Jumbo Tsuruta

[ohtani's jacket]

I think Jumbo looks good in the 70s stuff I've watched and you can see him progressing and growing, but I do think he's being carried in the sense that I don't think he'd be having a laundry list of great matches if he was wrestling other young guys and not some of the bigger names in the business. The point is there's a disconnect between that and the claim that he's top 10 for the decade on tape or even top 30 in years where's enough footage to evaluate that.

 

I don't have any say in what others have told you before, and I'm not suggesting you change anything about the way you rank Jumbo. I'm exploring the claim. I might even come around to your way of thinking who knows, but it's not entirely about leading a match. Steamboat's contributions to matches called by Flair seems greater thus far than what Jumbo has brought to his bouts.

[GOTNW]

From what we have of Fujinami 1977-1979 he looks like a BITW contender and light years ahead of Jumbo.

[JerryvonKramer]

From what we have of Fujinami 1977-1979 he looks like a BITW contender and light years ahead of Jumbo.

 

I think it's safe to say that Jumbo's "first seven years" leaves all the rest in the dust ... None of the rest are even close.

Perhaps the beauty of this project is in seeing what different people value. Think we can leave it there for now.

[Jingus]

So what makes him so different from Robert Gibson? You can say he was carried by his partner, but he was in a bunch of good matches. Why does Jumbo being in good matches add to his resume while Gibson's are comfortably ignored?

One difference is that Gibson's doesn't have anywhere near as deep a list of great singles matches as Jumbo does. The 1990 bouts against Misawa alone are better than anything Robert's ever done in a non-tag setting.

[jdw]

 

For a guy who had no standout performances, he had an awful lot of good matches to his name in that period. It's all I'm saying.

 

You can say he was hand-fed, you can say he was put in a spot to succeed. My point is only that, well, it was him and none of these other guys. And the matches are good and he's in all of them.

 

The guys that jdw posted are interesting. Are there any 1971, 1972, 1973 Fujinami matches on tape? The earliest Fujinami I can find on Ditch's site is 1977. That's not a real comparison. If you keep it fair and include Fujinami's stuff until 1979 it's much more even. He was doing really phenomenal stuff by that time.

 

 

I wouldn't disagree with Fujinami getting really good in 1978-79 when his stuff is more regularly available, and he had an amazing and fresh group of people to work with as Jr's champ. On some level, he kind of got to do his own thing similar to Liger though very likely with less control then Yamada, if that makes sense. Similar to Yamada in variety of opponents and very little pressure from "above" that he tone his shit down to not show up the Top Guy. Fujinami could just go out there and shine, with the promotion actually wanting it to help get over.

 

Fujinami got the push in 1978 that Jumbo had been getting since... 1973. Of course Jumbo was going to be more developed, and have opportunities for matches on TV than Fujinami didn't have. Once Fujinami got it, he ran.

 

 

Taue: if Jumbo gets points for being in those Funk tags what does Taue get for being in the 1993 MOTY tag, the best long AJPW tag in a while with Jumbo, and the best 6 man ever? If you ask me he is much closer. Really excellent match series against Kawada, a few real good long singles matches, actively great in tags.

 

 

Taue had good intense matches in singles with Kawada, some good with Kobashi, at least one good with Misawa though it was a bit more Misawa showing confidence in being able to carry a Budokan main event without someone else there to guide him through it. As much as those matches were fun, or really fun in the case of some of the Kawada matches, I don't think he kicked out any puroresu singles MOTYC until 1995 when he really got his shit together. That's 8 years into his career. Jumbo got there no later than 4 years.

 

On the tags, Taue is the least of the wrestlers in the 12/03/93 match. I wouldn't say he was awful, but he was much more interesting in other matches. It's been a while since I watched the 4/91 six man, but I don't recall coming out of it thinking that Taue was better in the match than Jumbo, Fuchi, Kawada, Kobashi or Misawa. In contrast, in most of the Baba & Jumbo vs the Funks matches, I tend to wonder who is #2 in the match behind Terry, and given how much Dory tends to bore the fuck out of me, it's usually an issue whether Baba brought his A game or Jumbo is in a fun mode to see who is #2. I'd be hard pressed to say that Taue's contributions to classics in 1988-94 is at the same level as Jumbo in 1973-79.

