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Post by Neo Zeed on Aug 28, 2024 1:24:43 GMT
I napped mostly through UFC 23 today with my baby boy, from November 1999, this was the final UFC show of 1999 from Japan taking place just 3 days before the Pride 8 mega-super card. One of the big factors pointed to for the SEG demise was their big waste of money investing in this Japan market. You can't really blame them for trying. They actually tried to run the Japan UFC as a totally separate company that ran itself. But it was all lost money that helped them fall into financial peril that forced them to sell out to Zuffa a little over a year after this event.
The show is the beginning of the "Dark Ages" which is a legit term fans and journalists use to cover this period from UFC 23 to UFC 29. None of these shows were released on home video, PPV buys were little to none, fan hype and support hit rock bottom, honestly it was as if the UFC really didn't exist at all during this time. I never understood why they stopped making UFC home videos for this period but after watching this show(and the next one UFC 24) you can see why pretty easily, it's like why bother? This show sucked pretty bad and they were probably better off with people not being able to waste their money renting it at Blockbuster. I'm also wondering if maybe their distributor Lions Gate/Vidmark/Trimark was going out of business or something by 1999? I know the last UFC tapes they put out UFC 21 and UFC 22 were super rare I never came across them in the wild when hunting/collecting them and they sell for $90-$100 online now, suggesting that they were rare with limited copies made.
I had forgotten that they brought back the 4 man tournament for this event, with all smaller Japanese no-namers. Kenichi Yamamoto wins both fights to win what has to be the most bland uneventful tournament ever in UFC history.
Eugene Jackson's knockout of his Japanese opponent has to be one of the only highlights of this event but it was such a sloppy fight, I've seen amateurs with sharper standup than either of these guys in this fight. Very lower level stuff. Jackson is on a roll here with another knockout but he was no match for the top guys in his weight class(Wanderlei Silva hurt him pretty bad in a fight they had in Brazil in both of their pre-UFC days).
Joe Slick would be another Miletich guy that matchmaker John Parretti would book a lot, he takes on Jason Delucia here of all people, the guy that lost to Royce Gracie back at UFC 2(he had competed a lot in Pancrase after that but was basically a jobber). Slick slams Delucia on his back in this fight and since he was wearing shoes his foot gets caught in an awkward position and he loses via really bizarre injury, the replay is funny because you can see him in slow motion screaming OH FUCK! lol.
The best fight on the card is Pedro Rizzo vs Tsuyoshi Kohsaka, two of the top heavyweights at the time. Rizzo has grown into a comfort zone in the Octagon by this point and looks really good here, great finish in the third round. Even though this was the best fight on the card it wasn't really anything spectacular.
The main event is the vacant heavyweight title on the line as Kevin Randleman takes on Pete Williams for the strap. I never realized how close Williams came to finishing Randleman there in the first round but ends up getting dominated in a real snoozer for the rest of the fight. Randleman grounds him for 5 rounds to win a decision. The UFC FINALLY crowns a legit heavyweight Champ after 2 years without one(Bas vacated the belt almost immediately after winning the bullshit decision over Randleman at UFC 20, then ended up retiring). Randleman wins the belt finally in a show taped in Japan that had really no hype or eyeballs on it in a boring ass fight. What I do like about it though is that now Randleman has avenged 2 of the big losses that ended his mentor Mark Coleman's UFC career in beating Maurice Smith and Pete Williams in dominant fashion.
Even though you would think it was a good idea, it turned out the UFC really had no business booking shows in Japan. All of them were money losers and they really had no idea or context about what really drew fans to live shows(the pro wrestling connection). What I don't understand is what happened to their Pancrase connections they had going in 95-96? Booking a Suzuki or Funaki fight on this card would have gone a long way to help them out in that market(though I think both those guys were about retired by 99).
I think this is the first UFC show where none of the fights, knockouts, or submissions would crack my Best of the UFC lists. After what started out as a hugely optimistic year for the company in January 1999, by December the future was looking bleak again. Frank Shamrock was now gone for good, as was Bas Rutten the guy they were trying to hype up as the heavyweight star. It took them 2 years to crown a heavyweight champion and did it in the most anti-climactic way possible. Kevin Randleman should have been crowned in a big win over Bas at UFC 20 and should have had his first title defense here. Now the company is off into the year 2000 barely surviving, going back and forth from Iowa, Lake Charles Louisiana, and Japan their three territories they have left. Pat Militich's welterweight title reign has been awful and his juiced in connections to matchmaker John Parretti start to run the whole UFC down as they basically build the promotion around them going forward.
