ohtani's jacket

Mike Bennett vs. Jeff Kaye (2/27/85) After a hot angle this was a typically understated bout. It wasn't bad or anything, but they could have milked it more. You sometimes read people talk about a "story bout" that is more angle driven than wrestling based, but the only real story here was Walton not giving Kaye much of a chance against Bennett. I guess they painted themselves into a corner a bit as you could hardly have a retired wrestler and ref beat one of your top heels, but at the same time it's kind of weird seeing Kaye ref Bennett again after Bennett had beaten him. They could have easily fixed that by having Kaye come within a whisker of beating Bennett, but the bout was much more subdued than that, and the entire thing was brushed under the carpet and never spoken of again. Mike Bennett/Black Jack Mulligan/Bearcat Wright vs. Greg Valentine/Samson Ubo/Mike Jordan (1/9/86) This was the first ever six-man elimination tag on television. Usually, six mans were given 10 minutes or less and were the culmination of a series of singles matches between the sides, but this went the full duration and was a fairly substantial 20 minute bout. As usual, there was nothing to make you forget truly great six-man wrestling, but the action was decent. Ubo was a Nigerian wrestler doing the most stereotypical African gimmick imaginable complete with headbutt. Apparently, Big Daddy had touted him in the TV Times as one of his top 10 picks for '86. Maybe they were hoping to recapture the popularity of Masambula or Johnny Kwango. He was pretty bad and this was his one and only TV appearance. The bout came down to Bennett and Wright vs. Valentine and as tempting as it would have been to have Valentine defy the odds and win the bout, they went the more realistic route and had him last the distance instead. Valentine winning would have been shoving him down our throats indeed. Bennett was good in this, but on par with Wright and Mulligan and not show stealing.

It's kind of interesting how things come and go. That Dandy vs. Panther clip was online years and years ago and resurfaced recently. I'm still waiting for the Panther vs. Gran Cochisse clip to be reupped someday.

My order is Chi-Town, Clash and then WrestleWar. The only top 10 I'd have them in is a top 10 WCW matches of all-time list, though.

I've been living in Japan for too long cos when I saw that title I thought it was a list of matches that are just okay. Nice to see you still carrying the torch for Queendom after all these years.

Nothing surprising about including Jon Cortez. I like him a lot better in the 80s than the 70s, though, which isn't an opinion I've seen held by others.

I get the feeling my list would be made up of nothing but glaring/surprising omissions and inclusions.

I have a soft spot for Octagon, but he doesn't belong within a million miles of a list like this. You should check out the recent match I wrote about on my blog where he worked w/ Casas. Aside from the Fuerza feud, that's the best I've seen him look outside of trios bouts. You should look for Los Fantasticos footage. Black Man was probably the best masked dude in a goofy ninja outfit during the era where masked dudes in goofy ninja outfits were big. Check this out:

Kellett was a comedy worker and one of the biggest stars of the 60s and 70s. He was all smiles on screen but a bit of a prick backstage. He was notoriously hard (hard meaning tough), and according to Adrian Street liked to take real bumps during his bouts. There's only a dozen or so Kellett matches on tape and that includes matches held by private collectors. The footage we have is from the tale end of his career in the early-to-mid 70s. There's nothing available from the 60s as of yet. The British style of comedy wrestling is somewhat unique in that the workers are always talking to someone -- the ref, their opponent, the crowd, the commentator -- and making wise cracks. They poke fun at a lot of British wrestling conventions like the Mountevans rules, and the way Walton covers up for it in kayfabe terms is explaining that the wrestlers are intentionally "playing to the galleries." The best Kellett match you watch is the first one because of how different he is, but I do like his matches with Bobby Barnes as you've got this hard Yorkshireman going up against an exotico. I wouldn't vote for him w/out more footage, but he's one of the great characters of British wrestling and I know Matt has more to say about his timing, reactions and visual humour.

