In Woody Allen's 2005 masterpiece, Match Point, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers’ character offers one of the most chilling observations on the human condition when he says, "A man who said, ‘I’d rather be lucky than good’ saw deeply into life." Tonight, we are going to see the culmination of this maxim unfold as two men's destinies collide, which will result in the demise of a lifelong dream for one, and the continued career ascension of another.

Imagine two men having a desire to be top-shelf professional wrestlers. One has a superior work ethic, the best mentor of his era to teach him, and an uncanny understanding of the nuance and psychology needed to be a great performer. The other, while athletically gifted, is much lazier and only sporadically attempts to put forth his best efforts. However, the lazy man has something that money, practice, or the best connections can’t buy, and that is charisma. Yes, this lazy man has a certain je ne sais quoi or x-factor, a quality that someone can only be born with, and while it can be cultivated, it can never be outright manufactured.
Of course, the two men that we speak of are Nobuhiko Takada and Kazuo Yamazaki. Both men started their careers at roughly the same time (1981 for Takada, 1982 for Yamazaki), but if you had to bet money on which man would ascend to superstardom, you would have dropped your paycheck on Yamazaki. This fact was because he was the number one protégé of Satoru Sayama, who was one of the hottest commodities in pro wrestling during this time. It was almost unheard of, then or now, to see a megastar of Sayama's caliber take a single person and pour into him as if he was Obi-Wan Kenobi. Therefore, when Sayama left New Japan in 1983 to join the upstart UWF, Yamazaki naturally followed him over. Takada, Fujiwara, and Osamu Kido, also defected from NJPW, and while Yamazaki was too new to be expected to be at the very top of the pyramid, it was logical to assume that he would eventually take that mantle in due season. 

ML: Takada was always marked for superstardom due to his look, and he did his best to align himself with New Japan's founder and top icon, Antonio Inoki, which at this point probably largely consisted of carrying his bags. It seems quite a leap to assume Yamazaki was pegged to be the bigger name when Takada beat him in at least 38 singles matches from 1982-83, with no losses. Granted, Takada had the advantage of having debuted a year earlier than Yamazaki, but Takada was always ahead of him in the rankings, and unfortunately the day when skill won out over marketability never came.

At first, Yamazaki and Takada were billed on somewhat equal footing. They were presented as two stars of a similar tier, with Yamazaki taking kind of a 1B role to Takada’s 1A, which put them both in a bracket right below the main stars Sayama, Maeda, and Fujiwara, but above the guest talents, and guys like Masami Soronaka. Yamazaki was given a win over Takada in their 3rd meeting in the UWF, showing that he was packaged as a dangerous up-and-comer that had the potential to climb the ranks into the upper echelon.  After the UWF folded in 1985, everyone minus Sayama returned to NJPW where they booked Yamazaki very strongly whenever he wasn’t in a title match situation, which wasn’t often as they used him primarily in tag matches. However, while this era was probably where he was treated with the most respect, he still was only given one win over Takada in their handful of encounters. 

While Yamazaki’s 1986-1988 run in NJPW was very respectable considering his age and the vast amount of talent he was competing with, the formation of the NEWBORN UWF in 1988 was the first sign that we would see that Dostoyevsky was right when he noted that luck is a greater asset than skill. Yamazaki’s tenure in the rebirth of the UWF saw him punished for being too versatile as he could always be counted on for a solid performance regardless of the situation, but his lack of charisma ensured that he would never be anywhere close to spending prolonged time in the main event picture. Yamazaki got one more win over Takada in 1988, and everything was downhill for him after that. Since we started this project in early 1991, we have seen time and time again that Yamazaki is an incredibly nuanced performer that adds a psychology that was often lacking in the shoot-style genre, but not at the expense of legit fighting skills. No, he wasn’t the athletic dynamo that Kiyoshi Tamura was, but he had a lot of nuances that other wrestlers rarely brought to the table. While it’s debatable exactly where he should have landed in the early 90s shootfighting scene, it’s clear that he deserved far better than the cards he was dealt. He was proof that hard work and dedication can almost guarantee you a solid, if unspectacular career, but the cash, sports cars, and hero worship were all reserved from his far less deserving colleague. In the end, perhaps Yamazaki will have the last laugh, as if this project accomplishes anything, it will be highlighting his qualities to the newer generations that are coming up. To those who discover him, he will always be held in high regard, whereas Takada is doomed to go down in history as a buffoonish figure that bit off more than he could chew with his prefabricated persona. Perhaps, skill is better than luck, after all.

