mbetz1981 -
Ernie's shootfighting tapes rank as some of the worst instructionals ever made. I don't believe ernie had ever actually seen a "shoot" match. He was hell on wheels back in the pka days though.
de braco -mbetz1981 -
Ernie's shootfighting tapes rank as some of the worst instructionals ever made. I don't believe ernie had ever actually seen a "shoot" match. He was hell on wheels back in the pka days though.
I would love to see those, and I think they would be a great addition to this thread! (If you ever have it in your power to share, that is.)
That article in Black Belt, is somewhat confusing, becuase I don't think the authoer understood the difference between Shootboxing, (Kickboxing Org founded by Ceaser Takeshi), or Shootfighting, (which would have been PWFG, SHOOTO, UWFI, etc, at this point in time).Â
My research indicates that Hart competed in Shootboxing at somepoint in time, but going through my Shootboxing collection, I haven't been able to confirm this. Of course, that doesn't really mean much, as Shootboxing events have been notoriously hard to track down, and I have gaping holes in my collection.
Interestingly enough, I found a contact number for Hart, maybe I can call him up, and see if he would agree to be interviewed for this project.
Let's check in Mike Lorefice, and see what he has to say about all of this.
Makato Ohe vs Juan Arellano: Arellano had the reach and athleticism, but I agree he seemed to lack fundamentals to the point one has to question how much actual kickboxing training he had. Taekwondo was what I was thinking to when I saw his ability to throw some flashy movie kicks, but his poor overall technique, particularly in the boxing aspects. It just felt like Arellano was trying to figure this sport out on the fly. The more Ohe saw of him, the easier he was able to pick him apart. Arellano was blocking the left middle kick with his right arm in the 1st round, but perhaps because it hurt his arm, he got the brilliant idea to instead try to duck it, which turned it into a high kick knockdown. Ohe was quickly able to counter a sloppy left hook with an intended high kick for the KO. The match wasnât lacking in action, but the primary negative was that Arellano simply wasnât good enough to pull the greatness out of Ohe.
Tatsuyo Nakano vs Yuki Miyato:
These guys did a 30:00 draw on 6/11/88, and three of their other four UWF matches were about 20 minutes. Tonightâs match developed slowly as if it were going to be another marathon, but while their intention seemed to be to build the match around escalating the violence, they were too mundane & durdly early on then just shifted to the explosive striking and suplexes, going back & forth for a lengthy finishing sequence until Nakano won with a lame rear naked facelock. The striking, mostly from Miyato, was good, with little Hashimoto Nakano getting his requisite bloody nose. Nakano got Miyato with his German suplex, but when he tried Maedaâs captured, Miyato was able to defend enough that both spilled over the top to the floor. These two are hard working bread & butter types who did enough to make it worthwhile. This was even the best weâve seen so far in UWF-I from Nakano, but with neither fighter really developing their or moving forward as martial artists, it mostly just felt like a lesser version of their previous wars.
