They came out hot with Jumbo and Tenryu looking like they wanted to finish each other in the first minute. The back-and-forth action kept up for the first 10 minutes until Tenryu and Hara settled into an extended torture section on Wajima. Hara helped their cause, taking Jumbo out of the match with a vicious slap. And they just went to town with lariat after lariat on Wajima. For his part, Wajima teased enough rallies to keep the crowd engaged. When Jumbo finally took the hot tag, he cleaned house with a bunch of high-velocity knees. They unnecessarily blunted the momentum of the comeback by having Tenryu and Hara punish Wajima with another run of lariats, but I liked the actual finish. Jumbo knocked Hara to the floor with a nasty boot to the face. As Hara tried to get back in, Wajima tackled him through the ropes and then staggered back to beat the count. It made for a nice payoff to the story of Wajima eating all that punishment. I could see this falling aside in the end, but they fleshed out a classic tag team structure with plenty of intensity and hard-hitting offense. So I'll throw it on the block.

 

1988 All Japan TV Disc 10

Jumbo Tsuruta & Hiroshi Wajima vs. Revolution (Ashura Hara & Genichiro Tenryu) (4/21/88)

 

These teams have had some fun matches so let's see if this holds up and being at Korakuen always helps. This was all about violence early as everyone was hitting each other hard before it slowed to matwork. Wajima would get tossed to the floor where Hara hit him so hard with a chair that the padded part flew off which popped the crowd but it was back to matwork soon thereafter with Wajima eventually getting worked over. Wajima did a good job here keeping the fans into his hope spots and Revolution kept knocking Jumbo off the apron when Wajima had a chance for a tag so this was southern tag psychology in AJPW which was always fun. Jumbo would get the hot tag and he teed off on Revolution showing great fire before we would get a a hot stretch run featuring Wajima doing a quasi tope on Hara on the floor and Jumbo no selling a powerbomb by Tenryu. Wajima & Hara were the legal men so he beat him back in the ring from the floor for a countout. I really dug this match as the psychology was very sound and everyone was hitting hard which is a plus. This moves forward easily.

Siding more with Childs than Kris on this one.

 

 

Jumbo Tsuruta/Hiroshi Wajima vs. Genichiro Tenryu/Ashura Hara, 4/21/88 (5/1-5/8)

- Holy fuck, this started off wild. First, Hara’s sick sick Rock Bottom followed by the Tenryu-Jumbo exchange leading to some Hara headbutts and getting his ass kicked again. Hara and Wajima take the punishment for their teams. Fuck, I was going to say Hara was making another strong impression after an axe bomber to Jumbo’s head but Tenryu follows it up with his own ugly forearm to Jumbo’s face. Was Wajima a sumo or something? I remember Eric or Kris saying he was because his movments are sorta awkward. Still love his uranage. Yatsu’s a much better partner but the other three worked so well this is a nomination. Still, not as strong as the 6/4/88 match.