Introduction

Jumbo Tsuruta is widely considered one of the best professional wrestlers ever. His physicality and athleticism, his subtle acting, his superlative match layouts and workrate – he is recognized as an all-time great for these, and rightly so.

 

The period we think about when we consider those qualities is, let’s say, 1985-1992, between Riki Choshu’s arrival in All Japan and Jumbo’s time out for health reasons that marked the end of his “serious” wrestling career. In fact, for many people, the period that needs considering for Jumbo is even shorter – 1989-1992, from his match with Yatsu against Tenryu and Kawada through his unification of the Triple Crown to further battles against Tenryu and Hansen, and then the unmasking of Tiger Mask and the supersonic rise of Misawa as his chief rival, with the concurrent war against the rest of Misawa’s Super Generation Army.

 

Jumbo can make an all-time case on four years. It’s really an indisputable case for a Top 100 worker.

 

What if I told you that – if you want to see just how good Jumbo was, just what kind of work he was capable of – that you have to watch his 1970s work? What if I told you that in certain senses, this era is more representative of his skills than his absolutely gold-plated period later on?

 

There are two reasons that his work in the ‘70s is relatively neglected: first, it’s not the bit that has historically mattered to connoisseur smarks, who as a movement were largely “made” on King’s Road wrestling – and to whom, therefore, the mid 80s to early 90s are all that matter for historical purposes; and second, it’s because ‘70s wrestling is largely judged as outdated and very limited, even where a given match may be good or “forward-looking”.

 

The former reason is, as it were, strictly personal – to each his own. The latter reason can be confuted, and a new field of enjoyment opened up. The basic point is that – aside from a few specific endemic issues, which really were problems in ‘70s wrestling – we do not understand the idiom and form of the era, and so we think it is bad.

 

Let me draw an analogy. WWF/E was always great at training its audience to recognize finishers. Some of these finishers, as I looked at them then and in retrospect now, don’t look very good. The People’s Elbow? The Pedigree? Both of them were often executed in incredibly soft ways. People bought them, though, and whole match layouts – for good matches – were laid out round getting to them, and kicking out of them if that was the direction of the match.

 

Imagine you knew none of that, and watched a really good Rock or Trips match from the late 90s or early 00s. You might get some contextual clues from the layout, from the pacing, from the crowd noise – if we’re permitting you the audio, anyway – that a move is a big move. But you’re an alien to Attitude and Ruthless Aggression wrestling, and so this all looks a bit…well, weak? You’re used to crazy choreographed anime battles, and what are these guys doing?

 

Or you see Kenta Kobashi hulking out with no context. You find it confusing, and laugh.

 

If you don’t know a style or idiom of wrestling, it will struggle to get over with you. Underlying qualities will break through, but it’s like singing in a foreign language – emotion and certain points of technique might break through, but whole ranges of meaning are lost to you.

 

So with 1970s “NWA style” wrestling. This is a world where the smudge finish is to be expected at the top of the card; a lot of big matches run really long and never have an explosive ending sequence; title matches are commonly paced and structured in ways that disappear by the early ‘80s, and many viewers have simply never seen before when they come upon them; the moveset is different and, yes, “simpler”; and what is over with the crowd or what communicates is just nothing like what you’re expecting, even if you’ve watched King’s Road classics.

 

You have to begin a second childhood, really, and watch these as if this is what pro-wrestling is. You have to learn the language, learn what works, learn the rhythm of the dance.

 

I do think some of the “language” of the style limits it. The smudgy finish was already, by the ‘70s, a hangover from a former age, and in about the most televised federation in the world – AJPW – it comes off even worse than elsewhere, especially when you watch it in bulk, as the modern fan can do. You can queue up title matches and find many creative smudges, but at best this palls with time, and you see how often a really dramatic match is just undercut by the booking requirement to keep everyone strong and perhaps to set up a new programme. Stories cannot finish, because the serialization of companies reliant on live tours require them to spin out forever.

 

Even with this, though, you can learn to appreciate the cleverer and more dramatic smudges, and one thing you basically escape in AJPW is the true Dusty Finish. Equally, as countouts and DQs transfer titles in Japan, there is much less of the absurdity of the heel champion being allowed to perpetually scam a federation who nominally is awarding him a competitive belt.

 

Some of the other barriers to our enjoyment are much easier to surpass. The Double Underhook (Butterfly) Suplex is a regular pinfall for Jumbo, as it is for his trainer Dory Funk Jr. Baba has a Running Neckbreaker (the “Northern Drop”) and the Big Boot among other big moves. These are executed well, and when you think about them, being kicked in the face or chucked over a 6’5” guy’s head after your shoulders have been wrenched…well, they could definitely take you down for a three count. And the audience know this and believe this, too. (Yes, the Iron Claw takes a bit more suspension of disbelief…) The basic story and drama do not rely on big movesets. Great stories in wrestling can be told with very limited movesets – Ric Flair had moves in the ‘80s but he was never a moveset merchant, and he might be the best ever; Kawada arguably pared his offence down through the ‘90s, and has many proponents as the Best Pillar. So the moveset thing isn’t a problem.

 

That title matches are nearly always 2/3 Falls and regularly run long, and even not uncommonly to an hour’s draw, is a challenge of a different sort. The length itself is surely no big issue to most hardcore fans, but pacing and structure is alien to much of what we do watch. The arrival of first Stan Hansen and then Riki Choshu changed the way All Japan lay out main event matches all the way through to the NOAH split. The death of the 2/3 Falls, even for the NWA World title, meant pacing moved from a heavily punctuated affair with specific break spots to a more continuous escalation.

 

But we can, again, attune ourselves to the rhythm. There are different ways 2/3 Falls in the era can be structured – and we see that Flair and Steamboat remember this in 1989, if we pay attention. You can have Long-Short-Long; you can have an even pace; you can even have quirky choices, not just two falls won by the same wrestler, but also matches with only one decisive fall (what is perhaps Baba’s best singles match is a 1-0 title retention in 1969). As you do not know the structure going in – and the same workers can work 1-1, 2-1, and 1-0, in all kinds of pacing – you can be genuinely surprised by what happens. The wider range of possible finishes, too – to retain freshness – means that the potential killer move can be a standard Big Move or submission, or it can be something unusual or smudgy; there is far greater variety than in most American wrestling in the 90s or 00s, and as to actual finishing move there is probably more variety than in the King’s Road itself. Single fall matches where a decisive result requires increasing and continuous escalation is limiting in its own way; the old title match formula, for all its haziness, was a more supple instrument.

