The Beginner's Guide To British Wrestling

[ohtani's jacket]

It's a Bert Royal New Year.

 

Bert Royal vs. Kung Fu (4/17/75)

 

Bert Royal was the Heavy-Middleweight champion of Great Britain here and supporting a moustache and slightly more hair on top. You can kind of chart his male pattern baldness over the years from this footage. We got to see more of Bert Royal the stylist in this bout. He really was a superb mat wrestler, but this was an awfully one sided bout. Kung Fu was still masked at this point and a bit of an unknown entity, and he was never the greatest worker to begin with, but it was odd that Royal took so much of the bout from him and odder still that Kung Fu got the surprise win. Not much to this.

 

Bert Royal vs. Steve Logan (8/21/75)

 

These two made for a nice style clash. You had Royal the stylist and the brilliant mat worker against Steve Logan, the consummate heel who could barely walk at this point but delivered killer body checks. I'm not sure how mobile Logan was in his prime, but as far as the 70s go, nobody did more with less. He could spend an entire bout breaking the rules (and hiding it beneath his hair) and drawing heat, and he would never react. Not once. Not to the crowd, not to the ref, not to his opponent... He was the most stoic motherfucker ever. And he'd hobble about doing this all bout long, pretty much the antithesis to McManus, Pallo, Kellett, Masambula, and all the big names, yet he was one of the major television figures. Don't get me wrong, I like the guy, I just find it interesting that he never spoke. This petered out into a draw, which wasn't all that interesting, but man was it amusing watching Bert Royal's comb over fly all over the place. He looked like a wrestling Albert Einstein.

 

Bert Royal vs. Sid Cooper (6/30/76)

 

Sid Cooper worked the crowd into a lather in this one. One thing I'll say for Bert Royal is that he threw a hell of a punch. A bit of a haymaker maybe, but there was one punch that connected on Cooper flush that had me popping. Of course, Walton started lamenting about sad it was that a wrestler of Royal's class was reduced to this sort of a display, but the crowd were lapping it up. Fired up Bert Royal is pretty good, I'm just not sure I've seen it come in the perfect match. This was decent, but I've seen better matches with this kind of heat where it's Cooper in control instead of the fired up babyface.

 

Bert Royal vs. Roy St. Clair (5/26/76)

 

These two were good wrestlers, but when Bert Royal is the leading personality in the match you know you're in for a long afternoon. Surprisingly, they didn't pull out all the stops despite it being a Royal Albert Hall show. I've seen both guys give better performances in lesser matches than this, particularly St. Clair. It was also terribly predictable. I just knew the one fall required would come in the fourth round having watched a ton of WoS. Bit of a disappointment, though I'm not really surprised since neither guy was a titan of British wrestling in my book.

[rzombie1988]

Did WoS ever have midget wrestling?

[ohtani's jacket]

No, they never had midgets or women's wrestling. The independents may have.

[Bix]

The indies definitely did, like Princess Paula and Blackfoot Sioux/Miss Linda.

[ohtani's jacket]

Yeah, the indies had women's wrestling. I'm not sure about midgets, though. I think there may have been midget wrestling in the 50s but it didn't take off. Princess Paula died last month, I'm sorry to say.

[ohtani's jacket]

Yeah, the indies had women's wrestling. I'm not sure about midgets, though. I think there may have been midget wrestling in the 50s but it didn't take off. Princess Paula died last month, I'm sorry to say.

[Matt D]

The Orig Williams book talks a lot about his troupe of female wrestlers. The book is carny as hell though.

[Big Rob]

Some of the US midgets came over here in the 70s, I believe. I've definitely seen an old poster that had them billed as the main event.

[ButchReedMark]

The Orig Williams book talks a lot about his troupe of female wrestlers. The book is carny as hell though.

So was he, to be honest. A proper carny rogue. Awesome though.

