Jumbo Tsuruta

[Childs]

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.

No, I ranked the Kerry match No. 1 on the DVDVR set.

[Dylan Waco]

The Flair matches are wildly overrated by some. Kerry match is great

[jdw]

The Flair matches are wildly overrated by some. Kerry match is great

 

I agree with this. I've found all of his Flair matches, going back to the UN Title one, to be disappointing to weak to laughable at times. I like the Jumbo-Kerry more than any Flair-Jumbo or Flair-Kerry match, while admitting that I like a typical Flair-Kerry more than Flair-Jumbo.

[gordi]

17 years ago today my friend Yuji's dad, and my nuber one pro wrestler of all time, passed away.

 

In memoriam, I'm gonna watch this one now:

 

 

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xyvgt_4-18-89-jumbo-tsuruta-vs-stan-hanse_sport

 

[...TG]

Not sure where else to put this, but Jumbo's son Yuji has a tribute page on facebook that he's pretty active with, posting scans of old All Japan programs and such: https://www.facebook.com/TommyJumboTsuruta/. I'm an AJPW mark and sucker for memorabilia like this in general, so I love the work he's putting in to keep his dad's memory alive. Gordi, give Yuji my thanks.

[gordi]

Will do, and he'll be happy to hear it.

[gordi]

I passed on your thanks, he had this to say:

 

Hey, Gordi. Really? I am really glad to hear that. Thank you for telling me.

 

So, you made Jumbo's son happy.

[Boss Rock]

His '86-'92 run is an all-time great run. Tremendous striker and made everything he did look painful as hell. Excellent as the veteran and ace looking to teach those young Four Pillar whippersnappers a lesson. Even if it wasn't a blood feud, he always looked pissed off and ready to hurt someone. Everything prior to '86 I find pretty boring, but maybe that's because I got so used to pissed-off, grumpy Jumbo that everything prior came off as a bit of a shock. Even the Kerry match, which is good, seemed a bit underwhelming compared to what he did in later years.

[Boss Rock]

I need to revisit his pre-86 stuff because I really didn't care for it. But '86-92 is like an all-timer run for me. The 80's tags with Tenryu against Choshu and Yatsu, the Olympians against Tenryu, the singles feud with Tenryu, and then making Misawa and having killer trios matches in the 90's. If he was grumpy Jumbo his entire career he'd be top 10 instead of top 20.

When exactly did he flip the switch to grumpy Jumbo?

[elliott]

I think the Choshu invasion is a good dividing line

[Boss Rock]

That makes sense.

[Clayton Jones]

The Bock match from Hawaii in I think '79 is one of the best matches I've watched in the past few years. I've never been down on younger Jumbo, so take that for what you will, but it's far from a carry job, and a damn near perfect match by my standards.

[Childs]

Just now, elliott said:

I think the Choshu invasion is a good dividing line

Yeah, I was going to point to those tags (not the Jumbo-Choshu singles Broadway, which is a bit of a chore) and obviously the Tenryu feud that followed. 

[Shrike02]

9 minutes ago, Clayton Jones said:

The Bock match from Hawaii in I think '79 is one of the best matches I've watched in the past few years. I've never been down on younger Jumbo, so take that for what you will, but it's far from a carry job, and a damn near perfect match by my standards.

I concur; that Hawaii match is just stellar and Jumbo really holds up his end. Jumbo is my default #1 and I think he's tremendous from the start of his career. I can see how some people's tastes may have changed away from longer NWA-style matches but I have only minor quibbles with Jumbo's early 80s period. Even then he has lots of great matches sprinkled in there, too.

[Ed.]

I’m currently doing a side project where I watch everything I can get my hands on in 90s AJPW in order.  I’m in late 1992 and Jumbo was my pick for best wrestler in the company for ‘90 and ‘91 and was pretty damn great until illness got the better of him in ‘92.  
 

Outside of the 1989 Tenryu matches I’ve seen nothing of his 80s work so I’m keen to get to that at some point in the next 5 years, but 90-92 he is top ten material for sure.

[elliott]

I ranked Jumbo Tsuruta 16th in 2016 and I'm fine with that. Its a little higher than I expect to go this time around, but he won't fall as far as some others. I'm not as in love with the first half of his career as I used to be, but I'm head over heels in love with his 86-92. One of my favorite offensive wrestlers ever. I love a Jumping Knee. 

[Shrike02]

1 minute ago, elliott said:

I ranked Jumbo Tsuruta 16th in 2016 and I'm fine with that. 

You shouldn't be, it's way too low (he says half-jokingly).

