David Mantell

Another bout that could just have easily been on a Brian Dixon or Orig Williams show of the same period. Or even a WWF undecardTen minute start of the show match to get them in a good mood. Next to no technical wrestling (and Doc Dean who was British Welterweight Champion at the time was capable of better) but it made the crowd happy. Kenny does a promo at the start very much in the style of ITV promo's of 1987-1988 which does go to show that this is not just bootleg fan cam but officially sanctioned footage probably meant to be resold at the merch stands.

It seems to be the problem with fans brought up on American Wrestling that they will condemn British matches for reasons that do not apply and would have been alien to the original British audiences. The insinuation seems to be that the whole of the British and indeed the European business was somehow "getting it wrong" - to which I have to ask why is the American way of doing wrestling just assumed to be the correct definitive way?

It would be more an issue if you were criticizing them based on cultural expectations that did not relate to the original context. If you are enjoying them, go ahead and enjoy it. I did A Level Spanish at school and studied Golden Age Spanish literature as part of the course. We did Pedro Calderon De La Barca's La Vida Es Sueno from the 1600s. Our teacher forbade us from reading ahead of him because we had all studied Shakespeare in English classes but Spanish theatre of that same period was based on very different principles (a strong emphasis on poetic justice for example) and he did not want us mistakenly applying Shakespeare's rules to Calderon. Or more to the point he did not want us thinking Calderon was a rubbish playwright whose plays didn't make sense and who should have taken some tips from a "REAL" writer like Shakespeare.

That was rather the point as far as the original audiences for European wrestling, especially the devout fans, were concerned. Especially with British wrestling which at its best was about, as Kent Walton said, "skill and speed combined" - lots of clever micro details coming hard and fast. Even those fans who just wanted "rough and tumble" between a good guy and a bad guy were made to feel like they OUGHT to appreciate the skilful clean bouts and that it would make them not just a better wrestling fan but a better person too to acquire the taste for more sophisticated wrestling rather than mere "vugar" crowd psychology. With France they developed a different style, particularly in the tag matches but also among the lighter weight wrestlers like Michel Saulnier, Le Petit Prince and Vasillious Mantopolous that emphasized agility rather than technical ingenuity, although again combined with speed. "Il est tres SOUPLE" seems to have been the highest compliment the French TV commentators could pay to a wrestler. Germany/Austria is an odd case. At the time the Home Video releases started being filmed circa 1979/1980 there appears to have been an older generation around including Axel Dieter Senior, Achim Chall, Jorg Chenok, Roland Bock etc who relied on a slow rigorous style that involved getting a hold and milking it for every last possibility of adjustment of leverage and every last drop of emotion. Mile Zrno appears to have been the youngest who worked this style. After that, there was a revolution in the German/Austrian style when Steve Wright permanently relocated to Germany and began teaching the young generation including his son Alex the British technical style. Consequently by the mid 90s there was a blossoming wave of young technical workers like Ulf Herman. Ecki Eckstein etc similar to that in Britain a decade earlier with Danny Collins, Kid McCoy etc. French and German/Austrian fans seem to have appreciated British-style clean technical sportsmanly bouts but it was not so much part of their staple diet as it was for British audiences. All the European territories had tropes which tend to confuse a fan brought up on American wrestling, not least the wider pallete of finishes with, for example, a countout being called a Knockout and presented as a better and more emphatic way to win than two falls or submissions. Similarly the use of a technical knockout as a shorter alternative to the time limit draw, or the slow build towards a disqualification of a heel through acquiring three public warnings/Avertisements/yellow cards. These were NOT seen as cheap finishes, they were seen as legitimate and accepted as satisfactory by the audience. Another example of this is much of what American fans write off as "Rest .Holds". In Europe especially in Britain, more often than not, these are the set up stage for a clever skillful escape hold. A side headlock on the mat in Britain is not just a cover for the work coming to a stop, it is the set-up for a clever handstanding move to lever oneself out of the headlock - and often into a hold of ones own for the opponent then to escape from and continue the chain. All three territories seem to have made a major concession to sheer commercial appeal in the 1980s - in Germany the boom in CWA title matches pitting an increasingly obese Otto Wanz against numerous visiting Americans. In France it was a more general trend towards gimmickry and cartooniness (compared to some eras of Memphis wrestling especially the early USWA) of which Flesh Gordon, despite having been a decent worker back then, has come to be seen as the embodiment. In Britain it was the subordination of the entire Joint Promotions product to being a feeder for Big Daddy and his lopsided kiddy-friendly tag matches. The three "extinct" territories of Mediterranean Southern Europe - Spain. Italy and Greece - each had their own styles and tropes although we have less footage of these to get our heads around the styles.

