UWF ENERGY

December 1, 1990

Kiyoshi Tamura . . . looks like he hadn’t missed a beat despite being on the shelf for over a year.

Minoru Suzuki . . . tries to accomplish the impossible by out-grumping Yoji Anjo.

Yuko (no longer Shigeo) Miyato . . . steps up his game in order to hang with the almighty force known as The Fuj.

KIYOSHI TAMURA vs. MASAHITO KAKIHARA

I don’t know if it’s anything more than a coincidence, but it’s appropriate that Tamura’s UWF return took place on the first show without Maeda. And judging from this, it doesn’t look like he’s lost a step, which is either indicative of how much training and practice he got during his layoff or exactly how much of a natural at this style that he truly was. Kakihara’s series with Fuke had already established that he wasn’t much of a mat worker, so it’s not a surprise that Tamura’s strategy is to keep him grounded, but Tamura also dishes out some strikes of his own including a somewhat innocent looking leg kick that drops him, just to show that Kakihara won’t necessarily have the advantage in a strike battle. Tamura also provides a couple of nice openings for Kakihara, especially the arm throw that allows him to lock in a sleeper and force Tamura to burn a rope break. There’s another point where they get into a strike battle and it seems like Kakihara is going to come out on top, but Tamura manages to get in and connect with a throw. Once Tamura takes Kakihara down to his final point, it looks like it’s only a matter of time until he’s going to be able to end the match.

However, all is not as it seems. Kakihara may look outmatched, but he’s not above doing something that might be a little questionable if it can level the playing field. In this case, it’s taking advantage of Tamura’s eye injury. Kakihara connects a kick to the eye and gets Tamura’s guard down and it results in a flurry that gets him called down. Then, Kakihara pulls out a Minoru Suzuki dropkick and Tamura gets called down while still on his feet. Kakihara switches gears and instead of looking for the KO shot, which Tamura expects, he uses it as an opening to get somewhere else, like the kick that allows him to lock in a juji-gatame that forces a rope break. Just when it seems like Tamura has the win all but sealed, Kakihara’s comeback gets them back on equal footing, with the next point deduction being the one that finishes the match.

The finish is a little screwy, but it’s more in the execution of it than the actual intent. Tamura gets a leg and avoids a spin kick in order to get a half crab and use up Kakihara’s last rope break. Kakihara continues to try his hand at striking, hoping to get the down he needs, but Tamura once again ties him up and looks for a leg bar and Kakihara instinctively grabs the ropes and the ref calls the match, with Kakihara out of points. But it’s not announced as such right away, resulting in something of an awkward pause. The actual idea behind it is great, Tamura is announced as the winner, but it happens in such a way that there’s some lingering doubt as to whether or not he can truly defeat Kakihara in a definitive sense. There probably shouldn’t be, considering how close he came to draining all of his points before, but once Kakihara found his own success, then the proverbial shoe more or less switched feet. The Fuke/Kakihara series was a fun enough introduction to both guys, but none of their matches sniffs this, and Kakihara showed more in one match with Tamura than he did in three with Fuke.

YOJI ANJO vs. MINORU SUZUKI

Twenty five minutes for this seems like a long time, but this is an absolute blast because they’re both so gruff and disdainful of each other. Unless you’ve already watched a match or read a breakdown of it carefully, you’ll never be certain who will win the next exchange. Even when Anjo is doing something like throwing his knees into Suzuki’s midsection, he’s sometimes able to block and counter into a throw and take over the match. That’s true of pretty much the entirety of this thing, unless it’s a situation where one of them has a clear cut advantage, like Anjo kneeing the crud out of Suzuki, or Suzuki cranking on a legbar, there’s always the possibility of a surprise counter or escape coming from the other man. Anjo’s first attempt to throw his knees ends with Suzuki taking him over with a suplex and trying to lock in a legbar, but Anjo manages to start wrenching Suzuki’s ankle. Suzuki finally gets some pressure of his own and Anjo eventually does have to let go of his own hold and scurry for the ropes. Suzuki may have “won” the exchange, but the way he limps afterward shows that it’s not really much of a victory for him.

That principle holds true to the entirety of this match. Anjo and Suzuki are shown to be essentially equals on pretty much every level that one could try to compare them on. They’re unafraid to wail on one another at will, even when their timing or choice of strike seems to be a bit questionable, and they both pull out some impressive counters. Even when it seems like the length of the match is catching up with them and starting to move a bit slow, such as Anjo’s attempt for a grounded sleeper, things pick up in a hurry when he forgoes the hold and just throws punches at the back of Suzuki’s head. The ref breaks them up when Anjo is backed into the corner and Suzuki charges right back with his dropkick, which doesn’t drop Anjo, but it stuns him enough for a regular kick to finish the job. This is the second match to come down to each man on his last point, but the way that this plays out makes it look completely believable that either of them could have pulled this off. Anjo wins when a head kick to stop the half crab takes away that point, but considering he grabbed the ropes to prevent the hold, there’s an argument that Anjo should have been docked. Regardless, this leaves a huge impression for both guys and is a great look at what might have been if Suzuki chose to join UWFI. Of course, the window isn’t completely closed on a rematch. If GLEAT can bring in seventy-five year old Fujiwara, then booking these two against each other shouldn’t be off the table.

