Akira Maeda vs. Dick Vrij, RINGS Astral Step 2nd ~ Aqua Heat (8/1/1991)

For the second time on this show, proof that not every match has to be the biggest and most sensational version of itself to be great.

Dick Vrij and Akira Maeda, very likely the two best wrestlers on these initial RINGS shows (give or take a Willie Peeters), have something more in them than a simpler match and, whether or not this is a good or bad thing, also likely longer than eight minutes. It is a relatively simple match, all about kicks and knees, and — although the shorter runtime helps make this a non-issue — there is not a whole lot of variance in those moments either.

This is one of those times though where these things don’t matter, because other parts of the thing make up the difference.

Maeda comes in with a heavily bandaged left knee, and although Vrij rarely goes to it — he does manage to catch it once or twice in moments that feel like pure misfortune for the boss more so than a plan, or even just good fortune for Vrij — it inhibits Maeda in such a way that it makes victory essentially impossible. Some of the best selling of his career, particularly in this sense, comes in this match, not in a flashy orr obvious way, but moving gingerly and then seeming to try and limit movement in a way that Maeda rarely does. Narratively speaking, it also creates a real crushing feedback loop as every attempt to find a quick way out through kicking and swinging for the fences just makes it worse. Once he can’t do it the first time, it’s a lost cause, and after that, Vrij never quite lets himself get trapped on the mat long enough to spoil a gift like this.

Vrij kicks the leg out for the penultimate down in the one time he seems to aim there on purpose, and sensing it, he attacks Maeda more directly than ever. No feinting or stepping back after every second or third shot, but cornering Maeda and hurling shots out faster than ever, until he goes down and our hero Dick Vrij gets a TKO upset. It’s a phenomenal finish, the knee both preventing Maeda from moving faster as well as arguably buckling under him when it might not have otherwise as well as costing him enough downs to get to get to that point to begin with, and the absolute perfect one for the match they had.

Combine this, the might of a simple and perfectly executed approach, with the qualities present in this match that were always going to be present between them. All the mean little slaps and nasty kicks, cool takedowns and blocks, a quietly stellar sense of escalation. There’s a whole lot to love, even if it is never a match that totally resembles a traditional RINGS main event as it’s often thought of.

RINGS so far has been about the action, and any match with Dick Vrij is going to deliver that, but it’s a little more of the other stuff too — which because it doesn’t often come like this between guys like this, especially with Maeda on the other end of it and especially in a package this tight, makes it stand out even more —  and as always, the combination of the two is always going to be worthwhile and the sort of wrestling I like the most.

Another for the “wrestling actually as a sport” file, where rather than just a more realistic style, it’s the idea what sometimes things just happen that communicates that the best, and that makes it the most rewarding.

***

Akira Maeda vs. Aleksandr Karelin, RINGS Final Capture (2/21/1999)

Commissions continue again, this one coming from Ko-fi contributor SSW Gogeta. You can be like them and pay me to write about all different types of stuff. People tend to choose wrestling matches, but very little is entirely off the table, so long as I haven’t written about it before (and please, come prepared with a date or show name or something if it isn’t obvious). You can commission a piece of writing of your choosing by heading on over to www.ko-fi.com/elhijodelsimon. The current rate is $5/match or thing or $10 for anything over an hour, and if you have some aim that cannot be figured out through simple multiplication or other processes, feel free to hit the DMs on Twitter or Ko-fi. 

This was Akira Maeda’s retirement match.

Maeda doesn’t just get any opponent for his finale. He gets very arguably the greatest amateur wrestler of all time, and someone who was voted as the single greatest Greco-Roman wrestler of the entire 20th century, on top of being a current Russian senator. Karelin — who many may simply know because of the popular suplex lift named after him most recognizably employed by Claudio Castagnoli aka Cesaro — is a three-time Olympic gold medalist, to keep it short. As that is not the province of this site though, he also had not lost a match since 1987 and would only ever lose again in the 2000 Olympics gold medal contest between he and Rulon Gardner, his final bout, with each call being somewhat controversial. On the other side of the margin, there are eight hundred and eighty seven victories. At the time this match happened, he had not yet been beaten in the Olympics.

Karelin’s reputation and pedigree is such that, in looking for a linked picture for this match and any further information, I discovered that over twenty years later, people are still finding out that this wasn’t real.