It boils down to whether you view British Wrestling- and the other old school European territories- as Defective or Different? You can insist on judging it through the eyes of American fans or you can understand how it was consumed by indigenous European fans.

@WingedEagle the above illustrated the problem of making definitive recommendation lists. European and North American wrestling fans were educated by the respective promoters to have different expectations of what constitutes "Good wrestling" - sometimes there can even be variations between different European countries or different US/Canadian regions.

France and Britain had quite different styles of tag wrestling. The 30-40 minute tag match with all 3 falls scored in the last 10 minutes is a peculiarly French thing. In Britain they were 20-25 min with the falls evenly spaced- Big Daddy tags are the most extreme manifestation of the Babyface* Hot Tag in the entire worldwide history of pro wrestling. * should be blue-eye in the UK

Jorg Chenok, son of 50s star Karl Von Chenok, former European Welterweight champion on at least one occasion when he turned up as "Baron Von Chenok" to the 1985 FA Cup Final TV Tapings to lose said title to Danny Collins (the title would be Collins's passport to regular touring of France and Northern Spain with the FFCP and EWF.) According to Ken Walton however, Chenok had been champion for four years and four defences after winning the title from Wolfgang Saturski (whom we saw facing Yasu Fuji several pages back. Here he is up against countryman Markus Bucholz. We get a nice tasty title sequence with flaring red graphics at each other and trading verbal barbs before agreeing to med and a fat German bloke in the locker room followed by the two opponents pointing at each other, trading insults before agreeing to meet in the ring . Bucholz looks like a young Robert Duranton. Chenok is older, has lost his moustache and appears to have a combo,ver. Young Markus dominates the older man with big flashy moves like cross buttock throws, feet first landings from throws by Chenok., bodychecks etc. Chenok takes over with a battery culminating in a kneedrop from which he gets a Nine ciount. Chenok dominated large portions of the match using roughhouse but legal tactics with Bucholz mfiring back now and then with some nice escapes from headscissors and a Victory Faulkner distraction trick or two, but with the old man still dominating until after an eternity of nearly being knocked out over and over again, out of nowhere young Bucholz pulls out a folding press pin. The first time he gets two before Chenok kicks the ropes. So hecadjusts his position,mtries again and gets the pin. Old versus young bout with ok LD having it all its way dragging it down to an Axel Dieter Sr generation bout until the sudden win for Young at the end. Bucholz really should have had more of a chance to show what he could do.

