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Kiyoshi Tamura: Complete and Accurate


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Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Yoji Anjoh (UWFI 8/28/92)

(Yearbook)

 

This is the 23rd match of Tamura’s career and my 20th review. There couldn’t be a better matchup. Tamura slaps Anjoh on a handshake attempt. Uh oh. Both guys are cautious to start, but Tamura nails the first takedown. Nice grappling to start as both guys are pretty evenly matched. Both guys are going for and getting close to locking in submissions early on and instead of going for rope breaks, both guys are staying calm and looking for other means of escape. Tamura forces the first rope break of the match locking in a sick looking Misawa-esque facelock. It’s the only rope break in the first 5 minutes of just beautiful grappling and submission work. Anjoh finally locks Tamura in a triangle choke and we get our 2nd rope break of the match. We’re going long here so they’re not going Ludicrous Speed like they do in tags matches. But the mat work is gorgeous and the variety of holds and counters on display here is astounding. Tamura gets blasted in the head going in for a takedown for a knockdown. Brutal looking. Instead of trying to get into a striking match with Yoji Anjoh, Tamura does what he does best and goes for submissions. He locks in a nasty toe-lock leading to a rope break. Anjoh tries for some knees but Tamura takes it right back down. Anjoh is always thought of as a striker, but he’s excellent on the mat. He can really do everything you’d want from a shoot style wrestle. He pulls out some crazy almost lucha-esque submissions here mixed in with all the typical shoot submissions. He goes for an STF at one point but instead of doing the cross face he puts on a full nelson. There is great moment where Anjoh stands up off the ground and dares Tamura to get up to face him. Tamura is hesitant at first but gets up at Anjoh’s insistence. As soon as Tamura gets on his feet Anjoh throws a wild kick to head which Tamura easily avoids. Anjoh has a big shit-eating grin on his face and the crowd goes crazy. Awesome little moment. Back to the mat with more submission attempts. They’re both constantly looking and maneuvering for any opening that can lead to a submission. Back on their feet and Tamura is very cautious and aware of a Anjoh’s high kick. Anjoh takes Tamura over with a suplex but Tamura immediately floats back over and locks in a kimura leading to a rope break. That’s something you’ll often see in a Tamura match. His opponent will just finish executing a move like a hiplock or slam like Anjoh here and Tamura will use his athleticism to capitalize on the situation (Anjoh is laying flat on his back right now, maybe I can get to his arm). Anjoh manages to put Tamura down with some really hard leg kicks. Anjoh has a big lead on points getting several knockdowns. AWESOME sequence with Anjoh following up with strikes and hard knees. He gets a little cocky and tries to german suplex Tamura (instead of just finishing him off with strikes) which opens the door for one of Tamura’s signature moves the quick go behind into a sleeper. Huge pop from the crowd. But Anjoh manages to slip out. Anjoh has really started to take over forcing two straight Tamura rope breaks to further widen the gap. Tamura manages to sink in a leg lock and Anjoh does one of the best scrambles for the ropes in history. Seriously it was fucking awesome and might be my lasting image of this match. Back to some really nice grappling leading to another Anjoh rope break. Tamura is trying to mount a comeback with leg submissions. Which makes sense. All the kicks/knees Anjoh throws leaves him open if Tamura can manage to grab one. Also in theory working on the legs will “weaken” Anjoh’s kicks and knees. I think this is more of a case of Tamura finding openings where he can. Anjoh is definitely working on the legs intentionally here late. Tamura stopped wearing shin guards in the last few matches theoretically so he could focus more on his submission wrestling (so said the announcers in a previous match) and would be less inclined to kick. Anjoh is just blasting him late with low leg kicks taking Tamura off his feet and slowing him down. Those shin guards might have helped. Closing minutes and Tamura gets a big slam and locks in a sleeper. Anjoh is struggling looking for an escape as the bell rings. Um. WOW. That was incredible.

 

I know everyone in the yearbook thread talked about how this would have been better if it was 10-15minutes shorter. But I thought this was an excellent match. Once I finish this project, I might watch this side by side with some other 30minute draws. I though they paced this really well with clear escalation. Their cardio is insane, particularly Tamura as they kept up a relatively quick pace throughout (quick for a 30 minute draw). They showed a ton of variety in their work. Obviously they both have certain things they like to do and both have clear gameplans, particularly as the match developed. But they showed so much depth of knowledge here when it comes the application of submissions, amateur wrestling, striking, suplexes and all of the defenses for these techniques. Easy EPIC.

 

Edit

Forgot to mention the draw also worked for me because of the way they worked the finish. Anjoh is WAY ahead on points but Tamura has him locked into his favorite submission hold as the time expires. Both guys look good coming out of the draw and theoretically a rematch is set up for down the road. Of course I just looked and there isn't a rematch and they only meet one more time in a tag match. And now I'm sad. Ugggh. Damn you UWFi!!!!

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Kiyoshi Tamura vs Steve Cox 9/21/92

 

 

 

Steve Cox kinda looks like Billy Zabka on steroids. I see Tamura has not learned his lesson from the Anjoh match and still isn’t wearing his shin guards. Some nice grappling to start as Cox looks ok. I’m always curious about the gaijin. Beautiful spot where Cox is standing over Tamura and Tamura takes him down using only his legs. Cox picks Tamura up and runs him into the turnbuckle instead of just slamming him. Weird spot you don’t really see in shoot style and Tamura immediately ducks back out to the center of the ring. Cox is so so in this. There are some moments where Tamura is pretty clearly feeding him a limb and Cox is a little slow to react. He does nail Tamura with a really sick dead lift german suplex. Tamura actually gets a stump puller which is pretty cool since I associate that move with Doink the Clown. He immediately turns into an STF which is pretty sick. Quick work to the finish as Tamura hits a side suplex and floats into a kimura attempt. Cox tries to defend it so Tamura drops a quick knee to the head/shoulder which allows him to lock it in for the win. This was an absolutely nothing match. That Albright squash from 91 was disappointing because it was a short squash but at least it had the suplexes. This was just, meh. SKIPPABLE

 

 

Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Kazuo Yamazaki (UWFI 10/23/92)

(Yearbook)

 

This is 2nd from the top behind Takada vs Kitao from the first Budokan Show and the biggest show up to this point UWFi has run. So pretty awesome that our boy Tamura is in a featured match. I’ve always been a big fan of Yamazaki so I’m excited for this match up. EPIC pre match staredown the crowd is pretty hot for. This is the first time these two have been in the ring together. Yamazaki immediately goes for a high kick, Tamura grabs his leg and just shoves him to the ground casually as if to say “you’re gonna need to do better than that shit.” Crowd is buzzing early. The first really sequence starting with Tamura blocking another kick and slamming Yamazaki and ending with a Tamura rope break is utterly completely spectacular. Its only 30 seconds but WOW they are just flying through moves and counters. Beautiful work. Early theme is Tamura’s striking defense is much improved from his early career as he is getting takedowns starting with blocking Yamazaki’s kicks. These two are really incredible against each other. The mat work is so fluid and they have the crowd in the palms of their hands. Similar to the Anjoh match from before in that Yamazaki is blasting Tamura with low leg kicks leading to Tamura looking for leg submissions. Most of the match is spent on the ground and it is excellent. Both guys are extremely skilled so they don’t need a ton of rope breaks. They’re able to keep things flowing naturally. There is a great sequence as Yamazaki sinks in an Achilles hold and Tamura has to slap his way out of it which is NOT something you see happen often. Yamazaki repositions himself and then is like “ok punk, you want to strike, lets stand up and strike.” They stand up, Yamazaki hits his ridiculous axe kick and a german suplex for a knockdown. Finish is spectacular as Tamura blocks a 2nd german suplex attempt so Yamazaki locks in a sleeper. Tamura pushes him back into the corner and hiplocks him over and snatches him in a crossarmbreaker for the sub! WHOA! Biggest win of Tamura’s career by far. Excellent match. This is absolutely in the running for best match of Tamura’s career so far as well. Only the Kakihara match and Anjoh draw are this good. Great stuff. Easy EPIC.

 

 

Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Nobuhiko Takada (UWFI 2/14/93)

(Yearbook)

 

After upsetting Kazuo Yamazaki in the semi-main event of UWFi’s first Budokan Hall show, Kiyoshi Tamura gets a shot against Takada in the main event of UWFi’s second Budokan Hall show. So Tamura is following up the biggest match of his career with the biggest match of his career. Tamura slaps Takada at the pre-match handshake! WHOA. Didn’t expect that. Tamura immediately is going for takedowns but Takada looks really good avoiding everything. Takada forces the first rope break early with a nice leg submission. Tamura does an awesome job selling the desperation for getting to the ropes to break the hold and does a good job coming up limping afterwards too. Takada immediately goes for some kicks on the leg before taking Tamura down again and locking in a kimura for another rope break. Takada really has a pretty easy time blocking all of Tamura’s early submission attempts while working through Tamura’s defenses with ease. Another rope break has Tamura clearly frustrated and Takada immediately puts him down with a kick to the ribs. HUGE POP when Tamura blocks a Takada kick with a slam and a single leg crab. Super hot sequence as Tamura drags him back to the center of the ring to reapply the hold and Takada has to work back towards the ropes. Tamura is still selling the effects of the kick to the chest very well. Yet another rope break on a cross arm breaker attempt by Takada. Tamura does manage to sink in a leg lock for a Takada rope break. You kind of get the sense that Tamura is being taught a lesson in from of 16,000 people here. Tamura got to this point by outclassing everyone on the mat and here Takada is showing him that while Tamura has skills, he isn’t on Takada’s level yet. Every counter or every submission Tamura puts on gets an ENORMOUS pop from the crowd though. As the match progresses, Tamura has a bit more luck with his submission attempts. Causing more rope breaks or just locking stuff in before Takada (often way too casually) reverses them. So Takada tries to end this with strikes. AWESOME moment where Tamura blocks a high kick and locks in an ankle lock. Crowd goes fucking insane. Back to their feet and Takada just obliterates Tamura with kicks and takes the match. Crowd reaction for the Takada win is noticeably less sustained than the reaction for every Tamura counter. Man. I’m enjoying the Tamura push. This almost felt like the shoot style version of Malenko vs Rey Jr from The Great American Bash, but who was going to win was even less in doubt. Takada was able to control most of the match and Tamura would show some spectacular flashes. EPIC

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Kiyoshi Tamura vs Dan Severn 4/10/93

 

 

 

I dig Severn so I’ve been looking forward to this match up. This is his 4thh match in UWFi and he tore through Miyato and Anjoh twice already. Severn starts going for takedowns right away. Nice grappling to start as you’d expect. Severn is able to trip Tamura up a few times, but Tamura is so quick he’s able to stay with Severn and beat Severn to his feet after a few Severn takedowns. Severn is able to get Tamura to the ground but doesn’t seem to be able to do much when he gets him there and inevitably ends up letting Tamura over and over again. Severn looks really good if he’s throwing knees or rushing at Tamura to suplex him. But his ground game definitely leaves a lot to be desired compared to what we’ve seen so far. First rope break about 8 minutes in as Severn slams Tamura and finally manages to sink in a side headlock. Tamura manages a takedown and gets close to slipping in a submission but Severn looks really good rolling out of it. Severn seems to have at least figured out how to put on headlocks/sleepers as he gets another takedown and slips in a sleeper. Tamura gets one of his favorite combos where he shoots in for a double leg, slams Severn down and turns it into a single leg crab. Major belly to belly suplex by Severn leading to another sleeper and a rope break. The few submissions Tamura does get on, Severn usually reverses pretty easily except for a few towards the finish. Severn ends up taking this with the sickest looking STF you’ve ever seen. This was a pretty disappointing match actually. Severn was going to main event against Takada at Budokan on the next show so it’s not like Tamura could show him up here. Severn didn’t really try much beyond takedown/suplex, lay on Tamura for a while, then let him up and start over. There were a few sequences that looked pretty good but overall this was pretty dull. SKIPPABLE

 

 

Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Naoki Sano (UWFI 5/6/93)

Yearbook

 

Tamura moves down the card but ends up against one of the forgotten great workers of the 90s. This is the first time they’ve ever faced each other. Pumped for this. Interesting that after dissing Takada, Tamura offers Sano a handshake. Starts with good grappling of course with both guys looking for openings. They have a pretty long uninterrupted sequence without any ropebreaks. Both guys get close to locking in submissions but the other is able to counter out. They do a great job of cranking things in and keeping the crowd interested. Sano strikes first blood with a heel hold leading to a Tamura rope break. Nice looking moment with both guys going for a suplex, Sano getting it but Tamura beating him on the transition to take control back. Spectacular sequence with Sano going for a kimura, Tamura rolling over, Sano grabbing a Fujiwara armbar, Tamura cartwheeling out but still selling the damage from the armbar and Sano diving on him, locking in a cross armbreaker and Tamura flailing towards the ropes desperately. Great stuff. Nice hard front kick by Sano which Tamura does a great staggering sell of but avoids the knockdown. Tamura retaliates with a brutal knee to the gut which you don’t see often. Tamura tries for his go behind, presumably to try for a sleeper but Sano meets him with an elbow to the face and a hiplock. There is some great camera work on the “I twist your ankle you twist mine” spot that makes it pretty intense. Sano ends up with the advantage leading to a rope break. Great spot with Tamura baiting Sano into a slap fight so he can lock in a single leg crab but Sano realizing whats up and making a break for the ropes. Sano unloads with a brutal striking sequence but Tamura refuses to go down and catches a desperation ankle lock leading to a rope break. Finisher/near fall trading down the stretch with each guy taking turns locking in submissions leading to rope breaks. Sano has started striking a lot more. Finish is Tamura going for one of his signature spots, the single leg takedown into a spinebuster leading to a single leg crab but Sano blocks the crab so Tamura locks in a cross armbreaker to take the match. This was yet another excellent match for Tamura and a pretty incredible contrast with the Severn match. It is really amazing how Tamura has been able to get over completely through mat wrestling and submission work. It is definitely a credit to the fans for paying attention and understanding the little things. But Tamura is so good at taking the crowd up and down just using his submission skills. He is more than capable of incredible striking combinations and wowing you with lightening fast agility. But he knows how to work towards submissions and milk them for all they’re worth. In the past few matches you’ve seen flashes of his athletic prowess, but it has mostly been in wild, desperation flurries towards the ropes for rope breaks which is Tamura using his athleticism to get over the danger of the moves and not himself. This kid is something special. EPIC.