While not called a Different Style Fight, it is the greatest on-paper Different Style Fight ever organized.

There is no better send-off for Akira Maeda possible.

It is enough simply that the match is good.

For the ten minutes that this goes, it is never not interesting. Karelin, although very clearly never needing to, also could have easily been one of the best wrestlers ever had he stuck with it along the lines of a Volk Han. He is someone dipping a foot in the water with no intention of returning, but one can clearly see things that would have made him something special in this field too. The pure physicality is something to behold, of course, and the style plays on the motions he’s practiced and perfected, but there’s a presence and aura that comes with him too. We’re not exactly talking 2008 Floyd Mayweather in terms of other sport athletes who are perfect for pro wrestling, but when one watches this, the ease with which Karelin does everything makes it very very easy to suddenly get an overactive imagination.

The match is obviously not great, of course.

On top of being ten minutes, it is clearly one in which Karelin will only really do so much, and is very protected, but I think in moments, that also works to the match’s benefit — or at least to the benefit of the larger moment — as much as it stops it from being an obviously great Great Match.

Far more importantly than being great, the match just feels good.

In his final moments as a wrestler, Akira Maeda faces literally possibly the greatest amateur wrestler to ever live, one of the great athletes of the century period, and he goes the distance. Maeda never has him reeling or in real trouble, it feels like a miracle for him to land a few kicks let alone briefly grab a rear naked choke like he does, but way more importantly, he doesn’t lose. Akira Maeda faces down Aleksandr Karelin for exactly ten minutes, and it is the ultimate example (perhaps only topped by another 1999 RINGS match) of a draw that feels like a win.

Pro wrestling, at least on this occasion, may not be the very strongest, but if Maeda can go the distance with Karelin, it’s hard to say it isn’t as strong as anything else.

True to form, Akira Maeda goes out in the truest feeling way possible to who he spent his career as. Lasting the time limit in a legitimate seeming fight with one of the great real fighters ever, in a match genuine enough that it still manages to do that beautiful beautiful thing wrestling can do over two decades and counting later, which is making people wonder for even just a second if that was real or not.

When it’s all over, the greatest tribute yet to the career of Akira Maeda airs, in a beautiful tribute video set to the Sid Vicious cover of “My Way”.

One of the great retirements in professional wrestling history.

Akira Maeda vs. Nobuhiko Takada, UWF Move (9/13/1990)

The last one.

It is, by far, the shortest at ten minutes, and due to this and the lower key approach taken, what feels like the most forgotten Maeda vs. Takada match, even among people who like this match up and series way more than I do.

For sure, it isn’t great.

Primarily, that’s because of the length. This — and the August 1990 show before it — is one full of shorter matches in which the length inhibits the majority of them in one way or another (some wrestlers are not good enough to get something great out of ten minutes, but sometimes, the match is very clearly also one that’s more restrained). Maeda and Takada are not usually the wrestlers to find themselves in great sprints, especially in this promotion and especially against each other, and so this is not really a match with any real chance to be great. It’s a good match with some great moments, but one that also very clearly feels like the most restrained effort against each other.

Like the others though, there’s still something about it I like a lot.

Most of that, again, comes down to what the UWF has done with these two over the last two and a half years, narratively speaking. As a result of giving them the longest running (if not best) rivalry and story in the company, everything always has some foundation to it, giving them deeper reasons for doing things than any other match up has, save for the ones each man also had with Kazuo Yamazaki. Every match always feels like a reaction to the last one that they had, but as so many of them have built up, one cannot help but also notice longer-term trends, like how Takada tends to win when he can stay up and throw quicker strikes, whereas Maeda always succeeds on the ground, and when both men wrestle with some urgency in the pursuit of these things, there’s something to it.

Following up the meeting in June, both are more aggressive than usual as the respect from years past has broken down into something so competitive that there isn’t much room for it when the bell rings, but after losing to Maeda again, Takada is as aggressive as Maeda was then. The scraps feel more hostile than usual, the matwork is again much more hard fought than it was two years ago, and be it intention or just how they decided to wrestle this match, the two sides work together perfectly, hand in glove, to make this another interesting match, when it very easily could not have been.

In the end, Takada slips up again, now in a whole new way.

