Kakutogi Road: The Chronological History of MMA
Chapter 17: PWFG Battle of the Lions 3 11/3/91 Hamamatsu City Gym
By Michael Betz & Mike Lorefice 8/9/20

Greetings, as we once again seek to explore the inner workings of unknown dimensions. Much like Queensryche, we too dream in infrared, as we continue to peer through the jaded kaleidoscope of history, having to sort thru fragmentated spectrums. We have now arrived at the Hamamatsu City Gym, a sports venue built in 1990 that is still with us to this day, and is perhaps best known to the world at large as one of the main hosts for the 2010 Women's Volleyball World Championship.

ML: The 2010 FIVB Championship was one of the high points for the perpetually undersized ball control masters known as the Japanese women's team, finishing 2nd in pool play then coming back from a 2 sets to 1 deficit against the heavily favored US team in the 3rd place match to take the Bronze in 5. It would take a lot for anyone on this Fujiwara show to rise to the levels Saori Kimura & Yuko Sano reached in that match, which, like most of the big matches, was actually at Yoyogi National Stadium, Hamamatsu only hosted the opening round pool that Brazil won. However, I'm sure Fujiwara will be content with the Queensryche references, as long as the fans arrive En Force for his big main event against Suzuki.

When we last joined this prestigious outfit we got a glimpse of unknown greatness, as we witnessed a fantastic showing from Takaku Fuke and Jerry Flynn, and we also got to see further evidence of Master Funaki's worthiness as a top talent, as both his subtle performance and humility were both clearly present for all to behold. Except for Fujiwara headlining, all the matches scheduled for this evening look solid on paper, so everything is set for this to be a memorable event.

We are welcomed to the proceedings with a few montages complemented by a couple of synthwave tracks that wouldn't have been out of place on The Running Man soundtrack, until Karl Gotch and Ken Shamrock show up to thank us for being faithful supporters of Fujiwara-Gumi. The first match is Jerry Flynn vs Wellington Wilkins, and I think it is safe to say that we were all taken aback at the splendid showing that Flynn gave last time. Here he must face Wilkins, who so far has always been perfunctory in his role, never showing any flashes of brilliance, but never really letting us down either. Hopefully this will turn out to be proof that Flynn can excel, even when he doesn't have a worker of the caliber of Fuke to partner with.

Flynn opens things up with some flashy kicks that were crisp and well executed, but only serve as an excuse for Wilkins to take him down. Both fighters seem to possess rudimentary grappling skills once the fight hits the ground, so not much is accomplished outside of a weak ankle lock attempt from Flynn. The stiffness quotient raised as they got back up, as it wasn't long before Flynn started laying into Wilkins with some Bas Rutten level palm strikes, before leveling him with a particularly stiff shot to the face that resulted in a knockdown.

The rest of the fight followed the same pattern, as Flynn looked impressive in all his striking exchanges, but Wilkins wasn't able to do much outside of some decent takedowns and pro wrestling shenanigans. Wilkins only significant moments of offense seemed to come from suplexes (including a flashy northern-lights variation that did little to add to the credibility of this outing). To make matters worse, both fighters lack any jiu-jitsu knowledge, or strong submission skills, so this really came down to Flynn's striking vs a few pro wrestling tricks from Wilkins. Still, Flynn's striking was fun to watch, and at one point he even scored a knockdown against Wilkins from savagely slapping him from within his guard, making this the first knockdown that we have seen scored in this fashion.

It would seem that the PWFG no longer uses an unlimited rope escape/ten-count approach anymore, although it's anyone's guess as to how exactly their scoring system works. Apparently, Wilkins was slapped one too many times, and loses the fight due to a TKO.

This was fun, but shows that both fighters need a strong opponent to bring out the best in them. Flynn has a lot more potential to be a force in this style, as his striking is already strong, and he moves well. The only thing really holding Flynn back is his newness within professional wrestling, specifically his unfamiliarity with submissions, but that can be easily remedied should he choose to stay within this style and improve on his game. Wilkins, on the other hand, is only looking like he belongs in opening matches.

ML: Flynn is a tool that can be worked with, but you need a skilled opponent such as Fuke to react to and shape what he brings. Wilkins is a very straightforward wrestler with none of that creativity, so while Flynn worked at about the same level this show as he did in his very good match on the previous show, I would actually say he was actually better because his strikes were a lot more convincing, now it was basically all up to him. The other issue is the match was totally one-sided, with Wilkins offering almost no resistance to Flynn's striking. While the results weren't nearly as good this time for Flynn, he looked more comfortable with the style, and I feel good about his prospects moving forward.