 

 

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Tatsuo Nakano 7/18/93

 

 

 

This has always been a solid matchup. Cautious to start but once they get in close Tamura takes him right now. Nakano has more success defending against Tamura takedowns than you might expect at this point in their careers. Early on both guys are just looking for an opening. I’m surprised at how well Nakano is keeping up. We get one of my favorite spots as Nakano goes for a fujiwara armbar and Tamura cartwheels out of it. Nakano gets the first rope break with a nice Achilles hold. Nakano gets another rope break with a kimura. You get the impression that Tamura’s not really taking him seriously especially when he takes the time to yell at a fan or a corner man. At some point Tamura caught a knee or an elbow in the nose and is busted open. Really odd sequence as Tamura just kinda sits on Nakano’s back not really doing anything. Great strike sequence by Nakano leading to a Tamura suplex and ankle lock attempt. Nakano gets another flurry just blasting Tamura with knees to the face. Tamura takes him down, gets him in a leglock and Nakano does the slowest most casual tap out ever. This was super weird and really not very good. Super strange finish. SKIPPABLE

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Man, I LOOOOOVE the Vader match. I rewatched it the other day just because I've been itching to re-watch it and couldn't wait till I got their chronologically. But I'll give it a big review when the time comes.

 

It would be one of my favorite matches in the following categories:

Vader matches

Tamura Matches

Under 10 Minutes Long Matches

Monster vs Underdog Matches

First Time in the Ring Together

Only Time in the Ring Together

 

It is about as great of an 8ish minute long match as you can get.

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Kiyoshi Tamura and Nobuhiko Takada vs Gary Albright and Dan Severn 8/13/93

 

 

 

Tamura and Severn start off against each other. Starts with both guys going for takedown attempts. Really nice back and forth actually with Tamura sinking in a leg submission and these two milking the shit out of it. Severn manages to reverse out of it and grab a sleeper with Tamura rushing to the ropes. HUGE belly to belly by Severn off the ropes. Damn. This is already way better than their singles match against each other. Tamura sinks in a kimura and Severn flops wildly towards the ropes. Tamura shoves Severn off into the corner and tells him to bring in Albright. Gary demands Tamura tag out and Takada comes in. Albright immediately bum rushes him into the corner and starts throwing strikes. Takada makes a quick comeback and is taking Albright apart with strikes so Gary quickly tags out and the crowd BOOOOOS Albright for being such a punk. Severn comes in and he and Takada instantly go to the mat. It is perfectly acceptable but it looks like they’re moving in slow motion compared to Tamura. Takada forces a rope break off an armbar attempt. Severn takes Takada right back down to the mat. Severn kinda tries some stuff but Takada defends it so Severn decides to standup. Takada tries to throw some kicks but Severn keeps blocking them and putting him down. After some more listless grappling, Takada stands Severn up and gives him two hard knees in the chest before tagging out to Tamura. Tamura instantly goes for one of his favorite combos; the single leg into a spinebuster into a single leg boston crab. Severn is able to roll through for a leg submission and we get some good looking mat work. Severn tags out to Gary. Gary immediately starts looking for a suplex but Tamura does a really good job defending it. Tamura kinda forces himself down to the mat to avoid a suplex but it opens himself up to a sleeper attempt by Gary eventually leading to a rope break. But at least he didn’t get suplexed. Great job selling by Tamura as he tags out to Takada. Albright throws some stiff knees at Takada and sidewalk slams him for a knockdown. Takada attempts the poor man’s version of Tamura’s rolling leglock and transitions into a single leg crab and an Achilles hold leading to a ropebreak, and gary limping over to the corner to tag out to Severn. Severn immediately goes to take Takdaa down but Takada kind of casually takes over, puts on a leglock for a ropebreak. Tamura tags in and immediately gets slammed and put into a boston crab by Severn for a rope break. Then Severn rushes at Tamura, hits a nasty belly to belly and runs over and starts kneeing him repeatedly in the face. THIS SEVERN IS AWESOME. That is how he needs to be fucking working. Damn. Tamura works for a cross armbreaker and Severn does a nice job defending it. Severn manages to get behind him and hits a gorgeous dead lift german suplex and then a side suplex before tagging out to Albright who absolutely crushes Tamura with a belly to belly and then a full nelson leading to a rope break. Talk about taking someone to suplex city. Good lord Tamura is just getting thrown around out there. So crowd predictably goes apeshit when he nails a fireman’s carry and sinks in a single leg crab on Albright. Tamura even gets to drag Albright back to the center of the ring and reapply the hold before Albright makes the ropes the second time. Instead of taking the opportunity to tag out to Takada (who is standing there, hand extended for the tag) Tamura waits for Albright to stand back up and then eats a Vader/Inoki level german suplex from Albright for a really close knockout. But Tamura manages to stumble to his feet and tag out to Takada. BRUTAL stretch for Tamura just getting tossed around like a ragdoll. Albright and Takada lock up and maneuver for position with both guys blocking takedowns attempts. They really grind the match to a complete stop here. Crowd is silent late in the match. Ummm, wtf. After a solid 90 seconds of jockeying for position, but realistically just standing there not doing anything, Takada casually shoves Albright off for a reset. Takada throws a kick but Albright grabs it and takes him down. Gary maneuvers to Takada’s Back and hits a great german suplex into a full nelson. Takada did a really good job defending the first german suplex attempt before Gary had to smash him in the back to deliver it. Good job. Great trio of belly to belly suplexes by Albright who puts on a single leg crab for the submission and win.

 

Couple of things. I’m glad Tamura didn’t take the loss here. Tamura was awesome in this. Bumping around like a rag doll and having much better sequences with Severn than in their singles match. I thought Takada mostly sucked in this. There were a few good things. He looked awesome taking bumps for Albright. He did a really good job avoiding the one german that I noted. But other than that he looked really bad. His mat work is astoundingly average, especially viewing it side by side with Tamura. He doesn’t work with near the urgency or aggression of Tamura. I get that Takada is the “Ace” and the old jdw talking point is about Takada “calmly thinking his way through holds.” And I think you can certainly finds elements of that (although you can see that in Tamura Anjoh etc). But if you’re going to “calmly think about how to counter through holds” and not do it aggressively, I would like to at least see some smooth execution. But Takada is really sloppy compared to what you’ll see from Tamura. My other problem with Takada was that last segment of the match before Albright started suplexing him to death. The match had been escalating really well and Takada came in and just ground it to an absolute halt to the point where you had a dead silent crowd 20minutes into a 22minute match. I hate to be so negative but I think Takada’s performance kept what should have been a GREAT match and turned it into merely a FUN match. Seriously everytime Tamura is in the match it fucking rocks. Dan Severn pissed me off in their singles match together but this was a different Dan Severn and he was spectacular…unless Takada was in the match and then he sucked. FUN

 

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Yuko Miyato 10/4/93

 

 

 

I always enjoy this match. Feeling each other out early on. Lightening fast counters and reversals it is almost like watching Hijo del Santo and Blue Panther trade holds. Tamura draws first blood forcing a rope break with a heel hold. Tamura takes Miyato down again and puts on a crazy tricked toe hold on but Miyato is able to reverse out. I almost typed “Anjoh” there because the mat work has been stellar so far and its just instinct at this point. Miyato gets a a nice takedown and workds toward a kimura. Tamura is able to counter out and slip on an armbar for a ropebreak. Nice grappling leads to Miyato trying to lock in a sleeper. He eventually gives up and kicks Tamura in the back Kawada style and back to standing. Miyato throws some strikes and then crushes Tamura with a great belly to belly and NOW he locks in his sleeper for a rope break by Tamura. Good stuff. Miyato manages to fireman’s carry but as he often does Tamura beats him to a point of advantage and starts to work towars a submission. Tamura actually lets him up and they’re standing again. Tamura is able to lock in a standing sleeper but theyre both in the ropes. Miyato with some great kicks focusing on Tamura’s chest. Miyato gets to close and we get a classic Tamura spot with the quick go behind into a standing sleeper. This time Miyato makes for the ropes. Miyato BLASTS Tamura in his chest with a knee for a knockdown. Another staple Tamura spot where Miyato tires for a Fujiwara armbar, Tamura cartwheels out and puts on an armbar for a ropebreak. Standing again and Miyato gets a knockdown with a terrific striking combo. Miyato gets overzealous going for a 2nd one and Tamura manages to hiplock him over and get the win with a side headlock. I fucking loved this. They packed a ton of shit into an 8 minute long match and Tamura works his signature spots in well. GREAT

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Kiyoshi Tamura vs Dennis Koslowski 12/5/93

 

 

 

They take it straight to the ground with some nice back and forth grappling looking for position that leads to a great dead lift suplex. Koslowski takes him over with a headlock and is trying for a submission but Tamura is able to defend pretty easily. Really well done early segment without any rope breaks. Koslowski gets another point with a great belly to belly suplex but isn’t able to sink in any submissions. Another really nice side suplex by Koslowski. I’m enjoying Koslowski as a more All American Tom Burton. Trading ankle locks leads to the first rope break of the match by Koslowski. He goes another takedown but Tamura instantly locks on another submission leading to a Koslowski rope break. These guys aren’t striking each other or anything. It is all suplexes and submissions attempts and counters but it is all super compelling and the crowd is with them. Great spot with Tamura blocking a side suplex and hitting his own leading to both guys fighting for submissions with Koslowski getting the advantage leading to a massive german suplex on Tamura but Tamura comes back with his own back suplex. Damn. First rope break for Tamura comes late in the match on a single leg crab by Koslowski. Super quick finish as they’re grappling on the ground, Tamura sees a free leg, pounces on it and hooks in a heel hold. I really enjoyed this. Cool match with no striking but a ton of really good grappling and suplexes. Tamura didn’t hit any of his signature spots or counters but everything he did looked excellent. Koslowski looks perfectly solid in this as well. FUN

 

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Masahito Kakihara 2/16/94

 

 

 

These two had an EPIC back in 1991 when they were babies in the first match on the first ever UWFi card. They’ve definitely gone in different paths since then with only racking up 6 wins in 17 matches. Tamura has been excellent with a 14-4-1 record and a Budokan Hall main event to his name. Tamura’s got the shin guards back on so maybe he’ll actually do some striking again. Oh shit! Crazy strike exchange to start with Kakihara throwing a ton of slaps and Tamura trying to come back with leg kicks. Nice! Tamura takes him down pretty quickly and they both start looking for submissions. Really good back and forth with Tamura locking in the first submission leading to a rope break by Kakihara. Back standing and we get a super fast striking combo by Kakihara before Tamura takes him down and forces another rope break. Tamura is really great forcing the issue here. There’s a few times when Kakihara is laying around and you can see Tamura change things up and go for something else so Kakihara can see the opening for the next counter. Great facial expressions and urgency to get to the ropes by Tamura when Kakihara locks in an ankle lock. Kakihara striking combo ends with him getting taken down pretty quickly. Some jockeying for position looking for the advantage before Tamura is able to sink in an ankle lock for a rope brake. Tamura gets a knockdown with a high kick for the first time in forever. He shoots in for his singe leg into a spinebuster but instead of going for a single leg crab he takes a side mount and starts looking for other openings eventually trying for an armbar which Kakihara manages to reverse with one of his own leading to a Tamura rope break. Kakihara going for strikes but Tamura does a great job blocking everything, shoving Kakihara to the ground, and then getting a knockdown with a big high kick. Tamura takes Kakihara down with a crazy hard leg kick, and goes for a submission but Kakihara is able to reverse it into a leg lock for the submission and the major upset! Whoa! This was excellent. I was happy Tamura put the shinpads back on and is adding striking to his gameplan again. I thought it was kind of amazing how he was able to have so many good-great matches without using any strikes at all when he is soooo fucking good at it. Bringing them back now adds a new element to his already great matches. Cool story with Tamura being ahead on points most of the way in this when he has spent the majority of his career down on points but pulling out wins and here’s 21 year old Kakihara doing it to him. There are some slow moments at times in this and it isn’t at the level of their 91 match or the Anjoh matches but this is still GREAT.

 

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Bad News Allen 4/3/94

 

 

 

Early on Tamura keeps his distance going for low kicks but eventually Bad News is able to close the distance and take Tamura down with a hiplock. Bad News actually forces the first rope break when he locks an armbar onto Tamura. Back standing and Tamura is still trying to keep his distance using the low kicks to keep Bad News away. He does go for some takedowns but Bad News is able to avoid it. Another Tamura rope break as Bad News locks in a cross armbreaker. Hip lock by Bad News and they’re back to the ground. Bad News tries for a kimura and Tamura is able to counter out. He maneuvers for a leg/ankle lock attempt. Dueling leg locks leads to a kimura attempt by Bad News with both guys tangled up in the ropes. Back standing and Tamura throws some really hard kicks getting a knockdown with low leg kicks. After Bad News gets up, Tamura goes right back to blasting the knee with hard kicks and Bad News goes down again and can’t answer the bell. Damn! Everyone from Tamura, to Bad News to whoever booked that finish to put over the danger of Tamura’s kicks, especially since he’s only just started striking again. I was totally expecting this to be a nothing match and in some ways it may have been but I have no problem calling it FUN.

