David Mantell

Actually, crowd riots like the Arion/Joynson bout were a nightly occurence during Kendo Nagasaki's post ITV era in All Star:

I've already discussed the Arion-Joynson match as an example of juice (actually "claret" was the preferred term in the UK backstage) on ITV. Apart from establishing The Iron Greek as a heel (although I myself aged 5 actually cheered for him a lot) it got Colin Joynson such sympathy that he was never able to be a heel again. Which is a pity as he could be a rather good heel, for example in The Dangermen tag team where he was the brutal droog heel to Steve Haggerty's smug smarmy heel. This title was the same one Wayne Bridges would eventually lose to Kendo Nagasaki in 1987 on TV. After Quinn defected to All Star, the semifinal match on the Wembley Arena show headlined by Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks was a match for the vacant World title between Wayne Bridges and passing American The Missisippi Mauler (Big Jim Harris, the future Kamala). Bridges won and shortly afterwards turned heel to defend against people like Pete Roberts before also defecting to All Star and Orig Williams's BWF. Quinn meanwhile lost his version of the title to Tony St Clair and so in early 1983 on the Welsh language Reslo show, there was a confrontation between the two champions: St Clair everntually lost his title back to Quinn at which pont Bridges reverted to blue eye and finally got his revenge on Quinn in a title unification match. The two titles were later split again when Bridges fell out with All Star in 1986 and Quinn won a 4 man tournament on All Star's satellite TV show to become replacement champion and was awarded the black belt St Clair is wearing here (Arion's original belt from 1979) but Bridges came back and reunified the title a year later. By the time of the Kendo loss, Bridges was a year into his fourth World title but ITV recognised the period from his win over Harris at Wembley to his loss to Kendo as one big six year unbroken second title reign. You can see Orig joining in the fun of calling the two titles all sorts of initials including "World Wrestling Federation" - I'm sure Bob Backlund would have been delighted with that, although to be fair back in the mid 70s when the New York WWF was still the WWWF, there was a WWF World title on Brian Dixon's shows which Kendo held unbeaten. By the time of Bridges-Kendo, they had settled on World Wrestling Alliance (an obvious amalgam of WWF and NWAlliance). Hulk Hogan had defended his title against Randy Savage and Bob Orton on WWF specials by that point, hence George Gillette's challenge to Hogan for a title unification bout.

If I may recommend: Very much Caswell's bout. And the fact that Marty refused the TKO and made it a no Contest so Caswell didn't even lose seems to be a bonus. Caswell Martin, along with the second Steve Logan (the clean young 1980s Logan from Birmingham, no relation to the Iron Man from London above - hopefully we'll get on to Logan mk2 in more depth later) are two guys who never won a title whom I wish had done so.

15:45 of Kendo & George vs McManus and Logan - Kent Walton: "Quite an unusual exhibition of tag wrestling, but it is different." - This was Kent's code (along with "Not too much wrestling just yet") for bouts he disliked or didn't approve of. Mercifully that was George's only time wrestling on TV although he and Kendo did have some non-TV bouts circa 1973 against Shirley Crabtree (pre Daddy, then The Battling Guardsman) and his retired lightweight turned referee (and later MC) brother Brian, which are arguably the earlierst root of the Daddy Tag formula (Daddy and vulnerable lighter blue-eye vs monster heel and snide heel).

This was supposed to lead to Nagasaki and Kung Fu forming a tag team of ex-masked men (they were intending to come to the ring in their old masks and remove them before each bout.) but again as in the decline of the Royal Brothers, Max Crabtree stepped in to ensure that his brother and power ticket Daddy would not be eclipsed. Talking of Daddy, 1978 was a handover year for who got the spotlight on Cup Final day - it was McManus's last Cup Final but Daddy's first as he teamed with Tony StClair to face Haystacks and Bruiser Ian Muir in a bout that ended 2-0 in just 85 seconds: Apparently McManus desperately politicked to have the result of the below partially comedy match from 1976 changed to a draw. Even despite his loss, you will note that it is Logan who takes the deciding fall from Kendo while McManus gets the consolation submission from manager and non-worker George Gillette. McManus was undoubtedly a great heel and an important pioneer in the heel role in Britain just as the Dirty Duseks had been in 1920s America, even if his strongest hold was the office hold. He and his heel vs heel rival Jackie Pallo were pop culture icons- there are pics of McManus hanging out with the Rolling Stones while Pallo's sppearance in a 1970s Royal Variety Performance sketch with Scottish singer Lulu - yes, THAT Lulu - alludes to their feud:

Interesting that all of these seem to be singles scale-downs of famous Royal Brothers battles - versus the South London Hardmen (Logan and Mick McManus), versus the Dennisons (Cooper and Alan Dennison until Dynmaite Kid inspired him to turned blue-eye.) and versus the Saints (Roy and brother Tony). Bert and Vic were an important skilled and popular tag team combination (until Max Crabtree scaled them down so as not to distract from Big Daddy) but Bert solo was mainly notable for being around for a very long time - he was on the first ITV show in 1985 and still around in the early 1980s although in the fullness of time, that's just like seeing someone now who started out in the 1990s - say, James Mason. Between 1966 and 1977 he had four runs as British Heavy Middleweight Champion, with the gap between the last two coming when Logan won the belt off him in Liverpool just eight days after the above listed match - Royal got it back in November. Most of what we have of him is from his later years - except for his apperances on French TV from the 1950s

Footnote to the above- King Ben did indeed defeat Alan Kilby for the British Light Heavyweight title on 25th March 1988 in the Boothmans' home town of Keighley, but Kilby regained it later that year.

Having said that, even the belts for the Mountevans titles seem to have caught up in the modern era. Here is current British Lightweight Champion Nino Bryant with his belt: ... and here is current Mountevans British Heavyweight Champion Oliver Grey (aka Joel Redman)

Thanks and I'm not claiming any authority here, I'm just giving the native perspective as someone brought up to think about wrestling in the old school British wrestling way.

Royal Albert Hall was definitely bigger. Actually the ring from that Royals vs Saints match looks a lot bigger than normal. CWA in Germany had bigger rings, probably to accomodate all the visiting Americans with what they were used to. The ring in Reslo was slightly larger than UK standard, but only slightly. It was borrowed for the first WCW UK tour in December 1991, so it was quite strange seeing Lex Luger, Sting and the Steiner Brothers, not to mention Hayes, Garvin, Zybysko and Anderson in such a small ring. Title Belts have to be considered in terms of title belts in 1920s/1930s America ... or maybe title belts in boxing Bigger flashier title belts seem to have been a specifically American second half of C20th offshoot in evolution

Hi I went to all three of the big Skydome shows the FWA one and the two TWC shows, and actually walked from my house in Coundon to the arena for all three. After the 2004 FWA show I took their coach back from Coventry to King's Cross London as I went to see All Star's Sunday afternoon matinee show at the Fairfield Hall Croydon and spent the night at my parents. Apparently there had been some incident involving Sanjay Bagga and Tony Walsh earlier in the day where Sanjay had criticised Darren Walsh's abilities and Tony had responded by putting him in a hold. Sanjay was getting people on the coach to suggest ideas for what he could do in a putative "rematch". I remember PowerSlam's Fin Martin - who has always tried to bury old school British Wrestling - rather predictably put the boot into the Mal Sanders vs Steve Grey match from the March 2005 TWC show at the Skydome (actually far and away the best thing on any of those shows.) For the second TWC show, there was a "World of Sport - The Next Generation" match unfortunately involving the appaling Colt Cabana who seemed only interested in making a mockery of everything. Personally I feel that an ideal "WoS - TNG" match at that time should have been James Mason vs Dean Allmark in a clean match. There's a FANTASTIC match of exactly that up on Youtube from Croydon from October 2013 which I do intend to post to this thread in due course, but am saving for a mini deep dive into the Modern Era of traditional British wrestling - especially old school clean matches - in the 21st century once I've worked through all the old posts on here and replied to everything I want to reply to.

Mitzi did get onto ITV eventually in 1988 as a Mike McGuirk style female ring announcer. Her & Brian's daughter Laetitia (the little girl with the brown hair in the first clip) later took on this same role for All Star. Laetitia' son referee Joe Allmark (with her ex husband wrestler Dean Allmark) has now inherited ownership/ directorship of All Star since Brian Dixon's death, having taken over road manager duties from Brian last year. Summary - an indie set up as a vehicle for a female wrestler by her boyf and future hubby went on to be the biggest company in British wrestling history - bigger even than Joint Promotions - and still the biggest living company to this day..

Brian Dixon originally formed All Star Wrestling (then Wrestling Enterprises) in Sept 1970 especially as a vehicle for his girlfriend and later wife, British Ladies champion Mitzi Mueller. All Star eventually went on to get a slice of ITV in 1987-1988 and are stillthe biggest UK company despite Brian's death earlier this year. They eventually ran the last British show at the Royal Albert Hall-Mitzi's retirment match and a bout which circumvented a ban on Womens' Wrestling in London: The battle tor Mitzi's vacant title was the subject of a BBC2 documentary (the match was at one of my local venues the Royal Spa Centre in Leamington.)

