The Beginner's Guide To British Wrestling

[ohtani's jacket]

On 8/13/2023 at 3:21 AM, Dav'oh said:

Aaaah, I see the round breaks as the equivalent of ad breaks, and ad breaks during matches are the bane of television wrestling.

I forgot to mention earlier that I find your reasoning to be sound, concerning both the round system and the ring size. But it's the aesthetics of the smaller rings, not the logic, that I struggle with.

The round breaks in classic WoS bouts are exceptionally short. They gave Walton a few moments to talk about each wrestler but little more than that. If there were commercial breaks thrown in that was because the matches were edited for television not because the breaks were a natural fit for a commercial. When RAW or Nitro cut for a commercial break it was because those shows aired live. The rounds system has never bothered me. I like the  way that Walton and the wrestlers are constantly aware of how much time is left in the fall and how this affects their strategies in regard to scoring a pinfall or submission. 

The ring size is what it is. It used to confuse me back in the day why WCW rings were so much smaller than WWF rings, but you get used to it. 

[Dav'oh]

On 8/13/2023 at 4:36 AM, David Mantell said:

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?

It's probably not the best example, as the footage doesn't really show the size or scale, but there's just enough there to comment on. This also makes the sport look smaller - its grandest prize being fought over in a small ring in what looks to be some podunk armory. MSG or bust! (Half-joking.)

(Central States may as well have been Central Jupiter for us antipodeans; just no access to footage.) (I did spend about ten years of my life on Jupiter, but Central States had folded by then.)

I saw Kyle Fletcher vs Robbie Eagles a couple of months back in a tiny ring. Had everything to make it the best match I'd seen live, but they were so clearly hamstrung by the limited room that it was merely "very good".

I love your passion and your knowledge and I appreciate you taking the time to clue-in the clueless (me).

 

[ohtani's jacket]

Well, that's another point to consider. The matches were being wrestled in town halls not arenas. I can't remember if they used a bigger ring at Wembley Arena.

If you think the rings are bad, you should check out the title belts. 

[David Mantell]

19 hours ago, NotJayTabb said:

Tony Walsh was a bit of a minor celebrity all round in the Warwickshire/West Midlands area. He was the first wrestler I ever met in person at the ill-fated FWA show at the Coventry Skydome, where he told me that Darren was joining WWE along with Burchill, which obviously wasn't true. He didn't live far from my childhood home, which I found out when my mum (along with other members of the Kenilworth Coventry City supporters group) was invited to the Walsh residence because Tony had the seats from the Highfield Road dugout in his back garden.

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.

[David Mantell]

10 hours ago, ohtani's jacket said:

Well, that's another point to consider. The matches were being wrestled in town halls not arenas. I can't remember if they used a bigger ring at Wembley Arena.

If you think the rings are bad, you should check out the title belts. 

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

[David Mantell]

18 hours ago, Dav'oh said:

I love your passion and your knowledge and I appreciate you taking the time to clue-in the clueless (me).

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.

[David Mantell]

1 hour ago, David Mantell said:

Bigger flashier title belts seem to have been a specifically American second half of C20th offshoot in evolution

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)

[David Mantell]

On 8/10/2023 at 12:07 PM, David Mantell said:

Quote

Ben - as everyone except his mother now calls him - has 13 years' experience in the ring, with three unsuccessful championship challenges behind him and a possible crach at the light-heavyweight championship coming soon.

 

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.

[David Mantell]

On 1/1/2014 at 12:45 PM, ohtani's jacket said:

It's a Bert Royal New Year.

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

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

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

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

 

[David Mantell]

On 1/3/2014 at 12:26 PM, ohtani's jacket said:

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.

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:
 

Quote

Pallo (playing a Mountie):  First I had to wrestle with that big old grizzly

Lulu (playing a Native American Princess): What big old Grizzly?

Pallo:  Mick McManus! (Laugh from audience)  And then I got caught by the Cherokees!

Lulu:   Oh, he very dirty fighter that Mick McManus!

 

[David Mantell]

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).

[David Mantell]

On 1/3/2014 at 12:26 PM, ohtani's jacket said:

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.

