U-Japan 11/17/96 (Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Kimo)

U-Japan’s only show that somehow aired on Samurai TV because of the presence of a few wrestlers.

We’re in an octagon cage, the crowd is completely unlit and there will be no second show, let’s go!

Paul Varelans vs. Shinji Katase

Paul was a 6’8″ beast with four wins and four losses in UFC. He would have been forgotten about along with the other pre-Jiu Jitsu heavyweights if he hadn’t wrestled for ECW briefly in 1996, causing a stir when he reportedly changed his mind about losing to Taz days before Hardcore Heaven. Missy Hyatt claims to have fixed the problem by promising to blow Paul if he did the job, before immediately rebuffing him afterwards because she “didn’t blow jobbers” (Source: Missy Hyatt).

Also of note was Perry Saturn kicking Paul so hard in the back of the head that he legit KO’d him leading to Taz having to shoot T-Bone Tazplex Paul for the win.

This is 5’9″ Shinji Katase’s debut fight so I think we can already call this a squash match even though he’s twice Taz’s size.

Paul throws some large strikes Shinji’s way before smothering him on the mat with some kind of hold (it’s hard to tell because this show is so badly lit) with the bell ringing at 35 seconds before anything happens.

Despite the bell ringing, Paul punches Shinji which leads so the ref has to inform Paul that the fight was over. Mate it was over before it started.

It’s announced as a submission win but Sherdog has it as “loss via punches” which isn’t true. What is true is that this was a mess.

Shinji would fight until 2004 and finish with a 2-3 record. Paul would pass away in 2021 and would have been thrilled to know everyone brought up the Missy Hyatt story in their obituaries.

Becky Levi vs. Yoko Takahashi

Yoko Takahashi has a few fights under her belt but this is Becky’s debut.

The bigger Becky surges forward to punch her opponent over and over again with Yoko offering no resistance. Becky is so much bigger she’s able to hold her opponent with one arm and smack her with the other. Yoko throws a few kicks which have zero effect as Becky continues to shove her into the cage. Yoko is able to squeeze out and land a few punches to release the hold which gets the crowd buzzing but once they’re away from the wall, Becky no-sells Yoko’s offence to punch her so hard she attempts to run through the wall to escape before the ref takes the hint and ends it at 2:14.

Yoko was as effective as a pensioner’s erection out there.

Becky would retire in 2000 with an impressive 7-1 record. Yoko would continue fighting until 2010 and would have the honour of fighting at EliteXC: Heat, aka the show with Seth Petruzelli KO’ing Kimbo Slice in 14 seconds and killing the promotion. So there’s that.

David Beneteau vs. Patrick Smith

Both guys were UFC midcarders.

Beneteau grounds Smith who frantically tries to escape in a very heated opening sequence. Beneteau transitions into a mounted position as Smith does his best to wriggle out of this predicament. All he’s able to do is move Beneteau back into the same ground & pound position as before, resulting in Beneteau eventually punching him in the face until Smith yells “my eyes my eyes!” and taps out at 1:09.

Camera shows Smith bleeding from the eye afterwards (or maybe it’s above the eye, I don’t know this show is so dimly lit it looks as if Frank Miller illustrated it).

Well that was a fun minute if you like seeing people desperately trying to escape out of guards. Incidentally, Patrick Smith would sexually assault a fourteen year old in 1999 but thankfully be dead by 2019.

Wallid Ismael vs. Latsumi Isida

Ismael has an impressive reputation in Brazil even if his win/loss record doesn’t necessarily reflect that. Isida doesn’t have a good reputation anywhere and his win/loss record does reflect that.

Ismael bodies Isida and bounces him off the cage and onto the mat where Isida can’t do a damn thing to stop the punishment. Isida gets a weak attempt at a collar & elbow but it looks more like Ismael simply getting his breath back. Ismael starts throwing punches and the crowd start making “oh no” noises as Ismael wraps himself around Isida in a rear-naked choke at 3:59.

Like watching a rabbit try to fight a lion. Ismael was so intense it seemed like he would have exploded from all the energy inside of him if this fight had gone on any longer.

Ismail would go on to defeat Renzo Gracie to earn the moniker “Gracie Destroyer” before Sakuraba would remake the idea years later. Meanwhile, Isida’s Sherdog profile picture shows him bleeding.

Don Frye vs. Mark Hall

I think Mark’s been booked against Frye because Hall had the nerve to smash Koji Kitao at UFC 9 and the crowd want to see him in pain. Hey, where is Kitao anyway? I can’t believe there’s a money-losing mid-90s Japanese fighting company and he’s nowhere to be seen.

Hall throws a kick at Don’s mid-section but he may as well have tried to headbutt a Samoan because Frye batters him to the mat with ease. Don allows Mark to stand up so he can also ignore Hall’s punches while he’s swinging for the fences. Hall attempts a roundhouse kick (!) but Don takes him down mid-swing and pounds him into dust on the canvas. Don even pauses with his fist cocked to give Mark a chance to submit. Oh wow.

Hall declines so Frye dogs him on the mat, shoving his face into Hall’s head while Hall can only hang on for dear life. Frye bides his time while putting all his weight on Hall who decides to bleed as a form of self-defence. Someone yells for Don to let Mark onto his feet and I can’t tell which corner it’s coming from but Don doesn’t listen because he’s in complete control. Don chokes Mark with his forearm to finally end it at 5:29.

I’ve had fights in nightmares where I’ve gotten more offence in than Hall did here. Hall should have given up when Frye was being polite.

