[1991-03-23-AJPW-Championship Carnival] Jumbo Tsuruta vs Cactus Jack

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

So this is a match that Dave cited in the infamous message board post about Jumbo being lazy because he didn't try to have a great match with Foley. I don't know that I'd call him lazy. It's not a great performance or anything, but there's nothing particularly lazy about it. If there was a problem with this match, it's that Cactus's crazy bumps didn't play well in Japan because Japanese fans don't really pop for bumps like American fans do. Most of his signature spots were bumps at this point, and they tend to react more to wrestlers who are strong offensively. So Dave had it right the first time around.

[jdw]

Dave's original write up was pretty spot on:

 

* Jumbo let Mick get pretty much all his shit in

* Jumbo sold for Mick's shit

* the fans didn't give a shit about Mick's stuff

* there wasn't much more Jumbo could do with him

* they took it home

 

Frankly, after the backdrop on the concrete and the sick bump off the apron after the lariat, taking it home was the right thing to do. Made sense... and one suspects was the plan.

 

John

[jdw]

Since this is the first match of the reintroduced Champions Carnival to make the set, just wanted to point out how different tv coverage would be relative to the coming years. The number of Carny matches that made tv was low, with a surprising (looking back) number of non-Carny stuff making the air.

 

3/24/91 (taped 3/23/91)

1. Carnival: Hansen vs Dynamite Kid

2. Carnival: Kawada vs Kroffat

3. Jumbo & Taue & Fuchi vs. Misawa & Kobashi & Kikuchi

 

3/31/91 (taped 3/26/91)

1. Taue & Fuchi vs. Kawada & Kikuchi

2. Carnival: Jumbo vs. Cactus Jack

3. Hansen & Spivey vs. Misawa & Kobashi

 

The first two tapings didn't have even one singles match between Jumbo, Hansen, Misawa, Kawada, Taue and Kobashi. Gordy & Williams didn't even work the tour.

 

4/7/91 (taped 3/29/91)

1. Kawada & Kikuchi vs. Dynamite Kid & Johnny Smith

2. Carnival: Misawa vs. Ace

3. Carnival: Jumbo vs. Taue

 

A match between the upper card guys, with Jumbo against his partner. In turn, Misawa was still stuck with someone well below him.

 

4/14/91 (taped 4/6/91)

1. Carnival: Jumbo vs. Kawada

2. Carnival: Hansen vs. Misawa

 

Finally on the last taping of the League part of the Carny, we get two matches between upper card guys.

 

Four tapings, just three matches where the upper card guys squared off.

 

4/21/91 (taped 4/16/91)

1. Fuchi vs. Kikuchi

2. Misawa & Kawada vs. Taue & Ogawa

3. Carnival Final: Jumbo vs. Hansen

 

Final night is just going to have one.

 

Looking at how it changed in the following year:

 

3/22/92 (taped 03/20/92)

1. Carinval: Kawada vs. Kobashi

2. Jumbo & Ogawa vs. Misawa & Kikuchi

 

Right off the bat an attractive match.

 

3/29/92 (taped 03/27/92)

1. Carinval: Taue vs. Spivey

2. Carinval: Hansen vs. Kobashi

3. Carinval: Jumbo vs. Gordy

 

All three matches involve upper card guys.

 

4/5/92 (taped 03/31/92)

1. Carinval: Misawa vs. Kikuchi

2. Carinval: Kawada vs. Taue

 

One upper card match, the other Misawa against his junior partner.

 

4/12/92 (taped 04/02/92)

1. Carinval: Hansen vs. Spivey

2. Carinval: Jumbo vs. Misawa

 

Two for two, including the biggy.

 

4/19/92 (taped 04/04/92)

1. Carinval: Jumbo vs. Fuchi

2. Carinval: Hansen vs. Kawada

 

The flip side of Misawa-Kikuchi, plus Hansen-Kawada.

 

4/26/92 (taped 04/14/92)

1. Carinval: Hansen vs. Williams

2. Carinval: Misawa vs. Gordy

 

Two matches to determine who goes to the final.

 

5/3/92 (taped 04/17/92)

1. Kikuchi vs. Abby

2. Kawada/Kobashi vs. Jumbo/Ogawa

3. Carnival Final: Hansen vs. Misawa

 

And the Final.