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.

[David Mantell]

On 4/2/2014 at 2:56 AM, ohtani's jacket said:

 

 

 

Spiros Arion vs. Romany Riley (10/30/79)

 

This was the twilight of Spiros Arion's career. He was doing this gimmick where he claimed to be the World Heavyweight champion with Walton actually referring to him as the National Wrestling Association World Heavyweight champion. The belt he brought to the ring ended up becoming the UK version of a World Heavyweight championship and was taken to All-Star when Quinn jumped, but at this point they were pretending it was a US belt. Because Quinn had just had a successful run that culminated with the big Wembley show, Arion did a similar anti-British gimmick where he got on the house mic and ran down the local talent, even aligning himself with Quinn, who they planned to bring back in the new year. Unfortunately, his accent was a little thick and he didn't speak into the mic properly, but once the bout got going he drew tremendous heat for his heathen all-in wrestling style. Riley put up a fight, but he was fodder here and Arion soon ran rough shot over him.

 

 

Colin Joynson vs. Spiros Arion (11/13/79)

 

 

This was crazy. One of the most heated WoS bouts I've ever seen. Arion did the same schtick as above, but this time he claimed he'd beat Joynson within two rounds. He did his all-in brawling and somehow bust Joynson's nose wide open. Then he took the pad off the corner post and rammed Joynson's head into it. Well, the crowd didn't like this. They were on their feet and swarming the ring. More than a few guys had their jackets off and were ready to jump Arion. The only other time I've seen this sort of reaction was with the Caribbean Sunshine Boys. Joynson was the victim, but he was punching guys off the apron to stop them from entering the ring. Finally, Big Daddy came down and cleared Arion from the ring, and one kid who kept trying to enter the ring finally made it through the ropes and tried to raise Daddy's arm, but Daddy being the prick he was shoved the guy out of the way. The ring area was just a swarm of people as Walton closed out the show. Daddy vs. Arion was something they were obviously teasing, but Bridges took his title the following month and that was the end of Arion's run.

 

 

 

 

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.

[David Mantell]

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

 

[David Mantell]

On 4/6/2014 at 3:44 PM, ohtani's jacket said:

I read that the Arion run was derailed somewhat by ITV going on strike during the autumn. Looking at the results, he worked for Joint up until the end of January, 1980. He seems to have been booked against Pat Roach quite often, similar to how they used Roach against Quinn. Apparently, Arion got huge heat in the halls the same as the Joynson match. Whoever was booking this stuff at the time, whether it was McManus or Marino, was keen on foreign heels. Aside from Arion and Quinn, they had Adnan Al-Kaissie and his controversial sleeper hold in the same time period.

It was actually Max Crabtree.  The Quinn feud really established Daddy nationally as the patriotic hero who shut Quinn's filthy yap.  ( I remember TVTImes from 1979 with displays of Daddy and Quinn's daily food intake with Daddy apparently having the healthier diet of bread, eggs and milk against Quinn's pints of beer.  As any five year old fan of The Mister Men - look them up if you don't know -  could tell you in 1979 it was eating eggs that made Mr Strong strong)

Quinn was the first, followed by his "friend" (and fellow ex WWWFer) Arion and then in 1980 when Quinn came back he had Yasu Fuji (named MISTER Yasu Fuji in a clear ripoff of Harry Fujiwara) as his sidekick - there to celebrate his world title win over Bridges and the two tagging in the main event of the untelevised middle Wembley Arena show against Daddy and Bridges (ironically, Bridges and "Battling Guardsman" Crabtree had previously been a heel tag team together in 1974).  Then finally there was The Missisippi Mauler in '81.  

Adnan got everywhere.  I see there are some later posts about his time as top babyface of Saddam Hussein's gunpoint-booked Iraqi Wrestling promotion - one of two fully grown wrestling territories in the Middle East along with Rafael Halperin's promotion in Israel (which Joynson wrestled for in early '77.)

[David Mantell]

On 8/12/2023 at 10:04 AM, David Mantell said:

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.

