Kakutogi Road: The Chronological History of MMA
Chapter 21: UWF-I Best in the World Decision Match 12/22/91 Tokyo Ryogoku Kokugikan
By Michael Betz & Mike Lorefice 10/8/20

We have now made it to the end of 1991, and the UWF-I is set to take us into the next stage of shoot-glories, as they are seemingly no longer content to keep their vison contained within Japan, but are now seeking world domination, as any great concept is wont to do. We are just coming off having covered the year end RINGS extravaganza, but as they say, "He who laughs last.."

It is 12-22-91, and this is the first time that we will be at the Ryogoku Sumo Hall, which is located in the Sumida ward within Tokyo, Japan, and is one of the countries preeminent venues for Sumo. It also has a history of holding special events for pro wrestling and has been host to the finals of New Japan Pro Wrestling's annual G1 Climax tournament as well as the Sakura Genesis and King of Pro-Wrestling events. Tonight, it will be containing the final apex of all things shoot related in 1991, as the UWF-I hopes to end the year with a PR stunt that will either wonderfully showcase the superiority of their brand of wrestling, or backfire horribly. As we have covered in previous columns, the UWF-I decided to book a fight between its premier star, Nobuhiko Takada, and the last man to face Muhammad Ali in the ring, Trevor Berbick, as well as schedule a bout between Billy Scott and James Warring. They also decided to branch out, and held a press conference in the United States on 10-29-91, in New York, to announce the Takada and Scott matches and then proceeded to hype this up within the Japanese media where they tried to play it off like this was of great interest to the American sports outlets, when in reality it gained little to no attention within the United States at that time.

Thanks to an interview that we did recently with Billy Scott (which you should check out right now, if you have not done so) we were able to learn a lot about this event, and one of the things that Scott shared with us was that by this time the UWF-I had genuine ambitions to go global and move into the American market, and while that didn't wind up happening, it is interesting to note that they had the desire to do so, whereas PWFG seemed content in being a low-key promotion, and while Rings certainly had international ambitions, the United States never seemed to be part of them until the final couple years of the promotion.

The first match of the evening will be between Hiromitsu Kanehara and Masakazu Maeda. Kanehara was an absolutely fantastic talent and may be one of the most underrated figures from this era. Like Tamura, he was excellent both as a pro wrestler and a shooter, although to the unlearned his MMA record might indicate otherwise. While his 19-27 win/loss stats are true, further examination shows that he often faced a murderers row of opponents in their primes, and gave many of them a very hard time, including Ricardo Arona, Matt Hughes, Dan Henderson, Mirko Cro Cop, and Wanderlei Silva. His best win was possibly his hard-fought victory against Jeremy Horn in the A-Block of the 1999 King of Kings tournament, for the RINGS promotion. In the days to come, we will look forward to covering him in more detail.

This will be the debut for Maeda as well, and strangely he only wrestled a total of 6 times, all within the span of a year, and all against Kanehara. The match starts with Maeda taking a light-on-his-feet kickboxing approach and throwing some crisp high kicks towards Kanehara, but couldn't maintain the offense for too long before being taken down and put into an ankle lock, thus deducting a point via a rope escape. What followed next, was another 14 minutes of what turned out to be a very well rounded and nicely paced match. There was plenty of everything here, submissions, striking, suplexes, and reversals, but everything was blended together well, and turned out to be a great way to set the tone for the evening. You could tell that Kanehara was the better of the two men, and was carrying Maeda by allowing him some offensive moments, but Maeda gave a good showing of himself, and makes me wonder why he never did anything outside of wrestle Kanehara, as he seemed to have enough potential to grow into being a solid talent. The match was ruled a draw, despite Kanehara being ahead on points 9-4. Unlike Rings, which will award the victory automatically to the fighter ahead on points, apparently the UWF-I defaults to a draw if the contest goes to the time limit.

ML: The exciting thing about this show was not the dopey boxers, even though shoots are welcome, but rather the bright young talent on display with the return of Kakihara and the debuts of Kanehara & other Maeda. While Kanehara tends to not be well respected in MMA because people know him from losing to guys who often had 50 to 100 pounds on him, he was immediately quite good in works, and surely would have had a more reasonable MMA career had he started sooner & had a 145 pound division to compete in, rather than taking on Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, Mirko CroCop, Ricardo Morais, & Alistair Overeem. Maeda's career didn't last long, but this was the classic undercard fued of the early UWF-I days, with their bouts in early 1992 already becoming highlights of the promotion, if not stealing the show entirely.

Right away we can see Kanehara using the more evolved level of grappling that Tamura employs that revolves around chaining quick, deceptive movements. He was changing levels, trying to fake Maeda out so it was more difficult for him to win the scrambles. Maeda was more of a striker, and Kanehara keyed on his kicks, looking to catch one to initiate a grappling exchange. What's so impressive about Kanehara is his confidence. Maeda, while certainly already decent, was more hesitant and prone to hedging on his strikes, whereas Kanehara already worked like a veteran, pulling off high level sequences as if they were second nature because he's been doing them all his life.