Following another big catch of a Maeda kick, he goes not for the half crab that failed in June, but the original ankle hold that beat Maeda in January. Maeda is Maeda because he adjusts though, and uses the dogged pursuit to pull him in bent over, before breaking out the rolling cross armbreaker for the win.

Not a great match, but an ultra satisfying accidental conclusion to the story. Even if — given the surprising death of the UWF before the end of the year — they never fight again, it’s the sort of match that achieves a lot, and does a lot for the status of both men. Maeda is still the master, and although (in narrative only, god knows) Takada has his own claims to being the best, there is still more to him and things still left to prove, sort of accidentally setting up the foundational elements of both RINGS and the UWFi.

This is not a blog that tells lies, so I won’t tell you this is more than it is, but at the very least, it’s more than I expected it to be.

Akira Maeda vs. Nobuhiko Takada, UWF Idea (6/21/1990)

This is, to date, I think my favorite match between the two.

Admittedly, yes, once again, part of that is the thrill of them in a match that isn’t half an hour. That isn’t to say matches in this style cannot be long, the best UWF reborn match ever is close to half an hour, but Maeda and Takada — either due to being too similar as a whole or just both being drier in quieter moments — are best off around twenty minutes, and this serves them incredibly well.

Way more important is how this match is wrestled.

More than any other Maeda/Takada match to this point, this feels like a fight.

For the people who wanted more of their prior matches to happen standing up, this is the match for you. Beyond just that you get more striking, it’s some of their best. It’s aggressive and urgent in a way that both — especially not always Takada — have been in this second UWF for all that they bring before and after this. It’s fast and often feels desperate, and that feeling often translates to the ground game as well. Even in those quieter moments referenced above, there’s a struggle — sometimes purely mechanical, explored through movement and positioning, and sometimes expressed through facial expressions — that makes them interesting in a way that they aren’t always.

There’s also so much more of that other stuff.

Coming off their last match, in which Maeda made a big mistake, Takada got a little lucky when he overreached to try and correct the mistake, and in which Takada seemed to finally take the step the heir apparent had been arguably overdue for, Maeda is as aggressive and borderline desperate as described as above for a reason. He’s been great at getting mad in moments before, but never quite as prolonged a way as this, and it also spurns Takada on too. There’s a real indignance to everything he does in response too, not only in what feels like a defense of his position, but a response to both Maeda and the crowd supporting him that feels very much like Takada thinking this is his now, and getting just as mad at either being asked to really defend it like this and/or in response to Maeda getting mad for the first time with him like this now that they’re something close to equals. It does so much for this match, not just the feeling both men put into it, but the job the UWF’s done in the last two plus years of building to a match like this.

Likewise, there’s a few moments here that also land so so so so much better with context, especially that of their last match against each other.

When exploding with a flurry of slaps and an upward kick to a bent over Maeda, Takada again gets him hard in the face and Maeda backs off holding his eye. Takada again catches him in a big leg hold after that, but it doesn’t work this time. Chalk it up to not being as panicked as in January or the eye not being as hurt or simply a half crab not being as bad as a heel hold, but it doesn’t work the same.

Takada misses his chance, and in a moment of his own panic to avoid the Capture Suplex when caught, he willingly drops down, only for Maeda to be better prepared in that moment. Maeda drops into his own heel hook, and this time, Takada taps out.

If you ever wanted these two with a little more intensity, love when the old guy gets back at the next-in-line who arguably already took his crown, or simply enjoy either the success of Akira Maeda and/or the failure of Nobuhiko Takada, this one is for you. The feeling and aggression of great pro wrestling combined with wonderful narrative work and, yet again, the fulfillment of the promise of the UWF, finding more realistic rhythms to influence fights that tick off all of the boxes above.

Beautiful stuff, and if not the all-around best the UWF can offer, an example of how these sorts of thing can elevate an imperfect match and how this sort of a thing ought to work in the first place.

***1/4

Akira Maeda vs. Nobuhiko Takada, UWF With ‘90 1st (1/16/1990)

In which Nobuhiko Takada finally comes of age.

While it all sort of bores me at this point, it’s hard not to admire the clarity and the simple vision of it all, on top of the super interesting way that they want about it. The first show of a new decade, main evented by the heir apparent taking his biggest leap forward yet. Takada still isn’t my favorite, so this passing of the torch and everything around it is more in the camp of something I admire more than something I feel or even love, but being admirable isn’t so bad, as far as second place prizes go.

