Tamura v Mishima (U-Style)

Kiyoshi Tamura v Dokonjonosuke Mishima (U-Style, 4/6/03)

I don't know why it's taken me so long to watch this. I've wanted to check it out for ages, but it's not on Tabe's Best of Tamura comp and I figured all the U-Style on youtube had been ripped down, so I kept putting it off and figured one day it'd appear somewhere. Well it's back on youtube (or maybe never left), so here we are. This is the first and only time I've seen Mishima. He's always been that guy with the funny name who wrestled Tamura. "I've seen most of Tamura's U-Style stuff already but there's that match with Doko...Dokojuno...that Mishima guy. Maybe it's good." Of course it was good. Maybe it's just because I've been watching a lot of so-so shoot style going through the UWFi shows, but I thought this was different gravy, especially the matwork. The mat exchange at the beginning was total RINGS and Mishima brought a ton to it. He brought a ton to everything. Elliot on PWO described him as having a kind of "weirdo style," and I definitely got that vibe at a few points with how he'd set up submissions in interesting ways, almost feigning strikes before jumping into an attempted ankle lock, using an armbar as a set up for a choke which he applied with his legs. Some of his stand up was really cool as well. He was doing fucking Eddy Gordo capoeira handstand kicks at one point. The finish with Mishima managing to wriggle free of a choke only for Tamura to INSTANTLY grab the cross armbreaker was really awesome. This was a shade over ten minutes and it rocked.