The date is 3-5-93, and we must now join our intrepid hero, Akira Maeda, as he must not only traverse through the undiscovered country that is now MMA, but must also figure out how to helm the ship while recovering from major knee surgery. The success of RINGS has been completely dependent on the marquee value of Maeda’s name, and an inactive hero could be a great opportunity for his shoot-rivals to capitalize upon his misfortune.

Thankfully, Maeda picked a good time to go on hiatus as Fujiwara is still in limbo, only leaving Takada's UWF-I as a direct threat. However, the recent stunt casting developments of Vader's decision to take a hefty paycheck from Booker Miyato & Co. could wind up leaving RINGS vulnerable since they have no star power outside of Maeda at this time. Either way, 1993 is starting to shape into one of the most exciting eras of this project, as everything is starting to hurtle rapidly into dimensions unknown. The future looks promising, indeed.

ML: The misfortune of Maeda could also become the fortune of Maeda, depending upon his perspective, for this is a great opportunity to create a few new marquee names without being forced to decrease his own mighty drawing power or superman persona in the process. The one issue is that when up until this point, no one but Maeda has been made to seem larger than life, it's difficult for anything the cast of also-rans can do outside of defeating him to rise to the necessary level of impact needed to truly break through.

Nobuaki Kakuda vs. Masayuki Naruse 13:28

We haven't seen Kakuda since 12/19/92, when he pummeled the legs of Yoshihisa Yamamoto with total impunity in one of the fiercest shoots of 1992.  Hopefully, we have another spirited shoot on our hands since Naruse needs to be taught a lesson for taking fashion tips from Vanilla Ice. 

Per his custom, Kakuda appears to have prepared his last will and testament, ready to die in the ring if need be. Also, Kakuda is sporting some nifty blue elbow pads, which will grow his powers beyond his wildest imagination, increasing the number of his attacking limbs from six to eight. The fight starts rather slowly with Kakuda testing the waters with some light feints. This was until Naruse shot in on his opponent only to get caught in a guillotine choke which may have worked, but Kakuda appears to be inexperienced in such matters.

What Kakuda lacks in submissions, he makes up for in karate, and he put his karate to good use here by sticking to the outside perimeter, firing off low kicks from a distance. Naruse's takedown skills were sharp, and he was able to plant Kakuda on the mat with ease, but never seemed to be able to position himself in the center of the ring, which gave Kakuda ample opportunities to escape. Kakuda's striking output increased as the match wore on, often peppering Naruse with some short elbows and low kicks. This bout was a work, but a clever one, as Kakuda still goes at about 85% intensity from his shoot mode. In fact, it was mostly Naruse that betrayed what they were doing, as he isn't good enough at the ancient art of pulling your punches, but not too much.  Good intense match that shows both men being solid hands to have on the roster. *** 1/2

ML: I've mentioned before that I enjoy Kakuda for his effort, but it should be distinguished that he is in the camp of fighters who are evolving and improving because they are putting the work in, not the camp of tryhards such as Kazuchika Okada who give an effort, but whose effort never actually leads to them learning or changing anything meaningful, or doing anything substantially better or even different. Any variation is simply because the opponent is doing all the actual work manipulating the robot as needed, then letting Okada know when it's time to repeat his few basic programs that dictate his offense and mannerisms. Kakuda, on the other hand, is now keeping the opponent off-balance. He threws in a ten finger guillotine attempt early. In one of the best sequences, he landed a spinning solebutt (actually it was basically blocked) then charged into a more MMA style clinch where he only had one underhook, so rather than struggle for a high takedown, he immediately broke with two solid elbow strikes. This was just a much more modern & evolved style of attack than we have been seeing so far, where despite Shooto and Shoot Boxing allowing judo throws, there haven't been that many fighters who can fluidly use one to set up the other, especially the threat of the throw to set up the strike. Naruse, of course, was the one who was more interested in fighting on the ground, but he had to work his way in. He was realistically using strike combos to close the distance, but this wasn't the pro wrestling logic where he was all in on one style, therefore he had to keep trying it to advance the match in a way told a story. Instead, if his flurry of palms set up the takedown attempt or the throw, that was great, but if not he had to get out of the pocket and reset before he got the worst of things (since the match was far more evolved than the usual I just stand there and let you clobber me because I'm so tough). Due to Naruse truly being committed to his striking, and refusing to force the grappling, he was able to take advantage of Kakuda's pride, as he knew anytime he could get one over on the karate champion in the striking department, Kakuda would be very eager to get it back, and it was when Kakuda would pursue Naruse that he was most prone to Naruse just dropping into a double leg . All in all, this may be the most modern work we've seen so far in terms of strategy, as they were doing a nice job of mixing the styles, both to keep the opponent off guard and to create a diversion to set up the tactic they were really hoping would succeed. In the end, Kakuda was simply too far superior in striking, as Naruse landed many good series of blows, but they were mostly palms, wheras Kakuta was the one who landed the significant big power techniques such as high kicks that were scoring the knockdowns, resulting in Naruse running out of points. ***1/4