 

With some tolerance for shonky booking, especially against big name guests, we can learn to love virtually everything else that is different about the era. If we are willing to try, we will see that Jumbo was a truly great worker in the 1970s, and produced as varied and as impressive a body of work then as, really, any worker ever has in any single decade.

 

Thus: ten Jumbo Tsuruta matches from the 1970s.

 

Giant Baba & Tomomi Tsuruta vs Dory Funk Jr & Terry Funk – NWA International Tag Team Titles, 2/3 Falls, 09/10/1973

Jumbo’s first television appearance, and a vital coalescence of what is going to drive AJPW forward for the next decade: Baba, Jumbo, and the Funks. Dory trained Jumbo; Terry will train Onita in the future. Baba and Dory have already worked with each other in singles in the JWA, and Jumbo has been working in Amarillo before being called over to take his place. This is a comfortable matchup for everyone, and it’s a fantastic showcase for “Tomomi” Tsuruta (yes, he is going under his real name here). No-one, not even Brock Lesnar, has ever looked this complete a year into his career. This is one species of the case for Jumbo as Best Ever – from late 1973 to late 1992, nineteen whole years basically, he is just good, never bad. His whole “serious” career is good.

 

He turns up in this and is smooth, organised, energetic, hitting great moves, and generally looking like the Crown Prince he was. He even gets his team’s only fall, over Terry (the junior brother), with a Bridging German Suplex. He is immediately put on a level with a Funk, and moreover a Funk who will be World Champion in a few years.

 

One thing that we should observe, in our learning of the idiom of AJPW in the 1970s, is that this is, one, a Time Limit Draw, and two, is heavily cut down for broadcast. It ran 61 minutes; we have 37 minutes. I do not think this should stop us coming to a judgement. Partly, we must come to some judgement because this is the form in which many important and enjoyable matches survive. We can make a judgement, as long as some substance remains, because the general form, the general ability, remains; we can judge cardio, moveset, selling, and the rest. We can love the Venus de Milo though she lacks her arms, and we can love clipped classics though they lack build segments.

 

However, in this case, we have a few reasons to judge this positively but with caution. The second fall is flabby, and relies a lot on Terry. At this stage the Funks are still working heel – this will change in 1974 – and Terry brings some of his most obnoxious hamming up to the party here. This is something that sold better then than now, so we should restrain our criticism with that knowledge, but it’s an odd contrast to the deadly serious Japanese and Dory, who works a great section with Baba which is very straight. A flabby second fall and the suspiciously long cuts to the other falls – what was cut, if the flab was kept in the segunda? – stop this being an all-time great for me, but it is very fun, and genuinely epochal in wrestling.

 

Time Limit Draw in 61:00.

 

Jack Brisco © vs Jumbo Tsuruta – NWA World Heavyweight Title, 2/3 Falls, 30/01/1974

Jumbo debuted three months before and now gets a World Title shot. That is the scale of ambition and trust Baba has here. It also uses an enjoyable version of the 2/3 Falls Title match format: three fairly equal-length falls (12:55, 7:32, 8:58), starting with the overdog slowly gaining advantage and taking the fall. This is strong booking, because it allows the underdog’s comeback to be all the more remarkable, without undercutting “wrestling realism”: Jumbo is outgunned here.

 

Brisco and Jumbo are a natural match – until the rivalries with Tenryu and Misawa, Jumbo’s best match-ups are always guys who match Jumbo on the mat, like Brisco, Terry, Billy, Mil, Bock, and, yes, Flair – and here we see the fiery young gun trying to climb the mountain against a much superior opponent.

 

Brisco and Jumbo work a “gaining advantage” matwork fall in the Primera; this is one of the “stranger” sorts of passage to the modern smark, because it’s not limbwork and it’s not some high-pace lucha-inspired move-counter-move section. “What’s the point of this?” Well, first, it’s beautiful and excellent and you must learn to appreciate the liquidity and the strength. The audience does; their zone hasn’t been flooded by other shinies and so the skill and “sports acting” on display is greatly appreciated. But this whole thing has another purpose, one also understood by the audience – this is about developing advantage so as to gain a decisive opportunity. Brisco does this eventually to take the fall with a Backbreaker.

 

The Segunda gives Jumbo a quick comeback – he hits a Kneecrusher early, and then works the limb. Brisco sells magnificently, and we get to see fiery and determined Jumbo chase down the prize like an attack dog. Jumbo actually wins the fall with his big Overhead Belly-to-Belly Suplex, taking out the tired and pain-distracted Brisco; this was his massive finisher, and the very fact he has one from the off, as well as big-name borrowed moves, is again a sign of his raw skill and also of the status accorded to him. No Generic Rookie Offence for Jumbo.

 

The Tercera has a coherent start – Jumbo trying to continue this momentum on the knee, Brisco looking to slow things down – but is the one downer in this match, as it ends up bitty. Brisco wins on a roll-up. This can be a clean win for Brisco because Jumbo is still a rookie, but it’s a 2-1 clean win, giving Jumbo a massive shine.

 

Jack Brisco defeats Jumbo Tsuruta in 29:25.

 

Abdullah the Butcher © vs Jumbo Tsuruta – PWF US Heavyweight Championship, 2/3 Falls, 1975

If you want to understand Jumbo as a wrestler, you can’t just watch the big hits. You have to watch how he carries one of the worst major wrestlers ever to a legitimately passable match. Abdullah has charisma pouring out from him, mixed in with the blood, and he has these weird agile moments where he’s suddenly sprinting around at an insane speed for such a big bloke, but he’s not got much else going for him. He’s a spectacle, not a wrestler.

 

Jumbo has decided, however, that there must actually be a match and the audience must be able to engage with it as if it were a contest between two wrestlers, rather than simply a donation of the red stuff to the mat gods.