[elliott]

We've sort of entered the range where everyone I list off will be a #1 contender. I used to be there with you on Jumbo but can't quite get there anymore. I think 70s Jumbo is an awesome young wrestler but I think the old "top 10 for the 70s" line (of which I definitely used to agree with) overstates things. There's stuff from the early 80s that I love (that Kerry match will always be a favorite), but looking around the worldwide wrestling scene Jumbo's stuff isn't as interesting as what's happening in NJPW with Choshu vs Fujinami or UWF1.0 or the absolute game changers in AJW. And that's just Japan. 

Once Choshu comes in though and the switch flips he's as good as anyone around until he gets sick. You won't see argue really hard against a Jumbo for #1 candidacy. I can explain why I wouldn't put him at #1 but I can just easily explain why someone else might put him at #1. He's one of those dudes. Like Ed mentioned above he wants to look at Jumbo's pre-90s non-Tenryu work and I can happily make a shit ton of recommendations for great pre-90s Jumbo and feel confident I've set him down a good path. 

Oh that reminds me. I wanted to point something out for Ed and anyone else who is reading and newly approaching JUmbo & also to just clear up what I mean about something for Jumbo fans....

I keep saying "when the switch flips." I don't mean to suggest that the "switch flips" and Jumbo goes from bad to good or good to great or anything like that. He's already great before the switch. He was really good from day 1 and great really quickly. Its a stylistic switch. In the 70s/early 80s he's working that classic NWA Title match style. He's great at it. WHen Choshu invades and the "switch flips" we (I) mean that's when he starts to work more aggressively. He comes off more vicious and is a lot stiffer. He cuts out some mat work and adds some strikes. He was always doing a bunch of moves, so he didn't need to add a ton there, but the lariats got stiffer, the knee strikes got stiff, the suplexes got a lot bit nastier and he just kept going in that direction and it fucking rules. The turn to pissed off Jumbo is fantastic. But he's a great classic wrestler before that too and if someone really loves that stuff, I get it. 

[KinchStalker]

9 hours ago, elliott said:

I keep saying "when the switch flips." I don't mean to suggest that the "switch flips" and Jumbo goes from bad to good or good to great or anything like that. He's already great before the switch. He was really good from day 1 and great really quickly. Its a stylistic switch. In the 70s/early 80s he's working that classic NWA Title match style. He's great at it. WHen Choshu invades and the "switch flips" we (I) mean that's when he starts to work more aggressively. He comes off more vicious and is a lot stiffer. He cuts out some mat work and adds some strikes. He was always doing a bunch of moves, so he didn't need to add a ton there, but the lariats got stiffer, the knee strikes got stiff, the suplexes got a lot bit nastier and he just kept going in that direction and it fucking rules. The turn to pissed off Jumbo is fantastic. But he's a great classic wrestler before that too and if someone really loves that stuff, I get it. 

I definitely agree, but I think it must be noted that there was a transitional period. IMO the switch doesn't flip until that buildup tag in January 1986, where Jumbo ambushes Choshu beforehand. The volatility of the first phase of the AJPW vs JPW feud (that is, 1985) is a deliberate reflection (or at least a consequence, if the implications are too premeditated there) of the stylistic and ideological disconnect between the two factions, and a fulcrum of that narrative was Jumbo's maddening unflappability. There's a recurring thread in the biography I transcribed about how stubborn Jumbo was in this period to break his composure, and when Choshu called Jumbo "kaibutsu" ("monster") after their singles draw, it was a comment on his inhuman stamina. For as frustrating as that match may be, there is not a single doubt in my mind that it was exactly the match it was intended to be, because it is the fullest expression of that theme. Choshu had to play Jumbo's game, and may or may not have been exposed on those terms in the process...but Jumbo's game was not the way of the future.

I won't say that the fact that there was this transitional period meant Jumbo was 'lazy' at some point, but what I will say is that I think the whole "he was almost caught napping [in this era]" thing in the Meltzer obituary is something of a misunderstanding of the role Jumbo played during the feeling-out process.

[Shrike02]

6 minutes ago, Cien Caras said:

Sacrilege I know, but is there anyone else who doesn’t find Jumbo particularly interesting and won’t have him on the list? 

At least you recognize it's sacrilege. 

I know some people don't find Jumbo interesting, which I can (barely comprehend), but I don't follow the chain of logic from "I don't find Jumbo interesting" to "he won't make my top 100 list."

