Standing Bout 3min 5R: Makoto Ohe vs. David Cummings Kakutogi Road: The Chronological History of MMA |
There is a fire that burns in the heart of every fighter, sometimes extinguished to a light smoldering, but never fully vanquished until that person draws their last breath. This blaze that lies within the deepest recesses of a warrior harkens back to a bestial primal urge to prove one's worth, and what better way to do that than in mortal combat? While every man has an innate desire to prove their mettle in some form or fashion, rarely in modern times did such a visceral outlet become available, at least in the United States, until the UFC hit the scene. When a directionless stand-out wrestler named Dan Severn was looking for another outlet to use the skills that he had spent his life acquiring, it must have been like a key presenting itself for the first time, just begging to be used to unlock a greater destiny. While the beginning of that story has yet to unfold for us, we can look at some of what led up to that watershed moment.
Dan “The Beast” Severn was born in Coldwater, Michigan, and was raised on a farm. He participated in several sports growing up, but seemed to find his true passion when he got involved in Greco-Roman and Freestyle Wrestling in his high school years. He relocated to Arizona for college, and became a renowned figure within their wrestling program, even going as far as to be the original “Sunkist Kid” in what later became a legendary program that churned out 55 gold-medalists over the years. Severn’s wrestling acumen brought him all over the world, including a spot as an alternate in the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. Still, despite having been able to travel extensively and be a part of wrestling in a number of capacities throughout his 20s, that fire simply wouldn’t be quenched with mundane teaching or the minutiae of day-to-day life. Perhaps it was his loss to Lou Banach at the 1984 Olympic Trials that forever marred his psyche with a need to overachieve. Severn always felt that he wrongfully lost that match, and when Banach wound up gaining a gold medal later that year, it was a bitter pill for Dan to swallow. This led to him continually seeking out new outlets to tame the beast that dwelt inside of him, and that leads us to where we are at today.
The date is 11-25-92, and we are returning to Nagoya, Japan, for another ROOT OF WRESTLING event, via the UWF-I. Perhaps, this would have been a minor footnote in the vast sands of MMA/Shoot-Style history, had it not been for the combat-sport debut of Dan Severn. However, debut may be too strong of a word, as Severn had spent at least a few months dabbling in pro wrestling in small mid-western promotions, hoping to catch the eye of bigger promoters. As fate would have it, Booker Miyato had his right-hand accomplice, Shinji Sasazaki, living in Tennessee and doing lots of scouting for American talent, but outside of Billy Scott, most of his acquisitions were subpar. It was probably a wonderful opportunity for both parties when Severn became interested in a pro wrestling career, as he wasn’t charismatic enough to probably draw the attention of the WWF, but had far too prestigious a pedigree to be overlooked by the Japanese promotions. Strictly speaking, from a neutral fan’s standpoint, they hardly needed another pure wrestler, even one as skilled as Severn, and really could have benefited from somebody that had good striking skills with at least a serviceable degree of grappling aptitude. Still, it had to have been fate, because if Miyato didn’t see a great opportunity and had he not pounced on it, we may have never seen Severn in the UFC, which probably would have meant no Mark Coleman, Mark Kerr, or perhaps even that era of mid-90s MMA where wrestling was considered the dominant force in the young (American) sport. Severn had his faults to be sure, which we will cover down the road, but he was an undeniable force in the early history of American MMA, and hey, how cool is it that he was simultaneously the NWA World Champion, and UFC Superfight Champion? We will never likely see something like that again.
ML: The debut of Severn is all well and good. He obviously wound up being one of the most important figures in early MMA, but he was boring as all hell in all forms of pro wrestling, and arguably even less entertaining in MMA, where he had what was almost unanimously regarded as the worst match of all time, the infamous Detroit Dance with Ken Shamrock, until Derrick Lewis took over for the mantle for complete and total inactivity with his stand and pray they'll just be dumb enough to walk into my right hand "style". Lewis certainly gave new meaning to duller than watching paint dry, especially in the all-time stinker against Frances Ngannou, yet standing around doing nothing somehow still propelled him to go on to give arguably the most embarrasing performance in a title match in the history of MMA against Cyril Gane. For those who care about actual interesting pro wrestling, the real excitement on this card was the debut of one Gene Lydick. Lydick didn't have as great an amateur wrestling career as Severn, but he was ranked 1st in the wrestling proud state of Nebraska in his senior year of high school, and helped Tekamah Herman to a top five finish in the national rankings. Lydick was much more suited to the pro wrestling world than Severn though, as he was naturally athetlic, and a much more fluid mover then the larger and more mechanical Beast.
