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.
HANDWERK 