By 1992 German/Austrian audiences were accustomed to the idea of Marty Jones as a heel teaming with members of the Riot Squad. We have already seen 1990 footage of Jones and Finlay teamed together as heels. In Britain this was a new idea after old archenemies Jones and Finlay, forced to team together at Croydon, got on surprisingly well as a team, leading to a change in philosophy for Jones from quiet sportsmanly champion to arrogant boasting "World's Number One." This then could have been a typical hot main event or upper card match on an All Star show in Britain at the time. The future Wildcat Robbie's first non-Nagasaki induced heel turn (on Doc Dean) was still three years off - at this stage Robbie and Doc were the same white meat blue eyes in the German speaking world as The Liverpool Lads were in Blighty. There's not much in the way of technical chain wrestling exchanges here, Doc Dean rolls out of a Marty Jones armbars then follows up by using a whip to force a bad landing for Jones. Early on there is a fair amount of side headlocks being broken open into top wristlocks, skips over each other while coming off the ropes. Mostly however it's a dirty tactics fest rather than a brawl. The villains bash their way out of holds rather than do clever escapes. Murphy punches his way out of a sunset flip without getting a yellow card (Fit Finlay got a public warning on ITV for doing this to Johnny Saint. Still it's better than it just being ignored like when numerous American white meat babyfaces at the time punched their way out of a heel hold and we're supposed to accept it as clean wrestling. Even more ironically, the Liverpool Lads get a yellow card each for twin scooting dropkicks to the baddies. The falls are all pretty good. Skull gets the opening submission with his Gator hold on Doc Dean, with thread. He's been bashing the good Doc around so much before the first fall that once the opener is delivered, it looks for a bit like Dean has gone down for a TKO, Robbie is kneeling over him tending to him until the referee orders him out of face Doc being DQd. Doc recovers and eventually he and Robbie get an equaliser with a rocket launcher a la Midnight Expres. Doc nearly gets a decider with a moonsault into flying bodypress.and finally Jones takes the first but breaks the second of two Monkey Climbs by Robbie. Landing him in the ropes and finishing him with a face first (tombstone) piledriver. Not much science but plenty of action. The next year Skull and Robbie were back in Germany, the latter with a BBC Video Diary camera, warring early in the evening before packing off to sing karaoke together later each night. Breaking kayfabe was never so much fun!

Two of my favourites having what I will expect will be more my sort of match from OJ's - the shoe on the other foot from when I have to review a German brawl. It's both promising and short enough to do a blow by blow, so I'll risk the vast amount of typing involved and bite the bullet. "We join it near the end of Round 2" says Dickie Davies. We are just in time to see Nipper convert a side headlock to a grovit but Collins break it open into an arm at and force a whip that Riley has to take a bump in order to go with. Riley himself is impressed, the camera zooms in on him grinning from ear to ear about it. He gets a lunge on Danny before the bell goes. In the third, Riley gets an armbar of his own but a Collins gets behind to take him down in a folding press. Riley rolls back to get his feet on the ropes in time for the two count. Riley converts a rear waistlock to a standing full nelson but Collins rears out of it. They hit the ropes and Danny goes for a flying tackle. Nipper kicks out of the resulting pin attempt at 2. The first run out of mat comes after Riley absorbs a posting leg first, enabling him to turn, go through Danny's legs then when Danny tries for a legdrive step over him, twist round into the sunset flip position and take him down in a double leg nelson - but Collins like Riley manages to roll through and catch the ropes with his feet to force a break, to Walton 's disappointment. Colin's has got a cut under one eye but is not bothered, bashing Riley with two postings and a bodyslam that he takes a fair bit of a knockout count each time to recover from(8 for the second posting, nearly a KO!!!). Coming of he ropes. Nipper nips down on the mat but Danny leaps over to avoid a trip. Nipper leapfrogs him on the next rebound and catches him in motion with a neat cross buttock pin attempt that Danny BRIDGES out of beautifully. Walton praises Nipper for his speed and impactfulness of moves (Memo to OJ - That is what "Decisiveness" means, coming to quick decisions, right or wrong, not deciding to do something and doing it perfectly, hence why he has the the "running out of mat" problem. ) Nipper gets a legdrive into single leg Boston Crab. Collins starts to counter by pulling a leg out from under Riley so he converts to a single leglock plus cross face. He converts again to a Boston Crab - a nice neat transformation echoing both Kent's words and his own nickname - but Collins has a good go at pushing up out of it and looks likely to succeed on further attempts so Riley sportingly gives up and Danny pops up quickly to start over. Danny legdives and elbowsmashes the foot as an added weakener. He gets another legdive and tugs again on the leg sharply as a further weakener. Riley gets a legdrive of his own and tries to advance it into another single leg Boston but Danny just turns on the mat with the hold to stay in the guard. Eventually Eddie starts to turn Danny but Danny turns him back and uses a leg against Riley's face as an anvil to bash down on and transmit the impact to Eddie's head to break the hold, leaving Nipper worried about his teeth. He side chanceries Collins into a cross press but Danny kicks out. A lunge floors Danny and Nipper whips him into the ropes but Danny comes back with a sunset flip for a count of two. Riley goes for another side chancery when the bell goes. They shake hands. It turns out this bout is during Steve Grey's brief capture of the British Welterweight title and Kent plugs the upcoming rematch where (Spoiler alert and I don't mean Drew McDonald in a mask) Collins regained the title and relieved kind hearted good guy Grey of his guilty conscience for dethroning the kid and leaving him in tears. You can see the cut from earlier dried up - I guess it was an accidental hard way. Round 4 starts with Riley knocking Collins down with a lunge. He whips Collins into he ropes but Collins slips in behind for a takedown into folding press and get 2 counts before releasing. Riley comes off the ropes with a sunset flip for a folding press but Danny reversed it into a folding press with bridge then goes with Riley's escape for a more standard folding press. It's Riley in fact who reaches the ropes for a get out - despite Kent's words it's actually COLLINS who runs out of mat here! They comes off the ropes again and Nipper tries again for the sunset flip and again Collins counters with the bridging folder - and this time gets the one required pinfall! Riley sportingly helps Collins up and shakes his hand and raises it to concede Collins' victory. "A nice little bout" says Kent and I concur - well I certainly liked it enough to delve into microscopic detail about the moves and counters - detail which, when watching the match in normal time, the brain processes at TOP SPEED. It shows you how Kent brought up myself and a nation of other TV babies to appreciate this sort of thing - whereas for someone like @ohtani's jacket who has not had that upbringing as a fan it comes across as "nothing overly special" . Which goes to show the difference in tastes that different wrestling fan backgrounds can produce. Clearly a good wrestling match is in the eye of the beholder.

