Kakutogi Road: The Chronological History of MMA
Chapter 40: UWF-I World First Year Shizuoka LIVE 7/12/92 Shizuoka Sangyokan
By Michael Betz & Mike Lorefice 6/28/21

"Tilting at Windmills" is an English idiom that denotes attacking imaginary enemies, oftentimes from a foolish or romantic naivete. This expression is taken from the classic novel Don Quixote by Spanish author, Miguel de Cervantes. In this novel, a man named Alonso Quixano loses his mind from reading too many heroic romance books, and decides to become a knight in order to restore a more chivalrous spirit to his nation. As he goes about his quest, it's quickly apparent that he is unwilling (or unable) to see the world for what it is and prefers living in his own illusion.

"Destiny guides our fortunes more favorably than we could have expected. Look there, Sancho Panza, my friend, and see those thirty or so wild giants, with whom I intend to do battle and kill each and all of them, so with their stolen booty we can begin to enrich ourselves. This is nobel, righteous warfare, for it is wonderfully useful to God to have such an evil race wiped from the face of the earth."
"What giants?" Asked Sancho Panza.
"The ones you can see over there," answered his master, "with the huge arms, some of which are very nearly two leagues long."
"Now look, your grace," said Sancho, "what you see over there aren't giants, but windmills, and what seems to be arms are just their sails, that go around in the wind and turn the millstone."
"Obviously," replied Don Quijote, "you don't know much about adventures."

Sadly, there are many parallels between this masterpiece of Western literature and the tragic tale of the rise and fall of the UWF-I. Of all the now-defunct promotions that we've been covering in our regular columns, the UWF-I was the one that had the greatest chance of surviving to this present day, if not for their many avoidable follies. While you couldn't reasonably attribute the collapse of any large entity to a mere single cause, it would be fair to say that the powers behind this outfit's insistence on tilting at their own illusionary adversaries was their greatest hindrance.

One of the more interesting things that we learned from our interview with UWF-I veteran, Mark Fleming, was how legendary wrestler and NWA icon, Lou Thesz, had come to have a falling out with this promotion. Thesz was one of the greatest pro wrestlers of all time and one of the last champions in its history to be touted more for his genuine wrestling ability than a flamboyant personality or colorful gimmick. By the time that the UWF imploded in late 1990, Thesz had been officially retired since 1979, and had become increasingly disillusioned with the direction that American pro wrestling had been taking in the last decade. When the UWF reopened in 1988, Thesz was hopeful that this would be the future of pro wrestling being taken seriously again, and even had plans of trying to get his protege Fleming a spot in the promotion.

Just when Thesz was working on such a plan, he was informed of the Newborn UWF's serious financial problems and wisely reconsidered throwing his hat in with them. Instead, he sent Fleming to do a tour with New Japan, while he continued to bide his time. Once the UWF imploded and splintered into three separate leagues, management from the UWF-I contacted Thesz and wanted his full involvement. Thesz was happy to oblige, and committed himself to a full-throttled endorsement of this burgeoning organization. He went as far as loaning out his historic 1950's NWA belt to help establish their credibility and also spent about one week a month in Japan training their talent in catch-wrestling. He also made various attempts to create interest in America by proposing UWF-I events to take place on U.S. soil, but that never reached fruition.

One of the major problems, however, was the animus that much of the roster and back-office had towards Antonio Inoki and NJPW. People like Yoji Anjo, Yuko Miyato, and others felt like they were held back during their tenures there and this drove much of their desire to be the top promotion. Also, much like the ingenious gentleman before him (Quixote), Takada struck out at his windmills by decrying NJPW and other promotions as fake, even going as far as to grandstand by calling out the champions of these outfits and issuing challenges. (In this case, Mitsuharu Misawa/AJPW, Masahiro Chono/NWA, and The Great Muta/NJPW, respectively).

Lou Thesz would try to convince them to be content being "something different" and not to try and play their game, but they wouldn't listen, and a major part of their demise was the tons of money that were wasted on guys like Vader, trying to promote theatrical David vs Goliath narratives, instead of building up other members of their roster. Their grandiose pro-wrestling strategy worked well in the short term when they were able to afford guys like Vader, Albright, Kitao, etc, but once Vader became disillusioned with his already considerable pay, and bailed on them, it was all downhill from there. It wasn't long after he left that Gary Albright bailed for the greener pastures of AJPW, and now they were left without any credible challengers to face Takada.

