Kakutogi Road: The Chronological History of MMA
Chapter 30: PWFG THE TOUGHEST OF THE TOUGH MEN 3/20/92 Miami, FL James L. Knight Center
By Michael Betz & Mike Lorefice 1/25/21

Every major brand that sticks around long enough is eventually faced with a decision to either step out into the forefront of the marketplace with original proactive marketing (which comes the risk of failure and embarrassment) or taking a more reactive approach by trying to play off current events or copying ideas from more successful competitors within their marketplace. The date is 3-20-92,but this axiom was just as true then as it is now. The PWFG has found themselves in a battle for supremacy within the shoot-style sphere, a conflict in which the successful promotion is going to come out intact with success and respectability as a genuine martial arts outfit in the eyes of the general public.

Unfortunately, Fujiwara and co. have found themselves in the unenviable position of having to react to some of the bold moves that the UWF-I have been making recently. By choosing to end 1991 with a mega spectacle with two shoots against well respected American boxers and loudly announcing what they were doing to anyone that would listen, they put themselves out in the front of the Japanese media as the forerunning martial arts promotion. Sadly, the irony is not lost on us as it was actually the PWFG that will forever have the distinction of having the very first post authorized MMA fight within a Japanese pro wrestling-based promotion (not counting the Ali-Inoki stunt) with their bout between the "Sultan of Slime'', Lawi Napataya and Takaku Fuke. Still, despite this important accolade they clearly had no idea what ground they were really breaking and certainly did not know how to meaningfully market/differentiate themselves from the rest of the puroresu pack, despite their innovative and realistic style. So, with that in mind, we see the first major moves from Fujiwara to try and react to these market forces before it is too late, by traveling to Florida and promoting a full show on American soil.

This was actually a courageous move that may have paid dividends (as we will look at in more detail later) because they beat the UWF-I to the punch. From our interview with Billy Scott, we learned that the UWF-I had serious aspirations of cracking into not only the American market, but the world writ large, with the lofty goal of becoming the number 1 combat sport in the world. At this stage, the UWF-I were looking into possibly renting out the MSG arena in New York, and as we have reported in previous columns, Lou Thesz has now taken a great interest in this promotion and has been in talks with various people in an effort to possibly start promoting American events. Being the first to promote in America was a forward-thinking step, what was not however, was having a press conference the day prior on 3-19-92 where it was announced that Masakatsu Funaki would be facing famed American boxer, Roberto Duran, in an upcoming PWFG event to take place in Japan. That is not to say that a matchup between Funaki and Duran couldn't be great, as it certainly wouldn't be hard to upstage the Takada/Berbick disaster, but the move in and of itself smacks of desperation.

ML: The general problem with these early stabs at promoting in America is the Japanese promotions had no broadcasting in place, so it was hard to get any mainstream American media to actually care about covering an event for an unknown promotion that, in their opinion, literally no one in their audience was going to be able to see. If Roberto Duran says "no mas" in a forest, and nobody hears him, does he still make a sound?

With all that said, we now find ourselves at the James L. Knight Center in Miami Florida, which is strategic ground as it is close to both performer Bart Vale, and PWFG's head booker/talent scout/grand poobah, Masami Soronaka. This event was preceded by three "amateur shootfighting" bouts before the main card, and thanks to our good friend Wiliiam Colosimo, we have been exposed to two of them. All six of these participants were students of Vale's along with a different referee, who was present for the undercard.  The first one was a pleasant surprise, a fight between John Lana and Herman Caicedo. This was a shoot, with rules similar to a pancrase bout, but far less restrictive. For example, strikes to the face had to be with an open hand, and there were rope escapes in effect, but soccer kicks, elbows, and knees to the head were all allowed. It felt like I was watching a USWF fight from the late 90s, but with less rules. It was a fast-paced fight that was a bit sloppy at times, but you could tell that both fighters had at least trained in all the ranges of a fight, even though they lacked the refinement of a Shooto fighter, or the positional awareness of a BJJ practitioner. This certainly felt way ahead of the curve (by American standards anyway) considering this was a little under two years before the first UFC took place, and this may have been the first real fight at an American pro wrestling event since the '30s (not counting matches that may have started as a work and devolved into a shoot). The crowd was really into this as well, even if they did not understand the nuances of what they were witnessing, which makes me think that there could have been a real market for this had it been advertised correctly. Taken in isolation this was hardly mandatory MMA viewing, but in historical context, this was fascinating, and an interesting look at what could have possibly happened had Fujiwara not lost most of his roster to the birth of Pancrase, and his audience to the rise of the UFC.