Had two job interviews on Teams this afternoon and watched this bout while chilling out in-between the two. I enjoyed it and decided to share here. At first glance Diamond Shondell (named apparently on account of being a fan of Tommy James And The Shondelles who did the original I Think We're Alone Now as covered by Tiffany - and apparently a lovely of jewel studded ring jackets - not really visible on the dark green velvet effort he wears here) wrongfoots the live audience who check out his stereotypically villainous looking bald head and moustache and boo him as the heel he is, not least as he's in against the hugely popular (and legitimately deaf) Kilby. Kent telling the TV In fact, DS is very much a clean wrestler and something of a funnyman as evidenced by his early overselling of fotearm smashes. - Walton compares him to Kevin Coneely whom we examined several pages ago. He isn't as loudly comic as Coneely. It's more subtle stuff to do with expressions etc. On the attack he is quite a methodical wrestler, working down body parts, including a bodyscissors atomic drops similar to the French "Ah Ouais" spot. His mind games get him unglued in round 2's opening seconds when he taunts Kilby wdith fisticuffs posturing and slaps to the head - Kilby is not amused and responds with a hard forearm, powerslam and cross press for the opening fall. Shondell looks like he's going to attack Kilby between rounds but in fact he just wants to shake Kilby's hand. Kilby accepts and looks to be returning the favour but blasts Shondell with a forearm- clearly he doesn't trust this opponent. In Round 3Shondell maintains control of an armlevers for quite some time despite various tricks by Kilby. In the end Alan blasts the Irishman between the shoulder blades to break the hold - an ironic response given what happens in round 4. Back in the third, Shondell takes a leg but Kilby smartly widens DS's leg angle to floor him with a boot to the chest. The two shake hand after the round. In the fourth Shondell repeatedly attacks Kilby with blows to the upper back between the shoulder blades. He builds on this attack by dropping Kilby on the ropes neck first and posting him so the original injured back shoulder blades bear the brunt. These shoulder weaknesses soften up Kilby for a victory roll equaliser. Some fans still boo Shondell, most respectfully clap a well scored fal.Suddenly Shondell is not just a funnyman but a potent wrestler not to be underestimated. Kilby is taking him seriously too - starting with a standing atomic drop, bouncing Shondell saddle first of the top rope and getting the winner with a vertical suplex and cross press. The two shake hands and the crowd cheers Shondell unanimously. Not necessarily a technical masterpiece despite a few good bits but a masterclass in how to turn a crowd around and get them to like someone their instinct is to distrust. There's quite a good retrospective piece on Shondelles here:

This thread still needs a French equivalent of myself on the British thread, someone who grew up with this territory, got their basic education of what Wrestling should be from Le Catch and can explain ideas and ways of doing things that are alien to American fans.