ML: The Vader/Takada series had run it's course with Takada winning 2-1, leaving Takada with no challengers. Vader only lost the 2 singles matches to Takada, Takada lost twice to Albright & once to Vader, Albright lost twice to Takada & once to Vader, meaning Tamura, Yamazaki, Kakihara, Anjo, etc. had exactly 0 big singles wins 4 years into the promotion, leaving Takada with no relevant challengers beyond the staling eventual rematch with Albright, who had won their last meeting on 11/30/94. As Takada had the title, this left Gary to finally do the job he should have done to Tamura in the '94 tournament, but he saw his fortunes waning with the promotions attendance, and got out of dodge after sabotaging Tamura's huge win, granted like anyone intelligent would do when the alternative was to be a "shooter" involved in an interpromotional fued with New Japan and their credibiltity destroying champion Great Muta.

With financial disaster now looming, they started brainstorming and came up with an idea to try and co-promote shows with NJPW. This wound up being the final straw for Thesz, who saw NJPW as another hokey federation, not far removed from the WWF, and as a result, he withdrew his support and took his belt and credibility with him. NJPW'S head booker, Riki Choshu was delighted to exact revenge on Takada's prior mocking, and gladly agreed to their offer to co-promote, with the condition that he had full control of all the booking decisions. Inevitably, this led to the doom of the UWF-I as most of their roster was booked to lose in a feud with the stars of NJPW. Only Takada and Kiyoshi Tamura seemed to escape unscathed. Tamura, because he abandoned the sinking ship for Maeda's RINGS, which was wise as he quickly became the top ace upon his arrival and Takada as he won the NJPW IWGP Heavyweight title and saved face until his disastrous encounter with Rickson Gracie in Pride FC.

ML: Takada was dead in the water from the moment he submitted to Muto's jokey figure 4, the fact that he won the rematch was virtually meaningless at that point. Yamazaki wisely joined NJPW, where he was at least on the right side of the UWF-I's demise, and less wasted, relatively speaking. Tamura focused on shooting, getting a win over Pat Smith in K-1, but was largely absent during the next year in order to avoid all of UWF-I's drubbings at the hands of NJPW.

Still, as of now (7-12-92) we can still bathe in the glories of false bravado, as Takada is still shining as the Knight-Errant of U-Style, so let us now indulge in the latest chapter of Kakutogi History.

First, we must rejoice as footfighting master Makato Ohe has returned! We haven't seen him since February when we won a tough contest against Pat Kane. Here he must face Fernando Carlos, who as of press time, I've been unable to learn anything about. The fight starts, and Carlos looks nervous but also looks to have some power behind his kicks, so this should be interesting. Ohe's experience is on full display, as he is constantly using his lead hand to gauge the distance between him and his opponent, only throwing a kick when the timing is correct. Carlos spends most of the round fleeing from Ohe, but isn't without his own tricks, at one point landing an awesome sidekick against Makato. Round 1 ends with Carlos having spent most of his time tied up in the cinch or running in circles.

Round 2 begins, and Ohe wastes no time establishing a perfect distance to unload his kicks, and quickly switches to a clinch attack at the slightest adjustment from Carlos. Just when I think that we are going to see a one-sided clinic from Ohe, Carlos starts getting back into the game, not by his general skills, but rather his power and unpredictability. Carlos sneaks in some powerful spinning kicks and seems to be throwing off One with his unpredictable style. Still, he is likely on his way to losing this fight, but his bizarre approach combined with power might give him a sneak victory. Another strong round for Ohe.

Ohe continues to outclass Fernando early on in round 3, but Carlos pulls out a nice sidekick/spinning back fist combo that forces Ohe back to the cinch. Therein lies the problem, as Carlos has enough tricks to make Ohe work for his pay, but lacks enough solid fundamentals to sustain any significant offense. He was able to land a nasty jab right down the pipe, flush onto Ohe's chin, but that was the end of his offense. Ohe dominated the rest of the round, including scoring a knockdown.