Sirra Fubicha vs. Kalil Valvitov 6R

Now for one of the more bizarre footnotes in RINGS history, a Russia vs. Bulgaria match by two highly credentialed wrestlers that must have shamed Maeda and all of Osaka so badly that they were never allowed into a RINGS building ever again. Fubicha is a European freestyle wrestling champion, and if that wasn’t impressive enough, Valvitov was in the Barcelona Olympics and has won a world championship in Sambo. Oddly, this will be contested under RINGS rules, but in a 3min 5round format. The match barely starts, and Fubicha wastes no time in going full beast mode on Valvitov, which makes me think we have our first shoot of the evening on our hands, that or Siera is a total spastic. After a little more observation, I’m pleased to announce that while we don’t have a shoot on our hands, this is exactly how one would expect two sambists/wrestlers to fight without any striking training, and their only submission knowledge coming from sambo. I found myself enjoying the intensity that Fubicha brought to the proceedings, although he reminds me of a lot of newbish fighters, that once they have their first MMA bout can’t control their composure and wind up gassing early as a result.

Round 2 starts with an absolutely breathtaking kata-guruma from Fubicha that would make Karo Parysian blush with envy. Sadly, official judo competitions have become so neutered as of late that this fine throw has been verboten since 2019. The rest of this was a highlight reel of just about every throw, slam, and sambo hold you could think of, at least on Fubicha’s end, whereas the STF seemed to be the only hold Valvitov wanted to employ. I may be in the minority here, but I liked Fubicha, and would have loved to see him further develop his game. Unfortunately, that was never to be as neither man returned. In Valvitov’s case, that is a good thing as he was another dud from Bulgaria, whereas Volk Han’s pupil seemed poised to be a good talent worth developing. Despite both men being awkward most of the time, I always found myself entertained, and they both put in a lot of effort to keep this at a brisk pace. Overall, this wound up being better than it had any right to be. ***1/4

ML: This might have been a good match had the booker had any logic. There is no reason on earth to have two debuting wrestlers go 18 minutes in any style, much less shoot style, which is the hardest to keep credible over long distances. The law of diminishing returns was certainly in full effect. The first round was quite good, largely due to the energy, effort, and intensity they were able to put forth. Fubicha put on a tremendous wrestling display, maybe the best we have seen so far, as he was endlessly making fast adjustments to keep advancing position and put himself in the best spot to maintain ground control. Fubicha had some impressive throws too get to the point where he was controlling on the mat, including an Olympic slam and uranage, but while he was always one step ahead of Valvitov once he got him down, he didn't really have many options to actually finish him, and just riding Valitov didn't accomplish much in a match without judges. They kept a crazy pace, especially crazy given they were trying to go six rounds. Valentinov was honestly pretty decent if you can look past the fact that he also didn't really have any finishers, and thus felt compelled to keep going back to the silly STF, which grew more annoying over time. Had this match ended after three rounds, it would be recommended, or at least close, but the second-half of the match was basically just a slower version of the first half, and now that we had seen all they had to offer, it was growing increasingly tedious. By the end of the fifth round, I was really disappointed no scoring system was in place to just give the match to Fubicha so we could move on. Instead, we got a really exhausted 6th round before it was ruled a draw. I wish these guys, especially Fubicha, had been brought back, as they definitely were coordinated, could move on the mat, and put forth a lot of effort.