 

The PWF US Heavyweight Championship was the belt created mostly for The Destroyer to defend during his 7 or so years with All Japan as their first full-time foreigner. He would intermittently drop it to someone else as a bit of a “thank you for your service”; the three so honoured were Peter Maivia, Abdullah the Butcher, and Mil Mascaras. I get Abby and Mil, two of Baba’s lynchpin foreigners in the ‘70s and ‘80s, but I’m not at all sure about Peter Maivia’s qualifications.

 

Anyway, here we get Jumbo challenging for the belt. This is a good shot at a first singles title; he’s challenged for bigger belts before and performed well. His obstacle is that his opponent is a disgusting, cheating, maniacal slob.

 

The way this match becomes passable is that Jumbo has learned from the Funks and from Baba how to brawl with a cheating outsider, and – more than that – is maybe the best ever at wrestling his opponent’s match. He’s better at Flair at this. Jumbo just morphs to do what his opponent needs. You see this with his willingness to slug with Hansen, bomb with Tenryu, and act like the slow old lion against Misawa. Abdullah is the extreme version of this, because Abby can only wrestle one match.

 

So Jumbo just goes after Abdullah from the bell, meaning that he is driving the pace, entirely necessary in this matchup. He hits some MASSIVE running elbows, which are of course an excuse for Abdullah to bleed. I do not like Abdullah’s blade jobs; a bit of colour, intentional or not, can elevate a match, but for Abdullah it takes the place of, I don’t know, working a side headlock or reversing a Whip. It’s banal.

 

Jumbo decides to bit the wound. WHAT ON EARTH. (Incidentally, if you actually want a “Benoit swandive” or “Misawa neckbump” moment for Jumbo, it’s this.) Jumbo hates this nasty freak so much he’s willing to cross the line of normality. You have this strange sense that this can’t be about the title, but about the whole offence Abdullah represents to the noble art; Jumbo is here to punish him. The crowd just goes for this, too, just as they will when the Funks decide to finally destroy the Butcher and the Sheik in a few years.

 

There are down moments, of course, because Abdullah cannot actually work offence and gases after every single move. Jumbo fills these with his High Renaissance posing and roaring. He pumps his fist; he yells to the crowd; he dances round Abdullah, taunting him. There is always something going on. He never allows the void that is his opponent’s workrate to kill the match. And – because they keep it blessedly short – this works.

 

We also have broader story and character beats developed here. Jumbo is still not quite up to his opponent’s levels of ruthlessness, though, and loses after being counted out in the third fall. There is long-term booking here, as well as protecting Abdullah’s ego; Jumbo must climb the mountain, and he has learned a lesson that it’s not all just about passion or even about skill. The bad guys are always going to try to outsmart you, and you have to outthink them, too.

 

The post-match is good, too. I only have a certain tolerance for the “mad chaotic brawling” stuff in the ‘70s and ‘80s, but I do enjoy a good example. Here, we have a short exposition – Abdullah attacks Jumbo on the floor post-match, after Jumbo has been counted out. He proceeds to knock him about, only to be stopped by Kojika offering himself as a human shield – eat your heart out, Kobashi! Then Jumbo is recovered and just goes bananas on Abby, and the crowd eats it up before the two are finally separated.

 

It’s nothing great, but it is incredibly illuminating as to how good Jumbo was.

 

Abdullah the Butcher defeats Jumbo Tsuruta in 12:42.

 

Giant Baba vs Jumbo Tsuruta – Open League, 15/12/1975

Baba and Jumbo had five singles matches, before booking requirements blocked them; Baba was handing over to Jumbo as ace but he had to stay strong, and the network didn’t want Jumbo being fuzzed nor Baba weakened through singles meetings. I suspect Jumbo would have been one of the best match-ups for Baba through the ‘80s, as the Giant’s body began to give up on him – Hansen’s charisma, athleticism, and aggression made for a good matchup, but many others struggled. Jumbo’s adaptability would have been a great aid.

 

We see that here, too, in this precursor to the Champion Carnival. Jumbo does adapt, but Baba gives Jumbo an absolute ton of offence and sells like a king. There is a clear role dynamic, which is a typical one for Baba – he can just about hang on the mat, but Jumbo is really superior there; Giant wants to break out and hits big moves. Jumbo is happy to trade moves, too – it’s lovely seeing Dory look on as his student tries for the Butterfly Suplex and locks in the Spinning Toehold, and Jumbo unleashes murderous high-altitude dropkicks to take Baba down.

 

Baba wins, of course, and Jumbo is only elevated thereby. Baba hits the whole suite of his finishers to finally take out the Crown Prince, and though he never looks truly on the back foot, Jumbo’s sheer energy and skill give him openings to beat the boss. The crowd is so hot for Jumbo here, too, for all their deep, abiding love for Baba. One is minded of the way that Jumbo never truly loses the crowd, even as a soft heel against Tenryu and Misawa; and I think of how beloved his comedy six-man appearances are. Whatever the occasional doubts about his ‘70s popularity, at least at the live events there is nobody more over than Jumbo.

 

Giant Baba defeats Jumbo Tsuruta in 16:49.

 

Terry Funk © vs Jumbo Tsuruta – NWA World Heavyweight Title, 2/3 Falls, 11/06/1976

Often spoke of as the match which “made Jumbo”, though some would as readily point to his televised debut or to his 1977 match against Mil Mascaras. Jumbo actually challenged for the NWA title in 1974, against Jack Brisco; that’s a good match. We’ve already mentioned his challenge for Abby’s US Heavyweight Title. Similarly, in 1976, he’ll also wrestle Brisco again, for the NWA United National Heavyweight Title, which becomes AJPW’s secondary singles belt beneath Baba’s PWF Heavyweight Title. Jumbo spends this period being established as a viable singles star, and that first (losing) challenge against Brisco, and their rematch for the junior belt, are important steps.

 

But this match tells the story of how Jumbo can wrestle on parity with the World Champion. Of course, that’s booking, not Jumbo’s ability, but it’s worth dwelling on for a moment. It shows us Baba’s confidence in Jumbo, of course, but we might read that as desperation. More importantly, it shows a coherent development of “the character” of Jumbo. Baba had a plan, and whatever teething problems it may have faced along the way, it was executed successfully – and when wrestling changed, the plan developed, and Jumbo changed. It feels like a nearly unique partnership in wrestling because of this. Inoki did not really book Fujinami in the same way, other than his movement to the heavyweight division. Vince Sr and Bruno were close, of course, but Bruno’s long reign was about stability and consistent drawing, not a developing character and style. Baba building up Jumbo is maybe the greatest long-form booking ever; his building up Misawa is certainly the greatest emergency booking ever. Baba’s eye for real talent was also pretty indubitable.

