ohtani's jacket

I'd say that if you've only seen Pete Roberts in Japan then you haven't really seen Pete Roberts. The same is true of most British workers in Japan. The stuff I've seen from Roberts in Japan he's tried to work the local style and been pretty average at it. The big problem with Roberts was that he had no personality and when he's out of his element it makes his matches even worse. I'm not a huge fan but against guys who could work like Rudge or Roach or Jones he was oftentimes quite sensational and when your work is good then that's a type of charisma in itself. The two things I'd say are missing most from his Japan work are the matwork and the moments of sheer athleticism like in one of the Singh matches where he's able to counter a body slam by springboarding off the mat with one hand. For what it's worth, I think Tony St. Clair is a guy who really suffers from having shitty Japan matches.

Ozaki's acting was phenomenal around this time. The whole pledging angle where she keeps rejecting Amano was great TV. The birth of OZ Academy and the rise of GAEA were maybe things that weren't captured that much on earlier yearbooks, but it looks like there's a fair bit of it on this one. I think it helps to keep it in the perspective of weekly TV rather than hoping for great matches because it was mostly fun post-boom weekly TV. Also, Ozaki falls off a cliff quality wise after '97. Her '99 GAEA stuff is better than her 21st century work but I'm not sure she was ever the same after Plum died.

Just a note about the two matches: Espectrito/Sagrada was taped at the CA Sports Arena in Los Angeles, not Triplemania, and drew nearly 14,000. This match was an Arena Coliseo taping with a capacity of about 5,000 so I'm not surprised that the AAA match felt bigger, match styles notwithstanding.

Harley Race vs. Rick Martel, PNW 1/12/80 I haven't got much love for Portland wrestling, it's TV, Don Owen's introductions, Frank Bonnema's commentary or Rick Martel, so let me get those biases out of the way. I don't really like their two out of three falls format, either. I may grow to like these things in the future, so I don't mean to pass any indictment on Portland wrestling. This match was good when they did the stand-up parts that led to the finishes and boring as shit when they were on the mat. I don't want to see Harley Race mat wrestle. I don't think he's a good mat wrestler, I don't think he's an interesting mat worker and I don't think he's good at selling on the mat. Harley is good at delivering headbutts and cool offence. I wanna see him work like he worked in Texas. And I especially don't want to see Rick Martel working from the top. Harley really ought to have bucked the touring champ formula and controlled the entire match like the heavyweight champ should. I don't really understand giving the young babyface the control segments when the crowd would love it so much more if he got on a roll instead of slowing the match the fuck down. At least the final two falls were short.

Tiger Dalibar Singh vs. Pete Roberts (6/18/81) Tiger Dalibar Singh vs. Pete Roberts (11/3/82, JIP Rd2) With Pete Roberts and Gil Singh these were either going to be excellent or boring as shit. Fortunately, they weren't boring. The first bout was helped by being on the Wembley Arena card, which meant a hot crowd. Roberts may have been devoid of any personality but he was a hell of a worker when he was "on." Since it was a big show, they went the crowd pleasing route and threw plenty of uppercuts and headbutts. Walton was a kill joy as usual about the forearm smashes, but I could watch Singh and Roberts clock each other all day long. The only real problem was with the match layout. The match was a sprint by Singh's standards and they rocked each other with two quick falls in the opening rounds, but after such an action packed beginning they struggled to keep the momentum going and the match lost steam a bit. The second match circumvented this problem in a clever way. Singh was injured in one of the latter falls and it seemed for all money that he wouldn't be able to continue. Walton mentioned twice that Singh wouldn't make the bell for the next round and that his corner was about to throw the towel in. I was about to turn the DVD off when Singh brushed everybody off and signaled that he'd continue. Had to laugh at that since I'd been cursing another injury finish. Big Gil sold his rib injury like a champ and the final fall was much better than at Wembley.

