December 1995

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It's Nikolai Zouev, which means a lot of rolling around, trapping arms and legs with arms and legs. That's, of course, not a bad thing and Nagai is fun in that he's trying to counter and do his own thing, and while he's not the strongest on the mat, he looks pretty good here. Zouev usually has answers to Nagai's kick attempts but not always, and he nearly gets knocked out of the ring by a series of kicks and knees in the corner. There's an awesome moment in the match where Nagai tries for a big kick, Zouev slides underneath to sweep the leg and transitions seemlessly into the rear choke. Zouev has some great holds, sometimes pretzeling Nagai in various ways, but Nagai wil…

The most exciting match on the show, in my opinion, with terrific pacing and both guys giving 100%. Grom has gone from mild-mannered Georgian with a pleasant smile to an uber-aggressive slappy Georgian with the same pleasant smile. He opens with a hard slaps, a beautiful wristlock takedown and some big knees to the head to down TK. TK's able to retaliate with a nice armwhip of his own into the neck crank and a few knees to Grom's dome. When Zaza grabs the ankle, TK tries and misses with an enziguri attempt and so Zaza puts him in a seated single leg crab hold. There's a bunch of takedowns>holds toward the end, more stiff strikes from Zaza, and a dope finish, which cons…

Volk Han vs Yoshihisa Yamamoto - RINGS 12/19/95 Yamamoto is on the vanguard of the new generation of Japanese shoot-style talent along with Kohsaka and Tamura. These two had an amazing match in June of 95 with an epic finish. This match does not quite reach that level, but is pretty entertaining. Han basically ripped Yamamoto's arm out of his socket with biggest double wristlock rip of all time, but see here Han cant get that. I love how Han's way to fuck with people's guard is just to cross their ankles. That is really his solution to everything. Yamamoto tried to scissor a heel hook and Han just manipulated that into an ankle cross. Really Yamamoto the figure-4 is a…

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7 minutes of 19 are shown. Early JD's was mad clipped. What was shown here looked good. Lola looked real good here, viciously assaulting and bloodying Yokota early on and then working her over good. She also hit some real heavy sentons and a cool powerbomb into a Giant Swing. The match turned pretty your turn my turn altough it's difficult to judge with so many clips. Yokotas ranas, suplexes etc. are pretty close to perfection in execution.

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This was a two-out-of-three falls tag match and a total blast. Takada was, more or less, there to collect a paycheck but whenever Inoki was in the ring, the match really lit up, whether it was ground aggression with Fujiwara, or pissy exchanges with Yamazaki. Inoki and Fujiwara do the old man matwork better than most half their age and here, Fujiwara got to show off with some slick takedowns and at one point, really catches Inoki in the chin with one of his sig headbutts. When Yamazaki comes in, he tries to get crazy with Inoki but Inoku quickly gets hold of the reins and pins Yamazaki. During the second fall, Yamazaki calls out Inoki and when Inoki gets the tag, it's his…

Hase sans mustachio, not letting Anjoh get away with much -- really liked the tension build in the corner, which leads to them both slapping each other around. Hase is smooth as always, using a dope double leg takedown and working his way into an inverted STF. He hooks the leg when Anjoh tries to backdrop him, so that he lands on top when Anjoh still attempts it. Then we get a uranage and the giant swing, sold wonderfully by Anjoh, before he eats a second uranage. Anjoh's able to fight out of the Northern Lights suplex attempt, delivering a nasty German, then following up with some great looking knee drops before finally stomping on Hase's face and applying the leglock fo…