Notes via Justin:
Before Fumi and I kicked off Part One of our profile series on the great Jumbo Tsuruta, we briefly touched on the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and the uptick in COVID-19 cases in Tokyo. We also talked about NJPW’s press release about their entire staff being fully vaccinated as of this week.
After that, we went in deep on the early days of Tomomi “Jumbo Tsuruta, from his early days growing up in Yamanashi prefecture on his parents’ grape & peach farm, playing basketball in high school, and his quick transition to amateur wrestling which led to him competing at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
We then moved to Tsuruta’s move to pro wrestling shortly after the Olympics. Both Giant Baba and Antonio Inoki were courting the young phenom before he decided on joining All Japan Pro Wrestling, where he’d go on to become a company legend over the next few decades. We also touched on Jumbo’s early training days with the Funks in Texas, his 1984 AWA World title run, his very special rivalries with Bruiser Brody and Stan Hansen, the unique PWF ruleset, and his subsequent image change in the late ’80s ahead of the Super Generation Army era of the ’90s. The latter topic is where we’ll pick up Part Two of our Jumbo showcase series next time.
Download part two and other full episodes from the archive on the Fight Game Media Network on Patreon.
