[2000-12-31-Inoki Bom-Ba-Ye] Nobuhiko Takada & Keiji Muto vs Don Frye & Ken Shamrock

[Edwin]

Talk about it here.

[GSR]

Is there a more manlier team going than Don Frye & Ken Shamrock?  Clips are shown of Takada tapping out Coleman with a heel hook to show what a deadly MMA fighter and submission artist he is.  That’s a joke by the way; Coleman/Takada was a work.  Shamrock, looking like a doppelganger for fellow Lion’s Den member Guy Mezger, walks out hand in hand with Alicia Webb (Ryan Shamrock in the WWF) and to what sounds like his WWF entrance music.  Frye and Shamrock are eyeballing each other on the introductions, almost as if they’re reluctant partners here.  Hot opening as Takada and Muto hurl their opponents through the ropes to the outside.  Frye catches a kick, single leg takedown and he starts throwing headbutts to the grounded Takada.  He looks for the cross armbar but Takada is able to get to the ropes. Muto and Shamrock are very tentative at first.  Shamrock scissors the legs as he looks for an ankle lock, Muto keeping his wits about him and not letting him fully lock it in.  Sunset flip into a heel hook on Takada, Takada escaping by blasting him with some hard chops to the chest.  The Japanese “make-a-wish” before the Muto powerdrive elbow brings the crowd to life.  Takada appears to have KO’d Shamrock with a head kick forcing ‘the Predator’ in there to buy his partner some time.  A Shamrock rana seems to surprise the crowd and he’s back looking for the ankle lock.  Frye throws punches to Muto’s knee then cinches in a single leg crab.  As he wrenches back on the hold he’s open and Takada cheap shots him with a kick to the chest. The U.S. team appear to have a clear game plan to target the legs as both more than proficient when it comes to submissions.  As Muto gets to the ropes for the break Frye refuses to do so, the referee having to physically involve himself.  More rulebreaking by those no good Americans, Frye providing leverage from the apron, right in front of the official, as Shamrocks locks in a kneebar.  Frye with punches from the mount on Takada, he transitions to side control, looking for the armbar, throwing knees to the mid-section at the same time.  Takada with some knees of his own, from the bottom, forcing him to release his grasp.  Muto throws ‘the Predator’ to the outside, grabs a chair from one of the commentator’s and jabs it into the side of his head.  Frye and Takada jockey for position on the mat, Frye coming out on top, before the Americans unleash an array of suplexes, Shamrock with a delayed vertical into a Falcon Arrow.  Cool gutwrench backbreaker from Frye.  Similar to earlier in the match where the U.S. boys would be in charge, a spin kick out of nowhere stuns one of them, then their opponent rolls through for the tag.  Muto takes out Frye’s legs with some low dropkicks and then lands the moonsault.  A figure four on ‘the Predator’ is the start of the match breaking down, the ref having real trouble maintaining order in there.  The finish comes out of nowhere, a Takada belly to back surprisingly putting Frye down for the three, ‘the Predator’ kicking out a millisecond after the official had bought his hand down to the mat for the third time.  I don’t know whether that was a screw up, or the idea all along was for Frye to kick out a split second after the three.  Tensions, which had been there at the onset but had subsided during the match, rear their heads again, Frye and Shamrock having to be separated as they have a heated pull apart.

There was no flow to his match, there would be sudden bursts of activity and then nothing.  Just as you think it was coming to life, it would settle back down, rinse, repeat.  Rather than going almost thirty minutes I would’ve rather them gone fifteen with lots of stiff strikes, submission, grappling etc. as those things did happen in the match, it should’ve just been condensed.  Frye exudes legit badness in there with the headbutts, KO’ing Takada at one point, manhandling the ref and I’m intrigued to check out his New Japan work as I’ve never seen any of that previously.  In closing, disappointing because it never fully clicked like it could’ve and should’ve and was too meandering at times.