[1996-01-24-RINGS] Mitsuya Nagai vs Tony Halme

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Talk about it here.

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Halme wears boxing gloves, as befitting his supposed background, but it looks kind of silly in this setting, particularly when he attempts cross armbreakers and such. This is a study in contrasts--the standup portions are awesome and heated, as Halme is basically a big monster base for Nagai to try to chop down. It's the most over Halme has probably ever been. On the mat is a different story--Nagai has a huge advantage there and Halme comes off as very tentative (or clueless, to put it more bluntly). This climaxes with a great false finish as Nagai furiously rains kicks down on a standing Halme, who suddenly Hulks Up and floors Nagai with one uppercut to the midsection for a hot 9-count. Nagai quickly and somewhat anticlimactically takes him down and puts him away with a figure four anklelock. Not a high-end shootstyle/RINGS match by any means but probably the high watermark for Tony Halme's career. He's still not a good worker but he's a believable enough monster and Nagai was able to carry this the rest of the way.