we see Kitao respond with one of the laziest sprawls in history. The rest of this farce saw Yamazaki do everything he could to make Kitao look like a million bucks, instead of just slapping him in the face for a 40-second victory, a la Mark Hall at UFC IX. Yamazaki proved to be worth every penny and then some by eventually allowing Kitao to pummel him with several ultra-slow leg kicks for a KO victory. From a pro wrestling 101 standpoint, this was a great example of how to put over a lesser opponent, but it’s a crime that it had to be Kitao, who would end up diminishing Yamazaki’s reputation even further.

ML: From the opening intense stare to putting over the KO, Yamazaki used his acting ability as much as his wrestling ability to craft an urgent and intense match where each of his actions was important because of the potential repercussions, and get bad boy Kitao over that much more than he already was. This was truly a brilliant performance by Yamazaki, who has always been great at these sort of mixed matches against specialists from other combat sports, devising a logical and reasonable match that was intense and a highly compelling, while at the same time doing his best to keep Kitao from embarrassing himself by doing any more than he absolutely had to. Yamazaki saw a huge slow opponent, so he tried to use his speed to kick his legs out before Kitao could fire back. The problem was that Kitao was so much bigger and stronger that he could take a lot more of Yamazaki's blows than Yamazaki could take of his. Kitao is so awful, he even almost fell landing on his own ill advised jumping spinning kick, but Yamazaki is so smart & talented that he got a good match out of him because he knew how to play things. Kitao's offense was horrible at times, even a low kicks he won with could best be described as labored, but Yamazaki mostly had him standing in the center threatening, and sold what little Kitao did so well that it didn't kill the match like it should have. Yamazaki used every trick in the book to solve the puzzle, but 200 pounds is an awful lot of sheer mass to overcome. In the end, Kitao came off as being really impressive (in a real behemouth of a fighter sense, not as a worker) because of his imposing presence and the things Yamazaki did to make his offense somehow look deadly despite Kitao's lack of grace and coordination. Of course, all the fans desperately wanted Yamazaki to win, and had UWF-I been willing to shell out the cash to help anyone but Takada, Yamazaki's career could have been salvaged here with a precursor to Keith Hackney vs. Emmanuel Yarborough, as Yamazaki was still massively over, even if largely in this case because the crowd hated Kitao. Though this wasn't a total one man show that somehow managed to be a great match like Kenny Omega vs. Kazuchika Okada by any means, even with the great atmosphere and all the smoke & mirrors Yamazaki employed to make it come off way closer to a shoot than I would have possibly believed it could, it's just barely good, but you have to realize just how are truly terrible Kitao is, really a 0 out of 10, to understand just how amazing it was that Yamazaki somehow managed to come up with almost eight minutes of heated and compelling action involving him, especially in a style Kitao is completely unfamiliar with. ***

PWFG 5/15/92: Jerry Flynn vs. Ryushi Yanagisawa. Hopefully, this next outing will be the jolt of caffeine that we need, as we have two great strikers in Jerry Flynn vs. Ryushi Yanagisawa. Thanks to the recent arrival of Yanagisawa, we get to have what should be a great match, as this is a good pairing on paper. Ryushi doesn't disappoint, as he charges Flynn with some great kicks, and Flynn obliges him back with plenty of his own firepower. This is probably the most intense we have yet seen Flynn, and we are off to having a nice striking orientated match, which was a rarity for the PWFG. Yanagisawa is kicking way above his weight class, however, and it's not long before he gets smitten down to the ground like a gnat by the giant Flynn. Surprisingly, after knocking down Yanagisawa twice, Flynn shoots in with a nice single-leg takedown, which he quickly converted into a Kimura attack, which didn't work, but later he was able to secure an ankle lock. The rest of this match continued its winning ways, eventually ending just shy of the 11min mark, via an arm-triangle choke by Flynn. This was a great example of a mostly striking-based worked shoot that was intense, entertaining, and just the right length. Some of the grappling sequences felt unnecessary, but that is a minor quibble. *** ¾

ML: Yanagisawa is paying dividends already. Not only was his second match a good one, but it was one we really haven't seen yet. It's amazing that a mostly standing bout where they still tried to finish on the ground at every opportunity feels new more than a year into the shooting experience, but that just goes to show how incredibly hard it is to make that style look decent. I mean, pro wrestling fans have been numbed into accepting "toughman" nonsense where two braindead jerks just stand there urging the opponent to clobber them while making no attempt to defend themselves at all, but even with two trained kickboxers making a real effort to move and defend, it is difficult to make hitting just hard enough work. The first half of this fight may be the best lengthy sequence of standup we have seen so far, as Funaki, who is clearly way more skilled and talented than either of these two, refuses to actually display these talents for more than brief flashes unless he's in with a fighter he can't take down. And even this portion was not without faults, as Yanagisawa's selling was awkward. Flynn was the better of the two here because he is more experienced, and it was fun to finally really see him in his element, but Yanagisawa clearly has more potential, and already really wasn't far behind. Unfortunately, the match was held back somewhat by not being super competitive. Flynn is the one fighter who has the reach on Yanagisawa, and combined with his experience advantage, there was little doubt of who was going to win. The match was more competitive when they went to the ground, but still it was more an entertaining fight than a particularly dramatic one. ***

PWFG 5/15/92: Minoru Suzuki vs. Kazuo Takahashi. I'm excited about this, as both men have been shooting a lot recently, and this could easily become a tinder block if they choose to let their passions get the best of them. Things started in a way that took me by surprise, as both men spent the first couple of mins constantly jockeying for position within the clinch, the struggle only being broken by the occasional strike from Suzuki or volatile throw from Takahashi. Eventually, first blood is drawn in the form of a beautifully explosive guillotine choke from Suzuki, which prompted the first rope escape. Afterward, Takahashi continued to forge ahead with his only formidable weapon, his lighting quick single-leg takedown, but Suzuki was able to stall out on the mat with a full guard, neutralizing Kazuo before being able to pivot into a rear-naked choke entry.  The rest of this match had a different tone and feel than most of the worked shoots that we have experienced so far, but in a totally welcome way. There wasn't a lot of striking here, but everything they did exuded credibility and intensity. Even the moderate amount of striking felt like it had less to do with some kind of contrived pro wrestling logic and instead felt like a situation where you had two wrestlers whose forte clearly wasn't attacking on their feet, and simply used just enough to try and open up logical entries for their grappling attacks. Both of these fighters always carry around a lot of intensity, and here that was the key ingredient that really caused them to complement each other. That said, while Takahashi has the heart and passion to face Minoru, his toolbox simply isn't big enough to find any way to put Suzuki in danger. Eventually, he succumbs to a standing rear-naked choke, in which he was too tired to fight off. Different, intense, and exciting. **** ¼

ML: A better performance than we've seen from Suzuki in a while, though still nowhere near the level he was consistently hitting last year. This match wasn't exactly about standup the way the previous one was, but Suzuki was a joy to watch in that regard, as he was so light on his feet and fluid. It felt like he could just palm Takahashi into submission if he really wanted. Takahashi has his moments in standup as well, disengaging and landing the quick right. Takahashi couldn't get his takedown game going here, so in a sense this was more of a standup match in the MMA manner of sort of backing into it because the match starts there, and that's all that really is working. That being said, there was never really a thought that the finish would be anything but a submission. While many of the PWFG matches lately have been way too long, this was really the opposite, as it was a nice start to a match, but once Suzuki hit a trip, he was immediately able to choke Takahashi out. ***

RINGS 5/16/92: Volk Han vs. Grom Zaza. It has been a bizarre experience witnessing Volk Han oscillate between the main event (he defeated Akira Maeda at last month's show) and jerking the curtain, as he is here against Georgian freestyle wrestling legend Zaza "Grom" Tkeshelashvili, but it should be entertaining all the same. Grom Zaza was a man of a considerable wrestling pedigree who went on to compete 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: Zaza really brought a lot of credibility and intensity to the affair, and this was the most realistic match Han had in 1992 due to him. Oddly, in a match with submission master Han against future Olympic freestyle wrestling competitor Zaza, there wasn't nearly as much ground fighting as you'd expect from Han. Zaza had a few throws, including hoisting Han like a rag doll to start the match and nearly going into an armbar, but between Zaza's wrestling prowess and his submission game being there, Han was actually forced to somewhat back off from his normal style of trying to dominate on the mat, and doing flashy and crazy submissions. He had to rely on countering and taking control after it hit the mat, but that was difficult due to Zaza's tremendous wrestling, or almost immediately going for a submission when he did manage to upend Zaza before Zaza improved position or took control. Even when Han had a reverse bodylock on Zaza and tried to throw him down, Zaza just picked his leg into an ankle lock. This led to my favorite sequence of the match, showing just how hard Han had to work here for anything, where Han went back to German suplex attempt as a way to bait Zaza into repeating the same leg pick counter, which Han was now ready to answer by breaking his clasp and flipping him onto his back into an armbar attempt. 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 these two 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, including his discus chop. Unfortunately, the quality dipped somewhat in the last few minutes as Zaza was gassed. Han was now finally able to somewhat have his way with Zaza, and finally got the submission. While Han's previous match against Akira Maeda was more dramatic, this was clearly the best match Han has had so far from a technical and legitimately competitive standpoint. ****6/25/92: Mitsuya Nagai vs. Nobuaki Kakuda. A Shootboxing vs. Sediokaikan shoot, which is an excellent choice on paper with both men’s striking backgrounds. Kakuda is the more accomplished of the two, but he is already a bit long-in-the-tooth, which makes it all the more interesting as that could possibly offset his skill/experience edge that he enjoys over Nagai. As expected, we are getting a kickboxing-styled match, but both men are much more cautious than your usual footfighting affair, as the threat of a grappling exchange is always present. Nagai is the aggressor and is landing more frequently, but Kakuda is very crafty, patiently waiting to set up a counter, and when he does, they are far more punishing blows. Round 2 starts splendidly for Kakuda, who somehow manages to be both the aggressor and the counter-striker. Not only did he charge in, but when Nagai tried to ward him away with a high-kick, he answered with a beautiful low-kick counter that almost took out Nagai for good. Kakuda is wearing elbow pads, and it seems that you are allowed to use elbows in RINGS if you are wearing them, as Kakuda hit Nagai with one, sans any complaining from the ref. It was all one-way traffic for Kakuda until Nagai wisely decided to finally draw from the grappling well and pull off a nice standing Kimura, forcing an instant rope escape. Nagai had one more moment of glory in this round, countering a low-kick with an awesome overhand palm strike. Even round. Nagai continued his aggressive ways, while Kakuda kept seeming like he was trying to set up a kill shot. Kakuda did land a beautiful inside-low kick, but otherwise, this round was all Nagai. The elbows really came into play during round 4, as Nagai was able to land several hard shots to Kakuda, even scoring a knockdown with one particularly impressive jumping elbow. Kakuda was able to get a few nice shots in, but was really off his game this round. The tension is in the air at the beginning of round 5, and right away Kakuda nails Nagai with a thunderous inside-low kick, only to be on the receiving end of an even more powerful counter, with an overhand palm-strike. Nagai then basically pulls guard while grabbing an arm, and Kakuda grabs a rope escape, not even waiting for Nagai to try to actually figure out what to do with that arm. Kakuda winning a decision seems out of the question, but that doesn’t mean he is willing to go away quietly, and ratchets up the violence before it’s all said and done. At one point, he hit a great low kick/gut-shot/knee-to-the-head combo, which knocked Nagai down, and also prompted Nagai to hilariously jump back up and try and convince the ref that no such knockdown had just occurred. The fight ends with Nagai stalling with another guard pull, which led to a wrist-lock attempt by Kakuda that was reversed into a failed armbar attempt by Nagai. Nagai wins the decision, unsurprisingly, but this was a very solid shoot nonetheless. It may also be the last time that Nagai enjoys a height/reach advantage against another opponent for the foreseeable future. Kakuda was always patient, perhaps too much so, looking to land some bombs from the role as a counter fighter, and while occasionally successful, wasn’t able to chain enough offense together to finish the job. It also didn’t help that Nagai would occasionally grapple when he felt threatened, which helped him to continually dictate the fight on his terms. Good fight.

ML: A fun shoot where Kakuda was the better kickboxer, but was also intelligent enough to know that he couldn't count on this simply being a kickboxing match, which both helped and arguably hurt him. In his normal karate style, he would spend as much time as possible coming forward with body punches, but doing so would allow Nagai to clinch him and take him down if you wanted to, so Kakuda spent the first 2 1/2 rounds trying to stay on the outside, and counter Nagai when he came in. This didn't work badly by any means, but the same time, he was never getting any major damage in, and only used his body punches once when Nagai already had him tied up. The fight got good when Kakuda began to open up in the second half of fight, finally willing to step in and rip the body, which then opened up the low kick, and got Nagai backing for the first time. Kakuda's advantage was short lived though, as Nagai came right out and backed him into the corner to start the fourth, taking him down into what would be an arm-triangle, if only he knew what an arm-triangle was. Kakuda was then so worried about getting taken down from the clinch that he left himself prone trying to fight his way out, and was dropped with an uppercut. Now Nagai was able to unload on a weakened Kakuda with jumping knees & elbows from the clinch for another knockdown. Kakuda came back with his own clinch knee knockdown, but I think Nagai actually avoided it by dropping to his back, so he may have had a point in popping up & complaining to the ref. Kakuda's left palm that preceeded the knee attempt was a good shot, but not overwhelmingly so. Kakuda surprisingly got his own takedown at the end, but it was too little too late, even before Nagai nearly countered with an armbar. Good match.

RINGS 6/25/92: Naoyuki Taira vs. Eric Edelenbos. I’m excited for the next match as the highlight of the aforementioned Sediokaikan/RINGS "Battle Sports Olympic" event was the brief encounter between Naoyuki Taira and Eric Edelenbos. That fight saw the bigger and more athletic Edelenbos bum rush Taira and wail away at him, only to see Taira spectacularly end the fight by pulling off an amazing reverse-standing Kimura that we wouldn't see again until Sakuraba snagged Renzo Gracie some 8 years later at PRIDE 10. I have no doubt that Edelenbos is hungry for a rematch to prove that their last outing was just a fluke. Hopefully, this will be another shoot, which will make for the 3rd one in a row on an event from June of 1992, no less. Right away, we can see that Edelenbos learned his lesson from last time and patiently waits for Taira to come to him. Taira tests the waters with a stiff low-kick only to get countered with an incredibly explosive overhand palm strike from his foe. Edelenbos has an impressive ability to explode, and if he continues to play things wisely, he will be a very tough hombre for Taira to deal with. To Edelenbos's dismay, he wasn’t the only one to smarten up, as Taira is now approaching his opponent much more cautiously, sneaking in some palm strikes, only to again suffer another nasty counter from Eric. Just when I was becoming enraptured into the drama, wondering if Taira was surely doomed, Edlenbos shouts to the ref, "Grease," while pointing to Taira’s shoulder. Taira denies everything, with a simple response of, "No. Oil," as if that were to make it all better. Taira dries off with a towel, and soon afterward the round ends. Round 2 begins, and the shenanigans seem to have subsided, which leaves us with a real fight on our hands. Taira is a much more creative and diverse striker, but is having to deal with someone that is considerably more athletic and powerful than he is. Taira rises to this challenge, by alternating his attacks with straightforward fare mixed in with flashy low-percentage spinning kicks. This strategy seems to be working, as Edelenbos appears to be caught off guard with all the variety. The large volume of unanswered strikes starts to take a mental toll on Edelenbos, whose confidence is quickly evaporating. He manages to rag-doll Taira to the mat, but could only keep him there briefly until Taira slithered his way out and started wailing away again. Great round for Taira. Round 3 barely starts before Edelenbos gets penalized for a closed-fist punch to his opponents’ face, which Taira wondrously oversells for some ref-sympathy. After the drama, Taira is back to clowning Edelenbos until Eric is able to force him to the ground where he tries something akin to a no-gi clock choke/neck crank. It seems like this is sunk in deeply, but Taira wiggled out, making me think that he took a page from the Sultan of Slime’s playbook. No sooner do I think this than Edelenbos calls for a time out, and complains to the ref that Taira is an oil slick. Taira is sent to his corner to dry off while the crowd laughs, then he hilariously walks up to Edelenbos, asking him to check his skin to see if it meets his approval. Despite making a mockery of the rules, Taira is on fire here, as he goes right back to lighting Edelenbos up, including two head-kicks in a row, the 2nd of which scored a knockdown. Eric gets back up, only to suffer the indignity of a flying knee to his head before the round ends. Taira continued to impress me, as he started the 4th round off with a flying leg-scissor into a heel-hook attack, almost 13 years before Ryo Chonan did it to Anderson Silva. However, Silva didn’t have the benefit of rope escapes, but Edelenbos does, which allows him to continue fighting. After getting back up, Edelenbos gets Taira back to the mat and into a compromising position, but wastes his advantage by insisting on throwing a couple of headbutts to the back of Taira’s neck. Shortly after the restart, Edelenbos is disqualified for what appeared to be an eye-poke. Although the ending was anti-climactic, this was one of the best fights we’ve seen so far in 1992, and well worth seeking out. Witnessing a fighter like Taira (who I was wholly unfamiliar with before starting this project) is one of the rewarding aspects of doing a long-term project like this. His gonzo attitude reminds me a lot of Sakuraba, and he appears to have had the talent that could have made him a big name in MMA but arrived about a decade too early to have been part of its major boom in Japan. Instead, this early student of Satoru Sayama's and a graduate of his Super Tiger Gymhe spent his prime years in the obscure corners of Shootboxing, but I’m glad that we get to take this brief moment to acknowledge him. Great fight.