Standing Bout 3min 5R: Makoto Ohe vs. David Cummings
We are in for a treat, as the first man to beat Makoto Ohe in the UWF-I has returned to attempt another beating upon him. David Cummings victory back in November of 1991 has probably haunted Ohe to this evening, as not only did Cummings win brutally and convincingly, it led to a downward turn for our beloved footfighter. He has suffered several defeats since then, so we are sure that he has been longing for a chance at redemption. The first thing we notice is how much better of a cornerman Cummings has than what we saw last month in RINGS. Instead of, “Punch! Kick! Throw combo!” We get, “Looking good, David, nice and loose. Stick n’ move, stick n’ move.” It seems that David tried to do just that, keep things loose while trying to find his distance and timing, the problem was that Ohe was very patient and whenever Cummings decided to test the waters, he would be instantly pelted with a hard counter-kick. If anything, Cummings looked too relaxed/tentative out here, and hardly the killing machine of last November. Just when it seemed that Cummings was starting to find his rhythm, he got blasted with a nasty kick to the inside of his left thigh, which put him out of commission. I would just chalk this up to a bad day at the office for Cummings, but it’s a shame since this had all the makings of an epic rematch.
ML: This is exactly the sort of performance you want to give in a rematch, as Ohe was now familiar with his opponent, and clearly had a solid, well thought out plan of how to now negate his skills. Cummings was still an exciting fighter who just wanted to land spinning strikes, but this time he was super predictable to Ohe because he just put the first strike out in order to set up the spin. I mean, literally every time he was just trying to create a distraction for the spinning strike, and Ohe was beyond ready for that frpm the outset. Whenever Cummings thought he was going to land his spinning strike, Ohe would land a middle kick instead. This was a fun fight while it lasted, but unfortunately, Cummings was injured by Ohe's inside leg kick at the end of the first round, and wasn't able to get off the stool. I think Ohe had his number anyway, but even if a win is a win, this wasn't exactly how he wanted to achieve it.
Hiromitsu Kanehara & Yoshihiro Takayama vs. Gene Lydick & Mark Silver
It wouldn’t be a UWF-I event without some inexplicable booking, and Miyato never disappoints when it comes to that. Apparently, we needed to take a break from the ongoing Junior League Tournament to throw three of those participants into a blender, and puree them into a tag-team outing. At least we get more Kanehara, which can only be a good thing. Takayama and Lydick will be the first entrants, and to my surprise, they are overcoming whatever technical limitations they have with an intense outburst of passionate energies. Takayama is still guilty of long and awkward slaps, but he is deadly sincere with them, and it’s hard to fault a man for whatever genetic issues may be hindering him. Lydick also gave forth a good effort, but like most of their American roster, suffers from a lack of submission knowledge to get very far past the takedown. Eventually, Kanehara and Silver make their way into the mix, and as usual, Kanehara steals the show simply by being Kanehara. The rest of this match was a surprise, as it wound up being a great format for Silver, Lydick, and Takayama, as the short intervals allowed them to all work at a fast clip without gassing too much. Like most tag matchups in this setting, it didn’t feel like it had a point beyond an excuse to cram as much of their roster as they could, but the action was fast and exciting, so I can’t complain. The finish was about the only noticeably weak part, with Silver taking forever to apply some kind of bizarre reverse chinlock/choke. *** ¾
ML: Debuting Lydick was already way better than Silver, and of course Takayama, showing a lot more coordination & fluidity than we normally get from these gaijin wrestlers. Lydick & Silver impressed me by doing a better job of hiding Takayama than Kanehara has, mostly by just blitzing him. They applied so much pressure, and mostly held onto him, that he never had a chance to embarrass himself with his horrible array of strikes, or really do much of anything. I mean, there was a grappling sequence where Takayama got his "offense" in by doing something that purported to be amateur wrestling, mostly controlling the neck but nothing else, which was surely the lowlight of the match, but for the most part the only problem was that virtually anyone under 300 pounds and 50 years old can take better than Takayama. There was an actual back & forth match of some skill and intrigue when Kanehara was in because he understands distance, so he could adjust to what the Americans were doing in order to answer with his own strikes. That being said, even when Kanehara was wrestling, this wasn't exactly a competitive match. Lydick and Silver were just too good at suplexes and takedowns, so they were always scoring the points and starting in control when it hit the mat. It was entertaining when Kanehara was in though, and passable more or less in spite of Takayama, so overall it was a little better than average, which is a lot more than I expected going in. Definitely a nice effort though.