Round 4. Carlos is going to need a miracle to even survive this next round, let alone win the fight. While he doesn't seem to have any divine intervention on his side, he does have a nice sidekick, which seems to be an ongoing bane for Ohe. Carlos landed more in this round than the preceding three, but could never chain enough together to hurt Ohe.

Final round. I was expecting Carlos to go out guns blazing, but it was Ohe that turned up the heat. He was unloading, trying to quickly put an end to this fight, but Carlos was able to prolong his lifespan with a beautifully timed spinning back kick. Of course, there was no follow-through from Fernando, so it only served as a stay of execution. The round ends, and Ohe wins with a massive score advantage. A somewhat interesting fight, as you kept looking for Carlos to pull a rabbit out of his hat, but disappointing that it was pretty much a one-way street for Ohe. I hope that they get a stronger opponent for him next time, as he often times has the best-to-2nd-best match of the night.

ML: Carlos focused on being very flashy, almost in a fan aping Rick Roufus sort of manner. He didn't set any of these attacks up, so Ohe had no trouble blocking them. Ohe let Carlos tire himself out, then began to walk and down, backing him into the ropes and then working his clinch game. Ohe scored a knockdown with a couple clinch knees in the third round. Carlos just had too much punishment to the midsection, and was never able to get himself back into the match. The match was not competitive enough to be particulary compelling.

It wasn't just pride or financial recklessness that caused the downfall of the UWF-I. No, we must also give a special shout-out to sheer laziness, as nothing embodies that ethos more than what we are about to witness. Yes, it is time for a rematch between Hiromitsu Kanehara and Yoshihiro Takayama, and if Masakazu Maeda hadn't retired a few months ago, we would probably be seeing the 8th match in a row between him and Kanehara, with Kanehara surely being booked to go over for the 8th time in a row. It was simply a matter of complete serendipity that constantly booking those two gave us one of the greatest series of matches in pro wrestling (shoot-style or otherwise), but now that this apathy has moved over to Takayama, we are all the worse for it. Not that Takayama did a bad job last time, in fact, he gave a very spirited showing, but he is nowhere in the same league as better Maeda or Kanehara, and we don't need to see an endless series of matches between these two, but I fear that we will.

The match starts, and both men go full blast on each other, where both are seen unloading a furious series of kicks/palm strikes. Kanehara looks super impressive and urgent while doing this, whereas Takayama looks like Giant Baba opted for a career in shootfighting as opposed to pro-wrestling. Takayama is putting forth real effort, but his movements and cadence are very awkward and are almost always slow as a result. Still, he is huge, and his size is a considerable obstacle for Kanehara to deal with. Eventually, Kanehara lands enough hard kicks and slaps to chop the giant down, but he is unable to control him on the mat, so Takayama is able to easily get back up. Takayama then has a nice sequence where he forces several hard knees to Kanehara, eventually putting him in survival mode. Kanehara switches tactics from trying to stand and bang with his taller foe, instead choosing to go for a low single/ankle lock entry, but since he couldn't completely roll Takayama, he resorted to incessantly slapping him in the face with one hand while turning him with the other.  The rest of this fight was a mixed bag. Kanehara looked awesome throughout, with lots of nice nuances to go with his incredible output level. Takayama also gave a herculean effort, but like last time, his results were uneven. Sometimes he would land some heavy shots, which you could tell rattled Kanehara, but most times he just looked like Gulliver, an oafish giant in the land of us mere mortals. On two occasions, he also had a laughably bad dropkick that missed completely and caused a chuckle from the audience. Overall, this was still a very intense, fast-paced, and stiff work, with very little cooperation. The main issue is that Takayama's physical limitations preclude him from being the best choice for this kind of match. Had we never seen better Maeda's stellar output, then this would come off as much more impressive, but because this is following that insanely great series, this just feels like leftovers. Still, between the constant action, and the incredible beating that Kanehara put on Takayama, I would give this a solid recommendation. *** ¾

