I loved his cocky, cocksure, bully-like style of wrestling, kind of a combination of brawling and wrestling...and Don loved to hurt His opponent, but even more so, humiliate them in front of the other men in the crowd...
Don Leo Jonathan was one of the earliest mobile big men, at 6' 7" 300+ lbs. Jonathan was very agile and could adept to any style. A true pioneer and opened the door for other future big guys like Andre the Giant, Ernie Ladd, Big John Studd, and so on, Jonathan was incredible.
Tank you for uploading this precious footage from which we can enjoy young massive and agile Don Leo Johnathan who is the youngest wrestler Riki fought in life. The Destroyer is 1year older than Don. I think that his ferocious attack results from Riki's repeated chop on collar bone. 6:25 and 16:19 scenes probably certifies my message. that's same on the match against Lou Thesz at 1953 Hawaii. Chop on chest is allowable but unforgivable on collar bone for him. Riki doesn't call such formidable wrestler once again in life due to learned lesson from this bout.
During early fifties to seventies; most Japanese thought pro wrestling matches was real fighting. They did not know that it was all scripted. Even I thought it was real when I was young. But believe it or not; even the adults believed it was real back then.
LOL I was gonna say. Don Leo has like five feet on him and is HUGE, but here he is bouncing around like mad for Rikidozan, who can barely be bothered to sell a single thing.
