Talk about it here.

Tamura is much smaller than he'd become in 1993. He's a great young upstart here, and Takada does a great job selling for him. I'm not sure if Tamura had any big matches before this really, but I love kingpin vs young guy matches when done right, which this one was. There is some gorgeous matwork. Tamura would become much more polished later than he is here, but he has a certain charisma in this match and he's still really good on the mat, so you get a different side of him. Takada trying to slap his way out of a hold, making Tamura mad, with Tamura turning over into a half crab and then Takada taking the advantage is awesome! He's The Man and he outsmarted this punk kid. It gets even better a few minutes later when they do the same sequence in reversed position. Tamura reminds me of Otani in '96 in many ways in this match. I've seen Takada in better matches, but this is my favorite Takada performance in terms of understanding his role, portraying himself as the top guy, getting his opponent over and laying out a nice match.

Yeah this is 'good' Takada. Tamura had a big-ish match vs Yamazaki in late '92 but that wasn't nearly as important.

This was fun for something different up to this point in the set, but I have a feeling the best is yet to come from UWFi.

Probably the best Takada performance I've seen in a while (certainly in terms of matwork). Total underdog versus established top dog, which is a story I always dig, and I thought both guys were pretty great in their roles. Tamura's sell of the ribs after that kick was awesome, topped by his dead on his feet sell of the final flurry.

 

This and the Yamazaki match Ditch mentioned might be an interesting comparison. I don't remember a whole lot about the Yamazaki match other than liking it a lot whenever I last saw it, but I imagine the story would be similar to this.

Could somebody explain UWFI to me? Like the point system & rules.

 

I thought this was pretty great. Some good transitions and mat work. I know Takada from Pride's early days, but I've never seen any of his other stuff. I know very little about UWFI. I enjoyed this though, and it's definably something I need to find check out more of.

Wrestlers start with 15 points. You lose 3 for a knockdown, 1 for a rope break, and some amount for certain throws, for instance Albright's German suplex. Use all the points and you lose by TKO. With RINGS it was 10 points, 2 for a knockdown/1 for rope break, and none for throws.

 

The other main rule difference is no pinfalls. The original UWF had pins but not UWFi.

Ahh. Thanks Ditch. This may be a dumb question, but why did the original UWF turn into UWFI?

Ego, in-fighting: pretty much the same reason any popular group disbands really. There's probably a more detailed account in the Observer at the time (repeated, though truncated, in the various HOF bios).

UWF split in three: UWFi (Takada), RINGS (Tamura), PWFG (Fujiwara). And yeah, because of ego. They could have been HUGE as one group, but splitting allowed them to make more stars and also helped the MMA boom.

Very promising start, and it ended up more than delivering. Some really beautiful, fluid matwork. There were gasps from the crowd at some of the movement and technique. Initially it looked as if the theme might be a veteran giving a youngster a schooling, but instead Takada found he had a serious challenger. Tamura displayed lots of spirit and great mat skills as his submissions carried real danger. Despite being well down on points the upset was always believable. Thrilling fight with Takada's brutal strikes proving the decisive factor. Both men played their roles so well in this battle of present vs future.

If only we had a run in by Caras to kick Takada in the nuts. I like that Tamura gets pissed off when he loses points on knock downs. Seems like guys don’t show much emotion to take downs when they are using scoring system. Scoring was lopsided but Tamura puts up a good effort only to lose by TKO when score drops to zero.

Some spectacular matwork to open, and I loved Tamura constantly going back to the half crab, over and over. The outcome was never much in doubt but it was a nice ace-in-the-hole for him--the shootstyle equivalent of a hope spot. Eventually Takada asserts himself and kicks his way to a rare TKO victory. This was very much Takada-as-traveling-champ, and the result was a hell of a match. Full credit to both guys.

UWF split in three: UWFi (Takada), RINGS (Tamura), PWFG (Fujiwara). And yeah, because of ego. They could have been HUGE as one group, but splitting allowed them to make more stars and also helped the MMA boom.

Rings was Maeda's promotion, not Tamura's who joined it after UWFi died.

 

Basically the top guys in UWF 2.0 went this way:

 

Maeda --> Rings

Takada & Yamazaki --> UWFi

Fujiwara & Funaki --> PWFG

 

With the younger/lower guys spread around.

Without going back and double checking everything I watched from '92, I'm pretty comfortable saying this is my favorite Takada match thus far. Excellent, fast grappling to start with Takada doing a textbook job of making a lesser opponent look big against a star. Takada wrenches in a leglock and Tamura does a fantastic job selling it and struggling for the rope beak. Tamura forced to break the ropes again on a Kimura. A really great sequence with Takada working for armbar, which Tamura tries to reverse but Takada cinches it in and forces another break. He then gets a knockdown on a kick to the midsection. Takada closes it with a series of big kicks including one to the dome for the KO. Really couldn't ask for more here -- Tamura looked like a legit threat on the rise against the company's ace, while not quite able to put it together and pull off the upset.

 

****

Was super excited to see younger Tamura and this was a terrific match overall. Tamura is able to get glimpses of having an advantage but falls into the unadvantageous strategy of matching his 1 point rope break offense vs. Takada hitting the knockout blows for three points. Tamura finally gets some sustained offense at the finish but it is too little too late and he fails pray to one last strike exchange to lose. ****

This wasn't quite a squash, but Tamura didn't have enough firepower to defeat Takada. He had the right idea with the work on Takada's leg, but the other leg and the kicks it contained were just too much for him. Once Takada scored the first knockdown with that kick in the ribs, it was just a question of time.

 

I enjoyed the history lesson and refresher course on scoring above. Even though the matches are worked, you're able to figure out the storyline of a match a lot better if you follow the scoring like it's a legit fight.

#367

 

This wasn't as exciting as the Yamazaki fight, but it was a different sort of match. Here the promising up and comer took on the top dog, who was meant to be his superior in every way both in his striking and groundwork and submissions. The work was pretty at times but laid out in a fairly obvious way. You knew exactly when Tamura would get each of his "hope spots," so to speak. It was effective in terms of where Tamura was at in terms of mounting a challenge against Takada but point blank obvious in terms of its delivery. One thing I'll say for it is that Takada looked better on the mat than usual. Other than that, my main takeaways were that Tamura clearly improved his striking ability as he matured, and for whatever reason bookers and promoters were never afraid to job out poor old Yamazaki.

Takada's best match in UWFi thus far but not necessarily Tamura's. Still, a pretty damn good game of chess between the boss and the future. Tamura sells really well for Takada, giving some life to his otherwise lifeless matwork, and there are plenty of neat transitions and reversals from both guys throughout. When Tamura's got the legs, Takada slaps his face to get him off but instead, Tamura turns him over into the single leg and Takada picks the ankle in a great counter. The fans lose it when Tamura grabs the double wristlock but then Takada shuts him down with kicks, knocking him down with highs and cutting out the leg with lows, finally winning by TKO. Good stuff.