PeteF3

Professionally filmed.

Richard Land found it on a giant shipment of tapes he got from someone in Germany, same source as Tom Magee-Kamala. Mostly American TV but also a chunk of German catch and at least one World of Sport episode (just one match that ITV Wrestling doesn't link to and doesn't appear to have been in circulation previously--Peter Kaye vs. Kid Chocolate from 17 March 1981). It's available through his Patreon and going through the tapes is an ongoing process.

Chief Jay Strongbow vs. Otto Wanz (7/7/79) Another find courtesy of Richard Land. Strongbow definitely doesn't fit the mold of classic European wrestling but from a star-power standpoint he's a fairly major get for Otto. He was squarely in the middle of a big WWF run--if the date is right, this is smack in the middle of an MSG match against Greg Valentine on 7/2 and a TV taping in Allentown on 7/10. So this is peak post-broken-leg Jay which might also be his peak as a worker post-Joe Scarpa as the Valentine matches are genuinely great. This match is professionally shot with multiple cameras and the heat is incredible...and yes, Strongbow is a full-blown heel here, which is a jarring sight. Wanz looks only barely thicker than Jay, the smallest I've ever seen him. The first round is on the level, with Jay only doing a Lou Thesz-esque elbow butt in lieu of a clean break on the ropes, but ramps up the viciousness in round two, beating down Wanz in the corner and choking him out. The crowd goes nuts for Otto's comebacks even though he does little more than a snap mare and his steamroller splash. It's repetitive and at close to 30 minutes (including round breaks) the longest Strongbow match I've ever seen, but God help me if I wasn't getting into this at the end. Strongbow takes a huge Harley Race bump over the turnbuckles in the final round and that sensibly tells you that the finish is coming, and the crowd loses their minds over it. Wanz had as much control over his fans as Chief Jay or Ivan Putski did in New York or Daddy in England, but he had just a bit more variety in what he could do than Jay and wasn't anywhere near as selfish as Putski or Daddy, as he also knows that getting beaten down and coming back is more compelling than just bulldozing a guy. They even get down and work a cool-looking leg grapevine/nelson reversal on the mat in the middle portion, just to shake things up a bit.

The spot that you see all too often in European tags is the heel being tied in the ropes and the babyfaces picking up his partner and battering-ramming him into the heel's stomach. They do this a few times, the referee steps in, and then the babyfaces pick the ref up and ram *him* into the heel. It may be my least favorite spot pre-2010s wrestling and I just groan every time I see the obvious, contrived set-up for it. I don't like it as a DQ finish that puts all the heat on the ref and makes the babyfaces look stupid as opposed to a well-done "face gets disqualified finish" where they're just pushed to the limit and lose control (or are just plain framed by a clever heel). And if it's *not* a DQ, I like it even less. My briefer thoughts on the tag in question from the Yearbook thread: "This will be fun as it's my first chance to see Marty Jones as a heel. This crowd is absolutely jacked for Zrno, chanting "MI-LE" non-stop every time he's in the ring. Schumann isn't really that good and is basically just a big musclehead but his reversal of the Hart Attack where he gets Finlay to clothesline his own partner is absolutely fucking brilliant and gets a huge reaction. The third fall takes a really unexpected detour when Schumann gets busted open and Finlay & Jones go from rather routine heels to being particularly vicious in going after the cut. Schumann ducks a flying attack by Jones and he and Finlay both tumble to the floor for the countout. This is a tag title change that the crowd pops huge for and is treated as a Big Deal. Fun match. If not the most Southern tag match in continental European history it's not far off." That was written 10 years ago but I definitely don't recall the KO/CO finish bothering me. It seemed like a last-second desperation defensive move by Schumann and a blunder by the heels--blundering heels are okay, even vicious ones. Maybe a true southern tag would have had Zrno get tagged in and get a house-afire sequence before going to a finish, but what we got was enough to work for me.

Well, yeah, it's a list of the champions, not a complete catalogue of title defenses.

According to my listings (so take with a grain of salt, but I got it from somewhere) that match was for the CWA Middleweight Title. Because who personifies "middleweight" more than Terry Funk? I can't confirm if Otto wrestled Cannonball Grizzly for the Lightweight title as the semi-main event on the same card or not.

You can have a contrast in styles and personalities without having a total style clash, though there is a certain freakshow appeal to that, also. (Robinson vs. Brody in All-Japan comes to mind, as does the glorious trainwreck that is Hansen & Brody vs. Mil Mascaras & Dos Caras.) And also...nice enough guy, as far as I know, but Randy Colley kinda sucked. In any environment whether odd fits like Germany or something more conducive to his style. The mere fact that he contrasts with Wright isn't enough. (Now, Wright vs. Moondog Spot on the other hand, I might buy a ticket to see...) Like I think I said earlier, I didn't want to watch Johnny Saint vs. Colonel Brody, but I did like watching Saint having to go out of his comfort zone against a guy who could at least meet him halfway like Finlay.

I don't think there's any truth to the Hellwig-as-Vader story and I'm not sure where it originated. Hellwig flatly shot it down himself, IIRC. A freak athlete like Vader was going to be in-demand in both Japan and the U.S. sooner than later. As we discussed in another thread, that's where the money was. Whether or not he had credentials as a shooter (and he had at least enough phony credentials as one that UWFI despite trying to differentiate itself from "fake" wrestling threw huge money at him), no one of his size in wrestling had ever been capable of taking bumps, throwing dropkicks, and executing perfect sunset flips the way Vader did. And that's the Leon of 1987-89, years before he was adding the moonsault and diving splashes to his arsenal.

