AJPW TV Episode #1 (1/7/1984)

Giant Baba and Great Kabuki def. Umanosuke Ueda and Goro Tsurumi

Again, this is all new to me so I gave a look at Ueda and Tsurumi to put this match in a greater context. Tsurumi was 11-75-5 in 1984 and Ueda was 4-42-6. So these guys are essentially jobbers in the All Japan landscape. This looked like it was clipped up. Kabuki took a beating before Kabuki and Baba picked up the victory. Not a bad match at all. This was your basic formula match to get you rooting for the good guys.

Jumbo Tsuruta and Genichiro Tenryu def. Kelly Kiniski and Steve Olsonoski

At this point and time Tsuruta and Tenryu are probably the top two native talents in All Japan. Kelly Kiniski is the mediocre son of legend Gene Kiniski. He never amounted to very much in wrestling. Honestly, he's probably best known for being a job guy in the WWF during the mid 80s. Olsonoski had some decent success in the early 80s.

This was a pretty fun match, I thought Kiniski and Olsonoski did a good job of keeping up with Tsuruta and Tenryu. I liked how the teams went for payback on double team moves through out the match. This was pretty basic in it's structure like the previous match. Tenryu took a lot of the beating and Tsuruta came in and out things away for his team. I think this was a good showcase for Tenryu and Tsuruta. If this was your first ever AJPW show, I think it would give you a good idea of where they're at on the card.

Lizmark won a battle royal for 100,000 yen

It seems like battle royals are a little different in AJPW. There didn't appear to be any throwing over the ropes. You got eliminated by pinfall or submission. Lizmark and Magic Dragon are the last two men standing in this one before Lizmark takes home the prize. This was a battle royal so it kind of sucks by just existing.

This era of AJPW is largely unknown to me other than the big matches so I gave Lizmark a look for this run. He's surprisingly heavily protected in this run. From what is recorded he doesn't lose many if any matches during this run.

Overall:

I think if you wanted to ever just pick up AJPW in the 80s that this is a pretty good starting point. This episode gives you a peak at the top native talents in Giant Baba, Jumbo Tsuruta and Genichiro Tenryu. You also get to see a diminished by still relevant Giant Baba for a few years until he starts his final climb down the card. It also gives you a couple of decent tags that aren't overly long. And the tags are very different from each other as well. Nothing on this show is going to change your life but I think it was a fun episode overall.