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The Beginner's Guide To British Wrestling


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I haven't paid much attention to the Knight Family's WAW, mainly because in their early days in 1994 they aspired to be an "American style" promotion, but as more and more old school talent worked for them, they became more of a Traditional British promotion.

This bout is from Great Yarmouth 2005 and features not only a match under full Mountevans rules but also the unusual sight of Ricky Knight, the bigger and heavier of the Superflies tag team.  wrestling cleanly and behaving in a sportsmanly fashion. Granted he is more of a strength wrestler up against skilled technician Quintan, but he keeps it mostly clean and here is even a bit of the banter that Faulkner and McMichael would use to spice up their (primarily scientific) bouts.

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On 3/29/2024 at 10:51 PM, Jetlag said:

Came across this article talking about how the entire Granada TV archives would be moved, catalogued and made accesible to the public in 2022:

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/whats-on/arts-culture-news/vast-granada-tv-archive-returning-24019217

It seems to be mainly talking about music related stuff as well as the paper archives, but hopefully it's a step towards more old WoS footage becoming available sometime in the future.

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

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Probably THE biggest feud in All Star in the early 21st century was Dean Allmark versus Robbie Dynamite (Berzins).  Often for the British Mid Heavyweight championship (formerly held by the late great Mike Marino and vacant from his death in 1981 until Dynamite filled the vacancy in 2002), on this occasion "Deano" comes in as British Heavyweight Champion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cCxV3MwGhc

(embed not working)

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Doucumentary from 1971 about The Klondyke brothers, a superheavyweight tag team in the days before Big Daddy became the scourge of all monster heels (after having been one himself for a bit!).

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=384318719496070

Notice the big celebration over the Klondykes getting disqualified - and consider what I said about DQ finishes and how it can be anything but a cheap finish to see the heels get sent packing in disgrace if done correctly.

Footage from this was later used in this episode of legendary BBC sitcom Til Death Us Do Part rather than pay ITV for footage of actual TV wrestling broadcasts:

THe Klondykes were never a tag team on proper Wrestling TV anywhere but Jake got one World of Sport match in in 1976, while Bill as I think we've mentioned on the French Catch thread, got one French TV bout in the early 70s:

 

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On 10/29/2023 at 12:54 AM, David Mantell said:

Superheavyweight tag team The Henchmen were on the bill (accompanied by a partner who was called Cannonball Grisly but clearly was not Paul Neu.) Forty years ago the Henchies would have been obvious cannon fodder for Big Daddy, nowadays they remind me of 1970s opposition heel team The Klonkykes (Jake made it onto ITV against Count Bartelli in 1976 and Bill made it onto French TV Vs Dave "Batman " Larsen in 1973.  Together,  they were the subject of a docu on BBC2 on the brothers, footage from which appeared in legendary sitcom Til Death Us Do Part on Alf Garnett's TV screen, saving the Beeb from having to pay ITV for footage.)

image.thumb.png.fbc9ac5144e6b3ce17686910f95bd9bc.png

As I mentioned before, the Henchmen are to my mind the modern equivalent of the Klondykes in 1971.  In between times there were various tag partnership Giant Haystacks had with pre-peoples' hero Big Daddy, King Kong Kirk, Bully Boy Muir but probably the most apt partner for this lineage, Scrubber Daly.

After that, there were the UK Pitbulls in the Noughties.  They mostly worked New School promotions but occasionally turned up for All Star - and indeed there is some Premier footage in this docu about them:  
(WARNING there is also some pretty godawful footage of Hardcore/Death Match promotions in this docu towards the end.)

 

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