Posted March 28, 200817 yr comment_5430110 All Japan Classics 62 Jimmy Snuka & Ray Stevens v. Ricky Steamboat & Jay Youngblood (Toronto, NWA Tag, 6/29/80) - This is a Maple Leaf match. Man, I love the Stevens/Snuka tag team. I love the Steamboat-Snuka rivalry as well so this is manna from Heaven for me. Early on, the faces do their trademark arm work but the crowd is going insane for these guys. It also helps that Stevens bumps and stooges like a pro. When Youngblood is in the ring, he is getting beat on but Steamboat is bringing little things to the table like attacking the partner on the apron every chance he gets or working out of Snuka’s nerve hold. Late in the match, it looks like Snuka screws up but I can forgive it because Stevens comes in and is greeted with a dropkick. They covered that up well. Man, the ending was a bummer as the faces do a double team move but the house lights go on and we have a curfew draw. I enjoyed the hell out of this and it is a definite nomination on the early NWA set. Jumbo Tsuruta v. Ricky Steamboat (12/01/80) - This match was so long. There wasn’t anything technically wrong with it but it would have been so much better if they trimmed ten minutes off of it. At this point, I think I would rank the Steamboat-Sheik match higher than this one even though this may be technically better. I think the biggest problem is that this was building to a time limit draw, not to an actual climax to the match. Not one of my favorite matches but this has to be on the set.
August 23, 201015 yr comment_5454850 This starts with Snuka/Stevens vs. Steamer/Youngblood from Toronto which we'll hit later. Ricky Steamboat vs. Jumbo Tsuruta (12/1/80) This is an interesting matchup between two of the all-timers. If there was a ROH in 1980, this would've been the perfect example of a match in that promotion. This was matwork for the sake of matwork and zero heat but it was by no means not a good match just a dull one that was building totally for the 30:00 draw. I'm with Childs here in that if this was two lesser names then this match would definitely not make the cut so I'm going no as well which sucks because I like both of these guys. If this happened 4-5 years later I think it would've been better.