More importantly, for the first time, Maeda and Takada follow a great match in their last outing with a great match in the one right after.

In general, it feels like they finally nailed down how this is supposed to work.

Having learned from past successes rather than repeat the mistakes that helped their less stellar efforts, this only goes twenty three minutes, still a little over their golden zone of closer to a hard twenty, but also much better than anything closer to thirty. It cuts out most of the space that otherwise might go to filler holds, allowing for less downtime and more time spent on the mat in moments that actually show off all of the gross things Maeda can do and the struggle of Takada against them, which then has the effect of making the bigger moments standing up feel more important.

The entire match also kind of just feels important in a way the others hadn’t.

Nobuhiko Takada’s first win over Maeda is still, I think, their best match, but this is the closest since, and so much of that has to do with the feeling, more than anything quite so quantifiable.

Maeda and Takada feel like real equals here for the first time ever, whether it’s just because of growth or because Maeda works less from a position of strength here or simply because the Fujiwara matches of each man kind of put them on an equal playing field against a similar opponent the way the Yamazaki matches never tried to, and it makes such a specific difference. The way Maeda plays it on an individual level — more frantic and a little more desperate — helps that feeling a lot, since Takada doesn’t shift a whole lot in terms of behavior or performance, but it’s also assembled pretty brilliantly considering that goal, with major moments at the beginning and end that add so much to the proceedings.

First, Maeda kind of tries to rush in (the kind of brilliant thing that, as with the goal of this stuff emulating real sports, can be read in a few ways as either feeling more under pressure given Takada’s growth or simply wanting to get this done quick after decisively winning the last two times), but gets dropped with a kick to the face in under a minute, and never ever totally recovers the advantage.

It’s small, but it informs the entire rest of the match, both as this reason for the more even playing field with Maeda thrown off, arguably both mentally and physically, but also as this super interesting explanation for why never tries it again, even when he gets his lick back a few minutes later. It would be wrong to call it a fear, but Maeda works with a greater respect for Takada than in any of their previous matches. It’s a crucial and necessary shift, as given that Takada simply is Takada, this doesn’t land half as well without (a) the reason behind it, whichever you prefer & (b) the change within Maeda, allowing this to feel closer to a passing of the torch than anything attempted with Takada either in this series, or the reborn UWF at large.

The second part I love, the thing at the end, is less to this purpose, and more towards still giving Maeda something of an out, but it’s done in such a novel way that I still really really like it, and because of how Maeda’s acted all match and how the match had gone, it still doesn’t undercut the value of the major win too much.

When trading shots, Takada slips through with palms, but an errant thumb or finger gets Akira Maeda in the eye, and he goes down holding it.

Maeda recovers, but like the down to start the match, is never totally the same. Despite being completely conscious, he takes until really almost the ten count to get up again, and never gets another major hit in or hold on. You can fairly argue the kick he throws that Takada catches into an ankle hold is the result of a loss of vision, it’s not the style of the UWF to make these things super super obvious (again, this is a positive, I absolutely love that), but I see Point A and Point B so close together while I have a marker in my hand, and lines are going to be drawn.

The beautiful thing is that, arguably, it only expedites what feels like already began within the first minute.

Absolutely, Maeda seems to lose because of some loss of depth of vision or whatever, but it really only seems to explain when he loses when he loses.  He fought off all match, never felt in control in the way that he so often does, and kind of just felt like he was trying to keep Takada back in the hopes of a big grab or big shot landing, only for that to never really happen in a way that changed everything. Maeda has a genuine gripe, but I love love love that there’s this whole other side to the argument, using the rest of the match — along with the finish — not to say it didn’t matter, but that he would have likely lost anyways, and that it doesn’t take much away from Takada’s major moment at all.

Half blind or not, the match still ends with Akira Maeda tapping out to that hold. Not losing by a points decision banana peel or a weird referee call, but for the first time in the UWF, losing in the clearest way possible.

They’re not done together, you can argue about the torch forever, but the moment worked, in a larger sense, as well as again hitting that UWF psuedo real sports sweet spot, allowing fans to do what they really want to do most of all, feeling aggrieved and getting to engage forever in an argument with no clear right or wrong answer.

Remarkable stuff, elevating a regular strength great match.

