Dark Pegasus Video Review: All Japan Classics #3

• AWA Heavyweight Title: Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Jim Brunzell (4/26/84). Brunzell would go on to greater fame as one-half of the “Killer Bees” in the WWE. Tsuruta won the AWA Title from Bockwinkel on AJ Classics #2 and has faced just about every major name the AWA could send at him. Tsuruta owns Brunzell with a headlock early in the match. Brunzell finally counters to a drop toehold into a front facelock. Brunzell avoids the Jumping Knee, frustrating Tsuruta a little bit. They struggle over a Wizard-and-Seatbelt, and Tsuruta comes out on top with a biceps-buster (keylock). Brunzell headscissors out of it. Tsuruta finally hits that Jumping Knee he was looking for. Brunzell tags Tsuruta out of nowhere with a dropkick. A sunset flip gets two for Brunzell. Tsuruta enzuigiris out of a wristlock to regain the advantage. Brunzell hits another dropkick and goes for the Spinning Toehold. Tsuruta rolls him over into a cradle for two. Brunzell goes back after the Toehold, but Jumbo pushes him away. Brunzell delivers a flying crossbody, but Jumbo rolls through for two. Tsuruta gets two off a suplex. Brunzell looks to finish it with a piledriver, but Tsuruta backdrops him over into the Flair/Steamboat position for the pin at 14:41. Nice to see that work without a bridge for a change. Hot down the stretch, but didn’t that portion didn’t last long enough to really get the crowd going. ***ѕ

• Stan Hansen vs. Dory Funk Jr. (4/26/84). No title on the line here, just the supremacy of Texas. Dory was well past his prime and Hansen was near his career peak, so this would appear to be a fatal mismatch for Dory. Hansen attacks him right away but chooses to wear him down with a chinlock. Odd choice. Dory goes for the Spinning Toehold, but Hansen kicks him away. Dory spends the next few minutes working over Hansen’s Lariat arm. Hansen hits him with a dropkick and a kneedrop for two. Hansen goes back to the chinlock. Dory reverses to an armbar, but Hansen whips him into the ropes and delivers a reverse elbow. Dory reverses a headscissors into a Boston Crab, but Hansen blocks it. They exchange forearms and Hansen gets a huge backdrop suplex. Hansen misses a kneedrop off the second rope, and Dory goes for the Spinning Toehold. Hansen kicks him to the outside, and they brawl out there. Dory rams Hansen’s head into the turnbuckle, but gets his leg caught and falls back into the tree-of-woe. Hansen is bloody, but he takes control with a piledriver. Hansen charges into the corner, but Dory ducks out of the way. Hansen drives his own knee into the turnbuckle. Dory locks in the Spinning Toehold, but Bruiser Brody flies in off the top rope with a double ax-handle for the disqualification at 16:09. Great strategies between these two. Match was good, but the finish was awful. ***ј After the match, Brody and Hansen deliver a spiked piledriver to Funk on the exposed arena floor. Dory does the stretcher job out of the arena.

• AWA Heavyweight Title: Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Rick Martel (5/13/84). This is from Minneapolis. Like Brunzell, Martel would also go on to popularity in the WWE as one-half of Strike Force and later as “The Model.” He was probably at his peak as a worker here, a year or two before he entered the WWE. Martel seems to be the least likely candidate to bring the AWA Title back home, especially since Jumbo had already successfully defended the title against guys like Blackjack Lanza, Nick Bockwinkel, Greg Gagne and Billy Robinson. Tsuruta dominates the early part of the match with a toehold and a Boston Crab. Martel powers out of the Crab. Martel nails Tsuruta with a dropkick that sends him to the outside. Martel takes over on the mat with a hammerlock/chickenwing. Jumbo lifts Martel up and puts him on the top rope. Martel delivers a flying crossbody block for a surprise two. The tide changes as Martel misses an elbow drop, and Jumbo works the arm with a stepover armbar. Martel reverses a cross armlock to a headlock. Jumbo tries to counter to a kneebreaker, but Martel hangs on to the headlock despite the pain. Jumbo whips him into the ropes and delivers the Jumping Knee to turn the tide. A piledriver gets two for Tsuruta. COBRA TWIST! Martel shows fighting spirit and won’t submit. He manages to hiptoss out of it but lands on Jumbo’s knees on a slingshot splash attempt. The collide mid-ring for a double KO and Jumbo shoves Martel into the referee. Tsuruta delivers the Bridging Backdrop Suplex, but the ref is still down. Jumbo charges for the Lou Thesz press, but Martel counters to a hot shot and finishes him with a flying crossbody to win the AWA Title at 19:23. Fun match, but I never really bought that Martel could go toe-to-toe with Jumbo Tsuruta. ***Ѕ