Kazuo Yamazaki vs Billy Scott:
Yamazaki hasnât exactly had a great opportunity to shine yet. After frustratingly getting strapped with the Southern man, who clearly couldnât keep his head, he now found himself involved in the trial of Billy Jack. Luckily though, Scott, who wound up being my favorite American fighter in the promotion (other than monster for hire Vader, who almost doesnât count given his matches were almost purely powerbomb driven pro wrestling beatdowns), shows a good deal of ability even in his debut. What set this match apart was their ability to tantalize the audience through a display of defense. This wasnât a match where theyâd lock the submission, and then 45 seconds later the opponent magically grabbed the ropes, itâs a match where they always seemed close to something on the mat, but rarely got it. Early on, they keep testing each other, kind of for the fun of it, with the fighter who defended the move trying his hand at it, and failing as well. They really had the answers for each other in standup, with Yamazaki being ready for Scottâs single leg takedown, which seemed to be Billyâs biggest weapon from his amateur wrestling days, and Scott avoiding taking too many of Yamazakiâs kicks, answering aggressively to at least take away Yamazakiâs space so he had to grapple with Scott instead. Yamazaki was a massive favorite here as heâs the #2 fighter in the promotion going against some new guy from Tennessee, a place where wrestlers seemingly only know how to throw punches, yet still have no actual technique. Yamazaki is somewhat subdued early, just testing Scott out & seeing what he has to offer, while Scott is much more excitable, which is his personality anyway, but the difference especially makes sense here given heâs the new guy trying to make a strong impression against a top dog who sees this more as a tune-up/sparring kind of walkover. Yamazaki tends to be a step ahead for the first 10 minutes. Though heâs not running away with the contest by any means, you can see his brilliance in the story of the match where he sets up Scott turning the tide & actually becoming a threat to win when Scott finally catches Yamazakiâs kick & counters with a back suplex into a 1/2 crab for the matches big near submission. The fans were instantly ignited, chanting âYama-zakiâ because in the context of the bout theyâve been viewing, someone actually being trapped in a submission, especially mid ring, is a real threat. Yamazaki does a great job of putting the submission over by not going over the top, taking a down after a rope escape trying to recover, & then still just stalling fixing his kneepads to try to steal Scottâs momentum. Yamazaki then coming back with high kicks somewhat defeated the purpose though. This was really the time for Scott to have a minute or two with Yamazaki in danger to show what he could do before Yamazaki turned the tide back and perhaps won, and while thatâs mostly what happened with Scott coming right back with a belly to belly suplex & working for an STF, the transition to the finishing segment was a bit abrupt & the segment itself felt rushed, as was the case with Miyato/Nakano. Both matches felt like the workers may have been finding their way to a pre scripted finishing sequence, but these two did a better job of having a match before that & finding a way to stay true to it rather than just biding time until the usual UWF-I flashiness. As a whole, Yamazaki/Scott worked quite well because they kept active enough that the fans cared about them coming close but not quite getting there, and the drama kept increasing. In the end, not a lot happened by the usual UWF-I pro wrestling standards, but much of what made it good is they were successful in teasing the audience that things almost happened. This was certainly more credible than the usual no resistance exchanges, and to me, much more exciting and dramatic because of that. ***1/4
Nobuhiko Takada/Kiyoshi Tamura vs Yoji Anjo/Jim Boss: Similar to more or less every big show main event Gedo ever booked, this was long to the point the workers forgot about a sense of urgency & instead concerned themselves with merely finding ways to elongate the proceedings. I was excited to see Tamura & Anjo going at it again after their brilliant contest on the previous show, but whereas Tamura was shot out of a cannon there, nobody exerted themselves too much in the first half here. The legitimate kickboxing match being short was problematic, and the way they worked the opening 8 minutes, one wonders if they were asked to go longer than expected because they only got 25 minutes out of the undercard. Either way, this isn't really meant for this sort of durdling, time filling long match, epics really need to be reserved for the sort of match of the year attempt we saw in Suzuki vs. Sano because diminishing returns are a thing in a limited, credibility based Though Takada vs. Anjo had too much of a sparring feel despite Takada landing a big shot now and then, Takada was generally much better here because he only went to the ground to immediately attempt a submission. He was working a more diverse striking game, trying to counteract Boss' wrestling with his knees & open hands. Tamura was somewhat disappointing in his first main event, it just never felt like his match with Anjo really being in striking mode and being more focuses on Takada, who they seem to be grooming him as real opposition for, if such a thing is allowed to exist on the native side in UWF-I. Meanwhile, Tamura wound up being the one who would slow things down by trying to work for something on the ground rather than just exchanging kicks, when anyone would even go to the mat. Boss' middle kick could use some work, but he was generally a competent, servicable but uninspiring type who would be fine early in the card. I was surprised that Anjo once again beat Tamura rather than Boss doing the job. Overall, this was fine, but skippable.
Final thoughts: Better than their debut show, but a big step down from the previous two. The positive is the discovery of Scott. Boss could potentially have been an upgrade, but he only had 2 more matches in UWF-I, and his brief career ended entirely in '92. They really need to get Kakihara healthy, as thereâs just not much fire on this roster.