***+

 

Akira Maeda vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara, UWF Midsummer Creation ~ The Professional Bout Yokohama ~ (8/13/1989)

For the first time in a long time — thanks to spending time over the last four show from May until now building up Fujiwara not only as a top level guy, but as both cruel and a total killer — Maeda feels like he has an equal challenger in an important match.

It’s a shame that, familiar result for Maeda at this time or not, the match isn’t quite as interesting as the premise.

What happens is a kind of classic Maeda thing, where you have these explosions, but then also a fairly dull middle, and where the feeling is lost somewhere in all of that. That isn’t to say this is boring or even that it isn’t great, but that yet again, there seems to be far more meat on the bones than this match bothers to carve off.

Still, in terms of what they do lob off, I like it a whole lot.

Fujiwara immediately shows how important it is by throwing headbutts off of the very first break, a continuation from his last match before this in which headbutts thrown at that velocity and with that sort of fervor were a signal that Fujiwara was finally taking the match as seriously as possible. He spends the match, as he does, pestering and poking and prodding at the Ace, annoying and baffling him in equal measure. Takada’s early head kicks show that there’s an angry response, and although there is for sure a lull in the middle, which I don’t love at an eighteen minute runtime that ought to stop this in the way it has before with shorter Maeda main events, they also never lose that sense of chippiness and anger. The ending is especially good, in a petty revenge sort of a way, as Maeda gives up trying to make any sort of statement with a win and just kicks Fujiwara repeatedly in the stomach and ribs in the corner to drain him of down, and on the third time doing it, Fujiwara loses by a TKO on downs, getting Maeda so worked up that he’s happy to ratfuck his way to a win rather than to get after it like he might against Takada or Yamazaki.

I love all of that, and it’s just enough for me to still say this is great.

Maeda gets a weird win, but a weird win is still an interesting win, and I would prefer that over any random ankle hold or cross armbreaker in the world.

It’s not on the level of their February 1986 match in New Japan exactly, but against an even half decent opponent, Fujiwara doesn’t steer you wrong, and Maeda is a whole lot better than half-decent.

***

Akira Maeda vs. Nobuhiko Takada, UWF Fighting Square Nagoya (6/14/1989)

Maeda and Takada follow up January’s decidedly not great match with another hit.

Is it because, for once, this is only some twenty minutes rather than twenty-five, twenty-eight, or twenty-nine, allowing them to ditch a lot of the holds/moments in their first three matches (even the November ’88 match that’s even better than this) that felt like obvious time filler, be it through repetition or plain old lying around in holds, and cutting to the best stuff?

Possibly.

Is it something much dumber, like that Akira Maeda and Nobuhiko Takada, for all of their skills and talents, are doomed to trade off between good and great matches every time they wrestle, never stringing together two great or two Not Great matches, making it impossible to come to a true conclusion about them together as a match up?

Could be.

Weird stuff happens.

However it comes about, this is another great match between them.

In no small part, that’s due to a great small shift in the narrative where, opening handshake aside, the veneer of sportsmanship and respect has largely gone away, or at least transitioned into the sort of fierce competition you often get in real sports when a former little buddy starts pushing up a little too close on the top spot, a lot like Magic and Isiah in the NBA around this point in time (this is a little too mean to Maeda and way too nice to Takada).

Nobuhiko Takada leaps into the striking immediately, with the last match’s idea of him wanting the KO win to prove November wasn’t a fluke (it was) now having what feels like a more widespread anger over everything, likely now spurned on by another loss to Yamazaki a month earlier. Takada still goes for the KO against Maeda more than he does against anyone else, but it’s morphed into something uglier in a far more interesting way, bringing out a meaner side to Maeda too. The big man morphs from reacting to the first knockdown with a look of “ah, you got me with that one” and a little smile to breaking out one of the nastiest holds he’s ever put on by the end, and I love that transition.

The match, on a more minute level, is also just full of cool stuff.

Maeda and Takada obviously land a million great kicks and a hundred awesome body shots and slaps, but on top of having less waste on the ground, they also get more intricate and advanced than before. There’s one small little moment where, when trying to block a cross armbreaker attempt from Maeda with his free arm held back, Takada brings his legs up and grips his hand in the hold between his knees and uses that grip to escape. It’s the most interesting thing I’ve ever seen from Takada, and while this match lacks the hard drama of the November match or kind of just offers an alternate take on the narrative of their match from January, thing like that make a difference.