Next up is Bart Vale vs Takaku Fuke. Both of these fighters were a surprise during the last event. Fuke really showed his skills as a worker by taking a 30 minute draw and making it one of the best shoot-style matches of the year, and with a rookie no less. Vale came correct last month as well, and while he won't be confused with Don "The Dragon" Wilson anytime soon, he definitely gave a solid effort and looked better than he has in the past.

Fuke quickly goes in for a takedown, only to be stuffed by Vale, who transitions to Fuke's back and starts to control him with a half-nelson, which I always felt was an underrated technique within the BJJ sphere, so props to Vale. They fight for position on the mat, and one thing is clear, that Fuke has a lot of speed, but is giving up a significant size/strength advantage to the slower Vale. After some back and forth, Fuke pauses to give Vale a chance to suplex him, only this looks like a complete botch to me, as Fuke winds up taking the bump really high on the neck, and I'm hoping that he doesn't have cracked vertebrae.

The ref counts this as a knockdown, and it seems like Fuke is ok, albeit a bit worse for wear. The fight resumes, and I must admit that Vale is continuing to look a lot crisper with his strikes here then in times past. I can only assume that he was very cautious in his UWF days, throwing a lot of flashy (but very light) kicks, but now seems to be taking a stiffer, more realistic approach, although he is still a bit slow. Fuke getting the takedown is inevitable, but he is having to eat some kicks to accomplish it, though Bart seems to be too strong for him to be able to threaten him with much outside of a heel-hook.

The match continues a with a great back and forth flow between the two, without becoming too formulaic. It is a battle of speed/takedowns vs. strength/striking, but they were able to both reverse those roles in small doses, with Fuke getting some nice shots in here and there, and Vale sinking in a nice ankle lock. The match ends with Vale putting Fuke through a sloppy powerbomb, a la Rampage Jackson, (which worked better than how that description might sound) and finishing Fuke off with a rear naked choke.

I am still reeling in a state of shock, but I could swear that I just witnessed two good Vale matches in a row, with this being much better than his last. I don't know if this is due to Fuke being a forgotten super-worker in the annuls of history, with an uncanny ability to make even Vale look good, or if it just comes down to Fuke's style meshing better than Suzuki's, but what is certain is that if Fuke keeps getting better than things are going to get scary, at least on the worked-shoot front.

ML: Though Vale is not the ideal opponent for anyone, I consider this good booking in the sense that you saw Fuke had a lot of success reacting to an opponent with a kickboxing base, so you gave him another one to see if he could repeat. What was surprising is that, although Vale is much higher ranked than both Flynn & Fuke, the match turned out to mostly be on the ground, as Fuke was successful at getting takedowns, and rather quickly. Unfortunately, ranking Fuke's takedown above Vale's kickboxing made for a rather dull contest as Vale then wasn't really giving Fuke much to react to, given his ground game is mostly control based, with low risk, and minimal movement, mainly just trying to conserve energy as his stamina is always in doubt. While the base positions were an improvement over what we were seeing 6 months ago, with more of a BJJ base including Fuke employing a guard, Vale undermined the realism of the control aspect by mostly using it to set up pro wrestling submissions such as the 1/2 crab and both nelsons. Similarly, his highlights in standup were suplexes & powerbombs rather than the expected big kicks. The match was still decent, but it didn't really excite me. I want to see speed, grace, fluidity, creativity, this had little of that. It told a story, but even that was kind of odd, with Vale being the one who won via submission, after Fuke slipped out of the first jackknife powerbomb attempt and landed a nice body hook, but then was nearly knocked out by the second jackknife. At least this match felt somewhat different from what we had been seeing.

*******************SHOOT ALERT*******************************

Here we go with our third shoot in the history of the Kakutogi Road, an infamous meeting between Ken Shamrock and Kazuo Takahashi. The match starts with Takahashi catching a kick to his midsection from Ken, and immediately taking Ken down. They both scramble and Ken is able to stand up and slap Takahashi, but opens himself up for another deep single-leg takedown. Ken tries to work a guillotine, but does not have it sunk in, and after quickly breaking free of the hold, they both stand back up, when Ken slaps Takahashi in the face with the might of a thousand suns. Takahashi crumples to the ground, but somehow manages to stand back up during a ten-count. After they stand back up, they feel each other out for a few moments, when Kazuo sets up a beautiful double-leg by feinting a kick to Shamrock's knee, and then lifts Shamrock up and drops him. This was a bad idea as Shamrock quickly got back to his feet and soccer kicked Takahashi in the face with enough force, that it's amazing that he didn't punt his decapitated head into the audience, 6-rows deep.

