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*Editors Note: Mike Lorefice's (of the excellent MMA/Puroresu emporium quebrada.net) will have his comments preceded by his initials. *
The link between pro wrestling and MMA has admittedly gotten a certain amount of superficial attention amongst various media outlets over the years, but truthfully, the inextricable link between the two is a vast chasm that very few have even attempted to rappel the depths of. Thankfully for the world at large, we at Kakutogi HQ are on the job and are pleased to be reporting an event, that while being obscure to most modern MMA fans, was an incredibly important part of its early development.
Many fans of the fight game can easily recall how K-1's brand of kickboxing was immensely popular at one point in history, even briefly enjoying status as the number one spectator sport in Japan (it even surpassed baseball at one point) but they are probably unaware that it spawned forth from Sediokaikan karate, an offshoot of Kyokushin Karate started by Kazuyoshi Ishii in 1980. For 13 years, Ishii hosted many karate tournaments until towards the end of 1991, he started to dabble with his format by introducing gloves. Sediokaikan tournament rules did not allow punches to the face and required participants to wear a gi, but on 10-10-91 a revolutionary change to Ishii's format happened. He restructured the event so the first round be business as usual, but the 2nd round would see the competitors take their gi tops off, and if a decision still hadn't been reached by the end of the third round, they would don boxing gloves and have full kickboxing round(s) to try and determine a winner.
Then, in a move that furthered its path towards becoming a full-blown kickboxing promotion, they held a massive tournament on 1-12-92, featuring 57 combatants, and a cash price of 10,000,000 yen (approximately 100,000 in U.S. currency). This mega tournament had full kickboxing rules including spinning back fists, elbows, protracted clinch time, etc., and went for unlimited rounds, with the end of each round being judged, until a winner was decided by the vote of three judges. This event was attended by the owner and top performer of FIGHTING NETWORK RINGS, Akira Maeda, who was friends with Ishii and was a major influence on him during this point in time. Ishii had ambitions to not only be the top promoter of all things combat-sport-related in Japan, but also wanted a way to showcase various styles of standup fighting from around the world. Maeda, on the other hand, was struggling to get his fledgling wrestling promotion off the ground, which until the end of 1991, had almost no stars outside of himself, and was thus forced to rent out various martial artists from Holland and Russia to fill in the gaps in his roster.
Serendipity abounded once again, as these two larger-than-life personalities came together at the perfect time, and their decision to forge ahead with an equitable relationship allowed combat sports to reach unheralded levels of presentation, but also wound up having a symbiotic and influential relationship to MMA for years to come. Ishii and his ensemble of karate stars were available to help Maeda through a lean patch in his company's history, and in return, he offered a lot of insight to Ishii on the finer points of formatting, booking, and presenting what was heretofore a niche sport with a grandiose verve and panache that was inspired by pro wrestling theatrics. Now, both men and both promotions head into the next phase of their respective transitions by co-promoting an event that will feature both RINGS and Sediokaikan performers, in an effort to highlight both styles.
We find ourselves at the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium, a massive sporting complex located within Sendagaya, Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. It was built in 1954 to host a wrestling championship, and is currently renowned for being an elite venue for gymnastics & table tennis, in addition to other sports. The first bout of the evening, held under RINGS RULES, will feature Akira Maeda vs Koichiro Kimura. When we last saw Kimura, he was in an entertaining and tough shoot against Mitsuya Nagai, in which he lost, but it's safe to presume that Maeda will not be indulging in shoot shenanigans anytime soon. To the credit of everyone involved, this was advertised as a 5min exhibition match, so surely there will be a built-in face-saving mechanism in place, in the event this turns out to be awful.
Things start with Maeda looking spryer than I expected, throwing some quick leg-kicks, before being forced to the mat with an excellent single-leg from Kimura. Maeda quickly scrambles to a dominant position, before utilizing his considerable weight advantage to stand back to his feet. Once up, he throws a nasty inside-leg kick to Kimura, and again, this was not the Maeda that I was expecting. Kimura no longer wants to directly engage Maeda, so he opts to try and shoot in from too far a distance, allowing an easy sprawl counter from Maeda. Maeda then hits an explosive (albeit showy) suplex on Kimura, then forces a rope escape by putting Kimura in a Kimura. The rest of this quick bout was fast and entertaining, with Kimura adding just the right amount of spice and resistance to Maeda. Maeda was urgent throughout, and everything here looked good, proving that he is still capable of working a good match, as long as it's done in a minimal amount of time. This was too short to be offered as a recommended match, but in the context of this event, it worked as a good introduction for RINGS, showing what their style of bout looked like.
ML: I assume this was an exhibition because a "real" Maeda match would have had to be the main event, but doing so would have ruined the flow by putting something farcical at the end of a bunch of legitimate contests. Nonetheless, I'm sure that would have happened anyway if Maeda wasn't beat up and trying to conserve himself. This was a surprisingly interesting match that was closer to shooting than Maeda has been so far, although Maeda certainly was allowed to go much harder than Kimura was. Basically, Kimura was allowed to go for a takedown but then had to let Maeda take over so he didn't take any damage. Maeda did one suplex but was more realistic and less loose here. He was pretty nasty beating up Kimura's legs with low-kicks as Kimura set up his takedown attempts. The brief time limit kept things from getting repetitive and too over the top. Overall, while something a bit more striking based would have been preferable for this audience, I think this was a successful introduction to the RINGS style.