Best of the UFC first 6 years, 1993 to 1999:
Greatest fights
1. Frank Shamrock vs Tito Ortiz UFC 22
2. Tank Abbott vs Don Frye Ultimate Ultimate 96
3. Maurice Smith vs Mark Coleman UFC 14
4. Tank Abbott vs Oleg Taktarov UFC 6
5. Marco Ruas vs Paul Varelans UFC 7
6. Royce Gracie vs Kimo UFC 3
7. Dan Henderson vs Carlos Newton UFC 17
8. Pete Williams vs Mark Coleman UFC 17
9. Bas Rutten vs Kevin Randleman UFC 20
10. Dave Beneteau vs Carlos Barreto UFC 15
11. Randy Couture vs Vitor Belfort UFC 15
12. Frank Shamrock vs Jeremy Horn UFC 17
13. Royce Gracie vs Keith Hackney UFC 4
14. Dan Henderson vs Alan Goes UFC 17
15. Mark Coleman vs Don Frye UFC 10
16. Ken Shamrock vs Kimo UFC 8
17. Andre Roberts vs Ron Waterman UFC 21
18. Pedro Rizzo vs Mark Coleman UFC 18
19. Pedro Rizzo vs Tra Telligman UFC 20
20. Tank Abbott vs Scott Ferrozo UFC 11
21. Chuck Liddell vs Noe Hernandez UFC 17
22. Kimo vs Paul Varelans Ultimate Ultimate 96
23. Don Frye vs Gary Goodridge II Ultimate Ultimate 96
24. Marco Ruas vs Remco Pardoel UFC 7
25. Tito Ortiz vs Guy Mezger UFC 13
26. Steve Jennum vs Melton Bowen UFC 4
Ultimate Knockouts/Finishes
1. Gary Goodridge vs Paul Herrera UFC 8
2. Frank Shamrock vs Igor Zinoviev UFC 16
3. Pete Williams vs Mark Coleman UFC 17
4. Vitor Belfot vs Wanderlei Silva Ultimate Brazil
5. Brad Kohler vs Steve Judson UFC 22
6. Tank Abbott vs Steve Nelmark Ultimate Ultimate 96
7. Pat Smith vs Scott Morris UFC 2
8. Dave Beneteau vs Asbel Cancio UFC 5
9. Tank Abbott vs John Matua UFC 6
10. Tank Abbott vs Hugo Duarte UFC 17
11. Wanderlei Silva vs Tony Petarra UFC 20
12. Bas Rutten vs Tsuyoshi Kohsaka UFC 18
13./14. Vitor Belfort vs Tra Telligman/Scott Ferrozzo UFC 12
15. Mark Kerr vs Gret Stott UFC 15
16. Gerrard Gordeau vs Telia Tuli UFC 1
17. Andre Roberts vs Ron Waterman UFC 21
18. Tito Ortiz vs Wes Albritton UFC 13
19. Eugene Jackson vs Royce Alger UFC 21
Ultimate Submissions
1. Ken Shamrock vs Dan Severn UFC 6
2. Ken Shamrock vs Kimo UFC 8
3. Ken Shamrock vs Pat Smith UFC 1
4. Frank Shamrock vs Kevin Jackson Ultimate Japan
5. Tank Abbott vs Steve Jennum Ultimate Ultimate 95
6. Dan Severn vs Joe Charles UFC 5
7. Royce Gracie vs Dan Severn UFC 4
8. Ebenezer Fontes Braga vs Jeremy Horn Ultimate Brazil
9. Royce Gracie vs Ken Shamrock UFC 1
10. Kazushi Sakuraba vs Connan Silveira Ultimate Japan
11. Jeremy Horn vs Chuck Liddell UFC 19
12. Carlos Newton vs Bob Gilstrap UFC 17
13. Guy Mezger vs Tito Ortiz UFC 13
14. Enson Inoue vs Royce Alger UFC 13
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Post by Neo Zeed on Sept 14, 2024 16:36:57 GMT
I've completely undersold Rings in this thread. Make no mistake about it they were by far the biggest MMA promotion in the world in 1999. The promotion was started in 1991 with Akira Maeda picking up from the death of the UWF. I have all of the 1991 and 1992 Rings events on DVD and their is a rapid and remarkable growth and evolution through those DVD's. The 1991 events are pretty lame, with some of the lightest and most boring of any of the shoot style feds that were around that year(Pro Wrestling Fujiwara Gumi and UWFI both also launched around the same time in 1991 as offshoots of UWF, Yoshiaki Fujiwara took Suzuki/Funaki/Shamrock with him to PWFG, while Nobuhiko Takada took Billy Robinson contingent with him to start UWFI). But by 1992 Rings was a fucking martial arts pro wrestling odyssey, those shows were red hot, huge crowds, beautiful blend of worked pro wrestling matches with wrestling vs martial arts themes, shoot style kickboxing bouts that would eventually give birth to K-1 the biggest kickboxing league there ever was, and just a really interesting and eclectic roster of fighters/martial artists/wrestlers from all corners of the globe. Rings really is the direct connection that proves that MMA is pro wrestling, just another style of it just as Lucha or hardcore or what have you. MMA evolved directly from pro wrestling's rib just like adam from eve in the bible. Rings is the hard physical proof of that and the direct link between the two. I haven't seen much of Rings in 1993-94 but I'm assuming they were overshadowed by what Sayama's Shooto and Suzuki/Funaki's Pancrase were doing those years as well as UWFI at it's peak. Shooto had the Rickson Gracie draw in 94-95, while Pancrase blew up with Suzuki/Funaki/Ken Shamrock and Bas Rutten putting out the most believable "Real" wrestling product, and with UWFI selling out their biggest venues running the Takada vs Vader stuff. So as a result of this Rings shifted in 1995 and changed their name from Pro Wrestling Network Rings to Fighting Network Rings. From 1995 until the promotions death in 2001 all Rings matches are legit credited as real MMA fights on any recognized database. But the thing was there were still a ton of worked matches, pro wrestling was still deeply entwined into Rings DNA. Akira Maeda stayed popular as a huge draw through 95, 96, 97. The promotion really started to get red hot by 1998, then in 1999 they definitely hit a crazy high point and were maybe one of the biggest MMA promotions there ever has been. Akira Maeda was always the top draw of the UWF in the 80's into the promotions death in late 1990. He was also always the top draw of Rings but as he got older they really pushed hard to build up UWFI/Takada Dojo cast off Kiyoshi Tamura as their new big star. Tamura vs Tsuyoshi Kohsaka in Rings in 1998 is an officially recognized fight on any MMA database but also at the same time got a 5 star rating from Dave Meltzer and is often considered one of the greatest wrestling matches of all time: While the UFC was struggling to survive in the USA in 1999 and while Pride was in it's early growth period trying to find it's identity in 1999 after the Takada vs Rickson bouts, Rings was on top and knew exactly what it was. Rings had the money to bring over UFC Light Heavyweight Champ Frank Shamrock in April of 1999, stealing him away from what was supposed to be a big fight against Vitor Belfort the UFC was trying to put together at UFC 19 that month. Frank would go to a draw with Kiyoshi Tamura: Ive raved about Frank Shamrock in this thread in my 1999 writeups so it really says something that Rings had the money to bring him over to face Tamura in the middle of his prime that year while reigning UFC Champ. Crazy how big of a fight this was, honestly I can't remember ever seeing this so will be interesting to check it out to see if it was possibly a work. A month later Rings brought over Randy Couture, who never lost the UFC Heavyweight title but had left the UFC to take these big money fights in Japan(he lost to Enson Inoue in Shooto in October 1998 while reigning UFC Heavyweight Champ), he would lose to Russian Rings regular Mikhail Ilyukin by submission in Rings in May of 1999. But the big thing about Rings in 1999 is the Akira Maeda vs Aleksandre Karelin bout that took place in February of 1999. This is one of those matches that connects pro wrestling and MMA: www.google.com/search?q=Akira+Maeda+vs+Aleksandre+Karelin&oq=Akira+Maeda+vs+Aleksandre+Karelin&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIICAEQABgWGB4yCggCEAAYgAQYogQyCggDEAAYgAQYogTSAQg2NzExajBqNKgCALACAQ&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#Karelin is one of the all time great Olympic legends from Russia, a multi-Gold medalist in wrestling that was one of the most dominant athletes on Earth. So when Rings got him to face Maeda in a match in February 1999 this was a match that drew mainstream media coverage, the USA Today, New York Times, ESPN all covered this, and it was massive in Japan. The match is an officially recognized MMA bout but the thing about it was it was just as much of a worked match as the Takada vs Coleman bout from Pride 5. And that also points to something I've really overlooked in this thread was how huge of an influence Rings had over everything Pride was doing in 1999. Takada vs Coleman and Takada vs Kerr was like their versions of Maeda vs Karelin. Another huge influence Rings would have over Pride was their massive 32 man 1999 Kings Of Kings tournament that took place later in the year. This tournament was fucking epic, perhaps the grandest MMA tournament ever in the history of the sport. 32 of the best in the sport in a tournament that took place over 3 shows, the first two taking place in October and December 1999, with the finals taking place in February 2000. This had a big influence on Pride because Pride would do their own version of this mega-tournament with the 2000 Pride Grand Prix, which was epic. But real hardcores know that this 1999 Kings Of Kings tournament truly eclipses that 2000 Pride Grand Prix. They had a murderers row of fighters in this tournament including future Pride greats Noguiera, Dan Henderson, Overeem, along with Renzo Gracie, Maurice Smith, Renato Sobral, Gilbert Yval, Jeremy Horn, as well as some of the big names from Japan Kohsaka, Kanehara, Tamura, Yamammoto, and one of the more popular Russian Sambo guys in the early days of Rings Andrei Kopylov. I'm going to try to watch what I can find from the 1999 Kings Of Kings tournament today, including the entire show from the December show that somebody uploaded to Youtube:
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Post by Neo Zeed on Sept 14, 2024 22:25:22 GMT
Found this on Reddit from 2002 Observer, pretty great history here and shows how Pride became the big fish basically swallowed up Rings:
History of RINGS (Wrestling Observer Newsletter, January 7 2002)
RINGS, the first pro wrestling company to start out as a worked promotion and end up as a 100% shoot promotion, officially folded with the announcement of the company liquidation at a press conference by CEO Akira Maeda on 12/27.
The folding, effective after the company's final show, the traditional annual tournament finals on 2/15 at Yokohama Bunka Gym, may also spell the end of Maeda, one of the most influential pro wrestlers in history when it comes to influence on the evolution of the business. Due to that, the legacy of Maeda, 42, perhaps the single most important person when it comes to the popularity of both shoot style pro wrestling and actual shooting in Japan, will continue to shape the future industry. It is expected this will spell the end of Maeda's career in the pro wrestling and MMA world due to his unpopularity within both worlds in recent years, but stranger things have happened.
In its nearly 11 years, RINGS created the popularity of many of the biggest stars in today's Pride such as Antonio Nogueira and Gilbert Yvel. Before going to an all-shoot format in late 1999, the company had promoted some of the greatest technical pro wrestling matches in history, largely involving Kiyoshi Tamura in his various battles with the likes of Volk Han, Ilioukhine Mikhail, Tsuyoshi Kohsaka and Yoshihisa (now Pride fighter Norihisa) Yamamoto. It also created its own stable of pro wrestling stars, and while switching formats, forced all of them to go into shoot matches to defend their reputations, with both good and bad results.
The closing of the promotion was hardly unexpected. In fact, just last week in the year in review, it was noted that the company was on the verge of closing down. After WOWOW, its television network, a Japanese version of HBO that used its house shows for prime time specials, cut back its sponsorship money to the company last year, it was forced to scale back what it could pay to fighters and had to cut several of its fighters from contract. The company had already suffered a major blow when its biggest star, Tamura, quit in May, largely after being overworked, and the resulting injuries destroyed his career as he was losing match after match. It was a double edged sword as the company needed him on the shows to draw, even though the reality was he wasn't, due to a number of reasons, timing, a bad loss at the wrong time, size, the draw hoped for. But by overworking him and him losing so frequently, he lost whatever was left of his drawing power. Due to its financial problems and better offers, RINGS continually lost the stars it created to the Pride promotion.
There were numerous factors that caused the once hot promotion to fall in popularity over the past three plus years, far beyond the problems with Tamura. Its ultimate demise was, like most major chapters in the history of this industry, decided upon in a television board room, not that unlike the demise of WCW and a very different but equally revolutionary ECW. The death of RINGS, just weeks after the death of Battlarts (a descendent of Pro Wrestling Fujiwara Gumi) leaves just Pancrase as the last active descendant of the UWF movement of the late 1980s, although the worked shoot style it revolutionized really died with the death of Battlarts, since RINGS had abandoned it for good more than two years ago.
One of the major network executives responsible for supporting RINGS had left the company and was replaced by a new director who didn't see RINGS as important to the station, and earmarked the company's sports budget more in the direction of other sports, soccer in particular. WOWOW used to promote RINGS in its infancy as one of its prime sporting events, very much similar to how HBO does its big boxing events. But once Maeda retired, the mainstream appeal was gone, and with the audience dropping, it had become an afterthought on the station. Maeda was informed earlier this month that the new director of sports programming had decided against renewing the contract when it expired on 3/30, and privately told the six fighters left under contract of this and that it spelled the death knell for the company on 12/21 at their show in Yokohama. It was the WOWOW sponsorship money that not only kept the company afloat for nearly 11 years, but allowed it to expand, running shows in places such as Holland, Georgia (Soviet Georgia), Russia, the United States (largely unsuccessful all shoot events in Iowa and Hawaii) and Australia largely as television specials for the station. Much like WCW, there were a lot of problems, not all related to loss of popularity, and perhaps even more due to the feeling it was a corporate embarrassment, that played a hand in the decision.