Amazingly, a very staggered Takahashi got back up before the ten count, but the ref was not having any more of this, and stopped the fight. A dazed and confused Takahashi tried to keep fighting, but the ref stood between him and Ken, while a confused crowd booed and chanted "Shamrock." Takahashi appeared to be trying to talk the ref into restarting the fight, and Ken seemed raring to continue, but the ref decided to call in a ringside doctor to examine the giant welt that was on Takahashi's cheek, and called the fight off.

Conclusion: Ken has given somewhat conflicting reports on the specifics of this match. In an interview with our good friend William Colosimo, he implied that this turned into a shoot due to Takahashi going into business for himself, and then most recently he told Jonathan Snowden that Takahashi was itching to go full blast, and that they both got Funaki's blessing to go 100% for this match. From the vantage point of this humble scribe, it appeared to me that Ken didn't realize he was in for a shoot, until Takahashi grabbed his leg from the first kick and took him down. I'm guessing that this move was off script and Shamrock went into beast mode, easily dispatching of Takahashi in the process.

For the record, here are both quotes. The first with his interview with William Colosimo, circa 2015: "I don't want to talk on that match but I'll tell you a story, and it happens all the time- when you get into a situation where both guys are supposed to have an agreement, and things are supposed to work a certain way- and one guy goes in and decides he's going to do what he wants to do- then you've got to take what's yours. And that's kinda what happened, I believe that not everybody was on the same page, and I believe that some people think that they were just gonna go ahead and take what they wanted, and they ran into a wall."

Here is his quote on the subject taken from Jonathan Snowden's most recent book: "When me and him got in there, I told Funaki 'let him run.' Let us go at it. So Takahashi came up to me and says 'It's ok? We hit hard?' and I said 'yeah dude. Turn it loose. Let's have fun. Whatever happens, happens.' We went into the ring with the understanding that we would go in there and knock the shit out of each other. May the best man win."

While I'm inclined to think that the first quote is a more accurate representation of what happened here, there is no doubt that this was, or at least quickly turned into, a shoot, and I can only wonder what matches like this may have done to poke holes in the believability of the business writ large, for the fans that were able to witness it. Did matches like this expose the holes in what was going on in promotions like NJPW at the time, or was it too low key to make a difference?

ML: I don't trust what any of these guys say in regards to shoots, especially the guys who came up during the pre MMA kayfabe pro wrestling era, and I wouldn't be surprised if another 10 interviews with Shamrock yielded 10 different variations. I can craft a story to support both interviews, the first would be that Ken takes exception to the hard left slap Takahashi gives him when they're standing out of the initial scramble and just lets loose after that, the 2nd being that there's nothing here that is obviously worked. Though the opening sequence where Takahashi catches a kick & gets a takedown could easily be scripted, nothing else that Shamrock does might be worked, while it's much more difficult to tell whether Takahashi is shooting, given he's basically using the same takedowns he always does, though seemingly with more urgency. It's important to note that these guys don't really know what they are in for at this point because even if they are sort of "shooting" in the gym sometimes, the idea isn't to actually lay your opponent out with any marginally legal tactic at your disposal. It's also important to note that they speak different languages, so who even if there was some agreement, who knows if it's understood the same way by everyone involved? If Takahashi is shooting, it's surprising that he both tries and succeeds at the suisha otoshi. Certainly, he is not expecting Ken to be up first and soccer kick him. This really seems to me like a cheap shot by Ken, it's something you would never do in a work, so it's reasonable for Takahashi not to expect it, I'm not sure we've seen one of these yet, it's not a pro wrestling tactic as they just use those cheesy stomps that no one would actually stay down and allow. I can't say Ken is cheating, as I doubt it's technically illegal, especially given there aren't really any rules established for this kind of situation. Ken definitely takes major advantage though with his dick move, and Takahashi's eye is well on its way to swelling shut from the damage to the cheek bone, though again, one could argue whether the fight is stopped because of the injury or because it was obviously "out of hand", so they wanted to move on before there were truly seriously consequences.

