The Beginner's Guide To British Wrestling

[David Mantell]

Found some more Greek footage. Really the territory needs its own separate thread.

The last clip seems to be the same "ATV" footage as included in the previous Tromaras highlights video, but I think it may be a setting on someone's video recorder, not a station ident. It turns out to be in colour after all and rather less grand than the previous snippet indicated - a nice sports hall but nearly empty with just a few fans in the high seats and only officials down on the stadium floor.

The first clip the ring looks every bit as shabby as the 1987 footage but it sounds like there was quite a big audience.  A fan comment on the video indicates it was 1980.  Perhaps the final Kats festival?

There was another clip about 9 minutes long which appeared to be an outdoor show from the thumbnail but it's vanished now.  I'll add it if it reappears.

[HowtobeaMark]

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/235650370214?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=Z9KcGfnKS8e&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=uxO8Z_YPQNG&var&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR1N4prEgl1EqbZcDPKNFePSH4RV4Tq9g_1PmKdegK78vHJnt2YfRjNHqaI_aem_OH405NNw9j410sK2-LgD6Q&sfnsn=scwspwa

 

Heres an interesting ebay listing. Let's hope whoever purchases sticks it up on youtube

[ohtani's jacket]

Tony St. Clair looks so young. 

[fxnj]

I bought it. RIP my wallet.

[HowtobeaMark]

I am glad someone on here got it! Can't wait to read the review. Love me some Clay Thompson. One of those (almost) lost greats

[David Mantell]

On 7/14/2024 at 11:32 PM, fxnj said:

I bought it. RIP my wallet.

Put it up on YouTube some time please.

[David Mantell]

Is that George Kidd?  He looks very much like he's doing the famous Ball there.

[David Mantell]

800ft = 240,000mm.

16mmx25fps=400mmps

240,000/400= 2400/4=600secs=10 mins footage

[David Mantell]

By the way, Wrestling From Great Britain was indeed the title under which ITV Wrestling kinescopes were marketed to overseas TV stations (as discussed on the "Why is America assumed to be the centre of the wrestling universe?" thread.

Some of the INA French Catch kinescope prints have a similar slide in Arabic which I intend to decipher and post my findings to the French Catch thread.  It does underline my point from several months back that ITV and (O)RTF had considerably greater outreach for their wrestling programming than the average NWA member in the US/Canada. They certainly would not have to face down some angry Ole Anderson type at the next NWA convention growling threats at them for their show being accessible to his audience.

[David Mantell]

Anyway, getting back to what I was originally going to post about:

Owen Hart- Honorary British Wrestler?

Many of you by now will have seen Owen's classic World title matches with Marty .Jones on ITV in 1987 and Danny Collins on camcorder in 1991 What doesn't get mentioned so much is that Owen basically did his apprenticeship over here in the mid 80s.  Here he in early 84 against Steve Logan (MK2 the Birmingham blue-eye) who at 20 going 21 gets to be the veteran in control for one of the first times in his career.

The bout is joined in progress just before Logan scores the opening fall. We get one round of Owen battling back to equalise, then they go to a draw. Kent Walton forsees the Blue Blazer with his comment about how Owen is doing well with "the acrobatic stuff" and should do more of it. (Owen incidentally has his light blue trunks on- these would later become light blue long tights in Japan etc in 1987 before becoming the Blazer's preferred shade of blue in the WWF.)

 

 

[David Mantell]

The first time I ever saw or even heard of a Handicap tag was the above match on TV in 1985. It was pretty much like one of those WWWF TV matches where Andre would be fed two jobbers in one sitting.

Rumble recently did an update on that match:

The Bryants will already be familiar figures to readers of this thread, I have raved plenty about Nino on here. I discussed the Henchmen on here sometime back as an example along with the UK Pitbulls of the survival of the Superheavyweight type from the Big Daddy boom era (along with earlier examples like the Klondyke brothers and Docker Don Steadman.

Don't worry about the decidedly non Old School rung - it was on loan from another Promotion, SOS Wrestling as the regular Rumble ring was in use at another show Rumble was running that same night. To make up for it, the MC is the legendary Lee Bamber and the venue is the building known formerly as the Orchards in Dartford, former 1980s ITV venue. See earlier in the thread for more details on both.

 

[ohtani's jacket]

7 hours ago, David Mantell said:

Is that George Kidd?  He looks very much like he's doing the famous Ball there.

It's Clayton Thompson. The match is Thomposn vs. Tony St. Clair from 819/67 at The Pavillion, Hemel Hempstead.

[David Mantell]

On 7/16/2024 at 9:44 AM, ohtani's jacket said:

It's Clayton Thompson. The match is Thomposn vs. Tony St. Clair from 819/67 at The Pavillion, Hemel Hempstead.

