Dylan Waco Posted October 16, 2015 Report Share Posted October 16, 2015 This is just a thought but if people are considering voting for Suzuki or Funaki are they taking Pancrase into consideration? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GOTNW Posted October 16, 2015 Report Share Posted October 16, 2015 Unless something is clearly worked (like Takada's fights) MMA isn't a factor for me. Though I'd be very interested to see how this would turn out if we counted MMA as wrestling. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted October 16, 2015 Report Share Posted October 16, 2015 Pancrase is tough because (i) it was worked far more than they let on, and (ii) sifting through to find the works vs straight 100% shot from start to finish is a chore. All of Shamrock's three jobs to Funaki (one) and Suzuki (two) are likely works. There were Shamrock "wins" with lesser guys that felt more like sparring/training sessions until Ken was ready to take it home. There were Funaki matches that felt the same way. So you try to figure out what's a work. Then you try to figure out how one judges it as Pro Wrestling Work, except that it's suppose to fool us that it's Real, except if we've think / have figured out that it's a work is that a negative? It's kind of a fucked up process. I'd chuck Pancrase, and I'd chuck the Rings stuff that were shoots. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ohtani's jacket Posted October 17, 2015 Report Share Posted October 17, 2015 I would take the famous Funaki/Rutten match into account if I were voting. I'd also have Tamura's shoot with Frank Shamrock in mind if I were voting for Tamura. I wouldn't vote for Sakuraba, but if I did I would take his PRIDE matches into account. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted October 17, 2015 Report Share Posted October 17, 2015 I'd also have Tamura's shoot with Frank Shamrock in mind if I were voting for Tamura. It's awesome, but it's not a pro-wrestling match. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fxnj Posted October 18, 2015 Report Share Posted October 18, 2015 The point's been made that regardless of if Frye/Takayama was a work or a shoot, it's clearly a match that was performed with a pro wrestling mentality of going with what pops the crowd rather than doing what was smart to win the match. To me, just that alone is enough for me to feel comfortable viewing as a great match in Takayama's pro wrestling career, rather than just an irrelevant shoot fight. With 90's Pancrase, I think there was a similar thing at play given that you had a huge chunk of the guys there being former UWF guys who didn't mind working to long matches for the crowd, as jdw mentioned. You also had shoot style rule set and the thing with no strikes so guys could show off there matwork. It was definitely approached like a wrestling promotion, at least from the top guys. There's even Meltz's story about Funaki working the Rutten fight more so to have a great fight than to win to further support this. Besides that, Funaki and Suzuki's shoot background became a key part of their character when they came back to pro wrestling and they even worked a feud that referenced their Pancrase fight, so, yes, I think someone looking at those guys should take Pancrase into account. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ohtani's jacket Posted October 18, 2015 Report Share Posted October 18, 2015 I'd also have Tamura's shoot with Frank Shamrock in mind if I were voting for Tamura. It's awesome, but it's not a pro-wrestling match. Doesn't bother me. It gives some insight into how good a grappler he truly was and you can also use it to judge how good/realistic his worked shoots were. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillThompson Posted October 18, 2015 Report Share Posted October 18, 2015 If it's worked I'll count it, if it's a shoot it has no business being considered fro a pro wrestling list. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted October 19, 2015 Report Share Posted October 19, 2015 I'd also have Tamura's shoot with Frank Shamrock in mind if I were voting for Tamura. It's awesome, but it's not a pro-wrestling match. Neither is the Funaki-Bas. So I haven't got a clue why anyone would take it into consideration. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted October 19, 2015 Report Share Posted October 19, 2015 I'd also have Tamura's shoot with Frank Shamrock in mind if I were voting for Tamura. It's awesome, but it's not a pro-wrestling match. Doesn't bother me. It gives some insight into how good a grappler he truly was and you can also use it to judge how good/realistic his worked shoots were. I doesn't give us an idea of how good a grappler he is. Frank wasn't a world class wrestler. He was a world class shooter at the time, for his weight. Grappling is just an element of MMA. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ohtani's jacket Posted October 19, 2015 Report Share Posted October 19, 2015 Grappling, shooting, you can use whatever verb you think fits best. The Shamrock shoot is more similar to Tamura's longer works than it is dissimilar. There's an interesting compare and contrast that can be made with the Kohsaka work. I would recommend anyone looking to get into Tamura to watch the Tamura shoot. It's not like anyone's going to vote for him because of the Shamrock fight. But it's more meaningful to what Tamura was about than watching him face Vader. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted October 19, 2015 Report Share Posted October 19, 2015 But it's more meaningful to what Tamura was about than watching him face Vader. No. Because one is a shoot-fight and the other one is a pro-wrestling match. And this is Pro-wrestling Only. That's simple. MMA is not pro-wrestling. Dan Severn won a ton of MMA fights. Should we look into that to see how good of a pro-wrestler he was too ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ohtani's jacket Posted October 19, 2015 Report Share Posted October 19, 2015 If there was a single person on the face of the earth who thought his pro-wrestling career was good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted October 19, 2015 Report Share Posted October 19, 2015 Why does it matter ? It's the same exact thing whether his pro-wrestling skills are good or bad. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ohtani's jacket Posted October 19, 2015 Report Share Posted October 19, 2015 Because shoot style workers were trying to do something just a little bit different from standard pro-wrestling. I don't give two shits that Brock was a WWE wrestler who fought some MMA fights and returned to WWE, but I do think Koshinaka and Tamura's shoot fights are interesting along with Funaki, Sakuraba and even a guy like Minoru Suzuki, although in his case he has a later period pro-style career that's arguably stronger than all but Tamura's worked shoot career. In any event, I only ever presented it as something I would keep in mind and that was in reaction to Dylan's question. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted October 19, 2015 Report Share Posted October 19, 2015 I'm not saying they aren't interesting. I loved the few Tamura fights I saw. But I won't take them in account when I'm judging his pro-wrestling career. Because it's not worked. That's pretty much it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fxnj Posted October 20, 2015 Report Share Posted October 20, 2015 Saying "count the works, toss the shoots" would be a perfectly fine argument if we were talking about whether or not to count The Rock's football career. With Rings and Pancrase, though, the line between what's a work and a shoot isn't that clear. There's matches where guys seem to be working until a shoot finish, are rumored to have been shooting until a work finish, or where the guys are just so good it's impossible to tell if they're working or shooting. And, again, it's important to keep in mind that these promotions were presented as simply a continuation of shoot style instead of an entirely different sport. It's definitely a grey area overall that you can't just apply a hard and fast rule to, but with the guys who did start out in shoot style and pioneered MMA, I'd be inclined to agree with OJ's approach. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted October 20, 2015 Report Share Posted October 20, 2015 With Rings, you can get someone knowledgeable about the promotion to point out the ones that are worked and the ones that are shoots. It's fairly straight forward. Pancrase is a different beast. It's a matter of extracting the works out of what is otherwise a shooting promotion. It's a harder process, and one in the end not terribly worthwhile other than to remove from certain fighters "MMA Record" fights that aren't really pure fights. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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