Negro Casas vs. Valiente, CMLL 2/4/13 Dream match for workrate fans as Casas and Valiente are two of the best in the business, but this was a disappointment. I'm not so sure it was a case of the chemistry being off between the two as much as it was a case of them not bothering to do anything creative. In fact, I was kind of annoyed that Casas put in such a cookie cutter performance against someone as talented as Valiente. Some of the early exchanges were okay, but the third fall in particular was a bore. Negro Casas vs. Mascara Dorada, CMLL 6/2/13 This is the kind of match Casas seems to prefer, where he's clearly the better guy and carries a younger guy through a career best match. The amount of thought and effort put into the match layout was telling. Personally, I didn't find it as compelling as Casas intended, but if you can get into the rhythm of what was basically a spotfest then there's no reason why you won't enjoy it. The third fall was grossly excessive and it seemed to me that if they'd done just one of their dives with the right build and execution it would've been far more effective than the half a dozen dives they did, but that's the modern style I guess and it's better not to get too cranky about it. Can't say I'm a big fan of Casas' telegraphed transition based offence, though. Negro Casas/Valiente/Stuka Jr. vs. Virus/Vangellys/Fuego, CMLL 6/14/13 Virus and Valiente are just about the only pairing that can do proper old-school trios exchanges anymore so it's always a pleasure watching them perform. Their work here was nothing they haven't done in trios before, but head and shoulders above anybody else in regular trios matches. Valiente also did a solitary dive that reminded me of the effectiveness of the one or two dives a match that El Hijo del Santo used to do. Everybody else was average. Black Terry/Negro Navarro/Villano IV vs. Averno/Blue Panther/Shocker, CMLL 4/7/13 Terry looked slick in his exchanges against Averno and on the surface I'd argue that Terry and Navarro are better than Panther and Casas, but Terry and Navarro footage seems to have dried up a bit. For as much as I've complained in the past about "your turn/my turn" IWRG matwork, it's still superior to your standard CMLL exchanges. I liked the first two falls in this match mainly because of Terry. Navarro/Panther was pretty good, but not mind blowing or anything. Villano is only really capable of brawling these days and this was always going to be sanitised compared to the matches he's shined in, while Shocker is only halfway decent when he takes a direct approach of punching people instead of working real exchanges. Still, the differences between this and your run-of-the-mill Arena Mexico trios were obvious as this was actually fleshed out over two falls. Unfortunately, they tried to work a really old-school third fall and it fell considerably flat. Match didn't really break my general apathy towards what's going on in Mexico right now, but it was a nice try. Negro Navarro vs. Negro Casas, Chilanga Mask 5/19/13 Not technically CMLL, but I'll chuck it in here. This was cool and all until the finish which was just bullshit. I mean, c'mon, if you're going to work a maestros exhibition just do a double pin and shake hands or something lame, but what's the point of a low blow DQ finish? That made the match instantly forgettable.

Steve Veidor vs. John Elijah (10/30/79) This was one of Veidor's last televised appearances. It was a real happy-go-lucky sort of Veidor match and Elijah played along nicely. Walton name dropped Bruno Sammartino in this bout, mentioning that the wrestler in the previous match, Spiros Arion "the Iron Greek", had sold out Madison Square Garden facing Sammartino, which I assume was more factual than the times he'd try to say that Terry Rudge had taken Antonio Inoki to a draw. Brian Maxine vs. Bobby Barnes (11/13/79) Only the finish was shown and it was a bit of a schmozz. I think they'd turned Maxine face by the end of the 70s. I'd love to know how they did that. Pat Roach vs. Tom Tyrone (11/13/85) Pat Roach vs. Tom Tyrone (7/22/82) Pat Roach vs. Tom Tyrone (6/16/82) Pat Roach vs. Tom Tyrone (10/11/83) This as a match-up that had a lot of potential on paper as a hard hitting heavyweight match-up and it didn't disappoint. The first match set the tone with a really tight, three star sort of match-up that laid out the theme for the matches of Tyrone being the smaller heavyweight buzzing around the larger Roach like a fly might buzz around a lion's nose and Roach getting increasingly agitated. Lots of smash mouth stuff along with painful looking submissions. Because was so big, he used to hold back a bit, but this rivalry was punctuated by Roach getting fed up and smashing Tyrone like a freight train had just hit him. The coolest thing about the matches was that in WoS when they go for a cross press off some sort of high spot, the pinfalls are often kind of weak but here Roach crunched Tyrone with his cross presses and it was the only time I can remember it looking like the guy underneath had no way of kicking out. The two bouts from '82 are clipped and only show a couple of rounds, but the final bout from '83 was shown in full on TWC and is the clincher. Great bout with lots of awesome strikes and nasty submissions. It doesn't have the heat or full on aggression of Rudge vs. Tyrone, but the intensity is there albeit in a slow boiling fashion, and it's just a great match for detail spotters and connoisseurs.