• 2/3 Falls: Abdullah the Butcher & Cyclone Negro vs. Masio Koma & Samson Kutsuwada (12/11/72). Cyclone Negro is perhaps more famously known as “The Calypso Kid” (or maybe not). Kutsuwada is squat, sort of in the Tazz-ish mold. I don’t know much about Koma other than he worked for the Funks in the southwest and helped train Jumbo Tsuruta. He was also an NWA Middleweight Champion.

First Fall: Cyclone Negro is well, WELL past his prime here, so most of his contributions consist of headlocks and weak brawling. Abdullah is pretty much in the same boat but does it with a certain psychotic flair. They isolate Koma early in the match and just won’t let him out of their corner. Abdullah drops an elbow on him, but Kutsuwada makes the save. Just to show how insane he is, Abdullah drags Koma over to his corner and tags Kutsuwada with Koma’s cold, dead hand. Kutsawada is full of energy, but he doesn’t fare much better. Koma tags back in and he goes through a nice sequence with Negro, which ends with a monkey flip. Cyclone does a handstand spin to get out of a headscissors and tags to Abdullah. They have an interesting dynamic going in the match where Abdullah is too unorthodox for Koma, Koma is too fast for Negro, Negro can outwrestle Kutsuwada and Kutsuwada is too strong for Abdullah. The heels bring Kutsuwada into their corner and double team him. Koma tags in and Abdullah stabs him in the head a few times with a foreign object. Negro finishes Koma with a shoulderbreaker at 12:47.

Second Fall: Negro goes after Koma’s arm to start the second fall. Abdullah tags in and forgets all about the shoulder, of course. He opts instead to stab Koma with the foreign object. I guess that’s every bit as effective. This leads to a long heat segment on Koma where the heels take turns choking him against the ropes. They do a false tag spot where the ref clearly sees Koma make the tag, but ignores it. Koma bites Abby and tears him a new blowhole. Finally, we get the HOT TAG and Kutsuwada continues to abuse Abby like his prison bitch. Negro charges, but takes out Abdullah. They all brawl out on the floor, but Kutsuwada dives back into the ring as the ref counts ten, giving his team the cheap countout victory at 8:40. (21:40)

Third Fall: Now it is Samson’s turn to play face-in-peril as the heels take turns choking him out with a rope. Cyclone gets slammed enabling Samson to make the hot tag to Koma. Cyclone begs off long enough to tag out to Abby who, of course, makes with the stabbery. Abdullah gets payback for the biting in the second fall. Koma has bladed and they continue to work him over violently. Abby falls victim to the thing that always gets him — the babyface manages to get his object away from him and uses it against him. In this case, Koma takes out the Butcher and jabs Cyclone Negro with it off an Irish Whip. Samson hides the object in his tights and the ref counts three, giving the win to Kutsuwada and Koma at 6:40 (28:37). The wrestling sucked, but they followed the formula very well. **

• 2/3 Falls: Pat O’Connor & Ken Mantell vs. Jumbo Tsuruta & Akihisa Takachio (12/7/74). Mantell is a former junior heavyweight star and booker for Bill Watts’ Universal Wrestling Federation. O’Connor is a former NWA Heavyweight Champion and wrestled the original Match of the Century against Buddy Rogers. Takachio was the last United National titleholder when the JWA folded. The title would be resurrected and he would lose that title to his partner here…Jumbo Tsuruta.