Â
TTTÂ
mbetz1981 -de braco -mbetz1981 -
Ernie's shootfighting tapes rank as some of the worst instructionals ever made. I don't believe ernie had ever actually seen a "shoot" match. He was hell on wheels back in the pka days though.
I would love to see those, and I think they would be a great addition to this thread! (If you ever have it in your power to share, that is.)
That article in Black Belt, is somewhat confusing, becuase I don't think the authoer understood the difference between Shootboxing, (Kickboxing Org founded by Ceaser Takeshi), or Shootfighting, (which would have been PWFG, SHOOTO, UWFI, etc, at this point in time).Â
My research indicates that Hart competed in Shootboxing at somepoint in time, but going through my Shootboxing collection, I haven't been able to confirm this. Of course, that doesn't really mean much, as Shootboxing events have been notoriously hard to track down, and I have gaping holes in my collection.
Interestingly enough, I found a contact number for Hart, maybe I can call him up, and see if he would agree to be interviewed for this project.
Circa 1992
Thank you De Barco! You're incredible, and these gems belong in this thread. Hart's "instructional" was the most halarious thing I've seen in a long time. Seriously, he makes Kimo's teaching prowess look like Murlio Bustamante. The Super Tiger training was awesome as well. I have a special treat a little down the road... We at the Kakutogi home office have managed to unearth some Shooto footage circa 1988. This was before his first professional event, and Sayama made a Commerical tape wanting to expose the masses to his new sport of "Shooting." It's fascinating, and inclueds awesome training sequences in some hidden monestary in the lush Japanese countryside.Â
^that was back in the days when amateur shooto was held in an octagonal ring
VOLUME 9: White Lights, and Aqua Heat
(Archives of this series can be found at https://www.patreon.com/KakutogiRoad If you like what we are doing, please consider being a patron. With your help we can dive deeper into our history, procure interviews, hire translators, etc.)
Welcome back one and all! Even though we must now join together in an era of uncertainty, we can take solace, knowing that while troubled times come and go, the road to Kakutogi is a perpetual journey, with no ending in sight. As a wise man once observed, âOf chess it has been said that life is not long enough for it â but that is the fault of life, not of chess.â Such is the noble predicament, that we now find ourselves in.
The date is 8-1-91 and we are at the Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium, an indoor 8000-person capacity stadium, most famously used for Sumo events, but has been home to the occasional pro wrestling, and MMA event.
Today we have a reported 6100 in attendance, which is quite remarkable considering when we last met, we were observing Takada and Co. stuffing 2000 people into a bowling alley. This is made even more impressive when the opening montage begins, and we see Akira Maeda, Dick Virj, Chris Dolman, and Mitsuya Nagai, engaged in sparring, and stretching exercises in an empty arena. This all feels more like a low-key workout between friends, then the prelude to a serious competition, but that is surely a testimony to how over Maeda really was, that he could sell over 6000 tickets, on what basically amounted to a skeleton crew of performers.
We are underway with the EARTH BOUT debut of the ever scrappy Mitsuya Nagai vs Herman Renting. When we last saw Renting, he was in a FIRE BOUT against Dutch judoka Pieter Smit, and Iâm unsure if moving into the Earth Realm would be considered a demotion of sorts.
Nagai, on the other hand, was an aspiring pro wrestler as a child, and while still in high school applied for a job within the AJPW promotion. AJPWâs owner declined him, however, and told him that he could join when he finished his studies. Not to be deterred, he started competing in amateur Shootboxing, and this is where the Kakutogi bug hit him. The newfound interest in shooting led him to apply for a job within the Newborn UWF promotion, and after he was accepted, he was trained by Akira Maeda. The promotion folded before he had a chance to debut, so he decided to continue seeking his fortunes with RINGS, when Maeda made the transition.