ML: While Yamazaki didn't have a flashy persona, he was always very over with the U-Style audience, who were eventually just had their hearts broken by UWF-I so many times they couldn't expect to get what they wanted. That's not to say that they preferred Yamazaki to Takada, but certainly to Albright or Kitao, and things were definitely more interesting in the early days of the Newborn U.W.F. when there was the feeling that the outcome of any match between Takada, Yamazaki, & Maeda was in doubt rather than in UWF-I when Takada decided to have no native rival. Takada could do whatever he wanted since UWF-I was his league, but using everyone else as simply enablers for his own superstardom could only last so long. Eventually, fans just became bored by the lack of compelling opponents in UWF-I, and there wasn't anything big enough on the Japanese independent scene to justify Takada's exorbitant appearance fee. While technically it was Yoji Anjo that made Takada's bed with his ill advised trip to the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu academy in Santa Monica on 12/7/94, resulting in an unsanctioned match where Gracie reportedly excessively drubbed Anjo with mount punches before finally getting around to choking him out, as Takada & Anjo's bluster challenges to Rickson Gracie would have been essentially forgotten like every other challenge that doesn't materialize for whatever reason if not for Anjo's epic failure staining the honor of UWF-I, and thus demanding vengeance from their leader and top star Takada. Takada was riding high in 1994 when he opened up the can of worms, needing to wrestle just 8 times because every appearance sold out Nippon Budokan or Osaka-Jo Hall. Ultimately, by the time they finally met 3 years later, Takada had lost all his leverage with UWF-I crumbling and he wanted or needed the money more than Rickson did, hence Takada was no longer able to simply pay enough to maintain his status through the usual worked victory, and his cluelessness in all things actually related to real fighting finally were his undoing. As Chris Wilton, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers character in Match Point would say, "It would be fitting if I were apprehended... and punished. At least there would be some small sign of justice - some small measure of hope for the possibility of meaning." 

We are in Osaka on 4-10-93 for another night of fierce fighting, courtesy of Takada and Co. This will be one of the worst booked rematches in combat sport history, as it could have been an amazing rubber match had they done the smart thing and let Yamazaki win their first exchange while giving Takada a win back in 1992. Had that been Miyato’s strategy then Yamazaki could always have been counted on to be a nice main event on short notice, as no matter how many times he lost from that point forward, there would always be the thought in the back of people’s minds that this could be the night that it goes Yamazaki’s way. As it stands now, this is all a case of too little, too late. The UWF-I has been trying to half-heartedly restore some of Yamazaki’s credentials, which may have worked if they hadn’t embarrassed him by throwing him as a piece of chum to the Koji Kitao whale a while back. 

ML: It's not so much that Yamazaki has been booked terribly, as that Takada has been booked to be superhuman at the same time as Yamazaki has been backsliding. Yamazaki was 6-1 in singles in 1991, losing only to Takada. That's more than a healthy record for one of your top stars, asssuming a normal league where everyone actually loses to maintain ever the most minimal possibility of an upset, but Takada was 8-0 in 1991 and 8-1 in 1992, while Yamazaki was just 3-3 in 1992, losing to two natives, Kitao & Tamura, as well as Albright, without any actual big wins (he was already 3-0 against Anjo). If you give Yamazaki the win here coming off a nice win over Olympian Dennis Koslowski, you dramatically alter Yamazaki's trajectory for the better while giving Takada his rival back. Takada could beat Yamazaki in a big rematch in the fall, as he did with Albright last year. However, Takada winning here gives them nothing to do but wait for Vader to arrive, as he's already beaten Albright & Tamura, as well as newcomers Sano & Koslowski. As much as I like Billy Scott, certainly a rematch with Yamazaki would have been much more anticipated than Takada taking on a trainee who won two matches in UWF-I two years ago before quitting over a singlet.

Steve Day vs. Hiromitsu Kanehara 6:55

Cody Rhodes’ coach is back! We haven’t seen him for close to a year, as while we have been fans of Day’s shoot-style work, the UWF-I didn’t seem to hold him in the same high regard, and he will only be making one more appearance before never getting a call back to return. Here he must face the incredible ace that is Kanehara, which is exciting because we are finally paring him up with someone whose wrestling abilities should bring out a lot of Kanehara’s otherworldly talents. The match starts with Day doing his patented vampire shtick, which did nothing to prevent Kanehara from blitzing Day with a lot of fast kicks. Day is a fantastic wrestler, perhaps the best we’ve seen short of Dennis Koslowski, but you can tell that not being used to strikes is a liability to the pure wrestler. Eventually, Day is able to overcome the intense onslaught with his fantastic wrestling, and unlike most of the other American wrestlers brought to this outfit, he has at least a perfunctory understanding of submissions. The rest of this match saw a pattern of Day having to suffer the humiliation of eating an untold number of slaps and kicks from Kanehara before planting him on the mat, but I have to say that Day’s takedowns are breathtaking, and I’m really disappointed that we will only get to see him once more. Unfortunately, Day is still very green, which held Kanehara back from being able to go at 100 percent. Day did great during some of the scrambles, showing some inventive variations of the grapevine, but looked completely clueless when Kanehara tried to get into a high-speed leglock battle. You could tell that Kanehara had to slow down the pace to let Day think through some of these things, but honestly, out of all the American wrestlers that we have been seeing come through here lately, I think Day has some of the most potential if they allowed him to work more on his submission game. He doesn’t even need to advance his striking skills since his takedowns are so good, as much as learn how to chain his offense together. To my utter shock they gave Day the win, which makes me think that they are trying to keep Kanehara humble. ***