Ventura's run with Tony is as good as anything he did in the WWF. JR's sound bytes are fun to listen to over the top of NBA Jam, but until Tony became a proto-Cole during the Nitro era and JR became good ol' JR, give me Tony or give death. Ross at his worst is a million times worse than Tony. On the Flair/Garvin comp I watched, every match Ross commentated on was the most physical contest he'd ever seen. The bar kept raising when JR was around. He did seem more willing to play off Cornette than Jesse, but then Cornette was an actual in-ring character at the time.

Battle Royal (10/16/85) This was an extraordinarily long battle royal by British wrestling standards. It actually went to a 10 minute draw when most battle royals were over in half that time. That meant a lot of dull battle royal spots, but the TV director tried keeping things interesting by showing close-ups of folks in the crowd. In the end neither Collins nor Bennett could eliminate each other and a sullen looking Bennett took a bit of a swipe at Collins afterward. Mike Bennett vs. Danny Boy Collins (12/19/84) This was joined in progress but it appeared to be Bennett's first appearance on TV since 1979. He was still sporting is natural hair colour hair, so I'm not sure if the Heritage guys have got the timeline right on when he became a heel. Walton mentioned he wasn't behaving like the Bennett he knew, but chalked that up to Bennett being annoyed that a 17 year old was holding the title he'd always wanted. Bennett was strangely obsessed with keeping Collins trapped on the mat in a grovit. It paid off for him when he got the one submission necessary to win, but I don't think it was what the crowd paid for. Mike Bennett vs. Danny Boy Collins (2/12/85) Great bout. The way Bennett attacked his man in this was vicious. He was so quick with his attacks and some of the stuff he was doing was just nasty. He bust Collins' nose up pretty good, which was pretty hardcore considering Collins was still only 17. He had blood smeared over the side of his face and Bennett went after the nose in a way you almost never see in British wrestling. Walton had mentioned that Bennett's daughter was watching at home and really torn because she wanted her dad to win but was one of the greatest Danny Boy Collins fans around. He didn't mention how old she was, but if she was young I wonder how Bennett explained his viciousness to her. The side story to all this was that referee Jeff Kaye was having a torrid time trying to keep Bennett in check and Bennett was becoming increasingly frustrated with Kaye forcing him to break all the time. It came to a head in a rare piece of quality booking from Joint. Bennett thought he had won the title, but Kaye overturned the decision and the bout continued. There were some neat twists and turns down the stretch and it seemed like any number of results were possible. Finally, Bennett was DQ'ed and he immediately ripped into Kaye. He got on the mic and said: "I want you referee." Kaye replied he wasn't one to hide behind the bow tie and would fight Bennett any time he wanted, and that's the next match on the comp. It's rare you see a WoS bout this well booked and the work was awesome enough that I'd put in my top 20 bouts from the 80s without much hesitation. Arthur Psycho uploaded it the other day if anybody wants to check it out:

Side point, but I do think this talking point is generally over played. Abby, Sheik and the Funks were all over huge and those "dry 70s crowds" were borderline hysterical. They might have all been exceptional cases, but it's exactly the same crowd. Yeah, but dry 70s crowds exist. For every hot crowd you can find there's a drier one to match. I think it depends upon the city and prefecture, which is not something people think about much when it comes to Japanese wrestlling compared with the States. I also think wrestling in Japan became more popular as the 70s progressed so I'm not sure I'd say they're the same crowds.

I liked his mid-to-late 70s stuff that was on TWC. Both of his bouts against Pete Roberts are good.

Gregor already mentioned his singles bouts. My favourites are the '93 Estrada bout and the '93 Parka bout from Triplemania. There's a couple of different versions of the latter floating about. Try to find the full version. He's a guy you need to watch en masse to fully appreciate and I don't think YouTube lets you do that. I dunno if it's still up, but search for Blue Panther and Lizmark to find a lucha exchange that shows what he was all about.

