Control21

The Top Ranked Pro Wrestlers by Rookie Year-1997 (ainsworthsports.com) Some other wrestlers making their debuts in 1997: CIMA Rocky Romero Togi Makabe Magnum Tokyo Rob Conway Snitsky Ricky Banderas

Owner: Akira Maeda Commentators: Kenichi Takayanagi, Hideyuki Kumakubo, Shigesato Itoi Referees: Ryogaku Wada, Yuji Shimada, Motoyuki Kitazawa Ring announcer: Nobuyuki Furuta, Lenne Hardt Location: Tokyo, Japan Fighting Network RINGS, established in 1991, is the promotion founded by Akira Maeda after the collapse of UWF Newborn in 1990. Other UWF stars founded their own promotions as well and took most of the talent with them. Maeda was the most isolated of the group and started from scratch. He only had himself and one promising UWF trainee named Mitsuya Nagai. This was perhaps a blessing in disguise for Maeda as he had to use his old contacts in Holland to help build a roster for the promotion's first few shows. This international flavor quickly grew, as Maeda also ventured to Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union to find new talent in the wake of political upheaval in the region. In time, RINGS would develop a unique identity in the 1990s, becoming known as a shoot-style promotion that billed itself as "real fighting." This wasn't any different from UWF Newborn, but the use of international talent who had legit backgrounds in various combat sports gave it more legitimacy. WOWOW, Japan's HBO equivalent, would air RINGS shows from 1991 onwards, treating their shows as boxing-esque special events. RINGS was somewhat of a pioneer, using fancy video game-style graphics to serve as match introductions along with high production values to give fans a "big fight feel" on almost every show. While RINGS was not a top drawing promotion in the 1990s, they did carve out a unique spot for themselves in the professional wrestling landscape and often drew more than 10,000+ fans to their big "Mega Battle Tournament" show every January at Budokan Hall. By 1996, RINGS was reaching its zenith and had become known for its high-level grappling, state-of-the-art wrestlers, and a growing mix of both worked matches and shoots to add more flavor to their shows. This was out of necessity as MMA organizations such as UFC, Pancrase, and even Shooto were growing in popularity. RINGS was still a "professional wrestling" promotion though, and it would not transition into full MMA until late 1999 after PRIDE's growing strength forced its hand. For now, as RINGS enters August 1996, a shifting professional wrestling landscape is presenting some very unique opportunities for Akira Maeda. Perhaps this will make RINGS more resilient in the long run, as the tides of shoot-style retreat thanks to the growing presence of MMA across the globe. Can Akira Maeda forge a path for RINGS and retain its unique identity?

Who's better than Kanyon?!? Kanyon back in WCW should be interesting!

All good with me

RINGS closes the rest of its draft and re-signs the following with its remaining picks: Bitsadze Ameran Todor Todorov Hans Nyman Joop Kasteel Christopher Haseman Adilson Lima Ricardo Morais

With its 31st pick, RINGS selects.....Wanderlei Silva from Brazil Vale Tudo!

After my next pick, I will probably just be re-signing RINGS guys for the rest of the draft, so if it is okay with everyone else, I'll just close my draft at that point with those picks and wait for free agency to make the rest of my moves (if any).

With its 30th pick...RINGS re-signs Willie Peeters.

With its 29th pick...RINGS selects...Kevin Randleman from Universal Vale Tudo Fighting!

RINGS will re-sign Egan Inoue with its 28th pick.

Don't forget @SirEdger

With its 27th pick, RINGS re-signs Dick Vrij @jeff5819 is up next

With its 26th pick, RINGS re-signs Bitsadze Tariel. @jeff5819 back on the clock

With its 25th pick...Fighting Network RINGS continues its Shooto raid and selects....Akihiro Gono. @jeff5819 is back on the board.

With its 24th pick...Fighting Network RINGS selects....Hayato Sakurai. @jeff5819 is back on the clock.

With it's 23rd pick, Fighting Network RINGS selects...Sanae Kikuta! Back to @jeff5819

Starting in Round 23, @Mr JMML will be on the board after Jeff goes.

With its next pick in Round 22...Fighting Network RINGS selects....Caol Uno! @jeff5819 is on the board

With it's pick in Round 21...Fighting Network RINGS selects....Rumina Sato! @jeff5819 is up next

With their pick in Round 20....Fighting Network RINGS selects.....Kenichi Yamamoto from UWFi! @Perfectly Straightedge is back on the board for Round 21.

With my 6th (19th) pick in the 1996 draft...Fighting Network RINGS selects...the real Baki the Grappler....Naoyuki Taira! With that we move on to round 20 and @Perfectly Straightedgeis back on the board

D'oh...

Great shows as always. It's interesting to see the fun undercards followed up by a solid main event. Shinya Hashimoto vs Dean Malenko and Brian Pillman vs Art Barr both sound like matches that would have been excellent. In other news, the Destruction Crew have been shown the door but the talking points will inevitably be around the "mystery man."

Thanks! Frank Shamrock actually fought in RINGS in 1997 against Kohsaka and 1999 against Tamura and both were excellent fights. I always wanted to see him against other RINGS guys like Volk Han. Takayama might be the perfect heir to Akira Maeda in terms of tall guys that can throw some stiff strikes... As for storylines, RINGS was pretty much presented like a sport. They were sort of like PRIDE before PRIDE. Fancy video game-esque graphics, and they only did singles matches (although I might introduce a tag team format). They had pre and post-fight interviews on their shows that sort of told the stories along with the in-ring stuff of course. I'll be making use of some WON-style posts to further storylines and give people a sense of what is transpiring beyond the match results. If you want a taste of what RINGS was like, you can find a lot of stuff on Youtube and the full shows are on PuroArchive's Internet Archive channel.