A spirited little contest. Didn't have a clue who either of them were but the customary google search tells me Krastev competed at the Sydney Olympics for Bulgaria in boxing, while Bekichev is - or at least would become, based on a glance at his late-career fight record - an actual mixed martial artist, though I don't know how many of the martial arts he'd dabbled in mixing at this point in time. I would imagine not very many as this was fought entirely on the feet. Which is probably not shocking when one guy is wearing boxing gloves and the other doesn't attempt to take him to the ground inside four seconds (suggesting he himself would rather the fight not go there). There were a couple awkward moments where they seemed unsure how to react to something, a hesitancy to maybe force the issue and stray a little too close to the shootfighting. At one point Bekichev took a kick to the face and sort of stood there like "what the fuck mate that HURT," as if Maeda suggested this was all merely going to be an illusion and so the possibility of ACTUALLY getting smacked in the face hadn't occurred to our man. But they both grew into it as it went and when Krastev unloaded with a flurry of jabs and a by god spinning backfist I was very much on board. I even hoped he'd get up and we'd get another couple minutes by the end.
Wataru Sakata v Christopher Haseman
A short bit of business that I'm thinking may have been a shoot. Not a whole lot happened. There was a bit of struggle on the ground that trickled over to the ropes, they were stood up, Sakata caught Hasemen's leg and after another brief struggle a nice heel hook scored the tap. Watch it while you wait for the kettle to boil, maybe. It's your life, don't let me stop you.
Mitsuya Nagai v Mikhail Ilioukhine
Ilioukhine is the bomb. He's a short, pale, stocky wee tank of a man, like a Russian Dynamite Kid who will throw you around like a sack of flour. His mere BEING is a continual advance and Nagai can barely do anything about it, especially on the ground. Some of the setups are a little clunky, like Ilioukhine's cross-armbreaker, but he's inventive and the crowd certainly don't seem to mind too much. I guess this boils down to striker v grappler, which is a tale old as time when it comes to the shoot style. Ilioukhine practically ragdolls Nagai at will but Nagai can cause him real trouble on the feet, so not shockingly that's where he tries to keep it. The one time Ilioukhine tried to respond he fired off a piddly leg kick that Nagai outwardly laughed at, retaliated with a much more effective flurry of his own, so Ilioukhine swiftly took him down and went about bending his arms and legs at weird angles. Ilioukhine also looks like a fella who can take a shot to the face so Nagai needed to make a TKO look convincing, and that palm strike to end things looked fairly convincing. Ilioukhine has at least one stone cold RINGS classic. This wasn't that but it was awfully fun.
Tsuyoshi Kohsaka v Hans Nyman
This was nifty as well, and also very much your striker v grappler contest. Nyman always has pretty looking kicks, all of them with a real nice snap to them, but they don't always look like there's a ton of meat behind them. They quite often look like kicks thrown by a guy not actually trying to knock out his opponent *for real* for real, you know? Not every kick he threw in this looked lethal, but some of them did and Kohsaka was absolutely great at selling them, like when he took a glancing blow to the back of the head and half stumbled into a nasty body kick. He gets the full Fujiwara point for his selling performance in this fight. Kohsaka's strategy was obviously to hit the mat but Nyman wasn't about to engage there at all. He basically grabbed the rope any time there was even a chance he'd be caught in a problematic situation, which didn't always make for a very compelling contest but at the same time I guess it was realistic enough. I'm a sucker for someone pulling a rabbit out the hat right when all hope seems lost, so even if the finish was a little on the nose I dug it.
Volk Han v Dick Vrij
This wasn't as good as their match from 1992, but it was fought along the same lines. A shorter bargain bin version of it. Vrij is no fool and wants nothing to do with Han on the mat, or anywhere in the building if grappling is involved. He wants to swing for the fences and if he can't score a knockout he'll settle for racking up points via downs. It's a strategy that serves him pretty well, but Han will always be dangerous and Vrij immediately goes to the ropes whenever he's grabbed. There's no attempt to escape by any other means - it would be stupid to bother so why even waste anybody's time with the pretence? A fun six minutes, as you'd probably expect.
Yoshihisa Yamamoto v Bitsadze Tariel
Before this show I'd largely been focusing on the early years of RINGS, the furthest I'd gotten when writing everything up being 1993. At that point Yamamoto was a pretty fun rookie starting to find his feet, usually pairing off with Masayuki Naruse in a sort of young lions series. Fast forward a few years and here's Yamamoto in a main event, fresh off a win over the mighty Volk Han a few months earlier, ready to push on and maybe even climb to Ace status. He was obviously more assured here than in '92-'93, though he always had a bit of a chip on his shoulder even as a wee lad. Based on the size difference you'd expect Tariel to come out and force the issue, but it's Yamamoto who throws forty palm thrusts as soon as the bell rings. He fought this like a young phenom who was on a roll, who knew he was ready to put the pieces together and confidence was high. Tariel got pretty fun in his RINGS run but he maybe wasn't quite there yet. He was a bit hesitant at points, where you'd expect him to press on and knee Yamamoto in the spleen while he's buckled over in pain there, and it never quite happens. Maybe he is the gentle sort of bear. Alas, the gentle sort do not last very long in the Fighting Network. It's been ages since I've watched any late 90s Yamamoto and I'm hyped to do so again, but I've never really seen much from his "in between" years so that should be cool as well.
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