Kakutogi Road: The Chronological History of MMA
Chapter 28: RINGS MEGA-BATTLE 2nd Ibuki 3/5/92 Amagasaki-shi Kinen Koen Sogo Taiikukan
By Michael Betz & Mike Lorefice 1/4/21

We at Kakutogi HQ believe in the axiom that one should not go where the path may lead, but that it is best to go where there is no path and leave a trail. This puts us in good company, as all of these shoot-style promotions that we have been covering are in the process of blazing a new way forward that will help set the course for full-blown MMA to come to fruition.

The date is 3-5-92, and we are leaving behind the smoldering ruins of a fantastic UWF-I event that took place only 6-days prior with a (so far) record 4 recommended matches, so Maeda and co. have their work cut out for them. This time we will be travelling to the Amagasaki Memorial Park Stadium (now known as the Baycom Athletic Stadium), an all-purpose sports arena built in 1988 that typically holds events relating to Judo, Volleyball, Table Tennis, and Basketball. We start this event by being greeted to a sneak peek of the backstage weigh-ins, along with some footage of Volk Han and his fellow sambo comrades showing us their finest flying arm attacks, rolling kneebars, and pre-sparring dance routines, thus winning both our hearts and minds.

The first match will be both an EARTH BOUT as well as the televised combat-sport debut of , a solid karateka and boxer, who would unfortunately gain infamy in later years for various legal troubles, but should also be remembered for his versatility, having competed at high levels in both karate, boxing, and kickboxing. The height of his kickboxing career came in 2001 when he made the finals of K-1 World Grand Prix in Osaka, losing to Jerome Le Banner, and Fukuoka, losing to Mark Hunt, earning a spot as a reservist in the 2001 World Grand Prix won by Hunt. Here he will be facing Hans Nijman, who made his debut at the 12-7-91 RINGS event, in a rather pointless karate bout vs Masaaki Satake. I'm not sure, but this fight appears to be under RINGS rules, albeit in a 5-round (3-min per round) format.

Round 1 is underway, and Watt fires off a couple of nice thigh kicks before being swiftly taken down by Nijman, and put into a side headlock, which eventually led to Watt taking the first rope escape. The rest of the round saw Nijman just kind of stand and take Watt's offense, without really trying to initiate another grappling exchange.

Round 2 starts with Watt taking the initiative and nailing Nijman with a great push kick. Nijman is tentative of what to do next, as he just kind of calmly assesses the situation while being able to land a couple of leg kicks of his own. He tries a couple of times to get another takedown off a bodylock, but Watt wisely gets himself immediately into the ropes when this happens, prompting a break from the ref.

Round 3 sees Watt dancing around Nijman, weaving in and out, while Nijman opts to simply remain stationary. Oddly, despite hardly moving, Nijman seems to land more accurate kicks, perhaps due to his patience before committing to one. Nijman eventually gets his bodylock takedown, this time in the center of the ring, but he goes right back to a side headlock, which makes me think that he isn't trying harder to grapple with Watt due to a lack of offensive moves in his arsenal.

Round 4 continued to be uneventful, with the only major happenings being an eye poke from Watt early on, and a nice counter when Watt grabbed an errant kick from Nijman and countered with a thunderous one of his own to Nijman's chest.

Watt put more effort into round 5, sneaking through Nijman's statue defenses more frequently, but still danced more than punched. Crazily, the crowd was really into this, going nuts at even the slightest sign of something happening. Not much did, and the fight seemed about to end when the judges called for an extra round, much to the dismay of Hans Nijman. After a few moments of Nijman complaining that the fight was only supposed to be 5 rounds, he reluctantly agreed to a round 6. To Watt's credit, he started to hit his stride in this round and was pushing through with several nasty kicks and knees, but it was too little, too late, as the fight was ruled a draw. Had he fought like this from the start, he would have easily won.

This was a shoot, but it was also a bizarre and mostly dull affair that I wanted to like more than I did. The best moments of the fight had to be the cornerman who constantly shouted sage advice like, "Kick! Kick! Punch! Punch!" and "Low-kick! Low-kick! Punch!" Watt did show some good speed and footwork, but somehow that rarely translated into significant strikes. Nijman, on the other hand, moved like a golem, but still managed to land most of the nastier blows. This probably came down to a lack of experience on both fighters' parts, which led to a ** match.