ML: One thing you'll notice about UWF-I's booking, and it's the real mark of a league that has only one true star, and thus no opponents for him, is fighters literally debut in the marquee match against Nobuhiko Takada just for him to have a new dragon to slay, and then quickly work their way down the card. In this case, National Wrestling Hall of Fame member Steve Day comes in at 0-3, and is now down to facing a second year wrestler in the opening match. Day proved to be a lot more than thankfully a change of pace from Kanehara's endless battles with the stumblebum Takayama. He brings some extraordinary skill to the table, even if 99% of his talent is currently in the ground portion of the sport, that makes for an interesting dynamic against Kanehara, who is obviously wildly inferior to Day as a wrestler, but one of the couple best scramblers, and an excellent submission fighter once it hits the mat. Though Kanehara's real advantage lies in stand up, he largely avoids the area where Day is weakest, initiating a wrestling sequence right off the bat with his single leg, and while he gets reversed, he wins the scramble, and shows Day how UWF-I is different from amateur wrestling by kicking him in the side while Day is on all 4's, disengaging rather than trying to continue to secure control of Day's back. Kanehara has a tremendous speed advantage, and his hands are looking almost as quick as Kakihara's compared to Day, but Day has made some good progress since we've last seen him, and is going right after various armlocks as soon as he takes Kanehara down, rather than thinking about ground control. Day certainly isn't as quick or as fluid a mover as Kanehara, but he showed a nice variety of submissions here, and was able to do a counter laden grappling match, rather than simply a control oriented amateur wrestling match. Instead of coming off as a specialist, if one knew nothing about Day, they'd be likely to assume he was a judo wizard, as most of his offense was the ipponzeoi into an Americana or armbar attempt, eventually winning with the latter. This may not be the most modern or realistic looking "MMA", but there wasn't a ton of submission defense in the early days, outside of certain circles, with even shows from the early 2000's such as ReMix having rules in place so you either got the immediate submission or the fight was stood back up. Kanehara was clearly the better performer, but Day contributed enough that it's the best thing we've seen from Kanehara since Masakazu Maeda retired almost a year ago. It wasn't as long, and it wasn't as fast, but this was the essence of a Kanehara match, an all out, hard working, kinetic, counter laden affair. ***

Mark Fleming vs. Yoshihiro Takayama 7:01

Mark Fleming has been on the rise lately, and hopefully that will continue tonight because let’s face it, no one wants to lose to the sloppy skills of Takayama. Right away, this was a lot better than I expected, as Takayama is taking this seriously with a lot of urgency. Yes, he is flailing around, but at least he is flailing with purpose, which is helped out by Fleming, who seems to want to engage as quickly as possible, presumably because he doesn’t like getting hit. This match did see Takayama fail an STF attempt, which the crowd mocked him for, but this was all slightly better than the bout that preceded it. Both of these men flowed well within their skill levels, whereas the prior match had some clunky moments when Day couldn’t keep up with Kanehara’s pace. Fleming may not have much in the way of submission skills, but he has a sincere gravitas about him, and you always feel like he is in a real fight. The fight ends with Fleming winning via the STF, which may have looked even worse than when Takayama did it, but at least Fleming is Lou Thesz’s protégé, so I suppose he has a bit of an excuse. ***¼

ML: We're really scraping the bottom of the barrel here. In fact, this is one of the worst matches we've encountered along the Kakutogi Road. The match was only passable when Fleming was controlling Takayama on the mat, in which case it was merely boring wrestlefucking rather than inept, largely because you can't really screw up just laying on top of the opponent. That may be taking it too far, as Fleming knows amateur wrestling if nothing else, and can be a useful performer when in with the right opponent, but everything I liked about Day not just being an amateur wrestler, we saw from Fleming in between his silly telegraphed shoulderblocks. But again, this lay and pray was the "highlight" of the match. The submissions were all very unbelievable, particularly Takayama's mostly one armed facelock because half the time he couldn't even be bothered having the off hand locked. Everything was just really loose, again mostly from Takayama you got that sort of Takadaesque facsimile of what real fighting looks like to the untrained eye that can't catch the actual subtlety and precision of how to properly set up, transition in and out of, or apply the holds from any technical standpoint minus Takada's natural coordination and athleticism. The striking was very sloppy, of the windmill haymaker variety. Fleming didn't suck, but basically was smart enough to concede to not try much against an opponent so talentless, escape with the win and attempt actual wrestling some other day. I can not find a single, solitary positive aspect about this fight, the only highlight being a doublearm suplex by Fleming which doesn't really belong if we want to be honest, and would find this contest to be massively overrated even at *. Basically, if you combined every boring aspect of MMA with every sloppy aspect of worked shooting, you get this sort of plodding stinker that one can only praise when they aren't trying anything. There weren't big botched moments that people really groan about, but a mistake here and there is much better than an overriding clumsiness because presumably the people in the former category will do their spots more or less right most of the time, while you could run this back 100 times and essentially get the same thing unless some real technical improvement was made in the dojo. This was, amazingly, actually a big step back for Takayama, after a remarkable one man show by Kanehara to carry him to his first good match on 12/20/92, and a match against Tom Burton on 2/14/93 that at least had some "speed" and intensity in the opening exchanges, and was a much better effort where they at least actually tried to deliver most of what they are ever capable of before predictably being quickly undermined by Miyato's nonsensical idea that giving them 20 minutes could possibly result in anything beyond greatly diminishing returns. 