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Kiyoshi Tamura vs Naoki Sano (UWFi 5/6/94)

Yearbook

 

Opening moments is your typical cautious start. Tamura throws a few low kicks to remind everyone that he’s using strikes again. Sano attempts the first takedown but Tamura does a nice job blocking it leading to some applause from the fans. Tamura tires a few striking combinations; a few low kicks with a high kick mixed in, a faked low kick leading to some palm strikes etc. They go back to the mat and both start looking for submissions. Sano is about to lock on a single leg crab but Tamura is able to quickly reverse it into a leglock. Some very fluid back and forth grappling with both guys going for submissions and counters without looking for rope breaks. Awesome dead lift german suplex by Tamura right at the 5 minute mark which is followed up by a nice standing exchange. Sano is able to come back with a fisherman’s suplex of his own and goes to work going for a kimura. Tamura does a great job selling that Sano is “close” to applying the hold. Great spot with Sano transitioning to a cross armbreaker but Tamura uses Sano’s momentum against him and is able to lock on his own cross armbreaker. Match slows down just a tick for dueling leglock attempts but Tamura is able to work the crowd into it using his selling and facials. Eventually he has to make for the ropes for our first rope break. Tamura accidentally kicks Sano low so we get a quick break. Sano’s “kicked in the balls” face is hilarious. Quick strike exchanges on the restart before Tamura goes for his single legtakedown. He manages to grab the leg but can’t take Sano off his feet. In an awesome spot, while Tamura has his leg, Sano takes the opportunity to blast him in the face with a knee to get Tamura off of him. Sano then kicks Tamura in the chest, tries a second time but Tamura leans back to avoid it and loses his balance but kips up in one motion as the crowd fucking explodes. Back to grappling as both guys take turns locking in submissions and forcing rope breaks. Tamura locks on a particularly crazy Dr Cerebro-esque leg lock that is totally awesome. Killer spot with Sano hitting the german suplex and Tamura turning it into a kimura. Sano is able to reverse it but not for long as Tamura locks it back in to take the win. Awesome match with some really good moments. It is cool to see Tamura striking again and trying to figure out what combo’s are going to work for him. His incredible speed in terms of striking never went away either as everything looks as crisp as it did before he stopped doing it. Sano looked good here. In terms of early Tamura opponents, he certainly isn’t Yoji Anjoh, but he is excellent. He is a guy like Anjoh who is a great wrestler and striker so pretty much everything you might possibly see in a shoot style match is in play with Sano/Tamura matches. GREAT

 

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Vader (UWFi 6/10/94)

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Vader offers a handshake to start but Tamura slaps the shit out of him. Big “Tamura Tamura!” chant from the crowd at the sound of the bell. Tamura is cautious to start throwing low kicks to keep Vader at a distance. Vader is completely shrugging the kicks off at the start but Tamura is moving around enough that Vader can’t quite close the gap. Finally Vader gets close enough and throws a big heavy right, Tamura gets his hands up to block it but does an awesome job stumbling backward to get over Vader’s incredible strength. Even if Tamura manages to block Vader’s strikes, they are creating enough force to knock Tamura around. So he’s got to continue to keep his distance. A few more leg kicks and Vader finally shows a sign that they might be having an effect. It isn’t over the top, but he picks up his leg and starts rubbing his thigh while continuing to stalk Tamura. The crowd notices and starts to buzz. Tamura notices and starts to unload with hard kicks to the thigh. But again Vader is able to knock Tamura away with a hard forearm (that Tamura blocked). Tamura does another great stumble sell of the blocked forearm. Tamura shoots in for a single leg takedown but can’t really do anything because of Vader’s size and Vader casually grabs the ropes anyway. Tamura is ahead on points! Another GREAT spot follows this up as Vader finally is able to corner Tamura. Vader starts to back him towards the turnbuckle while winding up and throws this wild haymaker but Tamura is able to duck out of the way and on his way to safety just blasts Vader with another hard kick to the thigh which Vader does an awesome job selling. Again though, Vader backs him into the corner and instead of going for Tamura’s head, he throws some big body blows, but Tamura fights back with one of my single favorite comebacks in wrestling history. Tamura just blasts Vader with rapid fire palmstrikes, some leg kicks and two jumping kicks to the face. Vader doesn’t go down but it is counted as a knockdown. Crowd is going nuts at this point. Tamura hits another hard leg kick and Vader is screaming in pain now. Tamura is able to take Vader down with leg kicks and manages to sink in a leglock leading to a Vader rope break. Massive “TAMURA TAMURA” chant as he continues to blast away at Vader’s leg. Vader starts throwing desperation haymakers and one of them finally manages to land for Vader’s first knockdown. Tamura continues to fight back just destroying Vader with more kicks, getting another knockdown and a leglock for another rope break! Crowd is molten. At this point, he’s had so much success that Tamura gets a little cocky. He seems to forget he’s wrestling motherfucking Super Vader and gets close enough to lock up with Vader. Vader seems surprised and is like “Oh wait, you’re near me. Let me crush your skull.” He puts Tamura down with some hard forearms to the head. Tamura manages another awesome kicking combination but Vader manages to catch him again with a forearm for a knockdown. Next Vader gets another knockdown when he picks Tamura up and just slams him. Vader follows up with some more punches and picks Tamura up again. Instead of slamming him, Vader literally throws Tamura over his head in an incredible spot. Tamura bumps but struggles to his feet knowing one more knockdown and Vader will win it. As Tamura is staggering to his feet, Vader walks over and powerbombs him for the win. Post match has Vader very insistent on going over and shaking Tamura’s hand and bowing to him.

 

This match. GAWD. Ok. There is so much I still want to hit. I think this match is worked absolutely perfectly and it is all so logical. Tamura looks like an absolute beast because he was able to hold his own so well against Vader. I hate to say that Tamura was controlling this match because everything he was doing was a reaction to the fact that he was in there with Vader. “Dominating” also seems like a weird choice also since Vader was able to beat Tamura relatively easily (in the sense that it didn’t take much offense from Vader to get the win). But I think that is where the brilliance of this match is. Tamura has never wrestled a match like this in his career. But he knows to wrestle Vader means to get in close and to get in close with Vader is to get crushed. So he works a match completely built around striking. He knows if Vader catches him, its over. And so Tamura spent the whole match trying to get away from Vader while Vader spent the whole match trying to catch Tamura. This could not have been worked better. Vader looks great in winning and Tamura looks great in losing. EPIC and a million billion stars.

 

One final thing about this match. This match felt like pro-wrestling as a horror movie. The opening moments with Tamura gaining the advantage is like the early happy parts of a horror movie. The first few Vader punch attempts didn’t do any real damage, but were enough to stagger Tamura. This really promotes an impending sense of doom. Like maybe the dog won’t stop barking and refuses to come inside the house or the kid suddenly has a new imaginary friend. “I’m going to pretend that was nothing, but that probably wasn’t nothing.” So once shit starts getting real everytime Vader is backing Tamura into the corner you’re holding your breath like “Oh this must be where the teenagers get murdered by the lake” and each time Tamura slips away you’re relieved because he was SO CLOSE. But you just know. Eventually. Those teenagers are getting murdered by the lake. For Godsake the movie is called Tamura vs Vader: Teenagers Murdered by the Lake. The post match routine with Vader shaking Tamura’s hand and showing him mad respect is like the post horror part of the horror movie. Maybe the one teenager who survived the lake massacre is off to college putting everything behind them now. Anyway. This was way too much about an 8minute long match. But it fucking rocks and anyone who hasn’t seen it should go watch it right now.

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Thanks Timbo :)

 

Watched a bunch of matches as Tamura is on an incredible run of great matches with a few shorty's mixed in as well. I hope to finish up UWFi over the next couple of days and maybe get started on RINGS.

 

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Gary Albright 8/18/94

 

 

 

This is another semi main event for Tamura at a sold out Budokan show underneath Vader vs Takada. Quick start as Albright bumrushes Tamura to start, picks him up ad kinda tosses him to the ground. Tamura responds with a takedown but Gary manages to get the advantage start working for submissions. Grappling is pretty slow. Gary mostly has the advantage and is doing a lot of laying around. Albright comes close to really sinking in a kimura but Tamura is able to do his cartwheel roll out into a cross arm breaker attempt. Awesome job teasing Albright suplexes early on by the way. Back to grapplingon the mat with Gary working to lock in an STF but he can’t quite get it. Albright also goes for a sleeper with Tamura wildly flailing to get out out. They grapple to a stalemate really and both stand up but Gary takes Tamura right back down after blocking a hard knee to the chest. Nice pop as Albright works on the full nelson in the center of the ring. They aren’t doing Tamura/Anjoh level tricked out crazy mat work but they’re doing a nice job building to and working towards a big submission and just failing to lock them on. So when they do get something like Albright’s full nelson or Tamura’s jerking Albright’s arm to attempt a kimura, the crowd is right there waiting and pops. Tamura causes the first rope break about 8min in when he locks on a cross armbreaker. Albright takes Tamura right back down and forces his own rope break. Honestly Albright is not afraid to lay around and do jack shit at times. Tamura kinda deals with those moments by sort of flailing about to suggest Albright is getting closer to locking in a submission. Tamura starts to fire in a few low kicks. Albright grabs a higher kick and Tamura nails him with a picture perfect enzugiri! It was fucking awesome! Wow! Tamura got a knockdown out of it and followed it up with a completely wild spinning kick that missed and thank goodness for that because it was so fast and violent it would have killed Gary if he had hit it. They go back to the mat with Gary looking for a heel hold and Tamura going for a cross armbreaker. Tamura won the batte as Gary had to rush over to the ropes for another rope break. Damn. FINALLY Gary is able to hit one of his suplexes as he nails Tamura with a great looking belly to belly and he starts working towards a half nelson. Really nice belly to belly and they did a great job building to Gary finally being able to hit a suplex after teasing several all match. Albright moves to a full nelson and they do a fantastic job milking it for all it is worth with Tamura building to an incredibly slick reversal into a leglock. Standing again this time Albright gets a knockdown with a massive german suplex. They do a really awesome job executing a Tamura rolling leglock considering Gary Albright is involved. This leads to a pretty lame dueling leglocks that they make fun by slapping the shit out of each other. Gary threw a pretty weak half hearted slap first and then Tamura slapped the shit out of him which pissed Gary off so they start nailing each other and Gary’s getting more mad, meanwhile Tamura tightens his grip on the leglock forcing Gary to reach for the ropes. Really fun spot that not only gets the crowd going but leads Tamura right to the next move. He baited Gary into giving him an opening to lock in the submission he’s going for. Good stuff. Gary is wicked pissed now and crushes Tamura with a belly to belly suplex into a full nelson into 2 brutal rolling german suplexes for a the knockout. Wow. This was really good. It probably isn’t as good as the Kawada match, but that was a really fucking good Albright match. The opening mat work isn’t spectacular. And honestly, I was hoping they would work more of the Vader match formula with Tamura sticking and moving with lightening fast striking combos and Albright trying to destroy him with suplexes. It just occurred to me that it is pretty impressive actually to have gotten a match of this quality out of Gary Albright working mostly on the mat for the first 10ish minutes of the match with no rope breaks, suplexes, or striking. Gary isn’t the most talented mat wrestler, but they did a nice job milking a few big submissions early on and slowly countering out to avoid rope breaks and built to the more quick striking submission attempts (for Tamura) as the match progressed. Tamura’s selling and body language in this are terrific, especially in the big full nelson spot late in the match. This was much better than expected and is a great example of Tamura working with a limited opponent and figuring out how to work a match building to what Gary does best. I’m also starting to wonder if Gary doesn’t get a bit of a bad rap. He’s not a spectacular mat worker, but he has a presence and what he does well he does REALLY well and you can easily build a match around it. GREAT.

 

Kiyoshi Tamura and Dan Severn vs Yoji Anjoh and Steve Nelson 10/8/94

 

 

 

This is the last match Tamura and Anjoh had against each other. Obviously that is a huge bummer as Anjoh has been Tamura’s best opponent through the first 5 years of his career. Fortunately they start off against each other as the crowd buzzes. Both guys are throwing hard kicks to start and we get a taste of some super fast grappling ending with a high kick attempt by Tamura. Very nice opening exchange. They take it too the mat with some super slick, crazy fast submission work. Tamura gets the first rope break on a kimura attempt. Back standing and Tamura throws some really hard knees before they go back to the mat. Some jockeying for position and they wind up in the corner and Severn tags in. Great opening segment. Severn is crazy aggressive trying to close the gap and work for a throw. Anjoh ends up going for a rope break and tags out to Nelson. Nelson and Severn immediately start grappling and go to the mat with Severn having the advantage and getting a great suplex in before causing a rope break on a kimura attempt. Severn is really fun just bum rushing people and going for throws. Nelson tags out and Anjoh comes in and gets taken down immediately. Some nice grappling between Severn and Anjoh leads to a single leg crab by Anjoh, a rope break by Severn and a tag out to Tamura. Anjoh and Severn grappling was perfectly solid. It is hard to call it great when Tamura and Anjoh are in the match together. It isn’t nearly as fast and breathtaking. But it is a lot more heavyhanded and rough around the edges in a good way. I gotta say, as great as Tamura/Anjoh has always been, it is really nice that Tamura is throwing strikes again and willing to stand with Anjoh. It is a nice element. Anjoh and Tamura are so good and fast together that they can make a takedown defense a striking impressive moment. Tamura and Anjoh do an awesome job working a single leg crab leading to an Anjoh rope break before Nelson tags back in. Nelson picks Tamura up and does the worlds most awkward throw where Nelson ends up falling down and the crowd kinda laughs which is great. They immediately go to submission highspots to get them back into it with Nelson cranking on a cross arm breaker and Tamura going for a leg lock. We then go straight to dueling leg locks which is worked pretty well with both guys trading the advantage leading to a Tamura counter and tag out to Severn. Severn immediately takes Nelson over then stands him back up and hits a NASTY single leg spinbuster into a single leg crab. AWESOME SPOT. I kind of love Dan Severn now. Nelson does a nice job selling the crab and tags out to Anjoh. Anjoh is taken down immediately and Severn slips on another singe leg crab. Anjoh goes for the ropes. Anjoh slaps Severn down and gets behind him for a sleeper. Severn works his way to his feet and takes Anjoh back down. I should point out now that Anjoh’s slap appears to have shattered Severn’s nose as he is bleeding all over the place. Severn is on top of Anjoh just bleeding all over him so Anjoh went for the ropes, presumably because he wanted to stop getting Severn’s blood in his eyes. Severn goes for a takedown and Anjoh tries to block it by kneeing Severn in the face but Severn is a train and keeps coming and they sort of stumble halfway through the ropes. They maintain their balance and both tag out. Tamura starts off throwing some hard knees and kicks before Nelson is able to take him down. Tamura pretty easily reverses though. They do a nice job grappling and looking for position. Really impressive spot with Tamura deadlifting Nelson off the ground and just tossing him back down. Damn. Standing again and Tamura goes for his favorite finisher the quick go-behind into a sleeper. He manages to lock it on. Beautiful counter attempt as Nelson tries to roll forward, but Tamura hooks his legs around Nelson and Nelson has to tap out.

