Stan Hansen © vs Jumbo Tsuruta
Triple Crown Title Match
01/19/1991
Sometimes things just don’t work out how you want them to. Take two of the best wrestlers to walk the face of the earth, then throw in one of the most prestigious titles in wrestling (even at this early stage in its history) and you’d expect fireworks. Unfortunately, this contest on the 19th of January underwhelms almost as often as it excites; a relatively poor beginning to what would end up being Jumbo’s last run with the Triple Crown.
That is not to say this is a bad match. Far from it. However, with a list a mile long of contests from later 80s through to the late 90s that were legitimately great under the All Japan banner, this falls short of relative expectations. A match including Hansen and Tsuruta is always going to be at least watchable, and that is what we got.
The story of the opening minutes is at least engaging, as Hansen tries to maul his way straight through Tsuruta, only to eat a knee – such a simple move, yet so over with the crowd – and have to regroup at ringside. When the pace is slowed, Tsuruta seems to maintain control; when he tries to match power with Hansen, he is at least initially overwhelmed, as a headlock control sequence is followed by a shoulderblock collision and a back elbow by Hansen to reassert his slight strength advantage.
It is only when Tsuruta starts to target Hansen’s lariat arm to break out of a wrenching headlock that he is able to begin trading power moves with the tough American. The arm is rammed into a ringpost, and even targeted with a jumping armbreaker, though one that is poorly executed. Indeed, this is not the last time execution in the match would be worth mentioning. Tsuruta does somewhat redeem himself in the resulting armlock, using the knee to work away at the shoulder joint of Hansen.
Two segments see the men trade forearms (Hansen) and chops (Tsuruta), Tsuruta coming out on top first, Hansen second. Seemingly realising that he’ll need to up the ante to get Tsuruta out of there, Hansen uses a chair at ringside, before crushing his opponent with two bottom rope assisted jumping elbows. Just as the match seems to be picking up, we get our next bit of odd execution. A Hansen back suplex/back superplex setup is stopped by Tsuruta kicking the turnbuckle and sending both men into the canvas, but a sound idea for a reversal just comes off as awkward.
The finishing stretch does start to pick up, as each man brings his biggest bombs to try and take the other one out. Tsuruta gets nearfalls from a Thesz Press, neckbreaker and top jumping knee, but is unceremoniously dropped with a lariat after Hansen ducks an attempted clothesline. This usually would be enough, but Tsuruta is too close to the ropes and a limp foot dangling under the bottom one breaks the pin at two. An awkwardly executed small package spot saw both men get nearfalls, before a missed charge by Hansen sees him rolled-up in another moment that just lacked finesse.
A DDT and shoulderbreaker seem to have Hansen in control. The crowd response to Hansen lifting his arm and pulling at his elbow support is testament to how over Hansen’s lariat is as finisher. As Hansen takes off, the swing is ducked and Tsuruta hits a jumping neckbreaker (ala Giant Baba) to get the three count and win the Triple Crown for the third time. Not one to go quietly into the night, Hansen grabs a chair and wails away on a couple of Tsuruta’s entourage before heading into the crowd, his rope swinging wildly around and about.
With Triple Crown title matches not a regular occurrence, that the title change happened in a match that was sloppily played out in front of a fairly muted crowd is a shame. Off of the back of this victory, Tsuruta reigned for just over a year, only to lose the title back to Stan Hansen one year and nine days to this date. This loss would effectively see the end of Tsuruta as a title contender as the Four Pillars rose up around him, truly ushering in a new era for All Japan.
Note: Ric Flair won the Royal Rumble on this date in 1992, winning the WWF World Heavyweight Title in the process. The need for a choice, added to the amount of words spent dissecting the Royal Rumble victory out there already, meant I plumped for Tsuruta/Hansen. However, it would be remiss not to mention Flair’s victory.