We're probably very lucky (O)RTF was not junking prints and negatives of matches whose sales rights had expired like BBC Enterprises did with a load of BBC programming, compounding existing takes wiping and resulting in big gaps in archive holdings. Nineteen years of overseas sales kinescopes prints were there to be on boarded onto the INA when it was started up in early 1975.

INA's stock for the period 1956-1974 are, as we have discussed quite a bit by now, overseas sales prints (plus one rare surviving colour transmission VT from Jan 69). From 1975, once INA was launched, the stock was updated with off air recordings which seems to be slightly patchier (as evidenced by TV listings for non surviving bouts and occasional surviving alternative footage sources such as Albert Sanniez inVs Marc Mercier 1978 and Fred Magnier Vs Bob Plantin/Michel Di Santo Vs Michel Chaisne/(beginning of) Antonio Pedera Vs Jean Claude Bordeaux on the Bob Alpha YouTube channel.). and I'm in may have been taped to fulfil a quota.

This match was from the same show as the Reslo bout above with the same Reslo markings on the ring and appears to have been filmed using the same camera positions but has German commentary with a ringside intro by a German speaking host - possibly Peter Wilhelm. Not sure what this was for - was Catch Up still going by this point? If so, did S4C ever try to get a similar deal with ITV or Channel 4 for footage to be broadcast to the rest of the UK, perhaps with Lee Bamber or even Kent Walton on commentary? (Well there was the Wrestling Madness home video to consider- perhaps it was a pilot for a Rest of the UK edition of .Reslo.) In the final seconds of the video some zReslo style title graphics appear on screen if that's a clue. Match is pretty much predictable CWA quasi American fare - the spirit of Otto's matches being carried on after the man himself retired from the ring. Michiyoshi Ohara as scowling Fuji Yamaha and local Eddie Steinblock are about the best workers here and probably deserved better than this. Unfortunately all they get to do is chop each other a bit before Yamaha gets eliminated first and Steinblock second. Kauroff here is a babyface and German old school institution that fans bring signs applauding. He goes down third, leaving us with an all North American handicap tag. Cameron, ex Stampede North American champion who died in a CWA ring a couple of years later, was a mutton dressed as lamb roid case. Mastino on the other hand had a big time American career ahead of him - as Mantaur the human cow. Here he's a cheap replacement for Leon White who is about to dethrone Sting in a couple of weeks. I've speculated on Max Crabtree sending Leon in to do a Daddy tag -maybe Mastino would have fit that bill too. Rambo, the third North American in this. is the hero of the CWA having sent Bull Power packing back across the Atlantic to replace Lex Luger in WCW. Unfortunately he just works 80s/90s WWF style. Mastino finishes him off with a splash that would have made the said Big Daddy proud, leaving himself and Cameron as survivors. Amusing moment towards the end - Mastino and Cameron both double team and elbowsmash Rambo. The commentator calls this with the Anglicism "Double Elbow" which just so happened to be the name of Big Daddy alternative backdrop finisher Referee is Didier Gapp but even he doesn't do his "comedy" routine as miserable bossy petty official a la Saulnier.

Bumping this up as I just covered their Reslo match from a year earlier on the British thread (page 41)

From the Introduing thread, in response to @ButchReedMark Lucky old you being one of the youngest to get into British wrestling via regular TV. I'm glad Reslo was a formative experience for people much younger than me. After the likes of you, there was only a few thousand in Croydon (Fairfield Hall), Hanley (Victoria Hall) Bristol (Colston Hall) Southampton (Guildhall) etc who got that upbringing from having a relative takes them along ever month into the late 90s and the C21st.