The hot-tempered Maeda was known for violent outbursts in public from the early days of his pro wrestling career in New Japan Pro Wrestling, where he was booker Hisashi Shinma's hand-picked successor when found as an 18-year-old karate star in 1977 as the biggest star in the Japanese wrestling world when Antonio Inoki would step down. He had his fights outside the ring. He all too often would lose his temper at reporters, which played a part in killing him at the end. His violent outbursts alienated many of his former supporters and eventually led to him being considered something of an embarrassment as the head of a sports organization, none of which helped him when it came time for his contract to be renewed. He was arrested this past year in the United States on a domestic violence charge against his secret wife. He also allegedly attacked Pancrase President Masami Ozaki when he thought Ozaki was trying to steal Jeremy Horn in a civil case which is still pending. He was also sucker punched backstage at a UFC event by Yoji Anjo in front of tons of media, to the point many were initially suspicious it was just a pro wrestling angle, although clearly it wasn't and Anjo was arrested. Anjo worked with him in the second UWF but later split apart as Maeda would constantly knock everyone publicly and many times challenged Yuko Miyato to fight (UWFI booker, another former UWF wrestler who had knocked RINGS) and always knocked rival promotions. Tokyo Sports, like many in the martial arts world, who didn't like Maeda by this time, considered, due to his history, this sucker punch being a case of poetic justice and not the cowardly act it also was. In its coverage, the newspaper blamed Maeda for getting what he deserved, noting some of his past indiscretions. Maeda was furious at the coverage and punched a reporter from the newspaper in full view of numerous members of the media in August after a meeting with New Japan to set up interpromotional ideas that he was hoping would save his company. Due to the incident receiving so much negative coverage, New Japan refused to work with Maeda. The newspaper, the largest sports daily in Japan, then refused to cover RINGS events, which greatly hurt the group's popularity.
In October, there was another embarrassing story in Weekly Friday, a popular businessman's magazine with huge circulation, which was somehow given possession of a videotape shot three years earlier backstage at a show in Kagoshima. Maeda, upset at Wataru Sakata for his performance in a match, beat the hell out of him and practically tortured him in the dressing room after the match. The combination of these type of stories and the promotion's fading popularity combined with a non-wrestling fan put in charge of the sports budget at WOWOW were the death blows to the organization.
Maeda being the biggest star in Japanese wrestling never materialized, as Inoki, like so many before and after him, had no intention of stepping down before those who were hungry for his spot became frustrated and fans at the time tired of him. But in other ways, he became far more important because of the industry changes he brought. When Shinma was ousted from New Japan in 1983 for numerous financial improprieties, he formed a new promotion in early 1984, called the UWF. After Inoki backed out on a promise to join him, Shinma used Maeda, then 24 and already a major player in New Japan, as his big star. Maeda, through the influence of Karl Gotch, the original coach of all the top stars with the new promotion (Maeda, veterans Yoshiaki Fujiwara and Osamu Kido and future stars Nobuhiko Takada and Kazuo Yamazaki), changed the face of wrestling by popularizing the term shooting, building a wrestling style around suplexes, submissions and kicks. While the first UWF was not a shoot, it looked more realistic, and most of the audience believed it to be the real deal. UWF gained a large cult following in Tokyo becoming the hottest show at Korakuen Hall in 1984-85, particularly when it lured Satoru Sayama out of retirement (which ended up forcing Shinma out of the promotion he formed when Sayama did a he goes or I go power play), but couldn't draw on the road. Maeda would frequently do interviews during this period insulting Inoki, an idea very similar to Paul Heyman's for Shane Douglas on Ric Flair, only with 100 times the impact since everyone knew about it. Amid a major news scandal involving Sayama and financial problems, and a final event which saw a Maeda-Sayama match turn into a real shoot after the two were at odds for control of the group, for a few minutes (the much-smaller Sayama, recognizing he was in trouble, kept trying to kick Maeda in the groin to get disqualified), the promotion folded. To great fanfare, Maeda went back to New Japan. as a hotter star than ever. During his UWF days, Maeda frequently knocked American pro wrestlers (which haunted him later as most of the Americans didn't cooperate with him when he had to return to New Japan, giving him the rep that while he was great wrestling Japanese, he couldn't work with Americans, which was partially his fault as he came across to the Americans as having an attitude that he was above them), would get enraged at fans at house shows what would make a comment that the new style was boring.
The 1986-87 period with New Japan changed pro wrestling in that country forever. The feud with Maeda, Takada, Fujiwara and Yamazaki against the New Japan wrestlers was huge box office, and created a hardcore awareness of submissions like armbars, kneebars, Fujiwara armbars and half crabs as finishers. But the less spectacular submissions, while building up great heat and selling tickets for a hot feud, also was apparently so technical that it hurt casual fan interest and TV ratings in prime time started falling, which eventually resulted in New Japan's TV show being taken out of prime time and moved to Saturday afternoons. Years later, it was moved to Saturday nights past midnight, a death time slot, although it still did very strong business with the bad time slot. But it was a style years ahead of its time, and while older fans didn't understand it, when the kids who thought it was cool got older, it spawned the education and understanding of a new form of realistic pro wrestling, and later actually real pro wrestling, which led to the MMA boom that changed Japanese wrestling forever.
There were several incidents both in and out of the ring that defined the period. Maeda was a hothead with a shooter rep, and 'steadfastly refused to put anyone over except Fujiwara, who his audience considered "real" and his equal, leading to booking problems since the the money Inoki vs. Maeda match couldn't be booked. In fact, it never took place (they did end up resolving some of their differences and worked in tag matches, but neither would ever put the other over). He once punched out Keiji Muto, another of the company's rising stars, in a bar. He had the infamous 1986 shoot with Andre the Giant, which was someone in the company's attempt rile up the Giant to humiliate Maeda and kill his shooter rep by not cooperating with him. The result backfired. Once Maeda figured out what was going on and it turned into a shoot, Maeda's quickness and leg kicking ability largely humiliated the aging and possibly drunk Giant, who most in wrestling thought to be unbeatable in a street fight. Maeda took him down at will and Andre could never touch him, and by the end, couldn't even stand up because his legs had taken so much punishment and he was blown up.