I do remember thinking in Jan 1987 how strange it was that American WWF rings were so LARGE! Q: How you do feel about the similarly small rings in the NWA Cental States Terrirtry, particularly the one for Harley Race's maiden NWA World title win over Dory Jr?

Who were they? Heel opponents of his? Most fans were quite happy to see him get on the nerves of a villain. In blue-eye mode, his odd bits of mischief just added to the general air of sportmanship and bonhomie of a clean match. But he was not - repeat, NOT - a comedy wrestler. I posted his match with Johnny Saint from 1981 a couple of pages back. It's the bout I use to challenge American fans' preconceptions of what pro wrestling can and should be. I would also pick out another great classic that stands head and shoulders above the rest - this 1971 tag match with brother Bert against fellow blue-eyes and fellow brothers tag team Roy and Tony St Clair. (Incidentally, this was not broadcast on World Of Sport, but rather on Wrestling's late-evening midweek slot that it kept up to the mid 70s.

The round system actively works against this, bringing everything to a complete standstill every three minutes. I'm here to watch wrestling - what am I supposed to do between rounds? Scratch my arse? Plan to take over the world? It doesn't flow - it spurts. The tiny rings make the sport itself look tiny. The rounds remove the need for rest holds during the match. This doesn't mean that you do away with headlocks etc but that they instead become links in the chain. Without rounds, old school British wrestlers have to resort to other things to create gaps, such as leading the family audiences in clapping etc. Just heard Jim Cornette describing a match as "a Raw match without commercial breaks." And I just rememebered ANOTHER thing that rounds are useful for - you can slot the commercial breaks in the round breaks, especially in a longer match! I've seen this done with boxing and I've seen it done with longer matches on ITV (I think there was an advert break during the original transmission of Bridges vs Nagasaki and also during Fit Finlay winning the British Heavy Middleweight title from Chic Cullen around the same time in a title match that took up a whole episode of All Star's share of the final two years of ITV. Come to that, I've seen the advert break between rounds used in one of the most historic matches in British history - the match that made Big Daddy a star! (U=Matic recording of original December 1975 transmission. Advert break is at 5:10)

Verhuslt, pronounced "Veruce". Orig Williams claimed in his commentary on Mile's early 90s Eurosport bout with Fit Finlay that Charley V actually trained Mile. Bernie Wright I think I may have already talked about. Brother of Steve, uncle of Alex. Third generation Wigan Snakepit man. Had a good scientific TV match with fellow Snakepitter John Naylor in Morecambe in the early 80s. Went off to Canada and came back calling himself Bearcat Wright with a silly Mr T haircut. After a humiliating Big Daddy Tag defeat, went back to being a matured version of the old Bernie, hardened clean cut veteran like Ray Robinson. Ritchie Brooks was an interesting story. Another pushed Whizzkid of the late 80s - teamed with Big Daddy and Steve (then Roy) Regal at Xmas 1986 in the last edition of season 1 of the standalone wrestling show (before All Star and WWF were added to the mix.) Despite his clean loks, he had a bit of a reputation for stiffing people in the ring, reportedly eventually coming unglued one night when he tried it on with Fit Finlay. Probably Bernie showed him a thing or two on legit wrestling in their bouts. In the early 90s Brooks was the heel or quasi-heel in a feud with Danny Collins including a cage match on Reslo. He also ditched the blond hair and got the nickname "The Man Who Fights Fire With Fire" The high point of Brooks' entire career was his controversial win of the British Heavy Middleweight title from Danny Collins in Croydon in 1990 on a disqualification when Collins fell out of the ring, banged his head and in a crazed stupor tried to attack the referee. Collins got it back in their 90s day return match in Croydon in Sept 90 but the feud raged on until '92 at least. Mike Shaw - We're talking Norman The Lunatic/Bastion Booger here. Also Owen Hart's 1987 Stempede nemesis Makhan Singh of Karachi Vice, a minature version of Giant Haystacks (or the Loch Ness Monster as Stampede fans knew him.) What do you expect?

