Jumbo Tsuruta

[KinchStalker]

They just weren't thinking in that mode back then. Baba and Jumbo had their own belts, so they were on parallel singles trajectories that would only ever intersect in tournament situations, which of course weren't a factor for the last handful of years that Baba was still prominent in singles matches. For what it's worth I also get the impression that Baba's big singles matches went on for a bit longer than NTV initially planned for them to because of how big a draw the Hansen feud was. Before Ishingun, Japanese vs Japanese was just a difficult proposition to get Japanese promoters to gamble on outside of tournament situations except for special circumstances (Kimura vs Ueda, Inoki vs Kobayashi/Matsuda).

[ohtani's jacket]

Baba could have put Jumbo over in any of the 1980-82 Carnivals, but their matches always went to a 30 minute draw. I'm not sure why Baba won the Carnival in '81 and '82. I'm pretty sure Jumbo would have benefitted more than Baba from winning those tournaments. 

[KinchStalker]

Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if Baba went over those times so that Brody would have to only do a clean job to him in the finals, which is how both tourneys ended. I know the Osano biography said that Tsuruta's reputation wasn't helped all that much by winning the 1980 Carnival, because he'd done so over Dick Slater instead of the guy who Slater (or, as my friend Rose calls him, Filthy Phallus) was obviously functioning as a proxy of, and who was even *in* said Carnival. I'm not saying Jumbo wasn't more in need of the rub at that point than Baba, but I do suspect that the maneuvering was as much to keep certain gaijins happy as it was to not put Jumbo over Baba.

[KB8]

I had Jumbo at number 27 in 2016. He was someone I had a difficult time placing then and he's someone I'll probably have a difficult time placing in 2026. Part of it might because he's a bit of a boring pick now, even if I try not to let that colour my thinking. Part of it might be because there's some Jumbo himself that I find boring. Sometimes I wonder if it's because I've seen so much of him, similarly to guys like Flair and Liger and the 90s All Japan crowd, who were the first wrestlers I really sought out footage of when Scotland discovered the internet for the first time in the 2000s and I wound up on a wrestling message board and ruined my life with this stupid hobby. Those other guys have suffered as well, replaced by wrestlers I haven't watched to death for the last 15 years. So it's worth thinking about, I guess. On the other hand there's a bunch of Jumbo that I just don't like very much. Dylan was in this thread six years ago talking about how he'd rather take a hammer to his own testicles than watch Jumbo (perhaps he was being dramatic; I couldn't possibly speculate), and while I'm not quite as against the idea of watching Jumbo as that, I'd still just...kind of want to watch lots of other wrestlers instead. It's a pretty common talking point now that he was good as a rookie and then sort of inconsistent and then Choshu rocked up and lit a fire under him. I don't know if I'd really argue that he was inconsistent in the first half of the 80s, though. If anything I'd argue the opposite - it's just that he was consistent in working a house style that bores me to absolute tears. Unless Terry Funk or Stan Hansen is involved I really just can't be bothered with most pre-Choshu 80s All Japan. I would probably consider the testicle-hammer before watching any Jumbo v Flair matches again. No interest in watching Jumbo v Race. I've actually re-watched some of the 70s stuff over the last few years and I liked it more than I expected to, but I'm not sure Jumbo himself was *amazing* in that stretch (though can you knock the guy for not being the driving force of amazing matches three, four years into his career? That seems sort of harsh). That ~5-year period from 88-92 is fairly unimpeachable and if I'm being honest, the number of great matches he has in that run is probably longer than the number of great matches some of the people I had above him managed in their entire career. So if Great Match Output (or whatever the hell) is a big part of your criteria then Jumbo knocks it out the park (Parv has a list of many, many star ratings in Jumbo's favour somewhere in this very thread). I don't know. He's a guy who had an incredible high and I low that I probably find lower than a lot of people. He was better than Terry Taylor but maybe not better than Sangre Chicana. Prolly.  

 

JUMBO TSURUTA YOU SHOULD WATCH:

v Terry Funk (All Japan, 6/11/76)

v Billy Robinson (All Japan, 3/5/77)

v Nick Bockwinkel (Hawaii, 2/14/79)

v Kerry Von Erich (All Japan, 5/22/84)

w/Genichiro Tenryu v Riki Choshu & Yoshiaki Yatsu (All Japan, 1/26/86)

v Genichiro Tenryu (All Japan, 6/5/89)

v Mitsuharu Misawa (All Japan, 9/1/90)

w/Akira Taue & Masa Fuchi v Mitsuharu Misawa, Toshiaki Kawada & Kenta Kobashi (All Japan, 4/20/91)

w/Akira Taue v Mitsuharu Misawa & Toshiaki Kawada (All Japan, 11/29/91)

w/Akira Taue  & Masa Fuchi v Mitsuharu Misawa, Toshiaki Kawada & Kenta Kobashi (All Japan, 5/22/92)

[DR Ackermann]

Perfect example of the idea that you could be merely competent for nearly 20 years while receiving a huge push and consistently teaming and competing against the greatest talent in the world and by virtue of having practically your whole career on tape people will see enough good matches that they think you're a great wrestler.

