Volk Han vs Hiromitsu Kanehara (RINGS - 1/23/99)

I've been on a "really realistic wrestling matches" kick recently and this is another RINGS match that came to mind for me. It's also a bit of a novelty because it's one of the few Volk Han matches where he works the realistic house style RINGS was aiming for in its later period. We all know Volk Han was able to combine realism with theatrical flash in RINGS' earlier years, but could he work a realistic match and still keep things interesting? I think this match answers that question in the affirmative. Volk Han doesn't do anything too fancy here, the opening minutes of the match do see glimpses of his incredible technique, but things are kept relatively close to the ground so to speak. Kanehara seems to be one step quicker than Volk, but this is where the Russian uses his background to find opportunities when needed. He does a good job of baiting Kanehara into certain traps. You can also see this as a match where an aging, slowing down veteran has to keep pace with someone a bit younger. For almost a purely grappling match, that's a simple and effective story by itself. Kanehara even gets the better of Volk in one of the few standup exchanges, getting a late knockdown to get in the driver's seat. Kanehara continues to lay the strikes in and seems more comfortable in doing so, but Volk senses an opportunity here and catches one of Kanehara's kicks and turns it into a sweeping takedown that is transitioned into a kneebar for the submission win. It's a nice match that works and does what it was aiming for. ****1/2