The Beginner's Guide To British Wrestling

[PeteF3]

2 hours ago, David Mantell said:

He appealed to kids who saw him as being this indesctructible juggernaut that just BULLDOZED the villains.  He was also a very colourful and charismatic guy.  There's a bit of the Warrior appeal there, think of how the Warrior just knocked down Honky at SS88. 

I've never been a parent myself but apparently parents and grandparents like to see their offspring having fun and like anything that makes their offspring happy (until they reach about 9 or 10 and get into heavy metal.)

I was an unquestioning Daddy fan myself until aged 6 when he beat Le Grand Vladimir who I thought was cool and I was upset over that.  I'm glad Spiros Arion never did a Daddy tag as I liked The Iron Greek too.

By 16, obviously, I was hoping someone would make Paul Ellering an offer to bring the Road Warriors to England and kick Big Daddy's head in. 

At the end of the day kids are kids and families and families the world over.  I don't think he would have been a main event but he could have been end-of-the-night send-em-home-happy fodder.  With WWF kids in the US, he also wouldn't have the extra handicap of TV trying at the same time to educate them to be technical wrestling connosieurs as in Britain.

But the biggest night-in, night-out money-drawing feud of the Warrior's career was with the Undertaker--the one feud where Warrior truly looked overmatched. Even the matches he won decisively end with Undertaker sitting up in the bodybag like the end of a horror movie, clearly temporarily inconvenienced hardly vaniqushed. 

There's a saying popular with American football coaches that, "There is no great victory without adversity." It's a quote that's more recent than the time period we're talking about but doubtless others have said the same principle. Hogan, Warrior, even Andre...they were all booked to overcome the odds to beat a monster heel, not beat them without selling a move. 

The "Hulk-Up" routine goes back to Jackie Fargo who got it from Popeye cartoons. Popeye cartoons were predictable, which is appealing to kids as they learn about how stories "work," but he still "sold" for 3/4 of the cartoon before grabbing that spinach can. Bugs Bunny was put-upon at first before declaring, "Of course you realize, this means war." Daddy was more like the Roadrunner--but those cartoons were really about Wile E. Coyote the whole time.

The closer analogue in the U.S. to Big Daddy as far as wrestlers and not cartoons go was Boogie Woogie Man-era Jimmy Valiant, but he was having setbacks and betrayals and beard/head-shavings and beatdowns happening to him all the time. When it was time for the Bushwhackers to have a proper feud, even they got a heavy heat angle to go with it. For Daddy to get over, he'd have to be willing to get involved in a blood feud and be willing to overcome adversity--even the kiddies in the U.S. wanted at least a semblance of drama. And even then, there was an undercard ceiling that I don't think he was going to accept over main event roles in his family's company.

[David Mantell]

Grado is a different kettle of fish- the 2018 WOSW was totally New School and nothing to do with the world maintained by Premier, All Star and Rumble.

I was answering back both Simon Garfield's claim that gimmicks took over and Herodes post on page 2 11+ years ago on here where he said that it was more like vaudeville than serious sport.  The vaudeville people - like I said - were a minority (albeit a noisy one) - it was the serious no nonsense wrestlers that made up the bulk of the talent pool.  That declined a bit over time but the priciple held true at least until the mid 90s and there are still traces of the imbalance to this day.

And yeah,I'd rather watch Keith Haward than Big Daddy too. Any day!

[David Mantell]

Agreed Daddy would never have been a main eventer.  He would have been an end of the evening bit of fun.  A lot like the Flatiner circa 2005 in the UK when he was teaming with "Little Legs" Mark Sealy and the two would have a borderline comedy match where a couple of heels would be ritually humiliated.

The main reason Big Daddy didn't go more internation is - like he said in the Sportsviewer's Guide To Wrestling he really didn't want to travel that far. Also he was brother Max's mealticket.

[David Mantell]

On 1/1/2013 at 2:14 PM, ohtani's jacket said:

Fuck me, Big Daddy grappled in this match and it was actually pretty good. This is the most surprising thing I've seen in ages:
 

(David Mantell replaced pt1 video with full match)

 

Ah yes, this one.  He'd been a more serious heavyweight as Blond Adonis Shirley Crabtree in the 50s/60s and even as the Battling Guardsman in '72-74.  From about 1976 Max Crabtree was pushing Daddy to be the familiar figure we all remember on Best-Wryton (Midlands/Lancashire) bills, either in the Daddy tag format or else in big Battles Of The Giants against the likes of King Kong Kirk and Bruiser Muir.  Elsewhere going into 1977 they were occasionally still putting him on in the old heel tag team with Haystacks or else putting him in serious matches like this one as well as against such opponents as Colin Joynson and Johnny Czeslaw.