Mitsuhiro Matsunaga vs. Dan Severn

Hilariously we get clips of Matsunaga doing death matches in BJPW, W*ING and FMW even though he’s a proper karate guy. He even brings a barbed wire baseball bat with him. God I hope he uses it.

Severn takes Matsunaga down and then repeatedly picks him up to slam him in various ways as the crowd goes nuts. I mean it looks worked as hell but what do I know. Severn delivers an overhead belly-to-belly into the cage as the crowd explodes as it looked like it killed Matsunaga. Matsunaga holds on in a guillotine position but Severn simply slams him full force before locking in a reverse armbar for the instant tap-out at 1:32.

Entertaining series of suplexes even if the match was very not real. Fuck it, I enjoyed it.

No barbed wire bat though so I can’t go the full five stars.

Sean Alvarez vs. Yoji Anjo

Yoji needs to regain some respect after becoming an international joke so he’s facing an easy opponent in uhhhh (let me read this) Brazilian jiu-jitsu World Championships and Pan American Championships Gold Fucking Medalist Sean Alvarez.

Anjo lands a few kicks to the body as he seems overconfident thanks to the cheers he’s receiving. Motivated by the loud crowd, he charges Sean and grounds him to the mat and even head-butts him in the clinch. Sean holds on and it does appear that Anjo may be winning due to the cut on Sean’s forehead. However, Anjo releases so he can attempt an ankle lock and it’s the gap The Poker Brat needs to get on top of Anjo and maintain control. Anjo holds on but he can’t do a damn thing apart from head-butt, and Sean sticks his head so close to Anjo’s that even when they do collide they do limited damage.

This goes on for a while. Usually Anjo would have tagged out to Takayama by now.

Anjo is finally able to escape due to the sweat and catches Sean in a mount but isn’t able to turn it into anything. Sean makes sure to keep his head turned away so Anjo’s headbutts don’t strike anywhere important. Anjo finally sees an opening and lands some strikes to Sean’s head before delivering more headbutts but nothing seems to faze him despite the cut.

Both men stand up which leads to Sean running Anjo into the wall and holding him there as both men are spent. Now they’re both vertical it’s clear that Anjo is also bleeding, presumably from his own headbutts because nothing else is occurring.

More time is killed in this position as we needed a break/new round about three minutes ago. Crowd gets excited when Anjo lands some strikes to the face but Sean keeps his cool to continue pressing Anjo into the cage. Anjo has to resort to holding onto the cage which is as legal as the headbutts he continues firing off.

Good God this is a long fight.

Eventually Sean double-legs Anjo to continue the exact same holding-and-hoping we’ve already had. Anjo can’t do anything to Sean that matters. If this had gone to the judges, it would likely have been an easy win for Anjo because of his headbutts but instead this is chugging along at the pace of a HHH Wrestlemania main event.

Five minutes just went by with nothing to type other than “Sean keeps Anjo on the mat as both men play defence.”

Finally, Sean is able to rotate Anjo over because of their shared moisture and punch him in the back of the head until Anjo taps at 34:26.

Look, all due respect for having the energy to fight for the length of a Simpsons episode (with commercials) but this was absolutely not something you should sit down and watch willingly as it was 90% holding on the mat with the occasional headbutt.

I don’t know why Yoji would want anything to do with real fighting after the Gracie experience. He’d continue attempting it before giving up with a 0-5-1 record and the honour of being responsible for single-handily creating PRIDE. Thanks mate.

Kimo vs. Bam Bam Bigelow

Here we go, the only reason you may have heard of this show. Kimo already had a fearsome reputation at this point and was originally scheduled to fight Vader here before he presumably took one look at Kimo and yelled “yeah nah.”

Kimo charges Bigelow who attempts to stop the mount for about ten seconds until Kimo gets him in the position he wants and there’s not a damn thing Bam can do to stop the punches coming his way. Bigelow flails his arms around until Kimo spins him over and locks in the rear-naked choke for the tap-out at 2:15.

Bigelow is badly cut and looks absolutely gutted. He’d later claim the match was a work. Yeah, sure. I love you Bigelow but c’mon. I don’t want that Kevin Nash story about Scott Hall yelling at you about “pretending to be a tough guy when you’re just a fat guy with tattoos” to be true.

Bigelow was seconded by Ray Apollo, sans costume and make-up, who was in Japan on tour with him working as Doink the Clown for the WAR promotion. Bigelow wore a black amateur wrestling style singlet as opposed to his fireball pro wrestling ring outfit, and was said to have been way down in weight, but still had 80 to 100 pounds on Kimo.

In some circles the show was advertised as the night the myth of the pro wrestler dies, and this match did just that, as pro wrestling fans were shocked to see Bigelow, a long-time veteran monster of the Japanese ring wars, get basically tackled immediately, mounted, and punched out, getting a deep cut above his eye, before getting behind him and choking him out in the final match on the show.

Bigelow would wrestle one more match in Japan then wouldn’t return for two years, probably for fear of bumping into Kimo.

Kimo would lose to Ken Shamrock but defeat Tank Abbott as well as various accusations of being dead.

Overall: This looked vaguely interesting on paper because I recognised some of the names but it’s hard to recommend a show with a one round thirty-five minute fight to anyone sane. Bigelow vs. Kimo doesn’t take too long to experience, and Matsunaga vs. Severn is fun in a silly way.

The rest you should only watch if bored from everything else in life.

Next week: Tokyo Pro dies horribly!

I’ve been Maffew.