ML: Takayama is the bane of Kanehara's existence, as UWF-I is now insisting on ruining what would likely have been the best rookie year ever by booking 4 matches in a row, and 5 total, against the giant klutz, who somehow managed to look considerably worse than in his debut on the previous show. This was just plain bad no matter how much Kanehara tried to salvage things. By the end of this disaster, even a chant of "Give me Johnny Barrett or give me death" may not have seemed wholy unreasonable. Kanehara tried to utilize some footwork because it would be ridiculous to just stand in the pocket with an opponent who has such a huge size and reach advantage, but Takayama was practically tripping over his own feet trying to chase him. Takayama threw some good clinch knees, but his palm strikes were so slow and wide, and overall, he was far less energetic than in their previous match. Takayama managed to Jon Jones Kanehara, and as they have no rules in place for a eye pokes, Takayama decided to proceed by attempting something that could, I suppose, be called a dropkick through the loosest definition of the hold. It was apparently so impressive that Takayama had to try it again later! Kanehara managed to catch Takayama's right kick, then drop him with his own right high kick, which would have been cool if Takayama didn't take a corny WWE pratfall. The match was officially a trainwreck when they followed by, I want to say charging at each other with movie kicks, but more accurately Kanehara covered more than half the distance of the ring in the time to Takayama managed to take a solitary step. Kanehara got his submission game going, but Takayama is so long that even though the submissions were applied in the center of the ring, if he could make any progress at all, he was already to the ropes. Kanehara then tried to win with a series of high kicks, which Takayama was ruining with ridiculous bobblehead selling. The fans were laughing more during this contest then they do during most actual comedy matches, despite every attempt being made to do a serious and intense, all out war. It was just atrocious despite Kanehara being excellent at whatever didn't require Takayama to do anything, and there being a good moment here and there in spite of Takayama, who is already giving JT Southern serious competition for the worst worker in UWF-I history (imagine if he didn't have an opponent as amazing as Kanehara to cover for him). Thankfully Kanehara did eventually win, but we knew that coming in.

As if we needed yet another example of how Miyato's booking was akin to pile shuffling a bunch of named index cards and randomly dealing them out, here we have a tag match between Yoji Anjo/Mark Fleming & Tatsuo Nakano/Tom Burton. Many of you will recall that only two weeks ago we saw Fleming team up with Nakano, but apparently, the bonds of friendship have been broken and we didn't even get a vignette showing Fleming going through a barbershop window to signify the break-up.

The match starts with Fleming vs Burton, and neither waste any time charging into each other. You can tell that neither man knows how to strike with the plethora of standing hammer fists that they unloaded, but they are intensely jockeying for position, and it's impressive to see Fleming manhandle someone as big as Burton down to the ground. Burton couldn't stop Fleming from dictating where the fight took place and even suffered the indignity of some hard soccer kicks when he tried to fish for a sloppy toe-hold.

Nakano replaces Burton, and surprised me with some nice judo, which served to both snap Fleming down to the canvas and flummoxes him in the process. It's always interesting to see how someone with a pure wrestling base can be taken into deep waters when having to deal with circular motion attacks. Things started to stall out until Fleming tagged Anjo, and Anjo proceeded to wake everyone up by slapping the stuffing out of Nakano. He was on fire until, as is his normal custom, he botched an o-goshi throw, giving Nakano the opportunity he needed to slap on a rear-naked choke. The rest of this was good, but not quite to the tier that we saw last time, due to there being too many big men. Everyone was competent, but only Anjo had the athleticism to force the action to kick into overdrive. Still, there were some gems to be found here. The judo vs wrestling dynamic between Nakano/Fleming was interesting and Anjo was the life of the party whenever he showed up. Not bad. A solid ***1/4

ML: Anjo was on fire here, but he didn't have tons of help. Nakano finally stepped it up quite a bit, and was actually good here. He did some intense striking sequences with Anjo that were clearly the highlight of the bout. Unfortunately, that left the pairing of Fleming vs. Burton, which wasn't ideal given both are mainly just amateur wrestlers who benefit from quicker and more dynamic opposition. Being a doubles match did help both of them be more explosive when they were in the ring, but I didn't care much for either here. This was definitely better than the 1st 2 matches, but certainly nothing to write home about, and randomly ending out of nowhere didn't help.