In traditional pro wrestling, it's easy to tell the rookies matches as they are either really basic or just kind of short and limited, but none of those characteristics were present here. It's more like Kanehara was out to steal the show, and truly believed himself capable. They went through most of the points, with Kanehara mounting a 5 point lead despite Maeda having a few knockdowns with flying knees and palm strikes, but being unable to put Maeda away before time expired for the draw. Forget about this merely being a great debut or even rookie match, although Maeda could use a little more menace on his shots, this was one of the better worked shoots of the year. Kanehara would be an easy pick for rookie of the year, if not for the beyond exceptional competitioin of Volk Han. ***1/4

Next up is foot-fighting phenom Makoto Ohe vs. Vince Ross. One must wonder what Ohe's state of mind going into this was, as he suffered his first loss last month via a devastating spinning kick delivered to his midsection, courtesy of David Cummings. Vince Ross is a WKA Canadian champion, so I can see him as being another interesting opponent for Ohe, and I suspect that he will give him a hard time, if he can survive Ohe's low kicks long-enough to box with him. Ohe comes out aggressively against Ross from the onset, pelting him with thunderous kicks, which caused Ross to quickly clinch up, and to his credit, fight back with several stiff knees once inside. After the break, Ross seemed to cautiously push forward towards Ohe, really trying to time his next attack, which seemed to give Ohe some pause. While Ross does not seem to have anywhere near the kicking acumen that Ohe has, he is doing a good job of being patient, and throwing some nice bombs from a distance. Ohe was the first to score a knockdown however, when he caught a slow kick from Ross, and pelted him in the jaw for his trouble. Ross gets up, doesn't appear to be hurt, and round 1 ends.

Round 2 starts and it would appear that Ohe got a major boost of confidence and is starting to smell blood in the water. He aggressively attacks Ross, who conversely seems to have lost the poise he had in the prior round. Ohe continues to maul Ross, when out of desperation he starts throwing some wild uppercuts, in which one lands, knocking Ohe down. Ohe now appears to be dazed, and is acting much more cautious now, circling around Ross and is attempting to avoid him. Ross keeps pressing forward with punches, which are now much harder to land now that Ohe is on the defensive, and just when it seems like he may be in danger of punching himself out, he winds up breaking through Ohe's wall, and knocks him down again, this time for good with another uppercut. Good fight, with an unexpected ending. I really thought that Ohe was going to murk Ross in round 2, and he almost succeeded, but Ross's desperation uppercut was all it took to turn things around. This is another case study in the ancient style of North American kickboxing, and shows that despite his amateur kicking abilities, his strong boxing was enough to succeed against a much more well-rounded fighter like Ohe. This is now the 2nd victory in a row for shiny-pants footfighting in the UWF-I, and I give the matchmakers credit for giving Ohe another decent opponent.

ML: Ohe has a real opponent again in Vince "The Rocket" Ross, a Canadian kickboxing champion who lost a WKA Welterweight Title Unification match to the American champion Hector Pena in Los Angeles at the start of the year. While Ohe is clearly the better athlete and more powerful striker, Ross does a good job of befuddling him, using the jab to keep distance. It feels like Ross is really looking to counter and is content to bide his time, but at the same time, because Ohe is usually at the end of his jab, Ross is able to rack up numbers on him. Ohe gets a quick knockdown, but never really got going or found any sort of consistency. In the little time actually spent fighting inside, Ross was able to drop him twice with uppercuts, finishing Ohe off the 2nd time.

Next up is Jim Boss vs Masahito Kakihara. We haven't seen Boss since the 7-30-91, and it would appear that he has been making good use of his time, working on improving his mullet game since we last saw him. Kakihara, on the other hand, has not been with us since the inaugural UWF-I event where he had a good match with Tamura. The match starts with Kakihara lighting Boss up like a Christmas tree, with the stiffest palm strikes we have seen so far in this promotion. It only takes a few seconds of this barrage to cause Boss to suffer a knockdown, and for a moment I'm wondering if we are going to have a shoot on our hands. That turns out to not be the case, as Kakihara lets Boss take him down once the fight restarts, but once it does hit the ground, Boss lays into Kakihara with some very stiff forearm shots, followed with a hard suplex, and a soccer kick to the back of Kakihara.

Kakihara gets back up and once again completely lays into Boss with some more 100% stiff palm strikes. After the restart, things go back to normal and Kakihara allows Boss to take him down again and attempt a rather pitiful armbar. Kakihara grew bored of Boss' slow motion attempts to take his arm, and counters this with a fierce heel-hook, causing a rope-escape. To add insult to injury, Kakihara kicks Boss in the head once the fight is restarted, which now ends the fight altogether.

This was probably the most unique fight that we have witnessed so far in that it was a work, but with the striking (outside of the final knockout kick, which was pulled) being 100% stiff to the point that it's clear to see why this type of fight wasn't attempted more often, as striking this stiff in a work could possibly lead to unexpected outcomes where the wrong person could easily get injured or knocked out. That said, this was super entertaining, albeit short.

