Billy Robinson vs Jumbto Tsuruta (AJPW - 3/5/1977)

My prior review now reads like mostly nonsense to me. I have no idea what it is with this match, but it seems like every time I watch it I come away with significantly different opinions. Parallel to that, I'm also noticing I end up far higher on it every time I rewatch it. Fuck top 100, this is easily top 50 or higher.

I came back to this after having watched a bunch of the hyped Wrestlemania weekend matches back-to-back with the weekend UFC, ONE, and BKFC cards to make the experience a little more tolerable. I was hoping that modern wrestling would finally click with me from sampling a bunch of different styles en masse. Instead, I ended up blown away at how great the ONE cards were, while also feeling depressed at how far standards had fallen for what's considered great pro wrestling and unable to shake the feeling of how shitty so many current wrestlers' execution looked when compared to shoot fights. That experience has pretty much killed my interest in keeping up with current in-ring product. Still, I want to keep liking wrestling, and so I put together a double feature of two classic Jumbo matches to get my mood back on track. The original plan was to watch Jumbo/Brisco and Jumbo/Kawada, but I swapped out the Brisco match for this as I really wanted something that would blow me away.

The thing that immediately struck me in watching the first fall for this was how explosive the movements looked. My aforementioned review makes this sound as if it's one of those matches primarily built on guys sitting on the mat and working holds, but there's far more going on than that. The tempo felt very reminiscent of the shoot fights I mentioned, the closest comparison possibly being what you'd see in a heated shoot grappling match. You get quick scrambles for position interspersed with tentativeness and tension once they return to neutral and look for new openings. Sometimes those scrambles resulted in one guy getting a hold and slowing things down, but other times you'd get a throw or even some striking. Like a real fight, it wasn't a linear progression. Billy was more of a show-off than I remembered. He was out there throwing bitch slaps and at one point even gave up his arm to Jumbo in a hammerlock position before doing a cartwheel after a quick escape. The other thing that stuck out was that Billy had every reason to be a show-off with how fucking smooth his execution was on everything he did. The best way I can put it into words with my shoot-fighting colored interpretation is to say that if these moves were viable in a shoot, Billy's execution here would be exactly how I imagine stuff would look. The way he executes that judo throw is pure poetry in motion. I've read interviews with people who've trained under Billy who go on about what a stickler he was for hammering correct execution into his students, constantly forcing them to repeat moves if even the slightest details looked off. He really walked the walk here. Billy's bumping and selling was also tremendous. A lot of it may just be the hard ring these guys looked to be working on (WoS stuff kind of has similar treatment of bumps to this), but still every bump he took was treated as devastating. The bulldog that ended the fall for him was just a regular flat back bump, but it didn't feel any less impactful than the ones I've seen Kobashi take right on his head.

Second fall is probably the reason why I keep misremembering this as a slower mat based affair. After the unexpectedly action-packed first fall, Jumbo spends the bulk of the second fall working a headlock. I think the idea is he's trying to follow up on his success with the bulldog in the first fall by continuing work on Robinson's neck. An alternative interpretation to continue the shoot fighting analogies is that he's doing the equivalent of a fighter who knows they've gained the advantage and are now content to slowly cruise along instead of going for the immediate kill shot. Whether it's the first interpretation, the second one, or both, the struggle over the headlock is incredible. Possibly the best I've seen. Robinson is constantly active looking for escapes and not letting Jumbo keep even the slightest space in the headlock lest he slip his head out. I love watching him try to bridge out of the headlock while applying his own headlock. I thought Robinson escaping with a handstand was maybe a little too cute, but it was fine when he just got immediately taken back down anyway. Jumbo's own work here is damn awesome, doing neat details like grinding his forearm on Billy's face when he tries to power out or spreading his legs to give himself a wider base on the ground. Also he does a really good job of just wrenching the hell out of it and giving Robinson no room to breathe. Once Jumbo moves on from the headlock and starts trying to put him away, Robinson's selling continues to be incredible. Even a simple whip into the turnbuckle looks like a big deal. Neat finish with Jumbo going for the same bulldog that won him the first fall but Robinson having it scouted and putting Jumbo away with a backbreaker.

Third fall is short and sweet with both guys, having each lost falls to carelessness, getting serious with trying to put the other guy away ASAP. Robinson naturally tries to follow up on the backbreaker finish by going to work on Jumbo's back, and Jumbo does a great job with his selling. Jumbo shows his fire but Robinson is too crafty to let him mount a sustained comeback. Cool spot with Jumbo going for another headlock to try to slow things down again but Robinson quickly countering into another backbreaker. They also kind of follow the theatrical rule of threes, wherein Jumbo attempts big throws on Robinson three times in a row while close to the ropes but on the third try Robinson ends up using the ropes to counter his backdrop attempt. Not long from there until Robinson manages to score the pin by reversing a roll-up attempt. I like to think that the back work played a factor in weakening him for that. Something I will agree on with my prior review is that Jumbo getting pissed in the post-match continues to be awesome and feel like foreshadowing for his character 13 years later.

Returning to the Mania weekend matches, I watched Panther/Bryan after reading the rave reviews expecting something innovative to the point of otherworldlyness but just kind of got a really good lucha title match. Instead, this nearly 50 year old match somehow actually did feel innovative to the point of otherwordlyness. Coming to this after stuff like Iyo/Bayley was like being transported to an alternative reality where, instead of going the route of becoming an acrobatic circus show to try to distinguish itself from shoot fighting, pro wrestling drew inspiration from shoot fighting to provide a lot of the same elements that make real fights great but in a dramatized context. In this, we see immaculate execution from guys who clearly took that element seriously and were willing to use instances of iffy execution as counter opportunities, multilayered strategies that change as the match goes on, learned counters, and an unrelenting intensity as both guys constantly sought the upper hand. One more cool thing is that the way they did the 2/3 falls stip here with fleshing out each individual fall as almost its own mini-match created an experience vaguely similar to a 3 round UFC fight. At the same time, it's also clearly distinct from shoot fighting and the shoot-style wrestling tradition in its move choice and selling style. In essence, it's a match that embraces the additional opportunities offered by works while still respecting the primal aspects that make a real fight exciting. It very well might be the match that best exemplifies the route I wish pro wrestling had taken.