The Beginner's Guide To British Wrestling

[David Mantell]

4 hours ago, PeteF3 said:

Fit can't keep his squaw in line as she is giving him the business after the fall and Finlay would have been the greatest Memphis heel ever.

Fit lets his squaw keep HIM in line as she is Coach and she negatively as well as positively motivates him to get the job done and he knows it and in the end appreciates it.

[ohtani's jacket]

This isn't the only thread with review of British matches. There are threads in the Microscope section of the board. Originally, I started commentating on these matches on another site, so there won't be comments for every match. It's a bit of a mess but it is what it is. 

[PeteF3]

1 hour ago, David Mantell said:

Obviously from Saint's perspective a blue-eye Vs heel match is not the best vehicle for his skills as he has to work the crowd rather than get on with employing his technical skill.

One can showcase technical skills without falling into a samey, exhibiton-y nature that Saint can be prone to. Steve Grey and Keith Haward matches never felt exhibiton-y. Sometimes with Saint I half-expect Michael Cole to leap in and seize the mic from Kent and declare, "He loves to have fun in there!" 

I don't want to knock Saint--on an influence basis I'm a strong advocate for him to get into the Observer Hall of Fame--Kidd may have pioneered the style but Saint is the guy whose tapes are studied. But whenever a guy is annointed as the Unquestioned King of the Style--any style--my "Oh, really?" instincts kick in and I start looking for holes in that argument. 

Saint's commitment to a clean counterwrestling style, to me, is contrasted and drawn out more when he's in with an actual foil. 

[PeteF3]

1 hour ago, David Mantell said:

Obviously from Saint's perspective a blue-eye Vs heel match is not the best vehicle for his skills as he has to work the crowd rather than get on with employing his technical skill.

One can showcase technical skills without falling into a samey, exhibiton-y nature that Saint can be prone to. Steve Grey and Keith Haward matches never felt exhibiton-y. Sometimes with Saint I half-expect Michael Cole to leap in and seize the mic from Kent and declare, "He loves to have fun in there!" 

I don't want to knock Saint--on an influence basis I'm a strong advocate for him to get into the Observer Hall of Fame--Kidd may have pioneered the style but Saint is the guy whose tapes are studied. But whenever a guy is annointed as the Unquestioned King of the Style--any style--my "Oh, really?" instincts kick in and I start looking for holes in that argument. 

Saint's commitment to a clean counterwrestling style, to me, is contrasted and drawn out more when he's in with an actual foil. 

[David Mantell]

3 hours ago, PeteF3 said:

Saint's commitment to a clean counterwrestling style, to me, is contrasted and drawn out more when he's in with an actual foil. 

I don't think it's Saint's personal commitment to clean wrestling that was the drawing card with him, rather the overall profusion of skilled technical work he and an opponent could come up with. The opponent's own technical skills would be what gave the broth it's different flavours.  In this regard it took two to tango.  Much as I love Khader Hassouni's tag matches in French Catch teamed with Jean Corne or Le Petit Prince , I've always found his FA Cup Final world lightweight title shot a bit lacklustre through no fault of Saint.

 

 

Also blue-eye versus heel and the concomitant crowd working can cramp Saint's style somewhat.  He and Finlay get away with it as that was more a vehicle for Finlay the heel than Saint the scientist but with other rulebreakers that can be a distraction:

The bout I wanted to post which sadly isn't on YouTube is the Camcorder recording of Johnny Saint Vs Soldier Boy Steve Prince from the early 90s. Prince played a slightly hapless comedy "Military Man" heel character and kept breaking off from wrestling with Saint to complain to the referee that his escapes somehow constituted foul tactics. It really is a bit of a misuse of Saint.

(No disrespect to Steve Prince, a nice bloke and fellow old schoolie.  He did go on to become British Welterweight Champion in 1993 as well as winning the British Tag Team Championship with Vic Powers - albeit possibly as a result of an audible called where champion the Liverpool Lads legitimately clashed heads - if you've seen Robbie Brookside's Video Diary which I think I posted earlier you'll know the incident)

So instead I'll post a different example of Saint having to play straight man to a loud heel and his heelish antics.  Saint does do a lot of good moves including the same literal tying up in knots we saw Vasilios Montopolos do on the French Catch thread but he has to make space for Sid's heeling antics and be the outraged hero and it's not really what he excelled at:

3 hours ago, PeteF3 said:

Sometimes with Saint I half-expect Michael Cole to leap in and seize the mic from Kent and declare, "He loves to have fun in there!" 

