[1980-12-11-AJPW-Real World Tag League] Jumbo Tsuruta & Giant Baba vs Dory & Terry Funk

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[SAMS]

1980-12-11
AJPW
Giant Baba & Jumbo Tsuruta vs The Funks (Dory Funk Jr. & Terry Funk)
Kuramae Kokugikan, Tokyo, Japan
★★★★ ¼ 
Card

The greatness in this lay with the dynamic between Jumbo and Terry. I’d probably take Terry’s performance overall, as he was what pulled it all together and many of the key moments relied on his involvement, but for the few highest moments this reached, it required Jumbo to deliver in kind, and that he did in spades. He hasn’t been this fired up in an age and the ferocity of his attacks on Terry, especially when breaking up pins, was extraordinary. They really teased these two squaring up excellently at several points, and I was getting worried they weren’t going to follow through and deliver on their promise, but after several sliding door moments they finally collided and it was great.
Both Terry and Dory did a great job selling Baba’s big chops and he looked like he was having a blast out there, even nailing a spectacular dropkick on Dory at one point. In turn Baba did his best woozy selling for Terry’s jabs, which was a lot of fun. Dory had some moments, his offense can look grizzly when he wants it to, but it always feels like his designated role is to be “The Cooler”. When he needed to take control for his team, without fail, it was back to the side headlock. That was a bit deflating, and I sensed it was for the crowd too, as every time the energy built up in the arena it just - poof, disappeared. 
In addition to Dory’s penchant for a headlock, the finish left some to be desired. They brushed right up against the time limit but Baba and Jumbo succeeded with a count out victory. I’ve come to accept these as par the course now, but you still can’t excuse such sloppy execution here. It was very unclear what was happening and when Joe raised Jumbo’s hand everybody, Baba included, looked mystified. I kind of knew the finish, so I was expecting it, but I couldn’t see where Jumbo had slid in the ring before Terry, and certainly didn’t see how Joe had seen it. The call for the bell was slow and delayed as well, coming after he broke up a pin by the illegal men of Dory and Baba back in the ring rather than as soon as he seemed to have completed the countout. As a finish for the whole tournament and to decide the champion team, this felt like a strikeout to be honest.

[tcg91]

This was an incredible final and they challenged all boundaries, going for almost 45 minutes even though it was probably smarter (and less courageous) to adhere to the usual 15/20 minutes Baba tag formula. The whole match was a passionate climax towards Terry and Jumbo finally beating the hell out of each other, their exchanges were so good to be believed. Terry made the match, firstly he got dominated by the Aces and then, once the table turned, he unleashed his anger on the opponents with a lot of fury. Baba and Dory tried to "just wrestle" for the most part, but Terry and Jumbo had a score to settle and their pairing was the easily the highlight of the whole bout. Terry taking Jumbo's elbow drop to save Dory from the pinfall is such an iconic and underrated spot, we get a non-finish unfortunately but there's plenty of good stuff to make up for it. Apart from Baba's segments coming off a big goofy, this was really well done
****1/4