ML: This was as it should have been, the clumsy stiff Takayama holding the ropes open for the hyper energetic Kakihara, who immediately ignites the crowd and incites the opponent with a blistering series of lightning fast palm strikes. Boss answers with a suplex, and soccer ball kicks him to extract some revenge and get over as the heel, pushing the ref out of the way when he's warned for his shady tactic. Boss' wrestling was still unconvincing, and the ground has never been Kakihara's strength anyway, so the few times Kakihara surrendered takedowns weren't the bright spots of this short match that Kakihara won with a high kick, but Kakihara got over big in his return, establishing himself as a fiery competitor with Jeff Speakman-esque skills.

Next up, is Tom Burton (who it appears was forcibly pulled away from the squat rack, just long enough to get this match underway) vs Yuko Miyato. This should turn out to be the classic tale of the swift vs the strong, as Miyato looks like The Flash compared to Burton, but of course can't match his size or strength. This wound up not being the case, mainly due to Burton. He looked fine when it was standing, or when he was throwing Miyato around the ring, but when the fight did go to the ground, he seemed very hesitant, and wound up coming across as very slow, and awkward, as a result. Miyato did not do much to help this situation, as not only did he look bored throughout, but did things like at one point hitting laughably unbelievable suplex on Burton, as well as a very poor armbar attempt. The ending turned out to be decent as Miyato hit an explosive Ippon-Seoinage (one arm shoulder throw) and followed up with a quick armbar, which ended the match. This was unfortunate as Burton was looking a lot better the last time, when we saw him during his tag-match at last months event, but here he seemed to regress back to his lumbering ways. The match was quick at 7 minutes, and would have been fine as an opener to a different card, but since we are coming off three exciting fights, this wound up killing the momentum.

ML: This match was fine. It suffers from the same old problem that never seems to bother any promoter, in that it's really obvious that these guys have neither the grappling talent of Kanehara nor the striking talent of Kakihara, yet we are supposed to care more about this match between performers who have been rendered second rate by the guys who came on before them because they are bigger names. Miyato is a guy who can rise to the level of the best performers, but also fall to the level of the inferior ones. I thought he did fine here, though because the match wasn't that long, both could have been a bit more energetic. The biggest issue is that they didn't so much work together to develop interplay in any of the aspects, Miyato just showed off in standup then Burton slammed him down then grinded him on the canvas. This was decent, but it's not strengthening Miyato's bid for a slot in the top 5 shoot workers of the year list.

Now we will hopefully see a better example of monster vs machine in Kiyoshi Tamura vs Gary Albright. The match starts and right away this is looking much sharper than the preceding match, as both are moving smoothly and logically. Albright starts by using Tamura's forward momentum to catch him in a big slam, but Tamura will never stay in one position for long. Albright tries to keep Tamura pinned down, but Tamura is slithering and cartwheeling out of whatever predicament that he is finding himself in. Tamura was keeping the pressure on with inventive kneebar attacks until Albright drew first blood with some kind of weird neck crank that cost Tamura a rope escape, and was immediately followed up with one suplex after another, that eventually cost Tamura all of his points. Surprisingly, I found this to be rather fun. Tamura did a great job making Albright look good, and like he belonged in the same ring as him, and even how he lost had a nice logic to it. Tamura was able to make a good showing of himself as the quicker, and more superior grappler, but one that succumbed to the power of an endless wave of suplexes from an uncaring behemoth. While this was total pro wrestling theater, it worked well, and was light years better than the Burton/Miyato match.

ML: The first of many matches that kept Tamura from ever being the man in UWF-I. He always had the best matches, and got great reactions, but they never let him beat Takada and Vader at all, or Albright until Albright had 1 3/4 feet out the door to All Japan, so they ultimately never had any more big matches once Takada vs. Vader & Albright ran their course. This particular loss to Albright wasn't terrible, especially since it soon sent Albright into a big main event with Takada, but growth isn't shown when people are still just beating and losing to the same people 3-4 years later, as was the case in this promotion.

This never felt like a Tamura match, as Gary is too lumbering to really work with him. At least it wasn't another cartoon, as Albright's previous matches had been. Tamura made Gary work a little, but basically was only allowed to resist what Albright was trying to do to him, and even then he mostly just did his job, which unfortunately was simply to make Albright look good. Tamura had a counter or two, but Albright was always dictating, and it was clear that he was simply too big for Tamura, again, glass ceiling. This was the worst match so far as it was neither competitive nor compelling in any way, and obviously Tamura should never be in the worst match on any show.

There comes a time in every zebra-warriors life, where they have to come face to face with the circus performer that wishes to enslave them, and now that moment has arrived for Yoji Anjo, as he must face Bob Backlund for the first time. Backlund had the dubious talent of somehow being able to offset his serious amateur wrestling persona with facial expressions that would cause other WWF characters like The Mountie , or Mantaur to accuse him of being too over the top. Things begin with the ref explaining the rules to the two contestants, and Backlund spends a seeming eternity with the ref differentiating between his elbow and his forearm. After the kinesiology lesson is concluded, the match is underway with Anjo rushing Backlund and attempting an enziguri kick that misses completely. Anjo continues to press the attack, this time with some rather stiff slaps to Backlund, and while he attempts a throw, Backlund was briefly able to counter with an abdominal stretch, which he tried to complete on the ground (at which point it would have been similar to a modern day "twister" a la Eddie Bravo) but Anjo scrambled and escaped. The rest of the match was mostly Anjo in high-octane mode, constantly pressing the action to Backlund. Outside of a few occasions where Backlund was able to get a positional advantage, it most mostly a one-way showing in Anjo's favor as Backlund simply does not have the submission or striking acumen to make a very diverse showing. This wasn't bad, thanks to Anjo's boundless energy, and because he wisely chose to make most of his strikes rather stiff, but Backlund is too late to the shoot-style party to really contribute a lot, outside of his name value. The match ends when Backlund counters Anjo's judo with his chicken-wing submission, which may sound good on paper, but it wound up looking as out-of-place as a wino invited to a Hamptons cocktail party, in what was an otherwise decent match.

