Hell yeah, man.
Some of you, maybe newer readers or those newer to this style or promotion, might see Norman Smiley there and think this is a pure novelty, like a lot of weird little brief runs or one-offs in shoot-style, but Norman actually really rules. UWF’s the best fit for Norman of anywhere he ever worked probably, not only in terms of him fully getting to stretch out in his ground game and not being forced into anything else, but he also gets to show a lot as a personality. He’s a bright eyed promising young guy in incredible shape, which makes for a wonderful contrast with the quieter, steadier, and far less visually impressive Kazuo Yamazaki.
As opposed to the more character history impacted narrative and big match dramatics of the major main events, this is something closer to pure sports, two guys with no history together at all, but very different approaches, simply fighting.
What works about this, or what makes it interesting, all comes down to somewhat opposing styles, and how not so secretly at all, the way that they make fights.
Yamazaki and Smiley have a lot of the same skills (Norm even throws a few kicks here in a little bit of a shocker), but the difference lies in their strengths, and how they try to apply them. It’s not all that dissimilar from the Yamazaki/Maeda match the month before, but Norman’s skillset allows them to lean even further into a classic Striker vs. Wrestler match in an interesting way.
The joy, as opposed to a lot of matches in other styles, comes now not from unpredictability, but from the knowledge of exactly what each man wants to do. Some two-thirds of this is on the ground, and the struggle is less over any one hold, and more between Yamazaki’s obvious approach — wanting to stand and bang — and Smiley’s, and whether or not Yamazaki’s patience pays off. You get some real fun wrinkles added into the mystery too, like Smiley getting frustrated with Yamazaki constantly aiming for the kicks and throwing his own genuine mother fucker of a stomach punch, one of the nastiest ever, or how he goes to some more pro-style holds after Yamazaki frustrates him on the mat.
Most of all, I love the ending.
Kazuo Yamazaki breaks through the wall to begin landing shots, and goes for a psuedo/proto ass sort of Anaconda Vice when Smiley drops, but it’s there where the match opts for realism over everything else. A normal pro style match might pay off the match-long story with either a Yamazaki KO win or a Smiley submission one, but the goal is realism, and to really get that across, they instead make a choice to have something unexpected break loose, because well, hell, sometime fights end like that. It’s perfect.
Smiley rolls out, only for Yamazaki to hang on into a reverse Fujiwara Armbar for a sudden submission victory.
It’s a great win for Yamazaki, not only a get-right game after his main event loss on the return show, but a win over a wrestler this time with a big hold of his own to show that he’s still dangerous on the ground and done in a way that further establishes the beautiful unpredictability of everything. Even in a match so clearly about one type of conflict, sometimes things just happen, and almost nothing they could do feels realer than that.
Not the greatest of all time, but a super fun little midcard scrap.
HANDWERK 