Author Tony Earnshaw condemned matches such as this one in his recent book We Shall Not Be Moved about the 1975-1979 period, claiming that it was a misuse of Daddy's appeal!  You be the judges ...

He has to properly wrestle in the 2-1 los to Kendo where he took Kendo's mask off.He also has to do a fair amount of proper work in a bout against Dave Soul Man Bond on a local experimental cable channel in Swindon in 1978.

Mainly this bout is a realistic portrayal of Shirley's abilities - and limitations - at legit Catch wrestling.  He knows a few tricks how to use his weight and power such as flinging Elijah from the ring with a flick of the ankle, but he had no real finesse and would be easy meat for any determined shooter.

[David Mantell]

On 7/6/2013 at 1:15 AM, JNLister said:

With the injury finishes, one great thing is that technically the non-injured wrestler could decide whether to accept the win or call it a no contest. Everyone always refused to take the win because they were sporting. Except once when Jim Breaks accepted the win and began acting like an absolute dick, taking all the credit.

See the Nino Bryant vs Joe Lando 2023 British Lighweight title match I posted about a page ago.  Only in that case it was a title change that got aborted due to one guy declining a victory.

[David Mantell]

Re declining a TKO victory - an example of the polar opposite is Rocco pouring oil on the flames wth his "THE BEST MAN WON!" speech after winnng against Johnny Saint after Saint crotch-bumped himself on Rocco's skull during a rare rope-running sequence. 

Sorry if this match has already been reviewed here.

[PeteF3]

47 minutes ago, David Mantell said:

Grado is a different kettle of fish- the 2018 WOSW was totally New School and nothing to do with the world maintained by Premier, All Star and Rumble.

But that's my point. Grado, for whatever reason, got over and crossed over.

[David Mantell]

On 8/4/2023 at 5:04 PM, PeteF3 said:

But that's my point. Grado, for whatever reason, got over and crossed over.

Yeah, the Americanised/New School sector scores its share of hits, fair play to them.  To be honest I doubt if Tony Khan did much homework, he just looked at what had been on our telly just a few years earlier and judged it on that. At least they'll be getting the 2018-2019 Grado as a Dusty-esque working class hero type rather than the 2016 version who was just a gormless fool who lucked his way to triumph.

(By this same token, All Star deserves more credit for TNA turning to them to recruit X Cup Team UK in 2004 - James Mason, Dean Allmark, Robbie  Dynamite Berzins and Frankie Sloan - not to mention James Mason getting to beat MVP on that UK edition of Raw in 2008.  Come to that, theee most old school of old school promotions, John Freemantle and Premier Promotions deserve more credit for scoring themselves some TV coverage in 2003 as part of Johnny Vaughan's World Of Sport.)

But it's still a separate universe from the traditional promotions.  They may not be as hermetically sealed from each other as they were back in the 1990s when the Americanised promotions first started appearing, but they're still separate phenomena which suceed and/or fail on their separate merits, not on each others'.

[David Mantell]

On 7/6/2013 at 1:15 AM, JNLister said:

With the injury finishes, one great thing is that technically the non-injured wrestler could decide whether to accept the win or call it a no contest. Everyone always refused to take the win because they were sporting. Except once when Jim Breaks accepted the win and began acting like an absolute dick, taking all the credit.

I think this match may be mentioned later on in the thread, but Dynamite Kid's TV debut (or would-have been TV debut as by the time it got screened, another bout of his had already been on) is one of the most interesting example of this as it sees heel Alan Dennison get inspired to turn good and become a better man after wrestling Dynamite Kid and taking a liking to this younger lighter opponent who could do such amazing things that he eventually refused a TKO victory over the kid.  (Yes that's right, a guy gets his soul saved by Tommy Billington.  Who'da Thunk It?)