ML: Kind of an odd match. Anjo tried really hard to make it good, blitzing Backlund from every direction. Backlund really had a hard time figuring out what Anjo was going to do, or keeping up in any way. He was never able to put his stamp on the match, for better and worse. The match probably wouldn't have been as good if Anjo let Backlund to his shtick, but shooting also isn't a style that really works as a total one man show. Ultimately, this was okay, but not as good as Backlund's previous match with Takada, even though Anjo has been worlds better than Takada this year.

Now it is time for what I'm hoping will be the best match of the evening, a bout between all-around-awesome Kazuo Yamazaki, and Tatsuyo Nakano. We at Kakutogi HQ have been spending the last few months mourning the career-ending squash that Nobuhiko Takada put him through at the 10-6-91 event, and as acceptance is the final stage of recovery, I have now learned that I must simply accept that from here on out I can only look forward to Yamazaki putting forth a great showing within the confines of being a mid-card player, as any hopes of him being a top star are now dead and buried. The match starts with Yamazaki slyly stalking Nakano, slowly approaching his prey before landing a thunderous snapping kick to his midsection. This immediately prompts Nakano to take his chances on the ground, and after quickly taking Yamazaki down to the mat, we get a protracted leg-lock battle that comes to a crescendo when Nakano is able to eke out a STF crossface, but opts to give up the hold and stand back up.

After the restart, Yamazaki subtly tempts Nakano with his right arm in a gesture to initiate a tie-up, but as soon as Nakano takes the bait, he is swiftly kicked for his trouble. He goes back to the same trick a second time, but Nakano wisens up, and simply grabs the next kick, and takes Yamazaki back down to the mat. This time Nakano forgoes the leg-attack strategy and seems to eventually consider an armbar attempt from the mount position, but wisely decides to change his mind, and simply kicks Yamazaki in the ribs as he stands back up. Yamazaki continues to press the attack with more sharp kicks, landing a nice one to Nakano's midsection, but like last time, missed on the follow up, where he aimed another kick at Nakano's head, only to get taken down again. Nakano wound up landing in a rather awkward position, which gave Yamazaki an opening to slap on a rather evil-looking toehold but was too tangled up to get enough space to properly torque the hold for a finish. This led to a futile effort, and Nakano was able to simply rotate out, and stand back up.

The rest of the fight continued to be a contest between Yamazaki's sneaky (but not always successful) kicking vs Nakano's takedown skills and strength. Only the 2nd half of the match started to see a natural escalation of the violence and output of both men. Yamazaki wins at the 13:23 mark with an armbar. This was an excellent match in my opinion, due to the subtly involved as opposed to any flashiness. This wasn't the kind of sound and fury you would see in a Tamura or Volk Han match, but rather a nuanced simulation of what would later become your typical wrestler vs kickboxer style shoot (albeit far more entertaining). Yamazaki would try and craftily time his kicks but would only succeed about 50% of the time before getting forced to the ground by Nakano. While Yamazaki does not possess the slick athleticism of a Tamura, his cerebral approach to this style is very welcome, and caused the pendulum for this evening to swing back up from the last two matches.

ML: Yamazaki has seemed something of a fish out of water in UWF-I, as all the other guys who have backed off entertainment in favor of realism went to PWFG. Nakano has been rather uninspiring this year, and is one of the least realistic of the UWF-I performers, simply because he hasn't modernized his game from what he learned in judo & pro wrestling. This was also a rather odd story from Yamazaki in that Yamazaki is actually better on the mat than in standup while Nakano is better in standup than on the map, but they mostly reversed those roles here with Yamazaki chipping away with low kicks, but Nakano catching them or just waiting for an opportunity to clinch and throw Yamazaki so he could work his limited submission game. Yamazaki did a good job of countering though, and managed to keep Nakano in a more credible mode, with Nakano picking a few good opportunities to gamble on pro wrestling, such as an elbow drop attempt when he got off the mat quicker. This was a good peformance from Yamazaki, and I found the match interesting, but the failing was that they weren't able to make it feel intense or urgent enough to connect with the crowd until the finishing sequence, so it came off rather flat even though it was technically a lot better than anything but the opener. Their 5/4/90 match was much better because it was really hard fought and much more consistent, with Nakano doing some headbutts from the top & getting his bloody nose early, among other things done to keep the bout steadier and seeming to be an important hard fought almost grudge battle they had to dig deep for, which kept the audience engaged throughout.