Next is Masakatsu Funaki vs Duane Koslowski. We haven't seen Koslowski since he faced Kazuo Takahashi during the opening match at the 8-23-91 event. When we last saw Funaki, he got a great match out of Takahashi, making him look good, despite the disparity in skill level.

Funaki does a great job at using his reach as a weapon, and staying far enough from Koslowski to avoid the clinch, but close enough to keep peppering him with thigh kicks. Koslowski tentatively tries to grab Fuanki's wrist, and pull him closer to him, but eats a huge head kick for his trouble. Funaki continues to quickly press Koslowski, and is stiffer than we usually see him. A great sequence ensues, in which Kosloski underhooks Funaki's side, while controlling his right arm via the elbow. Funaki tries to squirm away, and winds up pushing Koslowski's chin with this hand, and this little bit of forward momentum that was used to do this was instantly capitalized on by Kosloski, who converted that motion into a beautiful Greco throw. Duane goes for a side-mount, but his lack of ne-waza skills become apparent. There is no way that he has the depth or experience on the ground to hold Funaki for long, and he winds up losing his superior position quickly.

The rest of the fight saw Koslowski on the losing end of just about every exchange. Funaki was lighting him up on the feet, and dominating on the ground as well. There was even a point where Funaki hit a beautiful O-Goshi throw on Koslowski, which must have been brusing to his ego. Duane almost had his comeuppance, as he went in for a deep double leg, and converted it into an excellent back suplex, but somehow managed to injure himself in the process, and lost via ko.

This was great, and would be a precurser to the style that Funaki started to show in the early days of Pancrase. This seemed to be a shoot, minus (perhaps) the suplex at the end, and the fact that I suspect Fuanki was carrying Koslowski during portions of the ground fighting, by not immediantly going in for the kill like he could have. Regardless of the shoot/work nature of this fight, it's clear that the finish wasn't intended, and Koslowski somehow injured himself with that suplex, but the camera angle didn't give a clear view as to what may have gone wrong.

ML: I'm liking the potential of this match, as Funaki is working a more active style. He clearly has the advantage in speed, footwork, and striking, and is doing a good job landing low and middle kicks. Koslowski is all about the takedown, and while Funaki catches him off guard once with a fast takedown, it's mostly Koslowski that is getting the match to the canvas, where Funaki has such a wide array of submissions at his disposal, he is usually able to put Koslowski on the defensive. The match goes along for 5 minutes as a stardard work then they suddenly shift gears and do an intense hard gym sparring palm striking sequence where Funaki's speed & footwork allow him to get some good shots in. Koslowski isn't able to get a double leg, but figures he has control of both legs, so he gets off his knees & goes into an overhead belly to belly, but seems to injure his neck hitting his head on the canvas wrong. A few fans laugh as he rolls off Funaki, thinking this is a really corny way for Funaki to get a down, but then it becomes clear that Koslowski isn't right. The match is waved off, and Funaki just makes his way for the locker room, not excited about the manner in which he achieved his KO victory. It's doubly unfortunate because this would almost certainly have been a good match had it gone to the intended finish. With two matches in a row ending abruptly on injuries, this is shaping up to be the shorted PWFG show in history.

I'm now dreading the final chapter. We've been going strong this evening, but a main event with Fujiwara isn't a good sign, and I can only hope that Suzuki will carry this into the shoot glory realm that we all long to abide in. What followed was much better than I expected, but not the best choice for anyone involved. It was a 30 minute draw that consisted mostly of Suzuki taking the fight to the ground and looking for a submission. To their credit, Suzuki kept a fast pace, and Fujiwara was able to keep up with him, but unlike the Fuke/Flynn match which had a wide variety of takedowns, submissions, striking exchanges, etc, this was mostly just matwork. It was a lot better than it could have been, and Fujiwara was on his best behavior, but this shouldn't have gone past ten minutes, at the most.