Tatsuo Nakano & Gene Lydick vs. Yoji Anjo & Tom Burton 15:57

This match is the perfect illustration of where things are going wrong with this promotion. If you are going to have a bloated roster, then you may as well have 3-hour cards. Instead, because they seem intent on cramming everything they can into 2 hours or less, we have a tag match that will probably be good but has no real stakes or logical point other than trying to cram all of their performers together. Now, this was not a unique problem to the UWF-I, as one needs to look at a lot of 90s Japanese wrestling to see entire cards filled out with 80 percent tag bouts, but at least organizations like New Japan, All Japan, AJW, etc., were willing to have their cards stretch out to 3-5 hours if need be. With all of that said, there was a lot to like here. They all put forth a great effort, but Anjo really was Mr. 200% in this one. He went all out and never stopped, really forcing everyone else to go hard. Anjo stole the show right way with some excellent speed, gracefully employing some stick’n’move skills on Nakano, who couldn’t seem to do anything to stop him. And the goodness didn’t stop with Anjo. All of these men brought their A-games with them, and this has been one of the best matches we’ve seen so far this year in terms of its great pacing and non-stop action. When AEW is looking more and more like a high school Cirque du Soleil production, it’s nice to know that pro wrestling, when done right, can be incredibly engaging. The only things that were minor detractions were the somewhat abrupt ending, and the fact that Gene Lydick throws palms like he’s trying to play pattycake. ****¼

ML: Nakano is one of the more powerful strikers in the promotion, but he's also arguably the slowest native, and has among the shortest reaches. Knowing that, Anjo decided to employ much more footwork than usual, being very light on his feet, and beating Nakano with his kicks, getting in and out of the range without taking much if any counterfire. Nakano eventually had to give up on his own striking, and shift to trying to catch Anjo's kick and take him down. Anjo was great here, but while Nakano was certainly better than usual, no one else was really better than average. Nakano & Lydick where largely effective because they were able to follow along with Anjo's top shelf performance, and tell the story of trying to grab and ground Anjo to somehow slow him down. Anjo was very good on the mat though, and would counter and get back to his feet when his submission attempt dried up. Burton was fine, but the storyline of how the opposition was trying to deal with Anjo's fancy footwork was adding a lot to the match, elevating these sequences above the actual talent of Nakano & Lydick. Meanwhile, it was just random action anytime Burton tagged in, with no one to carry the match or make the opponent look better. There was a nice sequence down the stretch when Anjo and Nakano both tagged in at once where Anjo landed a series of would be clinch knees, but Nakano answered with a suisha otoshi and a huge high kick when Anjo was trying to getting back to his feet. Anjo was losing all the clinch battles to his burly opposition, but the best near finish came when he finally was able to belly to belly suplex Nakano into an armbar. The finish of Burton getting what he deserved by having Nakano turn his powerbomb attempt into a wakigatame was fine in a vacuum, but as with everything else involving Burton, had nothing to do with the story of the match. ***1/4

Bad News Allen vs. Yuko Miyato 6:30

I wanted to be excited about "Bad News" Allen Coage returning to the UWF-I, but Booker Miyato took that simple joy away from me when he refused to let Coage make even the slightest bit of impact with his debut matches against the Albright-monster. Now, we are doomed to always know that Allen will never be permitted to be anything more than yet another middling figure, which is not where a man of his advanced age needs to be. This contest wasn’t bad, but just felt rather pointless. Miyato kept things moving with his speed and quick hands, and while Allen is dreadfully slow, he still has outstanding judo, so seeing the crisp execution on his throws was a treat. This match was just kind of there, a throwaway moment since we know that Allen will never be allowed anywhere near a main event title. **¼

ML: Miyato is still paying Allen back for his two losses to Albright  last year. Allen has essentially already outlived his usefulness though since they rightfully aren't going to build him up for a loss to Takada. He's basically the UWF-I version of Chris Dolman. He's not that bad, but an old, way too slow guy living off his name from two decades ago. His two judo takedowns were impressive, but that's all he had to offer. These two had no chemistry, and really didn't work together so much as just each do a few things that didn't require much cooperation. This was just another throwaway, in a card that would have been better with one or two fewer matches. 

Naoki Sano vs. Masahito Kakihara 6:46

I admit that I am interested in this matchup since both have been on something of a punitive slump lately, Firstly, Kakihara seems to have provoked the wrath of Booker Miyato, as he has been forced to put over just about everyone these last several months, whereas Sano had to suffer the indignity of losing to Takada after he had already been in a match against Olympic Wrestler, Dennis Koslowski. When both men’s fortunes on the wane, this should be an interesting fork in the road for how they are going to want to move forward in booking both men. Kakihara does not disappoint, as at no point in Sano’s long career do I think he has had to absorb the litany of lighting palms that Kakihara unleashed this evening. In a way, I am loving this matchup because up to this point we have never had to see Sano deal with an opponent dead set on a total blitzkrieg for a gameplan. Eventually, Sano bared some of his weight down on Kakihara, almost securing a Kimura on him, but in an impressive display, Kakihara fought out of that and converted it into a guillotine, which morphed into a suplex. The rest of this match was absolutely fantastic, with my only complaint being that it needed about three to four more minutes. The pace and energy were amazing, and the crowd’s energy, who were going bonkers for Kakihara, was palpable. Sano won a hard-fought battle via an impressive armbar entry, which makes me conclude that Kakihara must have been caught hitting on Takada’s girlfriend, hence the banishment to the jobber’s penalty box. Still, it’s good to see Sano get a much-needed win after his prior humiliation. ***¾ 

ML: This match started strong with Kakihara getting two knockdowns, one with his blazing palms and then another with a suplex. Unfortunately, Sano had to ground Kakihara after this because he couldn't deal with his speed, and in a match that was so ridiculously short given the talent involved, spending so much time on the mat wasn't helping, even though the intensity remained high. They kept things moving though, and tried to cram 10 minutes of action into 7. It was good for what it was, but definitely felt very rushed to the point it falls just short of truly being able to recommend.

