David Mantell

Is this Steve or Bernie? IIRC Bernie wrestled Rasputin on ITV.

We did Wanz Vs Ed Leslie a couple of pages back. What vintage of Haystacks are we talking? Stax 1975-1976 teaming with a heel Daddy was a long way (and two decades) from Stax as Loch Ness in WCW 1996. I'm not expert on time periods for later Germans/Austrians. Growing up, Eddie Steinblock, Franz Schuman, Christian "Ecki" Eckstein, Ulf Herman and Michael Kovacs seemed all one generation but I guess they were spread over nearly 15 years from the mid 80s to the end of the 90s. The Aptermags were starting to wake up to the CWA, their titles were included in Inside Wrestling's roll call of champions. You would go to an All Star show, buy the glossy colour programme and inside it would say someone on the bill, say. Robbie Brookside, had recently been over to Germany and faced one or another of the above-listed.

The CWA's answer to "If Only You Knew" from the WWF Slammys:

Here is Auvert being cruel and making fans cheer for Johnny "Mister Naughty Nicky Monroe " South years before he became kiddy hero and Mike Hegstrand impersonator the Legend of Doom. Lengthy work with a "headlock and strangle" (sleeper) Auvert keeps reapplying it. Still working on it by the end of Round One. And beyond into the round break. When South makes his comeback throwing Auvert out of the ring (check out that look of RAGE from Auvert) and slams and batters him the crowd are ROARING with delight and unhappy with the referee for restraining him. Auvert's muscleman pose angers the crowd. He's a less vocal Belgian version of Heel Alan Dennison. Crowd get quietly worried when South is down for a knockout count but overjoyed when South gets the one required fall. Auvert protests and flexes his cast iron biceps but to no avail. Three years later after Blitzer dethroned Jones, to get is rematch he first had to fight Auvert on ITV. TVTimes spoke of his Iron Man reputation. Jones won and then beat Owen Hart instead of Bull to take back the belt. South meanwhile ended Jones's final reign in Bristol May 1999.

Bull Blitzer, Bearcat Wright and Berlyn. It ran in the family as did being a Wonderboy/Wunderkind. By the 2010s the three of them were training kids for the pro ring in Germany and I saw a couple of their students in action in Leamington Spa at the Royal Spa Centre for All Star and they tended to flit between both personas. I get the point of the Jones/Bull Blitzer match but would much rather have seen Jones and Wright have an epic scientific battle. Steve Wright was about the top guy of the third generation of Wigan Snakepit students. Jones was a former schoolboy student of Billy Robinson (as documented in Granada TV's The Wrestlers from 1967) who also did some -much shorter - time at Riley's in the early 70s. Marty had his own later heel stint 1992-2000 for All Star. But both of them at that point could have had a mind blower of a technical match. One problem with Marty is that he tended to play the patriotic card against "foreign" opponents regardless of their style. As Bull was a heel character anyway this didn't matter so much, and it was fine with someone like Jean Paul Auvert who was the same nasty villain on both sides of the North Sea, but it did tend to grate when he encouraged fans to do the whole "ENG-ER-LAND!!!" thing with obviously classy opponents like Owen Hart or Marc Mercier who then had to wok extra hard to get themselves across as good guys here for a fine sporting contest. Mercier in particular did not need to be booed for a round or two until he had wowed the crowd with his fine skills (like Steamboat had to do in his 1989 matches Vs Flair after Bonnie had rubbed crowds up the wrong way.)

Well I just have to respond to that. Nah. I prefer technical wrestling over brawling ANY DAY. Call me brainwashed by Kent Walton if you must. Actually to be fair it didn't collapse into a complete brawl, it reverted back to scientific wrestling periodically although less chain sequences and more big move, knockout counts, up at 9, repeat. (This is the same principle as 2 count false finishes in American Wrestling only with a prohibition on following down on the fallen opponent so the near knockouts are spaced out more than the near pinfalls.) Sadly this is lots of little clips which don't give much clue how one situation led to the next. In particular the ending is unclear - the End of Round bell going as Wright is up to 2 with a pinfall count on Axel. Is that the last round therefore a draw? Or was there more? Or did Steve get the pin? I'm not clear. This is Wright the same year as he took up goose stepping and dirty wrestling, went back to Britain, unseated his contemporary Marty Jones for his World title on ITV then didn't come back for the contractual rematch leaving Marty to face Owen Hart for the vacant title. Despite his heelish behaviour that time - and this time with all the stomps etc for which the referee tells him off- the crowd seem to be on his side rather than local legend Dieter. Did AD Snr go heel in the late 80s or was Steve's fanclub out in force? I'm not sure what was with the little bows. Maybe that's how Germans think posh Englishers behave (c.f. Japanese heels bowing.) but Wright didn't get any crowd heat for it. ******************* P.S. the penny drops - By "cutesy shit" did you specifically mean the bowing, not the technical skill? If so, fair enough.