Maeda's rep grew on October 9, 1986 when he defeated a world champion kickboxer, Don Nakaya Neilsen, in a worked mixed match which was a classic at the time, as the semi-main event on a show headlined by a disastrous match with Inoki against Leon Spinks. With the largest audience to watch pro wrestling in ten years (drawing a 28.9 TV rating), since the Ali-Inoki match, the general public saw Inoki struggle in a disastrous match, while Maeda shined in what was called at the time the greatest mixed martial arts match in history. Although the term hardcore was later changed by Heyman and used to describe a very different style, Maeda was actually during that period the first ever king of hardcore, with cult fans thinking he was really the toughest of all the pro wrestlers. One night at Korakuen Hall, he was booked in a singles match with Kerry Von Erich, an American superstar. The place was packed with Maeda supporters longing to see their hero humiliate a fake U.S. star, but instead, when booked as an evenly-fought double count out, fans were furious, and not in a heat building way, leaving Maeda was even more frustrated with how he was being used. This led to a later date in the same building and rumors were out before the show that something was going to happen. And it did. In a six-man pitting a UWF team against New Japan, Riki Choshu, New Japan's most popular wrestler at the time, held Kido scorpion deathlock, which tied up his hands and left him defenseless. Maeda came in for the save, and kicked Choshu, full force, in the eye, breaking Choshu's orbital bone and his eye began swelling up and bleeding. The blow actually didn't knock Choshu out, or even down and you can imagine how furious he was, but Masa Saito managed to calm everything down before it got out of hand in the ring, although Choshu did do a number on Maeda's belongings when he got to the dressing room.
Maeda was suspended immediately for the unprofessional act. New Japan was willing to bring him back if he agreed to several stipulations, including six months of having to wrestle in Mexico (doing Lucha Libre or American style would be the ultimate insult because of everything he had said) as well as put Choshu over clean in a singles match because in its own bizarre way the incident had hurt Choshu's reputation with the fans. Instead, Maeda got backers, and in 1988, the second UWF was formed. While the first UWF was only a success in Tokyo, Maeda's name had grown from the two years of New Japan TV, and mainstream fans understood the style better from its television exposure. Not unlike Vince McMahon, and Rikidozan before him, the man who perpetrated the unprofessional and cowardly act benefitted by their business growing to greater heights than anyone could imagine. Maeda, in the eyes of many fans, was the guy so hardcore he wanted to fight for real and New Japan fired him for it, and now he was going to have his own company where the pro wrestlers fought for real.
It immediately become the hottest wrestling promotion in the world, selling out every show in minutes behind Maeda, who was voted 1988 Wrestler of the Year, still the only wrestler in history not in one of the big four historical promotions of this generation (NWA/WCW, WWF, All Japan or New Japan) to win the award. The peak was on November 29, 1989, when Maeda became the first wrestler ever to sellout the Tokyo Dome, drawing the largest gate in wrestling history up to that point ($2.9 million) for his match with European judo champion Willie Wilhelm. But due to mismanagement with finances, that company folded barely one year later, leading to the three top stars, Maeda, Takada and Fujiwara, going their separate ways. And all having a hand in changing pro wrestling forever.
Fujiwara formed Pro Wrestling Fujiwara Gumi, which had the least success of the three, but ended up leading to the most revolutionary move of all, when the group's three top younger stars, Wayne Shamrock (who later became famous as Ken Shamrock), Masakatsu Funaki and Minoru Suzuki quit, largely frustrated at the aging Fujiwara's refusal to pass the torch to them. In 1993, they formed Pancrase, the first attempt at doing legitimate pro wrestling matches. Takada formed UWFI, which was hot as hell for several years, but collapsed rather quickly for a number of reasons, part of which was Takada's never facing Rickson Gracie after the incident where Gracie destroyed Anjo in a dojo fight. But Takada's fame from that period led not only to the hottest feud up to that point in pro wrestling history with the New Japan vs. UWFI feud and Takada's string of record breaking houses against the New Japan stars in 1995-96. Years later, when the Takada-Rickson Gracie matches finally took place, it put Pride on the map.
Maeda went his own way, figuratively turning his back on pro wrestling, by teaming with WOWOW to do an offshoot of the UWF, only claiming it to not be pro wrestling, even though it was, and claiming it to be a new sport they were going to invent called RINGS. His first goal was to avoid all ties with pro wrestling, by not using any North Americans or Mexicans, even if they had experience with only so-called (worked) shoot promotions. His talent instead came from contacts that gave him access to Eastern European Olympic athletes, Russian sambo champions and big real fighters, street fighters and bouncers from Holland. The idea was not to use anyone with a taint of pro wrestling in them, a doctrine they didn't always follow. Many of his hardcore followers were mad. when years later, Maeda brought in Fujiwara to be his opponent on a big show, but it ended up being a major financial success. A modern day James Naismith was his new goal.
Because Maeda was such a big mainstream name and draw, RINGS, which opened in May 1991 was drawing huge crowds for monthly shows to see Maeda face largely unknown fighters. The shows were built around Maeda as the big draw, and a famous karate fighter named Masaaki Satake, an aging Holland Sambo legend named Chris Dolman and his stable of fierce Amsterdam street fighters and bouncers, most notably Dick Vrij, Maeda's first major opponent, and Hanse Nyman. One of his leading promoters was a Seido Kaikan karate studio owner named Kazuyoshi Ishii, who learned about the promotion of pro wrestling, brought it to the martial arts world, and two years later, created K-1 with Satake as his first major drawing card. The original Battle Dimension tournament in 1992, a worked format which led to the popularity of similar tournaments in the shoot world, featured future K-1 stars Satake and Nobuaki Kikuta doing worked pro wrestling matches. In a first round match on October 29, 1992, Maeda beat reputed sambo champion from Russia named Volk Han. Han would go on to become his greatest in-ring rival, one of the most popular foreigners athletes of the decade in Japan and the 90's great innovator in submission and worked shoot wrestling.
RINGS would often do shoot matches on the undercard, although that wasn't revolutionary because UWF had done some shoots as well, although never with any of the big names. The ultimate Maeda irony was that his dream was to create a sport, not pro wrestling organization, where they would fight for real under pro wrestling rules. RINGS started with points for knockdowns and rope breaks, and with no closed fist punching. As UFC style fighting gained popularity, rope breaks and points were eliminated and finally, fighters started wearing gloves and punching was legalized. The only difference RINGS maintained to the end as compared to a Pride, Pancrase or UFC, was no closed fist punching or knees on the ground, leading to more of an emphasis on submission technique as opposed to brawling and ground-and-pound. With more frequent stand-ups, it created a cleaner and faster-paced and less brutal looking sport. But it was also one less marketable, particularly in countries that had seen UFC or Vale Tudo first like the United States. In the end, Maeda temporarily did achieve his goal. But he himself had to retire to do so, because he himself was never willing to risk his reputation in a shoot.