To that end, the finish is an absolute mother fucker.

After again trading some holds when the knock out attempts don’t bear any fruit, Maeda suddenly levels up a leglock with the nastiest looking heel hook or toe hold or simple ankle wrench that I’ve ever seen in my life for the submission.

For what this lacks, the slight narrative retread or feel of riffing it out more than any other match between them yet or how those old weaknesses can still be found in some moments, it’s a genuinely gruesome finish that I don’t imagine I’ll be forgetting any time soon. Combine it with the virtues that this does have, and the result is a very very easy match to like.

It’s not their best, but it is great, and not every Maeda/Takada match can say that.

***

Akira Maeda vs. Kazuo Yamazaki, UWF May History 2nd (5/21/1989)

A month after being fucked out of a match against Maeda in his best effort yet as a result of blood stoppage, despite having Maeda down in a hold at the time at which the referee called for the match to end, Yamazaki gets his rematch, also coming off an even more emphatic win over Takada than before.

The result is arguably the best UWF match yet.

Yamazaki and Maeda only have fourteen minutes together — really thirteen and a half — this time, but they pack more into that than any Maeda match in the UWF yet, and more than any Yamazaki match save for the other contender for the best UWF match yet.

Part of that is, again, raw mechanics. Maeda does better against Yamazaki than any other UWF opponent to date (weird how this keeps happening?) in terms of every moment having value but also having real force and effort put into it, every strike exchange and/or flurry feels huge, and they mine a ton of drama from a match that, in terms of simply what happens, goes shorter and does less than many other reborn UWF main events.

Again though, the other part is that, secretly, the second iteration of the UWF is home to some of the best in-match and longer-term (relatively speaking, of course, this isn’t like Kawada in the 90s) narrative work, and this match is one of the larger beneficiaries yet.

There’s no real special approach here. Unlike the Yamazaki/Takada series. the approaches do not always follow each other perfectly, or at least not as perfectly. As this is not a back and forth series, so much as Yamazaki trying a lot of stuff and Maeda learning in different ways to take him more seriously and Kazuo also adjusting to that, it is almost never going to give you the big payoff. In another world, where Maeda never splits off, it might have, but that isn’t the one we live in, so what we have with these two is a remarkable series of an underdog against a top guy, with a ton of different variations. This time, they’re closer than ever, and tenser than ever as a result. Yamazaki has the self-belief by now not to need to call Maeda out like he did on the first UWF show and Maeda has the respect after last time, when Yamazaki was dead even with him until a shaky call.

What works so well about this is simply the feeling.

I won’t say it feels more important than the Maeda/Takada matches, as a clash between the king and heir apparent always has something to it, but with how Yamazaki has been treated in comparison to Takada recently, along with the last Maeda/Yamazaki match, the position of Maeda feels in peril in a way it never really has in the UWF before, between recent history, but also because of the tentative way Maeda acts, Yamazaki at this point feels like the realest threat to the unofficial crown that Akira Maeda has had yet in the UWF.

To their credit, the match also constantly works to that.

Obviously, yes, one notes the hesitation that Maeda simply does not have for anyone else, but the match is also full of little things that other people do not get. For the first time, not only does Maeda kind of get stuffed going for something early when not only are his kicks all avoided as well as his takedown attempts blocked, but it’s specifically Yamazaki who stuffs him. That’s the theme throughout the match. Nobody is shouting it at you, it is on you to watch the run of the promotion and get why this stuff matters (alternately you can read me explaining it, but I always thought of these as guides alongside the matches), but the transition over twelve months from the Yamazaki who spent their first match demanding Maeda’s full attention and respect to the guy who got it and got run over in a rematch to someone who’s maybe looked like the actual heir apparent given Takada’s troubles to now this is so rewarding, and at every moment, this match is just as rewarding. 

Yamazaki spends something like 75% of this match just fucking HAVING HIM.

It is such a delight.

That is not to say Maeda is ever close to eaten up. When the strikes begin to fly, Maeda gets as good as he gives. The match seems to suggest — in a great example of how to handle the Ace in a thing like this — that while Yamazaki is faster and specializes more in kicks, Maeda has greater power and doesn’t need the same pinpoint accuracy to get the same results, and it’s a great and super interesting way of evening the thing out. Doubly so in the closing moments of the match, as Yamazaki does what he wasn’t able to do in the fall of 1988 and pushes past the onslaught to drop Takada in a more emphatic way than ever.