 

Massive difference, quite loaded up.

 

John

[shoe]

I didn't detect any laziness in Jumbo, but Cactus sure takes some sick ass bumps.

[Childs]

I can see both sides of this issue. Jumbo wasn't lazy and gave a reasonable performance as the ace against a guy who wasn't familiar or particularly over to the fanbase. But he did treat Foley as a person of little consequence, and I see how that might've stung a little given Mick's crazy effort to put on a show. It's not a match that diminishes Jumbo at all in my eyes, but I understand why it might've diminished him in Foley's eyes.

[jdw]

What I don't see is why Dave bought Mick's bullshit, given Dave's own review of the match.

[MJH]

Jumbo was much too generous here, if anything... I mean, for fuck's sake, he lets Foley get up from his finish *on the fucking concrete*, then right up from an even sicker apron bump, then not even bump off the high knee, before putting him away with the backdrop. I mean, Jesus, did Misawa ever survive even close to that much against him? That'd be like Misawa rolling out a TD '91, having Kobashi stagger up into a release TD'85, only to then have him feed up again into another spot to take it home. It's the Kobashi/Doc Backdrop finish at quadruple speed. If Foley doesn't get how All Japan was worked, that's one thing... and he's easily told otherwise. For Meltzer or anyone else it's an entirely different thing - I don't know how anyone can see this match as anything other than Foley wanting to get all his crazy bumps in, regardless of sense, and Jumbo being generous enough to let him.

[Childs]

John, I agree that Dave should've known better than to use this performance as an argument against Jumbo.

 

MJH, you're being hyperbolic in the other direction. You've watched enough All-Japan to know that Jumbo wrestled differently when he was trying to make a lower-ranked guy shine. He delivered a perfectly sensible performance here and gave Mick some rope. But the speed with which he wrapped up the match suggested that he was not putting him over as any kind of threat. And that's fine; honestly it's a match that has received too much attention because Dave misappropriated it for a dumb argument.

[MJH]

Oh, I know... but it's still a pretty obvious case of a younger, green-ish guy who can bump and little else trying to take a few crazy ones to get over and Jumbo being happy to let him kill himself for no real reason. And if you're not going to really sell said bumps...

[PeteF3]

It has to be hard for Tsuruta to work a "great" match when Cactus' offense is still pretty pitiful--by any standard, not just All-Japan. Those are some Zeus-quality forearm shots there, and Foley does one of the world's weakest backbreakers on the outside. The hipbuster elbow does look good and it's the only offensive move of Cactus' to draw a pop, so there's that. I dunno, that backdrop suplex seemed like a desperation move Jumbo pulled out of his rear, so the fact that it didn't lead directly to the finish was okay with me. Considering where Cactus was on the '90 yearbook I didn't think this was too bad. It certainly would have been bad if it had gone much longer, though.

[jdw]

Oh, I know... but it's still a pretty obvious case of a younger, green-ish guy who can bump and little else trying to take a few crazy ones to get over and Jumbo being happy to let him kill himself for no real reason. And if you're not going to really sell said bumps...

So how is Jumbo suppose to sell *Cactus'* bumps?

 

I mean... when you throw Flair into the corner and he does the flip over the top rope, is Sting suppose to fall down and sell his own knee?

 

When Flair shoves the ref, and Tommy shoves Flair down for a stoogey bitchey bump, is Lex suppose to grab his own back and sell the damage of Flair's bump?

 

Maybe I'm missing something...

 

* bumps off Jumbo's jumping knee

 

Cactus takes a normal bump there, and Jumbo does his standard OH~! fist thrust. Nothing for Jumbo to "sell" here.

 

* Cactus bumps over the ring barricade

 

This after a reversal from Jumbo. It was a called spot for Cactus to take the bump. That's kind of obvious if you watch it, think about it, and watch Mick's reaction / selling in the crowd after it: this is exactly what Mick wanted out of the spot. There's nothing for Jumbo to "sell" here. What's kind of funny on how little the crowd gives a shit about it, and how Jumbo in the ring actually tries to get the crowd into the match.

