February 1976

Bruno Sammartino vs. Superstar Billy Graham WWWF Championship - Madison Square Garden February 2, 1976 Superstar tries to jump Bruno before the bell, but the Champ blows him off and beats Graham down. Crowd is hot right out of the gate. Graham begs off and waits for his chance to turn the tables with a big boot to Bruno's face. Superstar goes to work on Sammartino's left leg and gets an inverted half crab. Bruno reaches the ropes but pays for it when Graham drags him to the corner and rams his leg into the ring post. Graham misses a big elbow drop for the top rope and then the Champ goes to work on Superstar's leg. Bruno gets revenge with his own leg post spot and c…

Wim Ruska is a big dutch judoka who seems very fond of the ude-garami. It's cool to actually see one of Inoki vs. martial artist bouts, but I don't think it's a great pro wrestling match. There's a couple of interesting moments, like some of Inoki's pinfall reversal and two of the funniest Inoki punch spots (the ref goes "no it's a forearm" and Ruska throws his hands up in exasperation), but I don't think Ruska's style lends itself to good matwork. He basically just wants to sit in side control and try to get the aforementioned ude-garami. Inoki uses Ruska's black belt to pull him up into the backdrop suplex for the pinfall, which was quite the thing to watch.

This is for the US Title, and is Loser Leaves Town