Shades of Razor Ramon vs 123 Kid (not so much the upset win as the longer storyline where the two ended up as friends.)  Actually this match had a whole long storyline offshoot as following for Dennison's support for Dynamite, he also supports Dyno's cousin Young David, taking over as his coach when Ted Betley (shoot-)retires and being his cornerman for the Jim Breaks matches then ultimately challenging Breaks himself and becoming British Welterweight champion and holding it on-and-off until Breaks gets it back permanently in '83 (just in time to lost it to Danny Collins)

[David Mantell]

On 7/6/2013 at 1:18 AM, ohtani's jacket said:

Albert Wall vs. Ernie Riley (11/25/61 TV)

Albert Wall has quite a legendary status among heavyweight workrate fans. He had a remarkable physique. He quite literally looked like one of those muscle bound types in the "weedy guy gets sand kicked in his face" comic book advertisements. Massive, massive thighs. All work and no personality, but there's a contingent that likes straight wrestling and he was a poster boy for that. He did work quite well for a heavyweight, though I think this was early into his career and not prime Albert Wall by any stretch. His opponent was the son of the legendary Bill Riley and one of Britain's finest light heavyweights of the era. He used his speed and agility to offset Wall's strength and power in a decent catch weight contest.

Lucky old you. Ernie Riley  as one of the core members of the first two generations of Riley' Gym alumni is someone I would desperately love to see in action that Granada has stashed away.

[David Mantell]

In their later lives, Ernie Riley and Tommy "Jack Dempsey" Moore were the stars of this docu about Riley's Gym (at the time still at its original gym.)  Unfortunately the programme makers misunderstood their puritanism for an objection to the basic worked nature of pro wrestling.   Fortunately Tommy clears things up when he says how he used to like watching two professionals putting on a good show, but this had been undermined by what he waw as "overacting".

 

[David Mantell]

Once you've watched that docu, it'sworth comparing Riley Jr and Moore's views to what Kent Walton has to see here:

https://www.itvwrestling.co.uk/article791.html

Quote

BEWARE: Too Much Showmanship Could Ruin Wrestling by Kent Walton (from 1979 World of Sport annual)
There have been times in the past few years when top class sport has resembled another circus in town. But the clowns that have seized the sporting public's eye have, by and large, got away with their antics for one excellent reason -they've also been a bit useful at their sport, from time to time.

Boxing fans might well have thought Muhammad Ali was the biggest bore since 'Gone with the Wind', Tennis followers have probably wished that Ilie Nastase had been one of the millions who weren't able to cross the Iron Curtain.

But what has saved both men from the total wrath of followers of the two sports, has been the remarkable ability possessed by both men. When the clowning stopped, Ali and Nastase were per- formers at the very peak of their professions. And no one could argue with that, but the world of wrestling has one burning question to face as the 1970's draw towards a close, Are the number of clowns, entertainers and perpetrators of all the ballyhoo that nowadays accompanies professional wrestling, getting a free ride upon a vehicle which they have no right to be on? Or, to put it a more emphatic way, is the razzamatazz wringing wrestling's skilful neck?

It's a question that more and more true wrestling enthusiasts are asking. Certainly, as Nastase and Ali led thousands along behind them in the best Pied Piper traditions, so the characters and entertainers have multiplied the throng at wrestling events, halls have been filled; TV viewing figures have rocketed and scores of names have become household words to folk throughout the land. But whether those 'names' have got into every home by slightly devious means is a question that now gains ground in professional wrestling.

Of course, such a thought is indigenous to the natives of what is still, to a large extent, a fairly refined nation. Three thousand miles across the North Atlantic Ocean, cigar smoking natives in flashy suits with waists spiralling outwards as fast as our own inflation, would think you slightly mad to even ponder the point.

"Sell the seats and forget your cares" is the normal American slogan - and maybe there is some worth in the argument. But in the case of wrestling, there is rather more to it as long as you're assessing the merits of the sport in Britain. The American version is, as they say, a whole new ball game with such delights as eye gouging presented for the mob's delight.

Happily, 'World of Sport' viewers can see wrestling of a rather higher calibre each Saturday afternoon. The sight of true, purist wrestling is still one of the best in TV sport for the skill factor is not to be underestimated. But that's where the discussion comes in. For although wrestling has enjoyed a phenomenal growth rate in the past 5 years as a spectator sport with a difference, the packed halls and filled seats have been achieved by a rather unorthodox form of wrestling.

