superkix

Decent tag highlighted by the interractions between Murahama and Togo. Murahama knows how to take a beating, including a nasty chairshot to the head, but he's also able to dish it out, busting open Togo. Tsubasa was fun in his speedster role and Buffalo was there to break shit up.

A terrific three-quarters of a match, with some minor issues during the home stretch.Aagainst Buffalo, you have a neat dynamic of the babyfaced shooter against the gruff brawler trying to take it to the mat. First and foremost, Murahama’s tights are incredible – peak 90’s aesthetic circa 2000. Buffalo’s takedowns aren’t pretty but they’re effective as he takes more of a smothering approach on the canvas. Murahama’s still able to sneak out a leglock through Buffalo’s aggression and when he’s back on his feet, he pops Buffalo with a kick to the hamstring, to which Buffalo smartly rolls away from Murahama. Murahama’s spunky on the mat, running through a number of holds almost as a routine before settling on an armbar. I loved his leglock counter to the hip toss. Buffalo doesn’t hold back with the open hands and short-arm lariats, and of course, he brings the chair into play. At one point, he’s standing on Murahama’s head while he’s on the ropes and then drops a leg across the back of his neck onto the ropes. Nasty. Just as Murahama starts heating back up, he kicks the ring post, which leads to Buffalo targeting the leg with a chair and figure-four leglocks. Good in-the-moment selling from Murahama but once he pops back up to his feet and starts flinging kicks at Buffalo, he blows off the legwork and then it’s business as usual as they run through their offense to what seemed like a botched finish. A bit of a jarring transition but still, a really good match.

I thought this was the best match on the show. Ishikawa's always compelling against strike-heavy spitfires, as he's able to weather the storm and catch them with a submission. Usuda was pretty nasty with his head kicks here, and I really liked his panicked selling when Ishikawa's got a hold of his leg. Ishikawa keeps going back to the leg but Usuda's able to grab the arm off another attempt, refusing to let go after the break. Even when he's still blasting Ishikawa with kicks, he sells Ishikawa's legwork and ends up finishing Ishikawa off with the spinning backfist>choke sleeper combo. It would've been nice to see Ishikawa a little more grumpy on offense but Usuda looked good and stiff. Fun stuff.

This was fun -- Greco's a blast to watch maneuver around the mat, working leg holds and putting Taira in some predicaments. Taira wasn't bad either on the ground and he whipped out plenty of leg kicks, spin kicks, high kicks, kick kicks. I thought the triangle counter was really cool, and the finish with the double arm suplex into the butterfly hold.

This was alright, with the highlight being the exchanges between Ishikawa and Hijikata. Yone and Nagai were decent, although it would've been nice to see more interaction between Nagai and Ishikawa. Picked up toward the end but the finish was not very good.

This match a little rough around the edges but worked well for the most part, with Usuda coming in as the straight shooter and Honma the more reckless indy scrapper. Honma with the high kick at the bell, followed by the piledriver and German suplex combo was fun. Usuda mostly works a submission game, targeting a little bit of everything, and he'll supplement his groundwork with strikes. At one point, Honma flies to the outside with a great tope con hilo, piledrives Usuda on the floor and hits a scary-looking top rope dropkick to the floor. Also that armbreaker he hits on Usuda from the top was pretty gnarly. Usuda finishes the match by a high kick followed by a nasty gamengiri for the KO victory. Fun match.

The Ki/Danielson match from JAPW felt like a BattlARTS match but as far as other American shoot style stuff, I don't know what's out there. I haven't really seen much of Matt Riddle but I've heard there's a couple of matches that lean that way.

10 shows!!! Here's the direct link. https://fightingnetworkfriends.podiant.co/e/35eaae06b9f7c6/ to stream, or subscribe to the RSS feed. You can also search us on Apple Podcasts. Episode 10. FIGHTING NETWORK RINGS IN 1992 Pt. 2 We discuss the second half of shows from RINGS second year, July-December, and mainly fanboy over VOLK HAN the best to ever do it. Topics discussed: New Mexico Unemployment Our VOW 2017 MOTY Ballots RINGS Volk Han as the best rookie of all time? Dope ass Matches & More Matches: We dive deep into the second five RINGS shows put on in 1992, and highlight our favorites. All the usual faces are there, but now we have more Russians! And Willie Williams retires...then doesn't! 3/8/97 - NJPW - Great Muta Vs. Steven Regal 11/9/99 - BattlArts - Alexander Otsuka Vs. Mitsuhiro Matsunaga 10/10/96 - M-Pro - Johnny Saint Vs. Naohiro Hoshikawa 3/21/98 - LLPW - Shinobu Kandori Vs. Yumiko Hotta Youtube Playlist: http://tinyurl.com/fnf009 Follow us on Twitter: @fightfriends @trillyrobinson @bren_patrick Email at: [email protected] Instagram: @fightnetworkfriends Youtube at: http://tinyurl.com/FightFriends

A neat little exhibition with tons of shotgun kicks from Mochizuki and some heavy elbows from Ishii. I don't think I've ever seen Ishii deliver a tiger suplex hold but he does so here, and it's a beaut. Very much worked like an early 00's indie match. Pretty fun stuff.