ML: This could have been a super fight between Jon Jones and Lawi Napataya, as Edelenbos was constantly gouging Taira with his palm-strikes, while Taira was fielding regular complaints for sliming to avoid Edelenbos' clinches and takedowns. I was literally wondering if there was ever going to be an actual fight between the complaints to and interjections by the official, as despite both combatants being explosive and aggressive, there were already more eye gouges by the middle of round two than in a good month of Three Stooges episodes, and somewhere in the background, Mark Knopfler could surely be heard singing "We are the Sultans, We are the Sultans..." Apparently, it was way worse than I initially though, as Edelenbos wasn't allowed any strikes to the face, and anytime he threw his hands, Taira complained for one reason or another. Edelenbos lost a point early in the third for a strike that was clearly an open hand to the cheek. The way the match was going, at first I thought Edelenbos hunched over and stopped due to a low blow, but then I realized he was actually buckled from a left body hook to the liver, which the Ref clearly didn't understand either, as rather than calling a knockdown, he gave Taira the opportunity to charge in with a (mostly avoided) flying knee, which then finally prompted the down call. At some point, I should mention that I was enjoying Taira's wild spinning kicks, and some of the crazy aggression in this fight, but it was difficult to concentrate on anything that was working when Taira would stop to point to his cheek, then Edelenbos would stop to say "oil." I haven't seen this much oil cleaned up since Exxon Valdez, eventually Taira walked over to Edelenbos with towel in hand, hoping allowing him to wipe Taira down would finally shut him up. Taira scored a big high kick knockdown at the end of the third, and after complaining about another open hand to the face, hit a neat jumping leg scissors into a kneebar to start the fourth. I miss the days when flying submissions were arguably a reasonable answer to the opponent clinching. Edelenbos lost another point for two headbutts on the ground, and at this point, Gerard Gordeau was rumored to be trying to get to the arena in time to join the foul brigade. He couldn't get there in time though, as Edelenbos was then disqualified for another open hand to the face. This was better than Mitsuya Nagai vs. Nobuaki Kakuda, but that was an actual flight with some flow and evolution, whereas this just had some big highlights in between a million stops and starts. This had a ton of potential, but I don't feel like a it would be reached even with a rematch, unless there were a clear set of rules that both fighters were actually willing to comply to, and perhaps Scott Ledoux as the troubleshooting referee. Good match.

RINGS 6/25/92: Volk Han vs. Herman Renting. Volk has been a gift that keeps on giving, having great matches, regardless of his oft-changing card placement or who his opponent is. The match starts with Renting confusing hand feints with spazzing out, apparently being well versed in the ancient kata of the Electric Boogaloo. Eventually, Han has enough of this mockery and takes Renting down for an armbar attempt. When that doesn’t work, he quickly readjusts for an ankle, which prompts both a rope escape and a raucous ovation from the Sendai crowd. The rest of this match was essentially Han vs. a grappling dummy, as Renting offered very little in the ways of resistance or creativity. Han was able to keep this match entertaining, based on his energy and countless inventive leg attacks, but Renting doesn’t seem to mesh very well in Han’s more flashy style. Also, Han’s win kind of felt out of nowhere, with a flying leg-scissors/ankle-lock combo. **3/4

ML: One of the reasons Han's matches work so well is that he just has the pedal to the metal, jet propulsion at full throttle, leaving the Volkamaniacs screaming in delight as they try to even keep up with him. Han continued to evolve his style, doing a match that was a constant transition with the first movements being used to set up his end game (the actual submission). He was always one step ahead of Renting, as well as the audience. Right from the get go, there was a great sense of urgency to this match, as they were able to put over the danger of the opponent, the importance of picking the right moment to pounce, and mostly in Renting's case, the necessity to either gain control, get off his back, or get himself near the ropes immediately before Han could hook him to deeply. It took Han mere seconds to deliver his first new what the hell was that moment, grabbing an overhook then jumping into a sort of sweep takedown where he rolled Renting into mount. Renting had aspirations of striking, but couldn't buy a moment of peace. He's already the most cautious fighter in the league by nature, and you had to feel for him, because seemingly every time he got close to Han, Volk would find a different way to jump or roll into a takedown and/or a submission. Especially after a really good opening where both were staying back then picking their moment to explode in, it was odd to see Han not using his striking at all, instead stepping forward as soon as Renting threw, and grabbing him to initiate a grappling sequence. However, this tactic allowed him more time for his distinctive and innovative ground game that Renting was at an even bigger disadvantage in. Renting was that just not quite good enough grappler who can regularly gain an advantage, but is then quickly outmaneuvered before he can really do anything with it. There was another great spot we haven't seen before where Han was trying to transition from rear mount to a belly down armbar, attacking around Renting's head to try to get his right leg under the chin then either roll Renting left or just drop himself flat. This prompted Renting to pivot so his legs were parallel to Han's, which eliminated the angle for Volk to simply flatten him out, but Han just reversed the direction of his attack, instead of continuing to go left at Renting's head, once he got the leg under the chin, he went back right toward Renting's feet, with Han's right knee now flattening Renting as he rolled him into the traditional belly up armbar. The finish was odd because they stopped the match to allow Renting to walk across the ring and have his second retie his boot, only to have Han immediately submit him with a leg lock on the restart, despite Renting clearly grabbing the rope. I was wondering if an injury caused a premature finish? Renting came down awkwardly on his knee when Han took him down, though Renting seemed to be moving fine on the restart after hobbling to the corner. If it was just selling, why not just do the last five seconds then worry about the lacing on the way back to the dressing room?. If it was legit, why bother with Renting grabbing the ropes? I will admit I expected more from Renting than we got here in terms of finding a way to make this more competitive, but his job was basically to be a pliable Gumby doll who simply didn't screw things up for the master, which as one of the more capable and diverse workers in the league, he was more than able to do. Would the match have been better had Renting actually been given the opportunity to do his thing more? Especially at this length, it's extremely doubtful, as whatever would have been gained from Renting posing more of a threat would have been lost from the pedestrian ideas. Nobody is coming up with anything near the level of what Volk can. He just schooled Renting time and time again until he finally tapped to a cross heel hold off another leg scissors. Where the match did fall short though is that it was a little too brief to begin with, and really didn't finish strongly given they went home immediately after the timeout. ***3/4

PWFG 6/25/92: Masakatsu Funaki vs. Kazuo Takahashi. This is a fine match on paper, and their showing on 10-17-91 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 Takaku 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. Then 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. Funaki'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. Takahashi was also willing to just take a rope escape once Funaki swept. Funaki took all this into account, and was forced to fight smarter on his feet, extending the distance to really make Takahashi have to work to get him down. Funaki is just so much faster and more athletic that he was often able to make Takahashi looked silly ducking and dodging his strikes. This is where Funaki's calm, totally in control demeanor can also hurt a match because while Takahashi was clearly bringing it, Funaki never really seemed to be taking him seriously, though that was really just Funaki being Funaki. Takahashi did his best to be less predictable, trying to utilize low kicks and even surprising Funaki with a headbutt when they had just locked up. All this helped him successfully open up dropping 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. As exhibitions go, this was excellent, but had they added some big moments and intensity, it could have really been something instead of an entertaining practice session. ***

UWF-I 6/28/92: Tatsuo Nakano & Mark Fleming vs. Kiyoshi Tamura & Yuko Miyato 17:51. I would much rather see these guys broken up and given an additional match on the card, but the UWF-I's tag matches have been exciting lately, so I shouldn't complain too much. I would appear to owe Miyato an apology for ever doubting him, as he right away tries to inject life into this match by going on a spirited slapping spree against the portly Nakano, but this fire was quickly put out by Tatsuyo's considerable girth. He merely grabbed Miyato and gravity did the rest, so now we are finding ourselves on the mat. Thankfully, it wasn't long before this ended, and Fleming was tagged in. Fleming then proceeded to wonderfully toss Miyato like a discus and forced the first escape with a crude rear-naked choke. This prompts Miyato to tag in Tamura, and we then got a great sequence where Tamura used his considerable speed to stifle all of Fleming's entries, that was until Fleming surprised Tamura with a lightning quick fireman's carry. Tamura didn't stick around to let Fleming capitalize on the takedown, however, and after he got up, he did a brilliant fake, where he seemed like he was going to try for a standard hip-throw and faked it into a quick ankle pick that took Fleming down. Sometimes, I'm seriously surprised, and impressed, with these little nuggets of fine ne-waza that occasionally appear in these shoot-style matches. The rest of this match continued its winning ways, mostly thanks to the excellent intensity of Miyato, who was able to pull out some decent effort from Nakano, and the seemingly endless creativity of Tamura, who almost always finds a way to shine. I will still continue to gripe about there being tag-team matches in the first place, since without a tag-team division or championship title in place, there are no stakes in these kinds of matches. Still, it's hard to complain too much when the quality is present as it was here. This was intense and exciting for almost all of it's almost 18 minute running time. The bout is eventually won by team Fleming with Miyato being an unfortunate victim of Lou Thesz's STF. ****

ML: Fleming is proving to be a good addition, as while he will never be the most exciting worker on his own, he is someone that those who understand how to work with, and counteract his amateur wrestling, can get good things out of. Tamura is certainly one of those opponents, and Miyato did some nice things when Fleming as well. This match wasn't as flashy as many of Tamura's matches, but there were a lot of nice little explosions. Tamura mostly worked with Fleming, which, beyond the obvious reasons, was good because those two being the mat pairing mostly kept Nakano from his usual durdling on the canvas. Fleming tweaked his knee early on when Tamura tried to spin into a kneebar, but Fleming rolled in the wrong direction, so Tamura had to abort. I didn't really understand the point of having the score be so lopsided in the favor of Tatsuo Nakano & Mark Fleming even when I incorrectly assumed they were ultimately losing, but this was a consistently good match, with a lot of nice moments. It never felt outstanding though, most likely because Nakano and Fleming just don't have that kind of speed or athleticism. ***

UWF-I 6/28/92: Masahito Kakihara vs. Yoji Anjo 10:12. Now for the return of the man with the fastest hands in the East, Masahito Kakihara! Sadly, Kakihara has been on rookie duty the last couple of months, as he was forced with the absurd task of having to carry newcomer, Mark Silver, to two thirty-minute draws in a row. Here he will be facing Yoji Anjo, who has been on fire as of late, so I expect this to be good. Needless to say, Kakihara wastes no time in launching his lightning-palmed assault, but Anjo, being well versed in the ancient G.I. Joe code of "Knowing is half the battle!" is anticipating this, and stifles much of Kakihara's output with some rangy kicks. Still, Kakihara is so voluminous with his hands of torment, that he is still able to push a good percentage of his strikes through, despite Anjo's defenses. Anjo knows that a standing battle is futile, so he wisely opts to go to the ground with a Kimura from what could be viewed as a half-guard, using only the loosest of definitions. Anjo lacked the necessary torque to properly finish this submission, but thankfully for him, Kakihara turned incorrectly into the hold, giving Anjo the needed leverage to put pressure on the shoulder, and thereby forcing the first rope escape. The rest of the match was odd with most of the offense coming from Anjo both in the standing and ground portions. Kakihara proved he isn't just a one-trick-pony by going for several submission attempts throughout the match, including a triangle choke and a couple of spinning kneebar/toe-hold entries. The problem was that while Kakihara is serviceable on the mat, he isn't strong enough to ever put any credible pressure on Anjo. Most of Kakihara's offense came off of Anjo botching an o-goshi or similar judo attempt, which made the ending feel very sudden and contrived when Kakihara won with a basic ankle lock, seemingly out of nowhere. This was still fast-paced enough to have been decent, but could have been much better. **3/4

ML: This was a pivitol match in Kakihara's career, a surprising huge win out of nowhere over an established and highly respected veteran. Previously, he only had 3 wins, with the only native being fellow rookie Yusuke Fuke in U.W.F. on 10/25/90 (after Fuke had defeated him on the previous show). They did a shorter version of Hiromitsu Kanehara's match, or one could say this is what Kanehara vs. Yoshihiro Takayama should have been if Takayama were actually competent. Speed, intensity, all-out aggression, this was a savage and explosive sprint. Kakihara showed some great movement and defense here. Whenever Anjo was striking, Kakihara was either making the decision to come forward to immediately get inside his striking range by blitzing him with blazing palms or backing away and dodging. One of the reasons some semblance of defense is so important in pro wrestling is that it makes the strikes actually seem meaningful. The usual nonsense of two guys standing there begging each other to hit them as hard as they can essentially assumes that while the strikes may hurt, pain is no big deal since there is exactly zero chance of it going beyond that and actually ending the fight. I mean, no one would stand there and beg the opponent to shoot or stab them (unless they were taking on Tiger Jeet Singh since they know he only uses the clumsy small sword handle rather than the giant long blade), so it just feels like the threat is so minor when people don't care to even be bothered to defend themselves. The ground fighting wasn't as good as the standup obviously, but they still went back and forth with a lot of nice fast moves. Anjo was quickly winning huge, 14-3, but the story they were telling was that the Commander was increasingly looking to keep it on the ground to press his advantage, because he could. Kakihara may not be the best mat wrestler technically or positionally, but he nonetheless kept countering Anjo well. Eventually, he did some damage with a kneebar, then when Anjo got back up, Kakihara caught his jumping knee and took him down into an Achilles' tendon hold for the huge upset win. This booking made the result of the last match where I was expecting Tamura and Miyato to pull it out even though they were way down seem better, as this time I was expecting the experienced fighter to just stomp the upstart, so there was nothing out of the ordinary with him racking up an otherwise insurmountable lead. ***1/2

UWF-I 6/28/92: Kazuo Yamazaki vs. Steve Day 9:39. Now for the man that I feel is the sleeper hit of this outfit, Steve Day. No, he may not have been blessed with any charisma (or striking skills for that matter), but he may be the best pure wrestler that we've witnessed since starting this project, and I suspect that with some fine tuning he could have been a very dangerous force within the early American MMA/NHB days, had he chosen to go that route. For now, he must face Kazuo Yamazaki, who I have given up on ever seeing be elevated to his true worth, and must begrudgingly content myself to knowing that at least he is going to put forth a good match, regardless of the outcome. The match starts with Day hitting an absolutely breathtaking Greco-Roman throw that Yamazaki tried to stave off with good balance, to no avail. Day immediately starts smothering Yamazaki, who wisely took a rope escape, not because he was locked in a submission, but just to have an opportunity to get some distance between him and Day. It's the little nuances like this that make Yamazaki such a stellar talent. Yamazaki then goes for a low single, which gets the fight to the mat, but Day is an excellent scrambler, and easily gets the superior position. However, he is not excellent at submissions, and despite being able to easily dictate where the fight takes place, he still seems kind of clueless on how to end the fight once he gets to where he wants to be. He attempts to choke Yamazaki after taking his back but is so awkward in doing so that Yamazaki easily fends it off until the ref stands them back up. The rest of this match was somewhat frustrating, as Day is the best at what he's good at, but since he is only good at one thing, it's hard for him to excel in this kind of environment. The rest of this match was mostly Yamazaki finding creative ways to get the fight to the ground (I.E., a flying scissor takedown) and attacking Day's legs, only for Day to not really know how to stop this. I like Day, but the more I see him, the more I wish he had been part of the early UFC's where he really would have had a chance to make a big splash. As it stands, he is good enough that his match is always going to be solid, but unspectacular. The match ends when Yamazaki gets an armbar after punishing Day's legs for good measure. ***

ML: Yamazaki really underachieved in 1991. He was certainly good, but nonetheless, his matches sounded better on paper than they were in actuality. He has really stepped it up on the last two shows, getting much better short matches out of the opposition and then he had the right to. The Koji Kitao match was always going to be a one man show, but that makes this one all the more interesting, where Yamazaki finally really developed the sequences to his capability, and crafted a match that was more than the sum of its parts. Day was obviously impressive here as well, as this wasn't merely Yamazaki reacting to the wrestler's aggression, as he would with say Tom Burton, but rather Day answering him counter for counter. I loved the urgency Yamazaki brought to some of these segments. For instance, there was a great segment where Day countered his belly to belly suplex with one of his own, but as soon as Yamazaki's back hit the canvas, he immediately turned and took Day's back, trying to go into a Boston crab only to have Day roll into a heelhook, setting off a game of footsies. The finish was a similar sequence where Day countered Yamazaki's German suplex with a go behind into one of his own, but Yamazaki spun into a Kimura attempt as soon as they landed, chaining submission attempts until he hit the armbar for the win. ***1/2

