Bruiser Brody vs. Jumbo Tsuruta (1988) • Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Genichiro Tenryu (1989)

This is a working glossary of Japanese words and phrases that became useful while listening to Japanese wrestling commentary. The goal is not to collect every ordinary word the announcers say. It is to preserve the terms that changed how we understood the wrestling: pace, initiative, counters, pride, technique, escalation, and the moment a contest begins to turn.

The glossary is organized in volumes so it can keep growing without becoming cluttered. Each future volume can cover a new match or small group of matches. Once there are enough volumes, a separate master index can list every term and point back to the volume in which we first encountered it.

Disclaimer: I paid my nephew who is a first-year college student in CSB ( College of Saint Benilde), Philippines, to translate this stuff. He has Japanese cousins on his mother’s side so he spent plenty of summers in Japan. He’s familiar enough with the language, but if it gets too fast he can’t keep up. He writes and reads Japanese better than talking or listening to it.

Also, I tried looking for an actual professional translater but the dude was charging me an arm and a leg, I can’t blame but still, it was too pricy.

I. Bruiser Brody vs. Jumbo Tsuruta

NWA International Heavyweight Championship • March 27, 1988 • terms first encountered in this commentary

TERM	WRESTLING MEANING	HOW IT WAS USED
インサイドワーク insaido wāku	Ringcraft; tactical intelligence; match management	Used while discussing how Jumbo should deal with Brody. The idea is less “inside fighting” than knowing how to conduct the match intelligently and adapt to what the opponent gives you.
様子を見る yōsu o miru	Feel the opponent or situation out	The commentators describe both men as watching carefully and not forcing anything early. A useful phrase for a slow opening that is really information-gathering.
自分のペースを作る jibun no pēsu o tsukuru	Establish your own pace or rhythm	Brody is described as coming forward and attacking in order to make the match proceed at his preferred tempo.
慎重な攻め shinchō na seme	Cautious, deliberate offense	Used for an attacking style that is careful rather than passive. Jumbo can be pressing the match without rushing.
押してくる oshite kuru	Come forward forcefully; press the opponent	A useful description of Brody’s physical pressure: he advances into the opponent and makes his size part of the attack.
足を狙う ashi o nerau	Target the leg	The commentary explicitly treats attacking Brody’s legs as strategy: take away the base that lets a huge wrestler drive forward and impose his power.
手の内 te no uchi	Tactics, repertoire, what one has available	Knowing an opponent’s te no uchi means knowing the weapons, habits, and options he can bring into the match.
暴走 bōsō	Go on a rampage; run out of control	Used while describing Brody’s tendency, especially in earlier periods, to become wild and uncontrollable.
技を繰り出す waza o kuridasu	Bring out or unleash a technique	A common action phrase for producing the next technique rather than simply saying that a move ‘happens.’
体を絞る karada o shiboru	Trim down; come in leaner	Used when the commentators discuss a wrestler’s physique and whether he appears lighter or more conditioned.
大技 ōwaza	Big move; major weapon	A technique presented as a major offensive weapon rather than an ordinary transitional move.
大技の出し合い ōwaza no dashiai	Exchange of major moves	The match reaches a stage where both wrestlers are bringing out major weapons against one another. This is different from technical attack-and-defense.
展開 tenkai	The unfolding or development of the match	A very useful commentary word for the shape the contest is taking: a quiet development, a dangerous development, a similar development, and so on.
予想がつかない yosō ga tsukanai	Impossible to predict; hard to tell what happens next	Used when the match has become genuinely unsettled and the announcer cannot confidently anticipate the outcome.
ピンフォール勝ち pinfōru-gachi	Win by pinfall	A result phrase: the -gachi ending tells you the manner of victory.
破る yaburu	Defeat or beat an opponent	Used in the result announcement: one wrestler defeats another.
勝負は十分やった shōbu wa jūbun yatta	The contest had been fought out fully	A reflective closing phrase. Shōbu here carries more than the neutral idea of a ‘match’; it suggests the competitive question had been thoroughly tested.

II. Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Genichiro Tenryu

Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship • April 20, 1989 • terms first encountered in this commentary

TERM	WRESTLING MEANING	HOW IT WAS USED
攻める semeru	Attack; press the offense	Useful for identifying who is actively pressing the match. It can help distinguish offensive initiative from simple possession of a hold.
攻撃 kōgeki	Attack; offense	A broad noun for an attack or offensive action. It does not specifically mean a strike.
仕掛ける shikakeru	Initiate; launch; set an attack in motion	The commentators compare who initiates the action in different Jumbo–Tenryu encounters. It tells us who makes the first committed move.
技を仕掛ける waza o shikakeru	Initiate or apply a technique	A useful wrestling construction for going after a technique rather than merely waiting for the opponent to act.
切り返す kirikaesu	Counter; reverse; turn the action back	One of the most useful words in the set. It describes a response that changes the direction of the opponent’s action rather than simply following it with another move.
顔面 ganmen	The face; facial area	Appears when the commentary discusses offense deliberately aimed at the opponent’s face.
反則 hansoku	Foul; rules violation	The standard term for an illegal act or rules infraction.
反則勝ち hansoku-gachi	Win by disqualification	A result phrase: victory because the opponent committed a foul or was disqualified.
失神 shisshin	Lose consciousness; be knocked unconscious	The commentary asks whether Tenryu has lost consciousness during a dangerous stretch.
意地 iji	Pride; stubbornness; refusal to yield	A compact but rich word. In wrestling it can describe the impulse to refuse retreat even when pride is making the contest harder or less rational.
意地の張り合い iji no hariai	Clash of stubborn pride; battle of wills	The commentary uses this idea to characterize the earlier Jumbo–Tenryu encounters: both men were asserting pride against pride, often to the point that clean resolution became difficult.
技の攻防 waza no kōbō	Attack-and-defense through technique; battle of techniques	One of the key phrases from the project. Kōbō contains both attack and defense, so the phrase implies interaction: technique, answer, counter, adjustment.
勝負 shōbu	Contest as something to be decided; decisive struggle	Broader and more charged than simply ‘match.’ It often points toward the competitive question of who will prevail and when the decision will be forced.
勝負を仕掛ける shōbu o shikakeru	Make the decisive move; initiate the finishing struggle	A useful construction for the moment a wrestler stops merely working and actively tries to settle the contest.

How this series will continue

Future volumes should stay match-based rather than being appended endlessly to this file. That keeps each document readable and preserves the historical context in which a term first became useful. Also availability depends on my nephew’s schedule. He’s in college, I expect him to be having too much fun to help me with my weird linguistic hobby.

Volume I scope: classical AJPW commentary from Brody–Tsuruta (1988) and Tsuruta–Tenryu (1989).