[Shrike02]

I find the idea that Jumbo was merely competent rather unsupported by the footage. But please, make that argument.

[DR Ackermann]

For a guy with so many showcase matches I find the majority of them to be pretty dull. The Misawa singles are dull. Same with Hansen. He has moments in his matches that are good but I don't see the brilliance in his performances that I expect from someone whose a GOAT candidate. He is a great hot tag, which I think encapsulates his strengths and weaknesses as a performer because it's not a sustained quality in a match. Good for bursts and good at filling a set role. I don't think it's a coincidence that the most critically acclaimed period of his career is filled with tags and trios.

Nobody is calling Mighty Inoue a top 10 worker but I think he is a much more entertaining worker and he never had the opportunities that Jumbo had.  Jumbo is the definition of solid to me.

[DR Ackermann]

I think Jumbo was content to phone it in most of the time and do what the job required. No more, no less. It's not that he was in actuality "merely competent" but that he probably chose to be, most of the time.

[Ma Stump Puller]

On 8/21/2022 at 7:22 PM, DR Ackermann said:

I think Jumbo was content to phone it in most of the time and do what the job required. No more, no less. It's not that he was in actuality "merely competent" but that he probably chose to be, most of the time.

I wouldn't go that far but there's definitely a element to this that I do agree on. Jumbo has his moments but a lot of the time tends to drift if he hasn't got something to direct his focus on, especially when it came to watching the Tenryu feud stuff, which I felt was mostly dictated by Jumbo getting led into big heated brawls by him more than anything else; not surprising given Tenryu's record with that kind of stuff but still. It's not to say Jumbo was bad, but there are LOTS of matches in which it feels like he's content to just go with the flow of his opponent and not really try anything spectacular. He never innovates the slower work of the 70's, he goes with the flow of Choshu and co in the 80's, and then in the 90's you start to see him actually dictating the pace, but that's mostly because he was working with a bunch of guys below him who couldn't do so. 

You could maybe say the same for other potential GOAT contenders (Misawa, Fujiwara, Tenryu again etc) but I honestly find those names to be far less egregious when it comes to coasting: Fujiwara in particular will make nothing matches with literal jobbers into half-decent or even good showings by taking almost full control. Jumbo I feel doesn't have that quality, at least from what I watched. 

 

 

 

[club]

My main issue with Jumbo is that with the exception of some of the Misawa feud, in every big match of his I'm more interested in the other guy. Robinson, Bock, Tenryu, Martel, Funk, Choshu, etc. There's no question in my mind that he's not excellent in the ring, and he brings out the quality of others. But I struggle to connect with him on an emotional level, which is for me what wrestling is really all about.

[JerryvonKramer]

On 3/10/2024 at 4:18 PM, club said:

My main issue with Jumbo is that with the exception of some of the Misawa feud, in every big match of his I'm more interested in the other guy. Robinson, Bock, Tenryu, Martel, Funk, Choshu, etc. There's no question in my mind that he's not excellent in the ring, and he brings out the quality of others. But I struggle to connect with him on an emotional level, which is for me what wrestling is really all about.

In terms of emotion and character work, he comes into his own late on as “grumpy Jumbo” circa 89-92. I can see the argument that he’s a bit bland before that but the intensity of the work in the Choshu feud as well as the number of classics early when tagging with Baba (late 70s / early 80s) is a resume few others would ever achieve.

[club]

16 hours ago, JerryvonKramer said:

In terms of emotion and character work, he comes into his own late on as “grumpy Jumbo” circa 89-92. I can see the argument that he’s a bit bland before that but the intensity of the work in the Choshu feud as well as the number of classics early when tagging with Baba (late 70s / early 80s) is a resume few others would ever achieve.

Therein lies my issue my Jumbo. Classic body of work, never feel like watching him. There are a few guys I feel this way about, Jun Akiyama and Barry Windham come to mind.

[EnviousStupid]

I've always viewed early Jumbo as following the lead of his opponents in matches, though I can't recall a single time when he felt out of place in those matches. He played the native going up against the best in the world and holding his own consistently. Jumbo was much simpler a character and I believe easier for audiences to project some of themselves onto him. They were seeing one of their own beating the likes of top-tier technical guys ala Robinson, Funk, Bockwinkel, as well as dastardly heels now and again. He wasn't an Inoki with the kind of undeniable, irreplicable presence he carried, but I never thought he needed to have that. He meshed in with the pieces around him, rather than trying to move everything according to his vision or design. I think there's something to be appreciated from a wrestler doing that effectively against so many different types of workers.