The 2nd bout of the undercard that we have available to us, a match between Ozzie Alvarez and Pedro Godrich was unfortunately not even in the same ballpark. I would classify this as an exhibition, and a sloppy one at that. It didn't seem like this was fixed or choreographed, but they were keeping their strikes towards each other as soft as Charmin, presumably because they were fellow students and didn't want to hurt each other. Their submission attempts seemed more genuine, but this basically boiled down to a messy sparring contest between two friends, and hardly worthy of being labeled a shoot.

Now onto the main course, but before we start, we are greeted to a long montage of several of the PWFG roster taking a trip to Karl Gotch's Tampa home on the 18th, where apparently working out in nothing but a speedo on a garage driveway is totally normal behavior. Karl Gotch puts Funaki, Suzuki, Fuke, and Takahashi through various interesting exercises, but while this was going on, I kept waiting for someone to bring Suzuki some pants, which sadly did not happen. After this excursion, we are taken to the press conference where a remarkably dapper Funaki and a considerably out of shape Duran are both speaking in their native tongue. All we are able to glean from this is that the two are set to fight at some point in the future, and for this we are glad.

The first match of the main card will be between Jerry Flynn and Kazuo Takahashi, who have both been on something of a tear lately with good output from both men in their last several outings. If Takahashi decides to go into all-out blitz mode for this match, it would be a welcome way to kick things off, for an audience that surely has no idea what to expect. True to form, Takahashi instantly shoots down low and slams Flynn, but Flynn simply has too much of a weight advantage, and easily stands back up. He is only able to fire off a few stiff slaps before Takahashi dives in for a successful kneebar, gaining a rope escape. Flynn tries to initiate some offense once they are stood back up, but Takahashi is able to not only shoot in quickly, but do it from an impressive distance, making it very difficult for Flynn to get more than a single strike in edgewise.  The tide finally turned, and saw Flynn get repeated knockdowns from kicking Takahashi in the midsection, eventually It's it's an ending the fight. This started out promising, but it felt very Roesched, and simply seemed a way to quickly put over the Florida native in front of his home state audience. Ok, but had the potential to be a lot better.

ML: You have to look at this as the introduction of the product to an entirely new audience, and in that respect this was clearly a success, at least as a match. You had two distinctly different styles, strategies that were easy to understand, and it was fast and pretty believable, at least in the sense that they were moving quickly and doing everything with a sense of urgency. Their approach allowed them to follow the shoots on the undercard without seeming out of place, more experienced and superior training being welcome attributes. It was too short to be a legitimately good match, but it was certainly good while it lasted, and set a good tone for the show, being a nice balance between credibility and entertainment.

Now we have a match between Dieuseul Berto and Takaku Fuke. Berto was a Haitian professional wrestler that transitioned to MMA in the later stages of his career, even appearing in both the inaugural UVF event, and UFC 10 all while being a regular fixture in the Japanese Battlarts promotion. Shortly after his UFC appearance he was in a major car accident, in which doctors told him he would never walk again. He was able to prove them wrong and wound up starting an MMA/Boxing gym. He eventually got to see his son Andre become a boxing champion, before passing away in late 2018. Here he will be facing the MVP of Fujiwara-Gumi, a man who has recently been making everyone he faces look good, despite the match length. This will be Berto's debut, so this should be interesting.

Right away we can see that Berto is a great athlete, who quickly lays into Fuke with some hard shots, and also shows a great sprawl when Fuke tries to counter with a takedown. After the takedown failed, we see Fuke get back up and throw some fairly tame kicks, and he appears to me to be taking it easy on the rookie. Berto, perhaps due to inexperience, doesn't show the same restraint for most of the match outside of letting Fuke fish for a couple of toeholds. This was another match that ended abruptly, this time a little past the 5 minute mark. Fuke was clearly more concerned with trying to carry Berto to a decent match, and while too short to be good, it at least shows that Berto could be a good hand with some refinement.

ML: Again, this is most likely a different match than they would have done for the Japanese audience. That probably help this match more than the last one given Berto was figuring things out on the fly, but this match was also clearly worse than the previous due to that. I'm not seeing Fuke as anywhere near the promotions MVP or best worker. He was fine here, but at the same time, really didn't do anything. The match was basically Berto's strikes, with Fuke only getting to tease the leglock finish. Berto was green, but clearly showed potential.

Next up is Masakatsu Funaki vs Mark Roesch. When we last saw Roesch, he was in a boring 18 minute affair with Fujiwara, so hopefully Funaki can pull something decent out of him. Right away we see some great footwork from Funaki as he quickly bounces in and out, throwing some fast leg kicks, and nicely bobbing and weaving in between landing palm strikes. All this smooth movement from Funaki is forcing Roesch to concentrate and carefully try and close the distance with Funaki for a takedown. Eventually Roesch is able to achieve that, but Funaki is slick off his back and easily manages to slither away and get back to his feet, via some nice hip movement. The most amusing part of this match came when Roesch botched a slam by accidently dropping Fuanki, and you could hear one of the members of the audience shouting to his friend (off camera) how Roesch was going "Powerslam him! Yeah, he's going to Powerslam him!" and when that didn't work, he followed up with, "Nah, he changed it to a backbreaker. Yeah, a backbreaker. He didn't do anything with that one!"

