My First Student of Professional Wrestling
By Dory Funk Jr.
Jumbo Tsuruta is the only wrestler ever outside the family to master the spinning toe hold, and is the only one who can throw the same fore arm smash every bit as hard as I do. His moves were so perfect that we did a special slow motion production of his three best suplexes, belly to belly, German suplex, and double arm suplex to use as an open for the television show in the Amarillo Territory.
Jumbo Tsuruta was sent to Amarillo by All Japan Pro-Wrestling President Giant Baba to train for professional wrestling. Jumbo was my first student. Even though his time in Amarillo was short, Tsuruta made many friends who never forgot his kindness.. He learned everything by just doing it. He told me his English was not so good and he really didn’t want to do interviews. I told him, you must do interviews, you are going to be interviewed and the announcer is going to ask you about your opponent, “You must say something.”