Section 1- Results
All Japan: Friday’s show didn’t even sell out the mid-range Ota Gym, drawing just 3700 for Kojima’s title defense against Muta. After the main event Minoru Suzuki made his All Japan debut by punking out Kojima.
New Japan: Saturday’s show at Aichi Prefectural Gym had a respectable attendance, one which oddly enough might not be exceeded by much for Lesnar vs Akebono. Tiger Mask beat Minoru Tanaka for his first title defense in a long match. In fact it was the longest IWGP junior title match since Liger vs Kanemoto in March ’99.
Section 2- News
All Japan: Announced for the Champions Carnival are Kojima, Mutoh, Sasaki, Minoru Suzuki, Yoshie, Kea, Arashi, D-Lo Brown, Bull Buchanan, Matt Morgan, Suwama, and one more to be determined in a match between Nakajima, Honma and Nosawa.
New Japan: As noted above, ticket sales aren’t doing so well for Sunday’s Sumo Hall show despite a strong card. There is hope for a big walk-up crowd. Tanahashi vs Shibata is now in off, as BIG MOUTH head and former New Japan booker Uei abruptly broke off ties between the companies. BIG MOUTH recently decided to bring in Sasaki, Tenryu and Minoru Suzuki, lessening their need for New Japan talent. Tanahashi’s replacement opponent is Kaz Miyamoto of Kings Road, and there are signs of cooperation between the two promotions. One other thing of note that can be seen on puroresufan.com is a proliferation of angles designed to push how hard wrestlers are training for the top three Sumo Hall matches. This ties into the company’s renewed focus on stable, traditional booking practices.
Section 3- Another Gift
This site has several gigs worth of NOAH and has a couple gigs in queue. Once again, please click an ad each day you download a file and don’t spread the link.
Section 4- The Jumbo Campaign; an appeal to WWE-only watchers
Note: Some of you who are long-time readers have likely seen most of this before. If so don’t worry about skimming.
The Wrestling Blog will shortly be having a 64-man ‘best wrestler ever’ tournament. Predictably the early voting is heavily favoring recent WWE wrestlers, followed by old WWF wrestlers and old WCW wrestlers, with everything else getting a tiny handful of nominations. Nathan Jones is nominated but not Misawa or Kobashi, etc.
One of my goals for this column and for sites like the All Japan Archive is to expose Japanese wrestling to new fans. Like WWE best? I’m fine with that. There’s a certain comfort to WWE’s schedule, with new Raws and Smackdowns every week and at least one PPV per month. What I’ve found since shifting my sights elsewhere is that I’m more satisfied as a wrestling fan. By diversifying what I watch, I’m not left to ride the roller-coaster of Vince McMahon booking and inconsistent WWE heavyweights. I’m of the mind that watching the best wrestling available is better than watching the newest wrestling available, because the best can still include the new.
Not every wrestling style or promotion appeals to every fan. I’ll be the first to admit that. Lucha does nothing for me, nor does most brawling, nor do a number of matches considered all-time classics. But because there’s such a monumental amount of wrestling out there, I have more wrestling I like to watch than I even have time for and that’s without any WWE. If you’re confining yourself to just one or two promotions you’re missing out on a lot of great stuff.
I won’t pretend that an Akira Taue will appeal to everyone, or Makoto Hashi, or any number of Japanese wrestlers I love. But when it comes to the man I place above all other wrestlers, Jumbo Tsuruta, I see no reason for WWE fans to shy away. To start with he was incredibly charismatic and expressive, unlike the subtle stoicism of a Misawa. Great selling, great intensity, great excitement, he could make the little things seem worth getting worked up over. Then you add his athletic ability. As a former Olympian he was expected to be great, but even then he’s quite nimble for someone with his height and thickness. He was doing complex sequences as a young wrestler in the ’70s that would be considered cutting-edge in today’s WWE, much less before most of us were born.
In addition to the facial expressions and raw talent he also had a mind for psychology and storytelling. He adapted to styles and the times, adapted to opponents, and made sure that his matches stood out from one another rather than being cookie-cutter or formulaic. Jumbo could work the crowd as a babyface or be a punishing, smug bastard. As a ring general he brought timing and pacing, knew when to cut off an opponent, knew how to keep his offense interesting, knew how and when to make a comeback, and so many other fundamental things which often go unnoticed.
His moveset wasn’t flashy, but it was certainly effective. Well-executed suplexes, hard powerbombs, snug strikes and a crushing Thesz press gave him plenty of ways to punish an opponent in addition to his masterful technical wrestling. The trademark backdrop suplex was often as brutal as they come, especially when taken by Misawa or Kawada in the early ’90s.
For all those things being laid out ‘on paper’, it’s not worth much if things didn’t translate in the ring. But oh how they did. Classics in ’76 and ’77 with Terry Funk, Billy Robinson and others established him. Through the ’80s he had great matches and feuds with wrestlers ranging from Flair to Harley Race to Tenryu to Choshu to Kerry von Erich. In the ’90s he was involved with the feud that established Misawa, Kawada and Kobashi, one which churned out great matches month after month for over two years.
Even though injury and disease cut his career and life short he still did everything an all-time great is expected to do. He headlined big sold-out shows, he made a name across the globe, he had good matches with dozens of opponents, he helped get young wrestlers over, he carried lesser workers, he influenced styles, he was reliable night after night, he could work several styles well, etc. The total package of it absolutely kills the vast majority of names currently nominated on the blog’s tournament, but the problem is that so few people have seen him in action. I myself didn’t reach this opinion until the last year and a half when I got a chance to see a significant portion of his notable matches.
You can see some of those matches on the All Japan Archive. From a meaty technical match with NWA champ Terry Funk to his harrowing performances against Misawa, this is but a taste of his body of work. I don’t expect anyone to go from zero to “he’s the best ever!” on a small number of matches, but I do hope that the sample is enough to whet a few appetites and expand some horizons. Trust me, you’ll be better off having seen some Jumbo Tsuruta matches before you die.