[ohtani's jacket]

Mick McManus vs. Kung Fu (4/19/78)

 

This aired on Cup Final Day '78. The crowd at Croydon were all pumped up for a great match, Kent Walton was pumped up for a great match and the wrestlers seemed pumped up for a great match, but right before the match began the MC announced that Kung Fu was about to form a tag team with Kendo Nagasaki in the near future and that little tidbit should've been enough to trigger alarm bells. McManus seemed like he was working this match on fast forward, receiving two public warnings in the first two rounds, and to be honest he looked old here. Kung Fu had the better of the bout early on, but McManus ended up choking him out with his own gi. The bell sounded and McManus still wouldn't let go, prompting the rarest of angles in World of Sport, a run-in, with Kendo Nagasaki appearing from nowhere. Nagasaki chased McManus from the ring, which would've been an all right finish, I suppose, but then they went through this drawn out drama over whether to DQ Kung Fu or not, and they teased McManus having to return to the ring or the match would be ruled a no-contest, as though that mattered. Nagasaki, who was wearing these John Lennon type glasses, went into the back to find McManus, but his manager Gorgeous George claimed he was locked up in the toilet or somewhere. That's the kind of TV you get when you're not used to running angles, but the whole thing left me kind of peeved. I love McManus, but the fact that he got into the HOF with absolutely no critical appraisal whatsoever of his booking, the fact that he never lost, or even his work, is a free pass.

 

Clive Myers vs. Tony Walsh (12/4/78)

 

Tony Walsh was still fine tuning his gimmick here. He was wearing this awesome combination of a rugby jersey with cutoff sleeves and a wrestling leotard. I've got a soft spot for Walsh even if he was several leagues below the top heels ring-wise. It's just a shame the majority of his bouts were against Big Daddy. Even if his act was a bit green here, he bumped about as well for Clive Myers as anybody during the Iron Fist years and made the gimmick tolerable for me. Good job, Tony Walsh.

 

Caswell Martin vs. Lenny Hurst (4/10/79)

 

Caswell Martin was such a brilliant wrestler, it's just a shame that there's no one bout you could point to that shows it. You kind of have to watch all of his matches to get an overall impression. I was glad that they gave these two plenty of time, even if it was as obvious as the nose on my face that the bout would be inconsequential. Both guys seemed motivated working against one another and outside of the crappy booking the work was strong. I never get tired of watching Martin in the ring.

 

Mick McManus vs. Jackie Turpin (aired 1/27/79)

 

This was a waste of time. Not to turn on McManus or anything, but he should have retired earlier than he did as he wasn't helping put anybody over by hanging around. I've heard good things and bad things about his work behind the scenes, but he could have kept doing that without wrestling.

 

Bobby Ryan vs. Sid Cooper (aired 1/27/79)

 

This was a bit of a nothing bout as well, which was a shame considering it was Ryan vs. Cooper. Ryan did the nasty Euro piledriver on Cooper and Cooper got up, wound up on the outside and got himself counted out while arguing with the crowd. That's got to be some sort of cardinal sin in regard to selling a piledriver.

 

Clive Myers vs. Young David (3/17/81)

 

This was all right. It was probably the best Young David bout I've seen outside of the Breaks trilogy. But it was a bit too happy-go-lucky with Myers smiling every time the kid did something good and a crappy injury finish. Some of the action was good, but it didn't blow me away.

 

Pat Roach vs. Romany Riley (7/15/81)

 

Man, Romany Riley was unrecognisable from the 70s wrestler. The only way I would have recognised it was him was the arm tattoos. And he wasn't up to much in the 80s, falling pretty easily to Roach's Brummagem Bump, which is the hardest finisher in wrestling to spell.

 

Pat Roach vs. Ray Steele (12/30/80)

 

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, how could they have aired so little of this? From what was shown it looked like the best Pat Roach vs. Ray Steele bout you could possibly imagine. Steele was fucking taking it to Roach, which if you know the vacuum of charisma that is Ray Steele you would be impressed by. I've looked over these WoS matchlists countless times, and I always get suckered into the Roach/Singh/Steele triumvirate. This is the shit I've been looking for, that I knew in my gut existed, and only half aired. Crap. It was fucking great, though. Ray Steele, take it to him!

[ButchReedMark]

There's a shocking McMAnus vs Kung Fu match off Reslo which is mainly Kung Fu rubbing McManus' balls with his bare feet under the auspices of comedy.

[ohtani's jacket]

Are you sure about that? McManus was well retired before Relso was on TV.

[ButchReedMark]

I could swear I've seen it. When S4C Digidol were repeating Reslo in the mid 00's. Must have been some other old bugger with cherry blossom in his hair if that's the case. Called Mîc, as it's more Welsh than Mick. Probably was someone else.

