Just to make it interesting, I'll throw this into the mix. Martel held the AWA World Heavyweight Title for 19 months and beat Jumbo Tsuruta for the belt, a guy who was regarded as the best Japanese wrestler of the 80s... or to put it another way - the Misawa of the 80s. Now, if this was in the land of the rising sun, I wouldn't think that this would be enough but given that it is in the States, I think that a prime Martel might be given the 'W' again here.
Hmm that does make it interesting. It's a really great match btw, thank's for mentioning. I've linked it below if anyone else is interested.
[youtube]S_IzWEjzmCw[/youtube]
[youtube]AExXmcdKF5s[/youtube]
Arguing Martel's career over Misawa's is entirely pointless. This is Martel, in his prime, winning a very similar match against an almost equally tough opposition. So we gotta analyse two things to see if this piece of form/reign is enough to put Martel over - a) was this prime Jumbo and b) was prime Misawa a tougher opposition.
A) Yes, I think this is pretty close to prime Jumbo. Maybe he wasn't piling out quite so many classics yet, but he only wasn't the ace in Japan because Inoki was still knocking around. I see the #1 Japanese star as pretty easy to define linearly.
Rikidozan 1951-1963
Giant Baba 1963-1966
Antonio Inoki 1966-1986
Jumbo Tsuruta 1986-1992
Misawa 1992-2003
Kenta Kobashi 2003-2006
The point is, Jumbo was pretty much at his best here when he lost clean to Martel.
B) Evaluating Misawa Vs Jumbo is tough - obviously Jumbo passed the torch to him, but he was ageing and it needed to be done. The age gap between them makes this hard to define, but I just think Misawa went on to tons more success when all way said and done than Jumbo did.
I mean, just based on the video and the fact that Tsuruta is great, I think a vote for Martel is just about justified. I just say that Misawa is stronger, more hard hitting and tougher to put away within kayfabe than Jumbo was at his peak, which leas me to still pick him to go over.
Martel's really good though. A f ew years ago while posting in this tournament I hugely underestimated him having just seen his WWF work. I'm not making the same mistake here, but I do think Misawa is too strong still.