Masayuki Naruse v Sergei Sousserov
Man this was fun. It was a little sloppy at points and not everything came off great, but the striking had a recklessness to it - especially Sousserov's - and we got some neat takedowns and submission attempts that the crowd really peaked for when you wanted them to (it's Korakuen, after all). Nothing on the ground was particularly slick and it was a little stop-start with them getting tangled in the ropes, but they were both going for it and I don't mind some choppiness if there's energy to it. Sousserov is the business and this was probably one of my favourite non-Han or Maeda bouts so far.
Mitsuya Nagai v Sandor Telgen
You know, this was perfectly fine. It only went five minutes and it wasn't setting the world on fire, but they at least kept the stand-up moving along. None of the kicks landed particularly clean, but they threw a bunch of them and there was no standing around doing nothing. Nagai also had a couple cool takedowns and the finish was sweet. There have been worse bouts, let me tell you.
Naoyuki Taira v Toshiyuki Atokawa
This is the fifth Taira match/fight I've watched this week, and for someone I hadn't even heard of until a couple years ago I'm sold on him being pretty fun. I'm not entirely sure what the rules were here, but there are five three minute rounds, interchanging between kickboxing and MMA, and it very much may possibly have been a shoot. It wasn't great or anything but it was spirited and Taira visibly enjoying himself out there was sort of infectious. At one point he went for a flying knee and absolutely hurled himself out the ring, then came back in smiling a little sheepishly even though the crowd ate it up. They appreciated the effort, certainly. Maeda also came in and officiated the MMA/RINGS rounds of the fight and the crowd sure seemed to get a kick out of that as well.
I have the TV version of this show - hence the brevity of it - which is missing a Kimura/Nishi bout that was on the comm tape. The completionist in me wants to hunt it down but then the sane part of me realises it's probably a waste of time as it's not really the most enticing fight and also there's the hilarious idea of me being a completionist in the first place. I haven't completed a single fucking project since I started this blog! And I bet I'll never finish this one, either!
Complete & Accurate RINGS
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