Masahito Kakihara is flying high from his first high-profile win from two weeks prior, as the fastest hands in the East was able to best Mr. 200%, Yoji Anjo. Here he must advance to face Yuko Miyato, who may be the laziest of bookers, but has been a stellar performer thus far in 1992. The match starts and Kakihara surprises me by not unleashing his palms, but rather, seeks to advance with some cautious high kicks. About two of these go through until Miyato pulls off a beautifully timed low-kick counter, and this is already shaping up to be a great bout.

Kakihara continues his subdued strategy of sticking and moving with low-kicks only letting a few palms-loose when Miyato gets within range. Eventually, Miyato figures that his opponent isn't going to bang recklessly with him, so he executes a tasty fireman's carry takedown, but Kakihara wants nothing to do with the ground and quickly scrambles back to his feet. Miyato changes tactics and starts to initiate from the clinch, eventually getting Kakihara back to the mat, but all it yielded him was having to succumb to a kneebar attack. He got his comeuppance as soon as they stood back up, however, with an incredible slap that landed flush on Kaihara's face.

After this humiliation, the Kakihara that we all know and love, returned and tried to blitzkrieg his way towards Miyato, but was swiftly put back down with a spinning low kick. This set up the end as Miyato quickly choked Kakihara out for the win, right afterward. This was an excellent match, and probably the first of its kind for this promotion. It combined the strategy and awareness of two seasoned fighters without losing any intensity or entertainment value. A lot of matches in the UWF-I have been fast-paced, and Yamazaki always brings some subtle psychology to the table, but this was possibly the first time that we saw the two married together. My only gripe with this is that it was too short. Another 5-7 mins would have been perfect, but even with that flaw, this was excellent. ****

ML: Kakihara hasn't had much chance to have good matches so far, so I was really excited about this match up. It was entertaining while it lasted, with some impressive explosive bursts, but unfortunately it was much too short. There was a great Tamuraesque sequence where Miyato had Kakihara in something of a standing guillotine, but Kakihara did the drop to a knee go behind into a leg trip, then swung into a kneebar. Despite some nice back and forth, I expected the standup to be a little better than it actually was. I actually thought Miyato might lose because he has taken it upon himself to be the one to elevate the bottom of the card guys, but unfortunately, Kakihara ultimately seemed a long way away by the finish, which was little more than a glorified chinlock. Definitely would have been a good match had it gone 10 minutes instead of 6, but at this length it's merely in the worth watching category.

Now we must continue to witness Nobuhiko Takada travel down the path of humiliation that's been set before him, having lost the right to be called "Best in the World" to the massive Gary Albright. Here he will engage in another act of pointless aggression as he is set to face Mid-South/WCCW veteran, Steve Cox. Cox came to the UWF-I for a brief layover period, in between his time at Global Force Wrestling and the American independent wrestling scene. This was probably only intended to be a quick paycheck for Cox, and serve as some fresh cannon fodder for Takada.

Cox is athletic and keeps the pressure on Takada with some solid wrestling, but the extent of his submission knowledge seems to be going for a keylock. After 6min of being mostly matwork, Takada throws a couple of kicks and ends it with a submission. This wasn't terrible as much as it was pointless. *3/4

ML: The Southern amateur wrestlers just keep a coming, and this continued the formula of short Takada matches where they hit the mat early, only to have very little occur. It didn't take long before I wished Cox had instead been recruited by a Repo Man, but he was at least working on the ground, unlike the opposition. After about six minutes of nothing, Takada got up and threw a handful of low kicks that made Cox vibrate like he was Abdullah the Butcher in the electric chair, then dragged Cox down & armbared him for the win. Lame match.

Now for the main event: Kazuo Yamazaki & Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Gary Albright & Mark Silver. It's a contest with no stakes or meaning, but any chance to see Tamura shine is a good one. Things start with Tamura toying with Silver, allowing him some offense, knowing that Silver isn't likely to ever put him in any real jeopardy. It was fun to see Tamura play with his prey and instantly turn a switch on and dominate Silver when he chose to. Humiliated and in over his head, Silver brought in the Albright-monster. As quick as Tamura is, you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone up to the challenge of being smothered by such a beast. Gary spent a considerable amount of time laying on Tamura before forcing a rope escape via a reverse keylock.