Straightaway we see Nagai take a smart fighting stance, low enough to help ward off takedowns, but still upright enough to fire kicks as needed. His kickboxing background was immediately apparent as he fired off a variety of nice kicks from different angles, using good inside-out movement. There was an interesting sequence where Nagai throws a couple of palm-strike feints, causing Renting to back up, which Nagai responds with an impeccably timed thigh kick. Renting wisely just charged in after this with a clinch, to which Nagai tried to counter with a rolling kneebar, that simply led to a footsie deadlock between the two.
The rest of the match was mostly Renting getting the fight to the ground and Nagai looking for foot attacks, in which he successfully secured two toe holds on Renting. The ending of the match was rather jarring though, as it felt like they were just told that it was time to wrap it up, and Nagai pulled an abrupt suplex into an armbar for the win.
This was a decent introduction to this event. Outside of Renting looking a bit awkward during the striking phases, and the contrived ending, there wasnât any major holes in the action, and while it didnât excel in either the realism or entertainment departments, it serviced both just fine. As a side note, itâs interesting to see that there really isnât anything new under the sun, as newcomers to the no-gi BJJ scene might be thinking that the plethora of leg attacks going on right now is a recent phenomenon, those of us cognizant of 80s-90s Puroresu, know better.
Next up is the UNIVERSE BOUT, which is strangely only the 2nd match of the evening, but that could be due to the Universe actually being known to revolve around Maeda. Here we have Ton Van Maurik vs Chris Dolman, and from the pre-match interviews we can glean that Maurik is an undefeated Karateka with Wrestling and Sambo experience. The fight starts with Maurik looking to get inside and strike from the clinch, and so far he is landing some pretty stiff uppercuts to Dolmanâs chest, perhaps stiffer than what Dolman expected, as you can hear what sounds like unusually painful grunts. Dolman continues to move in slow-motion, looking to clinch, and Maurik continues to do some effective damage from the clinch, going high and low with his strikes. Eventually, Dolman lands a beautiful harai-goshi hip throw, and it is a most impressive display. Dolman may move like crusty molasses, but his judo skills are unquestionable.
It would appear, that strikes on the ground are still legal, as Maurik made the rookie mistake of trying to get out of a side-mount by kneeing his opponent in the ribs. This proved futile, of course, so it wasnât long after that he simply took a rope escape. Once they were back on their feet, Dolman upped the aggression, this time striking from the clinch, with knees, that didnât look pretty, but did look like they hurt, and Dolman has now scored a knockdown against his opponent. This seemed to reinvigorate Maurik, who proceeded to pummel Dolmanâs midsection to score a knockdown of his own.
If Dolman was holding back on his opponent in the early stages of this fight, that seems to be done away with now, as once he got back out he hit a ashi-dori-ouchi-gari (leg-grab inside trip) on Maurik and proceeded to headbutt Maurik several times in the chest/midsection, which I am surprised that this was even considered legal at the time. This barrage of aggression caused Maurik to take another rope escape, and we are officially into a good fight at this point. Dolman hits another leg sweep and goes right back to headbutting Maurik. Maurik tries to stop this by pulling Dolmanâs hair, but apparently the ref takes issues with hair pulling, while headbutting is clearly acceptable. Maurik then goes to a closed guard, and tries to punch Dolmanâs ribs, but this doesnât avail, and Dolman simply breaks loose and slaps on a variant of a straight ankle lock, from a quasi single-leg Boston crab position. Itâs amazing that several years before Igor Vovchancyhn, Mark Coleman, and Mark Kerr, were demonstrating how deadly headbutts were against someoneâs closed guard, we get a glimpse of this Vale-Tudo shortcoming, all the way back in 1991.
This is one of the few times, that Iâm genuinely puzzled as to the shoot/work nature of a fight. Dolman seemed to lack the requisite aggression for a shoot in the early stages of this bout, seemingly giving his opponent some opportunity to work, but if this was fake, then someone forgot to tell Maurik. Halfway through the fight, it seemed like Dolman put aside any niceties, and really tried to lay into Maurik, so perhaps it was a case of Maurik being too stiff in the beginning, which angered Dolman. Whatâs not in question as that this was a very entertaining bout, and we are 2-for2, thus far.