The rest of this bout went as well as can be expected with a man as limited as Roesch. For 11 minutes, Funaki parried and toyed with him, allowing him some moments of offense before putting him away. While this wasn't amazing by any means and was probably 2 minutes too long, at least it was a nice showcase for Funaki's legit skills, which are obviously being wasted in the rigidity of a pro wrestling environment. One can clearly see why he felt the need to start Pancrase, as it is almost like getting all dressed up and having nowhere to go. Here you have several men training and living like fighters, wanting to test themselves, but rarely given a genuine opportunity to do so, outside of gym sparring, and the occasional shoot, so the transition to Pancrase was an inevitability, it's just a shame that Fujiwara couldn't make that happen first, and thus avoiding the shame of dying a slow death for the last 2-3 years of its existence.

ML: This never felt like a Funaki match. Funaki is always in control, but here Roesch's wrestling had him mainly on the defensive, at least for long stretches until he got a reversal. We kind of keep seeing the same thing when the Japanese fighters face these strong one-dimensional American wrestlers, in that the match is mostly just wrestling practice, with the American controlling the majority before the Japanese fighter usually finds a submission. This was an even more bland variation of that than normal. Roesch is a proficient wrestler, but little more, and he's very by the numbers. Even with the striking, Funaki was mostly on the defensive. Though he made Roesch look like a fool avoiding his strikes, we didn't get much (counter) offense from him. Funaki, of course, won, but nothing he did here struck fear in the heart of Duran, or the millions of ignorant fans who believed boxing to be the preeminent combat sport.

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 evening. 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 only 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

And now, for the final moment of dread. The main event between Yoshiaki Fujiwara and Bart "America" Vale. I have no pretense going into this that there will be anything of value to behold, but hopefully I'm wrong, and through a combination of prayers, vitamins, and the strength of all the Miami Bartamaniacs, we will see Vale pull out a good match. Fujiwara enters the ring after being announced as the "Champion of the World!" which shows us that in 1992 all you needed was a mysterious Japanese dude to baffle and mystify a paying audience.

Vale starts by charging towards Fujiwara with an uncommon speed, but quickly sees his angular momentum used against him, as he is instantly torqued down to the mat, and mounted by Fujiwara. After getting back to their feet they both throw a bunch of silly movie kicks before taking it back down to the ground, only the energy from the raucous crowd is making this more entertaining than it has any right to be. The rest of the fight oscillated between silly theatrics in the standup and stasis on the ground portions, but between the energy of the crowd, and the fact that Fujiwara allowed Vale to defeat him via a knockout victory elevated this to passable hokum. However, I am left to ponder the question, "Is Bart Vale now the "Champion of the World?" Only time will tell.

ML: This fight is mostly notable for Bart Vale creating the fictitious Shootfighting Championship of the World for him to win from Fujiwara. It was one of his key fictitious "MMA" bragging points for the rest of his career, along with his upcoming worked win over the future World's Most Dangerous Man on 5/15/92, which he tried his best to make notable after Shamrock made it big in UFC. Boy, this match was a steaming pile! I may need to rethink my comments about this being the most realistic PWFG show. Fujiwara has seemingly been trying to improve his kicks, but they were truly dreadful today, just poor technique using nothing but the leg. Vale was hit and miss, as usual, but at least he knows how to kick properly, when he wants to. He dominated the standup, but Fujiwara could take him down, for brief portions. It was really hard to take anything they did seriously. They weren't purposely screwing around, but the action was so awkward and sloppy they just felt like wannabes playing at being real fighters. Vale finally won by count out, after knocking Fujiwara to the floor with a high kick. Definitely one of the worst matches we've seen so far.

Conclusion: As an isolated event this was almost a total failure with only one good match to be found. It did not help that this entire affair felt very Roesched from start to finish, which may have been caused by some technical aspects beyond their control. Still, it gained more success as an interesting historical look at what could have been the future of MMA in an alternate reality. Who knows. if Fujiwara had played his cards right, I could have possibly been writing a blog about the complete history of shootfighting right now, but he didn't, and I'm not. To be fair, there was probably very little Fujiwara could have done to make some serious inroads into the American market, with most of his key players being based out of Japan. Also, the only probable way into cracking the American zeitgeist at this time was to do what SEG did with the UFC, and initially promote it as a barely legal PPV spectacle of no holds barred bloodsport. That approach was the key to it becoming a hot property initially, but is also what almost killed MMA in this country for good, once John McCain crusaded against it, likening it to human cockfighting. Despite the uphill battle for the PWFG to try and break into the U.S., it would not have hurt to have some smarter booking at the helm. By taking a page out of the RINGS playbook, and mingling some shoots with the works, he may have had some better results. 