Maeda and Han largely carried the promotion through its most successful box office period through 1996. After Yamamoto, who had been a jobber up to that point, went 21:00 in his first shoot match ever, against none other than Rickson Gracie, he started getting pushed as the guy who would replace Maeda on top. But it was a struggle, as Maeda's bad knees forced several operations, and business was always weak during his time off using Yamamoto on top. Finally, when Tamura, already something of a big star as Takada's No. 2 star in UWFI, who started with the original UWF as a teenager and was injured in his first match by Maeda, refused to participate in the New Japan vs. UWFI feud, he chose RINGS above Pancrase and was an immediate big hit. Tamura largely carried the main events in 1996, and even though he is just 185-pounds, his ability to make worked matches look real and Jmbine pro wrestling psychology with shoot tactics made him an in ring phenomenon. Some would say he was the best performer in the entire business, and he became an immediate drawing card as every wrestler who jumps promotions with a name should be when handled correctly. With Maeda out, Tamura and Han saved the 1996-97 tournament and had a classic final match on January 22, 1997 before 11,800 fans at Budokan Hall with Han winning. Maeda, whose knees and conditioning had gotten so bad by this point he was a shell of his former self, knew retirement was near. He put Tamura over by submission in the semifinals of the 1997-98 tournament and Tamura, in spectacular fashion, won the tournament to become officially the group's No. 1 star.
But despite Tamura's skill and charisma, the promotion was never the same after Maeda retired on July 20, 1998 on what up to that point was the group's biggest show in its history, selling out the Yokohama Arena with 17,000 fans. When Maeda retired, the promotion started doing more and more shooting matches, to where it became 50% of most cards. This led to a few exciting pro wrestling matches mixed in with slower and duller shoots involving a lot of heavyweight Olympic style wrestlers with little experience in either striking or submissions, a recipe that led to falling gates, although the loss of Maeda was probably more important to the popularity going down. Another match of huge impact was when unheralded kickboxer Valentijn Overeem from Holland, who had waxed undercard fighter Wataru Sakata in a shoot match on a RINGS show in Holland, was brought over for a shoot match to get eaten up by the more skilled Tamura. While Overeem had Tamura by 30 pounds, Tamura had beaten people like that in the past, usually in the blink of an eye, because he was an expert for real at submissions. Even though it was only three years ago, it was a generation ago from a fighting standpoint, as the overall skill level of fighters hadn't evened out enough to where a weight disadvantage like that couldn't be overcome by greater skill. However, Overeem showed up with submission knowledge that nobody expected, and the unknown totally embarrassed Tamura, injuring him in the process, and badly hurting his rep. Ironically in Tamura, they had the real deal, as he proved with shoot wins over the likes of Renzo Gracie (Renzo's first ever professional loss), UFC champs like Maurice Smith, Pat Miletich and Dave Menne, as well as UFC stars like Elvis Sinosic and Jeremy Horn. He even had a 30:00 draw with Frank Shamrock which remains the only blemish on Shamrock's record in the last six years and to this day Shamrock says Tamura was the best kicker he was ever in the ring with. But Tamura's drawing power was never the same after the first Overeem match, even when he managed to get revenge via submission in a worked match a year later. The frequent shoot matches after the change in format led to him being overworked and broke his body down. After Tamura won the RINGS world heavyweight title, at 185 pounds, in a worked match against 320-pound Bitszadze Tariel (the one RINGS major star who was totally exposed when they went to shoots), he took a horrible beating when he lost the title as a shoot to Yvel, who had him by probably 35 pounds. Tamura could have won the match as he could take Yvel down at will, but due to the frequent stand-ups ordered by the ref, took terrible punishment as he couldn't hang with him standing. He was never the same in the ring, and after a series of losses, quit the promotion in May, which signalled publicly that the end was likely near.
From a notoriety standpoint, the company's biggest event ever was on February 21, 1999, when Maeda came out of retirement for the first and only pro wrestling match of Alexander Karelin. Karelin, who, with more than 250 consecutive wins in Greco-roman wrestling dating back 12 years and three Olympic gold medals, was considered by many to be the single greatest wrestler who ever lived. A ripped to shreds 296-pound Karelin beat Maeda in a very believable looking (so believable that to this day within the amateur wrestling world, Maeda's getting a submission rope break point on Karelin in the match was used as evidence that even the mighty Karelin could have been beaten in UFC) pro wrestling match. Karelin in won via points, and gave Maeda quite a beating even though it was worked, before 17,048 paying $2,479,000 at Yokohama Arena--the largest gate ever for a pro wrestling match in an arena setting. While Karelin was the most famous, he was hardly the only Olympic level competitor brought to RINGS to do what amounted to pro wrestling matches. In fact, more Olympic athletes worked for RINGS likely than any pro wrestling promotion in history. The list includes Hank Numan (1980 bronze medal in judo for Holland), Dan Henderson (1992 and 1996 U.S. Olympic wrestler), Kiril Barbuto (Bulgarian 1992 Olympic wrestler), David Khakhalesshvili (Georgian judo player who beat Naoya Ogawa to win the 1992 superheavyweight gold medal), Pieter Smit (1992 Holland judo), Svilen Russinov (Bulgarian boxer who was 1992 bronze medalist), Zaza Tkeschelaschvili (1996 Georgia freestyle wrestler who became something of a cult favorite as Grom Zaza), Zaza Turminadze (1996 Bulgarian freestyle wrestler), Gogitidze Bakrouri (1996 Bulgarian Greco-roman wrestler) and Georgi Kandalaki (Bulgarian boxer). In 1999, Maeda changed the annual tournament, and thus the promotion itself, to an all-shoot format, with an outstanding tournament won by Henderson. But by this time the company was being picked apart by Pride, which immediately raided Henderson. It also raided Yvel right after he won he world heavyweight title from Tamura.
Things had come full circle for the group, which in 1998 promoted some of the best pro wrestling matches in the world, when on February 24, 2001 at Sumo Hall in its final hurrah, before a near sellout of 10,260, it promoted perhaps the best shoot tournament ever in terms of excitement and easily the most underrated show of the year. Future UFC champ Menne had an incredible match with pro wrestler Hiromitsu Kanehara. Past the age of 40, the groups' most famous foreign star ever, Han, in a shoot format, lost via decision to Nogueira, and he turned out to be the most competitive of any opponent Nogueira faced all year, which showed that Han's reputation as a shooter that he brought to RINGS in the early 90s was legitimate. Nogueira later beat Kanehara and Overeem (who had tapped out UFC heavyweight champ Randy Couture in the semifinals in 56 seconds) to win the tournament. But Nogueira and Overeem were then snatched up by Pride.