This one had its fun moments, like Ohtani and Kashin's European uppercut battle, Liger puttign Kanemoto in the surfboard stretch and Kashin rubbing the wrist tape across the face from the apron, the pissy Ohtani bodyslams to set-up the signature facewashes. When Liger's in peril and the fans are chanting his name, Ohtani comes in with his springboard dropkick and immediately drags him back to his own corner. Great stuff. They ramp up the finishing stretch with lots of big offense, especially from Kanemoto, but in the end, Liger hits the brainbuster for the win after a little help from Kashin.

Nagai was straight destroyed by Dick Vrij. But he wore his heart on his sleeve, climbing back to his feet again and again to come at Dick with these flamboyant flying kicks that completely miss the mark. Vrij catches him in the nuts at one point, which stalls the match, but boy oh boy, Nagai is pissed when he stands up…only to missing another big kick in the ropes. When he catches one of Vrij’s monster kicks, Vrij reflex knees him in the face. I love a good squash match when you’ve got a scrappy little fucker like Nagai who just won’t lay down. In the end, he’s pulling himself up by handfuls of the referee’s trousers before Vrij immediately clocks him for the TKO victory.

A dream match for me, hot from the start with Zaza going nuts, the crowd losing their shit when he lifts Volk up in the fireman’s carry. For two guys not known for striking, they were quite handsy here, with quick little slaps and shit kicks in between the sweet takedowns and Han making Zaza squeal on the mat as he tries to break away. Despite Han’s fancy groundwork, which included a sweet step-over armbar, the match felt evenly matched. Han would land a spinning backhand, Grom would dump him with a couple of fireman’s carries. Then Han decimates him with the finishing a submission, which can only be described as a grounded choke STF, with Han once again utilizing his legs like a Swiss Army knife. Really good stuff.

Not great but it wasn't bad...it was solid. They work the mat to start, mostly fighting over leglocks, before Funaki starts in with the smacks and kicks, knocking Fujiwara on his ass. He comes at him with a big flurry of kicks and while Fujiwara's able to a catch a leg, he can't follow up with the leg trip and Funaki ends up taking him back down to the mat. One of the best moments of the match comes when Fujiwara's trying to get a hold of Funaki's leg while he's on the ground and Funaki pops him in the face with a defensive shin, once again dropping Funaki on his ass. Funaki doesn't let up, catching him with a hard slap in the face against the ropes and a kick to the face for another knock down. Then he unloads a barrage of body shots, open hands, kicks, but Fujiwara's a resilient and wily old fuck and won't fall. So when Funaki goes for the double leg takedown, Fujiwara snags his arm with his leg for the submission victory. Of course, Fujiwara pulls it out in the end.end.

Koslowski is about as Wonder Bread as they come, looking like 1990's Steve Rogers come to life. Wayne is Kenneth is Ken, and he brings a lot of aggression to this match, which I'm okay with. He tries to keep his distance with strikes while Duane looks to sneak in for a suplex. After taking a couple of shots to the head, Duane finally hits an All-American belly-to-belly suplex and tries for a double wristlock on the mat. He's able to bridge out of a choke and they get into a little spat of open hands before Duane belly-to-bellies him once again. At one point, Duane gives Shammy a love tap slap across the face and boy, does Wayne not like it. He soon finishes him off with the Shamrock Special #2 aka the Northern Lights suplex into the leglock. I want to see more Duane Koslowski.

If you like mat wrangling, then this is the match for you. Rush is a burly individual with an amateur background and for over ten minutes, he and Takahashi jockey for leverage on the ground, with Rush using his size to his advantage. Takahashi's focus is the arm and the struggle for armbar is a reoccurring and often compelling theme of the match. There's a couple of slams throughout but this mostly takes place on the ground, and finishes on the ground, as Mark hits a powerslam and taps Takahashi with a nice snug side headlock. Pretty good stuff.

