Kiyoshi Tamura vs Yoshihisa Yamamoto - RINGS Rise IV 24/6/1999
Perhaps another example of hate working in favour of the match. The story is that these two really dislike each other for several reasons. Basically Yamamoto said Tamura’s matches were pro-wrestling while his matches are legit MMA matches. RINGS tended to have both from the mid-90s onwards (eventually becoming an MMA promotion all together).
“TAMURA” Chants followed by a slap to Yamamoto - a perfect pre-match standoff that perfectly encapsulated everything I love about this match. The raw animosity that came out in the simplest of things. A tiny tap on the face that was hard but not too hard, just enough to let Yamamoto know what he’s in store for. The crowd goes absolutely mental for it as well. Before I get any further, I have to mention the incredible Korakuen Hall crowd. Not only do they react wildly to everything they need to - the stand-up strike battles, the important submission attempts, the little things in between - they were infectious in their excitement and how engrossed they were in the action. They were fixated fully into what these two guys were bringing to the table. The mat-work portions of the match were mesmerising. You can often sacrifice technique to add drama into the mix or focus purely on the holds, how realistic they look, etc and have the match be totally good but to have the perfect blend of technique and suspenseful action is awe-inspiring.
The story of the match plays out like this - Yamamoto is on-top for the most of the match, leading the holds and controlling Tamura on the ground via a vice-like body scissors. He manoeuvres around Tamura, who in turn is on constant defence, attacking any opening Tamura allows in. Tamura is totally focused and tries to minimize any danger that can come to him. Yamamoto fights off light body shots with closed fist, trying to bait Tamura into giving an arm up, only to get stiffer and stiffer with them before finally unloading on the stomach and getting yellow carded by the ref, giving up vital points. A pivotal plot point that links into the latter stages of the match. Tamura slowly gets more control on the mat and becomes obsessed with locking in a cross arm-breaker. There was an awesome moment that sums Tamura up as a character to a tee where Tamura rides a nasty rare naked choke from Yamamoto to gain a better position to lock on the cross arm-breaker. And he’s like a pitbull whenever he gets the chance to snag the arm. It’s relentless action that tires you out as a fan. They work in rope breaks well, all while putting good emphasis on how last resort the rope breaks are in RINGS. When either has to grab the rope, they are pissed and angry with themselves. The transition to the stand up exchanges was great and so perfectly timed. Yamamoto wins out the first strikes by knocking down Tamura first, seemingly winning the match for himself with a flurry of palm strikes to the bridge of the nose and kicks to the head. And Tamura has to first back with big shots to just stay alive, and that he does. Tamura hits a lovely jumping head kick but that fails to knock down Yamamoto to everyone’s surprise, so he fires one on the chin but that fails too for a small while as Yamamoto finally falls a few seconds later to more palm strikes to tie the two on points. And they finish off an extremely tense and exciting 5 minutes by returning to the mat seeing out the match.
Unbelievable match. Perfect from bell to bell and more. *****
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