Interesting. I wonder if Tony stays clean as I remember one early 70s Clay match on YT where Kent Walton remarked how all Clay's opponents resorted to dirty wrestling against him. Whether this was something Thomson insisted on backstage I have no idea.

Having said that, I have never heard of Tony ever being anything other than a blue-eye/babyface. At worst one who might be driven to extreme measures by a particularly dastardly villain such as Mighty John Quinn but even then look thoroughly ashamed of himself once he'd calmed down (viz. St Clair & Sands Vs Quinn & Nagasaki, Lewisham 1987 as previously posted on this forum.)

[David Mantell]

From 1990, tapings done in Aberdeen Scotland for late evening  screening on the Grampian/STV regions of ITV, later rescreened in a graveyard slot o. Granada TV in 1991. (The French equivalent would be New Catch's brief return to TF1 in 1991 which El P saw and which that Sturry guy is being quite sneery about in his vlogs.)

Another good technical match with Danny, like Steve Logan mk2 n the above 1984 match with Owen Hart  now in the role of the seasoned veteran getting the 2-1 win but conceding a fall to the young whizzkids and making him look like a bright young prospect. (Kent Walton mentions Danny having his eye on some heavier championships - in fact Danny had been British Heavyweight Middleweight champion and possibly was champ for the second time by this point - he beat Finlay the previous year before his infamous DQ loss of the title to Richie Brooks in 1990 but I'm not sure if this bout was taped before or after Daddy regained the belt.  Probably before otherwise Danny would have worn the belt to the ring, Walton would have noticed and made a rather different comment.)

Stewart uses Kid McCoy's Yorkshire Rope trick (also a fave of Owen Hart especially during the Blue Blazer phase) to good effect a couple of times including one setting up the equalising pinfall following a hiptoss into cross press. Some good folding press attempts too including Danny's opening fall in round two and a couple that Stewart crawls out of.neatly. Stewart also uses a crucifix (flying further nelson). Collins gets the decider after deftly converting another hiptoss attempt into a backslide.

Speaking of McCoy and Stewart, 1990 would see some bad luck for the former beget some good luck for the latter in 1991.  McCoy vacated his British Lightweight title he won on stoppage from Steve Grey on ITV in 1987, after a falling out with Brian Dixon over his and father King Ben's match with Kendo Nagasaki and Blondie Barrett in Chelmsford The following September Stewart would win the title off Jimmy Ocean and hold it for 22 months.

 

[David Mantell]

Lady Blossom on World Of Sport 

Bobby Barnes Vs Chris Adams with his the girlfriend Jeannie Clarke seconding him.

Next time she appeared on a Wrestling TV show was 11 years later in Texas when she was not nearly so affectionate to Chris. Is it just me or did she already look a bit heelish in 1979?

[David Mantell]

On 5/12/2015 at 4:48 AM, ohtani's jacket said:

Peter Bainbridge vs. Garry Clwyd (8/4/87)

 

Teenage boy wrestling is not really my thing, but they did all right for their age. While they were wrestling, there was a sudden clip of Hogan ripping off his singlet in front of thousands of screaming fans while Jesse claimed Orton was a chance of beating them... then back to the boys... Why did wrestling go off the air again?

 

Battle of the whizzkids - Peter Bainbridge not long afterwards having a couple of short European Lightweight title wins at Jim Breaks's expense - one of the last few youngsters he jobbed to in their first title win. I thought he had been a flash in the pan at that time but apparently he wrestled for many years and is now a promoter. Gary Clwyd or Gwraint Clwyd as viewers of S4C's Reslo knew him, seemed to have a bright future until the late 90s when times were hard and he had to share a Dunk The Clown tribute gimmick with Blondie Barrett. Later on in the Noughties he reinvented himself as the heel Gary B Ware.

Some good pinfalls even if Bainbridge messes up on his victory roll equaliser and has to go for a second try.  Lovely folding press pin attempts.

Another double knockout like Dynamite/Rocco 1981 or Sanniez Vs Cavillier 1969 on the French Catch thread. Not as much pathos as the finish of Dyno/Rocco but still a bit bittersweet that a fine scientific contest between two promising youngsters was cut short. (In reality it helped keep both strong for future appearances.)

Hogan/Orton comes from a WWF Special from late 87. Possibly someone didn't like the bout and taped over it.

@ohtani's jacket What point exactly were you making at the end there?  Apart from Greg Dyke being a cheap two bit Jamie Kellner who (unlike Kellner) couldn't even kill the territory properly, the usual cited weakness of the late 80s  British scene is the superheavies like Big Daddy. Young fresh faced skillful white meat babyfaces blue-eyes were very much the solution not the problem.  Their kind coming in and Daddy and Stax fading out was a positive step forwards like Bret and Shawn replacing Hogan, Warrior and the Steroids Brigade.