Nearing the end? Rocco's end a year later was actually a bolt from the blue. In 1990 in his late 30s he had a raging hot feud with ex tag partner Kendo Nagasaki going, reignited after the Mongolian Mauler's failed attempt to reunite Kendo and Rocco for a triple tag (six man tag) ended in Rocco falling out with both. When Rocco and Danny were not having bouts like this, they would have been teaming up on All Star shows to face Kendo andvthe Mauler or else Kendo and Blondie Barrett. The two play to type. Collins is handling the action and science, using technical escapes and the odd flying bodypress, moonsault or dropkick to Rocco's roughouse and dirty tactics, his only actual wrestling being a decent headscissor. Fans would have just put the heat on Rocco but it would have been good to see more what he could do technically. Bryn Fon clearly mentions Rocco's dad Jim Hussey among the Welsh. Collins at one point throws his water bottle at Rocco and gets away with it. (retribution for similar antics by Rocco in their ITV match or maybe just a regular spot these two did. Collins gets a good folding press attempt for two. The two exchange face first piledriver attempts. Several times they tie each other up in the ropes, the last time Collins getting his neck caught in the ropes like in their New Catch bout in Paris France the following year (which quite properly is reviewed where it belongs on the French Catch thread, not on here, and which I've just bumped up to page 44). Unlike that one where the ropes ended it on a TKO, here Rocco goes for a standard piledriver for the pin, a more OJ-friendly finish. Plenty of action if a bit lacking in actual technical wrestling and Kent Walton would have criticised it for that, more a good fight than a good wrestling. Bear in mind the context of Rocco's war with Kendo at the time, the wild stuff was what he was most in practice at doing.

Personally I'm a Syd fan and only into the Piper, the late 67 post-Piper tracks and Syd solo. The rest of Pink Floyd was just prog rock dinosaur garbage which I don't care for.

Lucky old you being one of the youngest to get into British wrestling via regular TV. I'm glad Reslo was a formative experience for people much younger than me. After the likes of you, there was only a few thousand in Croydon (Fairfield Hall), Hanley (Victoria Hall) Bristol (Colston Hall) Southampton (Guildhall) etc who got that upbringing from having a relative takes them along ever month into the late 90s and the C21st.