Where flicked wrists, dropped shoulders and Boston crabs ruled, black masks, stomachs the size of saucepans and glittering gowns have barged in. And wrestling's great worry now is that all the razzamatazz and shownmanship that has appeared will take over from the proper stuff.

It's no idle threat. Wrestling has seen a remarkable change in style and appearance. The crowds have poured in yet the feeling is unmistakeable that it is the showmanship that has attracted them.

Top voices in the sport are already expressing private doubts as to the merits of the gimmick merchants. And the man behind wrestling's most famous voice, commentator Kent Walton, is one of those who doubts the wisdom of the current trend.

Kent is astute enough to know that the showbiz stuff doesn't yet dominate the sport. He says with a tone of relief in his voice that there are still plenty of true. purist-type wrestling matches for the real enthusiasts.

"But we must be careful,? he warns, "We have to make sure we don't kill the golden goose which is what could easily happen. This growth rate has been so rapid that it threatens to get out of hand. We must take steps to ensure it is handled properly."

Kent says that Nastase's example is the ideal comparison. "People love him or hate him but either way they want to go and see him play. That's ideal because once he's out on that court, he can play some marvellous tennis. There's no getting away from that.

"But too much of this gimmick stuff in wrestling has not helped the sport. Promoters have put it on and that is understandable because it has filled halls all over the country. They're in business to make money and sell seats and if they can do that, well it's OK by them whoever is on.

"But there's little doubt that there has been too much of the gimmick stuff. There hasn't been enough of the proper, technical wrestling which requires real ability. I'm worried that some of the modern day performers haven't come up through the wrestling ranks the way they used to; by winning junior titles and then becoming senior Champions and things like that.

"Too much of this showmanship stuff is a bad thing for several reasons. The real skills of wrestling are being left behind and, to those wrestlers of real skill and ability, most of the showbiz stuff is degrading. It can be overdone and I believe it has been overdone at times. One or two exhibition, gimmick type matches on a major bill of several bouts might be acceptable. But at times, there have been two, three or four possibly, and that's too many.

Kent is quick to point out that he's one of the real fans of true wrestling.

"George Kidd was the greatest wrestler I ever saw" he says. "The man had so much skill and ability, he was a real performer in the complete sense of the word.

?I believe that type of wrestling loaded with skill, is a super spectacle. There is a place for the other stuff - but it must not take over from the proper stuff as it could if it's allowed to go on unchecked."

All in wrestling was banned in Britain just before the last war. And we're better off without it, says Kent Walton. Why?

"It was ridiculous" says Kent. "Eye gouging, breaking heads with buckets from the corner, all that sort of thing went on. It was no longer a sport and there was none of the real skill factor to get pleasure from.

"If these showmanship antics we're seeing now continue to go that way, it's quite possible someone will step in eventually and say 'this just isn't a sport anymore.' Wrestling will suffer from that and I, for one, just don't want to see that happen.

"We must aim to bring back wrestling to its skilful style with only the occasional gimmick stuff. At the moment, I fear it's the other way round and wrestling is threatened if that's the case."

Kent's words will not be received well in some quarters. But there is no doubt whatsoever that among the true enthusiasts who have followed the skills of wrestling for many years, those words will strike a loud, truthful note. Wrestling has been overwhelmed by the entertainers, the fearsome looks, black beards and glitter in the last five years, often to the detriment of the ordinary wrestlers who show just skill as their credentials.

Kent says: "If you were to ask all the honest people and the wrestlers with real ability, they'd all agree with me. But the problem is convincing the promoters. I've seen some remarkable sights in the last five years at wrestling events up and down the country.

"I've seen people standing eight deep in the halls with every seat taken. The box office people are more than happy because there has never been such interest. The promoters have a problem because they want to see people coming in to the halls. At the moment they're getting that and they may be reluctant to make changes.

"But for the long term sake of the sport as we know and enjoy it, the skill factor must play a bigger part than the showmanship stuff. The big entertainers are appearing much too often at present for the good of the sport," Kent's real feeling for the sport which he brings to millions of homes each week, shines through. "I just wish more people among wrestling fans would enjoy the wrestling for wrestling's sake rather than for the showmanship sake. I'm worried because we've got to the stage where if things don't improve soon, it's going up the ladder so fast it will go over the top,"

Kent, however, takes encouragement from the letters he receives from the real wrestling fans - stacks of letters each week, enthusing over some highly skilful bout seen on 'World of Sport' the previous Saturday afternoon.