ML: Though both fighters have a background in karate, Watt being from the Seido branch and Hans from Kyokushin, they couldn't have approached this fight more differently. Watt is very athletic, and utilized the more traditional karate style focusing on movement and misdirection to open up his kicks and body punches (they just had taped fists). Hans has no athleticism , and utilized more of a muay thai style, stationary and completely flat footed, mostly looking for the takedown. Hans gotta take down early, which forced Adam to be more selective with his kicks. The big difference in the early rounds is Watt was actually throwing, while Nijman kept looking for the power kick, that never came because he did nothing to set it up. Nijman began to work the front kick in the third, opening up the takedown into what should have been an arm triangle, but since he presumably doesn't know the hold, wound up being a cheesy side headlock. Once Nijman was finally willing to kick, the fight really shifted in his favor, as he backed Watt with his front and low kicks, then when Watt tried to close the distance, he would grab the body lock and take him down. Nijman briefly had Watt's back in the fourth round before the immediate rope escape. I gave Nijman the final 3 rounds, but the fight was close enough that an extra round seemed reasonable. Nijman forced a rope escape after a quick takedown in the extra round, but then Watt finally woke up. Now with his back against the wall, Watt was, for the first time, fighting with aggression, and had his best round of the fight. Nijman was looking exhausted, and Watt seemed to get the thai clinch going, but Nijman tripped him up the second time. A decent shoot.

Next up is the 2nd glorious appearance of Volk Han, who is seen warming up for the bout wearing what must surely be a holdover from his days in the Russian military, and is enough to intimidate any prospective challenger. Oddly, he is only on the 2nd match of the evening, this time facing a man who's exact spelling remains a mystery (as does everything else about him) Gennady Gigant. One thing is certain, which is that Mr. Gigant lives up to his name and is quite the portly fellow. Han quickly moves around Gigant, chopping down his opponent's thighs with numerous low kicks, until Gigant sneaks in a desperation ippon seoi nage . Being a fellow of considerable girth, he was able to neutralize Han by simply smothering him, but unable to do much else, and eventually Han found a way to stand back up. A slick sequence followed where Han hits his patented standing kimura throw, several years before Karo Parasyian was making it all the rage, but to my shock this was countered by a scoop slam from Gigant, which was countered again by Han, when he simply held on and used Gigant's own momentum against him, thereby toppling over him and attempting an armbar right afterwards. The fight restarts, and Han quickly hits the tobi-juji-gatame (flying armbar) that he was so studiously practicing in the early vignettes. The rest of the fight saw Han throwing all sorts of submission tricks, from wristlock throws, rolling kneebars, and his eventual finish, which I can only describe as some kind of figure-four variation of an inverted omoplata, which had to be light years ahead of its time. What was most impressive about this though, was Han taking a rather lackluster opponent in Gigant, and getting an entertaining match out of him. ***

ML: Booking wise, this was just RINGS getting Han on the board to set up the rematch with Maeda, but it was another great one man show from Han. Ironically, the aspect that sets Han apart from Tamura, Kanehara, and Suzuki may be his striking. Han's movement is just fantastic; he looks like Lyoto Machida out there. He's not only flowing on the mat, his stand up flows arguably just as well. Early on, Han hit a left front kick into a right middle kick, pushed off with his hands, and was back out of the pocket before Gigant could even think about a counter. Even the kickboxers weren't doing this kind of thing in these days. It may be unfair to say that the 302 pound Gigant was a performer of no particular grace given he's a Russian judo champion, but this was his debut, and he didn't bring a lot on his own to the sport of worked pro wrestling. His offense was all standard real sports fair, and he relied more on his size then precision or attention to detail, but Han found numerous ways to turn these into interactive wrestling sequences to keep the match interesting, and it wound up feeling more like a top notch world of sport technical match that somehow still worked within the context of a shoot because of the standup and generally credible technique. What we got here was a match that focused on the big throw, and they kept it entertaining by quickly resetting after a little bit of submission work. That being said, what grappling we got really flowed together, with chain attacks going back and forth from both, though Gigant would squelch this when left to his devices. Just great brief sequences here all around! Gigant isn't as good as Maeda in a vacuum, but Han could just continually experiment with him because he wasn't locked in to doing certain things. The quality was 99% from Han, but Gigant was clearly a skilled martial artist who was pliable enough that everything was totally coming off. This felt a lot fresher and more experimental than the matches we were seeing from the other promotions because Han is so unique and creative, and one of the things that made Han so great is he just refused to be held to or boxed in by convention. ***3/4