Dan Severn vs. Yuko Miyato
The first noticeable thing is how much faster Severn is compared to where he was in 97-98. Not that he would be confused with Demetrious “Mighty Mouse” Johnson, but he is moving a lot swifter here than one would expect, which leads me to believe that he could have had an even more impressive run in the top echelon of MMA had he started 10-years earlier than he did. Severn opens this match up the same way he did during his debut against Anthony Macias at UFC IV by issuing a vicious German suplex to Miyato. This match was also notable for an ultra-rare appearance of the armbar attempt, a move that I’ve never seen Severn attempt in any other setting. This outing was just an exercise to give Severn some steam, presumably as a future game opponent for Takada. A decent move that should have been done for Bad News Brown, Yamazaki, etc. I’m sure that Booker Miyato will find a way to screw this up too, but at least he was willing to humble himself with a fast loss to “The Beast.” While this was very short at 4 mins long, I found it to be a lot more entertaining than I anticipated, thus I awarded it **.
ML: This followed the same basic pattern as all the squash matches of the Albright monster, just a bunch of suplexes really, but Severn was at least much less cartoonish. It was probably a little more entertaining than I am making it sound, even if it was basically just have Freddie Mercury hit a few flashy throws, and get him back to his Fat Bottomed Girls as soon as possible. It was a nice introduction for Severn if the plan is to actually push him, even if that will not lead to interesting things, but it frustrated the hell out of me because I am always looking to Miyato to deliver one of the entertaining matches on the card, and here he was totally wasted as little more than a crash test dummy.
Yoji Anjo vs. Masahito Kakihara
So far, we are well on our way to having the most consistently entertaining card from the UWF-I in a long time, and this may be the match that seals its fate. These two have been way more hit than miss for the last two years and are an explosive paring when put together, so I am excited. Kakihara moves like lighting, zipping around Anjo while using Jeff Speakman quality hand-feints. He started to unload his palms of fury onto Anjo, but Yoji was smart enough to instantly clinch and take the fight to the mat, thus negating the damage he had to take. This turn towards the horizontal plane quickly led to the requisite footsie battle, which Kakihara lost, and was deducted a point. The standup battle continued where we saw some surprisingly nice waza from Kakihara, as he took an opportunity to counter Anjo’s knees with a nice rolling kneebar entry, which was converted to a toehold. That was almost the end of Kakihara’s offense, as Anjo proceeded to lay in a volley of quick low kicks, which crushed both the mobility and the fighting spirit of Kakihara. Anjo wins by submission. I liked everything that I saw here, but it was just too short and really needed another 4-5 mins in the oven. This match could have morphed into an all-time classic if they let it cook a little longer, but the incomplete flavors made it frustrating. ***
ML: UWF-I has given us a great match on two of their last three shows, but those matches involved the legendary Kiyoshi Tamura, who is unfortunately absent training with the one and only Lou Thesz. In order to save this card, Anjo, who has been a top tier performer for the promotion, and had one of those great matches against Tamura, and Kakihara, who is always bottled lightning and is clearly their most exciting stand up performer, must be called upon to deliver the goods. Did they succeed, well, probably to the best of their abilities given what they had to work with, but certainly not to the extent that we needed them to. Miyato's booking of Kakihara continues to be bizarre at best, inexplicable is probably a better description. He seemingly has no confidence in Kakihara to go any amount of time, which is slightly understandable given he operates at 200%, and it's difficult to keep that up for 25 minutes, but Kakihara is also a young gun in great shape who possesses an underrated ground game and mainly just needs ring time to become great. Unfortunately, the only times Miyato is really willing to do that is against Mark Silver, who is one of the last guys you want to be involved in any type of long match, especially against someone like Kakihara who thrives on standing exchanges. Kakihara hasn't been blowing hard or drastically tailing off when he is actually given time, so there is no reason to coddle him so much. This match was certainly entertaining and explosive, but there is literally no circumstances under which this wouldn't have been better with another 5 minutes. I mean, even if for some reason they had to slow what they did down considerably, it would still have been impressive. These two had good chemistry, and this actually felt like a different match, we never see Anjo against a quick evasive striker. Kakihara is the longer fighter, as well as the much quicker one, so he was able to use distance and land kicks while making Anjo miss. Anjo was thus forced to get inside and tie him up, which in turn forced Kakihara to use his inside striking game, and ultimately try to match Anjo on the mat after he was tripped up. This was all fast and exciting, and they had nice answers for each other, working a very interactive and explosive match, but at a ridiculously short given the talent 5:49, it was not exactly going to be match of the year. ***