The pace these two work throughout is pretty incredible, even when they're blown up 15-20 minutes in. Right from the get-go, they scramble around with the crowd buzzing, trying to get something locked in long enough without getting thrown off. Suzuki keeps going for the armbar but Sano isn't give him an inch. He'll slap at Sano's thigh, trying to break open the arm -- I loved his slap to the face>fireman's carry takeover into the armbar attempt. The stand-up striking felt very heated at times, and some of the open hands and palms exchanged look/sound real nasty. At one point, Sano has Suzuki in a rear naked choke and Suzuki is slapping himself to stay coherent, it's great. Finally, Suzuki says "enough with the armbar" and grabs a single leg crab, but he can't maintain it and the time limit expires with them fighting over a leglock. Pretty great draw.

The best match in RINGS up this point in the promotion’s history (imo) and a big improvement upon their first match. Nobody maneuvers around the canvas like Han, the way he utilizes his gangly legs to counter and maintain control over Maeda, or hooking Maeda’s arm with his free leg to prevent a rope break. He’s aware of his positioning and his opponent’s positioning at all times, and there’s very little wasted movement. I loved the explosiveness of the opening, with Han landing his spinning backhand and going into the neck crank. He knows he can’t outstrike Maeda so he tries to keep him grounded by targeting the leg and knee. To counter this, Maeda tries to be aggressive on the mat. He’s able to hit a half hatch suplex into the double wristlock attempt, and I thought the crossface chickenwing struggle was really great. He levels Han with an awesome spinning wheel kick, but Han’s quick to force Maeda back to the ropes after a rolling kneebar. In the end, they both fight over the leg submission and Han is able to secure it first, forcing Maeda to submit.

This was a lot of fun. Tedoradze throws some badass suplexes -- I mean, he doesn’t do much else, as in his strikes look weak and he isn’t that good on the mat, but boy, he can hit a deadlift German or a deadlift Olympic Slam. He’s fired the heck up right out of the great, press slamming Kimura like he’s nothing. Kimura takes advantage of Tedoradze’s lack of ground skills with an early takedown into an armbar. He also throws a pretty sweet suplex himself and isn’t afraid to kick, which Tengiz almost cartoonish-ly oversells toward the end before Kimura submits him.

Buzariashvili is such a shitbag here, blowing off Maeda’s kicks, taunting him or waving at the fans like a dope. Of course, he’s not going to trade kicks with Maeda so he opts to suplex>submit him instead, delivering a cool belly-to-belly>armbar and his own version of the capture suplex>front necklock. The struggle on the mat really added to the bigger narrative, as Maeda has to contend with him on the ground because his kicks aren’t effective. He’s able to catch him in that nasty facelock he likes to utilize every now and then but Ramazki makes the ropes. In the end, all that provoking bites Ramazi in the ass…or rather, the face, as Maeda catches him with a snug kick to the chin. a few knees, and second face kick. The finish sucks though. Maeda gets him in the single leg, trips while trying to maintain control, and Ramazi still taps out.

KIMERA Heavyweight Champion, Vader, who returned to the United States after his victory over Akira Maeda, conducted his first interview since winning the title. First and foremost, he credited Maeda with giving him a strong challenge but that no one was stronger than Vader. When asked about his next challenger, between Bob Backlund or Hiroshi Hase, Vader said it didn't matter who won the match, they would both fall to his power. He said he didn't want to "break Backlund's hip" but that Hase was a nobody and that he doesn't have time for nobodies. Regardless of the winner, Vader confirmed that the title would be defended under "Strong Rules". He was then asked if he would consider defending his title under "Catch Rules", to which Vader laughed and walked off. Meanwhile, three more matches were added to KIMERA's return show on 1/28. Shiro Koshinaka and Kazuo Yamazaki will face off under "Strong Rules", while Georgian freestyle wrestler, Grom Zaza, returns to take on Kiyoshi Tamura under "Catch Rules". Finally, Dick Vrij is set to face Yoshihiro Takayama under "Hybrid Rules." KIMERA "CERULEAN BREEZE IN YOKOHAMA", 1/28 Yokohama Arena 1. Hybrid Rules: Dick Vrij vs. Yoshihiro Takayama 2. KIMERA Openweight Tag Team Title Tournament, Round 1 ~ Strong Rules: Kensuke Sasaki & Yuji Nagata vs. Kazuo Takahashi & Yusuke Fuke 3. KIMERA Openweight Tag Team Title Tournament, Round 1 ~ Hybrid Rules: Mitsuya Nagai & Masahito Kakihara vs. Masayuki Naruse & Yoshihisa Yamamoto 4. Catch Rules: Grom Zaza vs. Kiyoshi Tamura 5. Strong Rules: Shiro Koshinaka vs, Kazuo Yamazaki 6. KIMERA Light Heavyweight Title, 2nd Match ~ Hybrid Rules: Jushin "Thunder" Liger vs. Masanobu Fuchi 7. Catch Rules: Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Minoru Suzuki 8. #1 Contendership - Strong Rules: Bob Backlund vs. Hiroshi Hase 9. Hybrid Rules: Akira Maeda vs. Masakatsu Funaki