Another great development has to do with the downs/rope breaks system of the UWF in a way these two never got to before, with Yamazaki pushing Takada to the point of only having one left, in the sort of familiar setting than let Takada beat him in what in retrospect feels like an absolute fluke. Like his match earlier in May against Takada, Yamazaki came by it honestly rather than how Takada has repeatedly seemed like he was trying to game the system, but because of a familiar situation, Maeda feels panicked in a way that anyone watching this stuff in order can immediately understand, and that also makes sense on a no context level (not that wrestling ever ought to be consumed like that).

Tragically, and also wonderfully, the only reason Yamazaki doesn’t win here is because Maeda was already embarrassed like this once, and has a proper fear of a loss like this.

Maeda does what he expressly never did against Kazuo Yamazaki before, kicking the plant leg out cruelly after catching a kick in the exact sort of undignified move he’s avoided in the UWF until now, and when Yamazaki gets out of a German Suplex into an armbar, Maeda goes into the deepest Triangle Choke of his life, and chokes out Yamazaki for the win.

Yamazaki loses, but for someone in his spot, who feels like he was never supposed to even get to the point where Maeda beating him was a question — let alone beating him like he has the last two times now — it feels real real close to a win at the same time. It’s the first choke out in the UWF, the classical babyface act of not giving up and alternately making Akira Maeda of all people desperate enough to go there, the combination of the two being the sort of thing that only further bolsters one of professional wrestling’s all-time great working class heroes.

Taken as a whole, the match itself is one of the great UWF achievements. Something that probably rules watched entirely on its own, but like so many great games or fights in real sports, is enhanced by recent history, with the sort of rich text that gives almost everything another layer or twenty. The exact sort of thing one might conjure up in their heads when presented with the concept of the most realistic sort of wrestling, except now with the ability to control what happens and when. Along with that first Takada/Yamazaki match under this umbrella, the sort of match that justifies just about the entire enterprise.

One of the best matches in the careers of two of the better wrestlers of all time.

***1/2

Akira Maeda vs. Kazuo Yamazaki, UWF Core the 1st Anniversary (4/14/1989)

Yet another match between two of the early UWF’s Big Three that is both real interesting and also not all it can be, but for once, the latter isn’t really anybody’s fault.

For the twelve minutes that this lasts without incident, it is great.

Obviously, yes, the clear two best wrestlers in the company are once again tremendous against each other. In a way that only their first match, the first Yamazaki/Takada, and the second Maeda/Takada match have, every single motion in this match feels important, even if this never quite reaches the same level of quality. Going on pure mechanics, speaking of the construction of the thing, every feint or dodge is handled perfectly, and the explosions are also all built to very well, to say nothing of the execution. Maeda and Yamazaki are both so good at always feeling like they’re thinking out there, in a way where you can naturally understand why not only everything happens like it does, but also why they react in all of the ways they do.

That, of course, is helped in no small part by just how rich the text of the last year is.

As the third match between the two, they have material to cite, but also it feels like there’s more than that. Maeda soundly handled Yamazaki last time with a real furious performance that you really only get from teams or fighters at the top in a rematch where someone got people to notice them by coming closer than possible, but he’s more tentative than ever here. You can read that in a few ways, something still left over from the banana peel loss to Takada, but also a clear reaction to Yamazaki’s growth in the last eleven months. Likewise, Yamazaki never presses in the way he did in either previous match. He kicks his heart out when it comes, but the urgency to prove something or really challenge Maeda feels replaced by a confidence that even Takada didn’t really have against him. The two approaches have a way of bouncing off of each other and making the other make more and more sense as the match goes on too.

For what feels like the first time in the UWF, Maeda never at any point really feels like he has somebody, and although Yamazaki never quite has him either, it does leave an impression, especially when the match gets serious.

Each unloads with a series of headkicks in something of a challenge and response to a stalemate, but when Yamazaki hits a series of headbutts and one real nasty one, he cuts himself open pretty bad (sadly in a way never perfectly caught on camera), and after kicking out of a German Suplex into a reverse armbar, the referee breaks it up because of all the blood he’s losing and stops the match.

