UWF 29/11/1989 - U-COSMOS (19/31)

UWF U-COSMOS
29th November 1989
Tokyo Dome, Tokyo
att. 60000

Pre-note: As it stands on the date of writing (10/10/17) this represents the final UWF Newborn show that I have in complete and watchable form, so perhaps there will be an enforced hiatus until the world of the internet turns and deposits the missing 1989 and the entirety of the 1990 shows somewhere accessible. 

As we learn from watching RINGS (or if you are me, reading RINGSblog aka TK Scissors) Akira Maeda's obsessions in the years between UWF's death and RINGS' creation would morph from "shoot-style" wrestling in Japan to a nascent-MMA/NHB style incorporating fighters from around the world. We have seen the beginnings of that in UWF, sure, with the appearances of a sextet of shoot-boxers, Gerard Gordeau, Bart Vale, Trevor "Power" Clarke, Chris Dolman, etc. 

An introduction to shoot-style wrestling in Japan (0/31)

An incomplete introduction to shoot-style in Japan
(this introduction dedicated to Maximumrocknroll film critic Carolyn Keddy.) 

UWF is a professional wrestling promotion. It is not the 2006 promotion started by t-shirt entrepreneurs Earl and Dave Hebner because UWF stands for Universal Wrestling Federation.

The UWF that we are talking about is not the one run by Bill Watts in Oklahoma City. It is also not the national gambit of Herb Abrams that ran on DirectTV. We are also not talking about the German company owned by Rico Mecke. The UWF that we are referring to is owned by Akira Maeda. It was a promotion based in Japan.