Now we have Dutch judoka Ruud "Rudy" Ewoldt vs the truly impressive Nobuaki Kakuda. Impressive, as it was only a little over a month ago that Kakuda got his nose brutalized by kickboxing legend Rob Kaman in a shoot, and his is already back in time for a FIRE BOUT. Right away, the match is living up to its name, as Kakuda is throwing some insane low kicks at Ewoldt, and we appear to have the 2nd shoot of the evening on our hands. Ewoldt is no chump however, and he quickly presses in and uses his massive size and strength advantage to toss Kakuda like a rag doll. After quickly forcing Kakuda to get a rope escape they are back on their feet, and Kakuda is only able to fire off a reverse roundhouse kick before being dwarfed by the massive dutchman as he is again forced to the mat, but immediately puts his leg in the ropes, not even waiting to see what he had in store. The next couple of mins saw Kakuda get abused via throws, nasty body blows, and ground attacks, but he has the heart of a lion, and the advent of multiple rope escapes had to eventually play in his favor. After weathering the early storm, he was able to finally hit some nasty combos on Ewoldt, eventually winning by TKO. This only lasted around 6min, but was an intense and exciting shoot.

ML: An intense, high quality karate versus judo shoot. Kakuda landed nice left/right body punch then lowkick combos, but he really needed to back Rudy with them because he refused to exit the pocket himself. As long as Rudy was forced to move backwards, Kakuda could keep landing the same combos on him. However, when Rudy simply held his ground, he was able to grab Kakuda and throw him. It looked like Rudy had the winning formula once he was willing to do what it took to get the fight to the ground, but Kakuda then begin to land several big shots to the liver or mid section, including 3 spinning heel kicks. Rudy survived 2 knockdowns, but was given no chance to recover, and was soon finished with a middle kick to the liver. Above average match.

Next, we are set for another AIR BOUT with 80s video game icon Dick Fly (Vrij) and Herman Renting, who has proven to be one of Maeda's wiser investments, as he has been able to have decent, if understated matches with all those he is put against. After an initial period of mutual footfighting, things are underway with some very slick judo from Renting when he valiantly fought, and succeeded in obtaining a kosoto-gake (minor outer-hook) off an attempt from Vrij to defend. This doesn't really yield any meaningful results as Vrij just powers his way out of side-control and the fight restarts on the feet. The rest of the contest was a clash of judo vs FLY-boxing, with the later being victorious via head kick knockout. While hardly essential viewing, this was entertaining, and both Vrij and Renting looked good, if not particularly aggressive. *** for entertainment value.

ML: Though not a bad match, it was poorly positioned given it didn't have anything to offer that we hadn't already seen done better earlier on the card. The intensity was down dramatically, with Vrij's pulled kicks not helping any. It also never felt as though Renting could win, and once Dick put him down with a low kick, he just worked over the leg to set up the big high kick finish. 

After a brief interlude where we are given a demonstration of Russian military sambo it is time for the RINGS debut of accomplished karateka Willie Williams, who has the distinction of having bouts against both a bear and Antonio Inoki on his resume. The match against Inoki was surely worked, but I am not certain I can say the same of the bear. Here he will be facing Pieter Smit who has been missing in action since 8-1-91, where he was forced to have a dreadful contest with the much inferior of the two "Willys," Willy Wilhelm.  This match was over almost as soon as it started, as it was not even a mere 3-mins of Willie using Smit as a shoot-style punching bag. This was clearly a work, and while Williams was lively enough to save this from being terrible, it was rather pointless.

ML: Williams had perhaps the first classic martial arts match with Inoki on 2/27/80, and was clearly the star of that match, showing amazing athleticism in making the normally dull and feeble Inoki works into something with genuine excitement and intensity. As the legendary Apollo Creed once said, "You know Stallion, it's too bad we gotta get old!" The classic bout with Inoki came soon after Williams peak as a karateka, reaching the semifinals of the 2nd World Open Championships in 1979, when he was 28 years old. Now, at nearly 41, he obviously didn't have the same explosion that separated him in his heyday. This slower Williams didn't do a good job of faking his strikes, with none of the several knees he threw looking remotely convincing. The bout was a squash to get him over, but unfortunately he wasn't able to look convincing.