I don't watch enough modern WWE to be aware of Michael Cole's overall style as a commentator but if Kent Walton said that about anybody (except an exception brutal heel perhaps) it would be intended - and taken- as a major compliment.

[David Mantell]

On 12/29/2015 at 10:38 PM, ohtani's jacket said:

Fit Finlay vs. Mile Zrno (Eurosport circa 1990)

 

This was on YouTube already with German commentary. Some people say it's from the 12/22/89 Bremen show, but I can't really confirm that. What's more important is that it's really good. Easily one of the better Finlay matches of the era. He even does a significant amount of matwork, something he'd shred his act of during the Paula years. Zrno is a tre-mendous worker (you'll get the reference if you listen to Williams' commentary.) I really need to watch all the Zrno I can find. There's not enough pimping of Croatian wrestlers. Germany seems like the ticket back to respectability for Dave Finlay.

The CWA as Wanz and Willhelm cannibalised it out of the IBV always was a heavyweight territory (like Paul Lincoln Promotions or like the whole of American Wrestling come to that) which restricted Finlay 's scope to do his Bully angle but on the plus side made him work harder technically.

It's  good to see The Finlays try their double act out in a different territory. Notably they get to do their spot, banned by ITV, where Paula accidentally slaps FF when the double teamed opponent moves out of the way. I like the bit between rounds where he starts doing bodybuilding poses while she is fanning him off with a towel.

Only a pity we don't have Orig Williams's English commentary on here "a MMMMOVE for a MMMMOVE!!!" etc. Also it's on there that Orig claims Charlie Verhulst as Zrno's trainer which was queried on the French Catch thread by @Indikator who said it was Michael Ujevic.

 

[David Mantell]

One more Finlay match. As I've said, Finlay's brutalising ways over smaller opponents soon caught the attention of Joint Promotions ' ultimate neutraliser of heels who starred turning up at the end of Finlay's early 1986 TV matches to issue challenges just as he did with Haystacks a couple of years earlier. The blowoff, as I mentioned, came in Cup Final Day 1986

Finlay doesn't get the Big Splash and he astonishingly gets up from the (legit dangerous) Double Elbow backdrop which Bret Hart says Max C would pay opponents bonus money to take. He also kips up nearly from a Daddy bodycheck although Daddy manages to distract Finlay so that Collins can get a fall..  In the end Finlay gets the nearest thing to a table bump you could get away with on ITV, landing on top of Kent Walton 's monitors, leaving Daly to take the Daddy Splash.

Amusing but to look out for - out of the ring fighting was NOT tolerated in Britain especially not on ITV at this point (the Kendo/Myers ladder match deliberately contains some "American style" ringside fighting to soften viewers and the iBA up for the WWF specials.) and so  referee and former Barons tag team member with Ian Gilmour on both sides of the Channel, Jeff Kaye goes out to restrain Daddy and ends up riding around on his back!

[David Mantell]

Can't find a review of this bout but I do remember quite a bit of discussion about DQ finishes on here.

How to do a disqualification finish properly and leave the public happy.

* Have the blue eye dominate until the villain has to resort to dirty wrestling 

* Have the heel gradually get penalised for their fouls

* One last nasty foul to finally top it off

* Once DQd the baddie has to throw a strop like John McEnroe and really work the crowd into a jeering frenzy.

Like the Finlay match. it's not the best possible use for Johnny Saint but it's a great vehicle for the heel, whether they get away with it (Finlay) or get a comeuppance (McManus).

[David Mantell]

The discussion about DQs was here on page 5 of the "Why is America always assumed to be the centre of the wrestling universe?" thread.

 

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Posted November 22, 2023

  On 11/22/2023 at 10:09 AM, ohtani's jacket said:

There were all manner of awful finishes from injury stops to non-contests and DQs. I understand the reasoning behind the finishes, and I realize you can't have clean finishes to end every match. However, the bookers overdid it in WoS, and it became an easy out for not wanting one wrestler to go over another. I got my hands on an Alan Sargeant vs. Jon Cortez bout from the ITV archives that I was convinced was going to be an amazing bout since they're both outstanding workers, and after a handful of rounds they ended it with an injury finish. Call me bitter, but it was completely and utterly unnecessary and ruined what ought to have been a great match. This happened ad nauseum with British wrestling, to the point where paying huge amounts of money to obtain a match from the archives is a crapshoot. An absolute gamble. Some of the bouts I have are fantastic and some are utter disappointments, and a lot of that has to do with the booking.

