Jumbo & Tenryu

[Jingus]

I like both Jumbo and Tenryu better as the bitter old asskickers they became in the 90s. (Admittedly, the "grumpy veteran who lives to stretch youngsters" archetype is pretty much my favorite sort of Japanese wrestler.) I agree with some of the others who found their earlier work to be relatively bland. They're both good, especially Jumbo, but often there seemed to be a certain spark of personality missing. Once they became surly old bastards, they're both among my favorites.

[Ditch]

I think Tenryu started peaking in '88. Something like New Japan vs WAR is more consistent match-for-match than Choshu vs All Japan or Jumbo & Co vs Tenryu & Co. There are plenty of matches on the AJ set that included Tenryu and I either didn't like them or barely did. Whereas I find myself enjoying just about everything Tenryu did in the '90s. I was won over by Tenryu the more I watched him, and it's the '90s that did the most.

 

On a related note, I think Jumbo from '90-'92 is easily his most consistent period. Part of it is who was around him, but he also got in a groove.

I think the awesome singles match with Hashimoto is on youtube to take point to one example of a Tenryu match I absolutely love.

Heh. As though they only had one standout match.

[Graham Crackers]

I can't say enough good things about Tenryu and all of the great Tenryu matches I return to time and time again as well as the great Tenryu matches that I can't wait to see for the first time. Despite that, I'm about to ramble about Jumbo and attempt to flesh out the reasons behind my own change of opinion on his work.

 

I still like Jumbo but less so after watching the AJPW 80s set. I blame my change of opinion on the fact that Jumbo's matches from before 1990 were not as good as I hoped they would be.

 

Not long after I started watching Japanese wrestling I had a phase where I thought Jumbo was the best ever. Of course my exposure to a lot of classic wrestling was limited. To put it in perspective the wrestling I was familiar with was WWF, WCW, ECW, ROH, some deathmatches, limited 2000s lucha, and the standard 1990s AJPW matches. The basis for the belief that Jumbo was the best was mainly based on Jumbo vs Misawa tags and the Tenryu matches. The only pre-1988 Jumbo I was familiar with was the Terry Funk match from 76 and the Kerry match from 84. I just kind of assumed that before 1990 he was having matches at a similar level as his Funk, Kerry, Tenryu, and Misawa matches all the time. After watching the DVDVR set with fresh eyes I see that was not the case.

 

It's partly because while the theories and ideas that influenced the AJPW style were present and occasionally surfaced in the best matches, the style as a whole was not fully fleshed out prior to 1988. I won't profess an intimate familiarity with 70s AJPW but I've seen some matches and they strike me as standard NWA style matches. Jumbo vs Funk is particularly good but I think that has more to do with Funk being great and young Jumbo being athletic and motivated. After watching the 80s set I feel comfortable calling pre-1988 AJPW pretty uneven. The early 80s has great Terry Funk brawls but it also has listless NWA style matches featuring Brody, Race, etc. I still really like the Kerry vs Jumbo match from 84 and I think it's one of the better NWA style matches I've seen but it was far above the quality of other AJPW stuff at the time. 86 is great because the Choshu angle is great and lead to classic matches but Jumbo and Tenryu clearly weren't as comfortable working that style as Choshu. Only starting in 1988 does Jumbo begin to regularly use his role as ace to heat up his matches, which happens to coincide with the rhythm, pacing, and structure of AJPW becoming more consistent. At the same time I found Tenryu's contributions to their matches more compelling.

[Dylan Waco]

Holy shit, that is a post that very closely reflects my own views to the point where I am almost jealous I didn't make it myself.