 

To the match. Terry wins clean, but it’s a wild battle to the end, and Terry puts Jumbo over enormously, just as Baba did in their Open League match. It utilises a common 2/3 Falls structure – though one not actually common on this list! – of Long-Short-Long(ish). The falls run at 15 minutes, 6 minutes, and 10 minutes, respectively. The purpose of the pattern is that you build up the story in the first fall, slowly and deliberately, before a significant escalation or a rapid reversal in the second fall. The final fall is then often a long exchange of everything big the guys have, though if the match runs long then this third fall may include a long mat-and-chain section to pace it out.

 

This is a near-perfect exemplar of the format, and of the whole style. The third fall is a little bitty – they’re selling the wear and tear, so this is natural – but otherwise this is just such great value for money. Terry is always a high-workrate guy, and in his “technical” days, where he’s not overselling (yes, that’s what I think it is), he’s a Top 5 worker. Jumbo can go step-for-step, though. Jumbo isn’t led through these matches; you don’t see excessive signalling, you don’t see Jumbo as leading dull downtime, which is classic for a green guy who can’t quite work the pace yet. Everything here is exciting, contested, and well communicated. Jumbo is not yet a master of ring psychology, but he was always gifted, and his struggles here, and his attempts to finish off the champ, are beautiful.

 

Jumbo hits a beautiful Sunset Flip to win the first fall, having gained position and advantage after a lovely mat section; the second fall is BOMB CITY, and eventually ends on a Funk Rolling Cradle, one of those moves we have to remind ourselves is actually quite difficult to execute well and which would be a pretty nasty experience in reality; the third fall is generous booking, with a wonderful finishing exchange, as Terry leapfrogs Jumbo, Jumbo recovers rapidly and executes the Thesz Press…only for Terry to hotshot him into the ropes for the win. There is nothing cheap, nothing slow, nothing dull here. It’s face-vs-face booking and it’s glorious.

 

Terry Funk defeats Jumbo Tsuruta in 26:37.

 

Giant Baba & Jumbo Tsuruta © vs Kim Duk & Kintaro Oki – NWA International Tag Team Titles, 2/3 Falls, 28/10/1976        

The dynamics of early Showa puroresu meant that essentially all important matches were booked between a native hero and a foreign rival. Partly this was down to matters of hierarchy and ego; partly, and in some ways I suspect this was materially more relevant, down to a paucity of Japanese main eventers. I suppose you could have booked Baba vs Inoki, but they were literally the money men for the two TV networks involved in JWA. Why weaken either? Rikidozan had no native contemporaries. By the 1970s, and the end of the JWA, the problem is only exacerbated by the split. Inoki and Baba are no longer in the same company, and their proteges – Fujinami and Jumbo – have no real peers, though Fujinami is better off in that respect and will, especially, end up with Choshu.

 

There were two sources of possible native rivalry, however. One was via the IWE, the small third company in Japanese wrestling at the time. Jumbo wrestled its ace, Rusher Kimura, three times in singles, and teamed with Baba against Kimura and former ace Great Kusatsu once. One of those singles matches (28/03/1976) is a particularly good time without being a classic. Kimura was limited but a smart worker and had real aura – he still has real aura 20 years later when he’ll start mocking Haruka Eigen at the end of a random midcard comedy six-man.

 

The more important native rivalry, though, was with the “Koreans” Kintaro Oki and Kim Duk. Oki – Kim Ill – was born and bred a Korean, coming over to Japan at a relatively late age to seek training from fellow Korean Rikidozan. He was the third of Rikidozan’s big important trio of trainees, alongside Inoki and Baba. He was, nominally, the ace of the remnant JWA after Baba’s departure, and had certainly angled for that sort of status before – there had been flirtations with a serious set up the hierarchy for him in the 1960s which had never come through.

 

After the JWA’s collapse, Oki went with the remnant roster to AJPW for 1973, but despite holding Baba’s old NWA International Heavyweight Title never defended it in All Japan – which should show something about the relationship between the men and the status of the JWA loyalists. Oki went off soon thereafter to run his own promotion in South Korea, which was probably the right call for him.

 

Notwithstanding this, Oki came back to Japan to work a little in New Japan at first (including working a double countout for Inoki’s NWF title in 1975), but eventually as a regular guest in All Japan and occasionally IWE. In this role he served as a peer antagonist for Baba – though Baba presumably signed some checks and so got to win their singles match-ups – and, more importantly, partnered with a younger man to face off against Jumbo and Baba.

 

That younger man was Kim Duk, aka Tiger Chung Lee of the WWF, aka Tiger Toguchi of NJPW. Duk/Toguchi was (is) a Zainichi Korean, that is, a Japanese of Korean descent whose family migrated during the period of Japanese imperial rule over Korea. He was a JWA trainee on excursion when the company finally died, and he worked solely in America through the period 1973-1975. In 1976, he returned and worked significant chunks of time in All Japan all the way through to 1981 (first as villainous Kim Duk, and then as upper-midcard babyface Tiger Toguchi, who has decent placement on the card and beats native schlubs before jobbing to foreign stars – but even in 1981 he will go to Double Countout against Abdullah and Jack Brisco). In 1981 he moved over to NJPW and later WWF and would only return as a 53-year-old in 2001 to fill out the very thin card before Mutoh bought the company.

 

All this preamble to say that Duk – Jumbo’s elder by three years – was the nearest thing to a true native rival available in All Japan. Oki was pretty old in his matches with Baba, and they top out at acceptable, and at any rate are not really booked as two equals; Kimura was only occasionally available and couldn’t be booked “straight” as he had his only company to look good for; Duk was young, more athletic than either, and had a good look. He was fit enough to work Broadways challenging for the United National Title against Jumbo in 1978 and Dick Murdoch in 1980. He had a definite ceiling, and in honesty isn’t near Jumbo’s level, but then who is?