 

Posted November 22, 2023

As for DQs, done the right way it can be very satisfying to see the heel sent packing in disgrace on a third public warning:

 

Current MC Laetitia Dixon-Allmark is particularly good at this - I have seen her lead All Star audiences in chants of "OUT! OUT! OUT!" at DQ'd and protesting heels.

 

 

 

[PeteF3]

It's a cute Eddie Guerrero-style finish...except Walton pretty much blows the call of both the finish itself and the aftermath. "Not the way Saint would like to win it..." Kent, dude, he literally fainted to deliberately frame McManus and he's pointing to his head afterward! If he didn't care to win that way, then why'd he do it and why is he celebrating? (And it's not put over as "Saint has had enough of Mick's tactics and is going this way as an absolute last resort," either. Saint saw an opening and took it.)

Believe me, I'm all for rules mattering and am of the belief that a DQ can be either a satisfying result (the heel gets what he deserves) or be the good kind of unsatisfying, the kind that leaves you desperately wanting to see a rematch, maybe with a gimmick stip attached. I don't think AEW or WWE do that kind of booking enough and tend to just skip straight to the gimmick match portion all too often. I think a total aversion to DQs really only works in an '80s UWF/'90s All-Japan-type environment where there's pretty much no gaga or interference or cheating or bullshit at all and everything is clean. Wrestling with gaga and bullshit *and* nothing but pinfalls and submissions is kind of the worst of all worlds. 

That said, there are plenty of occasions in all walks of wrestling all over the world where DQs are just used as a crutch because the bookers put themselves into a corner and don't want to actually job anybody and have no real intention of setting up a job to come later. 

[David Mantell]

14 hours ago, PeteF3 said:

Kent, dude, he literally fainted to deliberately frame McManus and he's pointing to his head afterward! If he didn't care to win that way, then why'd he do it and why is he celebrating?

OK I'll be honest, I hadn't spotted that either on first viewing so that makes two of myself and Kent. I'll have to check up on Martin Conroy's claim at the end that McManus had been "doing that for years." (how many good guys would be on their second and final for that to work for a heel like Mick? )

I'd still say it's structured like how a DQ finish should be, the fouling gradually building to a crescendo where the heel has proved himself/herself utterly incompliant with the rules due to being utterly out wrestled and you can see that same structure in the Haystacks vs Rasputin and Haystacks & Daddy Vs Viedor and Szackacs matches I posted in that other thread quoted above.

UPDATE: Nothing in Tony Earnshaw's late 70s book to say if McManus had pulled similar stunts in previous bouts.

[David Mantell]

On 10/28/2014 at 8:21 AM, ohtani's jacket said:

to set up a bout with the visiting Rick Hunter, who I believe was splitting his time between the AWA and the Pacific Northwest at the time (Joint billed him as being from Portland.)

Ah, I was wondering who this Rick Hunter was.  I guessed he would have some Don Owen linage if he was from Portland (it's not the sort of thing that would have occurred to him, I doubt he knew about Owen or PNW beyond anything Hunter had told him about his local scene back home.)

 

[khawk20]

Hunter was strictly a job guy in the AWA. An above average one for sure, he had some really nice tv matches, but a job guy nonetheless. 
Hunter in Portland I’m not so sure about.
 

[David Mantell]

On 6/9/2015 at 1:39 AM, ohtani's jacket said:

Marty Jones & Steve Taylor vs. Skull Murphy & Johnny South (8/24/88)

 

This was hands down the biggest disappointment of The Arthur Psycho Hour to date. I thought this had the potential to be really good w/ Jones, Murphy and South all involved, but it was an incredibly shitty attempt at playing WWF style wrestling instead of beating the tar out of each other. It started off promising with South having shaved his head to form The Manchester Hardman with Murphy, who was bedecked in La Parka's wardrobe. Skull cut an amusing promo where he claimed he didn't even know who Steve Taylor was. Jones retorted in his inimitable style. One of the greatest workers to ever live and one of the single worst promos in the history of the racket. Steve Taylor was the older brother of Dave and I guess coming out of retirement for this. He should have stayed retired. This sucked. Murphy and South cheated like brats instead of dishing out an asskicking and Marty spent more time posturing with his lazy eye then proving he was still world class. Taylor might as well have been invisible. Not good.

 

Like Kent Walton said, some tag bouts are good wrestling and some degenerate into fights. This was more the latter. It was from the same Bedworth TV taping as the match where Nagasaki hypnotised Brookside and was probably on last to send the crowd home happy. (It was also the final All Star bout on ITV - after this there was a WWF episode, one last Joint Promotions episode headlined by Pat Roach Vs Caswell Martin and then The Final Bell. Reportedly this episode was briefly in question as the IBA were none too happy about said hypnotism angle.) Although a slug- and punch it does have nice opening and equalising scores - Jones's folding press and Murphy 's gator.