Similar footage from 1994. Includes Giant Haystacks still taking bumps just a couple of years before Loch Ness in WCW and a comedy spot whereas referee accidentally pulls off a wrestler's boot (the Germans take their sense of humour very seriously indeed.)

Brazenly thieving this gorgeous 2016 photo of All Star at Butlins holiday camp in Minehead from Dean Allmark's Facebook wall. Who said wrestling at Butlins can't be glamorous?

Watching a vlog on Heroes of Wrestling, the dark mat and dark lighting reminds me of VDB and their single cam cheap videos. What is it with that whole Dark Look? Especially on camera?

A year before he played Bomber, a Yorkshire bricklayer travelling to Germany to work on a building project, Pat Roach makes the same journey in real life, travelling across the North Sea to make thousands of Deutschmarks to take back home to Blighty. Camera was slightly out of focus and @sergeiSem's copy has a tracking fault. Crowd are on homeboy Axel's side, singing something German to the tune of Yellow Submarine! Pat Roach and Pete Roberts had a fantastic clean match final of a 4 man KO tournament on ITV in the mid 80s (in the semis Roberts beat Stax by DQ and Roach beat Scrubber Daly) so there is no reason there should be anything boring about Dieter's holds (which by the end of Round 1 have included a sidewards folding press attempt and a flying headscissors) but Roach doesn't really do much to counter the holds, just shrugs them off. In the case of the headscissor he dumps Diter on the top rope. I guess Roach just feels as the heel he shouldn't be too technical and Dieter's technical game isn't too flashy either so we alternate between brawling and stationary holds. Roach cartwheels out of a toupee but falls over before he can reach upright. DJ plays Shakin' Stevens Green Door between rounds. Very 1981. Any chance of some Adam and the Ants, Herr DJ? Prince Charming was number one in the UK at this point. Whose disco version of Singing In The Rain is that? Gets heated later on with Axel getting down and dirty stomping Roach on the mat. Not too much wrestling but one helluva fight as Kent Walton's verdict would probably be. The odd slam on backbreaker across the knee. Action spills outside the ring and a spotlight comes on to illuminate this. Should have been left on all show long. Final scramble for pin in the last few seconds, bell runs out on Axels's last attempt. A draw. They glare at each other, Pat Roach wants more but Axel and the ref go off backstage. Video ends with offcuts of other match begins and ends. Overall verdict: could have done better. Audience liked it though.

Okay I'll leave it to the rest of you to decide:

Possibly Fry was BSing without doing his homework. Or the original Foxcatcher was a British film - perhaps in the style of the original "Night and the City" (which got remade as a film about unlicensed boxing.)

If that's real, I'm assuming Big Jim Harris reverted back to the Mississippi Mauler for that German tour. Anyway he was in World Class if not in Aug 88 then shortly afterwards in Akbar's Devastation Inc who were helping Buddy Roberts in his feud with Hayes, Gordy and the Von Erichs.

Theeeee Magee Vs Bret match was due to appear on the second ITV WWF special 21st March 1987 (my 13th birthday) as a warm up for Hogan/Kamala. With Outback Jack also on the episode. It was pulled and replaced with Kendo/Rocco Vs Yamada/Myers from Croydon. Some fool wrote in to TVTimes to complain!

Anyway I stand by my point. It was never a term in America.

Apparently she was commenting on a wrestling movie called Foxcatcher. The only film I can find called Foxcatcher is this one which, Ironically is about Olympic wrestling. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxcatcher There's nothing strange about Stephen Fry having heard of All In Wrestling. He is, after all. British. The buck - or rather the quid - stops with him. If there was an earlier pro wrestling film called Foxcatcher, was it a British film? Source: https://www.thetimes.com/article/baftas-2015-best-and-worst-moments-qfspg55q3mt so says Google but you have to get past a paywall to see the info

Even if not just supposedly (and that's a big If already), whither context and provenance? How did she hear the phrase? Atholl Oakley and Henry Irslinger coined the phrase (to mean no holds barred, not No Tactics Barred) in Britain so how did an American like her get to hear it? Was she talking to a Brit and responding to them?