Chris Dolman: Godfather of ground and pound??
Next up is a battle of the judokas, as we are approaching tonightâs FIRE BOUT with Willy Wilhelm vs Pieter Smit. The pre-match interview shows Wilhelm saying that he used to have some competitive experience against Smit in Judo, but that Smit was a lot lighter in those days. Wilhelm says heâs much more confidant in this throws, chokes, and armlocks, then he is in his striking, so this should be interesting.
We are now safely back into what is clearly a work, and an awful one at that. Here we have two judokas with no professional wrestling, or striking experience, and it shows. This entire fight basically played like gi-less judo exhibition, only it was punctuated by laughably awful strikes on the part of Smit. Sadly, this tripe killed any momentum we had going into the main event.
We are now backstage again, where we find Maeda working on footwork drills, and Virj doing standing shoulder presses with some dumbbells. Virj must have been having a low-carb moment, and forgot where he was, and thought he needed to pump up for the Dutch National Amateur Bodybuilding Championships.
The fight is underway, and Virj fires off several kicks to Maeda, including a nice flying sidekick, straight out of Double Dragon. After this fine display of video game technique, Maeda fires off a kick of his own, that causes him to fall down and clutch his knee, which seems right out of Hulk Hoganâs Wrestlemania VI playbook, in which I suspect will be a stunt thatâs used later as an excuse as to why he lost. After showing everyone that he has a weak knee, Virj pummels Maeda in the corner, forcing a knockdown.
The rest of the match is a one-sided affair, as Virj continues to pummel Maeda, until he is completely out of Rope Escapes, and Virj is declared the winner. Hardly anything about this match was remotely realistic, but unlike the prior bout, at least this was fun, and only lasted eight minutes.
Conclusion: On the plus side, RINGS has the best presentation of any of the Shoot- promotions at this stage, and is the only promotion out of the current three, that is presented in a way that it feels like a real sport. Even though the actual content of PWFG is more realistic, their production values make them look low-rent in comparison, and the UWFI, while the most entertaining by far, is too tethered to the aesthetics of pro wrestling, to come across as seriously as they need to.
The problem, (and itâs a big problem) is that the RINGS roster is basically non-existent at this point. For a Japanese promotion Maeda was the only Japanese performer, outside of Nagai, who is a rookie. Itâs impressive that Maeda has been able to get as far as he has with only his name value being the draw at this point, but if he is going to survive, I suspect that he will have to brew some homegrown talent, or I donât see this surviving in the long-term. In his defense, it was wise for Maeda to put over Virj over as strongly as he did, basically letting him dominate him for the entirety of the match, even though he used a fake injury as a way to save face with the crowd. Also, if they only one you can find is Virj to build around, then youâre probably in trouble.
This was definitely more entertaining then their debut show, but still pretty weak overall. If the talent starts to match the vison, then Rings could easily be the finest of the three Shoot- promotions, so Iâm hopeful for itâs future.
Here is the event in full:Â https://youtu.be/DALiB-803xY
In other news
Irvine California: Karrem Abdul-Jabbar recently had a charity karate tournament for underprivileged kids, which featured several kickboxing bouts. During the evening we got to see Kathy âThe Punisherâ Long do some nasty damage to her opponent Lisa Smith. Long was able to completely dominate her opponent with a plethora of roundhouse kicks, and really stole the show with her strong performance. Don âThe Dragonâ Smith also had a bout with Canadian cruiserweight: Ian Jeckland. Unlike Long, Don hardly broke a sweat against Jeckland, easily winning a decision against his opponent.
Kathy Long (Right) putting the pressure on Lisa Smith
Rings and PWFG were strange to watch at the time but even stranger now.  I definitely preferred UWFI back then, it was more dramatic and OTT, whilst appearing more realistic than most pro-wrestling.
Plus, UWFI was on TV in the UK, named Bushido. Â Takada was promoted as a genuine bad ass.
I was under the impression that Ken Shamrock v Don Nielsen was the first televised fight between wrestler and kickboxer that really captured the imagination of the Japanese.