 

Saw this on the smart TV the other night - an interesting illustration of the situation with Ritchie Brooks.  Four years earlier than November 1990 this would have been a simple matter - roughouse heel Rocco vs clean cut blue-eyed boy Brooks.  However  Rocco is getting somewhat popular due to his feud with the hated Kendo Nagasaki and Brooks is getting somewhat hated due to his feud with the popular Danny Collins so the blue-eye/heel dynamic is somewhat convoluted here.

 

[David Mantell]

The above match was shortly after Brooks's big DQ win over Collins for the British H-Mid title and of course Rocco was World H-Mid champion so that was actually a battle of World vs British champions.

Talking of the Danny Collins vs Ritchie Brooks feud - it was already getting quite heated even before said title change at Croydon.  This cage match is an example of how, as the Welsh say, you can get away with ANYTHING as long as it's in Welsh as the people in London (in this case the IBA) won't even notice.  In this case, ANYTHING being a cage match, the epitome of what Joint and All Star would claim on ITV was beneath them to ever hold:
 

 

[David Mantell]

On 4/17/2014 at 2:08 AM, ohtani's jacket said:

Johnny Wilson vs. Steve Logan (2/4/76)

 

Another television debut, this time Johnny Wilson. Usually, the wrestlers are skinny teenagers on debut, but Wilson was already built. Walton was gushing over how handsome he was, playing on the sexual undercurrent to the Saturday afternoon wrestling, whereas Wilson immediately wormed his way into my heart by smashing Logan with forearms. Wilson put in a good showing here and got Logan to work a bit, which is like getting a donkey to move at times. It was a one fall contest, so a bit on the short side, but Wilson made a good first impression.

 

Steve Logan vs. Johnny Kincaid (2/21/74)

 

Typical example of Logan not wanting to work. Kincaid was better as a heel than a face, so there was that too, but it seemed to me that Logan was dogging it.

 

Dave Bond vs. Steve Logan (2/21/77)

 

This was another less than stellar Steve Logan bout. He had a style that generated a lot of heat despite the fact he would ignore the crowd completely and only acknowledge their existence by staring at the odd fan during the break between rounds, but it relied very much on Logan fueling the fire, and when he wanted to mail it in, nothing would happen in his bouts.

Logan got across as a heel just by being a brutal surly thug - a Southern version of Colin Joynson when in the Dangermen or even Jim Hussey.  He was actually quite a good shooter - Johnny Kincaid recalls seeing him come up with some great moves in the gym.  When Kincaid challenged Logan as to why he didn't use those moves in the ring, Logan replied that nobody could love an ugly face like his, as if technical skill was linked to being a blue-eye, although he could have been a "wrestling heel "like Kendo, Rocco, Finlay and others.  In any case you can see fans cheer a brawling Logan against Kendo Nagasaki in the above 1976 Royal Albert Hall match and numerous Nagasaki-Logan solo bouts on house shows.

[Mr Wrestling 2000]

On 8/12/2023 at 10:36 AM, David Mantell said:

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)

I really enjoyed this match. I was surprissed how mobile and willing to bump big daddy was. Great finish too.

[David Mantell]

3 hours ago, Mr Wrestling 2000 said:

I really enjoyed this match. I was surprissed how mobile and willing to bump big daddy was. Great finish too.

Invulnerable Daddy didn't really come about until the beginning of 1979.  I saw this on the Content Posted In page and expected it to be the Daddy vs John Elijah strength-based clean match from late 77 I posted a couple of pages back.  Nominally Daddy was a heel at this point - although getting cheered by the audience against Kendo and conssequently had a wider repertoire including stomping an opponent on the mat (technically a foul) and booting them in the back of the shoulder blades.   His unmasking Kendo made him a star, while at the same time Kendo was able to beat Daddy 2-1 and did not have to job to him even if Daddy got the moral victory.
The 1975-1977 Daddy & Haystacks vs Kendo Nagasaki feud that sprung from this match was the prototype for the Daddy-Haystacks and Daddy-Quinn feuds of the next several years.  However Kendo may have made Big Daddy but he also destroyed him eventually when the two were the flagships of All Star and Joint respectively in the late 80s/early 90s and All Star overtook Joint as biggest UK promotion.