This is a bit of a weird match. It's not worked at all like their usual matches. Not sure if it was a shoot or not, but it looks like one.

I've got quite a bit of unwatched WoS lying around, so I thought I'd keep ploughing through it. Billy Two Rivers vs. Johnny Yearsley (12/13/73) Billy Two Rivers was a draw in the UK during the 60s due to his feathered headdress, mohawk hairstyle, tomahawk chop and war dance. This was his first time to return to the UK since the mid-60s. Walton mentioned there was a rumour that he had died in a car crash in the late 60s, but thankfully the accident hadn't been that "drastic." For some reason, that struck me as a classic Waltonism. Walton claimed that the car crash had slowed him down a lot, not sure if that's legit or not but he didn't impress. Tony St. Clair vs. Bobby Barnes (8/15/74) St. Clair is a guy who has grown on me first as a babyface foil to the more talented heels and now as a fairly good worker in his own right, and Barnes is the Adrian Street we didn't get to see because Street worked the indies before his move to the U.S. No matter how many times I see it, I can never get enough of Barnes' schtick between rounds where he dabs water on his chest and underarms as though he were applying cologne then towels it off ever so gently. This was far from either man's best, but it was a fun bout nonetheless and hit pretty much all the notes you want from a face vs. exotico match. I was surprised they gave Barnes the win, but I guess St. Clair wasn't the man yet at this point. Steve Veidor vs. Prince Kumali (10/10/74) Steve Veidor vs. Prince Kumali (5/27/75) These were a little disappointing. I really love the Kumali/Szakacs matches, but Veidor was a different worker from Szakacs and he didn't match up with Kumali quite as well. The first match in particular was a bit of a miscue as they worked it around Kumali trying to ground the all-action star, Steve Veidor, and the crowd found it a bit boring. Veidor led the second match and it as a better effort as it was a typical Veidor match with lots of action and movement. Veidor sold a bunch and got fired up at Kumali's cheating and Kumali for his part had an amusing strut. Not much in the way of wrestling, but they played to the crowd well. Brian Maxine vs. Johnny Czeslaw (4/19/78) Brian Maxine vs. Johnny Czeslaw (6/5/78) These were matches that I expected to have a lot of schtick since Czeslaw was a power wrestler who used a lot of comedy and Maxine as a heel stooge. They were decent enough without being truly outstanding. The first one had a surprising amount of American influence with Maxine getting right in Walton's face, Czeslaw breaking a chair at ringside and the finish being an American ref bump, which you almost never seen in WoS. I dunno if Maxine really recorded his Country albums in Nashville, but he seems to have seen American wrestling somehow. The post-match to the first match was amusing as well as Maxine had this way of walking right into the ring announcer while taunting him, giving him no personal space whatsoever. It seemed to be closer to the type of match you'd seen in the halls then on TV. The second match wasn't as good, but had its moments. Can't really complain since the dynamic I was looking for was there. Dunno how Maxine suddenly got so much hair, though. Was he wearing a hair piece? John Quinn vs. Tony St.Clair (4/23/79) Decent enough knockout tournament match, though Quinn's all-in American style was an obvious style clash however fun his run was. OK as a change of pace.

Rush/Rey Escorpion/Maximo vs. Negro Casas/Terrible/Shocker, CMLL 6/28/13 Negro Casas, Mr. Aguila & Rey Bucanero vs. Blue Panther, Rush & Maximo, CMLL 7/14/13 So, this is the best thing going today or so I've been told. I like Rush a lot so I'm excited to see these. He kind of reminds me of the true, modern day heir to Perro Aquayo, since Perro's own kid hasn't been any good since about 2007 as far as I can tell, and he's learnt the value of having a great head of hair. True to others' word, the Rush vs. Casas exchanges do not disappoint. They're kind of similar in tone to the famous Dandy/Casas exchanges, but Casas isn't quite the sublime genius he was back then and that had a different sort of vibe to it in that Casas and Dandy were two all-time greats squaring off. The other difference is that in those trios matches, Casas and Dandy worked with much more talented partners as that was the greatest collection of talent in the TV footage era. Their partners were able to work exchanges that were like mini subplots that informed and supported the main plot. What you got here was some great modern day brawling, which has a greater emphasis on striking than in days gone by. In terms of everybody else, I thought Shocker and Terrible got it the most in terms of how they should complement the main feud that was going on and Maximo added the necessary variety for a lucha trios match. The 6/28 trios is getting a lot of MOTY talk. I wouldn't go anywhere near that far as it doesn't have a complete enough narrative to really deserve that kind of praise and I thought there have been plenty of Black Terry driven trios in recent years that were better, but don't let MOTY expectations get in the way of enjoying a good match. There's still too much (bad) bullshit in modern day CMLL, but while it lasted it was about as violent as you're going to get in this era. The 7/14 match was nothing special and more a continuation of the feud, I thought. I assume there's going to a hair match at some point this year. I'm not getting too excited about that as I think Casas' offence is suspect in big matches these days and there's been weaknesses in his singles formula of late, but the brawling exchanges have been great so far and Rush is a special talent.