Now for a historically important match in the annuls of MMA history, the bout between Billy Scott vs James Warring. We could not have interviewed Scott at a better time, as he really shed a lot of light on the events leading up to this fight, as well as the next bout between Takada and Berbick. These last two fights of the evening were basically a publicity stunt that may have been the first major competitive move by the three shoot-style promotions to move the needle and get some notoriety outside of their normal circles. While the PWFG had already beat the UWF-I to the punch with a legit shoot between a kickboxer and wrestler with the Lawi Napataya vs Takaku Fuke, you would never have known it at the time, had you been living outside of Japan, unless you were one of the very few connected to the prevailing tape traders of the day, and happened to get your hands on a fresh VHS copy of that particular event. Even that Fuke/Napataya match was just kind of thrown into the middle of the card without any fanfare, so it wasn't like Fujiwara was trying to make a major statement with it, but probably just assumed that his wrestler with some Gotch-styled shoot training would easily dispatch of the kickboxer, not realizing what he really had on his hands. The UWF-I didn't really understand what it hand on its hands either (as we are about to see in greater detail) but at least they understood it was a unique spectacle, and were wise to try and promote as such, even if the results didn't quite go they way they intended.

After various clips of press conferences leading up to this evening, and a heartfelt introduction from Lou Thesz, we are underway with round 1. The round starts and right away Scott is pelted with a couple of low kicks that seem to take him by surprise. Warring goes for a third kick, and Scott wisely takes him down and attempts an ankle-lock but Warring wisely scrambles towards the ropes like a wounded animal. I am already seeing how this is going to be another disaster in the vein of the Napataya/Fuke match, as having unlimited rope escapes is going to make a tremendously long evening for everyone involved. At least the UWF-I is using a much larger ring than the one that the PWFG used, but this is probably going to be offset by the extraordinarily long reach of Warring, who will probably be able to scramble to the ropes from just about anywhere, unless Scott can manage to get him right in the center of the ring. The rest of round 1 sees Scott continue to take more punches and kicks, until he is finally able to secure a single leg for a takedown, but by the time he is deep enough to get him down, Warring is able to get his arm around the ropes. I do have to say that while this isn't going to win Warring any points for excitement, he is utilizing a very sound strategy here, and I'm also impressed with his stance. He is taking a fairly low kickboxing stance, leaning forward on his lead leg, which not only gives him a good base making it more difficult for Scott to shoot in, but will also increase his ability to sprawl. This is something that Warring figured out all the way back in 1991, while the first several years of the UFC saw kickboxers and traditional martial artists fight grapplers standing straight up, which is a terrible idea. Round 1 ends with Scott getting knocked down with a right hook, but the bell rings right after he gets back up.

Round 2 starts, and Warring is continuing to use his extensive reach to keep jabbing Scott in the stomach. Finally, Warring works up the nerve to start throwing some kicks, and Scott uses it as an opportunity to press the takedown, but to Warring's great credit, he is doing a good job sprawling, and is forcing Scott to work hard to complete the takedown, which is also causing Scott to have to push him closer to the ropes in order to do so. Now it's clear that Scott has no way of winning this match within his current skill set. He would have to be able to stand and bang with the far better striker in Warring, which isn't an option, or if he was versed in judo as opposed to wrestling, he might be able to set up a throw, or circular based takedown which would be more likely to get the fight to the center of the ring, but that isn't in the cards either, and lastly if he had a background in BJJ (which isn't even on the radar yet) he could pull guard, and try to work a submission off of his back, but that is also out of the question. You can clearly see that the UWF-I made the same error in judgement as the Fujiwara group by not realizing the absurdity of having unlimited rope escapes in a mixed-fight, only this is a much more high-stakes showing, and the risk of embarrassment to the organization is much higher. Round 2 ends, but not before Scott was able to get a takedown, and briefly put Warring in a rather nasty looking toehold that looked like it could have done some damage, before Warring was able to get another rope escape.

Round 3 saw Warring moving much more cautiously than before, and I have to wonder if that ankle-lock/toehold that Scott put him in during the last round may have hurt him more than he is letting on. During our interview with Scott, he mentioned having heard several pops when he had Warring in that hold, before the rope escape, so it is entirely possible.

Round 4 further convinces me that something happened to Warring, as he simply isn't engaging with the same aggressiveness as the first two rounds. He is still able to land a few low kicks, and even landed a nice side kick at one point, and was able to get off a few punches, before backing off once Scott responded with a missed double-leg attempt. Warring is fighting very safe, but Scott isn't helping matters, as the only time he seems to be willing to engage is to try and takedown off of close-range punches from Warring. Scott really needs to start getting inside and fighting from the clinch, but I understand his apprehensiveness trying that against a skilled boxer like Warring.

Scott seemingly read my mind and became way more irritated and aggressive in round 5. He wisely pushed Warring into the corner and starting laying into him with some palm strikes, before attempting a standing guillotine choke, but was quickly broken up by the ref when the two of them starting to spill out of the ring.

Round 6 sees Scott continuing to employ the corner strategy, but is more cautious this time, which allows Warring to keep him at bay with more low jabs, and an overhand right. Scott eventually gets the takedown, but again is useless as it just forced Warring into the ropes, for the instant break.