Despite wrestling the king closer than ever and having him in a hold at the time the match ended, by referee stoppage, Kazuo Yamazaki loses.

Relative to this sort of thing — a match being called off before what feels like even coming close to its natural conclusion — this feels like something close to a best case scenario. It ends at the exact point where it becomes truly interesting, and also at the point where an upset seems more possible than ever, allowing something that objectively casts a shadow over the match into something that, although it’s still a bummer, serves as a remarkable hype piece for a rematch. Yamazaki might lose on paper, but it’s a loss that feels like anything but, which is arguably maybe more than the match might have offered him otherwise.

In spite of the major flaw and all that it isn’t, I loved this, and it feels like the first half or the first two-thirds of one of the great UWF matches ever. Maybe even just, like, the first twelve minutes of a really great fourteen or fifteen. Everything worked, the performances were terrific, and the ideas they worked with were super interesting. It’s just that we never really got to see where it was going, and as opposed to a match that just so happens to be short, this is just something that never rightly got to finish.

The result is something that feels wrong to totally judge, that is impossible to put any sort of rating on, but that I liked a whole lot.

Luckily, the UWF will get just a little less squeamish before the summer is over.

theoretical ***+

 

Akira Maeda vs. Nobuhiko Takada, UWF Dynamism (1/10/1989)

On paper, it’s a beautiful thing.

Following Takada’s breakthrough against Akira Maeda two months prior in an incredibly shaky finish and then an even shakier one a month later against Bob Backlund, both Takada and Maeda have a rubber match, beginning the reborn UWF’s second calendar year of existence by attempting to make clear just where everything and everyone is supposed to be.

Clear and easy and correct, classical pro wrestling stuff.

The same carries over to the match, for the most part.

After a match like they had last time, there’s a clear approach that differentiates this from virtually every other major UWF match to date. So often in the UWF, it comes down to style or ideology or strategy, however you’d like to frame it. Someone wins because they’re better at [x], or because they can shift the match into one that favors their strengths. This is different though, as for the first time in the reborn UWF, it is less about a competitive decision made with a clear mind, about what is the best way to win an athletic contest is, and is more about someone as a human being wanting to win in one exact way.

Given the recent questionable wins, Nobuhiko Takada spends the majority of this match trying for the emphatic knock out win, not only to show that he really could have done it in November no matter what, but also because it’s a sort of inarguable statement.

He goes on the mat when the chance is there, of course, but it feels very much in the same vein as a shooter not being able to turn down a wide open lane, something that’s happening because a competitor sees the chance. From the opening bell, Takada is much more willing to throw shots at these points in the match than usual, and while Maeda also has a greater sense of urgency in an attempt to get his win back, Takada is constantly pulling him off the ground to try and win in this one specific way. It’s a great idea, and even more so that it’s very much his undoing in the end. He insists on things his way, while Maeda is far more open at all times to taking what is presented, and wins with a counter into a deep crab hold because of it.

Just written down, all of that sounds pretty cool. I almost wrote myself into thinking this actually was a great match after all, rather than one just on the other side of the border.

Unfortunately, in this case anyways, wrestling does not happen on paper and for all of the interesting ideas that this match employs, in execution, is much closer to their first match than it is their second.

This falls short in the way that a nearly twenty-nine minute match between them, without the dramatic flourishes and perfect escalation of their second match, was always going to. The extra time does them no benefit. You again get your classical hold repetition and a lot of lying in stuff without a lot of tension in those moments, probably just as much as you get of genuinely mean and awesome mat struggle. Beyond that, it’s also just kind of paced weird, slowing down big time in the second half, and often feeling like they’re waiting around for something. The parts of the match that really catch my attention all come in the first half, and while I think I get the approach, the back half simply does not compare. Add onto that the way the finish feels both abrupt and a little lacking, especially compared to that of their previous match together, and it doesn’t feel like even a lukewarm take to call this something of a disappointment.

Still, I liked it well enough. The ideas — along with the first half when they really get the chance to shine and things feel genuinely tense — give this something that pretty much no other half-hour or near half-hour UWF match to date has going for it, and it felt worth writing about because of that, even if I would only advise seeing it if you’re also a genuinely unwell completionist freak.

Even in the least of their three here to date, there’s enough here to make for an interesting watch.