Jim Breaks vs. Bobby Ryan (12/2/75) Whoo-hoo, a new Jim Breaks match! And better yet it's a title match against Bobby Ryan, a guy longtime fans consider one of Breaks' best opponents. Up until now, the only match of theirs available was from one of those gimmick TV tournaments and not a particularly strong indicator of how good the Breaks/Ryan dynamic may have been. I'm happy to say that this is about a million times better. Ryan, a relative newcomer to the sport compared to Breaks, had won the European Lightweight Championship from Breaks in September of the same year and this was Breaks' first televised shot at winning it back. The match started with a fantastically serious Brian Crabtree laying down the law in terms of public warnings. Ryan had an intensity unmatched by even Steve Grey in the best Grey/Breaks matches and Breaks was in full on wrestling mode. Very little in the way of Mickey Mouse wrestling from the Bradford man. I'm gonna roll out a bunch of cliches here, but you could cut the tension with a knife. Ryan had the best looking whip moves I've seen in arguably all of wrestling. The snap on them was insane. This as scheduled to go 15 rounds since it was a title match, but both guys were too wound up for it to last anywhere near that long. I'm no fan of limb psychology or body part selling or rather I'm somewhat contrary about it, but when Breaks finally got his Jim Breaks special on, Ryan's selling was off the charts. It was then and only then that I realised what the older fans had been saying about this match-up. In a wonderful piece of booking, Ryan continued on with an injured arm and tried to fend off Breaks, who was circling in for the kill. This was just great stuff. We don't have a huge amount of Breaks available but anyone who's seen a decent amount will know that he could be a wrestling machine at times. Breaks made one false move, Ryan countered and he was able to pin Breaks to the canvas for one of the biggest eruptions from a crowd you'll hear this side of Young David beating Breaks. Breaks was so good at eliciting that sort of crowd response when he lost a big match. Walton lost it on commentary too and you had just about everyone in the crowd standing and applauding. Beautiful stuff and the reason I keep coming back to this promotion and this style of wrestling. The post-match was great, too. Breaks finally gave us something to laugh at when he threw a tantrum and destroyed the flowers and Ryan was still wired, about a 10 out of 10 on the intensity scale. Brilliant.

Steve Wright vs. Keith Martinelli (aired 1/12/72) Weird hearing Steve Wright described as a wonder boy. He was so tall that hearing him described as a boy didn't really mesh with his in-ring presence. This was closer to the Wright that most people are familiar with from the New Japan set and other footage, though slightly looser because he was only a two or three year pro at this stage. This was a main event bout that went about 35 minutes and I was able to see the whole thing since it was from a master. It was an eight round match from memory and notable for the amount of attacking Wright did. He was quite busy and used a wide variety of holds for such an inexperienced worker, hence the wonder boy tag I suppose. In particular, I thought his dropkicks and headmares were really beautiful. There was also a decent structure to his bout, which impressed me given how long it was. They teased an injury finish on a couple of occasions but kept wrestling. I always like it when they pull that swerve. Probably the only criticism I had of the bout was the way they sold the piledriver in Britain. There were many variations of piledrivers in the UK, though none of them looked like the standard US piledriver and as with many territories outside of Memphis they were rarely sold as deadly, ostensibly because of the strong KO/injury finish culture in British wrestling. Aside from that, it was probably the best Steve Wright match I've seen and the impression I got was that his move overseas was a real loss for the British scene. One odd thing about the match was that there were six empty seats in the front row, which is something I've never seen before on a WoS broadcast and I've seen a couple of a hundred of these bouts. The occupants eventually took their seats, though one boy didn't show up until the 6th round or so. Tony St. Clair vs. Peter Stewart (aired 10/27/71) Tony St. Clair was super young here. This was very much like vs. like in terms of two young heavyweights taking each other on, but it was good, fast paced action for a pair of heavyweights and both men showed plenty of athleticism. Lee Thomas vs. Tally Ho Kaye (aired 8/30/75) This aired on TWC. It was part of a special Scotland vs. England team challenge that had the only surviving footage of George Kidd. It was pretty decent for a tournament match. I've never been much of a fan of Kaye but he was solid here and wrestled aggressively. The dueling not-so-well sold piledrivers was again a slight issue, but it was a competitive bout. Lee Thomas was a good talent, almost like a late 60s-early 70s version of Chic Cullen, but he wasn't on TV very much presumably because he was a Northerner.