 

 

 

Jun Akiyama: 1992-1998 - has those HDA tags in 1996.

 

 

I thought Jun was perfectly fine in 1996. I also thought it was the best tag work of Misawa's career, Taue at his very peak, and Kawada getting through the doghouse to turn in another master performance in the Final.

 

My problem with Jun is that he stagnated for a chunk of that period. There was the nice rookie stuff and the promise of 1993. But by the end of 1993 he was spinning his wheels, which continued through 1994-95. There are flashes that we see in the 1994 Carny, but the best of those matches (to me the Kawada and Doc ones) are more "solid" and "nice" and "fun" than powerful statements. I don't recall the 1995 Carny performances (Jun's 4th year) standing out in Japan that year like Jumbo's 1976 matches with Terry, Baba and Rusher. They were good, but it's not like they were among the best matches of the Carny, let alone the year.

 

I've never been a massive fan of Jun's work in 1997-98, but a chunk of that is because I didn't really care for the direction the style was going in the promotion.

 

There were elements of Jun's early work that are similar/close to Jumbo's. He just didn't have the push or opportunities or *need* to pick up his came as quickly.

[jdw]

As far as Misawa and Co. go, I don't think they were put in a position to have significant singles matches until 1990. Their growth period as singles workers occurred from that point and is more comparable w/ 70s Jumbo than any of their 80s work. I don't think a straight fifth year Jumbo vs. fifth year Misawa comparison tells us anything. When I watch 70s Jumbo, I'm comparing it to 1992 Kawada vs. Hansen and not Kawada's Footloose work. That seems reasonable to me.

 

 

1992 Kawada wasn't the #2 guy in the promotion. At the time of the singles match with Hansen, he was probably here:

 

1. Jumbo

2. Hansen

3. Misawa

4. Gordy

 

5. Kawada

6. Williams

 

7. Taue

8. Kobashi

 

When Jumbo faced Terry in 1976, he was probably at the level of Misawa in 1990, except that Misawa got to beat the top guy in the promotion while Jumbo *never* got to be Baba, never beat the NWA Champ, and didn't get to beat a World Champ until Baba bought the AWA Title for him in 1984.

 

In turn, Kawada never got to Jumbo's 1970's level until 1993 when Jumbo got sick and was done. 11 years into his career, five years after working his first Budokan main event.

 

It's extremely hard to comp them, regardless of lines we want to draw. Misawa, Kawada & Co. weren't thrown off the deep end because they weren't breaking into the business in a start up company that had no other realistic option for #2 Native Side Kick To Baba. In turn, Jumbo didn't join a company with a number of natives (Baba, Jumbo, Tenryu) ahead of them, two of which (Jumbo & Baba) hadn't even reached their peak pushes yet, nor watch other folks join the company (Choshu & Yatsu) to take top spots.

 

Anyway...

 

I've been watching old 70s Jumbo since 90s. I never bothered to compare him with Young Misawa, Middle Misawa or Ace Misawa as they had wildly different paths. I tended to compare Jumbo with the 70s guys that I also was watching in All Japan and New Japan, along with the US workers who kind of worked that style into the 80s, with some variation.

[Jetlag]

I don't wanna make this discussion about Jumbo vs. Taue now. But the point about Taue being in a lot of great matches was to address JvK's point about Jumbo being in a lot of great matches.

 

That being said I think you are underselling Taue's abilities. Taue was a dude who I think was outstanding in the 1993 tag by eating offense and selling. He would fly all over the place when he took an elbow from Misawa or a spin kick from Kobashi, but do it in a believable way. Aside from that he is exceptional in his role as Kawada's backup man. It's one of my favourite understated performances and it gets overlooked because Kawada is right there and also displaying all time great selling. The 94 match against Hansen that OJ brought up is an example of Taue being aggressive and controlling the majority of a match and really stamping his mark on it. I don't ever recall feeling "kid Jumbo is actively making Dory's elbows/Baba's chops/whatever look really outstanding!" or that young Jumbo was being extra-fired up in a remarkable way. Sure he knew how to bump, get fired up and crank up the intensity, but that's about it. And let's be real, being better than Dory and Baba in 1975 and being worse than Misawa, Kawada and Kobashi in 1993 arent things that compare well.