UWF-I 7/12/92: Kazuo Yamazaki & Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Gary Albright & Mark Silver 18:44. It's a contest with no stakes or meaning, but any chance to see Tamura shine is a good one. Things start with Tamura toying with Silver, allowing him some offense, knowing that Silver isn't likely to ever put him in any real jeopardy. It was fun to see Tamura play with his prey and instantly turn a switch on and dominate Silver when he chose to. Humiliated and in over his head, Silver brought in the Albright-monster. As quick as Tamura is, you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone up to the challenge of being smothered by such a beast. Gary spent a considerable amount of time laying on Tamura before forcing a rope escape via a reverse keylock. Yamazaki fared a little better, scoring on Albright with a heel-hook, and punishing Mark Silver in a variety of ways. The rest of this match was disappointing because Albright spent very little time in the ring, forcing Silver to handle the bulk of the workload. Tamura and Yamazaki did all they could with him, and while it was ok, Silver's slowness and inexperience prevented this from ever achieving liftoff. Not bad, but could have been much better, having someone stronger than Silver to build around. *** 1/4

ML: Silver, who has been somewhat hit and miss, got his first main event here, and was able to step it up and allow Tamura & Yamazaki to do their thing. This was mostly grappling based, and in his element, Silver was able to react to those two well enough to more or less keep up. Albright, on the other hand, just ground the match to a halt by simply weighing on Tamura in a fashion that would make Tom Erickson proud. The story was that while Silver was mostly owned, he allowed his team to get way behind because he was too proud to tag. This allowed Albright to be the monster superhero hitting his big suplexes for the splashy finish, but at the same time, it allowed there to be an actual compelling competitive match beforehand, and deliver the most useful action on an otherwise lousy show. Yamazaki certainly wasn't too proud, as when he got a knockdown on Silver with a middle kick, he then fired off a deadly high kick as soon as Silver was back on his feet, even though the ref was still checking him out & hadn't restarted the contest. Yamazaki, in particular, did a good job of making it look like he was shooting on Silver in the pro wrestling sense with these sort of cheap tactics, and Silver almost ran out of points trying to get revenge, finally hitting a uranage on Tamura and tagging at 19-2. Albright then proceeded to do his usual 30 second suplex rampage for the win, but but at this point that wasn't the worst thing that could have happened, though obviously this was another missed opportunity to get Yamazaki or Tamura a semi relevant win by defeating Albright by beating Silver. ***

RINGS 7/16/92: Mitsuya Nagai vs. Willie Peeters. Now we get a very entertaining & stiff-work between Mitsuya Nagai and Willie Peeters. Both of these men are coming off tough shoots last month, with Nagai having fought an excellent fight against Kakuda, and Peeters getting a draw against Masaaki Satake through his many spectacular temper tantrums. We know that, if nothing else, Peeters will find a way to entertain us, so we are always happy to see him. The fight starts rather slowly with Peeters once again going for a bodylock, only this time he seems to confuse kneeing his opponent with doing the running man. Nagai then goes for his own bodylock, followed by a kneebar entry, but Peeters is simply too big, and easily powers out of it. After some sparring, we get our first notable moment when Peeters hits an excellent belly-to-back suplex, but one that availed him nothing, as it put Nagai in a position to lock in an inventive ankle attack, prompting the first escape. Round 2 starts with Peeters hitting his patented koshi-guruma (headlock throw), but unlike last month, he isn't taking 5 mins to congratulate himself. Sadly, Peeters has been on the cusp of proper etiquette this entire time, which isn't the Willie that we've all come to know and love. He's definitely not showing the intensity he would in a shoot. Peeters got a crude choke off a scarf hold, but after the break, Nagai landed a glancing high kick to Peeters's head, which scored him a knockdown. Another interesting moment was when Peeters sunk in a deep guillotine choke, where Nagai's answer was to collapse into a ring post, forcing a break. Peeters wastes no time falling on top of Nagai in round 3, and slapped on a strange neck crank that looked like it was going to cause Nagai's cranium to explode like a grape. To my utter amazement, Nagai hung on until the ref called for a break as the action was getting too close to the ropes. Another headlock takedown ensues, but Nagai is very clever (and flexible!), and is able to use this angle as a way to initiate an armbar, which forces Peeters to quickly let go of his head and reposition himself. Good round. Round 4 starts with Peeters shocking me by connecting with a reverse roundhouse kick. Not to be undone, a stunned Nagai responds with an incredible rolling kick of his own that floors Peeters. Major points have to be awarded to Nagai for his completely gonzo attitude here. Nagai tried it again for the 2nd time, which missed completely, but did succeed in bringing out the jerk in Peeters, who in a fit of embarrassment, tried to head stomp Nagai while he was down on the canvas. Nagai decides to go-for-broke in the final round and comes charging in towards Peeters, but unlike Nishi and Satake before him, Nagai has no defense for the headlock takedown. Peeters is able to stifle Nagai's momentum, but does eat some hard kicks in the process. Nagai's main problem at this point is that he seems too gassed to maintain a long enough offense to put Peeters away. Eventually, the bell rings, and Nagai auto-loses due to having taken more escapes. An incredibly fun fight, and an amazing show of heart from Nagai. Peeters was oftentimes manhandling him, but his creativity and willingness to take risks put a lot of pressure on Peeters. During the post-fight interview, Nagai said that he hasn't been training much lately, and this cost him his stamina. He then vowed to train harder in the future to prevent this from happening again. ***3/4

ML: Peeters actually managed to behave himself in his very flashy work filled with suplexes, throws, and spinning kicks. They earned high marks for style points, but it was a bit lacking both in substance and in urgency in between the highlight reel maneuvers. As no Peeters match could be without some level of chaos, he accidentally walked to the wrong corner after the second round. It's funny how people's ideas of what works and doesn't work change over the years. For instance, Peeters hit an overhead suplex out of a standing arm triangle, but immediately transitioned to a headlock, as if that was the real submission of the two. Some goofiness aside, this match is a lot of fun, with constant action both in standup and on the mat. Things were competitive in standup, where the low impact even on the knockdowns was somewhat surprising, especially for Peeters, who fought like he'd finally been warned about hitting too hard. However, Peeters really dominated the throw game, and generally had the positional advantage on the ground, though he fed Nagai his leg for a kneebar that forced a rope escape. Peeters clearly won the match, and RINGS actually awarded him the decision rather than their usual full time draw. ***

RINGS 7/16/92: Volk Han vs. Andrei Kopylov. This time, our hero faces his fellow teammate and brother in sambo, Andrei Kopylov. Thanks to the power of subtitles, we were able to learn some interesting info about these two. Kopylov talks about how he is a sambo teacher, and has faced Han in the past on four different occasions (within sambo tournaments), with a record of 2-2 against Han. He mentioned that he is wanting to break this stalemate between them with a new technique that he has been working on. In Han’s portion, he says that he considers Kopylov the greatest sambist of the former Soviet Union, and that he has beaten many strong opponents over many tournaments. He also said, that Kopylov is strong in hand/arm techniques and leg techniques. Interestingly, he also mentioned wanting to break their stalemate with a new technique that he has been working on. The battle starts with both men throwing plenty of kicks, trying to figure out how to set up a takedown. Han is the first to solve the riddle with a flashy single-leg pickup, followed by a slam and a calf-slicer entry. The crowd is eating this up, perhaps, because this was how Han ended Maeda at the end of their last encounter. An insane sequence followed where Kopylov gave some Curt Henning level selling before turning the hold into a way to attack Han with a knee-crush of his own. Then Han managed to turn this into some kind of demented variation of a figure-four leg-lock, which Kopylov somehow managed to escape by turning onto his stomach and applying a toehold, earning him a rope escape point against Han. So far, this hasn’t been at all realistic, but is loads of fun all the same.  Not to be upstaged, Kopylov hits a tomoe-nage (or monkey-flip if you prefer) as a way to set up a series of attacks against Han’s lateral joints, but winds up having to ward off another insane leg submission entry from Han by turning it to either a leg-split or a very nasty game of twister. This exchange culminated with a crazy battle of the double-heel-hook, where Kopylov was the first to attempt it, but Han was the one that succeeded in its execution, thus getting the rope escape point, and evening the score. Eventually, Kopylov pulled off a huge upset win over Han around the 17min mark with a toehold, which was some smart booking as it now establishes another Russian star in the mix. The rest of this match followed the flashy innovation that only a madman like Han could come up with, and only with someone like Kopylov, who is familiar with the musical language of Sambo. If we wish to be pedantic, we could say that this wasn't a perfect match in the sense that its flashiness sometimes went against the core spirit of what the U-Style is trying to impart, but from an entertainment/professional-wrestling standpoint, it was right on the money.  I would go even further by saying that this wound up being the first true Volk Han match in the sense that it showcased just how boundless creativity combined with a Sambo/MMA mindset can elevate what pro wrestling is capable of as an art form. We had seen flashes of it before this, but the longer match-time given to Han for this bout, and the chemistry that he shared with his fellow sambist, allowed him the ability to shine above his prior outings. Yes, this was still pro-wrestling, and no, it wasn’t a good case study in how close to a real fight this style could get to emulating, but it did offer a heretofore unprecedented number of new ideas and tools that could be added to its tapestry. Some of these techniques could be seen in isolation in times past, but never chained together in such an eloquent way. For that, Han should easily be considered on anyone’s shortlist of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time, but he's sadly unknown (at least in America) outside of a small circle of shoot-style enthusiasts. While this didn’t have the layers of nuance or complexity that some of his later matches had, it was still lots of fun and historically significant. ****

ML: Sambo master Kopylov made his debut here, having won the USSR championship in the superheavyweight division the previous year. Finally, we got to see Han against an opponent who understands his own game, and the results were outstanding, as both were able to counter the counter to the counter. Kopylov and Zaza were the only opponents Han faced this year that you believe might be able to beat him in a shoot. Kopylov is a weight class above him, with equal training and similar skill, though obviously not a one of a kind genius like Han. The match was super competitive, really kind of a stalemate, as they went back and forth with leg locks on the mat. Right off the bat, we saw some impressive mat action, with Kopylov doing a great job of making it appear that Han was going to get the submission before the match really even got going. Kopylov is very nimble and coordinated for a 250+ pounder. He immediately won me over using a clinch knee to set up an actual reasonable monkey flip, then tried to spin into an armbar, but Han blocked. It just felt wrong that they didn't have a Twister mat out there for this veritable leg lock clinic. You might think that the highlight of a meeting between such skilled submission artists would be them rolling, but this was one of those cases where the grappling was so even that the stand up, and the takedowns into submissions out of it, is really what made the difference. The creativity and surprise to score on their feet, and find a way into an immediate submission when they hit the ground really made the match, though partly because big moves are much easier to appreciate then subtle manipulations and adjustments. Kopylov added a lot, and this was more believable than Han's other matches due to him, but whether or not either of those things were plusses was another story, as they made the match more exciting in the competitive sense, but at the same time less excited the splashy sense. At some point, it was getting a bit repetitive, not because of the length in a general sense, but because so much time was devoted to just going back and forth twerking on the knee. ***1/2

PWFG 7/27/92: Kazuo Takahashi vs. Yuki Ishikawa. Now it's time for another battle of the young lions, as Kazuo Takahashi and Yuki Ishikawa are set to fight it out for the rights to be future flag-bearers for this shoot-pride. Both have been mixing it up lately, being in both worked and shoot contests, although even Takahashi’s works have been rather intense in the last few months. The first thing I notice is Takahashi giving Ishikawa a nasty stare that I've never seen him do before. He's always been intense in the ring, but very respectful leading up to that point, so I'm wondering if there's some bad blood here. Not three seconds into this, and it would seem that my suspicions are correct, they are attacking each other with malice only reserved for thine enemies. Kazuo wins the fierce slapping war, quickly getting his opponent to the ground, and pulls out a nice trick I used to do in my younger days, controlling his opponent with a half-nelson. This didn't last long before Kazuo just decided to start slapping Yuko like he was insulting his mother. Whatever this is, it may well wind up being one of the stiffest slugfests that the PWFG ever produced. The rest of this match was just as nasty, with Kazuo often getting the better of Yuki due to his slow takedown attempts, but it wasn't without some great moments from Ishikawa. We saw Yuki pull out several toys from his box of punishments. Soccer kicks, headbutts, elbow grinding from the mount, and a couple of slaps that were so hard I felt it through my monitor, were all to be seen from the future owner of Battlarts. The lack of BJJ these days was a double-edged sword as it caused some slow lapses in the action, but also forced some creative entries. There was one fun moment where Takahashi wanted to fall back for a straight ankle-lock, so he set it up with a diving headbutt, which could be considered an act of genius. The ending of this match was a work (where Ishikawa had to do his duty to a Boston crab that came out of nowhere) but everything leading up to it was a borderline shoot with a nice grudge match feel. ***¼

ML: This was one of the stiffest and certainly nastiest matches of the year, and looked much more like a shoot to me than the Ryushi Yanagisawa vs. Dieusel Berto, but I still don't feel like it was actually a shoot, as it was kind of slow paced and lacked urgency in the movements and attempts to secure/improve position. It seemed like a precursor to Pancrase where they were working a match but hitting more or less for real the entire time, then doing a predetermined finish with the infamous crab, as opposed to the Yanagisawa match where it seemed like they were working a match, but the finishing shot was legitimate for whatever reason. In any case, this was super badass, and these guys really gave you the sense that they didn't like one another, with things getting chippy early and often, including numerous headbutts and hard shots to the liver and kidney on the ground. The hatred, disrespect (mostly from Takahashi) & intensity were awesome, and really made a fight without tons of activity into something notable, and even memorable. Takahashi was clearly out to bully the rookie, aided by his size advantage and far superior wrestling skill. He wasn't above taking semi cheap shots to put the young punk in his place, and generally just being a dick, grinding his elbow & fist into Ishikawa's face, and kicking Ishikawa when he was getting up. At one point, after a particularly brutal headbutt, the ref was checking Ishikawa's face to make sure everything was still in the right place! Ishikawa was very spunky, and wouldn't back down, leading to some great slap exchanges. I didn't feel like Takahashi was going all out to win, but rather trying to humiliate Ishikawa by showing him up at every turn, giving him some opportunities to try to gain the advantage so he could thwart him. Then, when he finally had enough of playing around, he "got serious" and did a quick, explosive takedown into the crab. This was really good, especially for a match that very reasonably wasn't particularly competitive. There was a nice show of respect at the end where Takahashi bowed to Ishikawa standing, then both dropped to their knees and bowed. ***1/2

UWF-I 8/14/92: Yuko Miyato & Masahito Kakihara vs. Tatsuo Nakano & Tom Burton 17:34. Now for another sequence in the random booking generator that booker Miyato has been keen on using. At least this is an interesting pairing on paper, as having two lithe and explosive workers like Miyato/Kakihara vs two burly monsters like Nakano/Burton could lead to good results if done correctly. Right away, I’m impressed as there is palpable electricity in the air when Kakihara unloads some lighting palms into Burton. Kakihara being impressive is standard, but what is remarkable here is how urgent and intense Burton is acting. The pressure that Kakihara is putting on him forces Burton to fight as if his life depended on it, and he does a good job of immediately closing the distance and slamming Kakihara, thus mitigating the damage he has to take. Kakihara gets up quickly, however, and shifts to rangy attacks, using incredibly stiff kicks from a distance. Seriously, it looks like he is going to imprint a permanent mark on Burton’s thighs, just like Pedro Rizzo did to Randy Couture several years later. The rest of this match was excellent, and may wind up being one of the sleeper hits of 1992. Kakihara was the real star here, everything he did just looked fantastic, but I don’t want to diminish anyone, as they all stepped it up and brought their best games. Even the pro wrestling styled spots (in which there were several), felt organic and looked good, which is a considerable challenge in a shoot-style context. Excellent! **** ¼

ML: Kakihara was just on fire here, making this match with his energy and urgency. He did a great job of fending off Burton's takedowns, and making him pay with flurries of lightning fast strikes. He did excellent work against Nakano as well, pitting his Jeff Speakman of the East speed against Nakano's power striking. This was by no means a shoot, but much like the Kanehara/Maeda matches, Kakihara was able to maintain the realism through that sort of life or death pace and reaction speed, both offensively and defensively. Even Kiyoshi Tamura may not be able to get Nakano & Burton to work at such a high pace to keep up with him. Miyato was his usual reliable self, and there was some really nice scrambling between him & Burton. Though Kakihara gave his best performance so far, and really came into his own this match, perhaps the revelation here was Burton, who showed a newfound ability to work the grappling sequences with some actual speed. Burton wouldn't push a match in this direction, but if not for Burton's suddenly being able to follow in this vein, this wouldn't have been one of the best UWF-I tags we've seen. ****

PWFG 8/15/92: Minoru Suzuki vs. Joe Solkoff (Joe Malenko). So far, this has been a very underwhelming event, and now we must all look to Minoru Suzuki and Joe Malenko to save us. Malenko is coming into this having spent almost four continuous years in All Japan, so it would be interesting to learn what led to his appearing here. Surely, this had to have been a chaotic time period for the Malenko Gym in addition to the PWFG, with the passing of Masami Soronaka. It’s unknown if this was intended to be a long-term move for Malenko, or if he was just trying to help out in a pinch, but from this point forward he never stuck around in any one place for too long, doing stints here, WCW, UWF-I, Australia, ECW, and eventually back to All Japan. For some reason, this will be contested under a round system. Round 1 shows us that both men came to give us their best. Malenko clearly has good balance, but Suzuki is just too quick and too slick to be denied, and forces Malenko to the mat. Even though this isn’t a shoot, Suzuki is moving and acting like it is, bringing an excellent intensity and urgency that a newcomer like Ishikawa could learn from. There are all sorts of great subtleties, like how Suzuki acts when turtling out of danger or when he works for a toehold like his life depended on it. Malenko seems a bit out of his element, which surprises me as he is a Gotch protégé, but this is perhaps understandable, as he has never had a professional shoot-style match of this caliber before. Unlike his brother Dean, Joe has seen the inside of a weight room, but while this gave him the much better physique of the two, it seems to have put a damper on his mobility. The round ends with Suzuki having clowned Malenko for its entirety. Round 2 sees a few takedowns from Malenko, but outside of that is still all one-way traffic for Suzuki. Round 3 starts with Malenko getting caught in a weird neck-crank that almost worked until Suzuki managed to roll out of it. The rest of the round saw Suzuki kicking away at Malenko’s thighs until Joe botched a takedown and got an armbar for his trouble. This match was in a weird zone between work and shoot. I wouldn’t call it a full shoot, as they weren’t just trying to murder each other, but at the same time, Suzuki didn’t give Malenko any openings at all, and the ending felt legitimate. Whatever it was, it was edgy and entertaining, unlike the Funaki match before it. Whereas Funaki came across as a bored cat toying with its prey, Suzuki is like a man fighting for his life and seems willing to die in the center of the ring, if need be. This was entertaining and had a lot of verve, despite being so one-sided. Also, the weird quasi-shoot nature of the contest gave it an interesting and tense vibe. This is a hard match to rate as it was a borderline shoot, but I would give it *** ½. It would have been higher had Malenko been competitive.