 

This is a worthy addition to the classic Tamura/Anjoh rivalry. Considering it was their last ever match together, I do wish that they spent more time in the ring together. Their opening sequence together was spectacular and was a great reminder of just how good they are together. Dan Severn has been hugely enjoyable in the last few matches I’ve seen him in. In the early long singles match against Tamura, Severn didn’t seem to have any knowledge of putting on submissions. Now he’s figured out a few so his recent matches his style has been “bumrush opponent, suplex/takedown opponent, try for a choke or kimura.” It is really fun in these tags matches. Nelson definitely held up his end of the bargain but had the least memorable performance in the match. GREAT

 

 

Kiyoshi Tamura and Gene Lydick vs Masahito Kakihara and Steve Nelson 10/14/94

 

 

 

Lydick and Nelson start against each other. Both guys battle for position and Lydick immediately goes for a belly to belly suplex and drops Nelson on his face. Nelson starts to roll out of the ring because he appears to be knocked a little goofy. Nelson gets back up and they are again battling for position and Lydick hits another suplex. Damn. 3rd lock up and Nelson gets a takedown and starts working towards a cross arm breaker. He eventually locks it in for a rope break and both guys tag out. Perfectly enjoyable start there. Tamura and Kakihara are cautious to start. Tamura blocks a high kick and sweeps Kakihara but lets him back up instead of following up. Tamura blocks another kick and Kakihara goes for an insane looking enzugiri but Tamura ducks at the last second. This leads to some back and forth submission attempts and super fast grappling between the two. Tamura eventually draws first blood with a nice ankle lock. Another awesome spot where Kakihara goes for a high kick and Tamura kicks his other leg out from under him. You kind of get the feeling that Tamura is just toying with Kakiahara. Tamura grabs yet another Kakihara kick and just waits for Kakihara to try something. Eventually Kakihara goes for a rolling leg lock but Tamura blocks it the moment Kakihara is upside down and sinks in his own leglock leading to Kakihara desperately going for the ropes. Kakihara does a great job selling the leg as both guys tag out. Nelson is already sick of getting suplexed so he goes for a takedown right away and works for a submission. These two are suuuuper solid working back and forth grappling sequences going for submissions before a Nelson rope break. More grappling leads them back to the corner and Tamura tags in. Tamura blocks a Nelson takedown attempt and hits a german suplex so Nelson tags out. Tamura blocks another Kakihara takedown attempt and pretty clearly leads him through a very brief shoot style version of the Guerrero/Malenko “indy respect” reversal sequence then Tamura ducks yet another wild Kakihara high kick. The way they’re working this match, Kakihara beating Tamura before feels like an even bigger upset than it did at the time. They again work the kakihara high kick attempt as Tamura kicks his other leg out. Another lightening fast grappling sequence leads to Kakihara getting a cross armbreaker leading to a Tamura rope break. Both guys tag out. Lydick throws some weak ass kicks and Nelson blocks one and just slaps the shit out of Lydick before taking him down. Nelson goes for a cross face chickwing but Lydick counters out and goes for a german suplex but Nelson DOES NOT want to be suplexed again. He desperately counters out and gets a toe lock leading to a Lydick rope break. These Nelson/Lydick sequences are WAY too much fun. Who fucking knew and why weren’t they telling us? Lydick tags out and Nelson opts to stay in. Tamura slaps Nelson around a little bit and manages to put him down. Nelson manages a takedown and works for a leglock and we’ve got dueling leglocks by the ropes which Tamura wins leading to a rope break and tag out for Nelson. Kakihara immediately starts going for strikes but yet another high kick leads to Kakihara getting caught. This time Kakihara legit just falls down. Tamura lets him up and more striking from Kakihara. Awesome sequence with Tamura ducking yet another Kakihara high kick (give it up kid!) and Tamura grabbing a rear waist lock. Kakihara goes for a rolling leg lock to counter it but Tamura just sits down into his own leg lock leading to a rope break. Tamura AGAIN takes Kakihara down on a high kick attempt. Back to the mat and it is more super fast grappling leading to dueling leg locks leading to dueling arm locks leading to a Tamura rope break. Both guys tag out. Lydick so desperately wants to suplex Nelson again. This is great. He hits a go behind and is fighting and fighting it and Nelson is just frantic to not get suplexed again. Finally Lydick picks him up and just CRUSHES him with this enormous german suplex and then walks over and tags out to Tamura. Haha! Tamura comes in as Nelson is still staggering to get up. Tamura casually walks up, takes him down and puts on a cross armbreaker for the win. I love that Lydick came in seemingly just to crush Nelson with that last suplex.

 

This was another fucking awesome match. Tamura vs Kakihara looks like it is going to pick up where Tamura vs Anjoh left off as the awesome Tamura feud before he takes off for rings. It is a real fun change of pace for Tamura. Against Anjoh, he started off as the youngster and quickly moved to peer mode with Anjoh. Against Kakihara, Tamura is playing the role of more successful wrestler against youngster on the rise. Even though Kakihara and Tamura wrestled in the first UWFi match ever against each other, Tamura has gone on to great success while Kakihara (who debuted as a 19 year old) has been mostly a lower card job guy (a talented one, but still). So Kakihara is getting his push and part of that is pushing Tamura. He got the surprise win earlier and has a few more matches coming up against him. They are able to work some incredibly fast grappling sequences together and both guys are great strikers. This will definitely be the feud to watch until we get to RINGS. Nelson and Lydick was a great surprise. They rocked together. I loved the “Nelson doesn’t want to get suplexed” subplot they worked the entire time with Lydick just as desperate to suplex Nelson as Nelson was to not get suplexed. Their grappling and submission work was super solid and while obviously not worked at the same speed as Tamura/Kakihara, it did not look second rate or out of place in match with them. EPIC

 

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Dan Severn 11/30/94

 

 

 

Both guys are cautious to start before Severn goes for a bum rush but Tamura manages to side step him. Tamura starts in with hard leg kicks. Severn does a great job selling them even taking a knockdown. Tamura gets another quick knockdown with a HARD slap. Tamura is just blasting Severn with leg kicks and Severn is hanging onto the ropes for dear life before finally taking yet ANOTHER knockdown. Um, holy shit. Tamura continues the assault and Severn goes for a desperation takedown and starts trying to look for a choke. Tamura does a good job defending and Severn grabs a leg lock leading to a Tamura rope break. Tamura continues with the striking barrage and manages yet another knockdown with a low kick. Another desperation takedown by Severn. Severn works for a go behind waist lock and you get the impressing that he’s going to try for a german suplex so Tamura just casually grabs the ropes forcing a rope break and a reset. He’s so far ahead at this point that he’d rather take the rope break than fight off the suplex attempt. Match ends on a TKO as Severn lunges in for a clinch and Tamura just blasts him in the thigh with a hard knee putting Severn down once and for all. WOW. This was NOT what I was expecting. I knew it was a short match but I was not at all expecting a straight up squash match. Tamura just surgically decimates Severn. Actually worth watching because it is so unique in how singularly focused it is and Severn does a really nice job selling. FUN

 

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Gene Lydick 1/16/95

They go right to the mat trading submission attempts back and forth. Its not Tamura vs Han shit but its perfectly solid stuff leading to the first Lydick rope break. More solid back and forth mat work follows leading to Tamura needing a rope break. Tamura is really dominant on the mat without even seeming to be. He’s just so smooth he doesn’t appear to be in any real danger at any point. Lydick’s german suplex is awesome and I love that Tamura continues to sell the damage of it as he defends a Lydick submission attempt. Lydick’s selling of Tamura’s big knockdown off a high kick was terrific. Tamura’s desperation block of Lydick’s second german attempt was really amazing. Great struggle and really unique defense of the move really. Good finish. This was FUN.

 

 

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Masahito Kakihara 2/18/95

 

 

 

Kakihara comes out on fire with a quick knockdown hitting roughly 87 palmstrikes in the first 25 seconds of the match. Kakihara is just firing away holding nothing back. Tamura is able to close the gap and both guys are jockeying for position. Quick takedown and some rapid fire back grappling on the mat before Tamura goes for a sleeper. Kakihara works his way out of it and goes for a side headlock. Tamura is able to reverse out of the side headlock, get Kakihara’s back, sink in his sleeper get a super quick win. Kakihara didn’t tap but passed out right away and the ref stopped the match. Wow. This is super short. It is worth watching because even though it is so short, everything they do is well done. FUN

 

 

Kiyoshi Tamura and Kazushi Sakuraba vs Kazuo Yamazaki and Yoshihiro Takayama 4/20/95

 

 

 

Tamura and Sakuraba is quite the team. The video and prowrestlinghistory says this is Tamura/Yamazaki vs Takayama/Sakuraba but it is definitely Tamura/Sakuraba vs Yamazaki/Takayama. So now that that is out of the way. Sakuraba and Takayama start off. Takayama instantly gets a knockdown with a ridiculous knee to the face. Geez. Here we fucking go. Sakuraba with a takedown and we go to the mat. Some perfectly solid back and forth. They work their way back to their feet and Takayama gets a nice knee and Sakuraba takes him down with a suplex. Back to the ground with more solid grappling. They get tangled in the ropes and Sakuraba tags out on the reset. Tamura and Takayama have a quick strike exchange before going right to the mat. Tamura leads Takayama through a nice little exchange of holds and counters. Eventually Takyama stands up and lets Tamura up so he can blast Tamura with some hard knees on the way up. Big striking combination by Takayama leads to a knockdown. Yamazaki tags in and has the cautious opening exhchange with Tamura. They take it to the mat and it is just two masters going for submissions and flowing seamlessly into counters into the next submission attempt. Tamura gets a knockdown on a single super fast palm strike. Yamazaki does the awesome Kawada Timber sell of it and both guys tag out letting the youngsters have their chance to shine. They go straight to the mat with Sakuraba getting a leg lock on for a rope break. Takayama seems like he would rather just go for a rope break and get standing again so he can crush you with strikes. He does take an opening and go for a singe leg crab leading to a Sakuraba rope break. Yamazaki tags in. Sakuraba manages to take him down and sink in a single leg crab which he then tries to turn into an STF. Yamazaki manages to reverse it, get Sakuraba to his feet and then take him back down with a sleeper for a rope break. Yamazaki follows it up just crushing Sak with a german suplex for a knockdown and attempting another but Sak takes a rope break instead. Tamura tags in and Takayama tags in. Tamura, rather foolishly goes for a running, leaping, knee/kick something and just sort of bounces off Takayama. This gives Takayama the opening to just start annihilating Tamura with knees before taking him down and working for a submission. Tamura “blocked” most of the knees, but even blocking them had to hurt like a motherfucker. Back to the mat and Tamura is doing a really good job of feeding Takayama limbs and letting him take a lot of the mat on the ground. That Takayama is able to hang with Tamura on the mat and work submissions onto him is super impressive from a kayfabe perspective since Tamura is pretty clearly presented as a master on the mat already. Takayama manages to lock on a full nelson leading to a rope break and Yamazaki tags in. Yamazaki slams Tamura right away and starts working for various submissions. Yamazaki manages to lock in a cross arm breaker for a Tamura rope break before tagging out to aTakayama. Tamura starts blasting Takayama with low kicks and gets him stumbling. He shoots in for a takedown and locks on a cross armbreaker for the tap out. This was yet another really excellent match. It is cool to see Tamura develop into the “veteran role” and allow the youngsters to shine. Tamura figure out a way to use his skills to put over Takayama and make him look really good. Seriously, Takayama looked really in this. All of them did. GREAT

 

 

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Kazuo Yamazaki 5/17/95

 

 

 

Cautious low kick trading to start. Slick spot with Yamazaki going for his axe kick and Tamura kicking the other leg. Takedown and we get our gorgeous shoot style lucha title match back and forth mat work to start. These two reeeeally needed to have more matches against each other. Yamazaki is a guy I kind of always forget about but when I stop and think about it he has a bunch of matches I really love. He might be one of my top 5 shoot style workers (Tamura, Volk, Fujiwara, Maeda and either Yamazaki or Anjoh probably). Anyway, these guys are rocking it on the mat going back and forth with submission attempts and counters. These two are showing excellent technique and knowledge but not having to desperately run for the ropes. Eventually they work back up to their feet and are back to square one without a rope break or anything. Standing they exchange some kicks and Tamura goes for this wild spinning insane kick that he again doesn’t get but he almost does. Yamazaki gets a takedown and we’re into trading leg locks but Tamura pretty quickly gets the advantage and turns it into a toe lock that he starts wrenching Backlund style forcing a Yamazaki rope break. Yamazaki does a good job selling and actually as to take a knockdown. Tamura starts attacking Yamazaki’s legs with kicks. Yamazaki does an awesome job selling them staggering into the corner and Tamura plants him with a jumping high kick in the corner for another knockdown. Yamazaki tries to fight back but Tamura is just having his way with him. Defending all of Yamazaki’s strikes and takedown attempts. Great Yamazaki hope spot where Tamura continues with low kicks, Yamazaki grabs one and Tamura tries another wild spin kick. Yamazaki manages to duck it while and pounces onto a leg lock when Tamura lands leading to a rope break. Tamura continues the assault on Yamazaki’s legs but again Yamazaki is able to snatch a leg and nails a sick takedown. Eventually Yamazaki is able to work towards a rolling leg lock and gets the tap. Whoa! Even though Yamazaki is older and far more experienced, this felt like a huge upset because of the way it was worked. Tamura is awesome as the antagonist just decimating his older opponent and taking his legs away from him. It is really cool to see Tamura now as an established veteran wrestler/fighter now dominating fights and racking up points and now his opponents have to figure out ways to come back against this guy who is so technically good. Really what sunk Tamura here was that he fell in love with kicking. Which makes sense. His early matches when he was only wrestling and wasn't doing any striking he had to work so hard to come back when down on points and work for every little thing. Now he's put it all together. He's striking and mixing in suplexes. The Vader match really taught him how devastaing his kicking can be. If he was able to stay true to what got him here (his wrestling/submissions) he would have used his kicks to slow Yamazaki down and work towards the submission. I think this plays out not only in Yamazaki's comebacks and the finish, but in Tamura's attempts at wild spin kicks which are incredibly out of character for Tamura. Yamazaki is really great selling the legs and looking for counters and openings while under constant fire. Easy EPIC.

 

Unless I miscounted that takes me to 40 reviews of the first 44 matches of Tamura's career. I've passed the halfway mark with roughly 31 matches to go unless some super random RINGS starts popping up on youtube. I have seen a ridiculous amount of great matches so far and it is hard to believe that the best is yet to come.

 

I encourage everyone to watch all of these matches.

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This has been an excellent series so far Elliott. I look forward to watching the early stuff of Tamura's career before submitting my final ballot.

 

Thanks soup! Once I finish up UWFi, I'll work on a summing up Tamura in UWFi post before moving on to RINGS. Before starting this project, I had seen a few Tamura in UWFi matches, but mostly his "All Grown Up" work in RINGS. I had mostly seen his time in UWFi described as a "great young talent on the rise" and that is definitely true. But watching everything from that run he was clearly a "Great worker" who happened to be young and on the rise. He would get overwhelmed by "volume" in a direct match to match comparison but in terms of his performances and talent level, I think young Tamura compares very well to young Kobashi as a direct peer.