 

This match – the first of five between the teams – is for Baba and Jumbo’s NWA International Tag Titles, at that point the only tag titles in All Japan. It’s in the upper tier of these matches, and it’s probably the most memorable of them. Other matches have different enjoyable characteristics – fat 49-year-old Kintaro Oki hitting Jumping Knee Drops off the second rope is a good time – but this one is some of the hottest any match in ‘70s All Japan will ever get.

 

This is short, which covers Oki’s limits. In some similar-quality matches they do go longer. What the length does, though, is make it very clear to us what happens. The first fall is really genuinely good tag wrestling – there’s good groundwork, and Oki hits a Brainbuster on Jumbo! It’s intense, it keeps flowing, it’s mobile. That matches Baba, Oki, and Duk well – none are top-tier matworkers, and Jumbo adapts here to be the firecracker on his team.

 

The faces win the first fall, and then as the second fall develops things go sideways (but in a good way). Duk saps Jumbo with a microphone behind the ref’s back, and Oki gets the pin. The crowd is angry. In the third fall, Baba goes to break up some interference and a mass brawl breaks out. Duk ends up in the ring with both Jumbo and Baba pounding on him. Punishment has come and the crowd love it. It’s exhilarating stuff.

 

Joe Higuchi then DQs the faces, and tries to stop the beating. The crowd boos and throws enormous amounts of trash at the ring. Jumbo chucks Higuchi to the mat! Outrageous stuff, surely…except the crowd cheer! The heels have won the titles, but have to flee through a hostile crowd. Authentic, exciting drama

 

Kintaro Oki & Kim Duk defeat Giant Baba & Jumbo Tsuruta by DQ in 12:10.

 

Jumbo Tsuruta © vs Billy Robinson – NWA United National Heavyweight Championship, 2/3 Falls, 05/03/1977

This is the most Sliding Doors moment in 1970s All Japan. We see a sample of what can happen with a native rivalry with Kim Duk, but Duk/Toguchi is not quite good enough to make that soar, and anyway we have seen the full-flower version of that idea. Jumbo has perhaps the best native rivalries in the earlier period of puro: being part of the rivalry with Choshu and Yatsu, and then facing off against Tenryu for three years, and finally holding off Misawa until his own body gave in on him.

 

What we never see is an All Japan not just influenced by Billy Robinson and catch wrestling, but a heavyweight scene defined by it. In the earlier period, AJPW heavyweight work is either bloody brawling or American heavyweight grappling, with just a leaven of playfulness from The Destroyer. The lucha influence will seep in more and more visibly as the ‘70s merge into the ‘80s, though this is a fact of the emergent Junior Heavyweight work rather than something you see with Baba and Jumbo. The decisive shift that starts in 1982 and speeds up in 1985 – that is, when Hansen and then Choshu join in earnest – is towards a high-impact, throws-and-blows style.

 

But here we have the alternative. Billy Robinson came to Japan because the small third Japanese promotion, IWE, couldn’t book talent from the USA after losing a few USA-oriented booking agents in a row. They turned to Europe, and in Billy (sometimes Bill) they got the first foreign ace in Japanese wrestling. He worked outside of Britain from thereonin, though his base shifted to the USA in the 1970s. AJPW eventually became his Japanese home right up until his retirement.

 

Robinson is a magical presence in the ring: charismatic, intense, even funny, able to work material at speed and to brawl, but best in long and contested matwork sections. He doesn’t do the Russ Abbott, but you’ll see Johnny Saint-esque escapes and breaks, as well as material more in the heavyweight mould. He once dragged a match out of Abdullah that reaches the limited but contextually impressive level that Jumbo did in 1975, but where Jumbo does it by going nuts, Billy does it by essentially wrestling himself. For all his more recent recognition, there’s a case that Robinson is one of the most underrated main eventers that we have significant tape for; Bockwinkel gets a lot of flowers online, but Robinson seems like more of a well-known trivia answer.

 

What is AJPW wrestling when it’s informed by Robinson’s fairly pure style? Jumbo is the man for the mission, of course, and the result is stellar. It’s about the best AJ match of the 1970s. Billy is coming for Jumbo’s United National Title, and they have a natural age dynamic. This is excellently pacey, and follows a Shortish-Shortish-Short fall structure – what I mean is that everything goes by quite quickly! Robinson can work long matches, but – especially as this is going to a decision, they can afford to clip along. The match also inverts the most ordinary content pattern, with the second fall being the one most focussed on working holds, with the first fall much more fluid and testing out.

 

(Of course, you can also run a short match by fuzzing the finish, but if you have entertaining workers with good cardio, you usually want them running a longer match to fill up the evening for the live audience; this evening, though, the semi-main was the future Great Kabuki and Baba against Dick Slater and Mil Mascaras, though a genuine big name affair.)

 

The first two falls (11 minutes and 8 minutes) are evenly-contested, 50-50 stuff. It’s all catch work punctuated by strike exchanges, all seeking position and advantage rather than pressing for straight limbwork or anything like that. Robinson’s character work here is great – developing from a slightly arrogant older man to a watchful, careful competitor. Once he squares the match in the segunda with his Backbreaker, his attitude develops further: he’s predatory, aggressive, crouched. He wants to finish the deal.

 

The fact that Robinson gets to win – well, one, it’s payment of a type. He’ll similarly get a short stint with the PWF Championship. He’s given the top belts in the company to show his importance, and possibly to give him points on the gate (I don’t know the Japanese system round that). But further, it’s a sign that Jumbo is a figure who can work as a challenger, he’s a wrestler who can still soak a loss. They will have two more matches in March, ending in the aforementioned Abby Interference Match. All are worth watching.