ML: Malenko was really made for this style, as what made him great was really his slick movement. Even though this was his first match in shoot style, his pro wrestling offense didn't stray that far from what was a viable here, mainly using suplexes and submissions, though obviously of a more flashy variety. His perpetual movement made him the perfect opponent for Suzuki, who delivered a more interesting match than we've been seeing from him of late. As with the previous match, this was too far towards actual shooting to really approach its potential though. Suzuki posed a really tough matchup for Malenko, as he had a big advantage in foot speed in addition to having legitimate standup training and being 12 years younger. He could just use his movement to beat up Malenko's legs while circling away, so Malenko really had to grab him in order to get anywhere, but Suzuki also constantly thwarted his hip throws. No matter who got the takedown, their wrestling was comparable, but Suzuki had a big advantage in flexibility as well as being much quicker in the scrambles. Suzuki also had a big edge due to training regularly in legitimate submission style, whereas Malenko knew them from his work with Karl Gotch, but rarely used them in practice, instead opting for a pro-wrestling moves such as the Texas cloverleaf. We didn't see those type of submissions here, but it reminded me of being a kid play wrestling against my friend who was actually on the school wrestling team, and losing all the time because he would be doing things he practiced every day that worked, while I was busy trying to set up moves I saw on TV like the Boston crab and figure 4. This was a really intriguing contest, but it should have been longer, and they really needed to allow Malenko to do a few of his flashier things, throw in a suplex or two like Shamrock liked to do. Malenko never really seemed to get going, which they may have thought was better for Suzuki, but I feel like because Suzuki more or less always had the upper hand, it kept the match from getting the kind of crowd reaction that would help make it the important and memorable event they were looking for. I mean, it would have been nice if Malenko was brought in to add another useful name and worker (he did randomly appear in a meaningless undercard match on the Tokyo Dome show so perhaps that was the plan before the league crumbling got in the way), but even if he was basically there to be a signature outsider win for Suzuki since Funaki got the least of the 4 Kings, this lacked the big match feel in part because they chose to continue the trend of cooperating less and less, both positionally and offensively. In the end, while it was a good win for Suzuki due to Malenko being a familiar name in Japan, having toured All Japan regularly since 1988, where he was the standout worker in their junior division, and a critical performer in many of the best junior style tag matches, it didn't quite feel like a result that was going to really propel Suzuki to the next level. ***

RINGS 8/21/92: Koichiro Kimura vs. Masayuki Naruse. Naruse is breaking away from his seemingly never-ending series with Yoshihisa Yamamoto to face the always interesting Kimura. Back in January, Kimura gave us a fascinating early shoot against Mitsuya Nagai, and I’m hoping those same shoot energies will be present for this opener. Things start with Kimura cautiously testing the waters to try and set up a takedown, but Naruse doesn’t seem to share his patience, and pelts him with some swift low-kicks for his trouble. Another minute into this, and I feel confident that we have a shoot on our hands, which again amazes me that MMA was this prevalent in 1992. Kimura has a nice arsenal of super-slick takedowns, but Naruse’s small size is working for him, as he is able to ball up and quickly deflect submission attempts from the slower Kimura. Most of this match proved to be a stalemate, as Kimura had trouble dealing with the speed of Naruse’s kicks, but easily negated Naruse anytime the fight entered into the clinch range. About halfway through, it was clear that Kimura was getting frustrated and allowed that to prompt him to just start throwing caution to the wind and start aggressively barging into the phone booth and ragdoll Naruse to the mat. Sadly, while Kimura may have savant-like skills with the sheer variety of his takedowns, his submission game is too amateur-hour to put Naruse in serious trouble. The end came when Kimura attempted to power his way into a very awkward ankle-lock attempt, which only served to give the much more submission-savvy Naruse his own opening to torque a nice toehold of his own. Interesting shoot and a nice way to open the event.

ML: I enjoy the all out of aggression of Kimura. He fights the old school Japanese submission shoot style where control is not really part of the equation, almost to the point he is really just doing everything in one big burst of energy. His takedowns are good, and he can even get you with a suplex, as he did to Naruse here, then it's right to the arm or the neck. The problem with this style, obviously, is when your opponent knows you are immediately going for a submission, it becomes exponentially easier to defend because options are extremely limited when nothing has really been set up beyond maybe by the takedown. I thought Kimura did a good job of putting Naruse in danger given the limitations of his submission style, especially with the rear-naked choke, and this was an intense shoot where Naruse was fighting for his life as soon as he got taken down, and almost any time they were on the ground, unless he was able to escape the initial submission and take control, as his ground style was more open to amateur wrestling, and generally slowing things down for a second. Naruse was clearly the better standup fighter, but Kimura applied so much pressure with his takedown/throw game that these portions were generally pretty brief. Kimura did his best to mix his submissions upe, switching to trying for the kneebar when the armbar and rear-naked choke had been exhausted, but this is a lesser option because it is so much easier to counter, and Naruse immediately began shredding Kimura's ankle. Kimura realized he was losing the footsie battle, and tried to kick Naruse and roll for the ropes, but Naruse wasn't distracted, and was able to adjust his pressure in a manner that forced Kimura to roll back towards the center, leaving him with no option but to tap to the ashikubigatame. Good match.

RINGS 8/21/92: Volk Han vs. Dick Vrij. It recently came to my attention that there was a third film in the original Fly series, 1965’s Curse of the Fly, which is sort of where RINGS is right now with Dick Vrij. Yes, the flying Dutchman is back in time to do battle with the master of sambo, Volk Han. Instantly, Han flies towards Fly with his flying Kani-Basmi (scissors attack), which may be banned in judo competitions, but is legal here in Fighting Network RINGS. Han then frantically attacks any appendage he can get his hands on while Vrij is scurrying away as if his life depended on it. So far, this isn’t the least bit real, but it is really awesome. Han then misses a couple of spinning-back-slaps, which gives Vrij time to stalk him down and attack his legs. Between the crowd going bonkers, Han’s non-stop inventive arsenal, and the comic book villain persona of Vrij, this all added up to tons of silly fun. Han even gave us a proto-Imanari style butt-scoot into killer leg attacks. Eventually, Han saves the day for all the Volkamaniacs with a knee slicer. The entertainment value was simply too strong with this one, and I am thus forced to award it *** ½

ML: Han had the crowd going nuts from the outset, the sheer energy and aggressiveness of his attacks propelling the match forward with such verve that you were too mesmerized by his unique brilliance to think about it not being the most realistic match you've ever seen. The method to Han's madness, or in other words the story of the match quickly became evident, as Han's desperate and crazy attacks were due to him wanting absolutely no part of kickboxer Vrij in standup, particularly at distance. Han would leap, dive, spin, roll, buttscoot, anything he could think of to get a hold of Vrij and look to get it to the canvas. This was a big time spotfest, with Han working extra hard to make up for Vrij being The Dutch Lumbering, really just being too slow on the inside and in transition, and not having much attention to detail. Vrij answered Han's initial barrage with a leg kick knockdown that Han argued was a slip, while Vrij urged the crowd to cheer for him, playing as subtle a heel as a cartoonish video game character can play. This certainly wasn't the best RINGS match we have seen so far from a technical standpoint, but it was arguably the most exciting because Han knew that Vrij was only good for landing bombs, so he had to keep it keep it big and splashy to cover up for the rest. Both fighters were so dominant in their discipline, and it was a great back and forth war where one would come close to finishing, only to have the other come right back.Vrij was fighting for is a life on the ground, burning through his rope escapes to get back to his feet. There wasn't a lot of deception from Han in so much as you knew he was coming immediately, but he did his best to keep from getting nailed coming in, using his hands to protect his head from the clinch knee while looking for the double-leg, which saw Vrij instead focus on going wide rather than up the middle, throwing kicks even if it meant releasing the clinch. They milked all the drama they could possibly squeeze in, with Vrij having Han down to his final down. Han was teetering on the edge of falling for the TKO, but managed to catch a high kick and counter into an ST for the win. Han gave a virtuoso performance, and while Vrij wasn't great, even looking lost on the mat at times, he certainly managed to do his part without destroying the match. ***1/2

RINGS 8/21/92: Akira Maeda vs. Andrei Kopylov. Last month Kopylov beat the sub-boss in Volk Han, which now allows him to face the final master in Akira Maeda. So far, this crowd in the Yokohama Arena has probably been the most on-fire of any event that we have yet witnessed, and the last match (Volk Han vs. Dick Vrij) probably had the loudest/most sustained ruckus of any match to date. That may very well be until this bout, as Yokohama is about to go ape for their hero, Maeda. The match starts and Kopylov is treating this as a more serious version of his match with Han, using lots of nice sambo, but in a more restrained fashion compared to his last outing. The action was very mat-based, but done at a brisk pace, and Maeda kept up nicely, providing logical counters to Kopylov’s offense. This contest eventually wound up blowing me away, as I think I can honestly say that this is the highest quality Maeda/RINGS match to date. Throughout 18 mins, this never wavered in its intensity or commitment to being serious, and because Kopylov maintained pressure on Maeda the entire time, it served to squeeze the very best out of Akira. This main event wasn’t anywhere near as important historically as Maeda’s matches with Volk Han, but I dare say that the quality was a notch higher as it fit the true ethos of the shoot-style better. This outing wasn’t perfect, as it could have had a few mins shaved off (Maeda’s leg seemed to start bothering him about halfway through and affected his stand-up), but overall, it was great and might be the last time we see a match of this caliber from Maeda again. ****

ML: Kopylov really brought out some good and realistic things from Maeda on the mat. He gave a really strong performance, showing the Han match was not only no fluke, but also wasn't the usual very good match simply because Han is great. Normally Maeda durdles endlessly on the canvas, moving as little as possible, but we saw some actual grappling transitions from him tonight. This match was far more realistic than perhaps anything we have seen from Maeda so far, and while it was lucky to be 1/10th as exciting as Han's match, it bore a lot more resemblance to actual MMA than the mat oriented matches what we normally see outside of PWFG. Though Maeda is Superman, the crowd was great tonight, and bought into the possibility of Kopylov winning. Kopylov was clearly the superior ground fighter, putting Maeda in some real peril, despite Maeda ultimately managing to play almost even with him before the predictable result of Maeda not only beating Kopylov, but doing so by submission. Maeda had one really good kick flurry, and definitely won the standup when he finally had enough to being threatened on the mat and decided to shift to the finishing portion, but this was more like an updated with some realism version of his earlier UWF matches than what we've been seeing from him in RINGS against standup specialists. Overall, this was a lot better than expected, but not the sort of match I'd be in a hurry to watch again. ***1/4

UWF-I 8/28/92: Yoji Anjo vs. Kiyoshi Tamura 30:00. Now for an opportunity to tear the house down, as it’s been almost a year since we got to see an opportunity for Kiyoshi Tamura to have a singles match that had some potential to be dynamite. Since January, Tamura has been stuck in either pointless tag-matches or having to put guys like Glacier and Mark Silver through their paces. The last time these two met alone was in July of 1991 in one of the best matches of that year. The tone for the fight is set when Anjo tries to shake Tamura's hand and is slapped for his trouble. The match starts, and Tamura is looking a lot like a prime Frank Shamrock in the way that he effortlessly moves around in a wrestling stance, all while being ready to make any kind of needed transition at a moment's notice. It doesn’t take long for the action to go to the mat, and it’s almost impossible to keep up with Tamura, as he quickly goes from armbar to triangle to heel hook in the blink of an eye. Anjo keeps himself alive by going for his own leg-attacks, but can never stay on one thing for any length of time due to Tamura’s wily ways. This match wound up being a 30-min Tamura masterclass on how to be a badass, with nonstop creative attacks, transitions, and general fluidity that showcases how when this style is done properly, it easily embarrasses what else passes for pro-wrestling. It went to a draw, and whenever there was a brief moment where I thought the action was going to stall out, someone would kickstart things again with an inventive maneuver or entry. While I would have liked to have seen a bit more striking, and there was no doubt that it was getting very theatrical towards the end with Tamura down to his last rope escape before getting Anjo in a choke right as the bell was about to ring, this was total fire from start to finish. Furthermore, this is a match that only Anjo could have done, as there isn't anyone else on the roster that had the cardio to keep up with Tamura at this pace for the entire thirty mins. **** ½

ML: Tamura vs. Anjo should have been one of the most natural rivalries in UWF-I, as Anjo was the energetic, skilled, feisty, hard working upper mid carder in the UWF, and now Tamura, who had a different attitude but all the said attributes and more, needed to surpass him in order to become one of the main stars of the new promotion, if Anjo wasn't going to be allowed to finally seize that deserved role for himself. Tamura should also have needed to go through Anjo to get to Yamazaki, who was the more established great worker, having been at or near the top of the card since joining the original UWF a few months after it started in 1984. Obviously, Tamura & Anjo were also two of the best workers in the promotion, and had already delivered the best shoot-wrestling match of 1991 on 7/3/91, with Anjo's experience proving too much for young Tamura, as it did again when they met in the 2nd best tag match of the year on 3/17/92. Shockingly and sadly, this great 30 minute draw, which one would have thought would have set up Tamura finally getting the victory in 1993, was actually their final singles meeting. This was a great back and forth counter war from start to finish! The sequences were just amazing, as there was no need for rope escapes when both had the answer for everything the other threw at them. This is the sort of defense that I love, going all out to protect yourself, but using that knowledge to go right back on the offensive. I don't understand the criticisms of this match being overlong, there was more action, transitions, counters, thwarted attempts, etc in the first 5 minutes than on the entire rest of the show combined. I mean, sure non-stop motion on the mat for 30 minutes would have been more fun, but cardio is never an issue for these two, and I agree with their decision that it was only reasonable for someone to establish 30 seconds of control once in a while. It was clearly one of the most technical matches of the year, with amazing fast scrambles, but they were also telling a story in exploding when there was a position to be had rather than as a stylistic choice. I thought the bout was actually helped by their willingness to slow down once a position/lock had been acheived because it seemed more like they were actually trying to win than merely provide a certain brand of entertainment. Anjo was usually the one that succeeded in slowing things down, and this was one of the ways the match was able to portray him still being slightly superior, despite not having the speed of Tamura to immediately threaten by countering into a possible finisher as consistently. There wasn't a lot of standup here, which was to Tamura's advantage, but Anjo had his moments including intercepting a single leg with a blistering kick to the head, and later scoring a knockdown with a couple of inside leg kicks. He then tried to finish with a high kick, but Tamura stayed on its feet, and when Anjo tried for a German suplex, Tamura did a go behind and dropped into a rear naked choke. The early minutes were literally a leg-lock clinic, but Anjo doing his best to shift to kicks down the stretch. This wasn't easy given Tamura did outstanding counters such as catching a kick and spinning down into an ankle lock, but was one of the things that kept this from obviously looking like a draw, as well as again giving him an aspect of superiority. He wasn't fooling around anymore, and Tamura was doing his best to match this with submission attempts, even if some were of the pro-wrestling variety. The sequences as a whole may have been slightly less amazing than last years classic, but there was more top notch stuff here because the match was almost twice as long. The stamina these two showed was amazing; they had more left after 30 minutes of mostly fast countering than Takayama did after his first 30 second blitz. Another great match from these two that is the best thing we've seen thusfar in 1992 other than the best of the Kanehara vs. Maeda matches. ****1/2

PWFG 9/4/92: Minoru Suzuki vs. Wayne Shamrock. Thanks to the efforts of our resident translator, John Krummel, we have learned that this match was not supposed to happen. This was originally slated to be a rematch between Fujiwara/Suzuki, which was hinted at by Suzuki back in August. Thankfully, Fujiwara injured himself in training, and Ken had to step in as a last min replacement. I say thankfully because long-time readers of our columns will remember that the last time that Fujiwara/Suzuki met, it was a half-hour of Suzuki laying on top of his opponent. This bout will be their 5th and final meeting before Pancrase, and while the results have varied, these two have always put on a good showing, which is what this event needs right now. The opening mins of this fight were fantastic as Suzuki forced a top-notch showing from Ken with his ever-present intensity. Suzuki moves so effortlessly here, light on his feet, bouncing in and out of striking range, but of course, can’t handle Shamrock’s immense power once caught in a clinch. It didn’t take long for the requisite leg-lock battle to show up, but unlike most of these that tend to be rather boring, this worked splendidly as the intensity never wavered. Suzuki acted like a man possessed, trying to put everything he had into securing a heel hook on Ken, but to no avail. When the footsie battle didn’t pay off, it was time for a lengthy-standing war, with Suzuki doing a good job of employing some stick’n’move, but warded off to some extent by Shamrock’s effective use of the side stance. I have to admit to being quite impressed with the rest of this. Granted, because of its 30 min running time it had some dead spots, especially in the final ten mins, but the intensity never wavered and even its slower moments felt like two men desperate to figure out how to get past the defenses of the other. This contest always felt like an incredibly intense chess match and easily warrants a solid ****. It didn’t have the gonzo go-for-broke atmosphere of the recent Tamura or Kakihara successes but had gravitas aplenty.

