[1998-08-28-RINGS] Kiyoshi Tamura vs Masayuki Naruse

[Jetlag]

Here's a rare creature: a bad Tamura match. There's a few injuries happening in this match, but it wasn't even good up to that point. I blame Naruse, who was way too limited at this point to be going 20+ minutes. Pretty dull opening matwork as it was mostly both guys moving from positions in not partiularily interesting ways. Nothing felt hard fought and I think there wasn't a single submission attempt in the first 14 minutes. Then Tamura injures Naruses leg with a kneebar. Ironically the following short stoppage woke up the crowd and produced some hot striking exchanges, but the match quickly fell apart again as Naruses knee started buckling. The leg injury may have been an abstract work to keep folks believing in the realness of RINGS. Eitherways Tamura beats easily Naruses after 24 minutes of mostly dull shootstyle. See, not all shootstyle is great. Supposedly Tamura got his nose broken too but I didn't notice when.