A good but long match that felt its length and dragged in parts. Suzuki is still very compelling as the aging predator and while this wasn't quite at the level of his WK12 match or the Okada G1 match from, it definitely righted some of the wrongs from last year's New Beginning in Sapporo. Almost immediately, they establish that Tanahashi's knee is the crux of this match and I liked that he tried to get the jump on Minoru by working Minoru's knee to set up the cloverleaf. Suzuki starts in with the bullying, the headbutt and the hanging armbar and big chairshot to the back, but as Tanahashi begins heating up, the match begins to cool down. Suzuki laughing in Tanahahsi's face at his shitty elbows was good and the cut-off dropkick but the real match begins after Tanahashi hurts his knee on the High Fly Flow. That's where Suzuki really excels at picking it apart and reveling in Tanahashi's suffering. Terrific selling from Tanahashi as he struggles to fight back and stay on his feet, which allows Suzuki to dropkick the leg out from him and go right back to gnawing on the knee with submissions. He peppers it with little shit kicks, throws a couple of big slaps, and spikes him with the Gotch-style piledriver, but Suzuki doesn't want the pin. He wants Tanahashi to give up, which Tanahashi refuses to do until Red Shoes finally has no choice but to call it. The nasty submission work from Suzuki coupled with Tanahashi's sad, hurt ace performance was excellent; however, the midsection was mostly filler and had this been 5-10 minutes shorter, this would have been a completely awesome match instead of awesome in parts.

I thought this was on par with their second match in terms of quality but obviously, less of a Dick Vrij beatdown and more of an evenly-matched contest. I like that it immediately builds off their previous encounter with Maeda catching Vrij’s first kick and delivering the capture suplex. But he can’t follow up and for the most part, neither has the advantage. Vrij targets Maeda’s bum left leg and Maeda’s selling is always subtle but good, in that his movements are a little slower and his kicks weaker, which Vrij taunts him with. As Vrij begins to show off some of that dominance with his strikes, knocking Maeda on his ass a few times and busting his nose with a kick, Maeda’s able to squeeze out the victory by snagging a heel hook out of nowhere.

Scrappy underdogs are a staple of Japanese pro-wrestling and when you throw them into a shoot-style setting -- like Masahito Kakihara, for example – you often get more heart and hunger than actual skill. Even if they aren’t landing half of their strikes, they’re constantly snapping off kicks and attempting little flourishes. On the tails, you’ve got the persevering, more methodical grappler, who absorbs the blows and waits until his opponent tires himself out to strike on the mat. Nagai is the wild scrapper to Kimura’s cool submission specialist. Kimura waiting to catch that one stray kick, get the takedown, and score the submission. His counterwork and transitions are solid – there’s a point where he goes from a neck crank to an armbar to a nasty front guillotine. But Nagai keeps throwing kicks and knees, slapping Kimura in the face when he catches a foot to prevent the takedown. The match is a slog at times, and had five or so minutes been cut, this would’ve been even better. By the end of it, Kimura’s cooked and helpless against Nagai, who keeps swatting at him with big open hands and landing knees against the ropes. I liked the dueling headbutts toward the end as a desperate means to end the match but ultimately, the scrapper Nagai wins out.

This was like good cop/bad cop. Peeters is the good cop (not really, because he’s kind of a dick himself…just not a Dick Vrij). He has this nervous energy about him when he’s trying to defend against Vrij’s strikes and he misses about 70% of everything he throws but that doesn’t stop him from trying with 100% effort. He keeps unloading on Dick with knees and his flamboyant kicks but lands few of them, and scores even fewer knockdowns. On the other side, you have bad cop Dick Vrij, who isn’t quite as dick-ish as he was in those Maeda matches, but he’s still as imposing and aggressive. One thing that I enjoy about Vrij is how responsive he is to Peeter’s offense, grabbing a foot off a kick or a hold off a takedown. At one point, he has Willie in a jujigatame and when Willie tries to shimmy out of it, Dick holds on with the reverse armbar. And, of course, he kicks really hard, lifting Willie off the mat at points. Sloppy and chaotic but fun.

This was long and by the end of it, they’re both exhausted and flailing around with slaps, but there were some neat moments on the mat, as neither is particular good at striking, and Grom utilizies some cool takedowns and slams, including a cradle-style backdrop. Kimura does have some snappy kicks and palm thrusts but his mat game is his strong suit, and he’s able to send Grom to the ropes a few times by targeting the leg. Grom, on the otherhand, utilizies more innovative submissions, like his double leg half crab or his shoot STF. In the end, Grom is able to cinch in the choke to submit Kimura.