Pieter Oele vs. Yoshihisa Yamamoto 7:56

This bout marks the debut of Oele, a Dutch fighter who would go on to have a RINGS career until the beginning of 1996. I am surprised to report that this appears to be our first shoot of the evening. Oele not only has a height/reach advantage over Yamamoto, but his kicks are also deadly. Yamamoto tried to control things on the mat the few times he got the fight into that realm, but it doesn’t help when your opponent’s heigh spans half the ring. Had you taken these same two fighters with their same exact skill sets and put them under modern MMA rules, then Yamamoto probably would have won, but classic RINGS rules were a fantastic boon to strikers, as we will see later on with the many ridiculous wins from the likes of Gilbert Yvel and Valentijn Overeem. As it was, this was exciting in a sadistic sense, and if Yamamoto didn’t have his legs completely thrashed by Kakuda back in December, surely he had them mauled this time around.

To add insult to injury, Yamamoto had to take a rope escape from a crude arm-triangle. There was one moment where Yamamoto had Oele in the center of the ring, and Oele made the classic rookie mistake of turning to his stomach. If Yamamoto had any BJJ awareness whatsoever, it would have been an easy hooks in/lights out rear naked choke victory, but he squandered his brief advantage with some outlandish variation of an STF-meets-neck crank. Seriously, as much as we all love Lou Thesz around these parts, someone needs to inform Japan that this is in no way a viable move on a playground, let alone a real fight. Right before his doom, Yamamoto pulled a hilarious maneuver which can only be described as a guard pull without the guard, when he flew towards Oele with an insane flying kick, just hoping that Oele would take the bait. Of course, this did not work, and it was inevitable that Oele would head kick Yamamoto into oblivion. Fun shoot.

ML: 6'6" fighters in pro wrestling were a dime a dozen, seemingly half the WWE roster was around that height, so they all just looked average, and certainly impressed no one with their speed, athleticism, or stamina as they blew up after a bodyslam, a pose, and 2 minutes of chinlocking. Oele was a formidable athlete though, who was faster and more coordinated than Yamamoto, as well as having far more impressive striking skills. Oele would shred the legs from the outside with his low kicks, but closing the distance didn't help much because his clinch knee game was even more impressive. Yamamoto really didn't help his cause any by only going for flashy techniques. Relying on a belly to belly suplex to get the fight to the mat when you are getting destroyed in standup is not exactly a great bet, and it says a lot that this was probably his most successful technique. Everything else he did was some movie kick or WWE submission. Oele was shooting, and while I'm not saying Yamamoto wasn't, it's more that Yamamoto didn't seem to believe in himself enough to adopt a mindset of actually trying to win, and thus just kind of did his best to entertain the crowd before his untimely demise.  In any case, I was very impressed by Oele, and as long as he can stay on his feet, he's going to be a really tough out in this promotion under any rules.

Willie Peeters vs. Sergei Sousserov 4:49

We haven’t seen our favorite cartoon character, Willie Peeters, since October. Presumably, he has been hanging out with Bob Zemeckis and Jessica Rabbit over in Toontown, and now it’s time to pay the bills. Sadly, it was only five days ago that we last saw Russia’s Secret Weapon, which makes me think that this new era of glasnost is failing the Motherland. Perhaps I shouldn’t be too hard on the secret weapon since he is sporting a nasty bruise around his right eye which was the result of a car crash that he had just a couple of days before this event. If Peeters' shenanigans were not awesome enough, his new wrestling attire would be perfect the next time you need to spice up your aerobics class with some 2-tone ska flavors. I cannot believe I am saying this, but we have shoot number two present and accounted for. Sousserov is moving with some urgency for the very first time, and Peeters, in his usual dickish fashion, is trying to hurt his opponent in the most outlandish way possible. Unfortunately for Russia, Peeters is better than Sousserov in every dimension, perhaps apart from takedowns, so Sergei’s skillset is not cutting it here against a foe with some experience in shoots. Also, it doesn’t help that Peeters is a bonafide jerk, and sometimes that’s all you need to have an edge in a fight. This was another fun shoot, and Sousserov showed a lot of heart, but eventually also succumbed to a nasty head kick.

ML: Booking Russia's Secret Weapon twice in seven days clearly violated the secrecy clause, and Peeters was more than ready to humiliate him at every turn. Every time he tried to grab Willie and take him down, Peeters would push off, and then either go back to landing his right to the body or shift his weight to fall down on top of Sousserov. Sousserov was being very proactive here, but nothing he did seem to actually bother Peeters, and that was really the problem, as Peeters was able to stick to his game plan of using the right straight to set up the left high kick without Sousserov being able to do anything to really throw him off. I mean, sure Peeters would go on the defensive for a few moments here and there, but he was more than confident he could defend anything Sousserov could throw at him, and then just go back to beating up the body, so there was no urgency for Peeters or no need to move beyond the most basic game plan. Nonetheless, this was an entertaining fight, but it was no surprise when Peeters was able to get the knockout with the 2nd left high kick set up by the right body punch.