Dan Severn vs. Kiyoshi Tamura 21:37

Lest any wrongfully accuse me of being overly negative, I will take this moment to commend Booker Miyato on one of his few successes, which is the recent ascension of Kiyoshi Tamura. Tamura’s star has been on the rise, perhaps because his talent is such an overwhelming sight to behold that he can no longer be denied. At the last UWF-I show, he lost to Takada, but up to this point, he was the only one to really win while losing to him, looking great the entire time and forcing Takada to put in the work for the first time in two years. Hopefully, this trajectory continues, and Tamura will be one of the top aces of this outfit, but I fear that when Vader arrives, it will suck all the oxygen out of the room. Here he must face an upstart in Dan Severn, who has been limited in what he can do, but has been doing quite well, nonetheless. Before we start, I must say that outside of, perhaps, Rick Astley, never has a man’s voice not matched his body more than Dan Severn. He had a brief interview here, and it reminds me of the crazy IWA King of the Deathmatch tournament that took place in 1995, where a young Betz was happy to get his hands on a 4th generation dubbed VHS copy. Dan Severn defended his NWA title against Tarzan Goto that night, and he forever left an impression on me during his interview when he lisped out some erudite sentences about being mostly concerned about all the foreign objects he was likely to be facing when dealing with Tarzan.  

We are underway, and this is already fascinating. Tamura is lighting quick and blitzes around Severn with ease, but Dan’s wrestling technique is just too good to not be able to be the one putting the positional pressure on Kiyoshi. While Dan could keep forcing things to the mat, he had a hard time putting Tamura in danger since Tamura was too crafty, and would reverse most of Dan’s rudimentary attempts into a more exotic submission of his own. Tamura may be the only person I’ve ever seen who can execute an armbar, kneebar, and rear naked choke attack in under 3 seconds. At this stage, you could tell that Dan was confused about submission techniques. At one point, he tried something akin to a shoot-style version of the dreaded bow-and-arrow, before giving up on it altogether. Thankfully, Severn has plenty of slams in his arsenal, but for some odd reason, they don’t seem to count toward the down/rope-escape counter for this match. This bout is a very hard match to know how to rate accurately. On one hand, it had a unique energy and flow that we haven’t seen up to this point, but there was almost no striking, so it always felt like a firecracker that you expected to go off at any moment but never did. Also, Tamura would continually clown Severn with all these transitions and mat savvy, but it seemed like he was forced to restrain himself from embarrassing Severn too badly. Eventually, Severn wins with a slightly better-than-pathetic STF, which came out of left field since it seemed like they were finally putting a proper push into Tamura. I suppose I shouldn’t have allowed myself to put any faith in Booker Miyato, as this was yet another lunkheaded decision. Severn is still a relative nobody, so making Tamura lose to him just seems to kill any immediate main event usefulness that can be squeezed out of him. As far as the match, both men put in a lot of effort, and watching all of Tamura’s endless brushstrokes was great, but at the same time, this felt like a plane that would go down the tarmac but never actually achieve liftoff. ***¼

ML: If Miyato split the combined 28 minutes of this match and Sano/Kakihara more evenly, we likely would have had two good matches rather than one that just missed because it was ridiculously rushed and one that never fired largely because it was so far beyond Severn's stamina level he never let loose. Both fighters are normally at their best when they are explosive, but there was very little time spent in stand up, and when you combine that with the fact that the match was way too long for Severn, you put him in a sort of survival mode where he basically works methodically the entire time, trying to maintain top control. Tamura can't really do his thing because Severn lacks the quickness and athleticism to react with him, so in the end, you had a match that was fine, but where neither showed anything that resembled their best side, in part because having endless time to do so didn't allow them to work the way they needed to. We really saw nothing that resembled the entertaining urgent Severn vs. Anjo matches, where there was a lot of movement on the mat once Severn hit the suplex, or the typical flowing counter exchanges of Tamura, who seemed unwilling to start a sequence because he didn't have confidence that Severn had an answer. Severn has at least 80 pounds on Tamura, and was able to get him down time and time again with a wide variety of suplexes and throws. The problem is once that occurred, he had a very hard time controlling him, much less threatening him, as Tamura is simply too explosive and slippery. Tamura seemed to be able to  squirm back to his feet or take control on the mat whenever he wanted, but was trying so hard not to steal the show from next month's main eventer that he also just never seemed to get going. Tamura kept it super simple and much slower than he'd like for Dan, who still seemed somewhat lost on the mat at times, and struggled to find anything that resembled a threat with his submission attempts. For instance, there was a really nice counter by Tamura, hooking the leg and rolling into a kneebar to counter whatever no pressure clasp Severn was supposed to be doing that was somewhere between a standing half crab and an ankle lock. Tamura came on in the later stages because Severn was gassed, but then Severn randomly tapped him out of nowhere. The worst Tamura match we've seen other than the Albright squash that's barely worth counting. For Severn, Another One Bites The Dust, and he's on to challenge Takada so his perfect record can be tarnished. We're starting to see a pattern where Takada's opponent not only loses to him obviously, but then loses their next singles match. We saw this with Day then losing to Anjo, Sano then losing to Albright, Koslowski then losing to Yamazaki, and now Tamura then losing to Severn, which seems the worst one given Tamura gained something from leaving to train with Thesz then at least actually pushing Takada.

