Kiyoshi Tamura vs Hiromitsu Kanehara (RINGS - 3/22/99)

During their 1996-1999 stretch, RINGS took a lot of influence from Pancrase by doing shorter matches in the undercard and having more realistic-looking matches, particularly when someone like Kiyoshi Tamura was involved. This match also took place a month before Kiyoshi Tamura was scheduled to fight Frank Shamrock in a shoot. This match, in that context, stands out as a very good example of how to book a realistic wrestling match. I watched this after re-watching Sakuraba vs Tamura from 5/27/96, which is another great example of this type of match. Before jumping to RINGS, Tamura was rumored to be joining Pancrase and seems to relish the chance to work that type of Pancrase-esque style. Hiromitsu Kanehara makes for a good dance partner and keeps pace with Tamura for most of the first half of the match. He can read Tamura and escape when needed, and his counterwork on the canvas keeps things even for about 13 minutes or so when Tamura finally gets a good hook on Kanehara. The story here seems to be that while Kanehara is good offensively, he can't break Tamura's defense, particularly when Tamura goes into a turtle position. Tamura just seems to confidently goad Kanehara and challenges him to break his defense. This leads to Kanehara slowly wearing himself out, which gives Tamura some more opportunities to score points. Tamura's defensive posture plays a role in the ending stretch where Kanehara is unable to get a leg lock on Tamura, and Tamura just seems to wait for the right opportunity to snag another hook. Kanehara grabs the ropes and both stand back up. Tamura takes advantage of Kanehara's fatigue and gets a full mount, where he just seems to stare down Kanehara for a moment like he is telling Kanehara he isn't good enough. Tamura punches Kanehara in the stomach, and this forces Kanehara to give up his back as he tries to turtle up as Tamura did earlier, but his defense is nowhere near as good and Tamura is able to use his superior skill to work into a juji-gatame for the submission victory. I've seen some people say this match was boring and there is nothing there beyond some basic grappling, but there is a ton of granular sports psychology here and you have to watch intently to pick up on it. It's a great example of what realism in pro-wrestling really looks like, and how it can be done well. ****1/2