David Mantell

Interesting. The ring looks like French Wrestling especially the red roped one in the first clip. Beau Jack Rowlands wasa journeyman blue eye heavyweight on 70s WOS, I thing he faced Daddy solo in 1976, probably with Daddy still the heel but don't quote me on that. The gong for a bell and the referee with a football whistle were very much regular tropes of the CWA era (apparently the promotion everyone calls the CWA was called the IBV back then - is that correct serg1e? Roland Bock reminds me of the younger Rex Strong before he got ill and piled on the pounds.

The finish of this, with Villars counted out to 10 on the mat, is one of those Knockout finishes I was telling yo all about in the '"Why is America assumed to be the centre of the wrestling universe?" thread.

The one where Angelito got so fed up of Richard he sel-unmasked mid match. They were still going at it nearly two decades later:

There has recently been a revival of the "Sword of Excellence" angle from 2008 between Bagga and the then aging (66) and now outright elderly (82) Kendo Nagasaki, with Bagga having bragged about being able to take on Kendo himself to keep the sword in LDN custody. Curiously at this point Bagga seems to be the heel and Nagasaki seems to be the blue-eye in all this. There was meant to be a confrontation between the two at Fairfield Halls Croydon recently (in one of the smaller rooms, not the legendary Concert Hall that was All Star's equivalent of MSG 1985-2013 - I suppose the equivalent would be the Felt Forum). Naggers showed up, doing his own speaking for once (in Thornley's native Staffordshire accent) and collected the sword to cheers from the Croydon crowd which must surely have included surviviors of the original South London Hellcrew which staged RIOTS at this venue when he appeared there or at nearby Lewisham Theatre Catford 31-37 years ago: Ring announcer is our old friend Leigh Bamber

Transmitted 11th March 1979, filmed 5 months earlier:

Before there was Kim Chee there was Madame M'boba

16 years ago at the Sunderland Empire. Two of the best of the Noughties.

Nice 1-1 draw from Leeds 1986, good folding press from Martin for the opening fall, ather like his No Contest with Marty Jones at the RAH in 1980

As I mentioned before, the Henchmen are to my mind the modern equivalent of the Klondykes in 1971. In between times there were various tag partnership Giant Haystacks had with pre-peoples' hero Big Daddy, King Kong Kirk, Bully Boy Muir but probably the most apt partner for this lineage, Scrubber Daly. After that, there were the UK Pitbulls in the Noughties. They mostly worked New School promotions but occasionally turned up for All Star - and indeed there is some Premier footage in this docu about them: (WARNING there is also some pretty godawful footage of Hardcore/Death Match promotions in this docu towards the end.)

Doucumentary from 1971 about The Klondyke brothers, a superheavyweight tag team in the days before Big Daddy became the scourge of all monster heels (after having been one himself for a bit!). https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=384318719496070 Notice the big celebration over the Klondykes getting disqualified - and consider what I said about DQ finishes and how it can be anything but a cheap finish to see the heels get sent packing in disgrace if done correctly. Footage from this was later used in this episode of legendary BBC sitcom Til Death Us Do Part rather than pay ITV for footage of actual TV wrestling broadcasts: THe Klondykes were never a tag team on proper Wrestling TV anywhere but Jake got one World of Sport match in in 1976, while Bill as I think we've mentioned on the French Catch thread, got one French TV bout in the early 70s:

Probably THE biggest feud in All Star in the early 21st century was Dean Allmark versus Robbie Dynamite (Berzins). Often for the British Mid Heavyweight championship (formerly held by the late great Mike Marino and vacant from his death in 1981 until Dynamite filled the vacancy in 2002), on this occasion "Deano" comes in as British Heavyweight Champion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cCxV3MwGhc (embed not working)

Bob Plantin has started up a Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/1188513425037928 Unfortunately he doesn't seem to want other people posting stuff on there and refuses to accept that French wrestling carried on after 1985 (although the group is titled CATCHEURS FRANCAIS 1950 / 1995)

That sounds encouraging, maybe someday we will have George Kidd in his prime and the first two generations of Wigan Snakepit wrestlers to watch.