[GOTNW]

I'm ambivalent. I've been watching some 70s All Japan lately and it seems pretty clear to me he wasn't as good as I remembered him to be from watching the big time singles matches from around that time. But even so he'll sometime show some nice fire so I'm not terribly down on that stuff even if I don't hold super rookie Jumbo in the same esteem as I used to. Early 80s Jumbo I could do without. For all the talk about how much it took Tenryu to put things together, Tenryu feels like Tenryu earlier to me than Jumbo does.

From about 1988 to until his body could follow him, he's as good as anyone in the world, and just an elite, elite pro wrestler. So he'll rank somewhere for me but his placement is not a priority.

[ohtani's jacket]

The popular narrative in Japan, which may or may not be factually true, is that Jumbo wasn't a hugely popular wrestler until the Tenryu feud. He was seen as the successor to Baba and Inoki in terms of his ability, but fell behind Choshu and Tenryu in terms of popularity. The reason for this is said to have been his calm personality, which made it difficult for fans to become emotionally involved in his character and match performance. From all accounts, Tsuruta was a great guy. He was a kind-hearted, stay at home dad who was a gentleman. You never hear anyone say about bad about him as a person. However, his personality, and his philosophies and attitude towards wrestling, were the complete opposite of what the fans wanted to see.

We all remember the line Dave used to push that he heard from Terry Funk about Jumbo being lazy, but the real issue was that Jumbo treated professional wrestling like a job and when your core fanbase are salary workers desperate to escape the realities of their everyday life, who wants their hero to be exactly like them? Tenryu wanted to give the audience a fresh feeling and make a strong impact, so he began feuding with Jumbo. On one side, you had Jumbo, the salaried wrestler who never spent much time in the wrestling world and saved every penny, and on the other, Tenryu, the samurai wrestler who devoted his entire life to wrestling and never had any money to spend. It was a collision between two men with different philosophies about wrestling and life. It gave rise to the image of Jumbo as a monster and then the perfect ace, not only of All Japan but all of professional wrestling.

I am not sure if Jumbo was entirely comfortable with the way he was viewed during this time. In his own words:

"I'm the type of person who wants to wrestle. When I was young, I fought Dory Funk Jr, Bill Robinson, and Jack Brisco, so I guess that has a lot to do with it. But Japanese fights tend to have more of a brawl feel to them. I'm a mat fighter, while Tenryu is more of an up-and-comer. Maybe it's the demand of the times, but I don't want to change my style, even though the Warriors are doing the same, and they are all up-style. I'm not going to change my style. My style is to deal with Tenryu's up style in an up style, and Dory's mat style in a mat style. When I fight Tenryu, I get emotional and end up fighting more than wrestling...jumping knees and such, so I guess people will say "Tsuruta got serious. I usually measure my opponent's condition while closing in on him, so it may look like there is a pause. In the end, it depends on the soil. Tenryu, who comes from a sumo background, is the type to go all out in a flash, but my style is based on playing basketball and wrestling."

The thing that the lay fan was unaware of was that Jumbo had a deep love for professional wrestling. He didn't show that passion in the ring, but at his lowest point after he first got his diagnosis, the thought of having his wrestling career taken away from him drove him to some pretty dark places. The story goes that he met a girl in hospital with a tube in her nose and an IV drip being administered, and she was staring at the ceiling wondering if she would be alive tomorrow. This encounter inspired Jumbo to eventually pursue his second career where he tried his best to expand on the possibilities of wrestlers still fighting in the ring. From a young age, Tsuruta and Fujinami had shared the same goal of changing the public's perspective on wrestlers, and to an extent Jumbo achieved that during his second career. 

[KinchStalker]

Thank you for articulating the full implications of the Jumbo/Tenryu rivalry. It's something that ran through the relevant section of the Jumbo bio I transcribed, but you did a better job communicating it there than I ever did. I was also unaware of the IV drip story.

[Matt D]

One thing that felt very clear to me in watching all of their 87-89 encounters was that, while it varied in different venues, the fans were definitely behind Jumbo relative to Tenryu. There’s always a lot of Tenryu goading Jumbo (though sometimes that’s reversed) often to Yatsu’s frustration. 
 

While I like the match where Jumbo regains the title better (maybe more of a “me” match than one that belongs to them), the one where Tenryu wins really feels like their two philosophies of wrestling clashing.

[ohtani's jacket]

20 minutes ago, KinchStalker said:

Thank you for articulating the full implications of the Jumbo/Tenryu rivalry. It's something that ran through the relevant section of the Jumbo bio I transcribed, but you did a better job communicating it there than I ever did. I was also unaware of the IV drip story.

I can't be entirely sure that the story is true. I didn't want to spend time fact-checking it, so I thought I would relay it as a story.