June 1978

I'm not going to review the whole match yet. I just wanted to figure out what's going on with this footage. I heard something about TV Asahi lost the tape or it got damaged or something and a fan had a recording of the original TV airing. It has never aired on NJ Classics. We get the first 26:20 of the match complete. I can clearly hear the time calls, 10, 15, 20 ,25 minutes. Then it abruptly goes to a commercial and comes back and a graphic on the screen tells us on the screen that it is still the first fall and we are at about the 38 minute mark. Inoki wins by countout (2:32 after the commercial break) The second fall is supposed to go 20:58 to a …

This was ok. It was weird seeing Brody on the mat. He was working it in like a Dory Funk Jr. mold. Still this wasn't very exciting. Like what Matt says Dale is working a Johnny Valentine clone and it doesn't really click because he's not Johnny. 2*

Opens with Tsuruta working a headscissors for about five minutes but Robinson in his royal purple conveys a good enough struggle to make it interesting as he tries to headstand out, kip out, hip swivel out, before finally reversing it. Nothing terribly exciting here though, outside of a couple of handsy spats and suplex exchanges. Jumbo sits on a crab hold for a long time and then the match is thrown out after some shenanigans on the outside. Can't really recommend this but it's neat to see the footage.

Slater has a rep as being one of the best workers of the 70's. We don't have a lot of footage of him from the 70's so I'm excited. He looks trimmer and in great shape. Everything Slater did in the 1st fall looked hurty. It made sense and was crisp. Madril played Steamboat lite . It had a real Mid-Atlantic feel. With Madril using arm drags and arm bars. The 2nd fall seemed off. I didn't find it very compelling. The 3rd fall was a ref stoppage because of Madril's injured arm. 2 1/2*