I exaggerate a little (okay, a lot) but I think comparing the relative health of Big Daddy as compared to Vader is like comparing the relative health of died-at-34 Layne Staley as compared to died-at-21 Sid Vicious. Like, "died at 67" isn't exactly the biggest flex in history.

Big Daddy revisionism. Incredible.

Fatigue makes you un-tough in a hurry. I think a legitimate Vader-Daddy scrap would come down to who tired out first and for such a big guy, I've never heard of Leon ever having any problems with his cardio despite working a high-impact, high-energy style. Daddy, on the other hand... The other issue for Daddy is that Vader was as likely to hurt you by accident as he was on purpose. Kind of a moot point, I think, because I don't think either one would have allowed themselves to be put into a position to, respectively, play the doofus who does nothing but bounce off a belly or face off against an outsider who took their reputation as a monster a little too seriously.

Well, now apparently Kuniaki's daughter is denying the story. I guess we'll have to wait and see if this is an outright falsehood or an Afa/Joe Paterno/Mae Young/Tom Petty situation.

https://x.com/miruhon/status/1833239234175775165?s=46&t=jd8qInMnXwQK1iDk12oCWw Per Weekly Fight Twitter. Hot take, maybe (less of one in these parts) but I thought he was Sayama's best opponent. Also had an incredible brawl with Masanobu Fuchi that I still think is slept on despite making the old AJPW '80s set.

I have. And I would say that rating is not unfair.

I mean...Vader tends to have that effect on people. Even subpar workers have to look like they're fighting for their lives and that's often compelling on its own.

Paersey is Maritimes star Stephen Petitpas (as evidenced by the tights he didn't bother to change/disguise). Until this footage showed up I had no idea he ever worked Europe.

Of course, Fry has heard of everything, but I have no answers about Mae. I don't know of any reference to Foxcatcher as it relates to wrestling amateur or pro, outside of John DuPont's Olympic team and the subsequent Steve Carell movie. Fry had to be referring to that movie if it's the 2015 BAFTAs. So it's clearly not what Mae West was referring to.

I have no idea. It was Stephen Fry's show-closing quote on an episode of QI and there was no further context (other than it was Mae West speaking about All In Wrestling.) QI is not 100% infallible but I trust Mr. Fry.

I can't think of any match-up that personifies classical European technical wrestling more. I'd put this in the Holy Grails thread but "holy grail" doesn't do this justice. But really, 1988 Germany appears to be a bit of a dead zone (neither cagematch nor wrestlingdata have results for either Magee nor Kamala working Europe in '88, and I had no idea Magee worked any non-WWF places after he was done in Stampede and All-Japan). I'm anxious to see what else is on this tape. Landy uncovered Mile Zrno vs. Dave Morgan on the same card that had Wanz-Haystacks, I'm hoping for something similar here.

"If it's All In, why wrestle?" --Mae West, supposedly.

I'm not sure anyone was ever as bred to be any specific job as Sid was to be a pro wrestler. The kind of which that doesn't really exist anymore--probably for the better, to be sure, but I can't think of anyone who's come along since who has that vibe of somebody who will kill you if you look at him wrong. There's a compelling appeal in that. Oh, and he was the one guy who even attempted to try to hold things together after the Shockmaster entrance. He deserves kudos just for that.

Of course you can. There are crap pinfall finishes, crap submission finishes, and good DQ/countout/KO finishes. This was none of the above. It was a bad KO finish as opposed to a good one. Even leaving aside the question of whether or not we should evaluate it by what the rematch may have drawn, the actual physical finish was simply not executed competently.

Yeah, that finish is terrible. Maybe if Dennison had actually stuck Kwango's foot into the beam himself, a la Finlay's antics with the ring apron in his later years, it might have worked, but here it just looks like a fluke and doesn't do anything for anybody. Dennison didn't even do anything clever so I don't get the Flair comparisons. Knockout finishes are not created equal. There's a difference between two guys and a promoter lawyering with the rulebook to come up with a bullshit finish, and Pat Roach knocking a guy unconscious with the big boot or Brummagem Bump. I don't know if the throw out to the floor was supposed to look like that but either way it was also badly executed.

Let me break down the perception of British accents from the perspective of an American. There are 3 British accents, and they are: "British" - Received Pronunciation. The Queen's English, all that. David Attenborough, Christopher Hitchens, Stephen Fry...y'know, sophisticated people. "Liverpool" - Where everyone talks like the Beatles. "Cockney" - Any accent that is not one of the other two. PAC, Rowan Atkinson, Sarah Millican, and Ross Noble? Cockney. The Gallaghers? Cockney. Ozzy Osbourne, Victoria Beckham, William Regal's "out-of-character" voice? The guys in those Guy Ritchie movies who speak without using any consonants? See above. That's it. That's the final word on the subject, with exceptions for "Scrooge McDuck" and "Lucky Charms mascot" that apply to England-adjacent countries (note: the UK, Great Britain, and England are all the same thing). Wales, as best we can tell, is a myth, akin to Narnia or Brigadoon, and not subject to further discussion.

Possibly dumb but serious question: would the average German be able to pick up on the difference? I know I and pretty much every American here couldn't possibly begin to differentiate between a German, a Swiss, and an Austrian accent...but then, there's more American (and British) media getting seen in other countries than other countries' media getting seen in the U.S. and U.K. (And I guess I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth because I've watched enough lucha and WWC and remembered enough Spanish from high school that I can pretty much tell between a Mexican and Puerto Rican accent.)