At six minutes long you could argue this was mercifully short. You could also argue it was still about four minutes too long. I think both cases could be compelling. It was inoffensive, to be fair. I've never seen either guy before but apparently Hamilton is a mixed martial artist from Australia. He pretty much did nothing well and really just got smothered by Stam before tapping to a scarf hold. Stam is a hefty American fellow with very heavy breathing - almost disconcertingly so - who made this one and only appearance on the Fighting Network. At least he went out with a 100% record.
Wataru Sakata v Todor Todorov
What a fun wee seven minutes. Todorov is usually game for a spirited contest and this was no different. Some of the throws were a bit easily come by, but they looked pretty enough and Todorov has some really explosive hips, which is a thing I'll always be impressed by as an S&C coach. That finish is one of the coolest armbars ever too. I'm not sure I've even seen Han pull that one out.
Mitsuya Nagai v Glenn Brown
I don't know if this was a shoot or not because it lasted all of exactly 40 seconds. Brown I have never seen before, but he looks like a wealthy anime villain who condescends to the main protagonist in an obnoxious British accent, slicked back hair with a very visibly taped up nipple. Just the one nipple. Which you could possibly argue is not pertinent information. Brown comes out in a quirky crane stance and throws a couple kicks that I think drew a laugh from the crowd. Nagai threw kicks that were no laughing matter and Brown immediately started backing up like "ew this is not what I was expecting please behave" and feebly tried to reach the ropes after Nagai took him down. Feebly quickly turned to unsuccessfully and there's yer choke inside one minute. I actually don't think this was a shoot. Gun to my head I'm saying work. Brown's kicks were quite frankly too terrible. Sorry, Glenn. At least you are by far the least cretinous white man named Glenn to wrestle in a Japanese shoot style promotion in the mid-1990s.
Willie Williams v Bitsadze Tariel
Willie by god Williams! I had no clue that feller was still doing the shoot style in 1996. There's a sort of endearing quality to Williams, a giant lummox with a heart of gold (prolly), and while this was a lumbering nonsense of a thing there have been worse uses of 12 minutes in RINGS. Both guys are quite tentative, though it seemed that tentativeness was more a result of them not wanting to look stupid throwing ropey strikes than them not wanting to be struck. Tariel has at least a couple really good bouts in RINGS, one against Tamura the following year that I remember being great, but he looked very not good here and Tamura was outrageous in '97 so who knows. I did not buy that finish, however I was also not the one being kneed in the guts by a big giant hairy bastard Georgian karateka. So who knows.
Dick Vrij v Maurice Smith
Well damn, I didn't know Mo Smith fought in RINGS. I don't think I've actually seen a single worked fight that Smith was in, even though he's done some stuff in UWF and PWFG (and Pancrase, but I have no clue if those were worked or not). And apparently he fought both Kohsaka and Tamura in RINGS! What the hell? How do I not remember that? Anyhow, this was like four minutes and I'm guessing it was a work. They mostly traded some tentative stand-up before Vrij went for a takedown that in actual fact was more of a falling down while grabbing the other person, and it was pretty amusing seeing Smith take Vrij's back with ease and attempt a choke while wearing boxing gloves. Nice knockout finish. Is it any wonder Smith would take the UFC heavyweight title a year later? Not at all.
Volk Han v Nikolai Zouev
How about this for a PRIME cut of the Fighting Network? Han comes out like a whirlwind at the start, throwing a flurry of palms and knees that didn't all land the cleanest, but when you throw about a dozen of them then you'd expect at least one to hit flush. Sure enough a knee caught Zouev and down he went. That set us up for the next few minutes, with Han taking a comfortable lead in points, forcing Zouev into using a few rope breaks after that early knockdown. It's been a hot minutes since I've watched any Zouev but he was looking very much like a Dallas Mavericks second round draft pick out of Slovenia. I'll tell you what though, he can hold his own with the master and some of the grappling was excellent. The overhead camera really gave us an awesome look at the way they shifted for position, grabbing one limb to create an opening for another, sometimes snatching two appendages at once. Zouev hitting a shoot style DDT was amazing and when he grabbed that cross armbreaker he had Han scrambling for the ropes. Even if Han was way out in front on points, there was always a sense that Zouev was capable of catching him and finish things. After Zouev uses up his last rope break he has no choice but to go for the throat and the ridiculous armbar at the end was a fitting way to cap off a fight between these two. This was pretty great.
Tsuyoshi Kohsaka v Yoshihisa Yamamoto
This was also pretty great. There have been better fights up to this point in RINGS history, but this one almost felt like a precursor of what would come in the next 2-3 years. You still had Han and a few of the other Eastern Europeans doing their thing right until the end (or at least until the promotion went full MMA in 2000), but what peak RINGS had that the earlier years didn't was that holy trinity of Tamura, Kohsaka and Yamamoto, all of whom were at THEIR peak. Even if Maeda was the centrepiece of the promotion before, he had half a working knee from basically the very beginning and missed stretches of time as a result. A lot of the earlier shows were loaded with random Bulgarians or Dutchmen who were way more interesting than the natives; bland guys like Nobuaki Kakuta and Masaaki Satake who couldn't really do much. Nagai was fine enough but he was nothing on UWFi Tamura never mind peak Tamura. Most of the best RINGS stuff of those years had foreign talent involved and this was a departure from that. Stylistically it was also very reminiscent of some of the top tier RINGS bouts, things like Tamura/Yamamoto, Tamura/Kohsaka, the later Yamamoto/Kohsaka fights, Han against all three. A less spectacular version of those fights, but a glimpse of that particular, wonderful future. Obviously the matwork was exceptional. Yamamoto was on one and raced out to an early lead, forcing Kohsaka into a few quick rope breaks. Then he'd unload with strikes and drilled Kohsaka with an overhand slap for a knockdown. It felt like Yamamoto had an answer for everything Kohsaka threw at him, like when Kohsaka ripped him to the mat with a gorgeous takedown, rolling into a calf slicer, only for Yamamoto to reverse even that. When Yamamoto is finally pushed into using a rope break, losing his first point of the fight, Kohsaka is visibly fired up and it feels like HE feels like the comeback is on. Can he pull something out the bag before the points gap kills him?
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