[ohtani's jacket]

You're probably thinking of Mick McMichael.

[ButchReedMark]

Wore a singlet? You're right.

[ohtani's jacket]

Les Kellett vs. Johnny South (aired 12/30/72)

Les Kellett was a right bastard. It's hard not to think about how everyone hated his guts and hated working with him. Even when he's grinning and telling jokes you can tell he's a bastard, and it's amusing that at the end when he tries to hug South, Johnny doesn't want a piece of him. Kellet was a funny bugger, though. The comedy spots with Max Ward were gold. The rest was fairly middling. South was a decent foil, but if you've seen one Kellett match you've seen 'em all. They're all fairly entertaining, but the first one you watch is the most memorable.

Mick McMichael vs. Bobby Barnes (aired 3/25/72)

This is really early WoS footage in terms of what we had. Everyone looked so young and in Bobby's case so beautiful. Walton called McMichael one of the most underrated wrestlers around, which is a nice way of saying he was dull. This was par for the course from Barnes, but it was fun to watch him when he was so young.

Alan Dennison vs. Johnny Kwango (1/5/72)

God, this was awful. There was no way either Dennison or Kwango were going to lose, and since both wrestlers were used to controlling bouts where they did a lot of schtick, this was a rudderless mess where neither guy was about to get their shit in. One of them should have sacrificed their ego and made it either a Dennison or Kwango bout, the way Pallo/Kwango was a Pallo match.

Brian Maxine vs. Zoltan Boscik (aired 4/22/72)

This was another strong Boscik performance. Maxine's act wore a bit thin, but once Boscik began his comeback this heated up. Boscik was posting Maxine and snapmaring the shit out of him and then Maxine caught Boscik off the ropes with the nastiest looking forearm smash of all-time. He fucking nailed Boscik, who bumped like a motherfucker. It's really been a revelation to me how good a bumper Boscik was.

For what it's worth, I found a live performance from Maxine with the backing bands for one of his country albums. He wasn't the greatest singer, but he seems like a fun dude:

 

[ohtani's jacket]

Jeff Kaye & Ian Gilmour vs. Jon Cortez & Al Miquet (aired 9/2/1972)

 

Cortez and Miquet were billed by the MC as the biggest threat to The Royals in tag wrestling, though I'm not entirely sure what that meant since there was no tag championship. With that in mind, I was curious about how the two lightweights would beat the heavier Kaye and Gilmour. Somewhat predictably, they went with an injury finish, but rather than having Kaye unable to continue and have Cortez and Miquet do the sporting thing and refuse to take the victory, the lightweights forced consecutive submissions on Kaye's injured arm. Before that the action was nothing special, which was a bit of a disappointment as this was the last bit of Jon Cortez for me and he's one of my all-time faves. Kaye grinned too much afterwards. If it had been a heel taking advantage of his injury it would've been a different story, I'm sure.

 

Jim Breaks vs. Steve Best (aired 6/28/72)

 

This is really early Breaks, as you can tell from how young he looks and the orange trunks which I never saw him wear again. Man, was he a great worker at the time. You really get the sense that this was his physical prime. In many ways, he reminds me of a Bill Dundee only better. This really was must-see stuff for Breaks fans. His heel act was already established, but slightly less vocal. But really it's his work that's impressive here. He's a real dynamo, even getting his nose legit bust open. Best was a pasty white guy, who was a dance partner for Breaks at best, but did a good job of building animosity and took a couple of good shots at Jim. Good bout.

 

Robby Baron vs. Al Nicol (6/6/73)

 

Robby Baron was such a fabulous worker. Despite the fact that he was working a guy who was the equivalent of a body here, Baron worked the same competitive, hard fought bout he had with everybody. Over at Wrestling Heritage, there's a rather scathing review of Walton's commentary in this match where the writer goes into all sorts of conspiracy theories about how the likes of Baron and Nicol were being held back by the promoters. That forced me to "listen" to this again and really it was no different from any other Walton call. The writer at WH didn't like how Walton rolled out the same tired old lines about Baron being a newcomer and Nicol the much more experienced man, but that's Walton for you. Because he had such a great voice and learnt the names of so many of the holds, people tend to view him as the "voice" of British wrestling, which he was, but he wasn't above shitting on a match that he didn't like or being unenthused for various workers. But his call here was pretty standard.

