[1980-01-11-AJPW] Jumbo Tsuruta vs Billy Robinson (2/3 falls)

[peachchaos]

Talk about it here.

[Jetlag]

JIP into a wristlock and they move right into trading impact moves. Some nifty spots before Jumbo wins the 1st fall with a series of high knees leading to big one off the top. 2nd fall Jumbo immediately continues working over Billy's neck with knees and elbows and also chopping the hell out of him. Jumbo controls for more than 10 minutes including lots of chinlocks and headlocks and Billy sells that he's DEAD. Billy eventually gets out of the headlock and repays Jumbo good, crashing him into the corner and then finishing with a bunch of neck-snapping moves leading to the tombstone piledriver. 3rd fall is all action right before the time limit runs out, Jumbo goes for the figure 4 and Billy is hitting impact moves but can't follow up because of his leg. This was good solid pro wrestling and I didn't hate the long headlock in the second but I still thought it was a little grating especially with how lukewarm Billy's comeback was and the neck work could've been payed off better and they could've done more to build on each fall, for example, by continueing the neck work from the 2nd instead of moving straight to a legwork story, teasing the big knee attack again etc. Just stick to their 70s matches instead.

[drew wardlaw]

I really enjoyed the headlock segment of this match. I can sit and watch two guys actually work a hold all day and this was a good example I thought, especially when Billy finally gets out of it and turns it into a full nelson, if I remember correctly. It got a big pop from the crowd too. I agree this was not on the level of the 70s matches, but still enjoyable.

[SAMS]

We have the majority of the first fall here clipped. Title on the screen indicates that 32 minutes have already passed and the video is 30 minutes long so here we go, 60 minute draw.
This is really the first time I’ve got to see Billy Robinson really let loose with his offense so far in 1980. He has such a variety of moves, especially when viewed through this AJPW setting that it jumps off the screen. He destroys Jumbo with a series of strikes, a double arm suplex and a backbreaker for a near fall before Jumbo flips the script and comes right back to put him away for the first fall. I can’t speak on the whole fall because we don’t have most of it, but it felt a bit unearned for Jumbo to just push aside the flurry of offense he had just taken and be able to take that first fall.
Billy takes a running knee to the shoulder to start the second fall and he really oversells it, and I mean this as a compliment. He immediately dives to the outside to regroup and this gives Jumbo the opportunity to target the leg for the remainder of the fall. I thought Billy’s selling throughout this fall was really good. He ramped it up to get over the severity of his shoulder injury early, then dialled it back as needed to fit in with the allotted time required for the second fall, which coincidentally he secured with another series of offensive bombs.
The third fall was basically a scramble. There was just under 10 minutes remaining and Jumbo really made a dash for the win to start. Billy injured his own knee on a backbreaker attempt and we had some struggle over a figure four leading to the expiry of time.
If we had the first fall I might have been able to rank this as ”good”, but Billy definitely stood out here with both his offensive execution and his great selling during the second fall. Jumbo kind of felt like a blank canvas without anything truly memorable to point to.

[tcg91]

This was quite disappointing to be honest. First of all, the match is heavily clipped as we only get about 25 minutes out of a 60 minutes draw. Secondly, some of Jumbo's limbo work was quite generic and seemed done to buy some time (I figure they did the same at the beginning of the match, especially as it wasn't broadcasted). That being said, it's still these two and so you can expect a solid match, good selling and an easy time when it comes to getting the crowd involved. Robinson killed it with selling his leg, especially towards the very end, when the pain prevented him from beating the clock and led us to the time limit draw. Not bad at all, but it looks like the second solid part of a throwaway title defence and I can't go really higher than this
***