Brian Maxine vs. Steve Wright (aired 2/12/72) I think this also aired on TWC, but it's one I hadn't seen. Steve Wright, so young, so much hair... For some reason, I have always figured Steve Wright as German and was going to question why they billed him from Warrington until I discovered he was from Warrington. He was in the young "boy apprentice" role here (yes, they really did call them that) and was nothing like the Wright people are familiar with. He had a lot of angry young man, headbutt offence as opposed to mat tricks. I thought his celebrations were a bit odd, almost camp in a way like some kind of Viennese ballet dancer, but he had the good fortune to be billed against Maxine who was a heat magnet at the time. I'm so used to seeing Maxine with the scrum cap that I never realised how bald he was. He must have had one hell of a comb over in some of the later matches of his I've seen, because I never noticed it before. He was never a great worker, but he was extremely clever at utilising his various gimmicks and at getting over. I don't know if anybody's been able to work out why he had so much of Lawler's gimmick before Lawler or if there were king gimmicks in Britain prior to Maxine. This bout was fairly typical of his matches, but it drew a large amount of heat which made it interesting. The front row were getting so animated that the ring announcer had to go over and have a word with them. One great part of Maxine's gimmick is that he would throw out leaflets between rounds and get them promptly thrown back at him. Later on, when he began recording Country Western songs, he'd sing for the crowds at the halls. I don't remember if he always did this spot, but he got big heat for doing a sawing motion with his forearm across his opponent's throat area. There were plenty of better heel workers in British wrestling, but very few of them kept coming up with new ideas for self-promotion like Brian Maxine.

OK, Bobby Ryan jumps all the way from overrated to strong hand, partially because I'm an idiot but also because the footage that existed of him previously wasn't a great showcase for his obvious ability.

Alan Miquet vs. Johnny Saint (6/12/71) People who enjoy Johnny Saint's style would like this as Miquet was a talented worker and a good match-up for Saint. Even for someone like me who's apathetic towards Saint there was plenty to enjoy. I thought it lost steam in the final couple of rounds, but all in all it was a good contest and another chance to see Miquet, who was a lightweight who I hadn't heard of before and for whom only one tag was available previously. Tibor Szakacs vs. Pete Stewart (aired 3/25/72) This aired on TWC, but I hadn't seen it before so I thought I would jot down a couple of notes. Stewart was a young, lanky light heavyweight of solid enough ability playing the youngster to Szakacs' veteran role. They gave him a bit of a rub by having him take a late one fall lead over Szakacs in the fourth round, meaning that Tibor would have to score either a pinfall or submission in both of the remaining rounds, not that it appeared to fluster Tibor much. This was another of those sort of "walk in the park" bouts that the older greats like Marino did a lot of in the 70s and this time Tibor didn't ratchet it up a notch as in his better matches. Marty Jones vs. Jeff Kaye (9/26/73) Jeff Kaye with long hair. Marty Jones young and skinny. This really was from the 70s. Really splendid contest with Kaye at his very best. Bouts like this capture the essence of what the Euro style is all about with their mix of stellar matwork, trick spots and British style comedy. The only thing that bugged me was the awful finish that came only 30 seconds into the final round and was massively soft. Up until then it was a delight. Bobby Ryan vs. Johnny England (7/12/78) England wasn't much of a worker, but he got over well with his narcissistic bodybuilder gimmick. He worked the American all-in style and got good reactions from the crowd. Ryan's stock is shooting up in my eyes and this was a solid preliminary contest that set the tone for the Breaks match that followed. Ryan played the aggrieved babyface well.

