Talk about it here.

Last few minutes of Akira Maeda's retirement match. To his credit, he stayed gone. This is followed by a Maeda video to the Sid Vicious version of "My Way", which is the PERFECT song for him.

Getting Karelin to do this was such a big deal that this match got coverage in places like the New York Times. How many other Japanese wrestling matches can say that? (Yes, I know the Crush Gals got a Wall Street Journal write-up in their heyday, which is how and why the WWF ended up booking them).

It's kinda funny that this is shown after Shane Douglas's "retirement". That music video was awesome. One of the guys he's shown fighting looks like Brandon Baxter. I'm guessing the fight was a work but you never know with RINGS.

Definitely a work. They didn't really put much effort into making it look like a shoot. Still, for those of us who took every opportunity to watch Karelin chuck people through the air, it's a fun watch.

Maeda gets his send off here and actually stayed true to it. Touchy stuff with the My Way video. So long Akira.

The match is really weird. It looks like Karelin keeps setting Maeda up and waiting for him to pull off a big counter move. But Akira has absolutely nothing in the tank and the ref has to make a mercy killing.

 

The tribute video afterwards was pretty cool.

Not really much of a match, as Maeda basically just goes into a shell. Karelin attempts his famed Karelin Lift but can't quite execute it. Eventually the match just sort of stops with Karelin being given the victory. Great heat, though, and as I already posted, getting Karelin to work a match was a major coup. The highlight video is the best part of this.

This match really flies under the radar if you ask me. It holds up well with every viewing. Karelin looks pretty solid here I think and the crowd eats it up the whole way. Maeda plays his part of course. It's Aleksandr freakin' Karelin. I'm surprised this match isn't more well known.