Mike Bennett vs. Johnny Kidd (10/16/85) Actually, this is the first disc on the comp. Started watching the second disc first (boy, this thread is going well so far.) This was a short two fall contest with a ten minute duration. Bennett wrapped it up in half that time, but everything he did was slick. Kidd was a stylist in the vein of his mentor and trainer Ken Joyce, but rarely got to show his wares due to his youth and card positioning. Kidd tried out maneuvering Bennett early, but Bennett cut him off and was able to dominate the bout physically. I love how Bennett dyed his eyebrows as well. That's real commitment to the peroxide based heel turn. The only thing Bennett is really lacking when you compare him to the great TV heels is that little bit of extra charisma. He doesn't do a lot of verbal sparring with the crowds and doesn't work the crowd as much as some of the other heels of note, so we'll see how much more of that we get during his TV run.

Mike Bennett vs. Steve Logan (6/26/85) The first match on the comp is the Logan match I reviewed in the Arthur Psycho thread. I told a fib in my opening post as we're greeted by Dick Davies here and the ring even has the World of Sport logo on it, so Bennett was brought in during '85 but before the end of WoS. He basically took Breaks' spot after Jimmy left the small screen in '84. This was just as good as I remembered. It wasn't as jaw droppingly, sit up and make you take notice, good as the first time I watched it since I'd already seen it, but Logan was basically the Brad Armstrong of British wrestling and this was as good a match with Logan as anyone got outside of maybe that one long Pat Roach bout. Bennett was a dynamo on offense and defense and did enough to convince me he was an all-rounder.

I could be, and probably am, wrong, but that's my impression of listening to Bret all these years and watching his matches. I suspect Bret's pride in himself as a worker is that you could put him in the ring with anyone and he could have a good match with anyone. If he was more interested in working with good talent, he didn't seem that way during his peak years. He should have jumped to WCW in '92 if that was what was motivating him.

You were into that, but how many of your friends were? It's a certain type of personality that's into history and what came before. I'm 36 and the majority of the people I know in the same age range have contemporary interests. They're into modern TV series and modern films whereas I stopped watching new things a decade ago. You can see it as plain as day on this board who follows the modern scene and who doesn't. There's a jumping off point for everyone and a certain type of personality that's a history buff. Also, if you're interested in the past, the internet has been a Godsend. I also have fond memories of the anticipation of buying a tape and everything. but likewise I can remember the massive amount of tapes I didn't buy because I didn't have the money or the currency rate was so bad. 99% of shit back then was unattainable or inaccessible and something you either heard or read about. Sure it was exciting if you managed to find something you always wanted to see, but it was also a pain in the arse. I wouldn't trade the internet for anything.

I still say it's wrong. Every generation go through the same thing. Feeling like younger kids don't know anything is just an indicator that we're getting old. I also think the whole argument is dictated by what the TV stations chose to run. Just because the TV stations in NZ ran old episodes of Get Smart when I was a kid, or the Thunderbirds, or M*A*S*H, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Flintstones, Batman, or Mork and Mindy, doesn't mean I was really part of the shared cultural cache of the 60s or 70s. When I was a kid, we watched whatever was on TV in re-runs, but we primarily into the *now* the same way kids today are. It was the same in the 90s. If you asked a kid in the 90s who was watching Beverly Hills 90210 or Melrose Place about Peyton Place they wouldn't have a clue. I get what you're saying about technological changes and the decline in television viewing as we knew it, but your grandparents could say the same about radio, and my sister, who's six years younger than me, waxs lyrically about early 00s trends that passed me by. In conclusion, we are old.