Gary Albright vs. Dennis Koslowski 5:01

Perhaps, no one stands to suffer more with the recent change of the winds than the mighty Albright-monster. He was recently banished from his realm as the keeper of the coveted crown jewels, and is now doomed to scour the earth, forever seeking his next meal. Things would surely be looking up for Gary if Vader wasn’t due to shortly become the next behemoth to challenge Takada for his place on top of the comic book world. This match started off as one of the best Albright matches we’ve seen so far due to it having a nice back-and-forth between both combatants, and also because Albright unleashed his intensity here, presumably because he didn’t have to fear injuring one of the natives. This was looking like it would shape out to be a decent match until it ended around the five-minute mark, it’s true purpose revealed. This was simply a pretense to show off Albrights’ new Dragon suplex, embarrassing another great talent in Koslowski. It’s baffling how they are giving the golden treatment to Severn, treating him with kid gloves, but they can’t afford that same respect to an actual Olympic medalist. **

ML: Albright had enough respect for Koslowski to keep this from being too cartoonish, and even took two bumps to prove he's less incapable than Keith Lee. Koslowski got to spend a little time in top control, but once Albright got rolling, it was cascading suplexes, as always.

Nobuhiko Takada vs. Kazuo Yamazaki 15:13

Before we get started, I would just like to preface this by saying that these two have always had good chemistry together. In fact, their final match in the UWF that took place on 9-11-85 would probably land in the top 10-15 shoot-style matches of all time, which we will look at later. Sadly, I feel a sensation of being led to the gallows, I know the end is near, and all I can hope for is that Yamazaki will put on a fantastic showing of himself on the way out. Things start with a nicely paced kicking battle. Neither man wants to be the first to fully commit to a close-range attack, so they both show some nice footwork, popping in and out of the pocket and snapping out high kicks. Yamazaki is the first to draw blood with what can only be described as a jumping heel-hook, which was cleverer than it sounds. Unfortunately, this allowed a protracted ground sequence where Yamazaki had to patiently endure Takada trying to figure his way around the leglock neighborhood. There was one nice moment where Yamazaki slyly snuck in an explosive suplex, which seemed to wake Takada up and make him frantically slap on a keylock as a reversal. The story of this match was Yamazaki lying in wait, seemingly exchanging half-heartedly with his foe, looking for the perfect moment to pounce with a surprising maneuver. Things started heating up towards the end, with one of Takada’s high kicks looking like it landed a lot harder than what was probably intended. Yamazaki added some nice subtly, as is his custom, but he also seemed to be phoning it in at times. I’m not sure if he is just at the point where he is ready to punch the time clock and be done with it, or Takada just isn’t giving him enough to work with. This match was starting to find its stride when Takada won with a totally dubious submission, a nonsensical hold that consisted of him dragging Yamazaki’s leg across the ring. **¾

ML: We commence Yamazaki's funeral with some lyrics from Andrew Lloyd Webber because the far superior Kansas was already answered with the 15:13 next to the combatants names, and Point of Know Return isn't close to being one of their 50 most interesting songs despite sadly being one of the only ones people actually know. 

"You have brought me
To that moment where words run dry
To that moment where speech disappears into silence
Silence"

Putting the expected but infuriating result aside, I have mixed feelings about this match. It was more lively and less stagnant than most of Takada's matches, but it had more of an exhibition feel to it with light striking and much more obvious feeding each other appendages than we see even in the rookie matches. It wasn't dull by Takada's standards, but it felt more like a small house show main event than the huge intense long time rival showdown it should have been. Mostly, it was just there. Yamazaki really didn't seem to be in the mood to try to save this, and it felt like a broad strokes pro wrestling match rather than the subtle, cleverly crafted material he's known for. The match began to take off when Takada somewhat clumsily turned Yamazaki's German suplex into a Kimura then caught Yamazaki's kick and threw his own kicks while holding the leg until he failed on a flying armbar. Yamazaki avenged by spinning into an ude-garami after Takada hit his backdrop. The match didn't feel very organic or have a lot of flow. These preplanned sequences were pretty good, but there just wasn't enough of them to carry the day. In the end, this was better than the Takayama, Bad News, and Albright matches that were pure trash, but it's still no better than watchable.