ML: Suzuki should never be in the worst match on the show, but getting a draw with Fujiwara was a helpful result. What made this doubly impressive is he had the advantage almost the entire contest, with Fujiwara finally barely getting himself into the match in the final minutes. Obviously though, Fujiwara shouldn't be going 30 minutes at this point. In order for Fujiwara to last that long, they did an old school UWF match that was mostly lying on the mat. Suzuki had the speed and would take Fujiwara's back out of the scrambles, but instead of exploiting the back, would inexplicably play with Fujiwara's leg trying to flip him over, and then just let him up when he got bored of making no progress. I assume he didn't do much to press his actual advantage because the match had to go on and on, but his mostly ignoring, and occasionally half heartedly attempting to get the rear naked choke was frustrating. There were a few good moments such as Suzuki landing a hard palm then dropping into the Achilles' tendon hold, which Fujiwara predictably negated with one of his own, but the match was mostly air, with a lot of fake amateur wrestling where Suzuki was "controlling" Fujiwara without actually securing anything or exerting any real energy. Neither fighter showed any real interest in striking, or the match in general, it was mostly a chore to be survived. The standup consisted of lock ups, and sometimes Fujiwara would free a hand and throw a palm or take advantage of the close quarters to sneak in a headbutt, but these were diversionary tactics amidst the greater game of trying to get the fight to the ground without using an actual wrestling takedown. They went back to the dueling Achilles' tendon holds for the finish, with Suzuki throwing a hissy fit pounding the mat repeatedly once they untangled them.

Final thoughts: Out of all the events we've covered so far, this was probably the one that feels the most credible, from top to bottom. It's not the most entertaining, but it always carried itself as a legitimate sporting endeavor, and in those terms it really succeeded. As for the matches, we got a decent one with Flynn/Wilkins, a good one in Fuke/Vale, an awesome (albeit short) fight between Shamrock/Takahashi that is historically important, another good match with Funaki/Koslowski, and a middling affair with Suzuki/Funaki. Overall this was a big win, even if Fujiwara insistance on going the distance drug it down a bit.

ML: This show had a lot of potential, but wound up being a lot of near misses. While it still advanced the sport of pro wrestling toward a more legitimate plain, the cheap shot Ken took Takahashi out with makes it easy to see why almost all the workers in 1991 believed things had to be kept fake.

*In Other News*

On 11-18-91 it was a blistering night in Rotterdam as the Imperium held a kickboxing event with a number of great fights. One such example was upcoming Dutch sensation Bas Rutten, against (as of press time) an unidentified opponent that hailed from France. Bas came out kicking and swinging, unleasing one bomb after another, until he finally got through with a head kick, and scored a knockdown. His opponent responded to the ref's 10-count, and the bell rang shortly afterwords, ending round 1.

Round 2 starts, and we can see how the bombs away strategy is starting to backfire, as Bas simply doesn't have the juice to keep spazzing on his opponent for much longer. He was able to hit a beautiful backfist right onto his opponents chin, but as we at Kakutogi HQ later found out, this move was made illegal about a week before this event took place, and the ref would not count this as a knockdown, instead allowing the fighter all the time he needed to recover. After his recovery Bas was basically just standing in his corner out of wind, and called the fight off, after his oppoent walked over and kicked him in the head. Exciting fight, and Bas will be a force to be reckoned with, if he is able to learn to relax, and pace himself.

ML: Proof of the amazingly poor documentation of kickboxing is even a fighter as famous in the more popular sport of MMA as Bas Rutten, a UFC Hall of Famer, has no documented kickboxing record. I can find out that he won his first 14, lost the European Muay Thai title to Frank Lobman on 2/12/91, and then lost this match, his final kickboxing match, but I can't find out who he beat or the name of this other loss. In his biography, Bas talks about the match, and even he only describes the opponent as "A French guy". I would have guessed this was more toward Bas' first fight because he's a green brawler. There's some great action here because of that, though the fight is really rudimentary from a technical perspective, with Bas not showing a lot of the standup brilliance we'd come to expect from him in Pancrase. The opponent, it sounds like the announcer calls him Alexis something, but I can't really understand the guy, and they don't bother with graphics, has the reach advantage, so Bas just blitzes him the entire first round. 13 of Bas' 14 wins were 1st round knockouts, so this is a reasonable style for him to say the least. Certainly this all out in your face toughman brawling style wasn't predicated on winning lengthy bouts, but there's some other issues at play here. Bas said he got an infection a week before the fight, and then spent a couple days in jail over a street fight, so it wasn't that he didn't train hard, he was just depleted to the point he should have just postponed. Bas gets knockdowns in the 1st, but can't quite put the Frenchman away, but it's Bas who looks like he's ready to keel over in the 2nd. Bas claims this wasn't purely fatigue, but the medicine he was taking for the infection causing shortness of breath and his body to lock up. His opponent was gassed and certainly a lot more battered, but Bas was forced to manage himself now. He tried to deal with his physical situation by retreating to the ropes after a semi aggressive shot or two, stuck using them for support while he hoped to recover enough to be able to throw another strike. He managed to actually move enough to his left to evade a big right hand, and fire back with a backfist, but much to his dismay, they ruled that backfists were illegal. The opponent was leaning over the ropes, looking half dead, but Bas still recovered less during the break, a clear sign that something was severly wrong. Bas took 1 step out of the corner on the restart, but slowly retreated and turning his back to surrender to the lack of oxygen. Bas was extremely pissed at the criticism he got after this fight to the point he vowed to never fight in The Netherlands again, hence the nearly 2 year layoff before he resurfaced on the 1st Pancrase show.

