Against Mitsuya Nagai, Volk Han Looks Like a Folk Hero

Bro the number of times I went "WHAT THE FUCK" during my first watch-through of this match.

I think I’m being fair when I call myself a fan of shoot wrestling, but I’ve never really been serious about it. I love Minoru Suzuki and Nobuhiko Takada, I’ve poked around enough to know that it’s a rabbit hole I am susceptible to falling into, but I spend most of my free time contemplating the orb that is American wrestling, despite several friends telling me, for years, that I should watch some Volk Han. Like I fool, I never followed through, so here I am in the middle of the night, biting my lip so I don’t scream when Han drops Mitsuya Nagai with the gnarliest looking brainbuster I’ve ever seen, trying not to shout “FUCK YEAH” when he buries Nagai’s head into the mat with the full nelson.

In other words, this is the good shit. 

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This is my first go-round with RINGS, so I want to take a moment to appreciate the aesthetics of the space. The vibes are immaculate, beginning with the employee training video music soundtracking the pre-match, the 90s video game options menu-looking marbling of the background graphics, the way the ring fills the frame of the camera. And then Volk Han turns Mitsuya Nagai inside out.

It happens so quickly, too. Nagai backs Han into the corner with a series of strikes that are mostly ineffective, the two back out of the corner in a collar and elbow, and Han, lightning fast, grabs Nagai’s arm and wrings it down, uses his control to tie it in knots around his leg, uses the leverage from that to roll Nagai onto the mat, and nearly catches him in a cross armbreaker. Had he caught Nagai, this would have been a thrilling flash submission, an open door into the wider world of Volk Han, but thankfully there is more to come. 

The story of this match is struggle. That’s obvious enough given how submission-based it is, how Han and Nagai constantly search each other for hold and counter hold, but in the sense that Volk Han is a mountain and Mitsuya Nagai is a climber trying not to die. Han is older, more experienced, taller, heavier, and stronger than Nagai, clearly outclassing the student of Tiger Mask, but this makes him an effective underdog. One of the great thrills in this match is when he suddenly drops Han to the canvas with a strike to the stomach, and that’s because for most of the match Han basically absorbs his blows like The Terminator.  

I imagine that’s what it’s like inside Volk Han’s head, as every hold he applies, throw he utilizes, and strike he throws is done with a scary precision, like he knows exactly where to shift his weight to not only escape a submission, but put one on. The bit in this match where he captures a striking Nagai’s leg, kicks out the one he’s planted on, and roughly takes him down to the mat is mean, dirty, and completely within the rules — it’s technical wrestling, and Han is a nigh unparalleled master of the craft.

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Nagai manages to keep chipping away at him, though, occasionally staggering Han with his strikes, or catching him on the mat close enough to the ropes to force Han to use an escape. His strategy — a risky one, given the finite limit on downs — becomes to stick and move, catching Han with a flurry of strikes when they’re separated after an escape, working the ribs with his kicks. It’s a solid strategy, but he’s also prone to errors in judgment, trying to go for a submission when Han is staggering rather than continuing to strike him. Reading into their post-match interaction, it’s like Volk Han knows his ticket nearly got punched a couple of times, that Mitsuya Nagai is a wrestler on the cusp of greatness. 

But he is indefatigable, a man of sheer will and determination. At the end of the bout, with Nagai goading him into trading strikes by offering his head for a free shot, he calms things down by grabbing Nagai in the clinch. His younger opponent tries to bridge him over into a suplex, but it doesn’t work. He’s exhausted, and Han is all over him. He gets one more rope break, but Han is done with him at this point, grabbing him in a clinch, walking through his punches, swiftly maneuvering into a full nelson, then forcing him down to the mat, neck bent at a grotesque angle, for the submission victory. It’s beautiful. Poetry, even. What more can you say?

Rating: *****