We then head into a UNIVERSE BOUT where the focal point of all existence will be zeroed in on Masaaki Satake and dutch newcomer, Fred Oosterom. This appears to be our 3rd shoot with the lean Dutchman instantly going for a takedown and primitive armbar attempt on Satake, after a brief striking exchange. Satake gets back up, and tees off against Oosterom's legs with some powerful kicks, but Fred seems to be a scrapper, and despite eating some hard shots, is able to quickly close in and trip Satake. Sadly, this didn't gain him much headway, as they instantly fell too close to the ropes. However, Oosterom got a lot smoother in figuring out Satake's patterns and wins the next striking exchange by catching Satake's kicks and landing some hard gut shots of his own, before executing another explosive trip. The rest of the match saw Oosterom get the better of Satake both in the standing and ne waza portions, quickly depleting Satake of his rope escapes, but shortly after the 6min mark, Satake knocked Oosterom down with a spinning back kick, which didn't seem like something that would have put him away, but right after he did this, he followed up to a soccer kick to Fred's face, which wound up securing the knockdown victory for Satake. Chalk this up to another jerk move, and bogus win for Satake, as the ref shouldn't have allowed this, but he did, and the W is forever etched into the history books. Exciting match that unfortunately ended on a bad note.  

ML: This felt like the 12/7/91 Nobuaki Kakuda vs. Herman Renting match where they sparred realistically, but weren't trying to hurt each other with their strikes, mostly kicking the block or the thighs. That match was a lot better, but they did a good job of making things look urgent here, and Oosterom had a few hard takedowns. The finish definitely looked planned, with Fred managing to block the cheap shot kick with both arms despite perhaps not even being able to see it coming. Either way, there's always some shenanigans when Satake is involved.

Now for the final conflict in this, the 2nd MEGA BATTLE event, a match between Akira Maeda and Ramazi Buzariashvili, a newcomer to RINGS that I have been unable to find any significant information about. The battle starts and Ramazi heaves Maeda down with ease, but opens himself up to a crafty toehold attempt from Maeda when he (slowly) dove in and tried to attack Maeda's turtle defenses. After successfully rolling off into the ropes we are back to the feet, and Ramazi again tosses Maeda around with total ease, but is only able to follow up his impressive strength with a pitifully slow armbar attempt. What followed was a fairly credible (by Maeda standards) worked bout, that saw several protracted grappling sequences where they would fight for a submission, as well as numerous instances of Maeda being tossed around like a sock puppet. Ramazi was slow to be sure, but he came across as a credible grappler with legit skills. The fight ended with Maeda winning via ankle-lock. Maybe I'm just in a generous mood, but I like this more than I thought I would, and am hereby deeming it to be ***. 

ML: Ramazi is a master of the Georgian national martial art, Chidaoba. Maeda may not be the best competitor these days, but he's really opening peoples eyes to a lot of different styles and techniques. What other promotion is giving demonstrations on how to defeat men armed with knives or who have guns lodged in the small of your back? Ramazi made a strong impression in his debut, and seemed to have all the makings of a star, with intensity, hard suplexes, and too much charisma, if anything, for shoot fighting. He did a good job, outside of a few ill advised attempts at power moves. Maeda, for the most part, didn't have enough impact or credibility to his offense, but the match was mostly entertaining even though it was by far the least believable on the show.

Conclusion: Before I offer any criticisms, I should first commend Maeda for allowing 3 shoots to be on the card, for two months in a row now. This alone is groundbreaking and puts the bravery quotient considerably ahead of their other two competitors, even if this hasn't always translated into a satisfying or entertaining result. Now with that said, this event was fairly entertaining, but hardly mandatory viewing. 2 of the 3 shoots were exciting, but too short to really be strongly recommended, outside of historical interest. Volk Han's match was also worth watching, but again, hardly compares to his best moments. Still, this was leagues ahead of the last PWFG event, so it may be safe to put them in the 2nd place slot of the three, going forward. They are still finding their voice, and there appears to be an influx of new talent, so it's understandable that will take some time to work the kinks out.

ML: I feel the Dolman gym is proving itself to be the first MMA super gym. They may not have the best workers, but they are leading the way in the cross training department, and that's coming to bear now that RINGS is showcasing some real fights. Their judo guys can hang in there on their feet with karate and kickboxing specialists, while their kickboxers can beat other strikers by relying on the takedown.

*In other news*

Rumors are circulating that the UWF-I is looking to bring in another pro boxer to face Nobuhiko Takada for their 5-8-92 event, scheduled to take place at the Yokohama Arena. No word yet on who that may be, but the last boxer he faced (Trevor Brebick) was convicted on a rape charge in Florida last week.

Leon Spinks and The Sheik are set to team up in an upcoming series of events within the FMW promotion in Japan. They are scheduled to start making appearances as of 3-20-92.