 

[ohtani's jacket]

It's kind of hard to reply to posts that are being bumped from a decade ago, but this one is kind of obvious. There is no way that the product that was on ITV at the end of wrestling's run could compare to the WWF from the same period, and those two teenagers were definitely not Bret and Shawn. As a rule, I don't think much of the wrestling on ITV after 1985. That's my own cutoff point. There were some good matches that came after '85, but the product as a whole isn't to my tastes, and I didn't enjoy All-Star. But again, most of these feelings are from a decade ago. They might change if I ever revisit that stuff. 

[PeteF3]

Also, Bret and Shawn didn't and couldn't replace Hogan and the Warrior. They kept the lights on, and that's not nothing, but their size worked against them even in 1996. It worked, to some degree, against Benoit and Eddy in 2003. The likes of Bryan Danielson or Kenny Omega as anything remotely resembling a top guy in any company on the planet were another 20 years away.

And I don't think the British and the Americans are so different in that glitz, hype, production values, a compelling story, and larger-than-life characters draw more than "workrate" (or whatever rough equivalent term one would care to use). It was true then, it was true with NJPW compared to AJPW in the '90s, and AEW's finding out that fact now. This is the farthest thing from trying to start another tired "wrestling vs. story" debate as if those two concepts are mutually exclusive, and I'd rather watch AEW than WWE, '90s AJPW than '90s NJPW, and World of Sport over its  contemporary WWF equivalent at least before 1985-86 or so. But this forum is a niche of a niche--the pattern with the general public is pretty clear and consistent.

[David Mantell]

13 hours ago, ohtani's jacket said:

It's kind of hard to reply to posts that are being bumped from a decade ago, but this one is kind of obvious. There is no way that the product that was on ITV at the end of wrestling's run could compare to the WWF from the same period, and those two teenagers were definitely not Bret and Shawn. As a rule, I don't think much of the wrestling on ITV after 1985. That's my own cutoff point. There were some good matches that came after '85, but the product as a whole isn't to my tastes, and I didn't enjoy All-Star. But again, most of these feelings are from a decade ago. They might change if I ever revisit that stuff. 

Personally I think that in pure terms of scientific technical skill it's self evident that even at that early age Clwyd and Bainbridge could wipe the floor with Orton let alone Hogan. And for fans like me who were educated by Kent Walton on what our wrestling tastes should be, that was the deciding factor.

Also the overall look of WWF matches like Hogan Vs Orton was a relatively recent development due to Dick Ebersol's work on SNME, and late period ITV still could run rings around most Studio Wrestling from most US territories at the time and the five years or so before.

Also to be honest the phrase "teenage boy wrestling" seems to imply that there was something perverse about bouts like that. I'm sure they had their share of gay male fans - and certainly hetero female fans - but nobody even remotely thought of bouts like that as some sort of twisted erotic novelty.  They were just fine sporting contests between promising young stars getting their first push.

Bouts like that were the most thoroughly sports-presentation pro wrestling I've ever seen. They happen in 2024 and older fans remember 1980s bouts like this are pleased to see that it is still a thing nowadays and the six year old kids learn from their elders how to react to this sort of match and clap along to the good moves and good sportsmanship.

[David Mantell]

6 hours ago, PeteF3 said:

And I don't think the British and the Americans are so different in that glitz, hype, production values, a compelling story, and larger-than-life characters draw more than "workrate" (or whatever rough equivalent term one would care to use).

I think there's a difference between reactions to that bout. British fans steeped in the traditional British style don't malreact to bouts like that. It's a different, not a defective, way of doing the business, made for different societies with different expectations of what a wrestler should be. (Even Jim Cornette is generally careful to include disclaimers over geography and history when criticising lighter wrestlers like Marko Stunt.)

Matches like Clwyd vs Bainbridge here or 1978 Davey Boy Smith Vs Bernie Wright or Nipper Eddie Riley Vs Ian McGregor 1984 or Kid McCoy Vs Ritchie Brooks 1988  or even 1984 Owen Hart Vs Steve Logan MK2 are still a thing to this day- check out any number of modern bouts involving the Bryant brothers from Rumble that I've posted on here.

Also the concept of work rate is predicated on the idea of rest holds and the hold designated "rest holds" in American Wrestling lore do not serve this purpose in British Wrestling, instead being set ups for the next clever/graceful escape or reversal. Traditionally the round breaks provided he rest element - nowadays when wrestlers want a breather they start cheerleading the crowd.  In France Saulnier and Prince did have to pause in side headlocks on the mat because they did not have round breaks.

[ohtani's jacket]

Well, I'm not sure if Clwyd or Bainbridge could wipe the floor with Orton Jr. Hogan, of course, but that's not the argument here. It is very hard for me to believe that if the average person were to view a preliminary bout from a British card in '87 and compare it to even the slim pickings that non-US countries received from the WWF in 1987 that only the most diehard British fans would think the ITV footage is better or more exciting. The average episode of Superstars was more exciting than ITV wrestling at the time. 

