to be released. He had his final match on May 27, where he defeated Sakuraba and, after the bout, took off his own shin guards and threw them to the audience before leaving the arena. Fighting Network RINGS (1996–2001) After negotiations with Pancrase, Tamura jumped to Fighting Network RINGS, founded by old mentor Maeda, citing a better contract. He was briefly pushed as the top star, being given the first RINGS heavyweight titles. By 1995, RINGS was making the transition from shoot style wrestling to mixed martial arts and Tamura began competing actively in both. In 2001, Tamura fought for the final time in RINGS. Post-RINGS (2003–present) In 2003 he opened his own promotion, U-STYLE. On November 23, 2005 he had his last match for this promotion, defeating Josh Barnett. He briefly came out of retirement for Antonio Inoki's Inoki Genome Federation, the last time being on November 8, 2007, beating Montanha Silva in the latter's IGF debut. In 2020, Tamura joined LIDET Entertainment's GLEAT promotion as an Executive Director. Mixed martial arts career Overview Tamura's 32 career wins include victories over mixed martial arts greats such as Jeremy Horn, Renzo Gracie, Ikuhisa Minowa, Nobuhiko Takada, Pat Miletich and held Frank Shamrock to a draw at a time when Shamrock was reigning UFC champion. However, in spite of his many accomplishments inside the arena of MMA, his record is somewhat marred by a preponderance of match-ups against top heavyweight and light-heavyweight competitors, including Antônio Rodrigo Nogueira, the 350-pound Bob Sapp and the former Olympic gold medalist Hidehiko Yoshida amongst others. His later mixed martial arts performances have also been criticized as being relatively apathetic compared to the fast-paced bouts that characterized the earlier part of his career. Part of this may owe to an absence of grappling in the bouts in question, where Tamura has often seemed more content to pursue a cautious stand-up game rather than engage in the submission exchanges he was at one point famed for. Kiyoshi had his first taste of MMA back in professional wrestling promotion Union of Wrestling Forces International, where he choked out boxer Matthew Saad Muhammad in a mixed rules bout in 1992 and also in 1995 where he beat fellow UWF-i wrestler Masahito Kakihara via rear naked choke in a shoot contest. He later offered to fight in the K-1 Hercules MMA event, where he made short work of Patrick Smith