This was the first time Jumbo and Choshu had been on opposite sides of a match and naturally the crowd was amped for it. They didn't match up a ton, probably because they were saving that for a bit further down the line, so it was Choshu/Tenryu that felt like the money pairing. Many words have been written on the internet about how Choshu rolled into All Japan and transformed the house style, about how Tenryu caught on immediately and let himself be swept up by the intensity and violence that Choshu brought. It took Jumbo a bit longer and in the end he got there, but Tenryu was a duck to water when it came to these exchanges and everything he did here had an edge to it. Sometimes it was a dismissive edge, like when he'd shut down Yatsu and just drop him in the corner at Choshu's feet. Sometimes his edge was sharpened to antagonise, like when he'd point at Choshu before clobbering Teranhishi with a lariat. And then sometimes he was just angry at the world for letting Choshu live in it, which he took out on whoever was in front of him, often by elbowing them really hard in the face. Some of that rubbed off on Ishikawa and he wasn't content to just make up the numbers. As soon as he saw Tenryu get in Choshu's face he wanted to do the same, hooking Teranishi in the sasori-gatame and pointing right at Choshu. Obviously Choshu took umbrage and Ishikawa paid for it. These matches won't have the same lengthy and epic finishing stretches as your All Japan six-mans from a decade later, but the last couple minutes are red hot and even if a count out might never be a wholly satisfying finish you can't help but marvel at Jumbo trying to decapitate Choshu with a blindside lariat before it.
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