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*Editors note: Both Michael Betz’s and Mike Lorefice’s comments will be preceded by their initials. *
We at Kakutogi HQ had the recent honor of compiling all of the best moments of each of the 1991 shoot-style leagues, one at a time, in isolation, and now it’s time for the final act in our 1991 Year-End-Extravaganza as we put it all together. Yes, this will be dedicated to examining 1991 in its totality, as it pertains to shoot-wrestling and the roots of MMA.
ML: Normally wrestling leagues splintering is bad for the fans because it does little beyond further dilute the talent pool, and while there was a sense of that in 1991, mostly in RINGS since Akira Maeda was ever the lone wolf, the first year of UWF-I, PWFG, & RINGS were characterized by a greater sense of freedom to express your particular brand of martial arts, to have your own focus and quirks without them simply feeling like pro wrestling stabs at marketing. There were a few veterans who changed their style, most notably Masakatsu Funaki & Kazuo Yamazaki moving more toward realism, but predominantly the sudden excess of available roster spots gave wrestlers who had only a handful of matches in the U.W.F., most notably Kiyoshi Tamura, Ken Shamrock, Yusuke Fuke, & Masahito Kakihara or were outright rookies, most notably Volk Han, Hiromitsu Kanehara, Willie Peeters, & Billy Scott the ability to do their thing in a landscape that was very different, and actually evolving. Much of this difference had to do with many of the new wrestlers not being pro wrestlers who were trained in the New Japan dojo, and had worked there before the U.W.F.. At the very least, the natives trained in the U.W.F. showed a more realistic style, working on judo rather than lariats and topes, but it was really the actual martial artists who, in the absence of much legitimate competition, found they could make something of a living doing something that actually utilized their skills to an extent, and didn't leave them feeling embarrassed and ashamed. RINGS was at the forefront of this revolution, bringing in sambo champion Han, bringing back judo silver medalist Chris Dolman and his assortment of Dutch kickboxers and proto MMA fighters, with former bouncer Dick Vrij & Olympic judoka Willy Wilhelm being Maeda's first foes.
Having a bunch of rookies has rarely lead to good pro wrestling matches, as they mostly have the same trainer teaching them the same basic holds and counter holds, without much to differentiate them beyond the better athletes and quicker learners rising to the top faster, though probably still getting squashed by whoever the tallest or heaviest stiff in the lot is. Luckily, this was totally not the case in shoot wrestling because there were so many disparate skills and backgrounds on display, honed through years of practicing their more limited and focused arts with a variety of teams, gyms, and coaches. Sometimes rounding out those skills and opening the specialists up enough that they had the striking or submission skills to maintain interest in a game that required them to fight both standing and on the mat took some real effort, but the good news is these guys were, for the most part, already really good in some aspects of the sport that would serve them really well. More importantly, having specialists in all of the legitimate fighting backgrounds other than BJJ really upped the overall level of these skills among their opponents. This was particularly noticeable when it came to amateur wrestling, which seemed to barely exist at the start of the year but be widespread and decent to good amongst most of the regulars fighters by the end.
Minoru SuzukiThere was also refreshingly much less of that overriding pro wrestling philosophy of what you should and shouldn't be doing because everyone wasn't just training the same sequences in the same gym. You were supposed to be realistic, but beyond that the performers seemed to learn from each other, experimenting to try to add new skills to what they'd been doing for years and eliminate the weaknesses they didn't have to deal with in their base arts. Though the new leagues were run by guys who participated in the old one, they surprisingly felt fairly distinct, with UWF-I leaning most toward the flashy end of the spectrum despite having the most shoots with Ohe's regular kickboxing matches & the wrestler vs. boxer shenanigans, PWFG leaning most toward the realistic end of the spectrum, and RINGS being the most martial artist and big show oriented by relying mostly on outsiders with legitimate sports backgrounds. All three leagues ultimately had 1 great, must see wrestler who made the promotion worth following. While obviously it's disappointing that with no interpromotional activity after the U.W.F. split, these guys never fought each other, but the rankings were also very skewed by the odd match making, which saw peculiarities such as Suzuki & Funaki never facing off during their two years in PWFG, while Ken Shamrock faced Suzuki 5 times & Funaki 4 during that stretch. Overall though, this was a really exciting year for quasi shooting, maybe the best year in the sense that they really felt cutting edge and seemed to be advancing the sport because Shooto was so under the radar that these pro wrestling leagues were still as close as most fans got to the real thing, and certainly closer to that concept than what we'd seen in the previous decade.