Finally recognizing the mistakes they made by putting Tamura in with much bigger guys, who he was almost always competitive with but his body was breaking down, they created a 198-pound division for Tamura to win, but by this time his injuries were such that he wasn't even competitive with top guys of his own size. Instead, Ricardo Arona won the tournament, and immediately thereafter, was the next to jump to Pride.
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Post by Neo Zeed on Nov 17, 2024 14:18:03 GMT
Got up early this morning and watched Pride 8 from November 21st 1999 from the Ariake Coliseum in Japan. I was surprised that there aren't really any big retrospective articles or blogs or anything written about this event online. This was a pivotal "turning point" show for the history of Pride and the history of MMA as a result. Because think about it really what was Pride before this? Pride 1 was big time, I've called it the Wrestlemania III of MMA, Rickson Gracie vs Takada at the Tokyo Dome was the Hogan vs Andre of the sport. The rest of the show was crazy with a few worked shoot style UWFI style matches mixed in with legit MMA violence(Gary Goodridge kayoing Oleg). Pride 2 and 3 were filler shows to build up to Takada vs Rickson II at Pride 4 at the Tokyo Dome, the revenge match, a show that felt very similar to Pride 1. The first 4 Pride shows were oddball events that had UWFI vibes going. So in 1999 starting with Pride 5 new owners bought it out and built it up over the 4 events in 1999, establishing the identity of what Pride was from Pride 5 to Pride 6 to Pride 7. Through it all they pushed Mark Kerr as the new heavyweight top dog, only for him to get upset by Igor Vovchanchyn the undersized Ukranian knockout slugger at Pride 7. Another major star was built up in Kazushi Sakuraba, spinning off of his UFC Japan performance(where he almost broke the arm of Gracie BJJ black belt Connan Silveira, who outweighed him by something like 50 pounds) in December 1997. Sakuraba quickly rose up the cards with wins over Vernon White and Carlos Newton in show stealing bouts at Pride 2 and 3. He went to a draw with Alan Goes in the Tokyo Dome in Pride 4 in a great fight. Goes was a training partner of Silveira under the Carlson Gracie Jujitsu banner in Brazil. So when Sakuraba took down top ranked Carlson Gracie star Vitor Belfort at Pride 5 in April 1999 a star was born. Sakuraba dominated Belfort at Pride 5 and captivated the crowd in doing so. Sakuraba defeated Ebenezer Fontas Braga another tough Brazilian with an armbar submission at Pride 6 before winning a squash over Anthony Macias at Pride 7. So now Sakuraba is the fucking man. Igor Vovchanchyn's win over Mark Kerr at Pride 7 had been overturned into a no contest due to his knees he dropped Kerr with being deemed illegal(this was all a big scene in Kerr's "Smashing Machine" documentary, which is being turned into a movie starring The Rock as Kerr). So Igor is the man at heavyweight at this point not only in Pride but really all of the world in MMA. Pride 8 is without a doubt a landmark MMA event. This was the return of the Gracie family to Pride for the first time since the Tokyo Dome at Pride 4 a year earlier. In the main event it's Royler Gracie, the smallest of the Gracie fighters at the time, was stepping up to face Kazushi Sakuraba to renew the Gracie vs Takada Dojo rivalry. Sakuraba was a product of Takada's dojo(where he became a legit grappling force training under Billy Robinson, the pro wrestling shooter), while Royler was the younger brother of Rickson and Royce Gracie. This was a HUGE match for Pride. Royler had fought at Pride 2 in 1998 with a submission win over Yuhi Sano the pro wrestler. Now Sakuraba represents Japan and Pro Wrestling against his greatest challenge from Brazil, the undefeated Gracie Family. Royler's cousin Renzo Gracie also returns here to face popular pro wrestler Aleksander Otsuka in the co-main. This event was a big focal point in the Smashing Machine documentary about Mark Kerr aired on HBO in the 90's(one of the best docos ever made).  This is Pride 8. This event takes place just 3 days after the UFC's failed UFC Japan event(UFC 23), which was a flop. To put it into context also this Pride 8 event takes place right in between the 2 opening round "Kings Of Kings" shows from the legendary tournament put on by Fighting Network Rings that Fall in 1999. Kings Of Kings Block A event was about a month prior to Pride 8 on October 28th(starring Antonio Rodrigo Noguiera, Babalu Sobral, Alistair Overeem, Hiromitsu Kanehara, Jeremy Horn, Dan Henderson, Brad Kohler, and Yoshihisa Yamamoto) and Kings Of Kings Block B event took place about a month after Pride 8 on December 22nd(starring Maurice Smith, Renzo Gracie, Gilbert Yvel, Tsuyoshi Kohsaka, Tim Lajcik, Kiyoshi Tamura, and Dave Menne). Both Kings Of Kings opening round tournament shows drew around 4,000-5,000. There is no attendance records for this show but the Ariake Coliseum is a 10,000 seat Tennis stadium in Tokyo with a retractable roof. Rings held an event there in 1994 that drew over 9,000. The place looks and sounds full throughout this event so I'm assuming this was for sure a sell out. I'm watching this on one of my DVD's that I've had for a long time, dual sided disc with the show split in half on it. There are no intros or any bells and whistles as far as presentation on this DVD, it's pretty bare bones. Wanderlei Silva defeats Daijiro Matsui via decision in the opener. It's critical to track the career of Wanderlei if I'm going to keep reviewing through these events. This was his 2nd Pride appearance and goes 2-0. After getting starched by Vitor Belfort in UFC Brazil in October 1998 Wanderlie would go on a tear in 1999, going 5-0 with wins in UFC and Pride to move his record to 10-2 overall. Wanderlei rips Matsui up with the Thia clinch in this fight but Matsui survives and takes it the distance. Matsui gets cut open in this fight and the blood stains set a great aesthetic on the all white ring for the rest of the event. Usually Pride had a pretty strict no-blood policy so this was a rare Pride fight with blood. Frank Trigg finishes Fabiano Iha in a lighter weight class fight, 170 pounds. This was pretty rare for Pride to have smaller guys fighting. Pat Miletich is still in the middle of his reign of doom as UFC Welterweight Champ but Trigg was a top dog at the weight class at this point, with big wins at the Vale Tudo Japan 98 event and this one at Pride 8, he was undefeated. Alan Goes defeats Carl Malenko via anaconda submission choke. This brings an end to Malenko's Pride career, he kind of disappears until going on a streak of wins at smaller indy MMA events in 2005-2008. He's just that one guy that did some Battlearts pro wrestling in Japan and had those 3 fights in Pride. Mark Coleman wins a decision over a huge behemoth named Ricardo Morias, 6'8", 275 lbs with like maybe 2%-3% bodyfat, a fucking monster. Morias had experience in Rings and had a good performance in the 1999 Abu Dhabi Submission Wrestling tournament. I've always thought this was an awesome fight because Coleman himself was always the bigger more intimidating fighter, but with this matchup Morias towers over him and dwarfs him. Coleman getting the takedown on Morias early in the fight is such a powerful moment, showing the skill of Coleman to put a man that size right on his back. Coleman dominates Morias on the ground just controlling him for the win. Not a real exciting fight but still very interesting. You wouldn't see Morias again really for a while, he didn't do great in the 2000 ADCC competition in Abu Dhabi before disappearing until Pride dug him up and brought him back for a couple fights in 2005-2006.  