Amet Chong who may or may not have been Chang Li from French TV Catch January 1974 and who definitely showed up on World Of Sport in England at the tail end of that year, came back across the Atlantic nearly 6:years later to the VDB and the September 1980 Hanover Cup. There was definitely Only One shooter here but Germany might be more accomodating to the likes of Chong (or Chech - sorry. had to get that one in). It's a slightly chubbier Chong than 1974 and Dieter has a BIG height advantage. He throws Chong around with cross buttocks and a toupee. Chong seems a bit freer to retaliate than with Marino. He gets in plenty of chops and floors Dieter with a double hand chop reminiscent of Bill Clarke as King Kendo in the UK. When he stomps Dieter (or more like he pats him affectionately with his bare foot) the referee only mildly chides him, back in Blighty Ernie Baldwin was all over Chong like a rash. Big Axel regains the advantage with a thunderous high arching stomp and a Grovit forcing Amet into the corner. Dieter, sat on one corner straight headscissor throws Amet over the top rope. Chong takes bumps trying to untwist wrist levers. The two do an old comedy spot about stamping on each others hands after winning a test of strength. Axel finally does some good technical work, backwards rolling out of a wrist lever, when the bell goes for Round 1. Not sure what record that is between rounds but it sounds very Boney M. Chong charges a Ross the ring as Round 2 starts, battering Dieter with full arm chops. Dieter is sut on his backside looking miffed. He gets up, absorbs a few more chops the BATTERS Chong with a mighty forearm smash or two, the ones WCW announcers named the European uppercut. Chong goes down to this. There is what looks like a botch where Dieter slingshots Chong into the ropes, he bounces back and falls sideways. Dieter tries again and slingshots Chong out of the ring. Chong makes it back but falls victim to a cross buttocks and cross press for the pin, in one round less than it took Mike Marino. Nonetheless Chong looked more comfortable and got to do more in this match. I shall have to rewatch that French tag match and see if it was indeed him.

On second thoughts: https://www.cagematch.net/?id=2&nr=10123&name=Amet+Chong Maybe the taller skinnier Chang Li is indeed Amet Chong?

Maybe I spoke too soon: https://www.cagematch.net/?id=2&nr=10123&name=Amet+Chong Who'da thunk it?

Sadly Amet Chong was probably neither Abdul Khan nor Chang Li (possibly the thinner, taller Chang). from French TV 10 months earlier although he has the same gimmick to look at. He claims to be a native of Indo China (Malaysia in new money. I believe?) , resident of Peru.I rrespective of those points, Kent says he mostly wrestled in the United States so for all practical purposes he is an American Wrestler just live Owen Hart was a British Wrestler in practice. @ohtani's jacket if it's any consolation, this bout was not going to be Kent Walton's cup of tea and he knows it. All Kent's favourite pieces of damning with faint praise are out in force "it certainly will be different" "quite an unusual style" etc etc along with a long spiel about the lawlessness and brutality of American Wrestling which he labels as All In, a separate sport banned in Britain in the 30s (and replaced by Modern Freestyle) but still running rampant stateside. Ironically until the Elite came along in the late 2010s, no one in America had eve heard of such a thing asAll In Wrestling unless they were very clued up to British cultural references like Monty Python's All In Cricket sketch or Rod Stewart's line in D'Ya Think I'm Sexy about "Never Mind Sugar, We're gonna watch the All In Movie" What it really was was that in the late Thirties, SlamBang Western was OK for small town Britain but just too much for England. So we got our own more civilised upscale form of the game. Chong goes wild gesticulates a lot like Les Mongolies in France. Nice cross armed Scissor Chop Grovit. Not releasing on the ropes. Lots of closed fist punches get Chung a public warning. Marino starts round 2 with his signature move, escaping a side headlock with a corkscrew spin. Chong tries his scissor chop but it doesn't work. Uses the ropes and serial bushes to the head with a closed fist punch. Referee former British heavyweight champion Ernie Baldwin lets Chong off as Marino instead gets a closed fist punch of his own in for retaliation. More closed fist punches from Marino. Chong uses more closed fist punches and Marino again retaliates with a closed fist of his own. Marino comes out of nowhere for a forearm smash KO in round 3 to win.decisively if not scientifically. Chong was no stylist so he lost the same brutal way he fought. Apart from that one spinning escape (already looking old in 1974 when guys were doing fantastic head standing escapes.) Not really exciting wrestling. Would have gotten over in a holiday camp, evil foreign unskilled wrestler gets vanquished by Golden Boy. I wasn't expecting a technical classic but this wasn't my cup of tea either (I'm a coffee drinker anyway.) Nevertheless I shall persist with Chong and check out his 1980 German tournament appearance. Over to the German Catch thread ...