I haven't paid much attention to the Knight Family's WAW, mainly because in their early days in 1994 they aspired to be an "American style" promotion, but as more and more old school talent worked for them, they became more of a Traditional British promotion. This bout is from Great Yarmouth 2005 and features not only a match under full Mountevans rules but also the unusual sight of Ricky Knight, the bigger and heavier of the Superflies tag team. wrestling cleanly and behaving in a sportsmanly fashion. Granted he is more of a strength wrestler up against skilled technician Quintan, but he keeps it mostly clean and here is even a bit of the banter that Faulkner and McMichael would use to spice up their (primarily scientific) bouts.

Haha you could get a few important older people in British wrestling upset by slagging off dear old Orig! But anyway, that's the first place I ever heard the name Charlie Verhulst (pronounced Veruce) mentioned.

Try telling that to the late Orig Williams,See his comment at 1:22 of this:

I came across a poster recently for the Guil Don/Kung Fu tag team

Wel I got it anyway! It was just a bog standard five rounds no score draw! The "purse"you mention was the Prime some stinkin' rich fan offered to pay each man for a good scientific bout this far. At the end of the fight MC Raymond Poignard (sp?) pauses to check with the ref before confirming it is indeed a draw.

As with All Star, Rumble and the late TWA in C21st UK the rounds here were basically a relic rather than a novelty. I'm not bothered who "owns" the moves as long as it makes for a good skillful bout. At least Guy Mercier isn't slapping the referee around (as he would start with poor old Michel Saulnier about 7 years later.)

Am watching this bout. So they did have rounds in France after all. At least sometimes. Verhurst (pronounced Veruce) was cited many years later as Mile Zrno's trainer by Orig Williams on English language commentary during a CWA Zrno Vs Fit Finlay match screened as part of a New Catch episode on Eurosport. Interesting looking venue with the big coach-and-horses doors and lamp pillars. Hopefully there are retrievable chroma dots on this film as I would love to someday see what this place looked like in colour. Nice bit with the two heels at the start. Kurt Kaiser must have been very close to the bone for a country under Nazi occupation just over 25 years earlier. Latasserre (sp?) being a great arrogant heel. They're doing "primes" again! Both men get awarded a hefty prime of 10,000F during the head scissors escape sequence (with Mercier forming a human corkscrew with his bent legs to help twist out of the hold.) The curse of the celeb intellectual colour commentator strikes again, this one wants LeFoudre to win because he looks the more sympa of the two.

On the subject of Prince Zéfy, nice compilation video from about a year ago, including footage from New Catch.

And like Joynson, Ben(jamin) Stone can be a pretty good blue-eye too - he could have a great match, either as heel or blue-eye with Jordan Breaks. I'm thinking of adding him to my list with Breaks and Nino Bryant of fresh young Trad Btit talent. Incidentally, the venue for that match is an old ITV venue. Nowadays it's called The Spotlight, Hoddesdon but back in the late 1980s it was called BRoxbourne Leisure Centre:

A couple more good matches from the same Rumble show. Not so much a scientific match (although there's some) but more a hard-hitting Rocco vs Marty Jones type affair: Also the two younger Bryant Brothers had quite a good largely scientific tag team match recently: Sorry it's not letting me embed. I will see if I can fix it later. Fixed it now.

From the "Why is America always assumed to be the centre of the wrestling universe" thread, replying to Ohtani's Jacket. Rumble MC (and promoter) Steve Barker recently used this tactic when heel Shenwoo was DQd

Impressed by the heel in this Benjamin Stone, good 60s70s style bruiser like Jim Hussey or Roy Bull Davies or even Colin Joynson in heel mode as the boot droog half of The Dangermen with smug Steve Haggerty in '72 (I think their bout Vs "Hornets" Dane Curtis and a teenage Marty Jones has already been posted on here). Nice to see KM Lane relying more on escaping/technical skill and less on high flying high spots. For those of you wondering about ASW South, it's an OVW-style training school/developmental territory that Oliver Grey (Joel Redman) has been running in the West Country (southwest England) for Joe Allmark and his grandad the late Brian Dixon these last couple of years. Occasionally LEGENDS like James Mason turn up to their trainee shows. (and yes, that's the same Ben Stone refereeing that second bout)