UWF 13/08/1990 - CREATE (28/31)

UWF Create
Yokohama Arena, Yokohama
13th August 1990
att. 17000

We lurch forward in time some four months and five shows to look in on a UWF in its death throes. What appears to be rude health, an array of diverse talents and stars wrestling in a pleasing way, and full houses (SUPER NO VACANCY FULL HOUSE no less) are in fact the beginnings of the factionalisation that leads to the creation of three brand new companies.

(Mon)

While the previous two reviews - Force Korakuen 2 Days and Road - detailed UWF at its most basic and austerely-presented, Create is one of those opulent summer spectaculars where the lights dazzle, lasers fire, graphics are updated, and it all just feels like wrestling does Last Night of the Proms only with less jingoism and better music.

one of many great unheralded Dischord acts

Instead of cool t-shirts for the event we see a number of wrestlers wearing shorts for the company INTERMEDIA POSTORDER which I guess is a cool pairing of words in a vaguely post-punkish way but is not the heights of glory attained by normal UWF attire.

The keyword and pre-parade sequence from the opening montage is OPULENCE: fast cars, gold rims, complicated lighting, booming warm chillwave synth. The lights start to flash more and the warm synth gives way to a complex mismash of guitar widdling, synth stabs, and drones in a way that I'd say perfectly embodies the Japanese wrestling entrance aesthetic. There's a parade and it's brilliant and long. The entrance way looks like someone has erected a blanket in a breeze and stuck a light that randomly changes colours beneath it, causing the fighters to change colour as they enter. Watch:

Make no mistake, this is high level stuff.

The advertised portion of the evening commences with two debutants: Yusuke Fuke (known to 90s MMA diehards as Takaku Fuke) and Masahito Kakihara. The two opponents would take different paths in the fragmented world of ring sports in the 1990s following the imminent collapse of UWF under so much ego-weight; Fuke would follow his trainer Yoshiaki Fujiwara into PWFG and then pursue the path of real fighting in Pancrase (racking up 3 defeats against Bas Rutten and 3 more against the Brothers Shamrock in a total record of 16-29 with 5 draws).

Kakihara followed his mentor Takada into UWF-i but refused to parlay this worked-shoot aura into a real fighting career (Kakihara lifetime MMA: 1-0, win vs. Rocky Romero) in Takada's PRIDE promotion. Kakihara fought for Takada's side project KINGDOM for the year it existed before making the leap to All Japan Pro Wrestling. Kakihara appears on the second night of the grand Pro Wrestling NOAH launch in 2000 (in brief: when 24 of 28 All Japan wrestlers seceded to form their own company) and then returns to All Japan immediately afterward. How strange.

Both men would come together again in the heady days of Inokism New Japan (which probably explains why Kakihara fights Rocky Romero) before again going their separate ways; Fuke fully embracing comedy in Osaka Pro and Kakihara sadly embracing tragedy with lymphatic cancer (which he has beaten).

What do we learn of Kakihara and Fuke here and now in the 15-minute draw that marks their first public performance of wrestlecraft? They're both similarly adept, intense, and earnest in going forward and taking the fight to their opponent. Fuke prefers to grapple and Kakihara throws strikes like he's trying to hit through a wall. But this is not to say that either man is bad at the other thing, and indeed Kakihara nearly chokes Fuke out at one point, while the best flurry sees Fuke nearly destroy Kakihara.

As it's a 15-minute draw, essentially an exhibition, the story here is "we're both new here, please enjoy our exuberance and general array of skills" and as such its intensity is not enough to make it stretch beyond what it is - a good match - to anything more. But a very promising start for both.

UWF are persevering with kenpoist Bart Vale and to that decision I warmly applaud. History has judged Vale unfairly, as has the caption-writer for his entrance:

in a decision between laughing and not, I will choose to

Vale even wears those bicep bands that Ultimate Warrior favoured, with American stars on them. In embodying the visual of the Ugly American (who can beat your ass) it is only right for the structures of pro-wrestling that UWF book his opposite, the handsome local warrior Tatsuo Nakano.