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Kiyoshi Tamura vs Gary Albright 6/18/95

 

 

 

Tamura is wearing a Chicago Bulls T-Shirt in the pre match interview. So that’s cool. Albright tosses a chair in the ring on is way to the ring. Gets in and starts talking shit to everyone. Gary bumrushes Tamura to start, backs him in the corner and is just throwing wild forearms to Tamura’s face. Straight to the mat and we get “BREAK GARY BREAK.” I didn’t realize it happened so quickly. Gary just refuses to get off of him, but he sucks on the mat and can’t actually do anything so he’s just laying on top of Tamura kinda maybe trying for an armbar or something but really just laying his fat ass on top of Tamura. Finally Gary gets off of him but they quickly go back down and Albright puts on a front chicanery and against refuses to break. He does much quicker this time. Back to the mat and Gary is just laying on Tamura. Maybe sort of trying for a kimura, but not really. Tamura goes to the ropes and Gary again refuses to break but doesn’t do anything. The ref literally lays across Tamura between the two wrestlers so Gary doesn’t try anything on the brake. I wouldn’t really worry about that. Albright is proving himself to be a compete fraud and a bully. Back standing, Tamura fakes a low kick and Gary just backs up into the corner and refuses to come out. He’s “waving Tamura over” to “come get him” but realistically Gary is leaning up against turnbuckles trying to catch him breath. Not very intimidating. Tamura throws a few strikes before Gary takes him down again. Gary again does nothing on the mat. Tamura has the advantage and Gary just lays face down refusing to do anything. Tamura gets fed up and starts throwing some kidney punches but Gary continues to just lay there doing nothing. They finally stand back up and Tamura throws a few strikes as Gary goes back to pout in the corner. They lock up again and they tumble through the ropes down to the floor. Gary gets back in, Tamura hits a low kick and a half speed slap and Gary slowly falls and takes a knockdown. Gary gets back up, takes a few kicks and then retreats to stand in the corner. Back to the mat with Gary again refusing to do anything before Tamura locks in a choke and Gary casually taps out. Albright immediately leaves the ring. Wow. What a prick. I guess Gary was pissed because he had to put over Kakihara and Tamura on back-to-back shows. Gary really just comes across as a 350lb pouting baby. Its funny because he set out to make Tamura look bad, and he did, but he made himself look even worse. Not only did he come off like an unprofessional jerk, but he showed he had little to no skills beyond suplexes as he could do absolutely nothing with his much smaller opponent other than go for takedowns Tamura was obviously co-operating with and lay on top of Tamura and attempt a nap. I can’t believe Giant Baba hired this prick. SKIPPABLE but really everyone should watch it because it is so bizarre.

 

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Joe Malenko 7/13/95

 

 

 

Prematch interview has Joe calling Tamura “Takada,” referring to himself as old and just generally showing off some of that famous Malenko charisma. Tamura immediately goes for a takedown and they take it to the mat. Tamura with some incredible counters early including a somersault to get away as Malenko is trying to switch from a single leg crab attempt into an STF maybe. The opening mat work is really enjoyable with Malenko going for submissions both classic and totally weird with Tamura finding ways out. Tamura is fucking awesome early on countering Joe’s submissions and diving for free limbs. I bet it was so liberating to get booked with Joe Malenko after that fucking Albright match last month. Malenko forces the first rope break with a leg lock. Malenko kinda tries a junior version of Severn’s style by rushing in and trying to get a takedown but Tamura manages to score the takedown. Which is fine. As long as these two are on the ground, you’re getting what you want. After some maneuvering for position, Tamura forces his first rope break. Malenko tries his rushing in strategy again but Tamura is able to fend him off with some kicks. Tamura does an excellent job of blocking Malenko’s takedown attempts but Malenko is skilled enough on the mat that he doesn’t seem to care if he has the initial advantage on the ground. That’s just where he wants to be. I love the way Tamura struggles to flail away on a Malenko spinebuster attempt but Malenko is able to nail it anyway. Early on Tamura isn’t going for many strikes. He throws the occasional low kick but he is mostly content to work right to Malenko’s strengths with wrestling and submission work being the main focus of this. And it is really fucking good work. There’s a Malenko involved so there isn’t a ton of flair for the dramatic, just a bunch of no-nonsense and well-executed matwork. Tamura does a really good job adding color to the mat with desperate selling of submissions and his fish out of water flopping about defenses of some submissions. Finish was gorgeous (although pretty abrupt) with Malenko going for a cross armbreaker and Tamura nailing one of his favorite counters as he rolls backwards as Malenko is sitting down and grabs his own armbreaker. I really enjoyed this a lot. It isn’t the most accessible match because, unlike something like Han/Tamura or Anjoh/Tamura, they aren’t working at a Ludicrous Speed pacing and aren’t working nearly as many highspots in. And it definitely felt more exhibition-y than other Tamura matches of late. But overall I thought it was really good. FUN

 

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Masahito Kakihara 7/22/95

 

 

 

Opening has Kakihara starting with a slap, Tamura throwing a few kicks and them immediately wrestling each other to the mat. Kakihara initiates the takedown but Tamura is able to gain the advantage by the time they get down to the mat. Kakihara starts trying for an ankle lock though while Tamura tries for a sleeper. Neither guy comes close to really locking in their submission attempts but Tamura has the dominant positioning throughout. Both guys end up back on their feet after Kakihara rolls away from a Tamura armbreaker attempt. Kakihara tries for another takedown and Tamura again has an easy time blocking it and gets Kakiara’s back. Kakihara goes for an ankle lock again and manages to sink it in leading to our first Tamura rope break. Reset and they go straight back to the mat with Tamura again having the dominant position but Kakihara manages to sneak in an ankle lock. Tamura does a nice job rolling around trying to counter but can’t shake Kakihara and has to go for another rope break. Reset has Kakihara again going for a takedown right away but Tamura again blocking it. Tamura tries for a cross armbreaker and they do a really good job milking it before Tamura is finally able to lock it in and get the win. Wow. Match went about 6 min. It was okay, but you wish that they were either working longer or since they only went 6minutes that they would work at a more balls to the wall super fast pace with their mat work. SKIPPABLE

 

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Gary Albright 8/18/95

 

 

 

Rematch from June’s disaster. Gary seems to have gotten a Zoloft prescription as he appears to acting much more reasonably today. Cautious open to start. Gary goes in for a takedown but Tamura is able to block it. Tamura’s takedown defense has always been good because of his speed and agility, but now it is a damn miracle to take Tamura down on the first attempt. Gary locks in a choke for the first rope break of the match. Tamura throws a kick but Gary almost grabs it. They get in close and grapple to the mat with Gary having the advantage. Crowd is buzzing the entire time theyre standing and jockeying for position because you know a massive Albright suplex could come at any time. Albright manages to work for a kimura which Tamura does an excellent job selling as he tries for the ropes. Reset and Tamura is going for a few kicks again but Albright closes the gap, ties up Tamura and nails a massive belly to belly suplex. Gary hangs on with a rear waistlock like he’s going to go for a german suplex but Tamura just throwing these wild elbows about Gary’s temple to break out of it. Gary either does a great job selling or his equilibrium is legit fucked up as he is stumbling back to the corner with a dazed look. Tamura follows up with a jumping high kick that had so much success against Vader. Albright is just covering up in the corner with an “OK stop hitting me” look on his face. They tie up and Gary takes Tamura down and starts working for a full nelson. They do a phenomenal job working the full nelson as Gary transitions to a rear waist lock and starts teasing a german suplex. Tamura’s selling the fear of the suplex is awesome and the crowd is willing him on to escape it. Gary goes back to the full nelson but Tamura is able to force a rope break. Another quick strike exchange leaves Albright covering up and going for another takedown before he starts going for another german suplex. Again Tamura does a spectacular job putting over how afraid he is of the german and scrambling to try and get away. This time instead of forcing a rope break, Tamura manages to roll Gary down and lock on a kimura for the quick win. This was a really enjoyable match. It pisses me off that Gary had that unprofessional performance in June because these two tend to work well together. In a weird way, the “BREAK GARY BREAK” match added to the drama of this match. You could feel a real tension in the crowd whenever they locked up. Tamura did an awesome job making Gary look really good before beating him. FUN

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Kiyoshi Tamura vs Kazushi Sakuraba 3/1/96

 

 

 

 

Cautious opening with both guys throwing slow kicks just measuring each other. Sakuraba gets the first takedown after blocking a low Tamura kick. They immediately start ripping it up on the mat. I’ve joked about shoot style version of El Hijo Del Santo vs Blue Panther and this was it. It almost reminded me of the Low Ki/Red “Matrix Minute” also in that they’re just moving to quickly and fluidly. The crowd gives a loud “OOOOOH” and appreciative applause when they slow it back down. Really fucking spectacular opening grapple fest. Of all the times I’ve said “nice opening grapping” or “good back and forth grappling and looking for submissions” etc. This was the smoothest and fastest yet. Just jaw dropping stuff. Sakuraba manages an armbar leading to the first rope break of the match for Tamura. Cautious strike exchange after the reset before they go back to the mat. Tamura is able to control Sakuraba this time and goes for a sleeper but Sakuraba is too close to the ropes and grabs on for a break. A few strikes to start with Tamura taking Sak off his feet with a hard low kick. Tamura is forcing the issue more while standing, but he doesn’t really seem to be actively looking for a knockdown, but is waiting for Sak to make a mistake and give him an opening. Sak dives in for a takedown but Tamura does a really good job defending it. Some nice grappling back and forth with both guys taking turns having the advantage. Tamura ends up getting a kick submission with a NASTY looking toelock. This was an abbreviated version of an incredible match that never happened. The opening mat work was awe-inspiring and everyone should watch this just for that. A nice example of Tamura making a young guys look good. This is the definition of FUN

 

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Kazushi Sakuraba 3/23/96

 

Starts with more incredibly fast back and forth Ludicrous Speed Grappling. It isn’t as intricate or long as the last time but it was still awesome. Tamura hits a rapid fire strike combo and they’re spending a little bit more time on their feet early on. Still cautious though. Awesome moment with Tamura aggressively charging at Sak and Sak getting a takedown and working on a sleeper leading to an early rope break. Both guys trade hard kicks and Sak hits one of the hardest palm strikes I’ve seen. Some more strike exchanging before going back to the mat. Tamura is able to lock on a toe-lock and get a quick submission in under 4min. Goddamn. Another super abbreviated match that is worth watching. This is making me really wish Sakuraba went to RINGS with Tamura and got in on the Volk Han action. FUN

 

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Billy Scott 4/19/96

Tamura’s 2nd to last UWFi match. The opening grappling is MUCH quicker than in the Lydick match I just watched. It’s not like Sakuraba level, but Scott is a much quicker athlete than Lydick and some of the other gaijin so Tamura is able to let losse a little more which is always great. The work leading up to the first rope break with Tamura’s sleeper attempt and then cross armbreaker is really good. The following back and forth grappling segment is also very strong with both guys really focused on going for kimuras before Tamura finally scoots away. Finish kinda came out of nowhere but that’s not a bad thing in shoot style. This is perfectly ok. I’ll say FUN.

 

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Kazushi Sakuraba 5/27/96

 

This is Tamura’s last ever match in UWFi. Pretty cool that it would be against this youngster who not only could hang on the mat with Tamura, but would go on to become the biggest name in Mixed Martial Arts within 5 years. Sak immediately shoots for a takedown and we get more completely insane back and forth grappling with both guys looking for submissions. They didn’t even waste time going for strikes. Sak gives us a taste of his future by almost doing a Giant Swing before Tamura takes him down for more ridiculous grappling leading to both guys getting tied up in the ropes. This time they have a nice strike exchange with Sak showing no fear of his elder opponent. Tamura actually goes for his wild leaping kick but Sak is able to kick his other leg out from under him on the landing. Classic Tamura spot as Sak tries for a cross armbreaker but Tamura rolls through for a cross armbreaker of his own. Sak is able to counter but winds up in perfect position for a triangle choke leading to a rope break. Wow. These guys are so fucking good together. Back to the mat and Sak has positioning but Tamura does a great job defending and going for submissions from defensive positions. Sak goes for a cross armbreaker and Tamura takes a more extended countering approach leading to a toe lock as opposed to the flashy roll through counter he did earlier. Standing again we get a few hard strikes before Sak is able to take Tamura down again and secure a leg lock leading to a rope break. Sak tries for another takedown but Tamura is able to block it and he starts looking for various submissions; first a side headlock, then a sleeper, then working towards a cross armbreaker. Sakuraba is fantastic defensively but Tamura hits him with a special he’s not ready for a flipping cross armbreaker and Tamura takes the match. WOW. Again this was too short, coming in around 9 minutes long. Really, these guys have incredible chemistry and should have had multiple MOTYCs. There are sequences every bit as astonishing as things you’ll see in Tamura/Han and Tamura/Anjoh. What an incredible missed opportunity. Even though it was so short it feels wrong to call this anything other than GREAT.