[JerryvonKramer]

Dory has a real case for being best worker in the world for 1975, so there's that.

[jdw]

 

That being said I think you are underselling Taue's abilities. Taue was a dude who I think was outstanding in the 1993 tag by eating offense and selling. He would fly all over the place when he took an elbow from Misawa or a spin kick from Kobashi, but do it in a believable way. Aside from that he is exceptional in his role as Kawada's backup man. It's one of my favourite understated performances and it gets overlooked because Kawada is right there and also displaying all time great selling.

 

There's next to nothing understated about Taue's performance in 12/03/93. He dominates the work for his team in the first 15 minutes, throwing and eating bombs as they can't be bothered working any holds. It's the same theatrical stuff we've seen him do the entire decade since he started teaming with Jumbo, just with some of the weaker stuff tossed (like the sumo slap shit), and the sloppy moments cut down to 2-3 in the 15 minutes by this point. The thing is that pretty much every time Kawada comes in prior to his long run to the finish in the last 9 minutes instantly run circles around Taue's work. Not only that, but after a long stretch of Kobashi, once Misawa finally gets back in for a stretch, he instantly runs circles around Taue, even taking pedestrian stuff that is stale by this point such as Taue's drops into the turnbuckles & ropes and making them look like gold by bumping and selling the fuck out of them. Kobashi is 1993 Kobashi: he has a lot of shit to do, he gets it in, he sells the fuck out of what he gets nailed with, and he pushes the match along with good shit. Kawada... well... it remains the performance of the decade in All Japan. I just spent 24 minutes watching it again, thinking that this might finally be the time when his performance doesn't floor me after 22 years... but no, fuck it... that's the best shit in the company in the decade. Probably ever, as I can't think of anything in All Japan that clearly strikes me as better.

 

So yeah... Taue is the least of the four, doing solid stuff, cutting the cringey stuff down, and not fucking up master performances by the other team and a Touched By The Wrestling Gods performance by his partner.

 

Would Taue's performance even rate as one of the 10 best in that very Tag League? I don't even think it's Taue's best performance of the League: he was more interesting against Doc & Bossman, some of it due to finally getting his shit together against Bossman after laying such a turd earlier in the year, some of it due to Doc picking up his game by this point, and some of it due to Taue knowing he had to carry more shit for his team than usual due to Kawada's injury. But beyond that, I'd also take Doc's performance against the top two native teams over Taue's in the Last Match of the Year, easily take Hansen & Misawa & Kobashi's performances from the 11/30/93 tag, all three other ones from this match... and frankly have always had vastly more fun watching Baba perform in the 11/30/93 tag than Taue in the Last Match of the Year.

 

That's all the while saying that it's not one of the Taue performances through the years that I've tagged as sucking or being boring as all fuck like against the Can-Ams to start 1995. This is "Good Taue" for 1993.

 

 

The 94 match against Hansen that OJ brought up is an example of Taue being aggressive and controlling the majority of a match and really stamping his mark on it.

 

 

He's agressive and controlling the majority (as in "almost the entire match" type of majority) because Hansen came into the match with a pre-existing storyline: his ribs were destroyed the night before. There's nothing terribly remarkable about Taue's performance in the match other than He Followed The Plot. Well, except for a moment where he lost the plot and was reeled back in. He does good though often basic stuff targeting the ribs. It's a good performance.

 

In contrast, Hansen has a sublime performance that stands out in contrast to the vast majority of his 12 years in All Japan up to that point. There had been occasions where he took a beating and sold the beating, like in the 6/3/93 tag match opposite Gordy & Williams. But in a singles match where it wasn't just the standard "work over Stan's Lariat Arm" stuff? Hard to point to something where he sold behind this useless pretty much just trying to hang on from start to finish with few exceptions... this was a pretty rare and awesome performance.

