clinched on a corner, until Funaki led him to the ground and locked in another toehold from half mount, making Schilt tap out. On January 16, 1998, he fought the other co-founder of Pancrase, Minoru Suzuki at Pancrase: Advance 1. The Japanese wrestler took Schilt to the mat and kept side control for half of the match, but wasn't able to threaten him from the position aside from scarce armbar attempts, and Schilt eventually capitalized on one of them to escape. The situation repeated itself, but this time Suzuki successfully landed an armbar and Schilt barely reached the ropes to get an escape. Once standing again, however, Schilt went aggressively and landed a clean knee strike to Suzuki's chin, knocking him out for the win. Schilt had a rematch with Masakatsu Funaki on March 18, 1998 at Pancrase: Advance 4, although he managed to take the bout to the judges, he lost on points due to spent rope escapes. Months later, on September 14, he had his rubber match against Funaki at Pancrase: 1998 Anniversary Show. This time, the karateka showed himself capable of stopping the wrestler's takedowns, blocking the first of them with the aid of the ropes and a guillotine choke and reversing the second into Funaki's guard. After pressing for some minutes and avoiding a kneebar attempt, Schilt got the fight standing and scored a knockdown by two clinched knees. Funaki stood up and looked to continue the fight, but the Dutchman landed another knockdown, and finally finished him with a combination of knees and palm strikes. On June 20, 1999, Schilt flew back to the Netherlands to face Gilbert Yvel in an interpromotional match. The bout was particularly intriguing because Yvel belonged to RINGS, Pancrase's rival promotion in Japan. They met under special rules, with Gilbert keeping his gloves for punching while Schilt preferred to go barehanded and use open palm strikes like it was done in Pancrase. When the match began, Schilt was knocked down by a shocking flurry of hooks from Yvel, but managed to recover before the eight count. Schilt came back and controlled Gilbert with open palms and knees to the body, but decided to take the fight to the ground, not wanting to risk another KO from the RINGS muay Thai specialist. However, Yvel was able to block all of his submission attempts on the mat, in large part due to