The Wildman of Borneo was an Indian wrestler named Gunga Singh. N'Boa the Snakeman was Congolese wrestler Bob Elandon. He wrestles under his real name in one of the Catch bouts. Thanks for that. It's hard to tell under all that hair.

Anyway, speaking of aristocrats - in America he was a Lord, in France he (and his partner here) were Aussies but back home in Britain he was a humble Judoka. It's ... "Mike" Haggerty is of course Steve Haggerty, years later the smarmy one out of the Dangermen with Colin Joynson in 1972, a hapless Les Kellet victim around the same time and three years earlier in France 1969 teaming with Inca Viracocha to take on Les Celts (no pun on Les Kellet intended). Regarding Borneo, I've wondered if he was the same guy as M'Boaba on French TV several years later. More the sort of monster heels gimmick you would associate with America at that time. Hayes was Paul Lincoln's White Angel, a ripoff of L'Ange Blanc in France who like Hayes feuded with a black-masked heel (over there Le Borreau de Bethune, back here Lincoln as Dr Death) Mostly it's just highlights of the big spots so hard to pick up any continuity. Nice folding press pins from both good guys. ********************* Am tagging @JNLister as he may know more. Apparently this film was by Paul Lincoln Promotions and they had a deal on with Granada Cinemas where they would do live shows in movie theatres which would then be filmed and the prints bicycled around other cinemas in the Granada chain. What more do we know about this and do we know what became of the stock of these films? If we had it.it would be like having a 1960s version of Reslo or Screensport or the Pallos' 1981 video, a real record of the major opposition promoters and a counterpoint to ITV's 1960s kinescope stock if we had access to all of that. (Ironically that is also controlled by Granada who own the film archive of ITC's Wrestling From Great Britain.). It would be like Germany in the 80s with the two very different video sources, the professionally shot multicam IBV/CWA videos and the cheaply single handheld camera VDB videos, giving a view of almost two different subscenes. We do at least know the ITV footage is preserved albeit mostly under lock and key, but what of the survival of the Lincoln films? Have any attempts been made to track them down?

Both sound very feasible for Otto. Otto Vs the visiting monster or visiting big name American that no one in 80s Germany actually knew was to Germany/Austria what Big Daddy tags were to the UK and what Flesh Gordon And The Cartoon Characters were to France. Hercules Cortez could have been an Otto Wanz for 60s Spain. Blond Adonis Shirley Crabtree likewise for opposition promotions in sixties Britain. George Tromaras was an attempt at an Otto Wanz in 1980s Greece, during the moribund years between the final World Kats Festival in September 1980 and the scene's actual expiry in 1991

Still has nothing to do with his social class and everything to do with his preferred social activities. The Hunt aren't by any means necessarily aristocrats. Tally Ho Kaye isn't an aristocrat any more than the Hunt characters in that song. Country sporting boys yes. Gentlemen - well, they might hope Aristocrats? Not especially. Only one person in this video (one of the two old ladies) speaks with an aristocratic accent, the rest speak in a rural working class Surrey accent, similar to the working class accents of Sussex and Kent. (DISCLAIMER - I do NOT support hunting or any other such bloodsports, I am merely debunking the idea that hunt followers of the kind depicted by Peter Kaye's wrestling gimmick were/are particularly aristocrats. Just in case anyone sees this and Gets The Wrong Idea.) A Marquis is an actual title (lower than a duke, higher than a lord.). The original Marquis Eduardo treats the rules as a petty concern beneath his rank (a VERY stereotypical way for France's surviving modern aristocracy to behave! They just pretend not to notice/understand you). Jacky Richard's version of the gimmick dresses in 1700s period costume complete with powdered wig, the archetype of the pre-Revolutionary Ancien Regime. Steve Regal used similar comedy period costume in WCW to invoke America's pre-independence rulers from the same historical period as Marquis Richard De Fumolo. Most huntsmen (and women) in Britain are simple farmhands who could in no way afford to have a butler like Paul Butard running round after them with a feather duster!