RINGS Mega Battle Tournament '95 1st Round 10/21/1995

RINGS Mega Battle Tournament '95 1st Round 10/21/1995

I did a podcast on this show here:

Mitsuya Nagai vs. Gogitidze Bakouri

Bakouri hits Karelin's Lift!

The finish

Nagai got the win here with some type of straight knee bar as you can see above. Good match here. Bakouri threw Nagai all around and was really aggressive. He looked like a beast at times, then his nose got busted open. He went to his corner three times to stop it and it made him and the match look bad because of it. A shame too for what was a good performance. Nagai got very little in here and took some pretty hard stomach shots before getting the win.

 Mikhail Ilioukhine vs. Nikolai Zouev

Nice block!

Cool kneebar!

The finish

The finish

Mikhail Ilioukhine got the win with a version of the Buffalo Sleeper in a great match. This had some awesome chain and technical wrestling in it and these two stretched each other apart.  Mikhail hit a  sharpshooter at one point and a version of Milano Collection AT's AT Lock.  Zouev was no slouch either and was very Volk Han like here. I also loved Zouev blocking an over the shoulder toss simply by falling back. Very good stuff here and I really was interested in this. Rating: ***3/4

Yoshihisa Yamamoto vs. Bitsadze Ameran

Yamamoto got the win with a choke. His opponent was pretty much clueless and looked really uncomfortable on the ground. I loved how he would pull him by his belt and basically do whatever he wanted from him. This was all Yamamoto and not a great match.

 Hans Nyman vs. Ramazi Buzariashvili

The finish

Hans Nyman won by KO after a large combination of shots. This wasn't very good because Nyman isn't very good. He only does strikes and if he's not being carried, he'll just kick and hit until KO. His opponent brought absolutely nothing to the table and looked scared to be in there.

 Andrei Kopylov vs. Grom Zaza

The finish

Andrei Kopylov beat Grom Zaza with a rolling leg and arm hold. Really nasty finish that definitely hurt. This was a good match but it went a little bit long. Kopylov got slapped silly and I think his eye started to swell. He also looked legit tired from the whopping. Kopylov busted out some really cool submissions and Grom just stuck to striking. Rating:***1/2

Volk Han vs. Pieter Oele

Volk Han got the win here in 4:14 with an armbar. Oele wasn't bad. He was aggressive and had some nice kicks, but aside from the guillotine choke, he had nothing going on ground wise. Volk finally got him grounded and it was over in no time.

Bitsadze Tariel vs. Dimitri Petkov

The finish

Tariel got the win here with a spin kick to the stomach that may have also hit the groin. Really fun match here. Petkov was a bear of man hitting suplexes and using his size and power all over Tariel. I loved his big fireman carry slam and he sells pretty good. Loved his head and arm lock too. Would love to see more of this guy. Fun stuff. Rating:***

Akira Maeda vs. Dick Vrij

The finish

Akira Maeda beat Dick Vrij quick with a leglock. It was under 5 minutes and they kept it action packed, so it worked, but a 5 minute main is a bit disappointing. I'm not really a fan of the RINGS strikers like Vrij, because they can't really hit that hard and most of the RINGS crew can't sell, so it doesn't work. This was better than expected.

Overall thoughts: This was a pretty good show. There were some really good matches like Zouev/ Ilioukhine, Petkov/Tariel and Kopilov/Zaza that made the show. Nothing was terrible. They also kept things moving with most of the matches being under 7 minutes, which really helped things out when you have some workers who don't really get wrestling. I think this would be a good introduction to RINGS and since it's on youtube, you can check it out if you'd like. Zouev/Ili was definitely the match of the night and Zaza/Kopilov would be close behind.