Yamazaki fared a little better, scoring on Albright with a heel-hook, and punishing Mark Silver in a variety of ways. The rest of this match was disappointing because Albright spent very little time in the ring, forcing Silver to handle the bulk of the workload. Tamura and Yamazaki did all they could with him, and while it was ok, Silver's slowness and inexperience prevented this from ever achieving liftoff. Not bad, but could have been much better, having someone stronger than Silver to build around. *** 1/4

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

Conclusion: A very solid show that is recommended, but not quite in the must-see tv category. The only bad match was Takada/Cox, and even that was over so quickly to not be offensive. The problem is that they have set the bar so high with their great moments that a lot of this only felt like they got halfway towards those past glories. Still, a lot of good to be found here. Knight-Errant Takada is safe for now, the only question now is who is going to fulfill the Sancho role, and guide Takada back to reality? (Yamazaki perhaps?) Time will tell..

ML: This was such a huge step backwards I don't even know where to begin. Almost every UWF-I show we've seen this year has had three or four good matches, this barely had one. The booking made no sense, as always, but was finally dramatically hampering quality of the matches. Yamazaki & Tamura couldn't even finish off Silver in almost a handicap match. Masahito Kakihara went from beating the much higher ranked Yoji Anjo in 10:12 to getting mostly schooled by Miyato in 6 minutes. Kanehara was again wasted with Takayama, Fleming & Burton could only negate each others strengths. Perhaps only a Glacier could cool a promotion off faster than Miyato's thoughtless booking, and unfortunately, one is arriving on 8/14/92.

*In other news*

On 7-7-92 we were treated to another tribute to deceased cartoonist, Ikki Kajiwara. Kajiwara was a seminal figure in the world of Japanese comics, being the author of many popular manga series, most notably Tiger Mask . Much of his work revolved around heroism and martial arts and had a lot of influence within the puroresu sphere. Since 1988, there have been several events held in Japan in an effort to honor this man, and what's fascinating about them is that they feature a wide variety of styles. Karate, Shootboxing, Kickboxing, Pro Wrestling, and martial arts demonstrations/exhibitions have all been featured on their cards, which have made them a fun one-stop-shop of Kakutogi delights. Mike will now discuss the most interesting matches on this year's card.

Bantamweight Title: Katsuhito Funatsu vs. Hiromaki Tamaki 5R. Tamaki applied a ton of pressure with his feet, but Funatsu applied far more useful pressure with his fists. Funatsu had the reach advantage, so Tamaki was super aggressive trying to close the distance. However, it didn't do much good, as Funatsu was perhaps even more aggressive with his counter punching, doing a great job of sniping him with hard punches and middle kicks then backing away to make Tamaki chase him some more. Tamaki showed a ton of heart and determination to keep his stategy up for 5 rounds. I don't know how he maintained that pace given all the hard shots he was eating. Entertaining and action packed, but ultimately quite one-sided. Good match.

All Japan Flyweight Title Match: Eiichi Fukutomi vs. Akira Yamamoto 5R. Intense, hard fought contest. Despite being a very undersized fighter, Fukutomi had a great front kick that he based his kicking offense around. Due to Fukutomi backing Yamamoto with the push kick and being a great mover, Yamamoto was constantly forced to close the distance despite having a considerable reach advantage. When things went well, Yamamoto would work his way into the clinch and let his knees loose, but mostly if Fukutomi couldn't back him, he'd land his middle and/or low kick and circle off. Yamamoto had some success with the left step knee, but mostly he would fake it and try to use it to set up right hand or high kick. This match was competitive, but for the most part Fukutomi just wasn't there to be hit, so I thought he clearly won despite the fight being ruled a draw. Good match.

It's being reported that the PWFG was planning on having another event in Florida with the success of their last one, but that the death of head booker and talent coordinator, Masami Soronaka, has put an end to those plans. The main event was reportedly going to have been Joe Malenko vs Minoru Suzuki.