Reading this thread it would suggest there were potentially similar fights prior to that.
Obviously Shooto was around at that time, but how often were predominantly pro-wrestling organisations broadcasting genuine shoots and can you list them?
We have witnessed a few shoots thus far into our journey. (We are currently at 8-1-91). These were all covered more in depth in this thread, but here is a brief recap:
The first shoot was on 9-2-85 between Akira Maeda and Super Tiger (Satoru Sayama). This wasn't intended to be a shoot, but the two biggest stars of the company started butting heads over the philosopical direction of the UWF, and literaly came to blows at this event. After starting off hard and heavy, they seemed to regain their composure about halfway through, only for Maeda to change his mind, and just kick Sayama in the junk. This led to Sayama quitting pro wrestling in disgust, and Maeda getting fired from the UWF. Here is a video...the match starts at about the 7:49 mark.Â
The first totally planned/full shoot, was between Takaku Fuke and Thai Boxer, Lawi Napataya. This was completly real, and competly halarious, as not only did they not really think this whole concept through, but Napataya kept having his corner grease him down inbetween rounds. Fujiwara probably thought that this would be a slam dunk for Fuke, but didn't stop to consider that unlimited rope escapes in a small ring would give an almost unsurmountable advantage to the Thai Boxer. Here is the event in full...Match starts around the 44:00 min mark: https://youtu.be/4TCj_q1CToQ
The third shoot, was the one we just covered between Chris Dolman and Ton Van Maurik. I'm not sure if this was intended to be a shoot, or if it just spiraled out of control, but Dolman lost his temper, and it wound up getting pretty nasty, with Dolman unleashing some nasty headbutts to his opponent.Â
The fun thing about covering this from the very beginning, is we can actually take a close look at where all the "firsts" really were in this crazy sport. I'm sure it will be revealing in a lot of ways, as we continue down this path.Â
1 Like
Thank you, excellent stuff.  Shame no footage of Dolman v Maurik.  It's 1991 and to date there has only been one properly arranged shoot, that surprises me.  Presumably after the Inoki challenge matches of the past things returned to normal, with normal being pro-wrestling.
The entire match of Dolman vs Maurik is just 4 posts up from this one. It's inside the RINGS ASTRAL STEP II AQUA HEAT video. The 2nd card of the match, and it starts around 22:45.
To be fair, I don't think this was probably planned on being a shoot. I could be wrong, but to me it seems like Maurik didn't understand it was a work, or was being way stiffer than Dolman cared for, but either way, it got ugly quickly.
Thank you - didn't look like a work turned shoot. Â Some of those shots were a bit stiff but I suppose the new guy was new. Â
I note you mentioned earlier Kitao being disgraced. Â Is that what lead to Takada knocking him out with the high kick?
That was definitely a moment of work turned shoot - if I'm using the right wording!
I'm not sure why Takada double crossed Kitao. Kitao was strangely very, very, over with the Japanese public for a long time, at least until he had his nose broken by Mark Hall at UFC 9 in 45 seconds. He was a former Sumo champion before going into pro wrestling, and after being fired from SWS in April of 91, he supposedly spent a year becoming a black belt in Karate, and was going into the Takada match with a lot of hype.
I suspect that Takada knocked him out, just to put himself over as the top dog of (pretend) shooters, but there may have been a lot more to it than that. What's interesting, is that after Takada kocked him out, Kitao wanted to salvage his reuputaion as a legit shooter, so he started his own Shoot- promotion about a year later. calling it Kitao Dojo.
They started off as a strictly worked, pro wrestling league, but towards the end they mixed in real shoots with the fake stuff. They didn't last very long, but interestingly enough, Chris Jerico did do at least one event with them.