"People write to me asking for the results of bouts and they want to know exact details; when the bout ended and even with what sort of hold. Those people encourage me because they're the real wrestling enthusiasts who are interested in the real skill factor within the sport,

"It is a skilful sport, there is no doubt of that, If you watch wrestlers like Bert Royal. Vic Faulkner, Mal Sanders, Johnny Saint, Tony St Clair, Pete Roberts, Ray Steele, Steve Grey and Mike McMichael you see they have true ability and skill, I just hope the day doesn't come when that skill isn't there - only the gimmick stuff. We must avoid the situation at all costs be- cause there will only be one loser in that bout - true wrestling."

 

[David Mantell]

I would put it to the court that Kent Walton and the hardcore Riley's Gym crowd were of similar mind in terms of what they thought pro wrestling should be.

[David Mantell]

On 7/7/2013 at 9:03 PM, Big Rob said:

Something like Marty Jones vs Owen Hart would probably be one of the easier matches to get in to if you've not seen any other old school British stuff before. Also, Steve Grey vs Clive Myers from 20th Nov 1975 is like the match that got a bunch of people I know in to the lightweight Brit style, so that would be a good choice too. They're both babyface matches though, so if you'd like a more traditional villain/babyface match, I'd recommend Steve Grey vs Mick McManus or Mark Rocco vs Marty Jones from 76.

1) Owen really took to the British style at an early career stage.  In his match against Barry Horrowitz as the Blue Blazer on WWF TV in 1988, he performs a version of Kid McCoy's "Yorkshire Rope trick" only without climbing the ropes, just leaping to above the top rope and bouncing off it on his calf muscles  to spin over and reverse the armbar. Possibly he had seen McCoy in action the previous year Both McCoy's"Yorkshire Rope Trick" and the Blazer/Owen's similar move are more in the style of French catch with the more flamboyant headscissor/reverse snapmare escapes.

2) Grey and Myers had quite a lot of good matches down the years.  Grey and Mal Sanders also had some similar clean matches (and some heel vs blue-eye matches after Sanders went heel in about '86). 

3) "Babyfaces" - Blue-eyes if you please! (LOL)   I'd also humbly suggest that although hero vs villain matches are very traditional, good clean sporting contests have an even longer and more honourable tradition!

[David Mantell]

On 7/16/2013 at 2:25 PM, ohtani's jacket said:

Brian Maxine vs. Steve Wright (aired 2/12/72)

 

I think this also aired on TWC, but it's one I hadn't seen. Steve Wright, so young, so much hair... For some reason, I have always figured Steve Wright as German and was going to question why they billed him from Warrington until I discovered he was from Warrington. He was in the young "boy apprentice" role here (yes, they really did call them that) and was nothing like the Wright people are familiar with. He had a lot of angry young man, headbutt offence as opposed to mat tricks. I thought his celebrations were a bit odd, almost camp in a way like some kind of Viennese ballet dancer, but he had the good fortune to be billed against Maxine who was a heat magnet at the time. I'm so used to seeing Maxine with the scrum cap that I never realised how bald he was. He must have had one hell of a comb over in some of the later matches of his I've seen, because I never noticed it before. He was never a great worker, but he was extremely clever at utilising his various gimmicks and at getting over. I don't know if anybody's been able to work out why he had so much of Lawler's gimmick before Lawler or if there were king gimmicks in Britain prior to Maxine. This bout was fairly typical of his matches, but it drew a large amount of heat which made it interesting. The front row were getting so animated that the ring announcer had to go over and have a word with them. One great part of Maxine's gimmick is that he would throw out leaflets between rounds and get them promptly thrown back at him. Later on, when he began recording Country Western songs, he'd sing for the crowds at the halls. I don't remember if he always did this spot, but he got big heat for doing a sawing motion with his forearm across his opponent's throat area. There were plenty of better heel workers in British wrestling, but very few of them kept coming up with new ideas for self-promotion like Brian Maxine.