For the early portion of this Vale, taller by a long way, keeps Nakano at range with hard lunging kicks that Nakano keeps failing to catch. Eventually this drive Nakano mad, driving Vale to the floor and just headbutting him mercilessly as the crowd scream blue murder.

Vale, who sometimes appears a bit powder-puff in his striking despite his enormity and martial arts prowess, isn't messing around tonight. His kicks all register, flying in from sharp angles to sensitive areas. Nakano can't go strike for strike like he wants to, so his only game is to crash into Vale and try and outwork him. 

Eventually Nakano does get some play:

There's a bizarre spot where Nakano tries to dragon screw Vale, whose counter is to do a leaping kick to thin air and land on his seat. Novel.

This is actually a pretty great little match. Nakano only knows intensity and Vale matches it. Both come out at the end looking like they've been in a real battle of attrition. Some will say the ending is a little pro-wrestling, but I'll leave you to decide:

I think I like it! He follows that in with a neat rear choke and that's your lot, Bart Vale wins!

While I provided you with a career biography for debutants Fuke and Kakihara, I can do no such thing for Bart Kopps Jr.. Pop his name into a reputable search engine and all that comes up are references to this match in UWF and nothing else at all. No history and no future. An avatar, created for the express purpose of representing a psychic canvas onto which one can project "western wrestling power."

Or could it be that it's written on all of these tape trading websites as Bart Kopps Jr. when his real name is...

tape traders of the world, unite nomenclature

...which Google is much easier on. Enjoy this bad translation of Kops Jr's history:

Bert Kops one of the founders of wrestling sport in the Netherlands

For decades Bert Kops was in the wrestling arenas and with around the 3o titles he is one of the greatest wrestlers in the Netherlands.  

In the past he trained with Anton Geesink, Chris Dolman, Jan van de Paverd, John Bluming and Wim Ruska. All big names and pioneers of martial arts in the Netherlands.

Today Bert Kops trains champions and aspirants who want to become big in MMA. Like MMA fighter Gegard Mousasi the world famous MMA fighter who recently switched from the UFC to Bellator. But also trains fighters for the World Police and Fireman games, where fire fighters and police officers from all over the world face each other. Inspirator and example.

And unlike people like Bart Vale and Johnny Barrett and Wellington Wilkins Jr., Kops is low-key around in this world to this day. He even looks pretty good, here with Gegard Mousasi and pals:

 

Armed with the correct spelling I can also now see that he was a solid hand in the early running of RINGS. TK Scissors appraises him (yes digressions are infinite, in a way every sentence is a digression from that first most profound sentence) thus:

As is Kops, who hits the biggest yet of the several ura-nages which have thus far been visited upon us! My goodness, the arching! Then Peeters hits him way too hard again! But another ura-nage from Kops! These are ura-nage nearly worthy of Galbadrakh Otgontsetseg herself, great Mongolian-turned-Kazakh of the women's 48kg division of international judo, bronze medalist at the Rio games of the XXXI Olympiad (enjoy several of her ura nage, and the ura nage of others as well, here). Oh man he did it again! This time with Peeters all sprawling forward and trying to get away! But in between these instances, it is important to note that Peeters is hitting Kops super hard, such that he has already been knocked down twice. 

Kops Jr's opponent: Minoru Suzuki. We know of him already.

he rushed out and ruined his caption

Kops/Kopps (I will go with Kops) has the wrestling chops down as one might expect from someone who went to the 1972 Olympics (but refused to compete after the attack on the Israeli athletes) but what I am immediately responding to is steely competitive manner etched in his gaze. He's inscrutable in that way one must be inscrutable in wrestling (scrutable).

Suzuki is using the full range of the allowed attacks of the ruleset while Kops is remaining pure to his martial art, looking to secure Suzuki's upper half and shift hips to transfer weight from the vertical to horizontal. And yeah he is just doing good in there, throwing Suzuki nicely in a way that registers to the waza purists and the fans who just like to see a good old-fashioned hurling.