Though I still maintain that Jumbo from 86-92 is likely the most complete wrestler I've ever seen.

[Control21]

57 minutes ago, EnviousStupid said:

I've always viewed early Jumbo as following the lead of his opponents in matches, though I can't recall a single time when he felt out of place in those matches. He played the native going up against the best in the world and holding his own consistently. Jumbo was much simpler a character and I believe easier for audiences to project some of themselves onto him. They were seeing one of their own beating the likes of top-tier technical guys ala Robinson, Funk, Bockwinkel, as well as dastardly heels now and again. He wasn't an Inoki with the kind of undeniable, irreplicable presence he carried, but I never thought he needed to have that. He meshed in with the pieces around him, rather than trying to move everything according to his vision or design. I think there's something to be appreciated from a wrestler doing that effectively against so many different types of workers.

Though I still maintain that Jumbo from 86-92 is likely the most complete wrestler I've ever seen.

Yeah, I would agree with this. I've always enjoyed his versatility as a wrestler, especially in his early years.

[Microstatistics]

I'm sad to report that Jumbo has slid down my list during the latest round as I remember defending him quite strongly during the correction of 2016. I mean it's just a minor downturn (Top 10-20 to Top 30) and he has a chance at bouncing back as I watch/rewatch more stuff but he is not in the tippy-top tier anymore. 

He is a strange case because his rookie years (1974-1979) and twilight years (1989-1992) were better than his supposed peak (bulk of the 1980s). He was one of the best wrestlers in the world during those two periods, no mean feat for the latter time-block when a number of all-time greats were at their peak. But mid-1980s Jumbo matches have left me cold, including the May 84 Kerry match that didn't hold up most recently. 

But I don't agree with the assessment that he just was along for the ride in matches against more interesting opponents because he could be just as, if not more dynamic than them. Crazy athleticism, great selling, fantastic striking, state-of-the-art offense, a flair for the dramatic: he was the total package in many ways.

 

 

[fxnj]

9 hours ago, Microstatistics said:

I'm sad to report that Jumbo has slid down my list during the latest round as I remember defending him quite strongly during the correction of 2016. I mean it's just a minor downturn (Top 10-20 to Top 30) and he has a chance at bouncing back as I watch/rewatch more stuff but he is not in the tippy-top tier anymore. 

He is a strange case because his rookie years (1974-1979) and twilight years (1989-1992) were better than his supposed peak (bulk of the 1980s). He was one of the best wrestlers in the world during those two periods, no mean feat for the latter time-block when a number of all-time greats were at their peak. But mid-1980s Jumbo matches have left me cold, including the May 84 Kerry match that didn't hold up most recently. 

But I don't agree with the assessment that he just was along for the ride in matches against more interesting opponents because he could be just as, if not more dynamic than them. Crazy athleticism, great selling, fantastic striking, state-of-the-art offense, a flair for the dramatic: he was the total package in many ways.

 

 

I'm also not too big on a lot of early 80's Jumbo, but I still see him as a #1 candidate because of how strong his late-career is. Though I'd extend it to 85 or 86 because there's lots of great stuff in the Choshu and early Tenryu feuds. Part of it is stylistic in not being as high on the pimped Flair and Kerry stuff as I'd like but I think there is a real loss of energy in his work as well. The easiest comparison is his performance in the 1976 Terry Funk match to the one in the 1980 Carnival rematch. In the other direction, compare his performance in the Baba/Dory vs Jumbo/Tenryu matches in 83 and 85. The 83 one is barely good, but the 85 one is a legit MOTYC.

It's unusual for a guy's work to dip in the midst of his physical peak, but it's not that strange when you factor in the booking conditions mentioned earlier. He'd gotten as far he was going to get in the promotion (his spot cemented by going over Dick Slater of all people), so it's normal that he'd lose some motivation in the face of a glass ceiling below Baba and the top gaijin. Choshu joining, Brody leaving, and Baba stepping back completely changed the main event booking in a short span of time, so the hunger came back after all that. It's also not all bad for early 80's Jumbo. I was impressed by the 1982 Robinson match.

All of the above becomes irrelevant in the face of how great late-career Jumbo was. Jumbo's stuff during the Misawa feud is the best week-to-week run I've ever seen from a guy. The amount of great matches/performances he had just from what was televised in 1991 alone are more than most guys have in their entire careers. And the handhelds we have from that period also suggest he wasn't treating house shows as off nights either.