Round 7 begins with a gravelly American voice yelling, "Get em' in the center Billy!" of which I wholeheartedly agree. Scott is getting clearly frustrated at this point, as now when he presses Warring into the ropes he does not bother with a break until completely forced off by the referee. Warring landed several unanswered low kicks, and a couple of nice punches, before Scott lost his composure and threw Warring over the top rope, and out of the ring. The round ends right afterwards.

Round 8 starts with Warring landing a couple more low kicks, before Scott just shoves him out of the ring again, and now I'm beginning to wonder if Scott doesn't even care about winning this fight anymore, as much as he just wants to irritate and fluster Warring. The rest of the fight sees Scott determined to see how many times he can force Warring out of the ring and make him eat a couple of shots before the ref is able to stand them back up. The fight ends at the end of the tenth round, with both sides claiming victory, but the actual 2-1 split decision going to Billy Scott. As much as I like Scott, and am glad that he won, I have to be objective and say that the fight should have probably been awarded to Warring, as he simply landed way too many strikes, to be offset by Scott's occasional takedown. Of course, I am not sure what the exact judging criteria the UWF-I was employing here, but I think any modern reading of this fight would support my conclusion.

While I would not blame anyone for accusing this fight of being more boring than a midnight marathon of Manimal, I found it to be quite fascinating on a historical level. It entertained me the same way that a chess match would, and we have to give it some credit for being the first (and likely one of the very few that we will witness) shoot in the UWF-I. Warring fought a smart match, and used the rules to his advantage, while Scott simply didn't quite have the toolbox yet to overcome the rules handicap and his opponent's approach. If his grappling were at the level of a Funaki or Suzuki, he would have probably been able to get a clean win, but otherwise he was placed with an impossible situation, and really we should blame the brass of the UWF-I for putting him in this position to begin with. To be fair, Scott did reveal in his interview that the only way that Warring would take this fight is if it had unlimited rope escapes, so credit to Warring for being smart enough from the outset to have an idea of what he was getting himself into, but surely the powers that be could have found another worthy opponent that would have agreed to a more sensible limit of 10 rope escapes.

ML: Warring was arguably one of the better martial artists of his era, though that was an era where the only way to actually make money, at least in America, was boxing, so we'll never truly know. Though Warring was the current IBF World Cruiserweight boxing champion, and surely could have had a more impressive bank account simply from defending that title, he continued to compete in kickboxing, where he at some point held titles from at least the WKA, KICK, PCK, and FFKA. Warring was also trained in karate, which along with boxing he would later officiate. Even though he was past his prime at nearly 37, he made it to the final of his lone MMA event, WCC 1 on 10/17/95, losing to the legendary Renzo Gracie. Though Warring never fought Ali or Tyson like Berbick did, he was not only a much more well rounded martial artist, but also still on top of his game at this point, whereas Berbick was 37 and had lost his recent big matches to Carl Williams & Buster Douglas, taking him out of serious contention for the boxing titles people have heard of.

Warring really understood distance, and just fought a great game here to totally neutralize Scott. He kept putting out the jab to keep Scott away, and would follow it with a big right when he was able to get Scott to bite on it, quickly showing he could drop Scott with a single connection. Warring was not afraid to use his low kicks, and did a nice job of peppering Scott's lead leg to reduce his ability to shoot. Scott needed to do something to distract Warring so he could get a takedown, or at least earn Warring's respect so he had to consider the threat of, well, anything. Unfortunately, whereas Warring's jab was good enough to force Scott to deal with it, Scott was unwilling to engage Warring in striking at all, which really limited his ability to do anything given Warring was too smart to overcommit. Most of the time, Scott just kept his hands up & did his best to defend.

Warring fought a good 2 rounds, but Scott was able to get an ankle lock of a takedown at the end of the 2nd, and even though Warring immediately got the ropes, Warring's ankle was clearly injured, thus limiting his mobility and ability to bounce and put weight on it for the rest of the fight. Warring did his best to disguise this, but was much more flatfooted after this, and was no longer attacking on more than a stay slightly active level, but Scott still refused to go on the offensive the next 2 rounds, so he continued to lose round after round, even though Warring's output was down to Mayweather level.

Scott began to turn the fight in the 5th when he finally rushed Warring into the corner, getting a guillotine after the ref ignored Warring's rope grab, though they went through the bottom rope so it was quickly broken. Scott finally caught a kick in the 6th, but Warring just grabbed the ropes. It quickly became clear that whatever the rules were supposed to be, Warring wasn't going to get warned or docked or anything for grabbing the ropes, so Scott really had no chance of winning the fight the same way Takaku Fuke had no chance of beating The Sultan of Slime. Scott seemed to realize this too, and stop caring, even though the crowd was rooting for him, he essentially played heel, just holding on to his submission attempts despite the ref doing his best to ignore Warring grabbing the ropes then taking his time urging for sportsmanship. The crowd was as frustrated with Warring taking the logical way out as Scott was though, and only grew more against Warring.

