[1997-06-21-RINGS] Kiyoshi Tamura vs Nikolai Zouev

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

I absolutely love RINGS at this point. It's my favorite promotion. I really enjoy the near death experiences when Zouev almost wraps his legs around Tamura's neck and he escapes it by moving *just* a millisecond soon enough. It happens again when Zouev applies a nasty looking cross armbreaker and Tamura is saved by his timing. Tamura seems to have this guy figured out after a few minutes, then Zouev pulls out a surprise combo and wins the match! Didn't see that coming. Not one of the elite matches of the year, but a really good one.

[Kevin Ridge]

I liked them moving real fast countering each other on the mat. Then you had Tamura continuing to fight off submission by getting into the standing position. Felt like a big upset and Zouev uses a very strange submission I've never seen. Looks like he is doing a standard hooking of the leg for a pin fall.

[soup23]

Zouev looked like a scary dude. Tamura's reversals in the first few minutes of this were amazing. This was just some slick fun matwork that didn't overstay its welcome. Not sure yet of the total hieracrchy of RIngs but this felt like a little bit of an upset. Really good stuff.

[PeteF3]

Zouev looks like a better-groomed Dean Ambrose here--it's weird to watch. It's not like I've ever had anything negative to say about him before, but this is the first match where Tamura really does look to me like a Best in the World candidate, as seems to be the trend of his GWE discussion at the moment. His escapes and counters are absolutely breathtaking while never looking rehearsed--it's a huge contrast to the matwork I saw earlier today involving Chad Gable, Jason Jordan, and Ciampa/Gargano--that was a good match, but the difference in how cooperative or non-cooperative the hold exchanges looked is palpable. Zouev struggles to control the pesky fucker but manages to catch him in a cool-looking shoulder hold to put him away. Excellent match, one of the better bouts of the month.

[Zenjo]

Not a match with the most ambitious of scope. The work sure was high quality however. Tamura is greased lightening with his movement and application of holds. The Russian was no slouch either. Some lovely matwork that mixed the technically sound with the spectacular. The end came a bit quicker than I was expecting, with a minor upset result.

[superkix]

Awesome counterwork from both guys but more organic than something forced and hokey like a ZSJ match. The way Tamura transitions his holds or slides into a leglock is a thing of beauty. So fluid. Zouev's armwhip takedowns look pretty brutal and Zouev has a lot more patience on the mat when looking for an opening, where as Tamura is all about overwhelming with speed. I really liked Zouev's simple wristlock answer to Tamura's calf slicer to send Tamura to the ropes. Zouev starts to show weakness when Tamura attacks the leg with kicks and you can see the frustration in zouev mounting. Big head kick from Zouev to set-up the takedown but Tamura recovers and snags the armbar as a last ditch effort but in the end, Zouev rolls him up with that unique submission for the big upset. This was a great match. 

[Control21]

With Nikolai Zouev's passing last year, watching this match is almost a punch in the gut because it is a great reminder of how criminally underrated Zouev was. This was a great match and a match that probably deserves to be on any Tamura compilation. Tamura's quickness and speed is matched really well here by Zouev's more methodical approach, but the Russian has a few tricks up his sleeve as you would expect. ****1/4