We at Kakutogi HQ had the recent honor of compiling all of the best moments of each of the 1991 shoot-style leagues, one at a time, in isolation, and now it’s time for the final act in our 1991 Year-End-Extravaganza as we put it all together. Yes, this will be dedicated to examining 1991 in its totality, as it pertains to shoot-wrestling and the roots of MMA.
ML: Normally wrestling leagues splintering is bad for the fans because it does little beyond further dilute the talent pool, and while there was a sense of that in 1991, mostly in RINGS since Akira Maeda was ever the lone wolf, the first year of UWF-I, PWFG, & RINGS were characterized by a greater sense of freedom to express your particular brand of martial arts, to have your own focus and quirks without them simply feeling like pro wrestling stabs at marketing. There were a few veterans who changed their style, most notably Masakatsu Funaki & Kazuo Yamazaki moving more toward realism, but predominantly the sudden excess of available roster spots gave wrestlers who had only a handful of matches in the U.W.F., most notably Kiyoshi Tamura, Ken Shamrock, Yusuke Fuke, & Masahito Kakihara or were outright rookies, most notably Volk Han, Hiromitsu Kanehara, Willie Peeters, & Billy Scott the ability to do their thing in a landscape that was very different, and actually evolving. Much of this difference had to do with many of the new wrestlers not being pro wrestlers who were trained in the New Japan dojo, and had worked there before the U.W.F.. At the very least, the natives trained in the U.W.F. showed a more realistic style, working on judo rather than lariats and topes, but it was really the actual martial artists who, in the absence of much legitimate competition, found they could make something of a living doing something that actually utilized their skills to an extent, and didn't leave them feeling embarrassed and ashamed. RINGS was at the forefront of this revolution, bringing in sambo champion Han, bringing back judo silver medalist Chris Dolman and his assortment of Dutch kickboxers and proto MMA fighters, with former bouncer Dick Vrij & Olympic judoka Willy Wilhelm being Maeda's first foes.
Having a bunch of rookies has rarely lead to good pro wrestling matches, as they mostly have the same trainer teaching them the same basic holds and counter holds, without much to differentiate them beyond the better athletes and quicker learners rising to the top faster, though probably still getting squashed by whoever the tallest or heaviest stiff in the lot is. Luckily, this was totally not the case in shoot wrestling because there were so many disparate skills and backgrounds on display, honed through years of practicing their more limited and focused arts with a variety of teams, gyms, and coaches. Sometimes rounding out those skills and opening the specialists up enough that they had the striking or submission skills to maintain interest in a game that required them to fight both standing and on the mat took some real effort, but the good news is these guys were, for the most part, already really good in some aspects of the sport that would serve them really well. More importantly, having specialists in all of the legitimate fighting backgrounds other than BJJ really upped the overall level of these skills among their opponents. This was particularly noticeable when it came to amateur wrestling, which seemed to barely exist at the start of the year but be widespread and decent to good amongst most of the regulars fighters by the end.
Minoru SuzukiThere was also refreshingly much less of that overriding pro wrestling philosophy of what you should and shouldn't be doing because everyone wasn't just training the same sequences in the same gym. You were supposed to be realistic, but beyond that the performers seemed to learn from each other, experimenting to try to add new skills to what they'd been doing for years and eliminate the weaknesses they didn't have to deal with in their base arts. Though the new leagues were run by guys who participated in the old one, they surprisingly felt fairly distinct, with UWF-I leaning most toward the flashy end of the spectrum despite having the most shoots with Ohe's regular kickboxing matches & the wrestler vs. boxer shenanigans, PWFG leaning most toward the realistic end of the spectrum, and RINGS being the most martial artist and big show oriented by relying mostly on outsiders with legitimate sports backgrounds. All three leagues ultimately had 1 great, must see wrestler who made the promotion worth following. While obviously it's disappointing that with no interpromotional activity after the U.W.F. split, these guys never fought each other, but the rankings were also very skewed by the odd match making, which saw peculiarities such as Suzuki & Funaki never facing off during their two years in PWFG, while Ken Shamrock faced Suzuki 5 times & Funaki 4 during that stretch. Overall though, this was a really exciting year for quasi shooting, maybe the best year in the sense that they really felt cutting edge and seemed to be advancing the sport because Shooto was so under the radar that these pro wrestling leagues were still as close as most fans got to the real thing, and certainly closer to that concept than what we'd seen in the previous decade.
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