Nobuhiko Takada & Kazuo Yamazaki vs. Gary Albright & Mark Fleming
On again, off again, rivals Takada/Yamazaki must now face BFF’s Albright/Fleming. While this will likely be a quick throwaway main event, I’m not even mad because we have had a shockingly consistent card this evening. Granted, nothing has hit the stratosphere, but it’s all been very watchable, which is a step in the right direction. Albright instantly plays up the boorish American heel by flipping off Takada, which is behavior that reeks of a third match between the two being brewed. Albright and Takada open things up, with Albright showing some nice wrestling, but little else, and Takada seeming lost, per usual. After a few meandering minutes of Albright laying on top of Takada, the spotlight shifts to Fleming/Yamazaki. There was an interesting sequence where Fleming tried to reverse a suplex with an ankle-pick, only to have that reversed with an armbar. We can also safely assume that Fleming never had to deal with the awesome judo of Yamazaki’s kani-basami (flying scissor-takedown) during his time in the NWA. Takada/Albright return, and while I was quickly thinking that they would bore me again, Albright ratchets up the intensity and starts tossing Takada around like a shot-put. Takada’s air-miles wound up waking him up and forced him to start applying himself with more urgency, but just when it looked like Takada would actually show up, he tagged in Yamazaki. Yamazaki is on fire tonight, and somehow made even an enzuigiri look believable. The best part of this match was seeing Yamazaki continually kick and punt Albright, giving him the beating that he so richly deserved. While I hesitate to call this good, it wasn’t bad either. Yamazaki was excellent, Fleming was fine, Albright had his moments, and Takada…. was Takada. This scenario once again forced Yamazaki to try and carry the weight of the world upon his shoulders, and while he gave a gallant effort, it wasn’t quite enough to elevate this into memorable cannon. ***
ML: While hardly a classic, this was at least more interesting than singles matches involving these guys likely would have been, with Albright particularly being more effective in short bursts. It was reasonably well booked with Albright gaining some semblance of revenge over Takada, and Yamazaki getting some semblance of revenge on Albright. Fleming was also very obviously thus just there to do the job, which didn't exactly add to the drama. Otherwise, Fleming was basically the canvas that Yamazaki got to paint on, but there was no heat on this pairing, with all the interest lying on Takada and Albright, so it wasn't as interesting as it could have been under better circumstances. Yamazaki versus Albright was surprisingly good because though Yamazaki was finally allowed to be competitive, and under those circumstances, I believe they would actually be capable of delivering a good singles match, if Albright can muster enough energy to go relatively as hard without the breaks. Again, this wasn't OK match, not boring, but somewhat inconsistent.
Conclusion: If Anjo/Kakihara had been a few mins longer, this would have propelled this event into a high recommendation. Even with that misstep, it was still the most consistently entertaining UWF-I event in a long time. While none of the matches were home runs, everything was very watchable and moved a fast clip. Booker Miyato still has no clue how to figure out a logical match-time, but the “Hour-of-Power” approach is much better than having an endless stream of 30-min bouts.
ML: Sadly, I cannot come close to sharing your enthusiasm for this show. UWF-I was on fire in the beginning of the year when Masakazu Maeda was having a groundbreaking then memorable matches with Kanehara on every show. Once he retired, Tamura stepped up and really carried the promotion even that much more, delivering a great match against Anjo and Yamazaki. Without Better Maeda or Tamura on this show, it was pretty forgettable, with just one notable match that wasn't even 6 minutes. Opinions vary, but the data below backs up my view of the promotion this year as having a strong 1st half, and then a couple of classics in the 2nd half.
1/9/92 1 Ex, 1 VG
2/15/92 1 Gr, 1 Gd
2/29/92 1 Ex, 1 VG, 2 Gd
3/17/92 1 Gr, 2 VG
5/8/92 1 Ex, 3 Gd
6/28/92 2 VG, 1 Gd
7/12/92 1 Gd
8/14/92 1 Ex
8/28/92 1 Gr
9/21/92 1 Gd
10/23/92 1 Gr, 1 Gd
11/25/92 1 Gd
John Krummel's translation notes
Beginning interview with Takada: Q: Any reflections on your recent fight against Kitao? A: As I reflect on the match, I’m glad that I won. The more I train and work on my stamina and other weaknesses, the more I become confident that there is no real reason to lose, and that’s really the kind of feeling that I need to bring myself to prior to every match. Especially the bigger the match, the greater the pressure, and so I work on convincing myself even more that I’m going to win. And that’s what I did prior to my fight at the Budokan [vs Kitao] too.
Ohe’s prefight interview: Q: This will be your 2nd fight with D. Cummings. A: Yes, last year in Osaka I lost to him by knock out in the 2nd round, but he’s also come back here again willfully, this time as the world champion (at lightweight) of an organization called ISKA. So for me this will be like killing two birds with one stone: getting revenge and winning over a world champion. So I’m really going to pay him back this time.