 

Jackie Robinson vs. Leon Fortuna (4/10/75)

 

Solid action lightweight action, though Fortuna was closer to a welterweight at this stage. He was a popular Tongan wrestler, who like many of the guys from the 70s footage was past his prime but still able to deliver quality bouts. I'd seen this before so I wasn't overly enthused, but they worked well together, and Robinson's a guy we don't have enough footage of.

[ohtani's jacket]

Zoltan Boscik vs. Leon Fortuna (2/21/74)

 

I was kind of expecting Leon Fortuna to be this flashy, charismatic guy since he was from Tonga, but he had absolutely nothing in terms of charisma or personality and wouldn't emote. He was just a wrestler; a good one, but about as stone-faced as they come. Boscik didn't have a huge personality either, so this was flat with a dead crowd that didn't help matters. The wrestling wasn't bad, but it wasn't much of a spectacle. The finish revolved around Fortuna being knocked groggy by a Boscik back elbow and I kind of wondered if it was legit as Fortuna wasn't much in the way of a seller.

 

Vic Faulkner vs. Leon Fortuna (8/15/74)

 

This was more exciting as Faulkner was a showman and Fortuna could simply play the foil with his good wrestling. However, there was a great example in this of what a dick babyface Faulkner was when he was applying a hold on Fortuna and used Fortuna's forearm to wipe the sweat from his brow. It supposed to be a cheeky joke, but if I was Fortuna I would have given him a receipt. Apart from that cocky shit, Faulkner was slick.

 

Zoltan Boscik vs. Mal Sanders (1/10/78)

 

This was only Sanders' second television match and he was about 19 years old. He was already a big athlete for 19 by the standards of the day and didn't look anywhere near as scrawny as the usual boy wrestlers. The match wasn't very long, but Boscik carried him to something halfway decent.

 

Clayton Thomson vs. Majid Ackra (8/1/74)

 

The first two falls of this featured some decent stylings from Clayton Thomson. The problem with Thomson is that Walton puts him over so strongly on commentary as one of the best wrestlers he's ever seen, etc., which may have been true in the 60s but wasn't on show in the 70s. Still, there were some decent Euro style holds in the opening two falls before his opponent got frustrated and turned it into a brawl. Ackra was a Pakistani wrestler who hadn't been on TV since the late 60s and was basically doing a gimmick where he was wearing lifts in his boots. Walton did his damnedest to sell it like the boots were dangerous but it was still pretty lame. The finish was awful as Thomson surprised Ackra with a flash pin coming out of his corner for round four and it was one of those weakish looking pins wrestlers sometimes score in British wrestling instead of something super slick.

[tim]

OJ, apologies if this was already posted/answered in this thread, but do you think you could list the five or so best WoS matches in your view?

[ohtani's jacket]

I don't know if they're the five best, but these are the ones that shaped my fandom:

 

Clive Myers vs. Steve Grey (10/8/75)

Steve Veidor vs. Gwyn Davies (5/26/76)

Mark Rocco vs. Marty Jones (6/30/76)

Terry Rudge vs. Marty Jones (11/30/76)

Jim Breaks vs. Young David (Davey Boy Smith) (12/3/79)

 

There's a list on the front page of my recommended matches.

[ohtani's jacket]

Re-watching a few wrestlers I haven't given a fair shake to in the past.

 

Brian Maxine vs. Robby Baron (2/21/77)

 

Here's what I said about Maxine the first time I saw him in back in 2009:

 

"Maxine was a heel who wore a crown and had "I am Super Star Maxine" handwritten on his tights. Maybe he went through Memphis at some point. A pity that he sucked. Robbie Baron was one of your most game no-namers around. I don't think I'll be watching Maxine for a while."

 

I've learnt a lot since then and come to appreciate Maxine as one of the most colourful characters of his era. This had some excellent wrestling in the first fall, but was criminally short. It was around this time that Maxine began making a face turn, which was a slow burn deal where he gradually began behaving himself. The upshot of that was that we got to see more of Maxine the wrestler, which was interesting to see. He wasn't the most skilled worker in the business, but pretty much rock solid.