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Kiyoshi Tamura’s UWF 2.0/UWFi

5/21/89-5/27/96

Age 19-26

53 Total Matches (47 Watched)

42 Singles Matches

11 Tag Matches

23 Total Different Opponents

 

14 Epic Matches (in Chronological Order)

 

 

vs Shigeo Miyato 8/13/89

vs Yoji Anjoh 9/30/89

vs Masahito Kakihara 5/10/91

vs Yoji Anjoh 7/3/91

w/ Yuko Miyato vs Yoji Anjoh and Tom Burton 11/7/91

w/Yuko Miyato vs Yoji Anjoh and Mark Fleming 3/17/92

w/ Kazuo Yamazaki vs Gary Albright and Mark Silver7/12/92

vs Yoji Anjoh 8/28/92

vs Kazuo Yamazaki 10/23/92

vs Nobuhiko Takada 2/14/93

vs Naoki Sano 5/6/93

vs Vader 6/10/94

w/ Gene Lydick vs Masahito Kakihara and Steve Nelson 10/14/94

vs Kazuo Yamazaki 5/17/95

 

 

 

7 GREAT Matches (in Chronological Order)

 

 

vs Yuko Miyato 10/4/93

vs Masahito Kakihara 2/16/94

vs Naoki Sano 5/6/94

vs Gary Albright 8/18/94

w/ Dan Severn vs Yoji Anjoh and Steve Nelson 10/8/94

w/ Kazushi Sakuraba vs Kazuo Yamazaki and Yoshihiro Takayama 4/20/95

vs Kazushi Sakuraba 5/27/96

 

 

 

18 FUN Matches (in Chronological Order)

 

 

vs Minoru Suzuki 5/21/89

vs Tom Burton 6/6/91

w/ Nobuhiko Takada vs Yoji Anjoh and Jim Boss 7/30/91

vs Yuko Miyato 8/24/91

vs Tatsuo Nakano 9/26/91

w/ Yuko Miyato vs Tatsuo Nakano and Tom Burton 10/6/91

vs Yuko Miyato 1/9/92

w/ Yuko Miyato vs Mark Silver and Tatsuo Nakano 2/11/92

vs. Mark Silver 2/29/92

w/ Nobuhiko Takada vs Gary Albright and Dan Severn 8/13/93

vs Dennis Koslowski 12/5/93

vs Bad News Allen 4/3/94

vs Dan Severn 11/30/94

vs Masahito Kakihara 2/18/95

vs Joe Malenko 7/13/95

vs Gary Albright 8/18/95

vs Kazushi Sakuraba 3/1/96

vs Kazushi Sakuraba 3/23/96

 

 

 

8 SKIPPABBLE Matches (in Chronological Order)

 

 

vs Gary Albright 12/22/91

vs Matthew Saad Muhammad 5/8/92 (boxer vs wrestler)

vs Ray Lloyd (Glacier) 8/14/92

vs Steve Cox 9/21/92

vs Dan Severn 4/10/93

vs Tatsuo Nakano 7/18/93

vs Gary Albright 6/18/95

vs Masahito Kakihara 7/22/95

 

 

 

 

Best Opponents

 

1. Yoji Anjoh 7 Matches

 

 

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Yoji Anjoh 9/30/89 EPIC

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Yoji Anjoh 7/3/91 EPIC

Kiyoshi Tamura and Nobuhiko Takada vs Yoji Anjoh and Jim Boss 7/30/91 FUN

Kiyoshi Tamura and Yuko Miyato vs Yoji Anjoh and Tom Burton 11/7/91 EPIC

Kiyoshi Tamura and Yuko Miyato vs Yoji Anjoh and Mark Fleming 3/17/92 EPIC

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Yoji Anjoh 8/28/92 EPIC

Kiyoshi Tamura and Dan Severn vs Yoji Anjoh and Steve Nelson 10/8/94 GREAT

 

 

 

Easily the best opponent of Kiyoshi Tamura’s UWF 2.0 and UWFi career is Yoji Anjoh. They were opposite each other in 7 matches against each other; 4 tag matches and 3 singles matches. Their sequences against each other in tag matches are the clear highlights of those matches and the singles matches from 7/3/91 and 8/28/92 are arguably Tamura’s two best matches from his Pre-RINGS career. Yoji Anjoh was an incredibly skilled wrestler who in addition to be an excellent striker, was a fantastic mat wrestler. In Anjoh, Tamura found the perfect opponent against whom he could showcase his incredibly broad skill-set. Both wrestlers are incredibly skilled on the mat and are able to work long, uninterrupted sequences of back and forth counter wrestling. Against Anjoh, you can see Tamura really find himself as a worker and perfect his signature spots and counters. When first watching Tamura, one of the things that always jumps off the screen is his incredible athleticism. His speed and agility is breathtaking. Anjoh gives him an opponent against he can go all out against. When Tamura and Anjoh push it to the limit and hold nothing back, they can create highpsots out of basic holds and counters based solely on their athleticism. They were truly meant for each other as opponents.

 

2. Kazuo Yamazaki 3 Matches

 

 

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Kazuo Yamazaki 10/23/92 EPIC

Kiyoshi Tamura and Kazushi Sakuraba vs Kazuo Yamazaki and Yoshihiro Takayama 4/20/95 GREAT

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Kazuo Yamazaki 5/17/95 EPIC

 

 

 

Only 3 matches against Yamazaki but they are all excellent matches. Yamazaki made for a great Tamura opponent for many of the reasons that Anjoh did. Yamazaki was one of the original UWF workers and knows all the tricks of the trade. In addition to being an excellent mat wrestler, Yamazaki has a great variety of strikes and is known for his gorgeous German Suplex. The two singles matches are particularly important matches as the first is the biggest win of Tamura’s career up to that point. Yamazaki does a brilliant job allowing the young up and coming Tamura look good in a major match. The 1995 match shows Yamazaki scoring a relative upset against a wrestler who had been on a major winning streak (Tamura’s last loss was the previous June against Vader) and is throwing everything he has at the veteran.

 

 

3. Masahito Kakihara 5 Matches

 

 

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Masahito Kakihara 5/10/91 EPIC

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Masahito Kakihara 2/16/94 GREAT

Kiyoshi Tamura and Gene Lydick vs Masahito Kakihara and Steve Nelson 10/14/94 EPIC

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Masahito Kakihara 2/18/95 FUN

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Masahito Kakihara 7/22/95 SKIPPABLE

 

 

 

Masahito Kakihara was another great opponent for Tamura for reasons similar to Yoji Anjoh. The 5/91 match was the opening match of the first UWFi with two young guys with a dozen combined matches, after they finished their match. They had a fantastic match showcasing incredible athleticism, striking, and world class mat work. It took almost 3 years for them to match up again and a lot had happened. Tamura got a big push and worked several main events and semi-main events on major shows. Kakihara, a couple of years younger remained low on the cards losing more than he won. When Kakihara started pushed up the card, a Budokan main event against Tamura in a great match in 1994 was career win up to that point. Tamura’s later matches against Kakihara are the first example of Tamura as the veteran great worker against an “up and comer” great worker. This could easily rank higher if their 1995 matches weren’t 8 combined minutes.

 

 

Honorable Mention

1. Shigeo/Yuko Miyato 4 Matches

 

 

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Shigeo Miyato 8/13/89 EPIC

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Yuko Miyato 8/24/91 FUN

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Yuko Miyato 1/9/92 FUN

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Yuko Miyato 10/4/93 GREAT

 

 

Shigeo/Yuko Miyato was another consistently good opponent for young Kiyoshi Tamura. Miyato was a solid but not great mat worker and preferred to throw vicious striking combinations. While Miyato wasn’t someone who was able to push Tamura to uncharted waters on the mat, he was a good opponent for Tamura to work “Striker vs Wrestler” style matches with. Also, while Miyato was a more experienced worker and definitely a competent mat worker, Tamura had to learn how to work compelling sequences on the mat with a less talented opponent without showing them up overall.

 

 

2. Super Vader 1 Match

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Super Vader 6/10/94 EPIC

Makes it just because Vader was such a perfect opponent for Tamura in 1994 and this match is brilliant. I would rate him above the next guy because even though they only had one match, Tamura and Vader reached their potential and had a classic match.

 

3. Kazushi Sakuraba 3 Matches

 

 

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Kazushi Sakuraba 3/1/96 FUN

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Kazushi Sakuraba 3/23/96 FUN

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Kazushi Sakuraba 5/27/96 GREAT

 

 

 

Kazushi Sakuraba should have been one of Tamura two or three best career opponents if everything had broken right. All 3 matches are under 10 minutes with one of them being under 4. There are moments in each of the matches that are just unbelievable and rival any sequences in Tamura vs Volk Han matches. If they had the opportunity to work 15-20minute long matches, they would have been incredible. This reminded me of Tamura having to work against a younger version of himself. He’s the ultra skilled veteran facing this precocious young talent who is pushing him to the absolute limit on the mat. Crime against wrestling that these two didn’t have a real match.

 

Roles Played

Watching Kiyoshi Tamura in UWF 2.0 and UWFi shows a rookie wrestler growing up from talented but overmatched youngster to one of the best wrestlers of his generation and one of the top native wrestlers in his company. Based on age, role, and talent level I think it would be fair to compare Kiyoshi Tamura from 5/89-5/96 to Kenta Kobashi from the same time period. You could see incredible potential in Tamura from the first few matches but you could see how he let his inexperience get the best of him. He first looked like a really good striker and he would get beat on the mat. Then when UWFi opened he was pushed as a great submission wrestler. His inexperienced manifested itself in the ring in his single-minded determination towards going for submissions. It often led to him getting overwhelmed by striking and way behind on points. This definitely helped build drama in his matches but from a “character” perspective was a weakness. You can see a progression in his defensive skills. Early on he was good at using his athleticism to avoid takedowns and submissions but at times he struggled to defend while also looking for his own offense. There are also times early on where you are left thinking he clearly needs to do a better job defending himself against strikes. As Tamura gained experience, he became an incredible defensive wrestler. One of his greatest strengths as a worker became his ability to counter directly into his own offense instead of just countering to defend himself. His takedown and suplex defensive was excellent. The most obvious example of this would be the Albright matches from 91 and 94. The 91 match is Tamura getting suplexed to death over and over again. The 94 match has Tamura defending against and building to the suplex onslaught. In short, Tamura played a pretty basic role in general (young wrestler on the rise) but he performed extremely well within that role and showed logical growth and progress as he gained experience and that growth is clearly manifested in his work.

 

Variety of Matches/Opponents

Shoot style is inherently such a limiting style. They simply run fewer shows and the lack of gimmicks and basic principals take a ton of traditional wrestling roles, moves and match building tools off the table. So your gut reaction is probably that there isn’t a ton of variety in Tamura’s work and opponents. I can see that argument but allow me to spin it another way.

Tamura had great matches as a younger opponent against Experienced “Stylistic Founders” like Nobuhiko Takada and Kazuo Yamazaki

Tamura had great matches against more experienced and then peer Yoji Anjoh

Tamura had great matches as more experienced wrestler against young up and comer Masahito Kakihara

Tamura had great matches as a super talented underdog against monster Gaijin Vader and Gary Albright

Tamura had great matches against veteran strikers like Yuko Miyato.

Tamura had great singles matches.

Tamura had great tag matches.

Tamura had great matches built around his striking.

Tamura had great matches built around his mat work (with no striking at all)

Tamura had great short matches.

Tamura had great long matches.

Tamura had great matches where he scored a major upset.

Tamura had great matches where he lost in a major upset.

 

 

He only wrestled 53 matches against 23 different wrestlers over a 7 year period in a limiting style. However, Tamura absolutely excelled at every possible aspect of the style and has numerous examples of him looking great in just about every situation possible within that admittedly limited framework.

 

 

Ability vs Limited Opponents

Kiyoshi Tamura obviously had great matches against great workers like Yoji Anjoh, Vader, and Kazuo Yamazaki. But he did also figure out how to have entertaining to great matches against limited opponents. The 8/18/94 match against Albright is the best example of Tamura leading a difficult opponent with clear positives to a great match. Albright’s strengths are being a massive dude and throwing incredible suplexes. Tamura worked a great match against Albright building around a few big submissions early and teasing suplexes before allowing Albright to unleash his fury of bombs. Tamura also had enjoyable matches with totally random dudes like Dan Severn, Bad News Allen, Tom Burton, Mark Silver, and Dennis Koslowski

 

Strengths

Obviously matwork is the first thing that’s going to come to mind with Tamura. He shows incredible versatility on the mat as he is clearly a world class offensive and defensive wrestler. He excels at lightening fast balls to the wall counter wrestling against guys like Anjoh, Sakuraba, and Kakihara that can only be described as Shoot Style with a Lucha Libre Twist. Tamura is also excellent as building to and milking submissions both offensively and defensively. He will use short bursts of energy/motion to either apply a hold or suggest that he is cranking it. Defensively, he is great at escalating his selling/desperation to put over the danger of holds and alert the crowd when a submission is not locked in, almost locked in and locked in.

 

Tamura’s striking is also something that deserves mention. He actually hardy used any striking at all from 6/28/92 – 2/16/94 when he took his shin guards off. He would occasionally use palm strikes and very very rarely would use a straight front kick to the chest (the kick was rare and usually used as a defensive strike rather than an offensive strike) but his gameplan was “take guys down and submit them.” Before and after that time period he was an excellent striker. He used his incredible speed to throw slapping/kicking combos to the head, body, and legs. He worked several matches where his offense was built primarily on his striking ability (specifically the Vader match being the best example).

 

The other “Jumps of the Page” strength for Tamura is his athleticism. His speed, agility, flexibility, and stamina are incredible. He is quite possible the most impressive all around athlete of his generation.

 

Tamura is also an excellent seller. Selling is different in shoot style than it is in traditional pro-wrestling. The long term selling is mostly based on exhaustion and the selling of holds and “limbwork” is more immediate. Because any number of different submissions can end matches, you won’t necessarily see a lot of “limbwork” in shoot style (although there are a couple of Tamura matches built around on limbwork). While Tamura is excellent selling overall exhaustion and damage from a hard fought match, I wanted to specifically mention his selling of submissions. Tamura is awesome at selling desperation and urgency to get to the ropes as submissions are close to being locked in. He is great at sending clues to the crowd about how close a submission is to being successfully locked on increasing the drama and heat for his mat work.

 

Another area Tamura excels in is bumping. You don’t really think about bumping in shoot style, but when Tamura is in there against Albright or some other monster gaijin he looks incredible taking massive bumps. Pick literally any suplex Albright gives him and it is amazing. Same with Vader’s powerbomb. Or Yamazaki’s German. Etc.

 

Signature Spots/Finishers are another area worth pointing out. Tamura has a few favorite finishers. He loves nailing a quick go behind into a sleeper. Another one if his single leg pick up into a spinebuster into a single leg boston crab. His other major finisher is a cross arm breaker that he can get to in any number of ways. The flashiest ways are a rolling cross arm breaker from a standing position or a rolling/floating/cartwheeling over counter of an arm submission (usually either a kimura or cross armbreaker) into his own cross armbreaker. Another awesome spot that Tamura loved to do was if his opponent blocked a kick by grabbing a leg, Tamura would roll forward into a leglock. He didn’t use all of these spots in every match but there was a pattern of those being go to moves for him.

 

Effort is the last area I wanted to talk about. Tamura always worked really fucking hard. You can say “oh well yeah but he only wrestled 53 times in 7 years. That’s true. Obviously he trained all the time and was in great shape. But he always busted his ass when the lights were on. He would push himself to the limit against guys like Anjoh and when against bigger, slower guys, he would find ways to keep matches moving along while working at a pace where those guys could keep up.

 

Weaknesses

In terms of a GOAT case, it is pretty obvious. He only worked 53 matches in this seven year period. That’s not very many matches.

 

He didn’t use any striking for a 20month portion of the 7 years we’re looking at. That’s a lot. Although he had a number of great matches during that 20 month time period, including maybe the best match of the first 7 years of his career, you can’t help but think that Tamura could have had even better matches considering his incredible striking ability.

 

Overall Thoughts

Kiyoshi Tamura’s run in UWF 2.0 and UWFi was MUCH more impressive than I was expecting. He has always been presented as “great on the rise wrestler” but that description really undersells his work there. He was a great wrestler while he was on the rise. He showed very real potential from his very first match and proceeded to meet all of that potential in certain areas and far exceed it in other areas. He is already a world class mat wrestler as early as 1991 and only gets better and better. There is literally nothing he can’t do within the context of his style. He combines great athleticism, knowledge of the style, polish and technique. I would highly encourage everyone to watch as much of this guy as possible, and really with so few matches, everyone should watch alllll of these matches.