Dick Vrij vs. Mitsuya Nagai 4:53

I am totally excited about going into this semi-final match as I am wondering if we are on our way to shoot number three. Both Vrij and Nagai have been in shoots before, although they are more prone to works. In fact, when these two last met, it was in a shoot where Vrij almost made a eunuch out of Nagai with a hurricane force kick to the balls. It was a fun and demented shoot-squash, and hopefully Nagai has figured out a way to give Vrij a proper receipt. Not even ten seconds into the fight Vrij punches Nagai in the nose, which as we know, is forbidden. In case you were wondering, yes, this is a shoot, and no, Nagai has not figured out how to deal with a roided out Dutch cyborg with similar kickboxing skills. Vrij got lazy and was caught with a toehold, and after the rope escape lost his composure. He not only got angry and bludgeoned Nagai, but took several cheap shots in the process. Not that it would have mattered, but even while winning against a much smaller foe, the bully still has to cheat and throw a fit. Entertaining, but for the wrong reasons.

ML: There was no good blood between these two. Nagai was quickly annoyed by getting hit in the nose, and Vrij was quickly annoyed by Nagai not breaking the submission in the ropes quickly enough for him. It made for an entertaining shoot in a sense, though this is one of those shoots where there's no real stakes because it's such a mismatch due to the size discrepancy and rules biases that it still feels low stakes. I think Oele beats Yamamoto easily no matter what, but this is the match where the rules really made it impossible for Nagai to win because even when Nagai executed his game plan of taking a shot in order to roll into a leg lock to perfection, Vrij just grabbed the ropes immediately, and they were restarted on their feet for the wash, rinse, repeat. Nagai wasn't so much getting destroyed by Vrij's stand up as it appeared because he was flopping as a means of getting hold of the leg, but at the same time, Nagai just had no way to earn Vrij's respect in standup to keep Vrij off him or even just make him the slightest bit cautious, so he was taking some punishment in order to get Vrij to use one of his seemingly endless rope escapes. In the end, Nagai's strategy fooled the ref more than anyone else, as he was a little bit late to answer the 10 count, and the ref stopped it thinking he was out of it when really his timing was a half second late. This wasn't dull, but it was just too much of a mismatch to actually prove anything.

Volk Han vs. Andrei Kopilov 8:30

Now for the rematch between the two greatest RINGS showstoppers, Han vs. Kopilov. The last time these two got together eight months ago, we got to see the deadliest game of twister ever caught on film, and we are all the better for it. Surprisingly, Kopilov got the win last time, so this should be interesting to see if Han exacts his revenge. Han continues with his striking assaults that he has fancied as of late, and surprisingly looks quite comfortable with this approach. Kopilov, on the other hand, tries to bang with Han, and looks very out of place on his feet, but thankfully becomes a total pro once he can grab an appendage. This match was only nine minutes long, which is about half the time of their first encounter. On one hand, it allowed Han to show more frantic aggression than he is usually accustomed to, but it came at the cost of this feeling like a rushed version of their prior encounter. We did get to see one of the wildest submissions yet, when Han did something that was beyond description, a hold that can only be described as a figure-four meets inverted kneebar. While that move was truly inspired, Han then showed us the dark side of his style and gave us a completely hokey sequence where he dragged Kopilov face down in the ring for a rolling STF/leg-split hybrid that was just ridiculous in execution. That is perhaps one of the few criticisms we can throw at Han. Sometimes, when your style is too esoteric or flamboyant, you can forget that this is supposed to function like a real fight. Sill, that is minor quibble when we look at the fantastic oeuvre of Han’s career. Strangely, this never felt like a gripping contest between two warriors as much as it was a Han masterclass on sambo badassery, but it was very entertaining for what it was. Kopilov didn’t do much this time outside of playing the Gumby role, but Han is such a tour de force that anything he does is going to be worth watching. *** 1/2