Well I may as well post one of these. Born in the UK 1974, childhood in London/SE. Paternal grandparents brought me up to be wrestling fans. Her brother (his brother in law) was a Lancashire-style catch shooter in the gyms of Edwardian London. His branch of the family moved to Vancouver,his granddaughter my second cousin Diane, a retired secretary in her 60s can do a passable double wristlock, all she can remember of shooter training he would give her after they would watch Al Tomko's NWA All Star on TV each week. Grandparents despite being devout wrestling fans probably went to their graves (her 1981, him 1988) unaware of Dusty. Harley, Funks, Race, Flair. even probably Bruno unless they ever went to see Ali/Inoki on CCTV. Anyway, me: Devout Saturday afternoon TV fan, life revolved around our wrestling while blissfully unaware of live across the pond. First saw WWF in 1987 and HATED IT, the totally unremitting over the topness of it, the way every match was like a Big Daddy tag match (Hulk Hogan was transparently, the total lack of rules. the silly names like Slick and The Honky Tonk Man. Then I discovered the Aptermags and PWI and got into how they presented this world more seriously and intelligently. Especially the NWA where the wrestling was apparently more serious. As a teenager I read about Flair Vs Steamboat and expected it to be like Marty Jones Vs Fit Finlay or Johnny Saint Vs Steve Grey. Hell, I thought Flair Vs Sting would be like this. Started going to live shows at the Fairfield Hall Croydon to fill the gap left by the end of TV. I have an emotional connection to late 80s/early 90s All Star with Kendo Nagasaki as top star much like most of you Americans have with late 90s ECW. We didn't have a satellite dish so I identified more with WCW (on Saturday afternoon on ITV in the early 90s) partly from an outdated romantic notion of being an NWA fan. Bought a cheap VCR and tapes and watched loads of old WWF and NWA/WCW. Got into Coventry University in the Midlands, I still live there today. Lost contact with British wrestling for a while in the late 90s as it was less well organised online (at least the real British Wrestling not the wannabe American promotions) than American wrestling and there were only WWF tribute shows in my area. Finally things got more organised in the early Noughties. WCW died a death and I hadn't really liked what it and the WWF had become anyway and then WWF became WWE and how could I take American Wrestling seriously anymore when the last remaining major league promotion's name spat kayfabe back out in your face like that? So I gave up on current American wrestling and while keeping an oar in for the old days just focussed on my roots as a Traditional British fan. James Mason and Dean Allmark mean far more to me than John Cena and Dave Batista ever will. And that's the way it's been for nearly 24 years. My only interest in contemporary American wrestling is hearing Cornette put the boot in. However I remain a keen follower of Old School British Wrestling past and present with an expanded interest in the next door fellow Stronghold European territories of France and Germany/Austria as well as a keen interest in the extinct territories of southern Europe - Spain, Italy, Greece - and the Middle East - Egypt (Mamdoh Farag) , Israel (Rafael Halperin), Lebanon (the Saade/Mansour brothers)and Saddam's state run promotion in Iraq with Adnan as lead babyface. I like coming on here and explaining British Wrestling to you Americans from a native point of view and it is interesting to see what you lot make of "My" wrestling. French Catch has quickly become my second favourite territory after my native British Wrestling; although I don't have quite the same native knowledge, it and German Catch are old British Wrestling's closest relatives and I can largely relate to them. I can generally be found on the following three threads: I also have explored a lot of my underlying thoughts and philosophy as a non North American fan in this largely dead but interesting thread: I do very rarely pop up on other discussions.

Reslo goes to Germany again! And this time they've bought some bits of ring with a Welsh Red dragon ring apron on the side nearest the camera and some emptied skins of Reslo corner pads stuck (badly) over the tops of the corner pads of what looks like the same make of ring as seen in the 1980/1981 Hanover tournament camcordings and come to that some of the early 70s B/W docu footage with the young HansI Rooks etc We join the action in round 6. Starts like its going to be a brawl with Zrno pounding Ocean in the corner but turns into a pre-Steve Wright German match of the Dieter Sr/Chall generation with lots of holds being slowly worked over to twist every last scrap of Pain and drama from a sleeper, an armbar, Zoltan Boscik 3 in 1 etc. Like the ghosts of the old ring are taking over it's young competitors. Ocean uses both round breaks to get fouls in. Round card girl in glittery baseball cap and bad early 90s lycra fitnesswear. Backdrops and DDT from Ocean for pinfall and KO attempts in Round 7. Crowd perk up when Zrno leads them but then dies down again. Round 8 more forearm smashes. Ocean gets a flying axehandle. He tries a flying tackle off the top but Mike converts it into a horizontal blockbuster suplex for the one fall required.

(Oh good, the board is working again) This was not just the end of the Joint Promotions era but the conclusion of the All Star Vs Joint promotional war which saw ASW taken over the territory from Joint. ASW remains dominant to this day.

Two big round numbered anniversaries this month. The 40th anniversary of All Star Wrestling's first show at what would be it's showcase venue, the main Concert Hall of Fairfield Halls Croydon on February 12th 1985 The 30th anniversary of the final show of Max Crabtree's Ring Wrestling Stars, the former Joint Promotions.

True but you've stated your taste for the German variant of hard hitting brawls (just as I have my Walton-induced taste for technical exhibitions) and Leon White, before Sting and Harley Race tamed him somewhat, is reliable for that sort of thing. I forgot to mention there appears to be a professional camera crew operating at ringside. I wonder where that footage is now. Is it a Japanese crew that flew over with Fujinami and Hatori or were the CWA still doing their professional grade video productions? I guess we can rule out S4C - they sent OB units across the North Sea for some other tours but not this one.