Onto the colour footage... We get a clip of the finish to a Mike Marino/Rocky Wall match where Marino gets an upset pinfall over Wall. From John's listings, I'm guessing this was taped 9/26/73. It's kind of strange to think of Marino as getting an upset pinfall as he was so protected even in catchweight contests and you think of younger workers getting upset victories but Marino, IIRC, was on the first ever televised wrestling broadcast in '55 and was older than dirt. I didn't realise that Albert Wall turned heel in the later part of his career. Man, did he age over the course of a decade. Mark Rocco vs. Lee Thomas (2/12/74) Mark Rocco rocking the thin handlebar moustache and the dyed fringe. Man, he was young here. He wasn't wearing his Rollerball outfit yet and I wonder if he changed to that look from some sort of a physique issue as he was in pretty poor shape compared to a lot of the other workers and he had these really dark, large freckles all over his chest, shoulders and back. Anyway, a bit of a superficial observation. Match was okay, but he hadn't really developed the Rocco style yet so it was kind of an incomplete performance. Steve Grey vs. Bobby Ryan (2/12/74) This was an excellent match. One of the best matches from the early part of Grey's career and a better representation of why people think highly of Ryan than any TWC matches I've seen. This was a really physical lightweight contest and every bit as compelling as the hard hitting action of the heavy weight classes. Lots of struggling and fighting for holds. It could've gone a bit longer, but for a preliminary bout it was outstanding. Grey really has a fantastic resume of matches.

Yuki Ishikawa vs. Daisuke Ikeda, 4/24/05 I like a lot of Ishikawa and Ikeda matches, but not this one. Not only is it kind of sickening, it's a poor introduction to shoot style. To me, introducing shoot style without the context of the entire Japanese scene from pro-wrestling to other martial arts is somewhat difficult. I don't think it makes sense outside that context. If I were to choose an introductory match I'd probably chose one of Volk Han's more exciting carry jobs like that '95 match against Yamamoto. For All Japan, I'd choose a Jumbo vs. Misawa six-man as they are the most fun matches in the style. You could probably make the same argument for a New Japan multi-man elimination match. For lucha, I like the minis trios idea. The 5/90 trios works too.

On the first page is a list of recommended matches. Not all of them are on YouTube, but if you want showmanship I recommend Jim Breaks, Mick McManus, Sid Cooper, Tony "Banger" Walsh, Adrian Street and Bobby Barnes. Mark Rocco is another guy you'll want to check out. If you want mat wrestling watch Alan Sarjeant and Jon Cortez. For the "Euro style" definitely check out Grey/Saint or Grey/Myers. For hard hitting action, you want Marty Jones, Tibor Szakacs, Finlay and Terry Rudge. Then there's comedy such as Les Kellett. There's a lot to explore.

Julien Morice vs. Johnny Williams (9/20/69) I'm going to assume this is their match from 1969 as Walton sounded somewhat more polished in his delivery than previously. This is the last bit of 60s footage I have. I've only seen Morice once before in a match that Walton shat on worse than any match I've heard him shit on. Watching this, I can see why. Walton loved the fast, "all action" lightweights and Morice was a more physical lightweight. The match was solid enough, but slow. The final fall was missing, but I wasn't too disappointed as it wasn't that exciting a match. The rest of the 60s footage was good to very good.

Len Wilding vs. Jack Cunningham (10/28/61 TV) Albert Wall vs. Ernie Riley (11/25/61 TV) Very early WoS in terms of the footage we have available. The commentator for these matches was Peter Cockburn with wrestler turned referee Tony Mancelli joining him for the Albert Wall contest. Wilding vs. Cunningham was cool. Cunningham was this spidery, barefooted South African wrestler whose specialty was the monkey climb off the ropes and Wilding was a John Naylor-like, popular "local" boy. This had a bit more of the Euro flair to it than the other matches I've watched so far with lots of joint manipulation and undressing of holds. It seems that style was fully established by 1961 as they didn't appear to be doing anything revolutionary. Albert Wall has quite a legendary status among heavyweight workrate fans. He had a remarkable physique. He quite literally looked like one of those muscle bound types in the "weedy guy gets sand kicked in his face" comic book advertisements. Massive, massive thighs. All work and no personality, but there's a contingent that likes straight wrestling and he was a poster boy for that. He did work quite well for a heavyweight, though I think this was early into his career and not prime Albert Wall by any stretch. His opponent was the son of the legendary Bill Riley and one of Britain's finest light heavyweights of the era. He used his speed and agility to offset Wall's strength and power in a decent catch weight contest.