KAZUO YAMAZAKI vs. BART VALE

Is this a joke? The only logical explanation for this is that Yamazaki was subbing for Fuke. It’s one thing for Vale to go over Miyato, but to go over Yamazaki is beyond absurd, and there’s nothing about the match to make it seem less so. Aside from one moment of looking crafty by grabbing Yamazaki’s leg to prevent him from sinking in a crab hold, Vale works pretty much the exact same as every other one of his matches. He throws a ton of kicks and none of them look all that good, especially compared to Yamazaki’s. Hell, the one “kick” that causes Yamazaki to go down and lose a point looks like it barely makes contact, and Yamazaki, ever the pro that he is, still puts it over like a champ. His mat work is hardly inspiring either, he can barely lock in the half crab that astonishingly ends this. The only other reason that I can think of for why this happened is that Vale was contractually obligated to win three matches.

YOSHIAKI FUJIWARA vs. YUKO MIYATO

Miyato’s aggressiveness is certainly a welcome sight, it’s like he saw all of the surliness in the Anjo match and decided to follow suit. It doesn’t do much for him against someone as skilled and crafty as The Fuj, but it does give the impression that he might be able to hang with some stronger competition rather than being the company whipping boy. Miyato even shows some brains when he gets Fujiwara in position for a crab hold and realizes that he’s putting himself in position for Fujiwara to throw him off, so he goes for a standard legbar and forces Fujiwara to use a rope break. But aside from that, and a couple of times that Miyato connects with his spin kick to the ribs, Fujiwara is never in real trouble. He knows all of the tricks and angles to keep Miyato from making full contact with most of his strikes or from getting his holds fully locked in. Fujiwara does what’s necessary to win the match, and nothing more. Fujiwara just waits for him to try another spin kick, and when Miyato takes the bait, Fujiwara wraps him up in an Achilles hold and submits him. Nobody gave Miyato a prayer of actually winning the match, but it was a pleasant surprise to see Miyato attempt to rise to the occasion.

NOBUHIKO TAKADA vs. TATSUO NAKANO

Unfortunately, this is more of a typical Nakano match than a typical Takada one. It moves at a rather slow pace, there’s a lot of laying on the mat to give the impression that some sort of struggle is taking place, and there’s very little from Nakano to make the match as a whole seem all that engaging. One would think Takada would be there to pick up the pieces, but not on this night. There are a few nice things from Nakano that stop you from completely writing him off; Takada is working his way free of a sleeper, so Nakano lets it go and then hits a German suplex, and the first down comes when Takada hits a head kick and Nakano rebounds off the ropes and hits a lariat. But moments like that are few and far between. And, aside from the down from the lariat, there’s not much else from Takada that suggests that Nakano might pose a bigger challenge than expected. Takada can exploit Nakano’s lack of mat prowess, but it’s not done in interesting ways. They spend a few minutes with Takada working a sleeper and Nakano struggles and nearly gets himself worked free, only for Takada to switch gears and put on a half crab. Takada finally secures a juji-gatame and wins the match, but it takes far too long for them to get to that point.

MASAKATZU FUNAKI vs. WAYNE SHAMROCK

This was a fun enough match for the Newborn UWF to close their doors with. Their performances on the previous card made this match the obvious main event, but neither man performs as well as they did back in October. Until the last few minutes, their work is a lot more cautious and slower. It’s not at Nakano levels, but it’s quite the step down from what they’d shown before. The other thing that keeps this from being much more than fun is that when either of them does something that ought to give them the chance to take control and make the match interesting, they don’t follow through with it. Shamrock’s first suplex is a good example, he gets it as a surprise counter when Funaki tries to shoot in and take him down, but after the suplex, Shamrock tries to tie him up and lock in a submission and Funaki just rolls them into the ropes and forces the ref to break them up. A bit later, Shamrock is throwing palm strikes and Funaki snags the arm and takes him down into an armlock, it’s the first real clean submission that either of them gets on. But, instead of letting the crowd get excited by it or even having Shamrock flail himself to the ropes and show that Funaki took him by surprise and managed to hurt him, Shamrock just works himself out of the hold. That’s pretty much the first fifteen minutes of the match. It’s not that nothing happens, but very little happens that’s of any real consequence. Maybe it emphasizes how equal they are or shows their understanding of how dangerous the other man can be when given the right opening, but it doesn’t make for a very interesting or dramatic viewing experience.

Once it’s announced that fifteen minutes have passed, the pace picks up quite a bit and they start working in a lot of point deductions, but even those still come off screwy. It feels like they’re taking turns, instead of the match suddenly feeling competitive. Funaki hits a flurry of strikes and drops Shamrock for a down, and after he gets up and the ref gives them the go ahead to continue, Shamrock gets in his own flurry of shots that drops Funaki to even it out. Shamrock hits a particularly nasty German to trim a point, and a minute later he hits a belly to belly, but it has almost no effect, he hits the suplex and wants a juji-gatame, but Funaki easily escapes and gets to his feet and starts throwing kicks. And just to cap off the absurdity, after Shamrock showed to have the clear edge as far as throws go, dishing out several suplexes throughout the match, it’s Funaki who gets in a relatively simple one that allows him to sink in the crab hold and get the tap out.

Then again, it’s probably a little unreasonable to hold them to the standards of their previous matches. Setting aside the fact that they were matched up with Maeda and Anjo, it’s still only Shamrock’s second match in the company and Funaki is still new to the main event scene. This is far from a bad match, but it doesn’t hit the level that either of them managed to do in October, and it doesn’t even really hold up against the better matches on this card.

Conclusion: Despite the main event not quite delivering, this is still a rather fun show overall, with only the Takada/Nakano match being offensive.