Suzuki slaps Kops' nose to the point of bleeding but still the Dutchman remains pure of heart and wrestling, save for a moment where he is riding Suzuki in a submission where a few open hands might pick the lock. Suzuki goes on the defensive but Kops gets to demonstrate his ability in overturning prone opponents, gutwrenching Suzuki back into a more favourable position.

But as I said, Kops is just good at the selling part of this too:

The ending comes more-or-less out of nowhere. After Kops escapes the above crab, he suplexes Suzuki over and armbars him. Suzuki over-rotates for the rope and makes his predicament worse, tapping immediately and punching the canvas in frustration at his mistake. Fun stuff! That's the last we'll see of Kops Jr. here. Enjoy your oversized trophy.

1990 is a strange year for Akira Maeda. He spends most of the year in the upper mid-card, still mostly winning of course. There are 12 events in 1990 (this is spoiler territory but we care more about art than the results of matches some 28 years old now) and Maeda headlines just four of them, winning three. Compare this to Fujiwara (5), Takada (6), Funaki (4 - all of the final four shows), Yamazaki (2), a foreign invader (2), or the fact that Maeda headlined 8 of the 12 shows he appeared on in 1989 and won every single bout he fought.

The attendances don't seem to have suffered for his demotion and yet he drew the first Tokyo Dome sellout at the very end of 1989. A similar show for 1990 was booked, the Tokyo Dome date put on hold, and then cancelled as the company folded. Could Maeda bear to see it without him on its marquee?

thinking of writing a script to do this later

Not that this bothers the carefree Yoji Anjo as he makes his way to the ring for a surefire pasting.

Anjo has switched from his purple leopardprint to purple trousers with a single large yellow diamond on each leg. I think this is an improvement. I guess while we're on aesthetics then I have to say Maeda is looking a bit gordo around the middle, a journey which would continue through RINGS in a manner charted by TK Scissors PLEASE READ THIS BLOG.

Maeda and Anjo have only met once before in UWF and that was on a show as-yet unreviewed, which explains the relatively fresh feel about this pairing. Anjo is the perfect fodder for Maeda because he won't back down or back off even when grossly overmatched. Also the fact they famously did not like each other in real life makes it tempting to read into this situation as the origin story for this:

thank you to @DenimAssemblage for this post-punch image

Okay so that happened because of the break-up of UWF, where the two would badmouth each other in the press, but we can have a bit of fun with this.

For much of this it is not the brutalisings that were afforded to Tamura, Miyato, and Nakano. Anjo gets a measure of respect. For the most part Maeda is not the one carrying the intensity with his stinging kicks and hard suplexes. For a solid two minutes in the middle he does nothing but put up his dukes and allow Anjo to do all the work for him. When Anjo eventually scores a potentially winning predicament, the crowd roaring, Maeda appears to be smiling rather than selling. He gets up nonchalantly as if nothing had happened. Which makes Anjo really mad.

UWF's version of a false finish - Maeda catches a kick, hits a Capture Suplex and goes straight into the Cross Kneelock. But Anjo does not fall victim to this ruiner of men and makes the ropes despite most fans exhaling in full expectancy of the end. Maeda then hits a German Suplex after some pedestrian grappling and another submission sees Anjo find the ropes.

Anjo stands, throws a kick, Maeda catches it, and folds Anjo over into the Reverse Achilles Tendon Lock for the win.

An okay match considering one person wasn't really interested in it until the very end.

A Tokyo Dome rematch takes place in the semi-final as Dirk Leon Vrij returns from Chris Dolman's House of Dutch Hardknocks to face gentleman grump and limbtwister general Yoshiaki Fujiwara. Their first match was not bad, if a little tentative, as well as being aesthetically weird as Fujiwara wore some Muay Thai shorts that made him look like a dad lost at the beach. 