ML: It's nice to see two fighters who are so confident in their grappling that the ropes are getting in their way of countering, rather than providing an easy out for the reset. With that being said though, this was a disappointing match given the talent involved, both because it's largely an extended squash victory for Han to get his win back from 7/16/92, and because it's actually not even that extended (8:30 compared to 17:05). The match starts off strong with an aggressive Kopilov, but once it settles in, Han is always a step or two ahead, with Andrei reversing a hold here and there but never actually gaining a foothold. Kopylov seems to have a preexisting shoulder injury that isn't helping his cause any, but this is a work,  so it didn't have to hurt it this much, especially with all the leg locks. There is a truly great reverse figure 4 by Han, but the match lacks sequences in general, and there's certainly nothing that requires two strong grapplers to pull off. At one point, Han does a jumping body scissors that doesn't quite work, but he's able to hook the leg as he's sliding down Kopylov, and eventually turns it into an Achilles' tendon hold. And that's kind of the brilliance of Han in a nutshell. He just has to get a hold of something, and as long as he has you on the mat, he'll keep adjusting back and forth one way or the other until he suddenly has you. Copy love is a better grappling dummy than Hans other opponents, but I was hoping for a copy love to be an actual opponent, which he really wasn't here. Overall, this is my least favorite Han match so far, which is shocking giving it sounded like it would be among the best. ***

Conclusion: Well, here it is. We’ve had better overall shows, we’ve had better matches, but I don’t think we’ve ever had a shoot-style card that was top-to-bottom entertaining with nothing that needed skipping. This feat was on top of having three shoots on the card, so this event was quite an accomplishment. Nothing reached the stratosphere, but it was all worth your time. It appears that once Dolman and Maeda get out of the way, then great things happen, so I’m excited about how the rest of 1993 plays out.

ML: This is kind of the first time we are seeing an big MMA card, especially with the old guys who can't go being out of the way. While most of the matches weren't exactly what I hoped for, all of them had their merits and were worth watching, so the card as a whole was a rounding success, even amidst some inevitable disappointments.

Krummel’s Korner

Let’s see what our prestigious translator was able to come up with for this event. Here is his report:

Interesting to note that among the fight commentators, while the one introduced in the middle is Tanigawa, the editor of Kakutogi Tsushin, which was a popular fight magazine in the 90s and who himself went on to promote shows like Ganryujim much more recently; but the 2nd guy introduced, Tanaka, who will also comment on the show is Maeda’s old karate teacher when Maeda was a teenager, before he joined the New Japan dojo. I won’t bother to translate everything they say, but only the more interesting things.  The main commentator, after introducing the other 2, mentions how Maeda’s surgery of the left knee the day before was a success. He explained that it will take about 6 months for him to recover.

Maeda’s videotaped message to the fans: "I know you’ve been worried about me, but I had my surgery on March 4th; and I’ll be unable to fight for 8 months, maybe more. I feel very sad I’ll be unable to fight for such a long period, especially since this is a very important year, as the 3rd year since the founding of RINGS and the 15th year since my debut. But even while separated from the fight arena, my heart is always in the ring. I intend to work as hard as I can for my rehabilitation, aiming for the day I can fight again. I also want to take advantage to fix all of my old injuries I’ve had from before and return to the ring in my best condition, to not waste this long time off. I also want to tell you as my message to you fans that even if I do not appear on the ring, RINGS itself and its fights represent myself and my ideals.

Announcement of current (March 5, 1993) Rings official ranking: 1. Chris Dolman, 2. Dick Vrij, 3. Akira Maeda, 4. Herman Renting, 5. Andrei Kopylov, 6. Hans Nyman, 7. Dimitar Petkov, 8. Grom Zaza, 9. Nobuaki Kakuda, 10. Volk Han, 11. Willie Peeters, 12. Sotir Gotchev, 13. Georgi Kandelaki, 14. Vladimir Kravchuck, 15. Mitsuya Nagai

Opening ceremony, introducing all fighters

Greetings from Nagai representing the fighters: "Thank you everyone for coming tonight. Mr. Maeda is unable to fight for a while due to his knee surgery, but the fighters here will do their best in their fights, please keep supporting RINGS."

Recorded message to the fans in the arena from Maeda [the same one shown earlier in this video].

Introduction of RINGS committee members: a Japanese guy [didn’t catch his name] from the International Sambo Association, Pakochin [spell?] Rings Russia representative, Novali [spell?] Rings Georgia representative, ??? Rings Ukraine representative, Tanaka of Elite Townsend Gym representative [Maeda’s former karate teacher].