Igor Vovchanchyn knocks out Francisco Bueno with an epic kayo, one of the best in the history of Pride. Bueno jumps around Igor standing up early on and Igor eventually cuts him off in the corner and lays him out with a looping overhand. Bueno falls over like a tree with Igor landing 3 more shots on the way down. This is an iconic Pride moment. Igor at this point is coming off the Kerr fight at Pride 7 and with this has solidified himself as the baddest motherfucker on Earth going into the year 2000.  Tom Erikson defeats Gary Goodridge via decision in his Pride debut. Erikson is an interesting figure from this era as he was being ducked and avoided by all the top heavywieghts(Kerr and Coleman) and the UFC wanted nothing to do with him because he wasn't marketable(and they knew he would beat all their heavyweights). He was just a big 300 pound wrestler, one of the best in the world. Erikson was undefeated at 5-0-1 going into this fight at Pride 8 and had a knockout win over Kevin Randleman(who had just won the UFC Heavyweight title 3 days before Pride 8 at UFC 23). Erikson proves he's legit by overpowering Goodridge in a brawl early on. Erikson controls and dominates Goodridge for the win, with Gary having some entertaining moments trash talking Erikson from his back early on. Even though he lost here Goodridge really had found his home here in Pride(with this he fought on 6 of the first 8 Pride events) deserves credit for even fighting Erikson when others wouldn't. Renzo Gracie defeats Aleksander Otsuka by decision. It's pretty rare that a Gracie would take a fight with judges decisions but in this case it paid off for Renzo as he picked up a much deserved win, he completely outclasses the bigger Japanese pro wrestler. Renzo had some great moments in this fight and looked like one of the toughest and most well rounded Gracie fighters, he was just different. He didn't have the same aura as Royce or Rickson but was scrappy dog. This was a good win for him as Otsuka was riding the high of his upset win over Marco Ruas in his previous fight(Pride 4). At one point Renzo beat the pro wrestler at his own game and landed a sweet belly to back suplex on Otsuka. The main event is Kazushi Sakuraba with Nobuhiko Takada in his corner taking on Royler Gracie with Rickson Gracie in his corner. It's important to remember the Gracie family is undefeated in modern times up to this point. Royce never really lost in the UFC winning the 1st, 2nd, and 4th tournaments. Rickson won the 94 and 95 Vale Tudo Japan 8 man tournaments put together by Shooto then went 2-0 vs Takada at Pride 1 and 4. Renzo and Royler have won fights in Pride and abroad around the world. Now Kazushi Sakuraba's journey has led him here to this face off with Royler Gracie with all of this momentum and everything he learned from his fights against Connan Silveira, Alan Goes, Vitor Belfort, and Ebenezer Fontas Braga. Sakuraba just completely destroys Royler in a beat down that is honestly hard to watch at times. The whole drama of it is thick and cinematic in this fight. Gracie is hurt bad at times when Sakuraba attacks his legs with kicks. Gracie crawls around on his butt kicking at Sakuraba but just gets massacred with kicks as Sakuraba stands over him. At one point Sakuraba throws a kick that goes over Royler's guard and skims him across the face with his toes. Sakuraba dominates Royler standing up with a high kick that drops him. He also lands his patented spinning back kick that he hurt Vitor with. They spend most of the fight with Royler down in butt scoot position though with Sakuraba standing over him. Royler at times alost begs Sakuraba to come down into his guard and fight on the ground. Sakuraba just toys with him, dragging him out to the center of the ring, battering him with kicks. At one point early on when they are on the ground Sakuraba cuts his eyes over to Rickson Gracie nearby for just a moment, the tension is fucking thick as ever in that moment.  The end comes with Sakuraba finally going down into Royler's guard and quickly trapping his arm into the Kimura position. The crowd gasps as Sakuraba traps the arm and everybody knows what's coming. Sak cranks the hold and twists Royler's arm like a pretzel in gruesome fashion all the way past the shoulder's breaking point. Royler refuses to tap out and is screaming in pain at one point. Finally the referee stops the fight on his own and it's over. Sakuraba has just defeated the Gracie family for the first time in modern MMA. History is made. Sakuraba just scored a huge win for Takada, who is there in his corner. This was just all huge for Pride FC going forward into 2000. The Gracie family all protest the decision with Pride officials after the fight is over, Royler technically never did submit but it did appear to be a good stoppage, the fight was over, his shoulder had to have been damaged and it was just like check mate, he wasn't getting out. Sakuraba had just won, pro wrestling had just defeated Gracie Jujitsu.  Pride's first year under new owners couldn't have ended in a better way, culminating in this show and this final moment with the new breakout star of the promotion making history like this. It was on from here. 2000 was going to be a huge year for Pride and would only keep growing bigger and bigger from there. This was a really big time show here and snap shot of a critical time in the sport of MMA, where it was struggling in the UFC and banned in North America, here it was thriving with Rings and Pride in Japan, the Kings Of Kings tournament going on and this Pride 8 event with Igor Vovchanchyn and Sakuraba looking like the best in the world at heavyweight and light heavyweight.
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