by Stephen Von Slagle
Jumbo Tsuruta, the rugged and ultra-talented three hundred pound shooter was, in terms of championship reigns, easily one of the most successful wrestlers in Japanese history. However, in terms of ringwork, the ahead-of-his-time former Olympian was legitimately in a league of his own, and he was the innovator of many moves that are now common in professional wrestling. Additionally, Tsuruta introduced the highly realistic, believable and punishing “strong” style of competition that eventually became synonymous with Shohei Baba’s All Japan Pro Wrestling, thus altering the sport forever in the Land of the Rising Sun.
Jumbo made his AJPW debut on September 6, 1973, defeating the disliked gai-jin Moose Morowski at a AJPW television taping. Immediately upon his debut, Tsuruta was pushed as the protégé of Giant Baba and their team was one of the most successful in Japanese wrestling history, both in the ring and in the AJPW offices. Together, the duo of Baba & Tsuruta enjoyed no less than six separate reigns as the NWA International Tag Team champions between 1975-1983, as well as capturing the NWA World Tag Team title (Detroit version) in 1980. While the more experienced and well-known Baba was the clear leader of the towering duo, it was the talented, powerful and skilled Tsuruta who was invariably the team’s MVP. Baba and Tsuruta worked together in All Japan for more than a quarter-century all total and in addition to their partnership being one of the longest lasting, their inspired business relationship was also one of the wrestling business’ most prosperous. Still, despite all of the success he had with Baba in the ring, Tsuruta also formed several other championship caliber teams.
Tsuruta proudly defended his unified World championship for the next several months, before being upset by his bitter rival Genichiro Tenryu in June of `89. However, the popular Tsuruta would regain the Triple Crown from Tenryu the following September. He then held the championship for eight months before losing to Terry “Bam Bam” Gordy on June 5, 1990. Jumbo Tsuruta’s final reign as the unified Triple Crown champion came when he defeated longtime rival Stan “The Lariat” Hansen on January 19, 1991. After holding the highly prestigious unified championship (which was considered by most Japanese observers to be even more important than the New Japan version of the World title) for more than a full year, Tsuruta lost the three belts that formed the unified championship back to Hansen, which ultimately marked the end of his association with the Triple Crown.
While it is certainly true that Tsuruta was a huge fan favorite both at home and in the States, as well as being one of the most honorable and hard-working performers in the business, it’s also true that for a short time during the early Nineties, Jumbo Tsuruta experimented with a much more heelish persona. Far from a run-of-the-mill ‘bad guy’ who would cower in fear or accept tainted victories, Tsuruta’s new attitude and ring demeanor was basically an extension of his hard-hitting, punishing and merciless ring style. Adding to his ‘heel turn’ was the fact that instead of continuing to wrestle against Hansen, Abdullah and the rest of the hated gai-jins or his many Japanese rivals, Tsuruta started competing against AJPW’s most popular young up-and-comers. Tsuruta was now in a what seemed to be a permanently bad mood, and the gruff, stern taskmaster began battering and bruising his less experienced opponents without remorse, seemingly enjoying the psychological rush of dominating talented athletes who were frequently half his age.
However, the true reason behind his heel turn was simply to build new young babyfaces to carry on the popularity and tradition of All Japan Pro Wrestling. At the time, Baba’s respected company was experiencing a serious lack of money-drawing young talent at the top of the card, a situation that was allowing Inoki’s New Japan Pro Wrestling to make effective strides towards overtaking All Japan in terms of the ongoing AJPW vs. NJPW promotional battle. As the premier AJPW competitor, Tsuruta’s matches carried an enormous amount of prestige and media attention and, by extension, his opponents were almost automatically considered by the fans to be on the top tier of the promotion and legitimate superstars. Given the fact that he lost very, very few matches during his prime as AJPW’s number one performer, merely competing against the great Tsuruta was enough to raise the perceived status of a wrestler. As far as defeating Tsuruta goes, those select few who were able to do the nearly impossible and hold Jumbo’s shoulders down for a rare three-count were rewarded with career-long respect from the loyal Japanese wrestling audience. A perfect example of Tsuruta’s clout with the fans was his famous match with heretofore mid-carder Mitsuhara Misawa. Misawa (who had actually won the P.W.F. Tag Team title several years earlier with Tsuruta while competing as Tiger Mask) was a fine talent and the AJPW brass knew that he had the skill and charisma to become a superstar, but he could never quite make it past the middle of the All Japan roster. That is, until he came up against Jumbo Tsuruta. After defeating the promotion’s (and some would say the world’s) best wrestler, Misawa immediately became the top attraction in AJPW, a position he enjoyed for several years to come.
However, soon after passing the torch to Misawa, Tsuruta was diagnosed with hepatitis. Although he continued to wrestle a full schedule of matches, the disease eventually took its toll on the mighty Tsuruta and both his ring work & appearance clearly suffered. Sadly, he was soon reduced to relatively meaningless, non-title matches with his old tag team partner Giant Baba. Yet, unlike during their previous runs together, this time around it was Baba who was carrying the load of the team, not vice versa. Yet, despite his marked decline in size and ring proficiency, the fans still held a special place in the hearts for the once-great performer and they would cheer passionately whenever Jumbo, after delivering his famous flying knee, would raise his fist into the air, a trademark gesture of Tsuruta’s.
Following complications from a liver transplant, Tomomi “Jumbo” Tsuruta passed away on May 13, 2000 at the age of 49.