30 mins, 1 fall: Nobuaki Kakuda (Seidokaikan) vs. Masayuki Naruse (Rings Japan) 

Commentator mentions that Kakuda is wearing an elbow pad; Tanigawa explains that a famous muaythai fighter Sagat is coaching at Seidokaikan and that maybe Kakuda intends to use muaythai elbow strikes in this match. He also says Naruse should take Kakuda to the ground, but that Kakuda has also been training in grappling. Nevertheless, Kakuda is better in strikes, Naruse is better on the ground, etc., etc. They say the common fight pattern Kakuda has been using in his RINGS fights is to attack with palm strikes and then do low (leg) kicks. They’re weights and heights are roughly the same. [good match; looked like a real shoot though the ending could have been a work too. I’m not sure, but I’ll say it’s a shoot]

3 mins, 5 rounds: Siera Fubicha (Rings Georgia) vs. Kiril Valvitov (Rings Bulgaria) 6R:

Commentators: Both of these are free style wrestlers. Fubicha has won the European championship in freestyle wrestling. Valvitov was in the Barcelona Olympics in freestyle wrestling, and also won the world championship in sambo. This is the debut match in RINGS for both fighters. After the time-out draw, the commentators mention that it looks like they weren’t used to the rules, but they also mentioned how they both have great potential to be future stars in RINGS.

30 mins, 1 fall: Pieter Oele (Rings Holland) vs. Yoshihisa Yamamoto (Rings Japan) 

Commentators: This will be Yamamoto’s first fight against a foreigner.

30 mins, 1 fall: Willie Peeters (Rings Holland) vs. Sergei Sousserov (Rings Russia)

Commentators: This is Willie Peeters first time back to fight in Japan in 3 months. At the end of the fight the commentators agree that although Sousserov has a lot of potential he needs to work on his guard.

30 mins, 1 fall: Dick Vrij (Rings Holland) vs. Mitsuya Nagai (Rings Japan) 

Ranking match: 30 mins, 1 fall: Volk Han (Rings Russia) vs. Andrei Kopilov (Rings Russia) 

As a result of the match, Han moves up in rank from 10 to 5 and Kopilov moves down one rank from 5 to 6.
 
Kopilov in the dressing room, the commentators seeing his shoulder blade area, where he’s in pain, mention it looks like stitches from a surgery. During the replay they talk about how his injury probably prevented Kopilov from being in his best condition.

*In Other News*

Osaka wasn’t the only city on fire this week, as only two days later, the legendary Maurice Smith faced off against the ferocious up-and-coming Peter Aerts in Amsterdam. Smith tried to start patiently and slowly, but quickly found himself getting outclassed by an incredibly aggressive Aerts, so he had to switch gears. Eventually, Smith succumbed to a brutal high kick that landed flush on his chin in the 4th round. Perhaps, Smith underestimated the Dutch Lumberjack as he struggled throughout trying to ward off his aggressive precision. Smith had some good moments, but overall, fared poorly here. Hopefully, we will get to see a rematch between these two great combatants as a motivated Smith would give anyone all they can handle.

Bill Wallace, who has been notoriously vocal about his disdain for females in combat sports, recently shocked everyone in a recent issue of Black Belt Magazine where he said that he recently got to see the incredible Lucia Rijker in action and would love to see a bout between her and Long. Hopefully someone will make it happen!

Also, we recently reported on the ongoing rivalry between Long and her nemesis Ramona Gatto. A new twist has emerged which is sure to give Gatto some fire and infuriate Kathy. Long was recently forced to relinquish her KICK Bantamweight Title due to undisclosed medical reasons. This was due to her being unable to defend this title anytime in the near future. Instead of vacating the title, the KICK organization decided to give Gatto the belt and she is now the current champion. However, KICK has decided to seed Kathy as a top contender for the title should she choose to pursue it in the future.

Jean-Claude Van Damme may be in some hot water as a recent broadcast of Inside Edition called his kickboxing credentials into question. The program had karate expert Timothy Baker on the program where he claimed that after extensive research, he was unable to find Van Damme listed in any official records from various kickboxing organizations, either as a champion or contender. To make things worse, kickboxing legend Don "The Dragon" Wilson was also on the program and asserted that it was wrong to make false assertions about yourself. Wilson has also made prior comments about Van Damme, once challenging him to a $100,000 exhibition match that went unanswered. Inside Edition attempted to speak to Van Damme on the set of his new film Hard Target, but were promptly escorted out by security.