Recently saw his 1981 match with Bret Hart. Hart actually seemed a lot better in this match than in the Marty Jones world title semi final not long after where he was playing the part of the foreign quasi-heel who didn't understand the rules. Here we see Bret adapting almost as well as Owen to the British style. Singh was generally used as a strength heavyweight. Here he is in 1989 at Blackpool Tower Circus against "Mongolian Mauler" Peter Flowers, the man whose flagpole attack on Robbie Brookside that year caused a police raid on the Victoria Hall Hanley due to a worried fan calling the cops on the show, the man who tried to reunite Kendo and Rocco in 1990 but ended up reigniting their feud. He also had a tag team going with Jason Kashmir Singh in the early 90s. There was one period in late '76 when promoter Normal Morrell was trying to sabotage Big Daddy's lead blue-eye push (backstage politics, worried about Max Crabtree getting too powerful ) by putting him as tag partners with his archenemy Big Daddy. One night they were due to face Kojak Kirk and Bruiser Muir but Morell had second thoughts on the night, reckoning that fans would just treat Kendo as an unusual blue-eye partner in peril to hero Daddy, so got Singh in to replace Muir, making it your standard Kendo plus heel versus heel plus blue-eye match so the fans would side with Kirk and Singh.

Zoltan Boscik was mainly known for his 3 in 1 combination submission hold and for the fact that he liked to brag about being a former British Lightweight Champion and therefore should be treated with respect. Consequently he would be used as a heel (unless up against a nastier heel in a heel vs heel match) and making up the numbers in the heel side on team events such as triple tag matches (that's six man tags in Americanese!) However this morning on the smart TV I saw a match from Woking from December 1976 (transmitted after the New Year. where he kept things clean against another ex British champion, Alan Sargeant and got the win. Quite an impressive bout from a man more likely to be seen tag teaming with Jim Breaks or Cyanide Syd Cooper.

Gave the battle of the Boothmans a rewatch just now. Most of the best moves in this seem to come from the son Kid McCoy, flipping over bridges to reverse an armbar, lots of complex arm-to arm transfers.... A clue comes at the end of the second round when we find out that his other trained was Marty Jones. Ben is, as Walton notes, more the strength man but he does get some good moves in especially on his two pinfalls - a quick snapmare throw into a cross press in round 3 and the Summerslam '92 Smith vs Hart finisher foiding press to get the winner (with an extra little twist round thrown in for some reason.)

Quinn and Haystacks were regular tag parners and allies in the war against Big Daddy (Stax acted cornerman for Quinn in the 1979 Wembley Daddy vs Qunin match). They had another world title match in Claremorris, County Mayo. Quinn and Stax had a big contract signing ceremony on chat show host Derek Davis's show Derek At Large. RTÉ didn't have its own TV wrestling show but much of the Irish Republic could pick up World of Sport on Ulster and HTV from Wales as well as Reslo from the same transmitters as HTV - Orig Wiliams was running Reslo Live Tours well into the late 90s and into the early 00s by which time they had morphed into WWF tribute tours.

Or rather "Colonel Brody" was Shaun "Maginificent Maurice" Brody copying Ed "Colonel De Beers" Wiskowski's gimmick after meeting DeBeers in Germany where Ed wrestled under his real name. Needless to say he couldn't do the whole racist thing on ITV. Handheld camcording in Germany was a different matter: (This bout is also what I would consider a good example how NOT to use Johnny Saint.)

Ahmet Chong later reappeared in Germany doing the same gimmick against Axel Dieter in 1980

>Around 1975, wrestling's ratings began to drop somewhat as audiences grew tired of McManus, Pallo, Logan and Kellett. Indeed, Pallo and Kellett, along with Adrian Street, had defected to independent promotions the previous year! Ironically it was also around this time that Daddy and Haystacks got the start of their push - Battling Guardsman Crabtree had morphed into Big Daddy late the previous year and by July '75 was being listed as Big Daddy in TVTimes and on screen captions and teamed with Stax in the latter's debut TV match, a DQ loss to Roy and Tony StClair. Stax had been rebranded from "Luke McMasters" to "Haystacks Callhoun" by Brian Dixon in 1972 and had refined the gimmick to become the Giant over the next year or two.

Tony Francis was primarily a wrestler who exanded into managing. He had the masked El Diablo persona downpat by 1988 and actually did a wierd crossover with his managing work when he appeared in Drew McDonald and Rasputin's corner as guest cornerman wearing the El Diablo mask (or rather a purple/silver version of - he usually used red and blue as his colours) AND his "Tony The Brain" lounge lizard suit. Gordon was a generic crumb-heel used mainly as Daddy fodder (see also Banger Walsh and Cyanide Syd Cooper). His peak for me was as Masked Marauder Minor, the smaller of the two Masked Marauders, an all masked tag team managed by Francis's predecessor as hapless mastermind of the heel movement to bring Daddy down - "The Gentleman" Charlie McGeen, who played a fat beardy slob that I suspect was largely based on heel-era Captain Lou Albano. (Apart from imported magazines, wrestlers could have visited Germany and met Afa and Sika or Rex and King/Sailor Art White who would have told the Brits about their manager Lou who played the hateful fat slob to the hilt.)