Teenage boy wrestling has nothing to do with sexual inclination. That was what they were -- teenage boy wrestlers. Apprentices .Whatever Walton called them. There was a long history of them. Sometimes they had entertaining matches against veteran heels. In any case, they waited about a hundred pounds soaking wet. Personally, I think Dynamite Kid was the best of them (at least that I've seen), but it's not my favorite subgenre of World of Sport and I don't think it was the right thing to air on TV in '87 when clearly the pinch was on. 

[David Mantell]

46 minutes ago, ohtani's jacket said:

Well, I'm not sure if Clwyd or Bainbridge could wipe the floor with Orton Jr. Hogan, of course, but that's not the argument here.

I did specify "in pure terms of scientific technical skill"  and I would stand by it being self-obvious that even at that young age Clwyd and Bainbridge's respective repertoires of clever escapes/reversals/counters were vastly in advance of Hogan's or even Orton's just as Hulk and Bob's knowledge of crowd psychology were light years ahead of what Peter or Geraint's would ever be (and as for TV promos, I doubt either GC or PB ever cut one in their lives.)

Also even if fans really preferred seeing Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks or earlier on McManus and Pallo, they were subjected - and pretty receptive - to the message pumped by Kent Walton that they should learn to appreciate clean scientific bouts and would be better more cultured more sophisticated wrestling fans if they did learn. Like tuning in to the late John Peel 's radio show and hearing him play some eclectic art-rock record and be lectured by him that this was proper good music even if all the casual listeners wanted was to hear the current pop hits.

[ohtani's jacket]

Orton Jr was a pretty decent wrestler, at least by American standards, but that's besides the point. The average person watches wrestling for the stars. in 1987, that may have been Rocco, Kendo Nagasaki, Fit Finlay, etc. I can't remember exactly. Walton may have beat the drum for years about real wrestling and pure contests for the true grappling fans, and God Bless him for dong so, but there was a reason why Walton championed those matches and it was because the average fan preferred the comedy and the flamboyant heels. If there were a bunch of learned fans watching Clwyd and Bainbridge in '87 and forming new opinions on pro-wrestling, I apologize, but I fancy it was whatever goes in terms of available footage. 

[David Mantell]

1 hour ago, ohtani's jacket said:

If there were a bunch of learned fans watching Clwyd and Bainbridge in '87 and forming new opinions on pro-wrestling, I apologize, but I fancy it was whatever goes in terms of available footage. 

The purists existed (and all three of Kendo, Rocco and Finlay knew how to work purist if need be) and like I said Teenage Boy Wrestling was enough of A Thing to have survived to 2024.  TBW was solely clean sporting matches, there were never really any TBW heels.  Occasionally a promising TBWer would be put up against someone like Johnny Saint and make a good impression getting a consolation fall before going down 2-1 and Saint and the TBWer would shake hands. (See also Danny Collins Vs Tony Stewart further up this page, with an early twenty something Collins now graduated to the role of veteran helping give the rub to the young star.)

Even if it wasn't most fans' preferred tipple, it was considered necessary to have these bouts for the sake of sporting credibility.

In any case,  the existence of TBW didn't in any way assist Greg Dyke in his quest to eliminate all Saturday afternoon wrestling and put something more yuppie-friendly on to make American advertising execs happy to pay for advert spots for expensive cars during those timeslots. Otherwise there would have been a Black Saturday type situation instead of the wholesale pulling of wrestling from ITV (apart from non syndicated 4am weekday screenings of year old WWF tapes that fell below Dyke's radar).

[David Mantell]

Another point about Kent Walton - the clean technical British style is a play by play commentator's dream come true and it gave him plenty of scope to be analytical and scrutinizing in a way that a typical WWF match would not and that even most US territories would struggle to match.

Being the quasi-serious sportscaster was a preferable alternative to poking snooty intellectual fun like French commentators did or lower brow pub comedian fun like the two commentators on Screensport 1985-1986 did or just being a shill like the American commentators (or like some modern UK commentators like Alex Shane or Aaron Nix who comment in the general style of Ben Elton).

The purist crowd, especially in earlier times, also included those fans and practitioners of legit Lancashire Catch Wrestling who watched - and sought gainful employment from - show wrestling as a second best option to legit Prize Grappling. As I've said in the past, when Kent was on his pulpit like the "Beware Too Much Showmanship Could Ruin Wrestling" article in World Of Sport annual 1979, he was singing from basically the same hymn sheet as no nonsense Wigan Snakepit alumni like Ernie Riley (son of Billy) and Tommy "Jack Dempsey" Moore in the 1989 First Tuesday The Wigan Hold docu on Riley's Gym.