As it stands now, there is really no stopping this promotion from sliding into the "almost was" section of history. When you can only manage to put forth one good match on a card when you have so much talent at your disposal, this is a true indicator of your impending doom. I take no pleasure in writing that, as I would personally prefer to see the PWFG ascend to the top of the mountain, but it's easy to see why that never happened.

ML: For me the big problem with PWFG is they aren't mixing the matches up or bringing in new fighters to change the cards in any way. Even the best matches are lesser versions of previous incarnations, and when the previous incarnations are less than a year ago, that can't really be blamed on the usual problem of guys now being old and broken. This card was even worse than usual because they completely gave into the jingoistic underbelly, pitting an American against a Japanese fighter in every match.

*In other news*

The Martial Arts Japan Kickboxing Federation (MAJKF) recently held an exciting kickboxing event on 3-21-92 at Tokyo's Korakuen Hall. This event featured several exciting bouts, and saw a return of American phenom Manson Gibson, who is an athletic powerhouse, holds an impressive win over Shootboxing founder Caesar Takeshi, completely demolishing him in under a round. Here he faced a man simply known as Sajitkan. This evening also featured a main event between Kimihiko Akatsuchi and Toshiyuki Toki. Let's check in with Mike Lorefice for some analysis of the action:

Manson Gibson vs. Sajitkan 5R. Gibson is at the top of the list of kickboxers I want to see more of. He's an amazing athlete with great movement, expertly utilizing the side stance, mixing sidekicks to keep the opponent away from him while he tries to create angles for his spinning strikes. I'm probably making him sound like the typical defensive oriented karate fighter, but Gibson was a certifiable wildman who not only wasn't afraid to throw double digit spinning strikes in a round, but had the speed to actually connect with many of them even though was no secret that they were the main thing he was trying to set up. He put Sajitkan down with a spinning high kick in the second. Gibson apparently had five titles at this point, while Sajitkan was the number three ranked welterweight at Lumpinee Stadium. Sajitkan really had a tough time ever even getting into range, and the problem with fighting an opponent such as Gibson is eventually you get so far behind you just have to force your way into the pocket, and then you charge into his counter punch. Gibson had another knockdown with a big right hook at the end of the second when Sajitkan simply tried to get into range for a right low kick. Sajitkan still had to press forward in order to have a chance to land anything, so now Gibson was just ready to time him with a big right hook. There was another amazing spot in the third where Sajitkan leaned away from a spinning heel kick to the midsection, only to have Gibson follow with a spinning heel kick to the head for another knockdown! Just when you thought Gibson was going to emerge completely unscathed, Sajitkan began landing some right low kicks, and Gibson's movement was clearly compromised. Gibson backed into the corner after taking a low kick, and finally Sajitkan was able to utilize his clinch knees for the rest of the round, as Gibson opted to employ the losing strategy of trying to punch his way out. While Gibson still won the decision, it was at least a moral victory for Sajitkan to take the final round. Good match.

Bantamweight World #1 Decision: Kimihiko Akatsuchi vs. Toshiyuki Toki 5R. This match was a big deal in Japan because Akatsuchi, who was the flyweight and bantamweight champion in All Japan Kickboxing vacated and jumped to MAJKF, facing their bantamweight champion Toki in his promotional debut. Akatsuchi appeared to be the more talented fighter, but Toki was a natural bantamweight, and had a distinctive height and reach advantage. This wasn't fancy, but it was entertaining, as they stood toe to toe and slugged it out. The problem is even though Toki didn't specifically try to take advantage of his reach, the default distance made the fight Toki's boxing vs. Akatsuchi's kicking, with Akatsuchi coming up short on almost every elbow he attempted. When Akatsuchi was actually willing back out of the pocket, he usually landed his first shot stepping back in, and that was the only real success he had punching, yet he was largely unwilling to utilize much footwork outside of round two. Nonetheless, these were close rounds, and it didn't feel a Toki really took over until he cut Akatsuchi just outside the left eye in the fourth. The fight was growing more action packed and intense with each round, with the fourth and fifth being decidedly better than the first three. Akatsuchi's cause was certainly aided by a left hook knockdown in the fifth, which probably should have been ruled a slip given Toki tried to immediately follow with a right low kick and lost his balance. Whether or not it was actually a knockdown, ruling it one changed everything, as I only had Akatsuchi winning the second round, but a 10-8 round here suddenly made the fight a draw. Good match.