ML: These two did an amazing job of holding my attention for 30 minutes despite barely succeeding with any of their offense. I definitely enjoyed this match, but it is certainly the type of overly realistic and strategic match you only enjoy in moderation, and when done by highly skilled performers. This really felt like a new match, and was definitely the most Pancrase-esque match we have seen so far. Their goal here was to keep applying pressure, but have the opponent counter or somehow slither their way out just before they managed to fully lock the submission. They kept moving until they got a controlling position, then grinded on the opponent to set up the submission, but their eventual explosion was met with, if not preceeded by an equally fast counter move by the opponent. The movement in this match was excellent, a big step up from what we've been seeing even in the best PWFG, particularly from Shamrock, who was very fluid, quick, and explosive on the mat, finally seeming a match for Suzuki in those departments. The stakes were high, and their actions always felt important. Even though the match was really long, especially given the scant amount of offense that was actually locked in, this never felt like stalling or killing time, as they kept setting things up and coming ever so close. They definitely weren't taking a minute between moves then alternating between a useless abdominal stretch and a pointless chinlock like the worst MMA fighter of all-time, C.M. Punk, in his lame Bret Hart vs. 1-2-3 Kid ripoff against Darby Allin. Suzuki & Shamrock's success here was not in what they did, but that they were able to credibly keep the audience anticipating through all that they ultimately failed too actually apply. It was probably not a huge surprise that their deciding match of 1992 went the distance given Suzuki had three 30:00 draws in 1991, including one with Ken, and Shamrock already had a 30 minute followed by a 40 minute draw with Funaki earlier this year, but Suzuki seemed to be more on a roll with his only loss this year being the first match to Shamrock (hence the scheduled big match against Fujiwara). Overall, this was the kind of match you wanted this show to end with because two high end performers that know each other really well were finally able to showed this completely no frills realistic style had something to it, after 5 weak attempts earlier in the show. ***1/4

UWF-I 9/21/92: Kazuo Yamazaki vs. Yoji Anjo 10:01. Last month Kiyoshi Tamura had to single-handedly carry the evening into greatness, and now this duty falls squarely upon Yamazaki's shoulders. Yes, only Kazuo can now take this card into the realms of greatness that we all seek, with Commander Anjo's help, of course. Anjo takes on the role of the smarmy heel, refusing to shake Yamazaki's hand. However, he doesn't refuse to relentlessly attack Kazuo once the bell rings with a litany of strikes. Kazuo is very sneaky though, and he negated a lot of Anjo's offense by keeping him in clinch range. What's fascinating, however, is that Yamazaki seems to be the only pro wrestler since Sayama that understands feints, and he utilizes them splendidly, which helps him fake his way into the phone both with Anjo. This conflict was a lot of jockeying for the submission victory with mostly unsuccessful attempts from both men. This outing didn't have the boundless kinetic energy that last month's Tamura/Anjo contest had, but it did maintain a mid-tempo burn that I felt was more effective in some ways. The constant tension that they were able to create kept you in rapt anticipation with a feeling that at any moment, all hell was going to break loose. The dam eventually busted open, getting more and more heated as each minute went by, with Yamazaki winning by submission in the end. I felt this was on par, or better than the Anjo/Tamura match, except for the length. This bout should have been a couple of mins longer to really catapult it past last month's affair, but it was fantastic all the same. While Tamura is the equivalent of sound'n'fury, in your face and unrelenting, Yamazaki is more cerebral and calculating. Those qualities helped shape this into a fiery crescendo that had a great build-up that only needed a little more time to cook. **** ¼

ML: I was pretty disappointed by this match. It wasn't as good as their 9/26/91 match, much less anywhere near the stratosphere of either Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Yoji Anjo. The match seemed rather dated, more like the 1985 UWF stuff I've been watching in that it was submission oriented, but just too slow on the mat, so with the lack of amateur wrestling and BJJ, they were really obviously just kind of randomly trading pro-wrestling submission holds because they weren't using counters, explosions, or really doing anything to disguise the transitions or make them somehow plausible. The match would have worked better if we got more of Anjo's dickishness and aggression. The match started off with Anjo refusing to shake Yamazaki's hand, and I wish they went further down this path, as Yamazaki is one of the only guys that can match Anjo's antics, and the heated portions were by far the best thing going on. The random submission exchanging was unfortunately the predominant action in the contest though. With Anjo, that patient, thinking Yamazaki match doesn't work as well as with others because one of Anjo's strengths is losing his cool and being cheap and cheeky. There were moments when the match threatened to take off and be exciting and very aggressive, but unfortunately it would quickly calm down again. They seemed to be wrestling a 20 or 25 minute match that was building to something interesting, at which point the Yamazaki patience could still have won the day, but then they randomly ended it at 10 minutes. There were some good to excellent moments, but certainly not enough of them, and overall it was just very inconsistent in terms of quality. I get that Takada vs. Albright is the big attraction in the entire league this year, but you also have to understand who can handle time and who can't. Things would have been better for everyone if this got an extra 10 minutes, while that was that much shorter. ***

PWFG 10/4/92 Martial Arts Match: Maurice Smith vs. Masakatsu Funaki. Back in the younger days of my misspent youth, when I wasn't scouring the globe for rare punk rock albums or relics of Italian trash-cinema, I could easily be found at the “Special Interest” section of my local video store seeking out new pro wrestling/UFC videotapes. Needless to say, when a copy of UFC 14 hit that dusty bottom shelf, I quickly rented it and took it home. In those days Mark Coleman was in the midst of terrorizing the NHB world with his takedowns, headbutts, and dinabol-fueled interviews. While I've come to respect him a lot more in recent years, due to his work ethic and subsequently found humility, at the time I couldn't stand him. Yes, I was hoping that someone, anyone, even the corn dog vendor, would beat him and silence anymore talk of American wrestling being the only way forward in this new sport. Sadly, because of my ignorance and the infancy of the internet, I was unaware of who Maurice Smith was, and simply thought that this was yet another kickboxer that was going to get mauled in an epic display of roid-rage. I wasn't the only one that was thinking this, as almost none of the active fans of that time had any hopes of Smith winning, either. I was absolutely delighted and shocked when I saw Smith use his cardio and an active guard to outlast the wrestler's initial onslaught and take the victory. Many modern fans don't understand this, but the general sentiment at the time was that the UFC was a grapplers game and that strikers had no place in. Smith proved the world wrong and opened a lot of eyes that day, and it probably never would have happened if it wasn't for his time in the PWFG/UWF (which is what led to him being offered matches in Pancrase, training with Ken Shamrock, creating the Alliance with Frank Shamrock, etc.) Crazier still, was that this match between Funaki/Smith wasn't even supposed to happen. Unlike their rivals in the UWF-I, who actually tried to get relevant boxers whose defeats would mean something, the PWFG was content with some old-fashioned lazy stunt casting. Yes, if the debacle with an out-of-shape Roberto Duran wasn't enough, they were attempting to use this event to feed Tommy Morrison (of Rocky V fame) to Funaki. Thankfully, Morrison got an offer to fight George Foreman, and wound up declining the PWFG’s invitation. If it wasn't for Morrison not wanting to risk his body on some pro wrestling shenanigans, then the American MMA landscape might be very different today. At least it would have taken a lot longer for the American public to figure out the validity of high-level kickboxing combined with cardio and the ring savvy to make that approach work. The fight starts with Funaki trying to get inside the clinch range with Mo, but eating jabs every time he gets close. This forces Funaki to try and resort to low kicks to push some offense through, but the experienced kickboxer that Smith is checks them easily. Funaki's only chance is to take Smith down, but I suspect that he's avoiding that to try and give the fans their money's worth. As a result of Funaki's patience, Smith got a great round, and Funaki took some nasty shots to the midsection. Funaki finally pulled the trigger in round 2 with some double leg attempts, only to find that the momentum of those attacks kept forcing Smith into the safety of the ropes. This round was pure win for Maurice. Round 3 saw Funaki sneak a few palms strikes in, but eat a lot of hard shots to his body. Smith isn't trying to knock him out but isn't pulling his punches either, so Funaki is earning his pay tonight. Round 4 sees Mo finally score a knockdown off a body blow. The crowd goes nuts in round 5, which prompts these two to start dialing it up. Funaki finally gets Smith in the center of the ring on a couple of occasions, but Smith’s reach is too great, and he managed to find safety in the ropes both times. This was declared a draw, and was a lot of fun to end a somewhat blah evening. ***1/2

ML: A show saver. Smith fought in his usual kickboxing gloves, and Funaki mostly accommodated him with a striking match. This made for an entertaining contest, while being somewhat inexplicable from a strategic standpoint, especially with Smith likely being basically helpless on the ground due to the gloves. Smith gave a great performance here, really a natural in that he knew how to still fight like it was a real fight, using footwork, feints, and movement while landing solidly, just not hard enough to actually KO Funaki. This was one of the most real fake matches we have seen so far from a striker in a pro wrestling setting. Funaki is such a slick mover that even though he's a pro wrestler, he was able to outmanuever Smith for the most part, utilizing his quickness and reflexes to backpedal and circle out of harms way then duck and dodge blows when the kickboxing champion got into range. The match was probably more than we could have asked for, but certainly the flaw is it felt too much like an exhibition, both in terms of the impact of the blows and generally being loose on Funaki's logic, with the draw being too likely once you figured out the format. Smith won the first round because it was entirely standing, and started landing more in the 2nd round, doing a nice job of utilizing body hooks, but Funaki answered him to some extent. Smith put Funaki down with a front kick at the 2nd round bell, but there was no count for whatever reason. Funaki finally tried for some takedowns in round 3, with a very exciting portion when he finally succeeded. Funaki nearly had a takedown a minute into the 4th, but Smith turned to land on top, and immediately grabbed the ropes as Funaki tried to sweep. Smith scored a knockdown soon after the restart. The 5th round was the best because Funaki was able to manage a bit more standing offense, which then helped open up the takedowns, including 3 in the closing minute. Smith would struggle mightily and dive to the ropes, as you always get with these matches, but the thing is this match wasn't all about that, and they mixed those frustrating failures with some takedowns in the center of the ring (thus Smith wasn't portrayed as a guy that would lose immediately if he didn't have the ropes to bail him out). Though no one really succeeded in any major techniques, the match was really good, a bit too much of a sparring feel, but a high workrate without the usual groan testing moments you get in these sort of contests. It was definitely more realistic than you'd expect, but Funaki could have used a near submission rope escape, which would have gotten a huge reaction, as ultimately he was largely owned by a superior standup fighter and would clearly have lost the decision badly had there been judges. Nonetheless, a great way to close out the biggest show PWFG would ever run, and definite highlight of their year, with Smith giving one of the best performances we'd seen a real kickboxer deliver in worked pro wrestling match up until that point in time, and Funaki finally allowing his standup skills to lead to a less dry contest. ***1/4

UWF-I 10/23/92 1st Junior League: Tom Burton vs. Hiromitsu Kanehara 7:22. While I fail to see the logic in having a Jr. League tournament when you only have two fighters in the roster that can arguably qualify, I simply can't complain about Kanehara having a different opponent to face. This time it's Tom Burton, who last month had his face punted like a soccer ball at the hands (or feet in this case) of Takayama. Kanehara seems to scare Burton by slapping him with the fury of a Karen talking to the manager, which prompts him to quickly go for a low single leg. This desperation move doesn't faze Kanehara, who keeps on slapping away, before rolling under the ropes for a restart. The slaps didn't stop there as Kanehara continued his target practice for most of the match. Of course, Burton got the occasional takedown, but it never profited him for very long before Kanehara took over. It was nice to see Kanehara in action, although I would hesitate to call this good. Burton's only function seemed to be as a life-size wrestling buddy for Kanehara. This was only marginally ahead of a squash match. ** ¼

ML: The best thing about this UWF-I junior league is that Kanehara finally gets back to fighting a few opponents that I am confident can at least tie their own shoes. Although this match was surprisingly short, which was lucky for Burton as he doesn't have the world's largest gas tank, especially at this crazy pace, it was the best thing we have seen from Kanehara in months. Kanehara applied a ton of pressure, doing his best to beat Burton with his speed and technique. Kanehara owned the striking game, but Burton would quickly use his kicking against him, countering with his far superior wrestling to get the takedown, but it wasn't long before Kanehara had the reversal, and was applying pressure with submissions. Burton may not be the world's most dynamic fighter, but he is always willing to go, and was able to keep up with Kanehara on willpower (despite sucking wind towards the end), working as fast a paced match as he was capable of, with a lot of transitions, largely because Burton got the takedown then Kanehara got to counter. Burton had a few power moves including the powerbomb just before the finish, but his lack of submission skills really keeps him from being much of a threat, even at this level. I didn't really care for the random ending here, where Kanehara got the kneebar submission after the annoying minute of struggling, and felt the match really need to be a little longer, but I was excited by what we got here, for the most part. ***

UWF-I 10/23/92: Kazuo Yamazaki vs. Kiyoshi Tamura 15:34. Things start cautiously with Yamazaki treating this almost like a kickboxing match, but he's forced to quickly shift gears when Tamura forces things to the canvas. Tamura continues to try and force Yamazaki to work at his breakneck pace, but Kazuo is doing a good job at stifling Kiyoshi's flow with his strength and the constant threat of submissions. The first half of this match felt a lot like a late 80s UWF match, albeit with a lot more urgency than what was typical of that era. Things picked up considerably in the 2nd half when Yamazaki started ramping up his aggression with more kicks, and Tamura switched from ancient tech in the Boston crab to more modern fare like the spinning kneebar. Tamura also shocked me with something close to a shoot-style version of an Indian deathlock, which has to be seen to be believed. While this too closely resembled the older U-Style to be considered a top match for either man, it still had a lot to offer, and the insane energy from the crowd helped this immensely. Also, the ending was fantastic, with Yamazaki faking a suplex to open up a rear-naked choke, only to see Tamura reverse this with a throw and a win via armbar. ****

