[1975-12-09-AJPW] Horst Hoffman vs Jumbo Tsuruta

[GOTNW]

This was a bit dry at times but that's Jumbo for you. Watching this it seems pretty clear to me a Jumbo=Best 70s worker argument would have to heavily skewed towards him being involved in good matches and not on his personal contribution. Or people could have different taste than me and be wrong but let's temporarily ignore that. Hoffman totally carried him here. Jumbo knows the usual classic hold battles I wouldn't have needed to rewatch any 70s stuff to remember as mundane for the time while Hoffman busts out a bunch of awesome ones, just twisting his body in the most unusual ways. Early sequence here has Hoffman transition from an Indian Deathlock to a Gutwrench Suplex in breathtaking manner-it's an insane power spot that would fit right in with what Cesaro was doing a few years ago. Jumbo gets right back up after it and sells it like an Armdrag. Then he does a suplex of his own and gets confused when Hoffman actually sells it. He looks at the crowd before stomping Hoffman looking for their approval-sounds good in theory but his execution is nowhere near as good as say, Kobashi's. I also disliked his selling of Hoffman's Schmidt Backbreakers-the "shaking from the impact" might've worked without the odd delay between the move and Jumbo's selling. It just didn't look natural and the crowd didn't respond to it either. I could pick on him more but I'll just say if someone sold like he did here today they would get bodied. And he blew a Double Underhook Suplex fwiw. Hoffman did enough nifty things to keep me entertained and I loved the counter flash pin finish. ***