 

The sliding door is that a fluid, pacey British style – perhaps combined with other influences as they came along – never happened on a wide scale in Japan. Robinson, though, due to a sort of accident, ended up with the opportunity to hold the top titles for two of the Japanese promotions, and was a credible main eventer for many years. One can see glimmerings of his influence in All Japan in the years following, and it does seem he provided some training, so this should be no surprise. Yet he was, in the numerical sense only, one of a kind; All Japan brought over no other significant British workers until 1985 and the introduction of Dynamite Kid, Davey Boy Smith, and “Judo” Pete Roberts”, who arrived in the wake of Ishin-Gundan and a change of agent arrangements. No All Japan workers went to excursion in Britain, unlike Satoru Sayama, Akira Maeda, and Keichi Yamada – and those are workers who went on to change both Junior and Heavyweight wrestling with what they learned. Instead, Baba sent first Momota and then, later, Onita and Misawa to Mexico, and seemed ready to chart another course – but that is a tale for another essay.

 

“Catch puro” did, of course, end up existing, including via Maeda. In All Japan, it would have relied on an earlier introduction of more British technical workers, and probably a different treatment of the technically gifted “Three Crows” – Onita, Fuchi, and Sonoda. They were the sort of men who, with Mitsuo Momota, The Destroyer, and of course Jumbo, could have adapted to the fluid and playful style. Ultimately, perhaps that would have been as good a reason as any for Baba to avoid the experiment. “Catch puro”, in All Japan in the ‘70s and early ‘80s, would have required a full remodelling around smaller men, and that was never going to happen.

 

Bill Robinson defeats Jumbo Tsuruta in 23:03.

 

Jumbo Tsuruta © vs Mil Mascaras – NWA United National Heavyweight Championship, 2/3 Falls, 25/08/1977

The Battle of the Idols. This sometimes gets credited as “getting Jumbo over” – some of the Four Pillars fell in love with wrestling watching this match, and it did fantastic business at the time. There is an occasional suggestion that “salaryman Jumbo” was seen as not truly committed to the art. It’s hard to track down how seriously this idea was taken at the time, but our main exposure – the live crowds – suggests he was always incredibly popular. Undeniably, though, the period from his 1976 matches against Terry Funk and Jack Brisco though his rivalry with Billy Robinson and his first big matches against Harley Race and Nick Bockwinkel define him as a main eventer in singles, and you can already see the passing of the torch from Baba in this period – and the “Battle of the Idols” is a key moment in that transition.

 

Here’s the thing: Mil Mascaras puts a guy over pretty much clean. That’s how big this match is.

 

Like the Robinson match above, this is a bit of a dream Jumbo match. Jumbo enjoys the American heavyweight grappling style in this period, as in his matches with Brisco, Funk, Race, and Bockwinkel, but he’s such a smooth and liquid matworker that the catch and lucha styles perhaps suit him even better.

 

This follows a Long-Short-Shorter fall structure, which works to give a sense of escalating pace and urgency. This is in some ways the “whole match layout” equivalent of an escalating finishing sequence in a One Fall match, with each guy desperately trying to get in another finisher or a surprise move; this “feels” very different to a “build up til one guy is able to hit the Five Moves of Doom” match. The Long-Short-Shorter match, because the pace palpably increases in the segunda and starts at full pelt in the tercera, signals to the viewer that things are only getting more exciting at each stage.

 

This starts out with a long fall (22 minutes), as I say. It’s a matwork fall, it’s some of the most beautiful and supple work you’ll ever see. It’s different to the Robinson match included above because it’s less about intelligent work-arounds and more about balance and strength. Mil is allowed to be the slightly superior worker here; Jumbo can keep up, but it’s Mil’s yard. Jumbo works the match, functionally, from underneath, and with a hint of the Baba Technical Match Layout – except this time, Jumbo wants to break out and hit moves. In the primera, though, Mil eventually creates a dominant “board position” – this era of matwork is often very chess-like – and gets the submission win.

 

The segunda can now rely on the story built up in the primera, and escalate accordingly. Many match layouts don’t do this, and switch storytelling mode; but if you’re escalating in the Long-Short-Shorter layout, you’re letting the audience remember the first fall. So here Jumbo speeds things up and looks to hit moves rather than work into a submission or even really to wear Mil down. He wants to break Mil’s stance, to use another analogy. So he eventually gets in an Airplane Spin and then a Missile Dropkick for the straight pinfall. When considering moveset, this is one that strikes me – the Airplane Spin isn’t a plausible high-tier move in major feds now, but have you seen a 6’5” guy spin another guy around and around and then dump him on the floor? It looks legit.

 

The final fall is where Mil does the job, and clean, with just a handkerchief to retain strength. It’s a very short fall (3 minutes), and it’s really good fun, but ends really too suddenly, in a way that is a legitimate hit to what is a great, great hit. Mil drives Jumbo outside, and goes for a plancha, and crashes and burns. Jumbo rolls in, and Mil is counted out. This is clean – no smudge – and given titles can transfer on countouts, it’s a reasonably decisive result in defence as well. Of course it protects Mil, too; he lost because he risked doing something awesome.

 

Nonetheless, it works for me. I look at the third in the 1977 Robinson trilogy, where Jumbo wins the title back. It’s in Florida, and Abdullah (groan) interferes, hits both guys, but then goes ham on Robinson, who he’s angry with. Jumbo recovers first and hits a Dropkick for the pin. The win is clean for Jumbo, but not clean in itself – Abdullah plainly tips the scales. That is a far more corrosive result to the match itself, even if it keeps both competitors strong and gives Robinson his next feud. The match itself has turned out to be of marginal importance, because the most important event – and the one which materially decided what happens with the title – is something beyond the match proper. But here, Mil crashes and burns doing something cool, and Jumbo wins. It’s two men, and one is strong and quick and smart enough to win two falls with no cheating. Great result.

 

Jumbo Tsuruta defeats Mil Mascaras in 33:54.

 

Harley Race © vs Jumbo Tsuruta – NWA World Heavyweight Championship, 20/01/1978, 2/3 Falls

Curiously, though Jumbo and Harley had a long rivalry of which nearly every match is very good, I’m not sure they wrestled a classic together. Maybe this is my very slightly “style dissonance” with Harley showing; I think it’s the work, though, or rather the dynamic. They work very well together, it’s always competent, but Jumbo’s best matches always – and naturally – have a firecracker dynamic with his opponent. Against Billy Robinson and Mil Mascaras, he’s the incumbent fighting against canny veterans who can contest him on the mat. Against the Funks and Baba, he’s seeking accolades against his mentors. Harley is most like Bock and Flair in his matchup – heelish foreign champs out to keep the native hero down – but Harley’s focussed intensity and violence perhaps play off Jumbo less excitingly.