The high takedowns were working for Scott in the sense that he could drive Warring into the ropes, but then he only had a few seconds to go for a guillotine before the restart, so it still couldn't amount to anything. The frustration built, and when Scott finally was supposed to break despite having lifted Warring onto his shoulders, he instead tossed him over the top with the suisha otoshi. If this was contested in a cage, or had penalties for rope breaks, Scott would have won the last 6 rounds. However, the way the rules were set up, he basically wasn't allowed to get more than a second of legal offense in, with most of his threatening and damaging being after he was supposed to break. Scott did get in a good knee to the midsection in the 10th, but basically even though he did the best he was allowed to in the final 6 rounds, Warring got to get in as many shots as he could before Scott pushed him across the ring only to be restarted. Scott nonetheless was awarded what appeared to be a Bisping decision, though it potentially had something to do with a very non-transparent scoring system that left penalizing rope escapes in the hands of the judges. Seemingly having the judges on their side with no accountability for if, when, and how much they were meting out punishment may have been one of the reasons UWF-I was willing to risk Takada shooting.

Now we have the main event, another mixed fight between Nobuhiko Takada and Trevor Berbick. The fight starts with Takada throwing a low kick, which completely baffles Berbick. Berbick immediately has a look of confusion, and complains to both the ref, and Takada, that there is not supposed to be any violence below the waist. The rest of this very brief fight consisted of Takada continuing to wail away against Berbick with more low kicks, and Berbick continuing to look completely puzzled as to what he got himself into. He finally had enough, left the ring, cussed Takada out, and claimed they changed the rules on him. If It was not for Billy Scott and his insightful interview, I would have probably gone the rest of my life pondering the outcome of this fight, but thanks to his insightful ways, I now understand that this was due to the scummy antics of his lawyer and manager. According to Scott, Berbick was adamant to his team that he did not want any low-kicks to be part of the fight, and was given assurances that they would take care of it, and behind his back they went ahead and worked out a deal with the UWF-I to allow the kicks, because that's the only way that they would also get paid, as the UWF-I wasn't willing to put on a fight that wouldn't allow low-kicks. In fact, I will go ahead and quote that portion of the interview, here is a small excerpt of what Billy Scott had to say about this: "Now the thing with Trevor Berbick against Takada, I do know that when we were in New York at that press conference, Trevor mentioned that he didn't want to have anything to do with kicks below the waist, and that's why during that fight you could see him waving his arms, and looking shocked. Now this is how bad people are..when we were at Mickey Mantle's restaurant, where the press conference was being held, his own people kept telling him that they would take care of it, and make sure that the fight had the stipulations that there wouldn't be any kicks below the waist, but the Japanese didn't want any of that, they wanted their style of fighting, against a boxer like that. They saw Trevor, and they saw someone with a big name that they could use, but had Trevor known that the fight was going to have kicks below the waist, he never would have taken it."

With all that said, it would be hard to blame Takada or the UWF-I for this fight, when it was Berbick's own people that sold him out, but it still led to a bizarre finish to this event.

ML: The rules for these wrestler vs. boxer matches are the main subject of controversy and debate. Before the fights, Miyato & Anjo demonstrated what you weren't supposed to be able to do, which was strike the face with a hand or knee from top position (though the fights never actually got this far), grab the ropes to avoid the wrestler taking you down, and scoot around on your butt like Inoki did to Ali so the boxer can't really punch the wrestler. There's no mention of low kicks, and Warring threw tons of them in the previous bout. There's also seemingly no teeth to any these rules, as Warring was able to grab the ropes at will without so much as a warning.

The controversy began before the fight even started, as Berbick dictated to the ref & Takada that he can't be kicked below the waist while the ref is going over the actual rules, just stating no elbows. This was supposed to elevate Takada's stardom, not just be a McNugget gold grab, so it would make absolutely no sense for UWF-I to put Takada in a shoot without allowing low kicks. Low kicks had always been legal in any Japanese kickboxing or karate contest, and they're basically the only thing Takada was good at that could help offset Berbick's far superior punching. You need the low kicks to be available to get the high or middle kick through when your punching is not a threat, and while Takada's wrestling and grappling were above Berbick's probably never trained them at all level by default, it's doubtful that they'd be worth anything when a larger man was really trying to beat on him, especially with unlimited rope escapes. If Takada didn't know this already, Berbick's petitioning were a gigantic cue to Takada to just go right after the legs, and Berbick immediately started complaining to the ref, who failed to enforce the nonexistent rule. Berbick never actually tried to fight, or defend himself against the kicks, which made Takada's life incredibly easy. Instead, Berbick just stopped after each one to complain, got no love, complained some more, then went back in his boxing stance, wash, rinse, repeat. Even a 2 year old would have wised up after the 2nd or 3rd kick, but this went on for nearly 3 minutes. Where Takada wound up looking like a dick is when Berbick grabbed the top rope, thinking he was now safe to complain to everyone, but Takada still kept attacking him anyway while the ref tried to wrestle Berbick's arm off the rope. Because Berbick was just standing in the corner arguing while holding the top rope for "safety", Takada was even able to get cheap shot high kick in. This was all about as difficult and honorable as stealing candy from a baby. At some point you thought Berbick would try to fight, but after taking so many kicks he didn't try to defend at all, his leg was probably too compromised to be of much use. After Berbick escaped the ring since the ropes weren't being honored, you could hear him bitching to his seconds "it's not in the rules, nothin' in the rules" and they respond "I told them", which seems to support the theory that Berbick himself didn't agree to low kicks, but UWF-I also didn't agree to Berbick's people's petition to actually make them illegal. Overall, Berbick just looked like a whiner & a pussy, and while Takada mostly looked cheap & opportunistic, if you want to be nice, because Berbick handled it so incredibly poorly and allowed Takada to emerge complely unscathed by never even firing a punch, Takada wound up looking like Superman with the mighty boxer cowering in fear to the point he had no option but to just run to the hills, run for his life.

