Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Toshiaki Kawada (AJPW - 10/24/1991)

Watched this as part 2 of my post-Wrestlemania Jumbo double feature alongside Jumbo/Robinson 3/5/77. I remember this match being great as a full circle moment playing on young Jumbo vs. experienced vet matches from the 70's. Here, Jumbo is recast as the experienced vet and Kawada is young Jumbo. The idea was that I would enjoy this even more by being able to compare it directly with one of the best matches in that genre. In practice, it's kind of a give and take situation, mostly take. The biggest hurdle is easily the execution. Whereas Jumbo/Robinson is an absolute dream to watch if you pay any attention to that sort of thing, with all due respect to Kawada, the headlocks and sleepers he works here are a disgrace to the aforementioned match. There's so much space in his headlocks and the sleepers don't even look properly applied. It feels like a prime counter opportunity for Jumbo but instead he just sells his ass off anyway. There's also some minor sloppiness in the stretch run that I normally wouldn't notice, but I do after watching the gift that is Billy Robinson.

Still, I'm not so jaded that I can't look past issues like that to see all the other wonderful things that this match gets right. Both guys show a lot of fire in their performances and the crowd is molten for everything they do. If you're willing to just lose yourself to the idea of Kawada channeling young Jumbo by headlocking the shit out of old Jumbo, that part of the match is an absolute hoot. It remains an awesome moment seeing Kawada get thrown out of the ring only to get right back in, throw an elbow, and get back to that headlock. We also get a badass shot of Misawa looking on from the distance in the middle of those headlocks. Jumbo's selling is tremendous here in portraying the cumulative effect of the headlocks as disorienting for him, and his offense on his comeback is suitably vicious. Every bit of offensive work from Kawada feels like it just keeps adding up and making it harder for Jumbo to do his normal thing. I also got a kick out of seeing Jumbo's full Boston crab from the Robinson match evolve into a single leg Boston crab where he wrenches in on Kawada's foot. Of course, this being Kawada, that's a bad idea here given that he just uses his spare leg to kick Jumbo off of him. And then he makes sure to do some great leg selling right after that, also because this is Kawada.

Watching this after spending the last few weeks watching their interactions in 6-mans also gave some significance to the parts of them going back and forth trading hard strikes. I might have issues with the execution on the grappling portions, but the strikes here all looked on point with some great selling from both guys on their effects. Kawada going for the abdominal stretch and wrenching in on Jumbo's neck during it also came across as revenge for Jumbo doing the same to Kikuchi in those 6-mans. Kawada's move choice felt completely fitting for his role as Misawa's number 2 guy. He's doing all the signature Kawada things, but he's also borrowing stuff like elbows from Misawa after seeing how it worked for him and using Jumbo's own signature moves against him to prove he's on his level. I've seen people complain about Kawada not getting any credible nearfalls, but that sort of thing felt pretty alien to me with seeing how giving Jumbo was with every exchange. Also, execution issues aside, the sleeper spot was actually a pretty hot near fall between the crowd heat and from how Jumbo had been selling all the work on his head during the rest of the match. Sure, Jumbo is still too far ahead of Kawada to lose a straight fire fight once he regains his bearings, but Kawada makes sure to give him hell every step of the way and none of Jumbo's big offense on his inevitable comeback comes easy. It's a neat poetic touch how Jumbo has to steal Kawada's own signature lariat to the back of the head to set up for his big finishing backdrop, which Kawada takes directly on the back of his head.

The post-match is excellent and worth analyzing as well. Jumbo looks like this larger than life hero doing his "O" pose in unison with virtually every member of the audience. Contrasting that is his backstage promo following that, wherein he assures the viewer of his greatness over Misawa and Kawada whilst having this crazed look in his eyes. Some people say it's not fair to consider promos in a ranking of guys' ringwork due to not being able to consider guys who cut their promos in a foreign language, and I think that's BS because the most important part of a promo is the delivery, and that transcends language barriers. My Japanese listening skills remain poor and I really only half understood what Jumbo was talking about, but I think it can be gleaned purely from his body language that he's ultimately an insecure and small man. It's a brilliant showing of the duality of Jumbo's character at this point.