First Fall: O’Connor starts out with Takachio and tries to take it to the mat, but Takachio is just too quick for him. Jumbo enters and the same rule applies. Pat has sure lost a step since his classic with Rogers 11 years prior. Mantell fares much better, flipping Tsuruta over off a knucklelock. O’Connor tries to help him break down Jumbo’s bridge, but the ref has none of it. Pat returns and schoolboys him into the same situation, but again can’t break Tsuruta’s bridge. Mantell returns and fireman carries Jumbo into an armbar. Tsuruta reverses into a Wizard-and-Seatbelt, but Mantell is close enough to his corner to make the tag. O’Connor and Tsuruta take turns powering out of reverse facelocks and Pat gets back out. Mantell slows it down with a chinlock. Tsuruta tries to fireman carry out of it, but Mantell armdrags him back to the gaijin corner. Pat comes in and works the spinning armbar he used against Rogers. Tsuruta is tough, though, and reverses to his own armwringer and tags Takachio. Akihisa armdrags Mantell and holds an armbar. Ken squirms out of it and hits an AWAish elbow drop. Now, the gaijin are going heelish with the closed-fist punches to the face. All of a sudden, they stop wrestling too. Akihisa makes a tag and Tsuruta goes apeshit on the heels. Mantell retaliates with the Terry Funk jabs and hits a vertical suplex for three at 12:33.

Second Fall: Mantell jumps on Jumbo with forearms to the back. O’Connor comes in and starts backdropping him into pinfall attempts. Tsuruta manages to bridge out every time, though. Mantell and Jumbo collide for the double KO. Mantell tries for another vertical suplex, but Tsuruta reverses this time and gets his own butterfly suplex at 1:48 (7:12).

Third Fall: Tsuruta and Mantell brawl and Mantell pulls a Ricky Morton by scurrying on hands and knees to tag O’Connor. Pat comes in and takes a wishbone stretch. He hands the same hold off to Mantell. Something tells me Pat was not in shape for this match. Ken works the leg over with kneedrops and brings O’Connor back in. The former NWA Champ steps over for a Spinning Toehold, but Tsuruta kicks him away. O’Connor does his trademark kip up and does a spiffy single-leg trip. Jumbo kicks him away again, but Pat does another nifty spinning leg takedown into a Royal Stretch. O’Connor tries the Spinning Toehold again, but Tsuruta is finally able to kick him away for good and tag to Akihisa. Takachio rushes in and runs right into…a single-leg pick by O’Connor. Way to go, Akihisa. Akihisa starts to kick away at O’Connor to try and get out of if, so Mantell is a little wary of tagging in. O’Connor gets pissed so Mantell reluctantly tags back in. It turns out to be a bad move as Takachio reverses his leglock and the faces beat the crap out of Mantell until he tags to O’Connor. O’Connor kips up off a Takachio shoulderblock and gets a reverse rollup off a second attempt for the pin at 7:15 (22:39). Solid match, especially the third fall. ***ј After the match, Mantell talks trash to Tsuruta (probably telling him he’d never amount to anything.) and O’Connor has to pull him aside and tell him to shut up.

Final Thoughts: Well, this tape showcases a few matches in Tsuruta’s run with the AWA Title. That run, while it got him name recognition in North America, wasn’t as good as his stuff with the All Japan regulars. All the matches here are okay, but not really good enough that you have to have them as part of your collection. The only historically significant match is Tsuruta vs. Martel, and even that isn’t that significant in the grand scheme of things. This is one of those instances where a second reviewing has changed my tune.

Mild recommendation to avoid All Japan Classics #3.