Conclusion: Here it is, the point of no return. Both in terms of Yamazaki’s career going forward, and the direction that the UWF-I is determined to set sail on. This marked the final chance of salvaging a main-event career for Yamazaki, a man who was desperately deserving of such a spot. It also showed clearly that Booker Miyato has no time to be bothered in cultivating some of his tremendous talents, which would pave the way for countless possibilities going forward. Instead, we are dead set on the cheap thrills of a monster-of-the-week scenario where guys like Vader and Albright are the only ones found worthy of playing in Takada’s sandbox. Of course, while this is sure to yield some short-term benefits, it has all the mystery and intrigue of wondering if Hulk Hogan will survive this month’s clash with the Dungeon of Doom. Now that we can take a moment of silence for Yamazaki’s dying dream, we can look at this card from a broader perspective. This was a decent event thanks to the stellar tag match, and a solid undercard. Tamura vs. Severn will certainly be a high recommendation for some, and rightfully so, but I felt like it could have been a lot more, however it is worth watching. The main event was okay, but could have been far better. This main event wasn’t the laziest Takada that we’ve seen, but since he didn’t have the ball of sound and fury that was Tamura constantly forcing him to react, we got too many cases of Takada cluelessly trying to figure out how to apply an armbar. Takada's ineptness in the grappling exchanges was somewhat offset by some nice striking and clever Yamazaki moments, so it wasn’t a waste of time, either. All-in-all, I would give this a recommendation, though the last two matches drug it down a bit.

ML: This show is a prime example of a card that could have been a classic with a reasonable booker at the helm, that was instead mostly whatever in the ring, on top of being a big downer with the results of the last three matches burying Yamazaki and setting Tamura & Koslowski back considerably. The first half of the show was much better than the second despite having two stinkers. Three of the last four matches should have been recommendations, but just went awry with Sano vs. Kakihara being unreasonably short, then Tamura vs. Severn being unreasonably long, and the final two matches typically just being business as usual for two of the least interesting performers in the promotion, Albright and Takada, rather than Takada firing up for a match against Yamazaki the way he would have in the 1980's.

Krummel’s Korner

Fierce Fighting 4-10-93 Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium

Mark Fleming vs. Yoshihiro Takayama 7:01
Takayama’s post-fight comments: "Yeah, he was sturdier than I thought, I felt his sturdiness as soon as I tied up with him. I thought I got him a few times with knee strikes, but he didn’t back down and kept coming forward and grabbed me, and it ended before I could do anything."

Naoki Sano vs. Masahito Kakihara 6:46
Kakihara’s prefight interview: Q: "How do you feel today?"; A: "I feel great"; Q: "You haven’t been too lucky in your matches recently"; A: "Yeah, my recent record hasn’t been good, so I’d like to do well in today’s match." Q: "Your opponent today is Sano. How do you feel about it?"; A: "Yes, I believe I need to win no matter what in order to protect UWF" [referring to the fact that Sano came in from another promotion].
Sano’s prefight interview: Q: "Today your opponent is Kakihara, a young boy of UWF-I. How do you feel about this?"; A: "Mmmm... well I have seen his matches, and he’s young and has a lot of energy. So I can’t let my guard down. I’ll have to be aggressive from the beginning so as not to fall into his pace. So my plan is to go all out from the start."
Sano’s postfight interview: Q: "It seems like at the start of the match, you were pressured by the palm strikes. How were Kakihara’s palm strikes?" A: "They were heavy. I was wondering what they were like." Q: "Did you get hit in your eye by a palm strike?" A: "yeah..."

Dan Severn vs. Kiyoshi Tamura 21:37
Tamura’s prefight interview: Q: "Dan Severn is a champion in both amateur wrestling and in sambo in the U.S., but what do you think about him after he started fighting in UWF-I?" A: "Yes, well, he’s big and thick, and I think he’s an excellent fighter." A: "Are you confident [facing him]? He’s good in grappling." A: "yeah, he’s big, but I’ve never faced him in a match so I don’t really know what it would be like. He probably has a lot of strength. So I’ll try to hook parts of his body that are weaker [than the rest of the body], like the ankle or wrist."
[My comments: Another great technical match that almost looked like a shoot, but I imagine there was an agreement to keep the match going and also to keep it mainly grappling with limited striking. That finish looked very painful, a backbreaker submission I’ve never seen before. I think UWF should have pushed Severn as a main eventer to challenge Takada rather than just giving him his one requisite defeat to him... Unfortunately, they didn’t, but then soon after this Severn proves himself to be a legit top fighter in UFC.]

Gary Albright vs. Dennis Koslowski 5:01
[my comment: that full-nelson suplex looks very dangerous]

60mins 1 fall: Nobuhiko Takada vs. Kazuo Yamazaki 15:13
Yamazaki’s prefight interview: Q: "What is your strategy for the fight?" A: "Well, I’ve been thinking about it and whether I can do it or not, I have a variety of possible strategies, depending on the situation, that I’ve been preparing myself to undertake."
Takada’s prefight interview: Q: "What are your thoughts about your fight tonight?" A: "Well, mmm... I’ll do my best." Q: "Today your opponent will be Yamazaki and he’s made a comeback recently in his last match, so any thoughts about him?" A: "Well, whether it’s Yamazaki or someone else, I’m going in there to win. Some are easier to fight than others, and there are different types of fighters, as for myself, I can say this in words, but aiming for this day, I’ve thought about it, but right now, I’m emptying myself of thoughts. But he is someone who I’m not that fond of fighting and I’m aware of this weak point in myself, so I’ve been thinking about how to deal with this situation, but in any case, I’ve been trying not to think about it after entering this gymnasium today. So basically, I’ll just go as hard as I can. So as not to stumble I’m only thinking about winning." [my comments: in a very long-winded way he gives me the impression he’s not too confident at all... ]
[my comments: The final KO kick seemed hard hitting, like it could have caused a real KO even if it’s a work.]
Yamazaki’s postfight interview: "It’s not random, like the kicks, each one of the last two hit me and the 2nd one, he feinted, and I couldn’t see it coming." Q: "Did it hit your nose?" A: "It hit around my eyes, eyes, temple, and nose."
Takada’s postfight interview: "Yama’s front raising kicks hit me once. And he got me at a double bout once [tag team match] with a shower [abise] kick. So I had that in mind that when he comes closer, he has these tricky moves, so I wanted to be vigilant."