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Great thread, elliot. You're way higher on young Tamura than me. Just to check whether I'm crazy or not, I re-watched that Anjoh match, which I've always thought was sloppy and overly long. Anjoh is a guy who I think is a fine worker but completely overrated as a shoot stylist. I can imagine people who don't have a bug up their arse (like me) thinking their draw is epic, but to me it's s stop start average affair. Then again you thought his Sakuraba stuff was fun when to me it was the future, so folks' mileage is always gonna vary on shoot style stuff.

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Thanks guys!

 

Its been a busy week and I'm taking breather for a few days before diving full on into RINGS. But I'm excited because Tamura is really just about to hit his real peak as a worker which is crazy considering how good he's been already.

 

OJ, I actually really loved the Sakuraba matches and thought about going GREAT and EPIC on the first and third matches. But they felt less complete than other matches that may have been as short if that makes sense. They were the first half's of 5star matches. And I actually agree about the Sakuraba matches being "the future" in a lot of ways. Or at least a future I would have loved to see happen. There are sections of those matches that are among the best moments of this entire project.

 

I just rewatched the Anjoh match and one of us must be crazy because I thought it was spectacular. :) Any 30min draw is going to have its slow moments and there are definitely moments when they are laying around in a hold for too long or pretty clearly taking a breather. But I do think the match as a whole was great. I thought it told a really good story, had a clear sense of escalation and drama, and given the length of the match they kept a pretty damn impressive pace. It didn't feel sloppy to me. I didn't feel sloppy either and I was actively looking for it. It may not have been Tamura/Han or Tamura/Kohsaka (or even Tamura/Sakuraba to be honest) level of perfection in terms of execution, but I don't think it was sloppy. Shit I might have liked it better the second time. :)

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In terms of shoot style guys, I couldn't rank Anjoh above Fujiwara, Tamura, Han, Maeda, or Yamazaki right now. BattlArts is sort of a different beast but I dunno if I'd put him above Otsuka, Ikeda, Ishikawa or Carl Greco it pushed to include them. But I do want to watch all the Anjoh matches I can find sometime soon after I finish the Tamura project. Most people think of him as a striker first and I definitely do too. But I've been really impressed with his mat work in the Tamura matches. He's really the one guy able to push Young Tamura to the limit. Kakihara and Yamazaki did in 91 and 92 but Anjoh did it consistently. I want to see if the Tamura rivalry is an outlier for his overall career in terms of him looking on the mat or if he really is just a striker who plays a good jerk.

 

I agree Tamura wasn't as slick as he would become. But you've got to remember he was 22 years old and in his 23rd professional match. He's pretty damn slick and able to have a compelling 30min draw based on submissions and getting puched/kicked/kneed. He is also still in the process of perfecting his wrestling/mat work. I think that's what taking the shin guards/kick pads off was about. Forcing himself to only wrestle and not rely on striking will help make him the best wrestler in the world. Or something like that. Tamura's selling is really good in the match both his facial expressions while locked in submissions, the immediate damage of strikes, and the long-term physical exhaustion (much of which may have just been exhaustion).

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I hope that Anjoh gets more attention from all of this. Tamura is awesome and an all-time great, but I think Anjoh is a pretty underrated guy and deserves more consideration from people. He's a pretty awesome wrestler in his own right and you can see here that he continuously brings out the best in a young Tamura

 

Yes yes 1000 times yes. Everyone thinks of Anjoh as a surly punk who throws stiff strikes but he also an incredible mat worker and everytime he gets in the ring with Tamura is absolute magic. Anjoh is flying up my list and I might look into doing a Complete and Accurate Yoji Anjoh when I'm done with this project. I've always liked him but he is flying up my list.

 

 

I became a massive Anjoh fan a few years ago and actually started a C&A on him myself: http://whiskeyandwrestling.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/complete-accurate-yoji-anjoh.html

 

It kind of fell by the wayside like every other wrestling-related project I try and do, but I make a point of updating it if I watch an Anjoh match and feel like writing about it. I really need to see all of the early Tamura matches, evidently.

 

This is an awesome thread, btw. Tamura's knocking on the door of my top 10 for the GWE poll and it feels like this is the kind of serious look that could push him through it.

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  • 2 months later...

I'm missing a bunch of RINGS matches unfortunately so this project will be all wrapped up in the next 24 hours for the time being. I plan on getting all the U-Style shows down the line so I will review those when I get them. Hopefully more RINGS matches will pop up online but I may end up picking some of those up in the future. Anyway, I'll list the missing matches as I go along in case anyone knows they're online or has one/some and can put them online. I will absolutely review any Tamura matches. Anyway, here we go...

 

EDIT:

Before I get to RINGS, I forgot to mention, GOTNW sent me a link to the Tamura vs Maeda 2 minute match from 89 where Maeda breaks Tamura's face. It is the best squash match ever and I'll edit it into the first post so everything stays in order. Thanks GOTNW!.

 

RINGS

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Dick Leon-Vrij 6/29/96 (First ever RINGS match)

 

 

 

The pre match press conference in this video is spectacular. Kiyoshi Tamura gives what sounds like the most straight-laced interview in history and Akira Maeda has Bernie Sanders hair.

This is Tamura’s very first match in RINGS and the crowd is hot for Tamura and buzzing big time pre-match. Kick trading to start with Tamura getting a quick takedown and forcing a rope break within 35 seconds. Tamura is getting big “OHHHHS” for his low kicks. Vrij is awesome waving Tamura on for more low leg kicks and so Tamura plants 3 super hard kicks right in a row and Vrij gives him a Brock Lesnar smile as the crowd continues to buzz. Vrij fires back with some huge knees and eventually gets a high kick for a knockdown. Tamura is awesome selling the knockdown getting up at 9 and looking lights out on the ground. Back standing and Tamura shoots in a for a beautiful double leg takedown and works for a choke. He wrenches back a little too hard and Virj kinda comes after him a bit and his seconds start to jump in the ring. Crowd is HOT. Tamura keeps throwing strikes. Vrij blocks a jumping high kick and laughs again then blocks a Tamura takedown but just lets Tamura back up for more striking. AWESOME moment where Vrij goes for a spinning back first and Tamura takes him down going for an armbar before a rope break. More crazy stiff knees by Vrij before Tamrua gets another takedown and sinks in a choke for the win at 3:41. Holy shit! Best sub 4minute match ever? It has to be. This was spectacular. It feels weird to go EPIC but man this was awesome. Short as it was, I adored this. EPIC.

 

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Willie Peeters 7/16/96

 

 

 

 

Opening strike exchange has Peeters throwing some really wild strikes before taking Tamura down with a gorgeous belly to belly suplex. More wild striking with Tamura fighting back a little more leading to another awesome Peeters suplex. Peeters has the advantage on the mat for a bit but doesn’t try for anything and they stand back up. They continue along with more feeling each other out until going for hard strike exchanges. Peeters is pretty damn fun taking a bunch of lunging wild risks with his striking. He gets the first rope break too with a side headlock on Tamura. More wild striking attempts. Peeters tries a second headlock takeover but Tamura blocks this one and goes for the choke. Pretty cool little story with Peeters nailing the first two belly to belly suplexes and Tamura blocking an attempt of a 3rd. Then Peeters going for a 2nd headlock takeover & Tamura blocking it the 2nd time around. Tamura blocks yet another suplex attempt by Peeters and Peeters dives close to the ropes as Tamura starts to look for submissions. Peeters doesn’t have the worlds most engaging ground game. Back standing after they get tied up in the ropes. Tamura immediately goes for a takedown and Peeters dives for the ropes for a ropebreak. Peeters responds by going for more wild strikes but Tamura gets a knockdown with a hard low kick. Tamura is just having his way with Peeters at this point. Peeters is finally able to block a takedown attempt with pretty awesome rough counter but again can’t really do much with the advantage on the mat and just stands back up. Tamura starts throwing some really hard kicks and Peeters just takes them showing they have no effect. Tamura gets another takedown as Peeters goes for the ropes. Peeters has a good strategy of landing near the ropes so they can easily get tangled up in the ropes and he saves himself from having to use a rope break. Awesome quick ankle lock attempt by Tamura as Peeters dives for the ropes again. Tamura is just outclassing him in a major way. Peeters is able to block a few takedowns by just diving on top of Tamura but Tamura is able to work for a triangle choke. Awesome moment as Tamura hits his nip up after Peeters taps as the crowd explodes. This rocked. The RING atmosphere is awesome. Between the announcers, the crowd, and the camera work/presentation these RINGS matches have been a fucking blast so far. Tamura looks like a fully formed great worker at his peak. He is striking a lot more early on while showing he could destroy Peeters on the mat at will. This project is about to get soooo good. GREAT

 

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Maurice Smith 8/24/96

 

 

 

This is a shoot fight. And it is not an entertaining one. Smith makes the mistake of wearing boxing gloves and loses to a cross armbreaker. Boring boring boring. JVK asked in the “Beginners Guide To Shoot Style” thread “Why would anyone watch this compared to UFC?” in regards to a Han/Tamura match. Well, this boring shit is why. Yuck.

 

 

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Volk Han (RINGS 9/25/96)

Yearbook

 

So I don’t know that I can really give this a proper review. So I’ll just mention some broader things that I thought during this match. First, I just really love the look of this match from the workers to the way it is filmed obviously. But I love the dichotomy of Han and Tamura. Tamura is obviously this cut, muscular athletic looking dude. While Vok Han looks like he’d be more comfortable wearing a lab coat than fighting someone. The overhead camera is great as everyone knows. It is just the perfect angle for this sort of submission grappling. Han becomes Tamura’s best opponent up till now less than 90seconds in probably. The first ground exchange from Han’s deadlift takeover till the first rope break is ridiculous with lightening fast intricate smooth back and forth mat work unlike anything you’ve ever seen. There are a ton of little things throughout that I really like beyond the “smoothest and best mat-work ever.” Han flattening Tamura with that bullrushing strike combo, Tamura getting a knockdown from a quick hard kick to the stomach, Tamura’s selling, the announcers, the crowd, etc. Just an awesome match. It will be interesting to see if I still think the 6/98 Kohsaka match is Tamura’s best or if one of the Volk matches will surpass it. This felt like they were seeing just how far they could push each other and their style. EPIC

 

 

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Mikhail Ilioukhine 10/25/96

 

 

 

It is utterly impossible to follow the Han match. You get the feeling from the very start that Tamura is much more comfortable and in control than he was in the Han match. This is much slower paced and cautious at first leading to a nice slam by Illoukhine. Tamura gets a nice applause for his favorite roll through counter of a cross arm breaker attempt. Early on Tamura is showing his awesome defensive wrestling abilities avoiding and coutering out of Illioukhine’s submissions with ease before Tamura finally locks in a slick knee bar for a rope break. Awesome sequence where Illoukhine locks in a leg lock and Tamura is terrific selling it attempting to go for the ropes before finding a counter and locking in his own submission for another rope break. Tamura is really awesome shifting around going for quick submissions and moving to another position really quickly if he doesn’t lock it in to keep things moving. From a kayfabe point of view it is brilliant because it keeps his opponent off balance and he never knows where the submission is coming from. From a viewer’s perspective, Tamura is so fast and polished on the mat that it is impressive to watch him bounce around for submissions and the crowd loves it. I was just thinking how there weren’t many strike exchanges in this match and Tamura just obliterates Mikhail with a kick to the stomach and follows it up with a striking combo for a knockdown. After the reset Mikhail locks in another submission but instead of going for the ropes Tamura counters out of it yet again. Mikhail continues going for takedowns and submissions finally getting Tamura in danger enough to cause a rope break 14 minutes into the match. Tamura gets a win with his signature go behind into a sleeper for the tap. Great work in the sleeper as Illioukhine fought it and fought it before tapping. Again, this is hard to rate coming on the heels of the Volk Han match (and to be honest, I watched the Kohsaka draw from 98 earlier today out of order because I’m impatient) because Han is just at another level. Tamura didn’t work with the same out of control desperation. Here he is more in control against talented but less dangerous worker. Tamura didn’t need to go to wild striking in this and only had the one rope break deep into the match. This felt like a “hierarchy” match with Tamura working differently against Han than a less worker here. Anyway, this was very enjoyable. FUN.

 

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Mitsuya Nagai 11/22/96

 

 

For the sake of transparency, when I think of Mitsuya Nagai, I think of him getting kicked in the face by Toshiaki Kawada. So I hope Tamura kicks him in the face really hard. Tentative striking to start with Nagai looking a little more spastic to Tamura’s calm. After a few minutes we go to the mat after Nagai blocks a Tamura jumping knee and gets a big slam. Nagai doesn’t really do much while he has Tamura on his back except open himself up to get locked into a triangle choke. Great spot as Nagai picks him up and walks over towards the ropes while still in the choke. Tamura takes Nagai down and appears to be holding on for dear life. Tamura attempts a few different chokes and you get the feeling Nagai just trying to hang on. He’s not really attempting his own submissions. He’s just trying not to get choked out. Tamura slowly locks in a side headlock for the win. This was pretty disappointing. Nagai didn’t look good here at all. Tamura did what he could but this was an easy SKIPPABLE.

 

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Yoshihisa Yamamoto 12/19/96

I’m excited for this as it’s their first match together and they’d go on to become great rivals both in and out of the ring. This was really fun. Its short, about 10minutes, but very good and very aggressive. They’re standing and striking for most of the match and really just blasting the shit out of each other. I think the plan was strike until Yamamoto gets completely gassed, go to the mat until he catches his breath, stand up and strike, repeat formula. So this was very exciting and very heated. Tamura gets cut along the way and the finish is fucking spectacular. GREAT.

 

 

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Volk Han (RINGS 1/22/97)

Yearbook

 

The opening mat work exchange is about as spectacular as anything I can remember seeing in wrestling. They are practically dancing with each other. Kiyoshi Tamura might actually be Neo. I can’t possibly review this so I’m not going to try. If you haven’t seen this match or this series of matches you’re missing out. Tamura vs Han is one of those series of matches like Lawler vs Dundee, Flair vs Steamboat, Misawa vs Kawada, Hansen vs Colon, Santo Jr vs Casas that everyone needs to watch. EPIC.

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Continuing...