 

Brian Maxine vs. Mick McMichael (1/28/80)

 

Maxine by this stage was a fully fledged blue-eye, but because he wasn't on television so frequently Walton kept expressing surprise at the "new" Maxine. This was a much stronger bout that I remembered, in fact it's probably the second best McMichael bout I've seen after the McManus one. Two thirds of the way through, this looked like a nomination for the Europe set, but there was some oddly timed comedy from McMichael at the business end and then an injury finish that left McMichael with a dislocated shoulder. It was more believable than a lot of injury finishes, but they're always downers. There was unlikely to be a winner in this one and the injury finish allowed Maxine to continue his babyface push by refusing to accept the decision, but there's no sweetening the disappointment.

[ohtani's jacket]

Brian Maxine vs. Mick McMichael (2/21/74)

 

This more or less gelled with my original thoughts on it. I don't know when Maxine began wearing a hair piece, but every since I heard someone in the crowd make a crack about it, I can't stop staring at it. It really is a remarkable piece of work. It's a shame Maxine never did a spot where his opponent pulls it off. Once again, I was impressed with his tireless self-promotion. I don't know of anyone in British wrestling who worked harder to keep themselves over. And once again, McMichael struck me as the single most average competitor on TV. How that guy was on television for so many years is beyond me.

 

Jim Breaks vs. Zoltan Boscik (12/2/72)

Jon Cortez vs. Zoltan Boscik (aired 3/22/72)

Steve Grey vs. Zoltan Boscik (3/8/78)

 

Now that I've come round on Boscik, I had to go back and watch these matches since they're against three of the best lightweights in the history of wrestling. The Breaks match is fun, but it's by no means a Breaks classic. One thing you don't pick up on from later Breaks is how well built he was in his prime. Pound for pound, he was one of the best built wrestlers I can recall. I read recently that when he first turned pro other wrestlers told him he was too stiff. He soon figured out how to work lightly, but his work was always snug. The Cortez match is disappointing by Cortez standards, but I think he became a better worker in the early 80s than he was here, despite making his professional debut in '58. By '78, Boscik had come into his own. Somewhere along the way I guess he embraced the idea of becoming a fully fledged heel instead of just a hot head and the crowds were all over it. He didn't have to jaw with them, he just had this kind of sniveling look that the crowd ate up. Grey and Boscik had fantastic chemistry together and the three matches we have of theirs are all enjoyable.

 

In one of these matches, Walton delivered what I thought was a brilliant piece of commentary. He explained that when guys bump for the Euro-style Irish whip, they have to go with the whip otherwise they'll break their shoulder. Works for me as a kayfabe reason for why they do those exaggerated flips. Or maybe not, but I'm going to believe it without giving it a second thought.

 

Rene Lasartesse vs. Billy Samson (Graz 7/12/1980)

 

This had a cool dynamic as Samson allegedly was a sparring partner for Muhammad Ali, so you've got Lasartesse doing all these dirty tricks and Samson getting all fired up and sparring with him, but because this is wrestling and not boxing he's kind of pulling his punches which allows Lasartesse to pull his dirty tricks again. My favourite story about Lasartesse is that in Britain they thought he was American, the Americans thought he was German, the Germans thought he was French, and the French thought he was German. That's the work of an accomplished rudo. After a bunch of fun and games, Rene did the McManus trick of selling his ears and won with a surprise small package. Could have done with a better finish, but this was fun and Lasartesse is one of the characters of European wrestling.

[Indikator]

It's even better, as a kid Lasartesse (real last name is Probst) was in some part of Switzerland where he was bullied as the lone German in class, then his family moved and he was bullied as the lone French in the class. He got into wrestling in order to be able not to get beaten up anymore. What a starting point for a heel. Good to know there is a Lasartesse vs Samson match when they were still in their primes.

[Indikator]

If you see this in the next 3-4 days you should be able to download this 1964 Austrian tv report from Vienna with a young Crusher Verdu

 

http://apasfpd.apa.at/cms-worldwide/online...144909P_Q6A.mp4

[Robert S]

This is great. There was not a scrap of kayfabe here, neither from the speaker nor from the promoter, everyone saying that it is just a "Hetz" (fun).