 

Taue did a good job following the plot, for the most part. Kind of like playing Rhythm Guitar rather than Lead Singer or Lead Guitar or a wicked back bone Bass & Drum rhythm guitar... which was pretty much all the roles Hansen took on.

 

 

I don't ever recall feeling "kid Jumbo is actively making Dory's elbows/Baba's chops/whatever look really outstanding!" or that young Jumbo was being extra-fired up in a remarkable way.

 

 

He was less than three years into his career when he faced Rusher to headline a interpromotional card at the old Sumo Hall with no Baba on the card. He made Rusher's shit look really outstanding and was extra fired up.

 

If Taue had a performance like that prior to the end of 1990, when his 3rd year in the ring closed out, I must of missed it. That's not to say he never was fired up, or didn't eat shit from Misawa, Kawada and Kobashi to make them look good. Simply that he wasn't close to that good.

 

Again, unless I missed it.

 

 

Sure he knew how to bump, get fired up and crank up the intensity, but that's about it. And let's be real, being better than Dory and Baba in 1975 and being worse than Misawa, Kawada and Kobashi in 1993 arent things that compare well.

 

 

Dory bores the fuck out of me, but there were plenty of people at the time who think his shit didn't stink, and he still has his fans today. As for Baba, I tend to enjoy his stuff in the era. Better worked in 1975 than Taue was in 1993.

[ohtani's jacket]

Felt like watching a Robinson/Jumbo match and watched the Miami one. Now there's a mistake. One thing I can't work out is why Jumbo was so mediocre on the mat. Surely, a guy with amateur credentials like his should he a bit better than he was.

[ohtani's jacket]

Jumbo vs. Bockwinkel (from Hawaii) is an excellent bout mostly because of Nick's selling, but Jumbo is solid on offense. One of the better 70s Jumbo bouts in my estimation.

[JerryvonKramer]

Poor unloved Jumbo

[Microstatistics]

Poor unloved Jumbo

Yes I noticed he took quite a beating in the Top Japanese Wrestlers and best workers of the 80s threads. But he is still gonna be in tons of Top 20's, Top 10's with a bunch of #1s so he should be fine in the final tally.

[ohtani's jacket]

One 70s Jumbo match I really like is the 3/5/77 Robinson bout. On one hand, it's a bit like watching an adult play tag with a child as there's no doubt in my mind that Robinson was a superior wrestler to Jumbo, but Tsuruta does a good job of hanging with him. It's a snappy bout that doesn't over stay its welcome and full of action. Worth watching if you want to see Robinson flex his muscle.

[KB8]

He's climbing his way back up my rankings after the last couple days.

 

I watched the Jumbo/Tenryu v Choshu/Yatsu series mostly to see how high Choshu would go, but I came away thinking Jumbo was excellent in all of it. I mean, I remembered all four guys being great during it, especially in matches like 1/26/86, but I guess I'd watched so much late 70s/early 80s Jumbo recently that I didn't much care for that I forgot how good Jumbo was when he was GOOD.

 

So I went and revisited some stuff from the '89-'92 period, which is my favourite stretch of his career by a million miles. God damn is 6/5/89 a fucking transcendent piece of the pro-wrestling. I had it below 1/26/86 on my All Japan 80s ballot (tag was my #1, Jumbo/Tenryu was #2), but I'd switch them now. It's never resonated with me before the way it did this morning. From the micro to the macro it's incredible, and I thought Jumbo was the star of it. It's sort of a novel performance from Tenryu in that he feels like such an underdog, and of course I loved that, but Jumbo's performance might be one of the three best of his entire career. I also watched a couple of the lesser six-man tags from 1992, and while the matches weren't necessarily blowaway I thought Jumbo was very good in them. That's probably not very surprising, but still. I think I'll watch some more before the deadline as well, since I'm kind of back on a Jumbo high right now.

 

Honestly, I think I'll still end up ranking him outside my top 20 because of how uninteresting I find the majority of his pre-working with Choshu stuff to be (though that's an All Japan house style issue and Jumbo certainly isn't the only one I find uninteresting from that period), but ageing Jumbo trying to hold onto his place in the world and beat back the potential usurpers in Tenryu, Misawa and pals is still a near-four year run that I will absolutely get behind. And man, 6/5/89 is so, so good.