Vrij remains frightening to behold:

also known as: Dick Vrij, Dirk Fry, Dick Leon Fly

Whilst the visage of Fujiwara will always signify some kind of ruin:

I WANT YOUR SOUL

I read a few disconcerting critiques of Yoshiaki Fujiwara in UWF recently:

• "Fujiwara is too limited for this."
• "Fujiwara just isn't on the level of Takada, Yamazaki, or Maeda as a worker."
• "Vrij is only worth watching when he's knocking the hell out of an opponent that is both skilled and willing to take a big beating. Fujiwara is neither."

Now, these are just the opinions of one person - Quebrada - and all art is subjective. But also this is demonstrably wrong.

In the first 30 seconds of this second encounter there is more intensity than their tentative first battle. Vrij's kicks are mean but that doesn't stop Fujiwara from grinding his fist into Vrij's ribs to open his guard up. Vrij is in control and looking dangerous standing up or on the ground, wrenching Fujiwara by his waist and punching him by the ropes. Vrij catches Fujiwara's kicks and knocks him down and taunts in his face. He breaks a strangle by tapping Fujiwara on the head patronisingly. Real techniques and real emotions.

Fujiwara opts to fight in the clinch, tussling against the ropes and refusing to break so he can go inside and do all kinds of sly rudenesses. Vrij tries to shrug the old man off with knees, but Fujiwara is a limpet in there, quietly revelling in the battle. He returns the patronising tap by slapping Vrij's cheeks. 

Vrij's sense of humour is not as keen. He rushes Fujiwara with laser-guided kicks but the sequence breaks down when Vrij goes for a weird/rubbish gutwrench rollthrough that doesn't look good at all. His anger leads to his downfall, rushing a strike that Fujiwara catches and forces into the Fujiwara Armbar. Vrij thinks he has it scouted and manages to flip onto his back on the ground. Fujiwara never lets go and Vrij taps quickly. A good match.

Fujiwara insists that Vrij has the trophy:

Main eventing the sold out Yokohama Arena is a match that last took place precisely one year ago to the day in the very same building: Nobuhiko Takada against Masakatsu Funaki. That 1989 bout was bananas, one of UWF's very best bouts. Though it was clearly more on the pro-wrestling end of the work-shoot spectrum, it did a perfect job of establishing these two ruggedly-handsome beefcakes as the powerful and resilient characters they'd pretend to be for the rest of their active careers.

BASICdelia

That first match is recapped, fully capturing its mad spirit, zeroing in on its first thirty seconds where Funaki rips through Takada's soul with a palm thrust and high knees him to the head for a knockdown. It begs the question: can Funaki follow through this time with a win?

I cannot say enough good things about this presentation

The opening isn't the wild battery of the first, though the kicks both throw are no joke. It's unmistakeably the storytelling of pro-wrestling, the tale of two evenly-matched men jockeying for a shot at ultimate supremity (Maeda). The crowd are batty at everything, whether they're throwing kicks or rolling around on the ground showing sub-optimal intent. The whole thing smacks of atmosphere (I say, turning the barbeque over, turning the 4th of July into the 4th of Shit).

The crowd is split down the middle. In a quiet grapple you can hear both names yelled at top note from multiple regions of the crowd, with more females in favour of Funaki and more men for Takada.

Funaki scores the first knockdown after minutes of pointed grappling, bringing the crowd slowly into their zone. Takada doesn't do as he did in the first match and stagger around looking beaten, taking knockdown after knockdown - instead he roars back with violence. The match goes wild, threatening to surpass the first bout as the two set upon each other with total abandon.

OOOOF

But the finish comes all too soon. The referee calls it as Takada's eyeline bursts open. Funaki wins but this is not the ending foreseen after all that hype and a one year build. Takada is lying on the floor being swabbed and stitched as Funaki struts, his face welted quite badly too.

kind of looks like the rocket launcher at the end of Resident Evil

Despite how it happens, we're now in the Masakatsu Funaki era. Enjoy yourself!

NEXT: dunno.