Retro Recommendations: Bas Rutten vs. Masakatsu Funaki II

If you were a hardcore mixed martial arts fan before we had high-speed internet connections and the world at your fingertips you relied on tape traders to get your fix of MMA action, when I first started I would get these mixed bag tapes with fights from Shooto, Pride and Pancrase. One of the earlier tapes I received in return for a copy of UFC 42 had the first encounter between Bas Rutten and Masakatsu Funaki on it, Funaki was Pancrase’s co-founder and promotional golden boy. The All Japan Pro Wrestling star was beloved by his Japanese contemporaries and in January of 1994 a young Dutch kickboxer by the name of Bas Rutten was no match for Funaki who forced him to submit in less than three minutes. Submissions were the lone ***** in the armor of Rutten in the mid-nineties being tapped by Funaki and UFC pioneer Ken Shamrock but two years on when Funaki and Rutten met in the Pancrase ring he wasn’t a one-dimentional fighter with two fights under his belt. It should be noted the differ...