KINGDOM TAPES
KINGDOM BIRTH step.1 Commercial Tape 5/4/97
Tokyo Yoyogi Taiikukan
-2 1/2hr. Q=Ex
*Kingdom's debut show*
Kenichi Yamamoto vs. Hiromitsu Kanehara. Bad match. Yamamoto takes forever to tap; showing he's learned nothing about why the marks stopped believing UWF-I was a real shoot league.
Kickboxing: Bouy Chowaikun vs. Hiroyuki Doi. Excellent 2nd round.
Nikolai Gordeau vs. Shunsuke Matsui. Bad match. No one could carry and some of the strikes didn't even hit.
Kazushi Sakuraba vs. Yuhi Sano. Very good and exciting bout.
Exhibition match: Nobuhiko Takada vs. Ryuki Ueyama
Yoshihiro Takayama vs. Caribou Mandiengo. Beyond awful. The only thing worse than the match is the interview Mandiengo gives before it.
Yoji Anjo vs. Masahito Kakihara. Good match due to a typically strong performance by Kakihara.
Billy Scott vs. Shunsuke Matsui. Very good bout. They went at it hard and so fast that they tired as the match went on. Scott is excellent here.
Kenichi Yamamoto vs. Nikolai Gordeau. Uneventful.
Yuhi Sano vs. Mark Hall. Most notable thing is that Hall whines that he has to give a pre-match interview.
Masahito Kakihara vs. Yoshihiro Takayama. Decent because Kakihara did a good job of carrying.
Yoji Anjo vs. Kazushi Sakuraba. Pretty good.
Takada practices his striking in the ring
Shunsuke Matsui vs. Brian Smith. Brian Smith on his fighting background, "I wrestled as an amateur in Michigan. I was an All-State wrestler. I won some tournaments, um, I did really well. I was the captain of my wrestling team." Fair, but very short.
Kenichi Yamamoto vs. Masahito Kakihara. Don't blink.
Yuhi Sano vs. Yoshihiro Takayama. Very good match due to a great performance by Sano. It didn't hold water, but it was exciting and dramatic. Takayama didn't suck because Sano didn't put him in positions where he would display his bad strikes and whatnot.
Kazushi Sakuraba vs. Orlando Weit. Weit is very green in this style.
Hiromitsu Kanehara vs. Nicholas Starks. Realistic, but really short and Starks brought nothing to the table.
Yoji Anjo vs. Paul Varelans. For some reason I actually found this interesting and good.
Round 1
Yuhi Sano vs. Kenichi Yamamoto
Kazushi Sakuraba vs. Yoji Anjo
Hiromitsu Kanehara vs. Billy Scott
Yoshihiro Takayama vs. Shunsuke Matsui
Non Tournament Match: Alexander Otsuka (Battlarts) vs. Katsumi Usuda (Battlarts). Good bout. This was more of a "typical" worked shoot than these guys normally do in Battlarts.
Semifinals
Sano vs. Sakuraba. Good technical bout.
Kanehara vs. Takayama. Kanehara was good enough to make this decent.
Final
Sano vs. Kanehara. Crowd was actually into this. Exciting bout with some nice spots mixed in with the requisite stuff. Best bout on the tape.
Shunsuke Matsui vs. Wayne Hass. This looked like a real shoot. It was interesting for a while, but became dull when no one could get an advantage and it became obvious they were going the distance.
Masahito Kakihara vs. Masao Orihara. Way worse than what Orihara did against UWF-I at the stadium on 9/11/96.
Billy Scott vs. Yoshihiro Takayama. Takayama brought this down more than Scott could bring it up.
Hiromitsu Kanehara vs. Yuhi Sano. Instead of building momentum for Sano, the have a rematch of the one night tournament final and this time Kanehara wins. Go figure.
Kenichi Yamamoto vs. Nicholas Starks. This was alright because Yamamoto finally showed some skill.
Kazushi Sakuraba vs. Moti Horenstein. Awful mat because Horenstein is clueless on the mat. Way too long and no intensity at all.
Yoji Anjo vs. Patrick Smith. Exciting and fast action. Good bout.
Shunsuke Matsui vs. Minoru Toyonaga
Kenichi Yamamoto vs. Masao Orihara
Masahito Kakihara vs. Felix Mitchell
Yuhi Sano vs. Yoshihiro Takayama
Kazushi Sakuraba vs. Greg Douglas
Yoji Anjo vs. Hiromitsu Kanehara
AJW
AJW year in review show featuring highlights of the WWWA World Singles, All Pacific, Triple Crown, WWWA World Tag title matches, Ito winning JGP, Yamada & Aja's graduation matches, & Hokuto's return. Each star picks their best match. Demonstration of signature moves on some of announcers. Feature on the new stars such as Momoe, Wakizawa, and Noumi.
Kingdom
Yoji Anjo vs. Masahito Kakihara
Kenichi Yamamoto vs. Mark Hall
Hiromitsu Kanehara vs. Eddie Ruiz
Yoshihiro Takayama vs. Yuhi Sano
Billy Jack Scott vs. Larry Parker
Nicholas Starks vs. Minoru Toyonaga
Kazushi Sakuraba vs. Paul Herrera
Nicholas Starks vs. Minoru Toyonaga
Yoshihiro Takayama vs. Yuhi Sano
Yoji Anjo vs. Masahito Kakihara
Billy Scott vs. Larry Parker
Kenichi Yamamoto vs. Mark Hall
Hiromitsu Kanehara vs. Eddie Ruiz
Kazushi Sakuraba vs. Paul Herrera