[1997-08-13-RINGS] Masayuki Naruse vs Christopher Haseman

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

I've never seen Haseman before, but he's a machine! The guy just works like a total killer and is a blast to watch. This wasn't quite as good as the RINGS so far this year, but it was still a very good matwork spotfest. Naruse wins with a pretty nasty looking KO in a hard fought match.

[Kevin Ridge]

I watch this Haseman guy and think of how badass Glacier could have been with someone like this. Though Hasemen did seem to get apprehensive as the match went on. He takes a vicious palm strike to the face for the KO.

[Childs]

The '97 RINGS has been great in part because the excellence wasn't confined to one or two match-ups. We keep getting hot matches from brand-new pairings. This was probably a touch more awkward than the promotion's very best stuff, but it never felt less than hotly contested. Nifty KO finish with both guys almost out of points.

[soup23]

I really liked the ending knockout of this match and this match also felt it relied more on the rope breaks than previous RINGS matches on the set. Cool look at someone I am really unfamiliar with (haseman).

[Robert S]

Fun fact: Wikipedia has this match as part of Naruse's MMA record.

[PeteF3]

Fun fact: Wikipedia has this match as part of Naruse's MMA record.

 

Well, as much as there's debate over work vs. shoot in RINGS, this is clearly a work. Less cooperative than UWFI but some obvious "near-falls."

 

The first part of this was "eh" to me--lots of fumbling around and re-sets. The highlight was Naruse doing a backflip to get out of an attempted armbar, which was a holy-shit spot and sort of the shoot version of Misawa doing the same earlier in the year. The standup portions down the stretch got better as this went along, with some pretty great-looking strikes and a finishing shot that looked like a finisher, even though the match ended on points. If anything, this is also makes you appreciate just how gifted Volk Han and Tamura were on the mat, because these guys couldn't do nearly as much in terms of working holds in this style. On a shallower note, Haseman has possibly the worst skin I've ever seen in wrestling--horrible bacne and a face that looks like he cut himself shaving and then went to sleep on the IWA-MS ring mat every night for 2 years.

[Zenjo]

A consistently solid encounter. Bubbling under for the most part without hitting high gear. There was an undercard vibe to it, which is fair enough as it was the undercard. Haseman does have terrible skin. He was a reasonable worker if unspectacular. Naruse wasn't yet ready to take the lead.

[superkix]

This was solid enough, with some cool spots (i.e. Naruse's backflip counter, Haseman's legsweep takedown) and the intensity picked up on Naruse's end with some of those open hands. Han/Yamamoto was the far superior match of this show but still worth a watch.