After shuttering Kitao Dojo in 95, he started to presue real shoots, appearing on the inagural Universal Vale Tudo Fighting event, agaisnt Pedor Otavio. He then had his UFC fight agaisnt Mark Hall, and I think that killed whatever Kakutogi Carrer he could have had. Losing so quickly really diminished his reputation, and it's a shame, becuase I think he had some potential to do well in the mid-90s NHB era, had he taken things more seriously.Â
What does the Legendary Mike Lorefice have to say about all of this? Let's check in:
Mitsuya Nagai vs Herman Renting:Â Earth & Fire were one of the underrated '70's prog rock bands before they sold out to try to sell records, see Atlantis & Andromeda Girl, Wind absolutely can't be added to the compound, as that has been proven to be doomsday for our ears... Earth seems a lot more accurate for Renting, who was all about grounding Nagai. Maeda apparently had a lot of confidence in Nagai, though putting him in the longest match of the card in his debut against a veteran of 1 match seems dubious. It really did not pan out because the match had no intensity. It was pretty much no-pads sparring, with the standup taking place at distance & the strikes thrown slow enough that there was time to avoid, not that it mattered much. Eventually Renting would get Nagai down, and they'd roll around fiddling with each other's legs. This wasn't terrible, but it's obvious they were trying to do a more realistic match without having any concept of how to make that work beyond being less flashy, which just left us with low impact, loose and/or half speed pedestrian stuff
Chris Dolman vs Ton Van Maurik: This was the sort of odd work you can get when guys who are used to real fighting try to figure out how to alter their techniques. Van Maurik's body punches were hard, and really stood out because everything else was fairly light. Dolman seemed to have a better idea of how to fake things, having done this before and also being a long time trainer. For the most part, it was a pretty standard, not particularly interesting contest, again pretending to be more believable because it wasn't flashy but lacking the intensity, urgency, and impact (beyond Van Maurik's body shots) of a shoot. Dolman was really blown up by the end, but did manage some aggression & explosion on his key techniques, the takedowns & series of ground headbutts.Â
Willy Wilhelm vs Pieter Smit:Â I found this contest to be pretty similar to the previous one, mostly inside fighting with the out of shape, heavy guy controlling the action, especially on the ground. It was worse because whereas in the previous match Van Maurik's body shots were good, here none of the strikes were good and Wilhelm was really annoying with his silly shrieks to fire himself up.
Dick Vrij vs Akira Maeda:Â A rematch from the first show, that seemed somewhat backward booking as the cyborg now ran over Maeda the way he was supposed to in the 1st match to establish himself as a force in the promotion. Even with the 3 month layoff, Maeda's bad knee wasn't cooperating, and that was the story of the match as Vrij was able to completely overwhelm him after Maeda's knee gave out throwing a low kick in the opening segment. Maeda was able to back away to avoid Vrij's kicks at the outset, but once he lost his mobility, Vrij would just work him over on the ropes with kicks and/or knees. The fans did their best to fire Maeda up, but while offensively he had a few moments scoring a knockdown with body punches & getting a couple of takedowns, he was never able to rise above sitting duck level defensively. Maeda didn't give up, and there was a great moment where the ring was filled with streamers & the Netherlands seconds started jumping for joy as soon as when Vrij scored the TKO with his 5th knockdown. While the least believable bout on the show, it was at least an interesting pro wrestling story match, as well as the most exciting contest. Their first match was better because they were on even footing, but this bought them a third match, and put Vrij in competition for the top foreigner spot even though he was Dolman's underling.Â
Final Conclusion:Â Â You can see what they're going for, but there's just nothing inspiring about this show. It just feels like a bunch of walk throughs on the undercard, which is the worst place to be because it's neither the real thing nor supplying reasons why the show is better than the actuality, with a UWF main event tacked on. The undercard isn't anything that needs to be seen, and the main event is a bit out of place in this setting.Â
There's no real theatre to these fights, they aren't dramatic or really selling the fights. Â It's obviously not real, anyone can see that, but it loses a lot of the appeal of pro-wrestling by being a less entertaining spectacle. Â Presumably this was because this was a new artform at the time. Â I know things improved over time, I have seen Volk Han and Tamura in works that looked far more believable whilst incorporating the more OOT and exciting techniques you would expect in a work.
What are considered the great worked shoots?