Kazushi Sakuraba vs. Kendo Kashin

[3.0] "I enjoyed pretty much everything else on this show but for me this was quite poor. Not something I'd recommend."

[7.0] "This is Kashin's most infamous bout and the one he's probably most famous for: facing a prime Sakuraba in the middle of his Gracie Hunter period in front of a huge crowd. Kashin naturally plays dirty right off the bat by blindsiding the guy and choking him with his towel. Sakuraba hits him down and stuck upwards, allowing him to throw shots until Kashin kicks him off and stalls. A good portion of the start is just them fighting for positioning on the mat, namely Kashin trying for his cross armbreaker and Sakuraba having to block and defend against it. Both guys are naturally very good at this sort of thing and while it's not the most entertaining to watch, it's still a good bit of fun and interesting to see the small bits and pieces that come together here. Kashin pulls out his usual dirty tricks and some pro-wrestling moves randomly to keep the pressure building while Sakuraba has to fight for every position alongside hitting all of his signature stuff. When he's told he can't do punches while in full mount, he opts for his goofy Mongolian chops, which get a rise out of the crowd. Sakuraba also hits some nice moves of his own in places, like a smooth second rope dropkick and catching Kashin out with a reverse kneebar when he tries for a Achilles Tendon Hold. The match tends to simmer around in the second half due to Kashin's heat spots being generally overplayed but Sakuraba gets the crowd back in places with his PRIDE callbacks. Eventually Kashin finds the thing that gets the crowd the most heated (him teasing tapping his opponent out with his signature Kimura) and pulls it out a good few times to try to get the submission. Eventually the ref has enough of Kashin's hair pulling and gets in his face, leading to Sakuraba to knock him out of the ring with a big dropkick to the back, which Kashin kinda botches the selling for by not going over with the initial leap but this is made up for by Sakuraba's awesome dive to the outside. Sakuraba knocks Kashin silly with a leaping knee and some German suplexes before the finish has Kashin low blow Sakuraba on the top rope. He tries for his armbreaker transition from the top rope in turn but Sakuraba catches him in a top rope Kimura, getting the unexpected tap out win. As stated this gets old pretty quickly but works fine as a weird MMA/pro wrestling mix. They don't really pick one or the other until the second half (not sure if this would've been better if played completely straight) and that makes this kinda confusing in places. Sakuraba is great despite the obvious rust and Kashin is.....good in places (especially as a rule bending heel) but you can tell he's using heat as a clutch to not wrestle as hard and his work beyond that is really meh. All in all a good spectacle but struggles with a identity crisis and with repetitive sequences. Still lots of fun through."