Kakutogi Rewind

Since we don’t want to end on a sour note, I thought that this would be a great time for myself, and my esteemed colleague, Mike Lorefice to take a look at the Takada/Yamazaki match from 9-11-85.
9-11-85: Nobuhiko Takada vs Kazuo Yamazaki

Easily the crown jewel of the Original UWF’s catalog and one of the finest hours in both men’s careers. We couldn’t have found a more apropos way of ending this promotion than with this spectacular showing. Both men, especially Takada, would go on to be the face of U-Style in upcoming years, which was hallmarked by an increased emphasis on entertainment value. More than any other match that we’ve seen in 84/85, this had a cinematic feel and was probably the beginning of the ongoing narrative of Yamazaki being Rocky to Takada’s Apollo Creed.

Sayama taught the young Yamazaki well, as right away we see him sneak in some low kicks by first feinting with his hands. Both men were cautious at first, not wanting to overcommit when Yamazaki took the first major offensive stab with a negated double-leg. It’s easy to forget how fast and athletic Takada was in these days, especially with the motivation of a hungry up-and-comer. Stuffing the takedown seemed to embolden Takada, who is now charging forward with his own leg-kicks and a swift takedown/Kimura attack. This assault led to Yamazaki realizing that he wasn’t going to just barge in and quickly end his foe, but had to craft a plan of ingenuity. Yamazaki tried to bait Takada into a triangle-choke from off his back, along with other submission attempts, which served to stifle Takada but never came close to finishing him. Eventually, both men seemed to grow weary of the stalemate, and just opted to resort to stand-and-bang mode. Yamazaki seemed to be winning the standing wars initially, that is until Takada nailed him with a spinning kick to the stomach, which shifted the tide of the match towards his favor. Smelling blood in the water, Takada continued to assail Yamazaki’s midsection, which woke the crowd up from their slumber, as it now looked like Yamazaki’s doom was a forgone conclusion. Through sheer force of will, Yamazaki summoned the strength to launch several assaults on Takada, but always seemed just one step away from finishing the job. Eventually, Takada eked out a victory by one-too-many assaults on his opponent’s midsection, forcing the KO. This wasn’t the most realistic match in the original UWF’s cannon, but nothing else they did crafted a Rockyesque story as this one did. Like Rocky before him, Yamazaki lost the battle, but achieved something far greater by showing that he wasn’t just another bum from the neighborhood. ****½

ML: I've never been as impressed with their original U.W.F. matches as some other people because they save all the action for the second-half. The first half is mostly parity, not surprisingly working better when they are kickboxing then when they are trading submissions. Certainly, the effort is much greater than in their 90s matches though, with much better story and more attention to detail, as well as speedier and more motivated versions of both combatants. These two still had a lot to prove, both because they are booked as being on more equal footing, and due to being behind Sayama, Maeda, & Fujiwara in the pecking order. Takada is at his best when he is spamming big kicks, and the second-half was just fireworks. He is so much quicker here, and is actually the better of the two because it's mostly a standup bout without much depth or dimension. The matwork isn't particularly evolved, but works better when they immediately go into a submission when someone is jarred by a suplex or slow to react recover from getting put down by a kick. Takada actually does a really loose triangle here, but Yamazaki slams his way out and goes into an armbar. It's surprising how many different techniques Takada uses in these days compared to the '90s when he's literally only interested in the armbar or the big kick. It really feels like he's thinking when you see him answer Yamazaki's right kick feint by sweeping out the left plant leg. Beyond it being the story of the match, these two seem pretty equal here, in part because they never really get into the extended grappling sequences that expose Takada. Yamazaki winds up more in home run hitter mode, as Takada has both the reach and the speed, so Yamazaki is always searching for the equalizer. Both men land several brutal kicks, but finally Yamazaki eats a series of middle kicks that do enough damage that he can't quite capitalize on catching one of them, and thus Takada is able to finish him by taking the leg back and depositing another in the liver. It was a little better than their 12/5/84 match, but again won't wind up topping my year end list of the best U.W.F. matches. ***3/4

*In Other News* 

Sometimes it takes a while for international news to reach the desks of Kakutogi HQ, but we have recently been made aware that back in December Stan "The Man" Longinidis captured the ISKA Oriental Rules Division Heavyweight Title by not only defeating Dennis Alexio, but by breaking Dennis’ leg in the process. Early in round one, Stan hit a roundhouse kick on Dennis’ leg that managed to break both his tibia and fibula. This match took place in Stan’s home country of Australia,  and is yet another fantastic win for him. It’s being reported that this is a simple fracture, and Dennis is expected to make a quick recovery.