Fujiwara Family: RINGS Astral Step 1st Spirit U 5/11/91

RINGS was the one of spinoffs after the end of the UWF Reborn and definitely counts as part of the Fujiwara family tree. It is also one of the big blind spots in my pro-wrestling watching. I have seen a handful of the big Volk Han matches, but not in years, so I am looking forward to digging in.

Pieter Smit vs. Herman Renting

PAS: Smit was a judoaka and Renting was a kickboxer although we didn't see a tremendous amount of stylistic variety in this match. Almost all of the RINGS fighters were pro-wrestling rookies and clearly some got the concept of performance more then others. This was pretty basic, with the only real flash being a nice Smit take down near the end of the match. I imagine this early stuff will be pretty hit or miss as the wrestlers start to figure out what works and what doesn't.

Willie Peeters vs. Marcel Haarmans 

PAS: This was more like it. Haarmans was also pretty dry, but Peeters had a lot of cool shit, using fast hands and feet and leaping in for shots and takedowns. Haarmans was slower, but had heavier hands and his stuff landed with more of a thud. I also really liked his counter to a Peeters throw, Peetrs tosses him with a takedown, buy Haarmans held on to his neck and came out of the throw with a neck crank. Finish was cool with Peeters dancing in and out landing strikes eventually hitting a nice high kick to drop Haarmans for the ten count. 

Chris Dolman vs. Bill Kazmaier

PAS: This was a bit dull, although I like the idea of swollen looking Kazmaier as a hard hitter. He had a couple of thrust shots to the ribs and chest which really looked like it compressed Dolman's insides, and I liked his awkward strong guy throws. Dolman had a Sambo and Judo background, and had a couple of OK takedowns before submitting Kazmaier with an arm bar. Had a moment or two, but was too long for the cool parts it had. 

ER: I'm a big fan of big white dudes who look like this doing shootstyle. Dolman and Kazmaier both look like linebackers, both have that wrestler hunch with powerlifter stomachs, and their kickpads look like they were made with duct tape and insulation. Kazmaier's elbow thrust to the stomach and the way Dolman sold it by kind of crumpling down to a knee basically made this match for me. I was going to say some wrestler needs to steal that one as a finisher, and then I remembered that Chris Ridgeway does a very similar thrust elbow and it's my favorite piece of offense that he does. Kazmaier also had a cool fisherman's slam that looked awkward and tough and completely deadlifted, and I love that kind of stuff. 

Akira Maeda vs. Dick Vrij

PAS: This was excellent and well worthy of a main event spot on this card. Vrij has a bleach blond flattop and earrings and has a great 80s movie villain henchman look, I could totally see him as the third guy to die in Under Siege 2. He is also great at taunting when things go his way and roid raging when they don't. This is mostly sparring on the feet, and both guys were bringing heat. Vrij uses his length to create distance landing a hard slap which really rattles Maeda, and he has great head movement which lets him avoid some of Maeda's winging shots. Maeda gets an early near fall on a multi body shot combo which ends with a high kick, looked totally great and Maeda could really place his shots.  Eventually Maeda suckers Vrij into throwing a shot he could catch and he turns it into a nasty half crab. Good stuff if a little basic for what RINGS would become. 

ER: Dick Vrij is such a badass, totally looks like he'd be the bad Dutch rapper in an early 90s Eurodance project. He's great at keeping distance with hard kicks, and he drops Maeda hard enough a few times that I was actually thinking he could beat the top gun on the debut show. His kicks and knees looked like something that could finish an ace like Maeda, but whenever Vrij would get close, Maeda would toss him with a series of disgusting suplexes. Maeda bounces Vrij off the top of his head with a belly to belly, catches Vrij's achilles over his shoulder and bounces him off his head with a capture suplex, also crushes him with a fisherman's buster. Vrij keeps getting more and more aggressive as things go on, getting overly excited after a knockdown (ending on a sick knee to the lungs) and gets in a few hits before the ref could pull him off. Vrij is smart and doesn't play it like he's outright sneaking in cheap shots, but comes off like a guy who got excited by his knockdown and was already thinking three strikes ahead. Maybe my favorite moment of the match was this awesome brief moment of tension that saw Vrij back Maeda into a corner and just kind of hold him there while making full, smirking eye contact. Add a mustache to his flattop crewcut and he would have looked like an off duty cop backing his wife into a kitchen corner for using the wrong tone to ask how his day was. You don't always get that kind of simmering tension in wrestling without it being over the top and act-y, and this came off like real psycho shit.