[David Mantell]

On 4/20/2014 at 3:20 PM, ohtani's jacket said:

Ray Steele vs. Johnny South (3/27/74)

 

More no frills heavyweight British wrestling. Not everybody's cup of tea, but I've come to like these bouts more and more over time. This was a neat opportunity to see Johnny South as more than just a foil to the Les Kelletts and such. He had a really 70s look, kind of like a balding Maurice Gibb. Since these were a pair of plain old blue eyes amid the glam of television wrestling, South livened things up a bit by needling Steele. Steele thought South was a right bugger and led with the knee a lot, making this a really testy, physical heavyweight contest.

Johnny South's career really took off in the 90s when he became a blue eye Road Warrior Hawk tribute act The Legend Of Doom.   (You may remember his opponent here from WCW - yo baby yo baby yo.)

(incidentally, "Jesse James" is a young James Mason with hair.  This is rare professional TV footage of his early career. Orig Williams thought the actor James Mason was boring so insisited on giving James Atkins a different ring name)

He eventually ended Marty Jones's final title reign as World Mid Heavyweight Champion in Bristol April 1999.  (It wasn't the first time Jones had lost his title to a fine wrestler doing a silly gimmick - he lost it to Steve Wright in 1987 which should have been good except Wright appeared as German skinhead character Bull Blitzer for the title win.  And then didn't defend it, leading to the match where Jones beat Owen Hart to get back the vacant title.)  This was right around the time that the REAL Hawk was doing the whole Alcoholism angle with Darren "Puke" Drozdov so it was a bit odd that the tribute act was playing the post-Big Daddy kids' hero.

South originally did the gimmick as Hawk Legend Of Doom along with Dave Duran as Animal Legend of Doom.  Originally Duran and "Bad News" Jim Monroe had been in a tag team called The Road Warriors but more resembling mid 80s southern US tag team The MOD Squad. (At this time in 1988, few UK wrestling fans knew about the real Road Warriors, it was just borrowing the name from imported wrestling magazines - a practice going on many years, the most famous case being Martin "Luke McMasters" Ruane being rebranded as Haystacks Callhoun in 1972 by Brian Dixon - this would eventually evolve into Giant Haystacks by the time he made it to Joint Promotions and TV in 1975.)

Sadly Monroe died a couple of years after this and so South replaced him.  Then they decided to make their ripoff more authentic and started wearing the shoulder pads, paint and the two original names.  Then Duran dropped out and South was turned blue-eye.  He carried on doing the act into the early Noughties.

[David Mantell]

Incidentally that's the same Dave Duran that Regal wrestled a lot (and got bashed in a lot by) during his earliest bouts on the holiday camps.  His real name is John Palin, his dad was a star in the 1960s, Harry Palin.

[David Mantell]

Here's a shot of South in The Legends of Doom:
(Not sure if that's Dave Duran as Animal, some reports say he's been replaced by Welsh wrestler Boston Blackie by this point.)

This however definitely is Duran as Animal Legend:

 

[David Mantell]

Ray Steele -    About my favourite match of his is the final of this 4man KO tournament: (fast forward past the semifinals to 21:45)  One of the same slimmer "move like lightweights" kind of heavyweights as Pete Roberts, Tony St Clair and 1970s Kendo Nagasaki.

 

[David Mantell]

On 4/22/2014 at 2:30 AM, ohtani's jacket said:

Reverend Michael Brooks vs. Johnny Peters (aired 8/30/75)

Only old-school British wrestling could have a wrestling priest.

He was Church of England so he was a vicar, not a priest.  He appeared as cornerman/manager for Big Daddy on quite a few times in the 1980s including as a counter to Tony "El Diablo" Francis the time Francis, as I said earlier, "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."

Actually, wrestling vicars were not that unusual - see this Newsreel from 1963, about the earliest colour UK footage around:

(Consider also Rafael Halperin, promoter and lead babyface of the Israeli wrestling scene who became a Rabbi in later life.)