 

Nevertheless, this is a very good match, and helps situate the time period. It’s an hour-long time limit draw, clipped to something like 32 minutes. Sometimes hour-long draws from this period survive in full due to special presentation, but it’s rare they survive in the normal archive (as they would do later – NTV’s various AJPW Classics shows show an enormous amount of previously clipped footage from the mid ‘80s onwards). The hour-long draw is, hopefully, value for money for the live punter, It also offers a booking option giving a clean result that doesn’t put anyone over – you might tendentiously argue that so does the double countout, but that is equivalent to a double DQ and is explicitly about not giving the match a result. A TLD IS a result – it’s a draw.

 

There are a number of very fine and highly respected hour-long singles time limit draws out there. Inoki had big-name draws against Robinson and Fujinami, and Baba’s best singles match is probably his draw against The Destroyer. Jumbo also has a very big and highly-rated one against Flair from 1983. Later on, the Pillars will work a few of their own. It’s a very demanding art, because to keep it interesting you have to keep working, and for a long time.

 

The tag draw is simpler, as is the long tag match: see Jumbo’s television debut, or the famous 1991 SGA vs Tsuruta-gun six-man. You tag out and in to maintain pace and variation. The singles draw basically requires highly technical workers, because though low-pace brawling can be maintained, it’s essentially dull even in small doses. But a Bockwinkel, a Jumbo, a Harley, a Billy, a Flair – they can do it because they can keep up workrate during up sections and they can work interesting down sections and they can engage the crowd continuously. For long non-draws to add to the list, see Bock’s first match against Jumbo discussed below, and Flair vs Steamboat at the Clash.

 

Now, the clipping here is more troubling than in the other clipped match on this list. Losing half a match is always tough; in some ways a Broadway can afford to lose more and still retain shape, but we lose 17 of 28 minutes of the primera and 11 of the 16 minutes of the segunda, and that’s brutal. There is still a coherent tale told through the edit; it’s evenly-matched, back and forth stuff, alternating matwork with Harley, especially, trying to crush Jumbo’s skull with his knee. The match’s original creativity and sense of intensity is probably damaged by this choice; the crowd, whilst quiet when we JIP, is obviously very focussed, because their immediate reactions to control changes and big move teases are exceptionally strong. On the other hand, one flaw of the Broadway is that even the best workers will be drawn to pad out, especially in a 2/3 Falls with a Long-Medium-Medum structure. You establish roles in the first fall in such a layout, but then you have to take up the balance of the match’s time before you’re allowed to escalate through the back half.

 

What is a nice touch here is that Harley is usually working from on top, and Jumbo has to sell this – and Jumbo is developing as a ring psychologist in each area in this period, rounding out his fiery hero act. Jumbo, however, gets to grind back at the end of the segunda – at this point over forty minutes have passed! – and even the score. Race is now still the champ, still technically the superior wrestler, but Jumbo is on a roll. Race is superior enough that he can disrupt this with bombs, but Jumbo just keeps coming, eventually returning again and again to toe-hold variations. Just as the bell is about to ring, we finally see Race’s desperation as he rakes Jumbo’s eyes to break the hold – he’s been contained throughout, not even throwing any potatoes, his heelisms restricted to chucking Jumbo out of the ring and to the street thug stylings of his violence. This third fall, though not as marvellously intense as some of the other escalation finishes on this list – and at fifteen minutes length, that’s not surprising – is a sign of what was possible at the time, and what was too often eschewed even in big matches. It’s a style Jumbo can keep up with, because he turned up to the sport able to work holds and to throw, and this is a great avenue for that.

 

You get some surprising choices, but they balance out – Harley survives three Jumbo belly-to-belly suplexes, two of them the super-effective overhead version, whilst Jumbo survives a Swandive. There is a developed storyline here from their 1977 match (which is probably actually a slightly stronger match than this one), too. There, Jumbo wasn’t quite Race’s match; Race’s experience was too much for him, here he is able to press Race right to the limit and to survive everything the champ has to throw at him. He could also do that, and entertainingly, over an hour of work.

 

Harley Race drew with Jumbo Tsuruta in 60:00.

 

Giant Baba & Jumbo Tsuruta © vs Dos Caras & Mil Mascaras – NWA International Tag Team Championship, 2/3 Falls, 24/08/1978

Giant and Jumbo work a lot of great tags, and those tags all work differently. They wrestle the Funks with a mix of the American Heavyweight Grappling style and some straight-up brawling as things escalate, with the Funks cheating a little in the earlier matches. They work Duk and Oki with a more traditional face/heel dynamic, and with the standup grappling matchup of Jumbo and Duk as the centrepiece. In the 1980s, they will battle Stan Hansen and Bruiser Brody as heroes in the storm: their opponents are strong, they’re violent, they’re intense, they cheat.

 

Mascaras and Caras bring smooth matwork, including against Baba, and they bring a continuous workflow. These teams worked together a year later, too, but I prefer this one, though both are good matches. They pick good roles: Jumbo is quick and his team’s grappler, Baba is big and comes in to wreck face, Mil is his team’s heavyweight and matworker, and Dos is smaller but very agile. Dos never really gets many flowers for his All Japan run – his brother is remembered, but he’s a footnote – but there aren’t many guys like him working All Japan at this point. The gradual lucha-ization of the company and the rise of a Junior Heavyweight Ace starts from, with the masked brothers and a few other Mexican guests, and it’s Dos who is most reliably springing around and doing funky things.

 

Jumbo, naturally, adapts himself perfectly: for his team, Baba can’t go that quickly anymore, and though he can take heat segments off Mil, Jumbo is much the better choice for lengthy ground work. Jumbo is also just as quick as Dos, and nearly as agile despite the size discrepancy. This matchup perhaps more than many is a reminder of Jumbo’s natural gifts, channelled through a fine wrestling intellect. Baba when younger was a decent athlete, and his hard work and brains means he was still able to have a five star match in 1989 – but Jumbo was an Olympic athlete who was still able to hit big spots into his forties. He was an incredible natural specimen, basically.