A while back, I discovered a guy who was potentially the last great super worker of British television wrestling: a rule-bender by the name of "Marvellous" Mike Bennett. I was so impressed by his bout with Steve Logan that I picked up a two-disc comp of every Bennett match to make time and promptly found no time to watch it. Now that I've caught up with the Arthur Psycho channel this is my new British wrestling baby. Bennett made his debut in March 1964 when he was 18 years old and was a blue-eye in the early part of his career. Despite appearing on TV fairly regularly in the 60s, he disappeared from the small screen in the 70s and only made sporadic appearances through the decade. At some point he took on a heel persona, dying his hair and handwriting the nickname "Marvellous" on his tights as well as well as his ring towels. It was similar in spirit to one of the hardest working showmen of the era, Brian Maxine. For some reason or another, Bennett didn't have a huge television presence at the turn of the decade, presumably because he was working for the independents, but when World of Sport was cancelled in 1985 and wrestling became a stand alone show, Crabtree brought Bennett into the fold and gave him a pretty solid push as a television heel personality. If you know anything about World of Sport wrestling, you'll know it was populated by a colorful array of heel characters -- Sid Cooper, Brian Maxine, Adrian Street, Bobby Barnes, Jim Breaks, Mick McManus, Mark Rocco, Giant Haystacks and Kendo Nagasaki to name a few -- but by the mid-80s much of that "heel depth" had been eroded by the jumps to Brian Dixon's All-Star Promotions. Rocco was gone. Breaks was gone. John Quinn was gone. Finlay worked for everyone, Skull Murphy was knocking about, and there were stalwarts like Tally Ho Kaye and Sid Cooper, but nobody who made the nation stop at 4pm like the glory days. Bennett could hardly be expected to recapture that glory, but for a while he got to be the man on the small screen while giving the Bristol boys Crabtree was desperate to push such as Ritchie Brooks and Danny Boy Collins a viable foil. Let's check him out.

Well, Benoit completely modeled himself after DK so that's s bit different.

You could say the same for dry 70s crowds and any number of touring wrestlers whose heel work met with crickets. I don't think there's anything particularly special about that in regard to the modern era. The homage vs. tradition debate is interesting. I think CM Punk was way too on the nose with his homages and I'm sure there are other workers like that.

I dunno if I buy New Japan being post-modern. They tend to have these epic matches in front of small crowds and creates a weird juxtaposition. If they were playing to bigger crowds I think it would seem more natural. The make-up of the crowds is wildly different from the golden years as well. Not much has changed in regard to the presentation other than a bit more video technology being used. The hairstyles follow Japanese fashion trends. I think Arena Mexico and WWE arena set-ups are far more sterile than the New Japan set-up, which is still fairly traditional.

I talked myself into watching Hansen's entire run with Spivey, but gave up about two matches in. I'm sure it got better at some point, but Hansen's work wasn't at all good in the matches I saw.

My theory about Bret has always been that he preferred working against less talented guys. I reckon he got a bigger kick out of carrying them than he did working with top level guys.

THE ARTHUR PSYCHO HOUR Ep 50 Ian McGregor vs. Ray Robinson (8/7/86) This was the final for the Jolly Fisherman trophy. A trophy that looked like something you'd find at a rummage sale or white elephant stall. I like both these guys but this was a dull and listless bout. There was a big fuss made about how it was supposed to be the second semi-final, but Bernie Wright had been DQ'ed in the first semi and the winner, Greg Valentine, withdrew with an injury so it automatically became the final. Then they wrestled to a draw and Walton assumed the ref would decide the winner on points, but the local dignitary presenting the trophy, Leslie Shepherd, the Director of Leisure and Tourism at East Lindsey District Council no less, said they'd make a second trophy for the men to share. I wonder whatever became of the Jolly Fisherman trophy. When wrestling fans from the UK say this stuff is too British at times this has got to be what they mean. Greg Valentine vs. Rex Lane (12/16/87) Sid Cooper vs. Andy Blair (12/16/87) Greg Valentine vs. Sid Cooper (12/16/87) Psycho is pretty cynical about this Gala Cup tournament calling it the "Something for Greg Valentine To Win Trophy tournament." Some ex-wrestler in the comments section says that Valentine wasn't very popular with the boys, but I guess there aren't too many promoter's sons who are well liked among the boys. I don't mind him as a worker, but I did notice him over doing it with the victory poses in this. This was all pretty straightforward compared to the Jolly Fisherman malarkey Big Daddy/Ringo Rigby vs. John Quinn/Mark Rocco (4/24/79) This was from Cup Final Day 1979 and one of the better Daddy tags of the era. The Ringo vs. Rocco sections were great and left me hankering for a singles match between them, which I think could have been pretty great in 1979.