ML: This match felt like a wakeup call for Yamazaki, who despite the endless humiliations and disappointments at the hands of Takada and Albright, had yet to be asked to put over any of the natives that were beneath him. After a disappointing performance in the should have been top notch match against Anjo last month, he really stepped it up here and delivered the sort of high quality story match he is capable of. Everything was really on point here, with Tamura playing the brazen young underdog who totally believes he will win, while Yamazaki was the more relaxed veteran doggedly clinging to his #2 native rank. The pre-match was classic with Tamura getting in Yamazaki's face with a chest bump, but Yamazaki digging in and holding his position firmly, really the theme of the match, in general. The action was totally back and forth from the get go, but was also unique in that they refused to press the reset button, endlessly countering, but essentially all of a counters were performed without letting go of the opponent. This was an amazing struggle with such a great seamless flow. The sequences weren't rushed, but also seemed to never end in the best possible manner of someone always having another idea to continue things. This was a real roller-coaster with great teases and payoffs as they foiled each other back and forth, to a regularly exploding, appreciative crowd (who was surely thankful to finally have something with some meat they could actually dig into). Tamura & Yamazaki handling their own disappointments and frustrations almost seemed like it must have been as much of a challenge as warding off their clingly, crafty opponent who just wouldn't go away. Everytime you expected someone, particularly Tamura since he was a big underdog, to crumble they instead proved how capable and clever they actually were, concocting yet another great counter or escape. Tamura is known to be the best submission fighter in the league, but also much weaker on his feet, so Yamazaki decided to do his best to make it a kickboxing match, using every ploys and cat and mouse game he could think of. Tamura was well prepared, catching Yamazaki's first kick though and just throwing Yamazaki down to piss him off. This really set up the dynamic of their battle of wills, Yamazaki stubbornly doing his best to beat Tamura in standup, while Tamura did his best to instead counter the kicks and force Yamazaki into a submission clinic. There's a classic early sequence where Tamura catches a kick and slams Yamazaki, then tries to drop into an Achilles' tendon hold, but Yamazaki instead stands up and tries for an enziguri, only to have Tamura block it and drop into a kneebar. They continue to go back and forth until Yamazaki finds his way into a kneebar of his own, and is none too quick to break when Tamura grabs the ropes. There's a real cyclical nature to this contest, and the next big sequence ends with Tamura rolling through Yamazaki's 1/2 crab and forcing Yamazaki to now take a rope escape from the kneebar. Though this isn't as outwardly flashy as Tamura's best work that we have seen so far, Tamura doesn't need to be as singularly brilliant because Yamazaki has more or less as much ability to add to the sequence as he does. I guess what I am saying is there's less of the one or two really explosive movements from Tamura that mark some of his previous standout work, but that is replaced by a much more capable back-and-forth, which ultimately allows, if not demands, the performers be more patient and probably less explosive initially. Though it begins to feel like Yamazaki has abandoned his strategy because he doesn't panic when the fight hits the mat, knowing he has more or less as much ability to find his way into an arm or knee lock as Tamura, when he does get back to his feet, he really makes a hard push to blow Tamura out with heavy kicks. Yamazaki had Tamura really wobbled on both legs after his last standing sequence, but finally decided being too predictable in standup was costing him, and switched to clinch knees, only to have Tamura soon answered with a suisha otoshi. The finish had Yamazaki bending Tamura with axe kick to set up a German suplex to go up 12-9. Yamazaki tried to go back to the German suplex after a front kick, but of course nothing ever works twice here, and when he switched to a standing choke, Tamura backed him into the corner then hits an ipponzeoi into an armbar for the upset. While Tamura was still the better performer, this felt much less one man showish, and more like Yamazaki was really adding a lot of craft and setup to take this to the next level. It stands as the best match Yamazaki ever had in UWF-I, and, of course, was followed up by neither doing anything notable for the rest of the year (Yamazaki won a main event tag match because Takada was his partner & Tamura missed both shows training with Thesz). ****1/2

RINGS 10/29/92: Willie Peeters vs. Herman Renting. Everyone’s favorite cartoon character, Willie Peeters, is back! Which is excellent news since he is being paired with the rather droll Herman Renting, and his zany antics will surely bring some much-needed levity to the proceedings. We haven’t seen Peeters since July, where he was giving us an epically stiff and entertaining performance against Mitsuya Nagai. The bad news is that Peeters seems to be on his best behavior, which means we might not see any of his cheatyface shenanigans, but the good news is that the first few mins set a great tone with an intense and excellent blend of shoot-style grappling and striking. The action continued to be excellent throughout, as Peeters would continually try and box Renting into a corner with his kickboxing, forcing his opponent to eat a lot of damage before he could take the fight to the ground. The rest of this 12-min match was just as action-packed, with Renting eventually causing Peeters to tap out faster than Nunes did to Pena via hadaka-jime (rear-naked choke). Recommended! **** ¼

ML: Peeters worked a high pace, starting his combos with two body punches then finishing with either a low or spinning kick. Renting spent most of the match with his back against the ropes, trying to find a way to get a suplex or takedown. This match was really one-sided, but interesting in a repetitive sort of way. I mean, the action was pretty good, but the match never really developed beyond Peeters just a landing the same old combination. Peeters made the mistake of changing things up with a koshi guruma, and Renting aptly slipped right out the back and applied the rear naked choke for the win. ***

RINGS 10/29/92: Andrei Kopylov vs. Sotir Gotchev. Kopylov (who got a surprisingly entertaining match out of Akira Maeda a couple of months ago) is back to face another rookie in Sotir Gotchev. Gotchev is another Bulgarian who is excellent at wrestling, as his winning the Bulgarian wrestling championships from 1986-1988 will attest to. Kopylov continues to prove he’s another fine sambist with great grappling sensibilities, even if he isn’t quite the creative auteur that Volk Han is. Gotchev didn’t seem to be particularly noteworthy, or terrible, at any one thing, which made for a serviceable uke to the experienced sambist. While not memorable due to the lack of any discernable personality from Gotchev, this was a fine showing from Kopylov that again illustrates just how nicely sambo fits in within professional wrestling. ** ½

ML: Another strong performance from Kopylov, who may be the second best worker in the league right now. He kept the pressure on Gotchev with some excellent grappling sequences, doing a nice job of working the leg locks. Gotchev may not be experienced in works, but he did a nice job of fending off and countering Kopylov's submissions, allowing for some really nice back and forth on the canvas. I liked his intensity, and he did a really good job of standing up to Kopylov. He never seemed along for the ride or consigned to defeat. Though more toward the showy end, this struck a good balance, as they were very active developing the matwork without getting too outlandish. ***1/4

UWF-I 10/29/92: Akira Maeda vs. Volk Han. The rubber match has finally arrived! Maeda vs. Han III is here, and for this, we (and by we, the entire Kakutogi Road and all the Volksters in the Nagoya Rainbow Hall) are ecstatic! Very few are now capable of getting a good, let alone passable, match out of Maeda, and Volk Han is one of the few. This match starts very bizarrely as Han seems to attack Maeda before the bell, which prompts a quick knockdown. The ref is allowing it, which causes the crowd to boo uncontrollably. Maeda quickly makes up for this, however, by promptly returning the favor with a takedown followed by a keylock. The inevitable footsie battle soon followed, where we saw the demented Russian submission ace try some kind of variation of a figure-four leglock, only to see its counter from Maeda, the toehold. This was a worthy addition to their trilogy, as it had plenty of entertainment value but less of the over-the-top elements from past outings, which was a welcome move. Even when the flying armbar did make an appearance, it felt like a natural move of desperation as opposed to just an opportunity to show off. Maeda gave the best performance he possibly could, given that he is still awaiting knee surgery, and it’s great to see him push himself presumably so that he isn’t upstaged by the mighty Han. Neither man has a great gas tank, and both were looking quite rundown by the 20min mark, but this epic-length served to add to the narrative that these two were willing to engage in an all-out war to move forward in this tournament. This match was critical to the success of this event, as its strength would determine if this event was to be included in the worthy cannon or the scrap heap, and thankfully, it was fantastic. I’ll go as far as to say this is the best match of their three thus far, for two reasons. Firstly, they successfully blended a lot more striking into the mix here, which gave it a very smooth flow, and secondly, the stakes never felt higher. With Maeda’s bad knee and this being the first Mega-Battle Tournament, there was a palpable energy that added so much to the match. Maeda gets the shocking win and advances in the tournament. This miracle may very well be the last great match that Maeda has left in him, but only time will tell. **** ½

ML: The two top stars surprisingly battling it out in the first round of the inaugural Mega-Battle tournament almost guaranteed the expected trilogy victory for Maeda, as most of the wind would have been taken out of the sails of his new invention had he lost on the first show. This was the longest, and the most realistic of the Maeda vs. Han matches, but unfortunately those are two qualities you don't really value from these particular performers. Neither have great stamina, it's Han's one weakness, and the main thing you want from him is to be explosive, which he largely wasn't here, arguably due to the length. In this match, he did very little cool stuff by his standards, there wasn't a lot of surprise or creativeness beyond the spinning chop before the bell, jumping bodyscissors takedown into a kneebar, and reverse STF. Maeda was fine to good, but it often felt like Han was actively trying not to show him up. Even the standup had a lot less movement from Han, rather than entering and exiting as usual, he was just standing there with his hands on his knees like Mark Coleman to tell the story of his fatigue, and thus Maeda's kicking that he'd normally mostly just be out of range for because Akira is too slow and immobile was suddenly owning the day the way it would in bad pro wrestling where defense is ignored. The work was certainly good, but lacked both urgency and Han's usual pizazz. There were moments when it felt like the match was finally about to take off, for instance Han's furious flurry of slaps after Maeda drops him with a knee, but that's the match we would have got at 15 minutes. Any match with this much Han can't be anything less then enthralling, and to be clear this was still better than any RINGS match we've seen that didn't involve Han, but this was one of Han's least interesting matches in my book, and the worst of their 3 so far. The finish saw Maeda seem to accept Han's offer to lock up, only to then disengage and end it with a surprise high kick. Han got back up "expecting the match to continue", but the match was stopped because it was his final down. ***1/2

UWF-I 11/25/92: Yoji Anjo vs. Masahito Kakihara 5:49. So far, we are well on our way to having the most consistently entertaining card from the UWF-I in a long time, and this may be the match that seals its fate. These two have been way more hit than miss for the last two years, and are an explosive paring when put together, so I am excited. Kakihara moves like lighting, zipping around Anjo while using Jeff Speakman quality hand-feints. He started to unload his palms of fury onto Anjo, but Yoji was smart enough to instantly clinch and take the fight to the mat, thus negating the damage he had to take. This turn towards the horizontal plane quickly led to the requisite footsie battle, which Kakihara lost, and was deducted a point. The standup battle continued where we saw some surprisingly nice waza from Kakihara, as he took an opportunity to counter Anjo’s knees with a nice rolling kneebar entry, which was converted to a toehold. That was almost the end of Kakihara’s offense, as Anjo proceeded to lay in a volley of quick low kicks, which crushed both the mobility and the fighting spirit of Kakihara. Anjo wins by submission. I liked everything that I saw here, but it was just too short and really needed another 4-5 mins in the oven. This match could have morphed into an all-time classic if they let it cook a little longer, but the incomplete flavors made it frustrating. ***

ML: UWF-I has given us a great match on two of their last three shows, but those matches involved the legendary Kiyoshi Tamura, who is unfortunately absent training with the one and only Lou Thesz. In order to save this card, Anjo, who has been a top tier performer for the promotion, and had one of those great matches against Tamura, and Kakihara, who is always bottled lightning and is clearly their most exciting stand up performer, must be called upon to deliver the goods. Did they succeed, well, probably to the best of their abilities given what they had to work with, but certainly not to the extent that we needed them to. Miyato's booking of Kakihara continues to be bizarre at best, inexplicable is probably a better description. He seemingly has no confidence in Kakihara to go any amount of time, which is slightly understandable given he operates at 200%, and it's difficult to keep that up for 25 minutes, but Kakihara is also a young gun in great shape who possesses an underrated ground game and mainly just needs ring time to become great. Unfortunately, the only times Miyato is really willing to do that is against Mark Silver, who is one of the last guys you want to be involved in any type of long match, especially against someone like Kakihara who thrives on standing exchanges. Kakihara hasn't been blowing hard or drastically tailing off when he is actually given time, so there is no reason to coddle him so much. This match was certainly entertaining and explosive, but there is literally no circumstances under which this wouldn't have been better with another 5 minutes. I mean, even if for some reason they had to slow what they did down considerably, it would still have been impressive. These two had good chemistry, and this actually felt like a different match, we never see Anjo against a quick evasive striker. Kakihara is the longer fighter, as well as the much quicker one, so he was able to use distance and land kicks while making Anjo miss. Anjo was thus forced to get inside and tie him up, which in turn forced Kakihara to use his inside striking game, and ultimately try to match Anjo on the mat after he was tripped up. This was all fast and exciting, and they had nice answers for each other, working a very interactive and explosive match, but at a ridiculously short given the talent 5:49, it was not exactly going to be match of the year. ***

RINGS 12/19/92: Nobuaki Kakuda vs. Yoshihisa Yamamoto. Kakuda was in a shoot two months ago, a brutal affair that saw him gallantly die upon his shield as Dick Vrij wailed upon him with the cruelest of mercies. Hopefully, he'll be fighting for real once more, which is what will be needed to awaken Yamamoto from autopilot mode. Round 1 sees Yamamoto continually keep Kakuda on the mat, and while we are unfortunately in worked territory, Kakuda brings a great intensity that keeps you engaged. However, you can still tell that he graduated from the prestigious Ric Flair School of Exaggerated Facial Expressions whenever he's in a submission. The following rounds saw Kakuda get a lot stiffer in those brief moments that he could stay erect, whereas Yamamoto, on the other hand, kept trying to put silly submissions like the STF or half crab on a mostly resistant Kakuda. This journey into the unknown made for interesting viewing as we have probably all wondered at one point how possible it would be to try and slap a figure-four on a non-compliant foe, and the answer is not likely. The real magic happened at the end of round 5 when there was a dispute over whether Kakuda scored a crucial last-second knockdown or it was a low blow! Round 6 starts, and 14 seconds is all it takes for Kakuda to kick Yamamoto into oblivion. This was a very cleverly worked bout that was very entertaining. Yamamoto is cleverer than I gave him credit for as he didn’t have to rely on cooperation to work a match with Kakuda as much as simply rely on low percentage submission attempts. If he wasn’t doing that, then he was taking a page out of 1984 Fujiwara and simply, which is to simply wait until your opponent is close to the ropes before applying pressure with your submission. Lots of great energy makes this a nice opener and easily *** ¼

ML: This was just the fifth match of rookie Yoshihisa Yamamoto's career, the other four being against fellow rookie Masayuki Naruse. Here he found himself in a heated shoot against 31-year-old karate champion Kakuda. This seemed kind of unfair given their experience level, but Yamamoto does have a huge reach advantage, and actually has some understanding of mat wrestling, rather than just being a pure striker like Kakuda, who is struggling to learn a new sport. It was ultimately pretty even, and quite good, probably the most interesting long shoot we have seen so far. Though this started off with a belly to belly suplex by Yamamoto, and had a lot of odd leg twisting by him early on, with him trying everything short of the STF, there was too much impact on the strikes for this to have not been legitimate. I mean, Kakuda was hitting much harder than in anything we've seen from him outside of Seido Kaikan, and these guys were really going at it hard, beating each other's legs and bodies up big time. I would explain some odd mat techniques by Yamamoto by saying that Yamamoto, and mostly everyone else, didn't exactly have a great grasp of real submissions yet, nor did Kakuda have more than the most rudimentary knowledge of defense. While Yamamoto certainly dominated on the mat, he probably could have won if he would have stuck to more conventional leg locks or worked for a rear naked choke when he had the back instead of doing weird things he saw in the UWF or something lamer, but these were the days when I was trying to finish off my friends in play wrestling with the sharpshooter or Hercules Hernandez torture rack. Kakuda landed several very effective inside leg kicks when he was actually on his feet, but Yamamoto simply had too much leverage for him, and wound up getting him down virtually every time they locked up. Yamamoto had an ankle lock at the end of the second round that Kakuda should have tapped on, but he screwed up his knee gutting it out to secure the rope escape, and was hobbling around for the next three plus rounds. Kakuda wasn't willing to just survive, he somehow found a way to start strong in each subsequent round. He immediately scored an inside leg kick knockdown to start the third round. Yamamoto was still able to get the fight to the ground by overhooking Kakuda when he came forward and tried to strike inside, which is his specialty in karate. Yamamoto forced a rope escape with an armbar, and had a rear naked choke, so he likely would have won his third round in a row, if they were scoring that way. The match became much more interesting with Kakuda closing the distance with more aggression and ferocity in the 4th, hurting Yamamoto early with body punches. This was a much better round for Kakuda, who also finished by nearly ending the fight with an inside leg kick knockdown because Yamamoto's leg was starting to betray him. Yamamoto decided to start the fifth round with an inside leg kick of his own, but while this certainly did damage, it mostly just seemed too piss Kakuda off, and he went into boss mode, hurting Yamamoto with yet another inside leg kick, then finally unleashing his ferocious body punches now that Yamamoto wasn't moving or overhooking as he was earlier in the fight because he was tired and beat up. Yamamoto had to will himself to circle, but this was still a bad round for him, and he was knocked down again from another inside leg kick. Kakuda used a rope escape near the end of the round to get off his back, and then hobbled his way in and dropped Yamamoto with a clinch knee, but after much deliberation, it was eventually properly ruled a low blow. This sent them to the extra rounds, where Kakuda came out on fire again, this time finishing off Yamamoto with a storm of 5 or 6 kicks to the bad leg in between a few body punches. A great comeback for Kakuda, and an excellent start to the night. Very good match.

RINGS 12/19/92: Volk Han vs. Sotir Gotchev. Bulgaria, yet again, gets another chance at redemption with the 2nd outing of Sotir Gotchev, despite their 0% success rate in giving us a worthy fighter up to this point. The great thing about having Volk Han involved is you already know that the match is going to be composed of copious amounts of win. The question will now be, how much win are we going to get. The bell doesn’t even ring before Gotchev attempts to get a Ric Flair-style cheap shot while shaking Volk’s hand. However, the referee hilariously does not permit this shenanigan, and restarts the two properly. It seems that Gotchev went to the Scott Steiner dojo of hoist and toss, ugly but effective. Han eschews any pretense of realism with an insanely entertaining hybrid of an inverted omoplata/toehold combination that didn’t work, but is in the stratosphere for creative holds. Gotchev simply has no answers for Han, as his next offensive attempt was none other than a shoot-style version of the airplane spin. The rest of this was all the Volk Han show, with Gotchev not having anything constructive to offer. This lack of skill was offset, to some extent, by Han’s boundless ingenuity, but fell short of a typical Han bout. Han eventually wins with one of the most ridiculous submissions that I’ve ever seen, which was a cross between a Vulcan neck pinch and a Fujiwara/straight armbar. This incredulous act should have either awarded him a standing ovation or a reprimand. I wanted to rate this higher, but Gotchev drug this down to a ** ½.