 

There are some fun decisions here, too. The fall endings are all pretty rare sights: Mil forces Jumbo to submit with a Butterfly Lock (!), Jumbo reverses things in the second with a Standing Backbreaker on Mil (yes, Mil shares the job here), and then finally Giant hits a massive Side Suplex on Dos for the win. One thing this should teach us about the supple, flexible format of the old 2/3 Falls Title match formula is that it’s not odd, it’s not overly dramatic, and it doesn’t weaken anyone to mix up fall finishes like this. The crowd understand that anything that “looks like a move” can win out if set up properly, and instead can enjoy the variation (and I certainly do, albeit 47 years late).

 

Giant Baba & Jumbo Tsuruta defeat Dos Caras & Mil Mascaras in 24:20.

 

Nick Bockwinkel © vs Jumbo Tsuruta – AWA World Heavyweight Championship, 2/3 Falls, 14/02/1979

One of Jumbo’s great series of matches, and the one which produced his one “traditional” World Heavyweight title (the Triple Crown is of course functionally a world title, but it’s complicated), was versus Nick Bockwinkel. Bock is such an interesting worker to study; he basically emerges into the spotlight in his mid-forties, which in the ‘70s was basically old age for a wrestler. He worked at a top level well into his fifties. He was a great American-style technician and a capable brawler, who worked well-loved matches against Jerry Lawler as well as against Jumbo, Curt Hennig, and many others.

 

Jumbo is 27 here, Bock is 44. They’re in Hawaii, and the crowd buys Jumbo as the face straight away – partly, I guess, as he’s facing Bock, a classically subtle heel champ, and partly perhaps because this is Hawaii and its ethnic mix includes a lot of Japanese descent. Jumbo and Tenryu got booed elsewhere when working as faces in the USA – I think of a tag tournament in GCW in 1982 – so it’s interesting to see his positioning here.

 

This is a great match, brilliantly worked and interestingly booked. Jumbo’s strength here mirrors his draw against Race for the NWA title – Jumbo is presented as pretty much the equal of the big name world title holders, even if he’s not quite at the stage of pushing things over the line. Though the big titles only went to Japan on cash payment back in the day, and though it’s hard to gauge Jumbo as a solo draw at any stage in his career, at the level of work he clearly deserves this status. When in the ring with Brisco, Race, Funk, Robinson, Bockwinkel, Mascaras and – later – Flair (*), Jumbo always looks like a match for aura and work. He’s credible at every level.

 

They work a version of Long-Short-Shorter here, and this runs long – 55 minutes, of which we have 44 or so. The clipping comes nearly entirely from the first fall. The politics and art of clipping for TV is fascinating; in some cases, of course it’s just that the timeslot is an hour and you want to get five matches in and communicate key personalities and storylines, so a match gets cut. I think another reason, especially for big, long, relatively high quality matches, is that there is a difference between what is needed and enjoyed at a live event and what “sells” on TV. Sometimes this means you get strong matches worked in front of dead crowds, and our engagement with the match relies on the work; Hennig taking the title off Bockwinkel is one of those, with one of the most mutinous and unpleasant crowds I’ve seen, but it’s a good match. More often, in this era, it’s the other way around. If you have good workers, you can have a long main event, and a good crowd will enjoy it, follow it, and cope with any downtime because the atmosphere is very present to them. On tape, you’re more likely – even if you’re enjoying the crowd – to spot slow or repetitive sections.

 

So I look at the first fall (31 minutes), which is great 50-50 work, neither man letting the other get the advantage, and I think: what’s clipped is more of the same, more really high grade work, but stuff that might look slower or repetitious on tape. I don’t feel like this knocks my rating on what we get; what we get feels complete, feels representative, feels coherent and communicates the story. It’s a hazard of watching material from the time, but sensitive clips may hide weakness – and there’s a fascinating discussion to have about whether that’s acceptable – but also may simply trim down material more suitable for the live audience than for the tape watcher.

 

Bock mostly fights fair but takes a couple of shortcuts and then wins the fall with the Figure Four. Jumbo has learned a lesson from the first fall; in the segunda (17 minutes), he has to push back and hard, and instead of trying to work out of holds just starts striking Bock. He’s more aggressive in every other area, too, and finally gets off Dory’s Double Underhook (Butterfly) Suplex. This doesn’t get the pin – a Sleeper does. This is interesting; it’s trying to show that this is a war of attrition, that each man needs wearing down. I think, though, that a closing passage based on mobility was probably the better bet here, to cement the escalation in this fall.

 

The final fall (5 minutes) is compelling and well-executed but ends with an annoying smudge. Jumbo has the advantage and presses it thrillingly. He hits a Piledriver…but his knee gives out on the pin! Bock’s Figure Four and later work have their effect. The idea of match-long storytelling is alive and well here in a near-hour match in 1979.

 

Then Jumbo works into a Sleeper, and surely this is the decisive move, with 6 minutes left for Bock to survive…except Bock hits the ref, gets DQed, and keeps the title!

 

Yeah, shocking match booking, and beneath both men. There is a laudable desire to vary the ending – this doesn’t go Broadway, when that is surely teased by a second fall happening at 49:00. The audience get a result, and they get emotion, and they get their expectations upset. Yet it is hard not to feel scammed, because of course titles shouldn’t work like this, and of course Bock should be serving a six month suspension jointly observed by the AWA and all NWA territories. The story here doesn’t pay off properly, and we can feel that.

 

Nonetheless, this is a great match. Bock’s subtlety in heelisms, his technical excellence and focus on gymnastic storytelling, are one of the best foils for Jumbo. Jumbo only works Terry solo with Terry as a face, and as a heel Terry can be irritating; Flair is great but less subtle and less technical; Harley trades on a greater sense of the physical clash; Billy is a magician, and basically a good guy too. Wakadaisho Jumbo (to steal KinchStalker’s nickname) is a fiery hero and five-tool player, and the attritive, canny opposition Bock gives him allows him to shine. I think this is their best match.

 

Jumbo Tsuruta defeats Nick Bockwinkel by DQ in 53:55.

 

*: Jumbo actually first wrestled Flair in 1978, but this is still germinal Flair, and though their earlier work is good their rivalry really kicks off in 1982, with Flair as NWA World Champion.

Find the match ratings and links at Undercard Wonders