There's been a good Vlog post abot this one recently:

 

[David Mantell]

> boy apprentice

No, an apprentice was an earlier stage of their career, the "dues paying" phase when wrestlers were not let in on kayfabe but were led to believe by older pros that they were in gruelling contests while they battered and streched them.  Those that proved they could handle that level of legit-ish treatment were let into the club to work.  A few people -Kendo Nagasaki, Dynamite Kid - came in who had already reached this level of legit proficiency and were allowed in to work.    Usually this kind had already paid their dues in a hard scatch wrestling club such as Riley'sGym.Several wrestlers - Tony Walsh, Steve Regal, Stevie Knight- have given vivid written descriptions of the apparenticeship but the one example of it on film may be John Naylor'sdemolition of schoolteacher and wannabe wrestler Keith "Rip" Rawlinson for BBC1 series The Big Time.

Someone like Steve Wright, Bobby Ryan, Dynamite Kid, Danny Collins, Kid McCoy, Robbie Brookside, James Mason etc, challenging for or even winning their first title and developing their own signature flashy moves,  had passed their apprenticship and was getting their first push. Programme-writer Russell Plummer once labelled this career stage as the "young Whizzkid" stage.

[David Mantell]

On 7/18/2013 at 2:23 AM, ohtani's jacket said:

Weird hearing Steve Wright described as a wonder boy.

Bear in mind who his son was.

[David Mantell]

On 7/18/2013 at 2:23 AM, ohtani's jacket said:

This aired on TWC. It was part of a special Scotland vs. England team challenge that had the only surviving footage of George Kidd. I

There was also this footage:

He also had 22 matches on ITV between 1962 and 1969 so it's probable that at least a fair few of these are in Granada TV's vault. He also visited France during the Le Catch TV years so even if INA doesn't have any footage of him, there may be some French footage elsewhere, perhaps locked away in some vault in some former French colony in North Africa ...

[ohtani's jacket]

20 minutes ago, David Mantell said:

> boy apprentice

No, an apprentice was an earlier stage of their career, the "dues paying" phase when wrestlers were not let in on kayfabe but were led to believe by older pros that they were in gruelling contests while they battered and streched them.  Those that proved they could handle that level of legit-ish treatment were let into the club to work.  A few people -Kendo Nagasaki, Dynamite Kid - came in who had already reached this level of legit proficiency and were allowed in to work.    Usually this kind had already paid their dues in a hard scatch wrestling club such as Riley'sGym.Several wrestlers - Tony Walsh, Steve Regal, Stevie Knight- have given vivid written descriptions of the apparenticeship but the one example of it on film may be John Naylor'sdemolition of schoolteacher and wannabe wrestler Keith "Rip" Rawlinson for BBC1 series The Big Time.

Someone like Steve Wright, Bobby Ryan, Dynamite Kid, Danny Collins, Kid McCoy, Robbie Brookside, James Mason etc, challenging for or even winning their first title and developing their own signature flashy moves,  had passed their apprenticship and was getting their first push. Programme-writer Russell Plummer once labelled this career stage as the "young Whizzkid" stage.

The comments you're quoting are outdated, but I don' believe Steve Wright was in full Wonder Kid mode in the Maxine bout. Apprentice, to me, implies a boy or girl who has left school to learn a trade, and Wright is still very much in that phase at the time. You don't see a lot of teenager wrestlers in the States, so I was using boy apprentice in quotations to distinguish this type of bout from the norm. Outside of Mexico and All Japan Women, it's not that common to see teenagers wrestling in the ring, and while it's semantics, I don't think the teenagers that appeared on ITV had passed their apprenticeship yet. 

[David Mantell]

On 8/1/2013 at 7:39 PM, Smack2k said:

Ohtani...

 

Can you recommend some good Kendo matches?? I'd like to watch him wrestle as I have read a lot about him and seen his unmasking and documentary stuff...

On 8/2/2013 at 2:35 AM, ohtani's jacket said:

I haven't watched all that many Nagasaki matches, not because he was an awful worker (he was passable)

Kendo's best 1970s matches were a game of two halves.  Usually a first half  where he was a gifted technical wrestler and a second half where he went wildly and crazily violent.  Often these were too violent for the small screen.

Kendo was a bit of a Terry Funk figure, not just because he kept going into middle ages and ripened in his autumn years but also as someone who came from a scientific background and later specialised in wild violence.