The main event featured Frank "The Animal" Lobman vs Peter Aerts, and the energy before and during this match was palpable. Lobman was the favorite going into this match, as he was undefeated, but Aerts has had an impressive run so far, despite being early on in his carrer.

Round 1 started with Aerts looking for a clinch early, but suffering some brutal hooks for his trouble. He then shifted gears a bit and tried to use his amazing reach advantage to keep Lobman at a distance, but this only worked sporadically, as Lobman was able to power through most of the time with a low kick, or overhand right. Round 1 ends with a definite nod to Lobman.

The tide shifted in round 2, as Aerts grabbed a Thai clinch, and held on for dear life for most of the round, while assulting Lobman with knees and vicious thigh kicks. Lobman was completely neutered in Round 2, but came back strong in the 3rd , as Aerts continued his clinch strategy, only to find himself on the receiving end of short hooks everytime he tried, and wasn't able to effectively maintain a clinch more than a few seconds at a time. Towards the end of the round Aerts tried to back off and revert to his rangey attacks, but it was too late, as Lobman took this round.

Round 4 sees the clinch of doom working again for Aerts, as he is able to maintain control and unleash some more knees. Aerts isn't able to keep it going as long as he was in round 2, as Lobman is able to sneak a couple of bombs through, but the entire fight changed in an instant when Aerts went for a high kick, and Lobman wasn't able to block in time. Lobman went down, and was barely able to get back up. Aerts was able to capitalize on this and scored another knockdown shortly afterwords, which is going to force Lobman to have to knock out Aerts if he is going to have any chance of winning this fight.

Round 5 shows Lobman going after Aerts right away, landing some nasty overhand punches, that gives Aerts some trepidation about going in for a clinch again. Lobman is too tired to completely follow up with the assult, and gives Aerts the chance to run the clock during this round, leading to an inveitable UD victory of Aerts. Fantastic fight that's highly recommended.

ML: Undefeated Lobman turned 36 tonight, defending the WMTA World Heavyweight Muay Thai Title against 21-year-old Aerts, who had a ton of potential, but had already lost to some more experienced fighters in Ernesto Hoost, Andre Mannaart, & Jan Wessels. This was a battle of experience vs. size, but Aerts fought smart, doing his best to exploit his 4.5 inch height advantage. Lobman could land a big strike coming in, but then Aerts would pull him into the thai clinch and work knees, doing his best to keep Lobman close enough to him that Lobman didn't have space to fight back with body shots or knees of his own. I thought Lobman should have used more low kicks, but even with the low kicks, he was usually stepping forward to throw them & thus moving into range for Aerts to clinch him. Lobman really had to make his strikes count because he generally landed 1 shot then ate several trying to fight his way free and back to the outside. The fight is competitive to an extent, but Lobman was digging himself a big hole on the scorecards, and the attrition game was definitely on the side of Aerts. Lobman really just walked into Aerts high kick after a restart in the 4th, seemingly shocked that Aerts made a move to attack when he was coming in rather than stick with his strategy of grabbing. Aerts was finally willing to slug it out in the pocket after this, opening up with punches & battering Lobman on the ropes enough to force the ref to give Lobman a count. Lobman managed to survive the round, and while things looked incredibly bleak for him in the 5th, he managed to gut out another big round of action where he did his best to get the KO. Aerts continued to push for the finish, which made for another exciting round, Lobman going for broke & Aerts exchanging with him because Lobman was deteriorated enough that he could now win these exchanges. The final 2 rounds made the fight for me because the first three, while good, were kind of repetitive because Lobman never found an answer to Aerts strategy, Aerts eventually just didn't need it any more & chose to slug it out rather than sit on his lead. Very good match.