Conclusion: Overall a great night, and a solid way to end the year. This was probably an inverse of what we saw in the year end Rings event, in that most of the undercard for that show was middling, where most of fights leading up to the main event were solid, but we were let down with an absolutely bizarre ending (though it wound up being possibly the only televised shoot victory that Takada can claim) that was preceded by an interesting and historically important fight between Warring and Scott, but one that will put most people to sleep outside of myself, and a few others. In other words, the UWF-I put on a much more entertaining event top-to-bottom than Rings, but Rings, especially with the arrival of Volk Han, seems to have a lot more potential in its trajectory, whereas it seems like the UWF-I is doomed to be treading water if they continue to tether all of their hopes into Nobuhiko Takada. Still, I found this to be enjoyable overall.

ML: The finish of the Takada/Berbick match wound up being pretty similar to the finish of the Minoru Suzuki vs. Apollo Sugawara SWS 4/1/91 match that turned into a shoot. While Sugawara eventually at least made attempts to defend himself before fleeing in protest, he clearly couldn't because he was too slow and had no idea how to throw a proper strike. On the other hand, history would likely have been much different if Berbick would have just fought because Berbick has a lot more striking technique than Takada, and is a much larger man who could have walked through the kick in order to fire back with his own combos. UWF-I would likely have been dead in the water had Takada faced any actual opposition here, or at least had to think about doing things that normal wrestling leagues do, such as promote more than one wrestler. However, rather than shattering the myth, by running away from a guy who he likely would have destroyed even with the rules not being in his favor, Berbick instead created the legend of Takada as a guy whose kicks are harder than a baseball bat that only the toughest UWF-I fighters were even willing to try to stand up to. Outside of beating Antonio Inoki, no win over anyone within the current spectrum of puroresu would likely have done near as much for Takada's myth, not because Berbick was worth that much on his own - I think if Takada just knocked him out in 30 seconds as he did with Mr. Bob it wouldn't have moved the lever all that much - but because this heavyweight champion boxer just cowered in fear at the idea of essentially just doing a freakin' kickboxing match with a guy who wasn't even a kickboxer. It was so unbelievably pathetic that Berbick quit rather than even mustering the courage to risk trying that it was almost otherworldly. Takada was a star before this to be certain, but I think this is really what made him a big show draw. Berbick just gifted him that aura & mystique. Although UWF-I still weren't as adventurous in their arena bookings as RINGS was, after this they were not only able to run Yokohama Arena, Nippon Budokan, & Ryogoku Kokugikan, but they were selling out even these big shows.

*In other news*

It is being reported that the PWFG is planning on running a card on 3-20-92 at the Knight Center in Miami with Minoru Suzuki, Masakatsu Funaki, Yusuke Fuke, Jerry Flynn, Duane Koslowski and Wellington Wilkins being scheduled to appear. This may be a response to being beat to the punch by the UWF-I, who was in New York in October for a press conference for their 12-22-91 event, and have also been rumored to be scouting out the Madison Square Garden arena as a possible future venue.

Akira Maeda's RINGS promotion drew 10,250 on 12-7-91 at the Ariake Coliseum, which is impressive as the venue only has a 12,000-seat capacity, and it's being reported that very few comp tickets were given away for this event. Also of note, Koichiro Kimura recently quit the W*ING promotion to be with this outfit, and also adds some grappling credence to the promotion as he is also a current S.A.W. (Submission Arts Wrestling.a submission grappling promotion started by former Karl Gotch student, Hidetaka Aso) champion.

A study was recently done in Los Angeles by a Dr. Bernd Weiss in which he claims to have proven that punches from 1st and 2nd degree black belts from shotokan karate have more deadly force against someone wearing body armor than a round fired off from a 9mm pistol. The study was conducted because Weiss ran into a lot of police officers that felt that their body armor would protect them from strikes from an assailant in addition to bullets. Weiss claims that a well-placed punch can do more than three times the damage than a round from a 9mm from a distance of 7 feet. According to Weiss, body armor gives its wearer a 33% greater chance of surviving a bullet attack, but that one is 18 times more likely to face an unarmed assailant. Weiss did not give a statistic on what the odds of being attacked by an unarmed 2nd degree karate black belt are, however.

Ramon Dekkers recently fought Sakmongkol Sitthichok at the Thailand Lumpinee stadium on 11-26-91 for the vacant IMF World Welterweight Title. Dekkers has been garnering quite the reputation in the last year, as he has made a concerted effort to face Thai champions on their home turf, and under their rules. He was even able to defeat infamously heavy puncher Superlek Sorn E-Sarn in August of 1990, where he acquired the Lumpinee Stadium Lightweight championship. While he did wind up losing a hard fought 5-round decision, he put up a great fight, and is destined for greatness if he continues in his winning ways.