He did have quite a few signature moves - his particularly graceful rolling escape from a headscirro on the mat often into a sideheadlock, his sliding conversion of a side headlock into a cross press on the mat like points on a railway switching from one track to another (often these two moves were performed as one long sequence)  the slow, majestic cross buttock throw.

My ideal pic would be Kendo without the mask vs Pete Roberts from 1978.  Two rounds of great technical wrestling and two rounds of utter viciousness that it's a wonder it made it to TV uncensored.

Another good bout for showing what Kendo could do (depsite the earlier, scaled down version of the 1988 hypnosis angle) is his round 2 win over Rex Strong.  Kendo is very much the blue-eye here.

Also it seems to get a bad review later but I've always liked his 1977 match against Lee Bronson, mainly for the technical work in round 1.  One nice little moment in here when Lee manages to pop his head out of a Kendo headscissor and Kendo quietly and furtively shakes his hand.

 

[David Mantell]

Kendo's late 80s/early 90s period as lead heel of All Star, particularly his tag matches with "Blondie" Bob Barrett were a different kettle of fish - all about deap heet and provoking a crowd to riot. South London with its psychotic crew of wrestling fans, was always a good venue for this.

I know this bout has been criticised on here but it catches the atmosphere of one of these Kendo matches.  I once had someone on a forum tell me these people were plants.  I could, back in the day, personally introduce you to half of 'em!

Something to watch out for at the start is a few seconds of Kendo vs Pete Roberts.  I think they could still do a couple of rounds of good technical wrestling at this point in '88.

I'm also a fan of Nagasaki & Rocco vs Myers and Yamada, not just because of Rocco vs Yamada's "Black Tiger vs Jushn Liger" routine but also because of some great moments re-establishing Kendo as a heel   When first tagged in against Yamada, Kendo tags Rocco back in, when the crowd jeers this "cowardice"  Kendo dismisses them with a lofty wave and later makes his point by tagging back in and demolising the future Liger to get the eqyalising fall. Later Yamada takes over and a ringside struggle for the mask ensues with Kendo in danger of having it stolen by a crafty audience member.  This was broadcast in place of a WWF special featuring Hogan vs Kamala, Outback Jack and Tom McGree - astonishingly people wrote into TVTimes to complain about getting Jushin Liger vs Black Tiger instead of Hulk vs The Mongolian Mauler.

 

[David Mantell]

26 minutes ago, ohtani's jacket said:

The comments you're quoting are outdated, but I don' believe Steve Wright was in full Wonder Kid mode in the Maxine bout. Apprentice, to me, implies a boy or girl who has left school to learn a trade, and Wright is still very much in that phase at the time. You don't see a lot of teenager wrestlers in the States, so I was using boy apprentice in quotations to distinguish this type of bout from the norm. Outside of Mexico and All Japan Women, it's not that common to see teenagers wrestling in the ring, and while it's semantics, I don't think the teenagers that appeared on ITV had passed their apprenticeship yet. 

They weren't considered apprentices in the sense that "young boys"in puroresu were or that a novice like mid 80s Steve Regal getting his head kicked in by Dave Duran every night in a holiday camp was, they were considered graduates who were getting their first real push - think like Sting at Clash I.  They'd beat someone like Breaks for a title, wrestle a spectacular 2-1 loss to Johnny Saint (their consolation pinfall would be something to really open the eyes, especially Kent Walton's.) be Big Daddy's parner-in-trouble on the way to a Daddy win and have a fanbase usually among older female fans who felt maternal towards these "nice young lads".

[David Mantell]

On 8/2/2013 at 5:44 AM, PeteF3 said:

I know some people really hate the Bridges match. Bridges is past his prime and Nagasaki is nearing the end of his active career, it's from 1987 when British wrestling was dying as a national TV sport, and it's got an Americanized finish. But when I saw it, I liked it way more than I should have. (But then I really like Bridges).

Bridges is a bit foo forearm smashy to get the best out of Kendo.  Pete Roberts would have been a better opponent but it was Bridges' belt so what could you do?

I did consider listing Kendo and Colin Joynson's 1976 Solihull match (Kendo wins by KO with the Kamikaze Crash in round  3 - not to be confused with the 1978 first round only pin by unmasked Kendo) because Kendo gets to do a lot of good tricks in that bout, but it's hampered by Joynson's over-reliance on his forearm smash.  The first time Kendo is hit with it the crowd POP!  After a bit, the crowd are contemplating going over to Kendo's side and Kent Walton is saying "Joynsons doing well for himself with the power stuff but I think the crowd want to see more wrestling."

