Ric Flair/Rick Martel vs Jumbo Tsuruta/Tenryu pt.1

[Tubewings]

So we have the NWA World Heavyweight Champion (Flair) and the AWA World Heavyweight Champion (martel) taking on the NWA International Tag Team Champions (Tsuruta & Tenryu). Oh, and for those not in the know, the NWA International Tag Team Championship is one of two belts that comprise the current All Japan Unified World Tag Team Championship (the other being the PWF World Tag Team Championship).

[shizeninho]

tsuruta no sells flair alot

[eslubin]

Funny how people effuse about Tsuruta, yet Tenryu was the guy doing all the work. Tenryu never phoned it in.

[UltimateEvilGoku]

man this japanese are awesome

[4life1971]

you are AWESOME!!!!

[bjohns1975]

Two of the finest looking wrestlers in history.

[miggy25]

Rick Martel was such an underrated mat technician.....he was one of THE BEST of the time.....this is a dream match for me--gotta love YouTube!

[jmgarcar]

Qué buena lucha!, siempre me parece que Martel no ha sido debidamente reconocido como uno de los mejores..

[Lfdjake91]

I agree completly Reg197844. Because the Japanese booking style was so different then the American style you saw stuff like that happen alot. It was very cool.

[tremendous112233]

You're right. AJPW had business with the NWA & the AWA (NJPW with the WWF) back then. As you hear in this commntary, the title of this tour is "World Champion Carnival" in which a lot of top guys in the U.S. were booked: Flair, Martel, Terry Gordy, Bill Robinson, Chavo Guerrero, The Road Warriors, The Funks, and Mil Mascaras. and in the following tour, the Real World Tag Team League: Stan Hansen, Ted Dibiase, Harley Race, Nick Bockwinkle and The British Bulldogs. it's impossible today.

[doscaras7]

dream match!

[gus767]

I can't believe this!! I've heard about this match and it's actually on youtube??? Wonderful!!!

[MacMan804]

Four of the greatest in one match, you couldn't get any better than that.

[fredrik871223]

the year please

[edudrepus]

Is it just my misunderstanding or are these Japanese guys really green!

[sondog42]

Jumbo Tsuruta was a former olympic wrestler, Genichiro Tenryu was a former ranked sumo wrestler. Both men, at different times in their career were trained by Terry and Dory Funk jr. Both held many titles in Japan, and Tsuruta was AWA world champion. They definitely were not green.

[edudrepus]

Thank you for enlightening me.

[FuckinDago]

Not even close. Jumbo Tsuruta is often considered the best wrestler of all time. Japanese style puroresu is just a lot stiffer and worked way less.

[Reg197844]

This has to be the only time that 2 world champs tagged up. I loved all those odd match-ups they used to do in Japan. One day two guys would be beating the crap out of each other; the next they's be a tag team.

[Sargebri]

I think this was a few weeks before Flair and the Anderson's "broke" Dusty Rhodes' leg in the Omni and a couple of months before Stan Hansen beat Martel for the AWA belt.

[VolumedMusicMan]

This was in Oct 85 the Flair heel turn happened a month eariler in late Sept 85.

[CadillacL]

NWA & AWA together. You can only go "What if?"

[kingbobby11]

i think when ric saw martels big gold awa belt he was like fuck that i want a bigger gold belt this nwa title looks like crap

[VolumedMusicMan]

so in early 86 Crockett gave Flair a new one! LOL

[sondog42]

I'll have it up in a couple days. It goes over 40 minutes, so I'll have to break it up.

[sondog42]

It was actually the day after they had their Unification match.

[SilverPhoenixLEK]

Holy Horse Shit!! The NWA and AWA World Champions in a tag match. This is awesome!!

[neopolitan1]

awa hevykiuuuuuuu nwa hevykiuuuuuuu what what what what