[WingedEagle]

So for the longest stretch I knew that Jumbo would slot in somewhere behind Misawa, Kobashi & Kawada. Well I've been rewatching a lot of early 90s All Japan as well as some 80s Jumbo and don't see him behind them quite so clearly at all. Older, grumpy heel Jumbo is so much better in the role than even Tenryu and an absolute joy who didn't really lose any of his athleticism until the Hepatitis brought him down. If anything, he was even more of the total package near the end. Arguably one of the older primes you'll find and never looked out of place with the kids.

 

No clue now he'll end up faring against Baba's best, but that is a big question for me in the weeks ahead. Could easily talk myself into ranking him ahead or behind any of them.

[Death From Above]

1992 Jumbo is one of my five favourite years by any wrestler, ever. And then it was over not long after.

[WingedEagle]

1992 Jumbo is one of my five favourite years by any wrestler, ever. And then it was over not long after.

 

I'd agree, but then what do you do with his '90 or '91? Just absurd. In under 2 years he had

 

vs. Misawa 6/90

vs. Misawa 9/90

w/ Taue vs. Misawa/Kawada 9/90

6-man classic 10/90

w/ Taue vs. Misawa/Kawada 12/90

6-man 1/91

6-man classic 4/91

vs. Kawada 4/91

vs. Kobashi 5/91

w/ Taue vs. Misawa/Kawada 9/91

6-man classic 10/91

vs. Kawada 10/91

w/ Taue vs. Misawa/Kawada 11/91

vs. Kawada 1/92

vs. Kobashi 2/92

vs. Misawa 4/92 Carnival

6-man classic 5/92

w/ Taue vs. Misawa/Kawada 6/92

 

That's cutting off the run at an even 2 years from the first Misawa match, and leaving off a few. And arguably leaving off the biggest decade of his career. Christ.

[Death From Above]

And that stuff doesn't even take in the crazy 6-mans that were on the TV sometimes (though granted you clearly can't give credit to any one man for those).

[JerryvonKramer]

If anyone is interested I did do a short show with Steven some time ago called "Makin the case" and Jumbo was the subject. http://placetobenation.com/makin-a-case-for-jumbo-tsuruta-as-the-greatest-wrestler-ever/

 

Cliff notes version is that he's great in 70s, slows down 81-4 (but still has some great matches in this period) and then is awesome from Choshu's arrival to the illness. But listening to that might be easier than reading a 10-page thread for some and I throw out the essential matches.

[DR Ackermann]

I gave Jumbo one last chance before submitting my ballot. Watched some 80s AJPW Tags with and against Tenryu. As much as I dislike him, i actually enjoyed his performances somewhat after not watching any Jumbo for a long time. He crept onto my list at the last minute.

[Jimmy Redman]

There's one thing I wanted to bring up on the podcast, but it felt like an unnecessary tangent in a situation that doesn't allow for that luxury, so I'll ask it here.

 

Is it weird that I think the Kerry '84 match is way, WAY better than the Flair '83 match? Because I really do. The latter is a really good, really long NWA Title match that I could take or leave, but the Kerry match is amazing, a total war, and I think the only time in history that I've ever really, truly got into the Claw as a move.

 

I need Parv to come in and tell me if I'm being contrarian or not.

[soup23]

I can certainly see someone preferring Kerry vs. Jumbo to Jumbo vs. Flair. I know Dave Musgrave had Kerry vs. Jumbo #1 on the DVDVR 80's project. I personally had the 83 Flair match at #5 and Kerry/Jumbo at #11 but they were really close and a 1/4* from each other.

[WingedEagle]

I think the Flair/Jumbo draw is not only one of the finest performances for both Ric Flair and Jumbo Tsuruta, but legitimately one of the greatest matches of all time. Jumbo is definitely part of a few tags I'd rank higher, and I know this sounds like hyperbole, but I could make a case for it over the '89 Tenryu match as his GOAT singles match.

[Badlittlekitten]

The Flair matches are good to great, if a bit dry for me. I'd go as far to say the Kerry match is Jumbo's best singles match ever outside Tenryu.