[1980-01-03-AJPW] Genichiro Tenryu & Rocky Hata vs Bill Irwin & Billy Robinson

[peachchaos]

Talk about it here.

[Jetlag]

JIP match. Tenryu is young and skinny! Lots of basic 70s style hold for hold work, some of which was pretty fun. Surprisingly enough the sections with Wild Bill may have been better, altough Robinson has by far the greatest presence. Tenryu & Hata control alot, hit some nice double teams and finish off Bill after Tenryu takes out Robinson, perhaps foreshadowing future interactions between the two?

[soup23]

Really basic 1970's/early 80's style action but it was enjoyable from the clips that we saw. The focal point was an armbar that was utilized against Irwin. Irwin has always been a complex worker to me in that he has a ton of energy at points but not much substance. He did well here keeping things interesting and the action moving along. Tenryu is insanely skinny and I am real interested to see in the 80's when he starts to come into his own. He had some potential on what we saw here but certainly not an all timer vibe. Robinson was good as the senior member of the team and a grinder with some weird looking bumps off of double team moves from the native team. Irwin ends up getting beat with a back suplex in I believe two straight falls. NR.

[Kronos]

Robinson's harem jacket is carny AF.

 

Jetlag did a good job describing the match. I'll add that I dug Billy's gutwrench suplexes towards the end, as well as the 2-man atomic drop that finishes Irwin. The pace picks up nicely in the last two minutes.

[Kronos]

Irwin ends up getting beat with a back suplex in I believe two straight falls. NR.

 

Is this only the first fall that we have, then?

[soup23]

I believe it was the 2nd as at the beginning of the clip, there is a "2" graphic.

[Stiva]

A pretty dry match (well, what we see), all in all. My boy Tenryu is rocking great purple trunks but you don't really see what will make him great later in the decade as the smoother sequences are with Rocky. Though, having called it dry, the action does pick up when Tenryu interrupts a Robinson submission and we see some decent suplexes before a fall. It would be cool to see the earlier portions of the match but it was a fun enough piece of wrestling.

[Tim Evans]

Seeing young Tenyru and Wild Bill before he became Wild Bill is nice. I pretty much echo what everyone else says. Very 70's feel of the match and some solid arm work. We got glimpses of bad ass tenyru with the sumo chops to Robinson. Interesting match to watch from a period i've never seen before.

[grendel]

I can't remember seeing Tenryu this young. Knowing how awesome he will become, I'll give him a thumbs up for his performance here. But all in all everything seemed very generetic. Although I always love to see Robinson work.

[drew wardlaw]

I enjoyed seeing Irwin here, who is clearly outmatched in the mat but has a rough/sloppy feel to his work which is a nice contrast to the other three wrestlers.