Ohe’s screaming after winning by technical knock out: “I did it! I did it! Yay!”
Post fight comments: in locker room: young boy: “please bring ice” “Are you ok?” (to Yamazaki), Takada asks Yamazaki “was it your shoulder? Did your arm go like this?”, Yamazaki says, “yeah.” Takada’s comments: “At that moment I felt I needed to hook him immediately and so I did… I thought Yama-chan [Yamazaki] would come up soon, so I kept looking at him [below the ring]… I thought we’re getting whipped around, and that I couldn’t let that go on any longer. When I saw the chance, I thought that’s it. I intended to do whatever I could aggressively. I can say this now after the match, but I had broken a rib, and I told Yama before the match…” journalist asks, “Was this while training?” Takada answers, “Yeah, about 4 days ago..” Journalist mentions, “Sano was there standing by the ring…” [this was when Naoki Sano moved from SWS and PWFG to work for UWFI] Takada answers, “yeah, it was a little uncomfortable seeing him there right by the ring during the match… I saw that he was holding some piece of paper [contract with UWFI] but I didn’t know what it was… I’ll ask the office about it later.” [Obvious kayfabe BS setting up their upcoming match, I’m sure Takada knew Sano was hired by UWFI]
*In Other News*
Don “Nakaya” Nielsen was able to rebound from his embarrassing loss to Wayne Shamrock at the last PWFG event when he quickly dispatched Jean Claude Lewan at an AJK/ACE co-promoted kickboxing show in Las Vegas. This event took place on 11-14-92, and held a host of entertaining kickboxing bouts. It remains to be seen whether All Japan Kickboxing can continue to make inroads within the U.S. market, but we are all hoping that the United States will eventually take hold of this new and exciting “Sport of the Future.”
During our last issue, we went into detail about how Lou Thesz and Nobuhiko Takada made a power-play to embarrass New Japan Pro Wrestling. This was done when Takada and Thesz declared that the UWF-I's champion was the one true “World Champion”, and that Takada would be willing to face New Japan’s champion, Masa Chono, anyplace/anytime, for free. This bold move may have backfired when New Japan called their bluff and said that they would accept the match if the UWF-I would be willing to meet them behind closed doors and work out the stipulations. On 11-13-92, the UWF-I had asked reporters to meet them at the New Japan home office because they wanted the press to be present while they worked out a deal. Yuko Miyato, Yoji Anjo, and Ken Suzuki (a member of the UWF-I’s front office and the former president of the Takada Fan Club) went down to negotiate the terms, showing the press that they each had 33% power-of-attorney when it came to business decisions pertaining to Takada. They then proceeded to have a closed-door meeting with several members of New Japan for approximately 2-hours, but were unable to come to mutually beneficial terms. Riki Choshu addressed the press and told them that he felt that this was a meaningful match worth booking, but that they couldn't come to terms at this time. He further stated that they were willing to acquiesce to all of the UWF-I’s demands, but that they were unwilling to reciprocate any of theirs. However, they did not disclose what New Japan’s demands were at the conference. Choshu also went on to say that Lou Thesz’s actions were unprofessional, as they were given no advance notice of such a challenge, and that this isn't how business is done in the real world. Three days later, the UWF-I held a press conference and claimed New Japan insisted on putting together a Battle Royal on New Years’ Eve in the Ganryujima jungle. They claimed that New Japan did not want an audience to be present, and they also wanted the UWF-I to have to pay to be involved. While this is the public story, rumors are swirling that the real talks behind closed doors are that New Japan insisted that any outcome involved Chono winning the match, and that this was non-negotiable. This scenario, of course, would be unacceptable to the UWF-I, who would only be willing to see Takada win, or perhaps be in an actual shoot against Chono, but understandably would not be something that New Japan would be willing to risk.
While Takada swore off a rematch with Koji Kitao due to his poor performance at their last meeting, there are talks of bring Kitao back for a proposed main event involving Kitao vs. Albright.
Sediokaikan/RINGS fighter, Masaaki Satake, has broken his leg and will be out of the 1992 MEGA-BATTLE TOURNAMENT. It is rumored that he was supposed to be the one to face Akira Maeda during the upcoming finals card, but that those plans had to be scrapped.
Dennis Koslowski (brother of Duane Koslowski) is set to debut within the UWF-I shortly. This acquisition is another impressive coup by the UWF-I, as Dennis has an incredible wrestling resume having captured a silver medal in Greco-Roman wrestling, representing the U.S. in Barcelona, and winning a bronze in the 1988 Seoul games.