 

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Akira Maeda 3/28/97

 

 

 

Crowd is HOT for this and I’m pretty fucking stoked honestly. Its been a long time since I’ve watched old Maeda and he is a large fellow. Hard kicks to start before Maeda goes for a leg submission. Tamura talks a little trash before attempting to get out of it but he can’t escape. Maeda works into a choke and Tamura has to go for a rope break. Maeda blocks a HARD kick and goes for another leg lock. Tamura isn’t close to the ropes so he works towards his own ankle lock to counter it and the crowd his super into it. These two have such great facials and charisma and the crowd is so into it that they have hands down the best dueling leglocks I’ve literally ever seen. That spot have NEVER been dramatic but these two work it to perfection and a Maeda rope break. Tamura is pretty obviously holding back in this match so he doesn’t completely upstage Maeda. He works a few float over counters but he doesn’t really unleash his quickness like he would against someone like Han or Sakuraba or Anjoh. I love Maeda and at one point I think he was a good mat worker. But by 1997 age and evolution and guys like Tamura & Han took mat work to another level. Maeda couldn’t really keep up but he still has that charisma and connection with the crowd so when he’s paired with an all time great like Tamura where both guys knows how to sell and milk drama, they make something as mundane as dueling leglocks a really awesome spot. The finish is utterly utterly spectacular and I won’t ruin it. I would call the match FUN but encourage people to watch it for the leglocks spot and the quick finishing run. Tamura continues to look great and in the context of working “how he needed to work” this is a good example. Working against someone like Han, you’re going to get a balls to the wall mat work spot fest. Maeda couldn’t really do that so instead Tamura toned it down to make Maeda look strong (its his company after all) and they still managed to have some really good moments.

 

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Chris Haseman 4/4/97

Very tentative and slow start. I can’t help but laugh at Haseman’s Amerian cornerman screaming “Rip his arm off” like it’s karate kid. GET HIM A BODY BAG YEAAAAH! This is a pretty non-descript match. Back and forth mat work. Nothing really spectacular or even notable. SKIPPABLE

 

 

Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Tsuyoshi Kohsaka (RINGS 4/22/97)

Yearbook

 

I was having trouble writing about this match when I watched it so I cheated and peaked at the PWO thread about it to see what was up and this was the match everyone thought was a shoot. Which actually made sense. That none of us can tell whether or not it was worked or a shoot should probably be a point in these guys’ favor for the GWE poll considering they work “shoot style” and even us nerds are fooled.

 

Missing Tamura vs Grom ZaZa 5/23/97

 

Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Nikolai Zouev (RINGS 6/21/97)

Yearbook

 

They take it right to the mat with Zouev attempting a take down but Tamura blocking it getting the advantage. They trade submission attempts on the ground with Tamura successfully attempting some beautiful counters. Zouev is a much more exciting defensive wrestler than Nagai or Mikhail Ilioukhine which allows Tamura a better showcase for his ridiculous mat skills. The mat work here isn’t on the level of the Han matches but it is spectacular with both guys looking great. Tamura pulls out some positively Volk Han-esque submissions that I’ve never seen him attempt before. One is particularly ridiculous and it leads to Zouev getting a reversal and forcing a rope break. Tamura is actually behind on rope breaks, which is rare in a non Han/Maeda match at this point because Tamura is such a great defensive wrestler he is usually able to work his way out of submissions. You get the sense that Tamura might be trying to be too wacky inspired by the crazy shit Han was doing that was working against Tamura. Zouev is sort of using that against him. When Tamura gets down to business and does what makes him successful, he has success. Zouev manages to score the victory with an incredible rolling cradle submission. This was excellent. This isn’t on the level of Tamura’s absolute best matches but it is awesome. EPIC

 

I wanted to take some time to say RINGS has the best production values of any company in wrestling history. Everyone knows and loves the over-head camera but basically all of the camera work is perfect and adds to the match. You get the over-head camera showing all the fast paced and intricate mat work. You get awesome close-ups of facials and limbs twisted in obscene directions when submissions are locked in or being worked for. They have a knack for catching terrific shots of guys diving towards the ropes in pure desperation. There are wide shots of the ring from every direction and across each turnbuckle so you always get a great view of the work standing up. The crowd is mic’d perfectly and so well educated that you get great heat for the smallest little things that help make the match that much more enjoyable. Even the announcer I don’t understand has a great voice and over the top but not so overbearing like the All Japan announcer who makes me want to hit things. Watching RINGS at its peak is just a total joy.

 

 

Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Bitsadze Tariel (RINGS 7/22/97)

Yearbook

 

This is one of those Tamura vs Auto Mechanic/Child Molester looking type matches so it will probably be great. Tariel immediately puts Tamura down with a super fast striking combo 10 seconds into the match. Business has picked up. He goes after Tamura immediately after the reset and our hero might be overwhelmed. He’s just trying to hang on and hope the big man blows up. Which ends up happening pretty quick. Tamura gets an easy takedown. Tamura works towards a choke leading to an early rope break. Tariel keeps going for striking combs and apparently takes an errant finger to the eye. Tariel continues his barrage of strikes and scores yet another knockdown. Tamura manages another takedown and locks in an armbar leading to a rope break. Tariel is really using his size to try and dominate. He attempts a leglock, but Tamura quickly reverses it into his own for another rope break. Pretty basic story here of the striker vs the submission wrestler. Tamura’s strategy is to weather the storm and let Tariel get in close enough so his strikes aren’t as hard and he can get a quick takedown and go for a submission. Tariel is pretty outclassed on the mat but he can absolutely knock Tamura out. After another reset after a Tariel rope break, he manages to put Tamura down with a sick knee combo. Tamura continues to fight back with submissions by locking in another leg lock for a rope break. It is a basic story but they are doing a good job with it. Finishing run when they’re both down to their last 2 points is utterly spectacular as both guys are trying everything. Tamura is going for strikes, and Tariel is looking for submissions. This was awesome. Easy GREAT match.

 

Missing Tamura vs Hans Nyman 8/13/97

 

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Volk Han (RINGS 9/26/97)

Yearbook

 

Tamura solves his Volk Han problem. Its Tamura vs Han, I can’t possibly review it. EPIC Million billion stars.

 

Missing Tamura vs Elvis Sinosic 10/14/97 Shoot

 

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Hans Nyman 10/25/97

 

 

 

I’m at the point where if a Tamura opponent has a pot-belly, I expect it will be a good match. Both guys are tentative to start. Nyman strikes first blood with some really hard slaps but Tamura responds with some leg kicks. Nyman gets a big suplex to take things to the mat. Tamura manages to roll around and get the dominant position and start looking for a submission. He can’t pull anything off so they work back to their feet. Nyman lands some hard strikes and gets a surprise knockdown. After some more strike exchanges they go back to the mat but get tied up in the ropes before anything can happen. Great takedown by Tamura when Nyman tries to rush him for more strikes. Back to the mat but Nyman quickly goes for a rope break. Match picks up in a big way when Nyman starts unloading with striking combos and gets back to back knockdowns. Tamura takes a knee to the head when they’re on the ground which is against the rules and we get a brief stoppage. Nyman goes right back to striking trying to put Tamura away. Tamura manages a takedown and sinks in a side headlock for the win. This was kind of a weird match. At time it felt like it might be a shoot but at other times it didn’t. It almost felt like they spent the whole match feeling each other out before the hot end. SKIPPABLE

 

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Joop Kasteel 11/20/97

Tentative start as Tamura figures out how to best approach this giant musclebound man in front of him. Kasteel is an imposing figure to be sure when he’s charging and throwing strikes at you because he’s surprisingly quick in addition to being a human brick wall. Finally Tamura is able to grab a leg and lock in an ankle lock for a flash sub. This was FUN. I enjoyed Kasteel quite a bit actually.

 

Akira Maeda vs. Kiyoshi Tamura (RINGS 12/23/97)

Yearbook

 

Maeda is a lot more spry on the mat to start this than he was in their previous match. It isn’t great or anything, but he gets down and works some nice back and forth exchanges for a hot second. Tamura again works at a much slower pace than he does against non-Maeda opponents so as not to show him up. Because of his athleticism, Tamura is simply capable of things Maeda is not and you see that in flashes but Tamura is clearly holding back early on. Instead of working a workrate sprint like Han Tamura, this is more slow building to a few big submission attempts early on. Once theyre standing again Maeda starts throwing some insane strikes to pick things up so Tamura feels inspired to take things back down and go balls to the wall looking for a sub but he leaves himself open for the veteran Maeda to lock in a sleeper for a rope break. This sucker just picked up in a big way. They end up slowing this back down in a big way with some more slowish back and forth mat work until Tamura gets the big upset. I really wanted this to be better. These two had a great match in them. A few more stand up exchanges would have gone a long way towards making this feel like a more definitive “passing of the torch” match. This had flashes of brilliance but never really sustained it. I’ll still call it FUN since it’s Tamura’s big win and like I said there are some flashes.

 

Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Mikhail Ilioukhine (RINGS 1/21/98)

Yearbook

 

They go to the mat right away for some back and forth grappling. Ilioukhine keeps up well and mixes in a nice slam for good measure. Tamura opens up with the first hard strikes with some nice high kicks before its back to the mat. Ilioukhine works for a choke and Tamura attempts the fastest evasive roll in history. They get tangled up and the resf restarts them. There are some absolutely stunning submission attempts and counters leading to Tamura desperately diving for the first rope break of the match. WOW. Ilioukhine attempts some truly ridiculous submission attempts in this leading to Tamura rope breaks. Tamura is forced to take yet another rope break and is starting to throw more and more strikes to force a come back getting a flash knockdown with a high kick to the head. Ilioukhine is just overwhelming Tamura with submission attempts and getting advice from Volk Han at ringside. Tamura looks totally perplexed and continues with a cautious striking strategy. I can’t even keep going with this half hearted play by play. This match is too fucking good. The grappling, the striking, selling, everything. This is shockingly great. I don’t ever remember seeing this and if I did I completely forgot about it. But this is the absolute forgotten all time classic Tamura match. Everyone talks about the Han and Kohsaka matches. The Yamamoto match from 99 has gotten a ton of praise in recent years. More people talk about the Vader match than this while not putting it on the level of those other matches. THIS is on the level of those other matchs. I know Loss rated this really high and it got some love and recognized as a classic in the yearbook thread. But holy fuck is this completely spectacular. Easy easy easy EPIC. If I was doing star ratings I’d call this 5 stars. Tamura looks like the best wrestler in the world and Ilioukhine does not look at of his league at all and brings a ton to the match. Unbelieveable. Probably the best match I’ve ever seen that no one ever talks about.

 

 

Missing Tamura vs Sergei Sousserov 3/3/98

 

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Dick Leon-Vrij 3/28/98

Vrij is such an intimidating figure. Just big and long and clearly a great athlete. This starts with both guys feeling each other out with strikes before going to the mat where neither guy can really get control. Great knockdown by Vrij with a sick looking knee which Tamura did a great slow knockdown sell for. Back to the mat with Vrij in control at first but Tamura getting a nice rolling counter to get the advantageous position but Vrij is able to just power out of it in a really impressive spot. Vrij follows up with a great striking combo. Tamura’s selling of near knockouts is one of his amazing traits I haven’t talked about nearly enough. He is incredible at selling damage in a realistic fashion that still reaches everyone in the crowd. Great facial expressions and body language. This fucking guy. Tamura gets some payback with a super fast slapping combo for a nominal knockdown. This only makes Vrij angry andhe comes out with a wild striking combo leading to Tamura locking in a sleeper and Vrij goes for the fucking eyes! Whoa! The ref gives Vrij a yellow card and Virj offers a handshake but Tamura waves him off. Damn. Tamura immediately takes Vrij down and gets a sleeper with Vrij tapping almost before Tamura even locks it in. Tamura stands over Vrij giving him the Allen Iverson stepping over Ty Lue look and it’s awesome. That was an interesting finish. FUN.

 

 

Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Valentijn Overeem (RINGS 4/16/98)

Yearbook SHOOT

 

Didn’t watch for this project because it is a known shoot match.

 

Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Bitsadze Tariel (RINGS 5/29/98)

Yearbook

 

This starts like their prior match with Tariel getting close and pummeling Tamura with strikes for a pair of quick knockdowns. Tamura is pretty clearly overwhelmed early on but tries to strike back with the big man. Tariel proves to be too much for Tamura standing up getting a knockdown that has Tamura rolling all the way outside of the ring. Whoa. Shit got real there. Tariel puts Tamura away with a high kick to the face. This was incredible. Just a brutal squash. Tamura gets knocked completely silly. I really wanted to call this great because it is a fucking blast, but I’m just going to go FUN. Watch this though. It is spectacular. Its just…coming off the heels of the Ilioukhine match I can't call it more than FUN.

 

 

Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Tsuyoshi Kohsaka (RINGS 6/27/98)

Yearbook

 

This is another one of those impossible to review in play-by-play form. So I will just make some brief observations and thoughts I had while watching and thinking about this. I know it is hard to imagine a 30 minute shoot style draw that flys by but this just flys by. It has never felt like 30 minutes before because they keep such a steady pace throughout this. These two take the idea of opening match feeling each other out mat work to a whole new level. They literally work back and forth on the mat with no rope breaks, striking, resets or standing for 11 consecutive minutes. It is just back and forth beautiful counter wrestling uninterrupted for 11 minutes. It isn’t as flashy or over the top as Tamura vs Han or Tamura vs Ilioukhine but the technique is perfect. It feels like the shoot style equivalent of Flair vs Steamboat where they aren’t trying to re-invent the wheel but they’ve completely mastered the more traditional aspects of their style and are able to execute and perform are the highest possible level. The Han/Tamura matches feel more like Flair/Funk where they are brilliant but Funk pushes Flair in a different and more wild way much like Han does to Tamura. So while you may get more exciting and flashy moments in Flair/Funk or Han/Tamura, there is this feeing of utter brilliance to Tamura/Kohsaka and Flair/Steamboat where you think only these two guys could have this match together. The opening 11 minute back and forth segment ends with a stand up reset so there’s no points gone until 13:35 in the match and it doesn’t seem forced or ridiculous. Kohsaka is an incredible Tamura opponent. In addition to the mat work, these two have one of the most spectacular strike exchanges in shoot style history. The speed of their palm strikes is insane and especially when you consider how far into the match it is when it happens. In terms of stamina, this is one of the most impressive matches you’ll ever see. The pace they cut and what they’re actually doing is incredible. I actually think it is more of a physical achievement to work a match like this than the pacing of something like Flair/Steamboat from the Clash which is not meant to diss the Clash match but entirely meant to put over how impressive this is from a pure “stamina” perspective. It’s one thing to work a side headlock for 10 straight minutes. What Tamura and Kohsaka do here is another thing entirely. Even after watching all 3 Han/Tamura matches tonight, and the absolutely incredible Ilioukhine match, this still manages to stand out as a monumental match. This is quite possibly the best match ever. I’ve been so sure that Sangre Chicana vs MS-1 was the best match ever for years, but watching this again (and for the sake of transparency, I watched it twice tonight) this feels like it might be the best match ever. EPIC but that doesn’t even begin to describe it.

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