Genichiro Tenryu & Billy Robinson v Giant Baba & Jumbo Tsuruta (All Japan, 7/30/81) - GREAT
This was pretty damn top, maybe the first GREAT match of Tenryu's career, even if he was more of a cog in the machine rather than the driving force of it. He was lowest on the totem pole here but certainly played his part and a lot of quality moments came about through his involvement. A decade later he'd have come in and kicked someone in the eye, repeatedly at that. In '81 it was a forearm to the chest and he didn't go overboard with it, maybe only one or two occasions where he interjected himself, but it still lit some fires when they needed to be lit. I thought everyone did a really good job making things feel important. When big moves were hit there was often a concerted effort from the person who took it to try and reposition themselves closer to the ropes, obviously so they could break any pin attempt without having to exert the energy required to kick out. As the match went on they sold the toll of everything and by the end even repositioning themselves on the mat was a major struggle. There was one stretch where Robinson took a big string of offence and managed to survive by being close to those ropes, but even by the fourth move he took it was borderline luck that he'd found himself close enough to limply grab the bottom rope and save himself. The Tenryu/Baba pairing might've been my favourite, especially in the first fall. Baba wasn't for giving anything freely and made Tenryu work for it, a couple times shutting him down emphatically with a chop or a boot. Tenryu tried a back suplex at one point and Baba just went dead weight and Tenryu nearly found himself squashed in the corner. It made the finish to that first fall all the more satisfying when Tenryu came bursting out the corner with the sumo palm thrusts, pushing Baba all the way to the opposite corner, then hitting a big slam and middle rope elbow before tagging in Robinson to put the exclamation on things with the backbreaker. The second fall started with Tenryu and Robinson sticking with Baba's lower back, throwing headbutts and forearms and Tenryu's cool diving elbow, but they moved past that pretty quickly and Baba just kind of tagged out and we can't help but dock a match three stars as a result. Tenryu and Jumbo got a little tetchy towards the end, not to the point where they were knocking lumps out each other like they would a few years later, but enough where Jumbo still tried to crack Tenryu's face open with a dropkick. A fucking spectacular dropkick at that and I guess I forgot how pretty Jumbo's dropkick looked back when he was still a little thinner. Tenryu tried to fight back with the sumo palm flurry and Jumbo would shut him down, Tenryu would try it again and Jumbo would shut it down a little more forcefully, then Tenryu went at it a third time and Jumbo used his edge in experience to sling Tenryu over the ropes. You can forgive the subsequent count out finish as it led to a cool little mini brawl in which Baba paid Tenryu back for that scoop slam earlier by piledriving him on the concrete.
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