 

* Cactus hits the elbow to the floor

 

Partially an offensive move, but always also a bump by Mick. Jumbo sells it. In fact, he sells it perfectly for what Mick wants to do:

 

* Mick feeds Jumbo his back, and Jumbo backdrops Mick on the floor

 

Not sure how Jumbo is suppose to sell the backdrop Mick ate there, but Jumbo is in fact still selling the damage to the elbow... not just on the floor after the back drop, but also when he gets back in the ring holding his head. In fact, Mick is up from the backdrop quicker than Jumbo got up from the elbow, mostly because Mick Has Stuff To Do in this match:

 

* Mick eats a lariat off the apron and bumps to the floor

 

Wait... is that Jumbo in the ring after the lariat selling damage? Yes it is. Obviously not from the lariat or Mick's lariat bump, because that's not something Jumbo would sell. He's just selling the earlier damage of Mick's offense.

 

Mick is fucked up at this point though getting to his feet (must be Jumbo's fault that Mick got up so fast), so Jumbo goes out and rolls Mick back in the ring because the logical thing to do would be to try to finish someone who is fucked up. Can't do that while Mick is out of the ring...

 

Mick doesn't bump for the second Jumping Knee, but that's because of what's coming next:

 

* Mick bumps for the Backdrop

 

Not sure how Jumbo is suppose to "sell" for his own finisher, so instead he does what he usually does when hitting his own finisher in the ring: attempts to pin Mick. Since Mick is an incredibly low ranked wrestler, he sees 1-2-3 on a single backdrop.

 

So...

 

Yeah, there isn't a single Mick *bump* that Jumbo should have sold any differently. Because faces typically don't sell those types of bumps that heels do.

 

John

[jdw]

I dunno, that backdrop suplex seemed like a desperation move Jumbo pulled out of his rear, so the fact that it didn't lead directly to the finish was okay with me.

It was the "turning point" in the match, of there was such a thing: Mick was on a straight path to doom after it with no comebacks. It also was something that Mick clearly fed him, so Mick was happy to use it as a transition after the elbow rather than roll Jumbo back in the ring and try to pin him.

 

John

[Kevin Ridge]

If not for the subject line, I would have just expected this was included to show a Cactus match from AJPW against Jumbo. Cactus gets his bumps in. Crowd didn’t react too much. Jumbo seemed to be like okay that is that and time to end this. It was just a quick match against a guy much lower ranked than him.

[soup23]

Fine match that I think has been overblown and over analyzed on both sides due to Dave throwing out a comment I expect he didn't put much thought in.

[garretta]

This felt like one of those challenge matches that we used to see on TV here in the States, where the promoters wanted to get a returning star or new arrival over and put them in the ring against someone who'd been established in the territory and had a reputation. I'm thinking about stuff like Bam Bam Bigelow fighting Nikolai Volkoff on Superstars when he first got to the WWF. The matches were short, and we got to see just enough of the new guy so we took him seriously as a threat in the future. The twist here is that the new guy (Foley) lost. Before he did, though, he got in enough offense that the fans could see that he had at least some raw talent and could give guys trouble once he got some experience and acclimated himself to the Japanese style.

 

I'm not sure what Mick thought he'd get from Jumbo here considering the difference in their experience levels and how over they were, but if he wanted more than he got, he was fooling himself, especially since this was apparently his first foreign tour. I could see him expecting better if he was the megastar he'd later become, but at this point he was lower midcard at best. If Jumbo would have taken twenty minutes to beat him, it would have made Jumbo look worse than it would have made Foley look good, if that makes any sense.

 

Jumbo's back suplex on the floor looked especially brutal; I've never seen him do it before, but it fit this particular match perfectly.

[JKWebb]

This was a fun quick match. Jumbo pretty much stomped him, but it worked. CJ looked like the villain and Jumbo looked like the superhero. Some pretty brutal bumps!

[dawho5]

No issues with this. Foley didn't belong here and I don't see what else Jumbo was supposed to do with him.

[cactus]

Very brief match, with Cactus wanting to brawl, but Jumbo wanting to keep it in the ring. Cactus takes three nasty bumps onto the concrete despite this going barely five minutes.  It's a surprise Foley can still walk with the amount of bumps like these he's taken over the years. I didn't think Jumbo looked lazy. He's a star working a big tournament with guy who hadn't yet proved himself. He made Foley look good without taking too many bumps himself. 

★★¾