The next two matches I have a date for: Honey Boy Zimba vs. Docker Don Steadman (10/18/67 TV) Alan Miquet vs. Tony Borg (10/18/67 TV) The first match was a solid, power-based heavyweight contest between a spry Honey Boy Zimba and Docker Don Steadman, King of the Stevedores. A stevedore is a longshoreman for those of you who, like me, have no idea. He was basically a gruff, unkempt looking heavyweight similar in appearance to Sid Cooper or John Elijah when they grew older. Think Skinner if those names don't mean anything. Zimba was much quicker than the 70s worker I'm familiar with and very similar to Johnny Kwango without quite the same charisma. He had this cool spot he'd do where he'd do a nip-up into a flying headbutt aimed at his opponent's torso. It was one of those matches that threatened to get out of hand through roughhousing, but stayed on the straight and narrow. It's a limited sample, but there hasn't been the same heel heat as later WoS. I don't have footage of any of the notable heel personalities, so I'm not sure how often they ran matches where the heel(s) cheated a lot. I haven't seen a public warning yet, mostly it's been straight wrestling. Walton had a bit of a dodgy comment when he mentioned that Zimba's chocolate skin was glistening under the lights. The second match was interesting. It was a fast paced, high offence lightweight match. Really slick for 1967. It was fascinating to watch lightweight wrestling that didn't have that strong a George Kidd influence. Probably the best match from the footage.

A friend sent them to me. I believe they were originally bought from ITV. The second match is the finals of a heavyweight knock-out tournament. Walton mentions the semi-finals having aired the previous Wednesday: Tibor vs. Yuri Borienko and Barratt vs. John Lees.

I was fortunate to get my hands on some 1960s World of Sport footage. So far I've watched the following: Peter Szakacs vs. Len Hurst Tibor Szakacs vs. Ivor "Pat" Barratt I can't really get an accurate date for either match. There's a Hurst vs. Peter Szakacs match listed from 1969, but nothing for Szakacs/Barratt. Barratt was a British heavyweight who took a slightly unconventional route of leaving for the States and returning as an bit of an outsider schooled in the all-in, American style. Apparently, he returned to Britain fairly regularly from '67-69, so we're talking late 60s. For a guy like me who's seen more WoS than most non-Brits, the footage is endlessly fascinating. The presentation is quite different. It's slightly more formal than 70s World of Sport as England in the late 60s was culturally different from the 70s. Most of the men still wear suits and ties to the grappling and it has almost a theatre like quality instead of the town hall vibe you associate with WoS. Walton is nowhere near as polished in his delivery and doesn't quite have his act down pat. Every now and again there are tinges of the Walton we know, but it's not quite the same. The style itself (as far as the Szakacs brothers go) is slightly more athletic as opposed to spotty and there isn't quite the same interplay between submissions and Walton's wordplay as there is in the 70s. There is the same bullshit injury finishes, though, so they were an early intervention from the bookers. Another interesting point was that it was filmed differently with handheld shots from ringside. They also had a television celebrity hand over the knock-out tournament trophy to the winner in the second match which was a type of status wrestling wasn't given in later years. Tibor is one of my favourites and I pretty much consider him the British Volk Han. He didn't do anything spectacularly different from his 70s matches, but his bout with Barratt was a decent heavyweight contest. Szakacs vs. Hurst was okay, but didn't really resolve my curiosity over how good the younger Szakacs really was. Anyway, very interesting so far. There was also a brief part of a match intro shown for a tag match involving The Borgs, a pair of extremely lightweight workers. Amazing the gimmicks that have been lost to time hauled up in the ITV vaults.

When I saw Rockwell on the link, I thought Harley was going to be the alien at Arena 51.

Try the Jim Breaks vs. Young David matches. For mine, they're the quintessential Breaks matches.