ML: I had high hopes for Volk Han vs. Balkan, especially after Gotchev's good debut against #2 sambo specialist, Andrei Kopylov, in the first round of the tournament on 10/29/92. While it's nearly impossible for anything from Han to fail, this was a good match that never seemed to be firing on all cylinders. While not a total one man show from Han, it felt more like Gotchev could do some slammy things, and Han, as always, figured out how to work around what Gotchev could do, rather than Gotchev really being able to work with Han. Gotchev wasn't bad by any means, but at this point he had offense rather than understanding how to work, and that hampered the match. Gotchev did a really nice job of scooping Han up and throwing him around like a rag doll, if you don't mind a bit of Mike Rotunda in your worked shoots, so Han had to focus on using his wrist manipulations when they locked up to prevent that, or just take control with his pretzeling submission attacks once they hit the canvas. At one point, Gotchev had a reverse body lock, but Han turned into it and bent down, lifting Gotchev by his knees and dropping him on his head, then going into a rear naked choke. Han used a handful of new moves here including the standing armlock that he won with, but overall this was somewhat disappointing in that the Gotchev/Kopylov match seemed better as a whole even though Han was super impressive here, as always. ***

UWF-I 12/20/92: Junior League Match: Hiromitsu Kanehara vs. Yoshihiro Takayama 13:05. Now, to dig back into that everlasting well of Jr. League Matches, and by everlasting we mean the 5th matchup between these two, which would have probably been the 13th in a row between Kanehara and better Maeda, had Maeda not retired earlier in the year. It’s kind amazing, both in a good and bad sense of the word, that around this time last year in 1991, both Kanehara and better Maeda were making their debuts, and putting the entire country of Japan on notice that this style was not only evolving quickly, but that the ceiling of quality was nowhere near what it was capable of up to this point. However, it doesn’t seem like there is really any vison or plan for this outfit other than to continually try and get its main star, Takada over, so hopefully that changes in 1993. As for this match itself, I have to admit that I am impressed with Takayama’s spirit at the opening. He comes right out and shows us a fantastic intensity, in fact, I would go as far as to say these first couple of mins are probably the best stuff we’ve seen from him so far. He still has an awkward gait, but he is putting a 100 percent effort into this, and unlike his last encounters, looks mostly credible in doing so. Kanehara also answered with plenty of his own intensity, even throwing some pre-Pride soccer kicks our way. Kanehara was quite impressive in how he blended his grappling and striking, never wanting to get stuck in one mode for too long, which kept the pressure on Takayama. The middle of the match shifted away from raw aggression and more towards pro wrestling high spots, with Takayama pulling off the more impressive of the slams when he seemingly sent Kanehara about 100 feet into the air with a fisherman’s suplex. Of course, as the match progressed, Takayama’s output slowed down since he doesn’t have the cardio to do this style, outside of maybe 3-5 mins. However, unlike their last encounters, this wasn’t a problem as it shifted away from the brazen non-stop striking output of the original series of Kanehara/Maeda matches once Takayama got tired, and by blending in more of a pro wrestling flavor, it not only hid some of Takayama’s weaknesses, but also served to add some entertainment value. This wound up being their best match yet, as even Takayama’s few awkward moments never got in the way of the pacing or intensity of the match. Kanehara did wonders here by constantly forcing the pace, and this is probably the best that Takayama will ever look. ****

ML: Their 5th outing is considerably more successful than even the best moments of their previous four combined. They are still utilizing the same shell that produced the great Kanehara vs. Maeda matches, but Kanehara has finally learned to expect nothing from Takayama, and thus that he must keep things as simple for him as humanly possible, and do as much as he can on his own. Maeda was keeping as high pace as he could, and providing actual quality standup action that was a great compliment to Kanehara's slick matwork, as well as inserting counters that were just as speedy as Kanehara's in all aspects of the fight. Takayama only has a couple minutes of stamina, a sloppy flying kick, clinch knees that don't really connnect, and a few submission holds without the technique or movement to get to them without Kanehara gift wrapping them (which he begrudgingly had to do). Luckily, they have wisely shifted to Takayama simply attacking like a wildman, which somewhat disguises his clumsiness, and the fact that his technique is all around terrible, with half of his shots barely touching Kanehara. Takayama is basically only using knees, which allows him to briefly overwhelm Kanehara between Kanehara providing the diversity by countering with a wide array of maneuvers. The matwork didn't look too clunky because Takayama was being threatened most of the time. The match was nonstop action, with Takayama flying at Kanehara with a jumping kick or knee, then Kanehara soon suplexing/taking him down, which gave Takayama a brief rest before he had to rush in again. Kanehara looked great here, and did as good a job as he could of distracting from Takayama's shortcomings. It's great action, even if it's often sloppy and uncoordinated, and not the least bit realistic. It's kind of surprising the match goes 13 minutes given they are just burning points. Takayama didn't have the energy to even do his big charge in the later stages, so Kanehara began to dominate him in stand up, using his movement to pick on the stationary target. He has already dominated the suplex and submission game throughout, and it becomes just a matter of time before he finishes the now compromised oaf yet again, this time with a rear naked choke to capture the 1st Junior League. I don't know how to rate this because if this were Kanehara vs. Masakazu Maeda, it would have been a great match, and probably ten other guys in the promotion would also have an excellent or better match with Kanehara here, but this is actually at least entertaining in spite of Takayama undermining things with basically everything beyond his strong effort and willingness to follow Kanehara. This is clearly not amazing beyond their desire for it to be, but it's a fun attempt at a memorable match, rather than their previous ones that were so far off the mark they just seemed pathetic. This is definitely the best Kanehara has looked since Maeda retired, he did a great job of filling in the gaps, really covering Takayama when Takayama was unsure how to proceed. Takayama's effort was genuine, and it was his least bad performance thusfar. ***

UWF-I 12/20/92: Dan Severn vs. Yoji Anjo 6:12.This contest will be the 2nd step towards Severn’s path to being both a mainstay in MMA and pro wrestling for years to come. Last month, we saw his brief debut, which didn’t reveal much outside of the knowledge that Dan was a much quicker man when he was younger, so had he started MMA in his mid-20s he would have been a scary dude indeed. Anjo does a great job of bullying Severn with some fast strikes, and he is smart enough to know that he has to stick and move to avoid the takedown. Eventually, Severn gets the clinch, but having ropes is a much better deal for the striker than a cage, and Anjo wisely keeps in mind his ring positioning. This was probably about as good as it was going to get, thanks to Anjo’s spunkiness breathing a lot of life into what would otherwise have been a total dud. Still, even with Anjo’s help, there is only so much you can do with Severn. His wrestling was fantastic, but that’s all he knew how to do, so it was up to Anjo to keep things moving. For the most part, this was fine, it was brisk, and Severn did just about every variation of a slam that he could think of. The main issue was it was short, and Severn doesn’t really know how to “work” with this opponent. It’s probably a good thing it was as abbreviated as it was since Severn isn’t ready yet for anything longer than the 6 mins that he had here. ** ¼

ML: This is what a Gary Albright match could be if they put any effort into the booking, and Albright actually had some energy. Severn came across as a beast, but this was a extremely entertaining, if still too one-sided. Certainly a lot better in actuality than the sum of its parts, as they really brought a tremendous amount of urgency to the encounter, and were consistently working extra hard, scrambling for positions. Yes, the match was Severn trying to deposit Anjo on the canvas, but this wasn't a grinding encounter by any means. It was instead nonstop action, as they kept moving once they hit the canvas, rather than just (or really ever) resting. Anjo was in full on desperation mode, trying to squirm back to his feet like a displaced kickboxer, and Severn was trying to improve his position to get the finish. Even when Severn hit a nice gutwrench suplex, Anjo popped up and charged at him with a high kick. They kept things exciting with Severn hitting a wide variety of suplexes and slams, but the problem was they never established a path to victory for Anjo, who was certainly portrayed as having the striking advantage, but if he was lucky, he would land a kick or two before just getting tossed yet again. Anjo finally hurt Severn with a sidekick, but it was simply played as a Miyato style hope spot, with Anjo trying to follow up by charging with a middle kick, only to have Severn catch it and slam him yet again. Dan applied a kneebar that could very well have been the finish the way this match was going, but Anjo had no quit in him, and kept turning, twisting, and leaping, ultimately dropping a knee on Severn before finally freeing himself. Again, Anjo is supposed to be one of the stars of this promotion (if we can pretend there are any beyond Takada & Gary), there's no real reason he can't have some so success on his feet, put together a couple knees or drop Dan with a big kick, except that Miyato can't see past establishing a temporary star (until Takada dispatches him). Severn soon powerslamed Anjo, and finished him off with a sort of side 1/2 crab plus facelock combination that they just called a leg lock in the results. Even though this match was very short and not very competitive, the action itself was almost shockingly good, with nice contributions from both performers. ***

1. Kiyoshi Tamura [91: #1]. A blazing ball of ferocious energy, Tamura is the most explosive mover and probably the fastest fighter in the genre, though Kakihara gives him a run for his money, and has more striking speed. Tamura has the most speed in transitions, scrambles, anything that involves manipulating the position of his or the opponent's body. He's generally way more graceful and fluid than anyone but maybe Volk Han because he has the most amazing balance, at least of anyone who isn't doing crazy high wire tricks on the ropes (for obvious reasons). He's the second most creative behind Han, but while Han has a wider variety of submissions, no one executes their submissions the way Tamura does, he is a constrictor with this awesome mix of blistering speed & violence, engulfing around the opponent to tighten his vice grips at the same time he is jerking them into position at full force. It really feels like his submission application is multidimensional, he is able to go both down (either dropping or dragging the opponent with him) and around at the same time, while pretty much everyone else has to first position then tighten. He's able to up the speed, pace, and intensity in a manner that is not only believable, but based on a sense of urgency that actually feels legitimate. His countering is so varied and amazing it truly feels like a disappointment when he actually takes a rope break. Though Tamura was all about speed in 1991, he is displaying more variety as he evolves, flooring the gas pedal when he's exploding to seize a position, but now having more patience to allow the holds to play out. One reason Tamura is so exciting the opponent can gain an advantage on him, but keeping it is truly a different story. He has such a vast arsenal of counters that it must be intimidating for his opponents to even try anything on him, but luckily this is a style where no one hesitates.

2. Volk Han [91: #6]. Clearly the most unique, creative, innovative, unconventional, and experimental fighter in the worked shoot stratosphere. Han may not have received much help from his equally inexperienced opposition, but his matches always felt fresh, and to some extent you tuned in to see what crazy new sequences and holds he came up with this month. While none of his matches were the sort of amazing bouts he'd deliver in later years when he had top level opponents, each of his matches felt original and exciting, and most of them overachieved considerably, if anything involving such a tremendous individual talent can be said to be better than it should be. Though we think of him as a submission specialist, Han was much more well rounded than he gets credit for. His striking has been vastly underrated, and he actually incorporated footwork, movement, and feints into his matches better than almost any kickboxer we've seen enter the worked world. Han's matches were always urgent, and even when his opponents weren't great, he respected the threat coming from them and catered what he was doing to counteract their strengths when they were good enough for that, so we got a very good match against future Olympic wrestler Zaza where he tried to win with his standup, then a few months later, a match against imposing kickboxer Vrij where he did anything he could think of to avoid standup altogether. On the other hand, when his opponent wasn't good enough for that, such as the Gigant match, Han was able to more than match the Russian champion in a judo oriented match to keep the debuting Gigant within the limited realm of what he knew how to do.

3. Hiromitsu Kanehara [91: NR]. Kanehara always tried to do a lightning paced, dramatic back and forth counter oriented match with endless transitions. His matches are always moving, even to the point of never wanting to get stuck in either striking or grappling for too long. Kanehara didn't really care if you got him down because his ground skills are superior to all his opponents, so he'd quickly reverse and pressure with submissions. When better Maeda was there to keep up with him and fill in around him, it was amazing. What separates Kanehara & Maeda is they represent a new school of MMA rather than pro wrestling based training that's focused on fighting all out for the positions, particularly in the grappling, and thus looks wholly different than what the old school New Japan guys do, with constant pressure and movement, and a very palpable sense of urgency to win by being first. Even though they always opened, their style of pro wrestling always feels like a lot is at stake. Kanehara is an interesting case because he not only had perhaps the best first 6 months of any rookie in history, with 4 great matches out of his first 6 including the two best shoot matches of the year, but you could even make a case for rating him #1 in all of shooting until better Maeda retired. However, with Miyato somehow refusing to understand what made Kanehara successful or that he was special, Kanehara was essentially without a capable opponent for the rest of the year, and added very little to his resume. Kanehara was one of the smartest rookies we have ever seen, just having a great feel for all aspects of the game, grasping the flow of the sequences, the drama of shifting between disciplines, and the concept of trying to stay one step ahead by constantly adjusting to the opponent's adjustment. Perhaps even more than Tamura, he understood that speed and aggression were the keys to this style looking real, though he (and especially his opponents) were also clearly not as crisp and technically precise. It's the constant pauses that expose pro wrestling, but Kanehara is one guy who will never allow anyone to get away with a moment of doing nothing. He was one of the most well rounded performers literally from the outset. While his grappling is clearly stronger than his striking, his matches are incredibly urgent, flowing back and forth, in and out, with great sequences and counters when he has an actual opponent. Giving 200% effort at all times was the main thing that made the Kanehara vs. Maeda matches so realistic, and while Takayama also went as hard as he was capable, it became obvious that the high speed of Maeda was also crucial. Against Takayama, most of what made his matches against Maeda so great didn't work that well because Takayama can only do a few things very deliberately before gassing, so Kanehara had to really work to do all the moving and countering, basically doing his own thing when a capable opponent would be countering to keep the match moving briskly.

4. Masakazu Maeda [91: NR]. An all-or-nothing fighter with a constant barrage of movement and aggression, the pace at which Maeda improved was nothing short of amazing. He was reasonably not very confident in his debut match on 12/22/91, but already showed up as a new fighter for his second match on 1/9/92, and was just flowing more and more with each encounter. While somewhat imprecise initially, he quickly got to the point where the speed and consistency of his attacks wasn't coming with an obvious decrease in accuracy. Pace is the aspect that separates Maeda from the rest of the pack, as Maeda is perhaps the most relentlessly aggressive performer we've seen in shootfighting, pushing as hard as he can the entire match, and simply not caring that he's tiring himself out as much if not more than his opponent. He's one of the most realistic competitors as well, largely because of the constant movement his style entails. He got into shoot wrestling thinking it was shooting, and although he sadly never got to do a real fight, which likely had a lot to do with him quitting so soon, he tried not to stray too far from what he was theoretically supposed to be doing. Maeda having the belief to be aggressive and let it rip in standup opened up all sorts of possibilities for his matches with Kanehara, as well as freeing up Kanehara to counter into his takedowns and submissions, making their matches very dynamic, back and forth sprints. His career was all too brief, but he truly fought every fight with a ton of heart and passion.

5. Kazuo Yamazaki [91: #7]. The most subtle performer in the promotion, Yamazaki is a crafty, dramatic tactician who incorporates a lot of nice little touches, setting things up and playing off everything the opponent did. When he was motivated and in charge, Yamazaki had the abiltiy to use his acting ability as much as his wrestling ability to craft an urgent and intense match where each of his actions was important because of the potential repercussions. A master of misdirection, Yamazaki is very unpredictable in his entries and lock ups, and probably utilizes feints better than anyone else. He has the most little nuances, and is most able to craft a match that was more than the sum of its parts. Despite being perpetually abused and misused, he was definitely a better performer in 1992 than in 1991, with a couple of magic acts against green performers, and the great match against Tamura. His ability to use his mind to get more out of opponents than he has the right to gave him a slight edge to push back ahead of Anjo in the rankings.

6. Yoji Anjo [91: #3]. UWF-I's resident jack of all trades, Anjo never exactly awes you, but he can play any role, and there's almost no situation he won't more than hold his own in. He's energetic, skilled, feisty, and hard working. He's by far the best sort of heel in the genre, really able to add heat to the match by getting chippy without it feeling forced or turning things silly or cartoonish. He can excel against any reasonable opponent, and will always add to the match from multiple parameters. He dropped 3 spots this year through no fault of his own. The promotion just had a lot more depth, with young guys getting a lot better, which Anjo didn't get to benefit from as much as I would have liked. On one hand, as Kanehara & Maeda only fought "rookie" matches, Anjo was the only one who got to have singles matches with each of the other four fighters that stood far above the rest of the pack. While Anjo is a wrestler you think of as having great stamina, and thus actually gaining a lot from having long matches, especially since he's so diverse, outside of the draw with Tamura, his matches were all on the short side, with 9:02 vs. Miyato, 10:12 & 5:49 vs. Kakihara, and 10:01 vs. Yamazaki being among the reasons these matches not only weren't among the best of the best, but actually felt somewhat disappointing. In constrast, Anjo only had one match under 11 minutes in each of the previous two years, and Albright and Wellington Wilkins Jr. aren't workers that go long. Anjo also had the misfortune of being the only opponent of The Iron Sheik and one of two who faced Pez Whatley, laughing stocks that were presumably there to make fake American wrestling look even worse, but mostly just had that effect on their current employer. Anjo doesn't make enough matches on his own to be a truly elite fighter, but certainly managed to have a wide variety of interesting matches that were less predictable than most. He quietly had the most appearances in the recommended match list with 8, with no misfires on resume, and matches against Dan Severn and Steve Day that clearly overacheived in making the list, so perhaps I'm underrating him.