Kendo wasn't really old, he was sort of a Terry Funk like character who developed and expanded in his later years and like I said grew away from being scientific to just the extreme violence just like Funk in his ECW/Chainsaw Charlie phase.

He was a good 30 pounds heavier during his 1986-1993 run than he was in the 70s, looking like a gorilla built for power instead of the streamlined built for speed mid-thirtysomething Kendo of the mid 70s.  It made him look more powerful and imposing but he lost some of the "move like Lightweight" quality of his older days.  That said, if Pete Roberts could have left it longer before tagging in during that tag bout above, things could have got interesting, they had a good couple of interesting first exchanges there.

Oh yes and the Kamikaze Crash, a great combo of agility and power.  Diving Fireman's carry.  He was still doing it in 2001 aged 60.  Hypnotised Robbie Brookside would also do a slightly clumsier version at early 90s All Star shows.

[David Mantell]

Oh yes, and Re. George Gillette's promo about "It's America Next, We Want Hulk Hogan" - well the TV audience had seen Hogan on the WWF specials so it had to be acknowledged that there was more than one World Heavyweight Champion on the planet.   Personally I think Ric Flair could have made a better opponent and would have been able to do business (say a 1-1 one hour draw) with Kendo whereas with Hogan a loss wouldn't suit either brother. 

(Of course if you want to be pedantic, Ronnie Garvin was actually NWA champ at the time until a few days after the bout was screened.)

This was actually the second of four World title matches Bridges and Kendo had.  The first on Sept 1st in Croydon ended in Kendo walking out and George demanding a rematch which he got on the November TV taping in Bradford and Kendo won the belt.  He also succesfully defended in January, but at the same Croydon TV taping as the Kendo/Rocco fallout (and Johnny Saint vs Fit Finlay) Bridges beat "Baron Von Schultz" (Judd Harriss) to earn a second shot which was in about April '88 and saw the title held up due to Shane Stevens's interference and eventually given to Bridges on a DQ win some weeks later after a review of the match.

[David Mantell]

> it's got an Americanized finish.

Something All Star did which American promoters also did but Joint would not dare do, especially on TV, is play with the rules system (in this case Mountevans) and expose its limitations in preventing villains from cheating to victory.  The classic example is the deciding fall in Johnny Saint vs Fit Finlay at Croydon in early 1988. (I think the link or the embedded video is posted elsewhere in the thread).  Finlay and Paula have been bugging Saint between rounds all match long and at the end of penultimate round 5 with the score 1-1 Finlay comes over and menaces Saint to the point where Saint collars Finlay and starts asking the audience if he should punch him.  Audience say yes, but Paula grabs his coiled arm allowing Finlay to grab an armlock and sling Saint to ringside where he lands badly on his shoulder.  Audience is chanting for Finlay to be DQ'd as the bell rings to start final round 6.  Finlay duly gets his Second And Final Public Warning to cheers from the crowd but it still means that Saint has to wrestle with an injured shoulder.  Saint gets in the ring and the second he is upright Finlay slaps on a reverse armbar with no escape.  Saint does not want to submit and the referee does not want to award Finlay the decider given what he just did but Finlay tightens the hold so Saint has no option but to submit (NB in Britain this was NOT seen as unbecoming of a blue-eye to submit) and the referee has no option but  to award the contest 2-1 to Finlay.  Finlay has succesfully played the system using a between the rounds attack and the two "get out of jail cards" that the first two public warnings allow for fouls to unfairly get a win.

Peter Baines getting caught under a pile of Bridges and Kendo and unable to count the fall (although presumably Kendo would have kicked out had he felt/heard a pin count) is an example of the same thing.  This was beyond the pale for Joint who had come to an agreement with ITV that rules and referees should always be shown to be in charge.  (Then again by this stage viewers had seen a few of the special editions with the WWF with its puny ineffective easily KO'd referees.)

On Screensport, All Star had run a storyline where viewers were allegedly upset with veteran referee (and sometime gimmick wrestler) Frank Casey not doing a good enough job to control heels and had apparently written in and got him suspended!  The storyline continued with Casey unsuspended and on probation and promising to be a tougher referee.