7. Masahito Kakihara [91: NR]. Much of the high quality of the UWF-I was simply based upon the enthusiastic mentality of the best young fighters. Kakihara is another one of those guys that seems excited to be fighting, and appears to be giving his all. He may not be as great as a young Kenta Kobashi, but he's also one of the first that come to mind when I think of the fighters I want to see because I know they're not only going to go all out themselves, but also will probably do everything in their power to pull an entertaining fight out of the opponent. Kakihara, for me, is one of the only pro wrestlers who possessed genuine charisma, which I'll define as the ability to get the audience further and more deeply invested in his matches through being energetic, exciting, and intense rather than killing the credibility of the contest by stopping to pander to the audience. The fastest hands in the east were on display early and often in 1992, as no one but better Maeda consistently applied the sort of non stop pressure that Kakihara did on his feet. Kakihara might not be the most realistic performer in the sense that his standup barrages are rather flashy, but at the same time, he maintains a greater sense of believability than most of the other competitors through approaching the fight as though it were life or death, not letting the pace or his reaction speed waver because he could get away with it in works. He improved tremendously in 1992, going from a guy who mostly just urgently blitzed the opponent in short, standup oriented sprints to a fairly well rounded performer who could do 30 minute draws with lesser fighters, and even had enough answers on the mat to keep things interesting with amateur wrestlers who were rather dull and lacking in diversity. He's yet to really have a signature match, but it now feels like it could come at any time.

8. Yuko Miyato [91: #8]. After seeming rather dated at the start of '91, Miyato really stepped it up in the second half of that year, and was the most improved veteran overall. He continued that good work throughout '92. A fiesty and energetic competitor who always brings some moments of excitement even when he's jobbing himself out to beef up Takada's next meal, his quickness and explosiveness help him be one of the more impressive strikers, with surprisingly powerful kicks for an undersized fighter, and a very capable sequence worker on the mat, where he has good reactions even though he lacks the submissions to really make himself a threat. Though Miyato doesn't really push himself, he's ultimately one of the most consistent performers around. He isn't going to carry the opponent to anything very far beyond their usual level, but he can have a top notch match with a top notch opponent, as well as work well with just about anyone and fit into any situation, which are among the reasons he fares so well in the random tags. While I certainly wouldn't rank him ahead of Minoru Suzuki based on his actual talent, his top 5 matches were all better than Suzuki's best.

9. Minoru Suzuki [91: #2]. You can really see the appeal of shooting to Minoru Suzuki, as it was theoretically a great opportunity to utilize his speed in order to humiliate the opponent in cruel and sadistic ways. Suzuki just loved to steal the opponent's back or slap them around, and his matches were definitely different in 1992, as he bought into the more realistic hard gym sparring style, joining Funaki in the idea that the match should contain as little cooperation as possible. His great speed and reflexes were more important now, and he was a joy to watch in standup, as he's so fluid and light on his feet, and was more than happy to exploit these advantages. Unfortunately, his matches were either really long bouts against the stars or short squashes against the youngsters, and with fewer free openings, they tended to contain less risks, free flowing gambles, and energetic bursts. He wasn't showing less urgency or displaying less of his quick subtle movements per se, it's more that there was simply less opportunity for these to be among his trademarks in a style where he basically had to create his openings and then consolidate them on his own. His matches weren't as consistent or exciting as they were last year, but were more intense and thoughtful, with flashes of brilliance.

10. Masakatsu Funaki [91: #9]. Funaki was once again the wild card of PWFG, as he had so much natural talent, but you never knew how much of it you'd see from him from fight to fight, or even minute to minute. He was the most cerebral and nuanced fighter in PWFG, and while his focus was increasingly on realism, being the leader of the give each other as little as possible style that became even more prevalent in PWFG this year, as the year progressed he was able to do a better job of making these sparring contests fun, without sacrificing credibility. When he was willing to actually use it, he was easily the best technical striker in PWFG, a slick mover who was very light on his feet, with great reflexes, footwork, movement, and diversity. His combination of skill, speed, and athleticism was such that you felt like he could make just about any of his opponents look silly by ducking and dodging their strikes then smacking them back for as long as he felt like it. His takedown skills weren't as good as some of the other notable fighters such as Takahashi or Shamrock, but he could often make up for that by being great in the scrambles, and having a better concept of how to gain, secure, and maintain control on the ground in more of a judo or BJJ manner. He was clearly the most thoughtful performer in PWFG, and most likely the best all around fighter if he were to shoot, but that wasn't happening yet, and in the meantime, he was at best hesitant to let loose and be exciting, and at worst, totally unwilling. I liked him more this year than last, but to some extent that was by virtue of the majority of PWFG now being on board with his style, leaving little in the way of interesting alternatives.

MB:

1. Kiyoshi Tamura: This wasn’t a hard pick since no one in 1992 had the overall package that Tamura brought to the table. His incredible speed and reflexes allowed him to excel in both entertainment and realism, and his lighting quick takedowns, counters, and footwork were just as spellbinding to watch as they were effective in a real fight. In terms of gonzo submission creativity, he wasn’t on par with Volk Han, but he more than made up with it via his blistering athleticism. It was almost always a guarantee that you were in for a good time when Tamura hit the mat, especially in a one-on-one setting.

2. Volk Han: Another easy selection as the sheer amount of genius that Han brings to each and every encounter is unparalleled, even to this day. Han’s weaknesses, depending on your perspective, is that of always choosing flash over realism, but he is such a creative savant that it’s hard to criticize. Han was also highly adaptable and found ways to elevate even the weakest of opponents. 1993 will be interesting to see unfold to see if he can dethrone Kiyoshi Tamura in the number 1 slot.

3. Hiromitsu Kanehara: Kanehara may have been able to take the number two spot if he had been booked a lot differently, but landing in the third slot when he only wrestled three different opponents is not a small feat. Outside of Tamura, he is the only native on the UWF-I roster that seems to scream out loads of potential in real shooting, which we will see come true later in his career. For now, he is an excellent addition to the roster, and hopefully we will see him breakout in 1993.

4. Masakazu Maeda: This selection was difficult since Maeda only wrestled six times, and all against the same opponent, but no one has given more in a short span of time than him. He was all heart, determination, and fire, and his passion was too good for the worked nature of the UWF-I. It’s a shame that he didn’t come up in Shooto, or at least move in that direction, but he did what every few people ever do, and that’s forever leave an indelible impression on his peers and profession for ages to come.

5.: Minoru Suzuki: There are a lot of acceptable ways one could go from the 5th slot on down, but Suzuki gets the nod here, as no matter who he was facing, you knew that he was going to be put heaps of edgy verve into whatever he did. He got to shoot some in 1992, but even when he was working, he was doing it with as little cooperation as he could get away with. However, unlike Funaki, who sometimes seem bored by how much better than he was than everyone else around him, Suzuki was always entertaining with his bullyish ways.

6. Kazuo Yamazaki: Someone who has the talent to be far higher in these listings, but can only do so much with the abuse and misuse that he has had to face with Miyato's retarted booking. His strengths, namely his nuance and subtle inflections, are skills that no one else really has at the moment, but he isn't often tapped to do what he can. In terms of sheer number of quality matches it may be fair to put Anjo above Yamazaki in this list, but Yamazaki not only has more skill than Anjo, he has also been responsible for pulling some unspeakable magic, namely making Koji Kitao look like a worthy opponent. 

7. Yoji Anjo. Anjo is by far the most utilitarian performer in the shoot-landscape at the moment in that he can be called to do just about anything that needs to be done. This combined with a seemingly limitless gas tank makes him a very handy addition. He doesn't quite hit the top in any one area, but is quite respectable in them all, making him perhaps the most solid non-main event player that the UWF-I has. 

8. Masahito Kakihara: A man that is very hard to rightly assess because his skills would probably allow him to be in the top 3-4 if he was allowed to shine, but he seems to just be sprinkled in at random whenever Miyato fancies. Not just a slapping sensation, his ground skills are quite solid as well, and could easily be a top star if given the opportunity. Sadly, I don't see him getting past the middle of the pack unless he bails for another promotion as there is simply too much talent to compete with in the UWF-I. 

9. Yuko Miyato. As bad a booker as Miyato was, his skills in the ring were unquestionable. A fast, well-rounded performer that to his credit was also selfless, often willing to put anyone over, as needed. Sadly, his booking skils never came close to his physical talents. 

10. Masakatsu Funaki. Perhaps the most frustrating person to assess, as he has the skills to easily be in the top 3, maybe even number 1, but like a standout student that is leagues ahead of his peers, he is just too bored with what is going on around him. It's easy to see why he felt the need to start his own real fighting promotion, as he clearly had a passion for training, and to become the best fighting Funaki that he could be, but seemed to have zero interest in the art or craftmanship that is required in molding an entertaining pro wrestling match. 

1. Volk Han

2. Hiromitsu Kanehara

3. Masakazu Maeda

4. Andrei Kopylov. Kopylov was a great counterpoint to Han, focusing on displaying the most realistic version of sambo we've seen so far. He was able to keep his ground oriented matches intense through developing active, back and forth matwork that had a more noticable attention to detail and normally didn't get too outlandish. What Kopylov gave up in experience, he made up for by being quicker and better conditioned than in later years, being fresh off his days as a legitimate sambo standout. Kopylov may not have been a sprinter, but he had very quick reflexes on the mat for a man of his size, and was the second most creative roller in the promotion after Han. He displayed an excellent array of legs locks, which he was able to keep viable for lengthy periods through his ability to keep making small adjustments, and had an innate ability to create pro wrestling sequences by chaining counters without straying too far from reality.

5. Yuki Ishikawa. Ishikawa & Yanagisawa were two excellent rookies, good athletes that immediately had a surprisingly good grasp of the real & fake game. A hard nosed fighter who enjoyed mixing it up and refused to back down, Ishikawa was one of the stronger kickers in the promotion, with some of the better takedown defense, though he often wasn't able to make these two strengths support each other, as his desire to go on the offensive lead to him throwing a kick that got him taken down. He also had a decent takedown and submission game. While he was often outgunned due to his inexperience, he would gut out any beating in hopes of finding his moment.

MB:

1. Volk Han

2. Hiromitsu Kanehara

3. Masakazu Maeda

4. Andrei Kopylov

5. Ryushi Yanagisawa

1. UWF-I 3/17/92: Hiromitsu Kanehara vs. Masukazu Maeda

2. UWF-I 2/15/92: Hiromitsu Kanehara vs. Masakazu Maeda

3. UWF-I 8/28/92: Yoji Anjo vs. Kiyoshi Tamura

4. UWF-I 5/8/92: Hiromitsu Kanehara vs. Masakazu Maeda

5. UWF-I 10/23/92: Kazuo Yamazaki vs. Kiyoshi Tamura

6. UWF-I 2/29/92: Hiromitsu Kanehara vs. Masakazu Maeda

7. UWF-I 1/9/92: Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Yuko Miyato

8. RINGS 5/16/92: Volk Han vs. Grom Zaza

9. UWF-I 8/14/92: Yuko Miyato & Masahito Kakihara vs. Tatsuo Nakano & Tom Burton

10. RINGS 4/3/92: Volk Han vs. Akira Maeda

MB:

1. UWF-I 3/17/92: Hiromitsu Kanehara vs. Masukazu Maeda

2. UWF-I 2/15/92: Hiromitsu Kanehara vs. Masakazu Maeda

3. UWF-I 8/28/92: Yoji Anjo vs. Kiyoshi Tamura

4. RINGS 10/29/92: Akira Maeda vs. Volk Han

5. UWF-I 10/23/92: Kazuo Yamazaki vs. Kiyoshi Tamura

6. UWF-I 2/29/92: Hiromitsu Kanehara vs. Masakazu Maeda

7. UWF-I 1/9/92: Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Yuko Miyato

8. UWF-I 1/9/92: Hiromitsu Kanehara vs. Masakazu Maeda

9. UWF-I 1/9/92: Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Yuko Miyato

10.  UWF-I 8/14/92: Yuko Miyato & Masahito Kakihara vs. Tatsuo Nakano & Tom Burton

Top 3 Shoot Wrestling Leagues of 1992 Ranked in quality order

1. UWF-I. While they'll never win an award for doing the most with the least, a lot of times it's simply a matter of having so much more available to squander. RINGS and PWFG have much better main events featuring much better main eventers, but outside of the main event, this promotion is fire. They had 7 of the top 8 workers and 8 of the top 10 matches. There's no place they are lacking beyond title challengers, but that's only due to hysterical blindness. Obviously losing better Maeda after just 6 matches really hurts going forward, but even without him, the oldest of their 6 remaining standout workers is Yamazaki, who just turned 30, so they should all have several good years left in them if they don't just give up due to the limited upward mobility.

2. RINGS. Maeda did by far the best job of constructing something that resembled an actual MMA organization. Scouring the globe, he got experts from most disciplines, really doing a nice job of bringing in a diverse cast of European fighters. He didn't have as many amateur wrestlers or any BJJ practitioners because he was the only one of the three promotions without any real North American connections, but RINGS fighters definitely had the most opportunity to learn from specialists in other styles. RINGS may not have had the best matches or provided the highest quality from top to bottom, but it was the only promotion where we saw good works, good shoots, and good kickboxing matches. Though RINGS suffers the same problem as UWF-I in that their entire box office is based on Maeda, and to a greater extent have things worse because Maeda is both older and far more broken down, they've done the most this year to set up a promotion that isn't expendable by virtue of merely being a lesser version of what's already available. Their efforts are really beginning to come to fruition, as they were the only promotion really trending in the right direction in the second half of the year, with 10 of their 17 recommended matches taking place after June.

3. PWFG. PWFG came the closest any wrestling promotion has, at least since the days of Frank Gotch, to showing us what real mat wrestling looks like. While to some extent that allowed us to understand why pro wrestling switched from a legitimate sport to theatre in the first place, their matches were interesting at worst, and quite fascinating on the rare occasions when two fairly evenly skilled and experienced fighters were going at it. It wasn't so much the style itself that was lacking, it's more that the roster was so dinky that opportunities to really show us what makes their breed of fighting special became incredibly limited as soon as they decided not to really give each other any openings. That's where, from a 21st century perspective, the lack of closed fist punching and MMA gloves really became a noticeable liability because grappling could answer wrestling, but their brand of palm striking was almost never going to produce a KO, so they never fully developed even a healthy specialist days MMA balance where the winner was determined by whether the fight was mostly standup or on the ground. For the most part, except in the situations where there was a high probability their own takedown could lead to them getting submitted either off the reversal or the bottom, the fighters really didn't even have think about whether or not to employ certain tactics against a given opponent. If one fighter was both the better wrestler and the better submission artist, there was almost nothing the other fighter could legitimately do to win, and that was a real issue. In most cases, the foreigner was the better wrestler, so there was some balance in who was winning from minute to minute, but usually the strong wrestlers had few ways to actually finish, and thus would ultimately lose to their lack of submission knowledge.

MB:

1. RINGS: This decision was an incredibly difficult one, as both RINGS and UWF-I had their share of problems and strengths, and it really comes down to what kind of criteria you wish to use. In this case, it was a textbook example of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. RINGS won due to actually feeling like an MMA promotion a large percentage of the time, with most of the cards this year mixing real fights in with the works. The also took a huge stride in putting true MMA on the map with their fortuitous relationship with the Sediokaikan karate organization, both by putting on the first non-Shooto professional MMA event with their Battle-Sports Olympic, and by taking fighters that were already established stars in their respective disciplines and throwing them into a format where most any hold/strategy was legal. They were far from perfect, and far from reaching the high entertainment threshold that their rivals from the UWF-I did, but they made up for it by being the most compelling.

2. UWF-I: Josef Stalin once said that quantity has a quality all its own, and far be it for me to dispute the wisdom of one of the most evil men that ever lived. Despite all of the inane booking, nonsensical match lengths, Takada hero worship, and endless recycling: the sheer amount of pure talent that this outfit had in 1992 will probably never be replicated by another pro wrestling promotion again. So, by having an avalanche of talent, they were able to produce a high number of super entertaining matches, even if very few of them had any relevance in the big picture of their main event scene. They didn’t do much to push anything into true MMA, but their action-packed martial style was excellent fun. They have all the means to have a fantastic year in 1993; hopefully Takada won’t bring them down.

3. PWFG: One of the harder promotions to assess as they sort of drifted in an odd limbo outside of the spectrum that RINGS and the UWF-I were occupying. 1992 saw them trying to be as real as possible without actually being real, thus forcing a boring avant-garde experience. Yes, the PWFG was like trying to sit down with an early 90s Brian Eno tape. Somehow, you’ve convinced yourself that there is some incredible talent underneath it all, but you just can’t quite get engaged with most of it. They were starting to hit an interesting stride right towards the end of the year, with more shoots and an interesting posse of Eastern European men in singlets, but alas, it was too little too late. At least they’ve set the groundwork for Pancrase to be birthed, and we are excited to see how that plays out.