The folding press does create some problems for later in the bout - Murphy's DQ should have been the decider (if his gator counted) or the second straight if it didn't, so why the extra session? South gets DQd also to make it 3-1 apparently!  Having said that Murphy throws a great Disqualified Heel strop afterwards threatening to hospitalise Jones next time they meet, almost as good as McManus in the Saint match.

South and Jones would meet again a decade later with the crowd on the other side as the Legend Of Doom beat Jones (who went arrogant heel in 1992) for the World Mid Heavyweight Championship May 1999 at Bristol's Colston Hall.

 

[David Mantell]

 

Some more Finlay - Interesting shoot interview with the then Carl Wallace of Double Trouble mainly focusing on Finlay and also on other British stars of the time.

I thought about posting it to the French Catch thread as I'd just posted a New Catch DT match from France against two Old Catch stars (Flesh Gordon and Franz Van Buyten) but the content has more to do with this thread and besides which Karl/Carl/Pierre says Double Trouble worked for All Star (which I don't recall but in those post TV years it could be patchy what you did or didn't know about. and indeed namechecks Brian Dixon.

 

[David Mantell]

On 8/4/2024 at 2:50 AM, PeteF3 said:

Saint's commitment to a clean counterwrestling style, to me, is contrasted and drawn out more when he's in with an actual foil. 

 

On 8/4/2024 at 7:19 AM, David Mantell said:

Also blue-eye versus heel and the concomitant crowd working can cramp Saint's style somewhat.  He and Finlay get away with it as that was more a vehicle for Finlay the heel than Saint the scientist but with other rulebreakers that can be a distraction:

How NOT to use Johnny Saint! 

Courtesy of Germany's VdB, 1987 (You can tell it's Germany what with the gong instead of a bell and the DJ between rounds.)

And I'm not just talking about Brody's attempt at the end to outdo fellow "South African" Col De Beers - (incidentally the former UK Magnificent Maurice and the former WWWF Polish Prince crossed paths in Germany quite a bit, indeed I think Ed W got the idea off Shaun B.)

Saint gets in a few of his tricks but is mostly used as a kicking bag to get the bigger dirtier wrestler some heat.

It's a pity because German audiences very much got the point of Johnny Saint as you can tell from the Johnny chant and some other German JS bouts I've seen. Brody could be a much better wrestler than this too - check out his 1991 Eurosport match with Owen Hart.

[PeteF3]

Obviously you still need a guy who can at least meet Saint halfway on the style, which Brody can't/won't. I wouldn't want to see Saint against Haystacks or Klaus Kauroff or even Pat Roach, either. But the contrast I talked about isn't on display here--Saint's taking on a role that Jim Powers could have filled.

[David Mantell]

8 hours ago, PeteF3 said:

Obviously you still need a guy who can at least meet Saint halfway on the style, which Brody can't/won't. I wouldn't want to see Saint against Haystacks or Klaus Kauroff or even Pat Roach, either. But the contrast I talked about isn't on display here--Saint's taking on a role that Jim Powers could have filled.

The Saint-Prince match was like that except Saint dominated and Prince was the comedy heel getting stroppy at being made a fool of.

Saint was better mixing his style with another master technician to create scientific classics with no distractions. Like combining two soup flavours. Being the moral counterpart to a heel was a distraction.

[ohtani's jacket]

I'm no Saint fan, but it wouldn't surprise me if there were some great Johnny Saint matches locked away in the archives. 

[David Mantell]

14 hours ago, ohtani's jacket said:

I'm no Saint fan, but it wouldn't surprise me if there were some great Johnny Saint matches locked away in the archives. 

Have you seen the camcorder footage of Saint putting over Danny Collins 1-0 at a venue in South West England? (as can be told from audience members' "Pirate"/"Wurzals" West Country accents)

[ohtani's jacket]

9 hours ago, David Mantell said:

Have you seen the camcorder footage of Saint putting over Danny Collins 1-0 at a venue in South West England? (as can be told from audience members' "Pirate"/"Wurzals" West Country accents)

What year is it from?

[David Mantell]

2 hours ago, ohtani's jacket said:

What year is it from?

1991, I believe.

Not to be confused with their Reslo bout which Saint wins.

[ohtani's jacket]

I don't think I've seen it. I haven' seen much footage post '88. 

[David Mantell]

It was on a Best of Johnny Saint compilation tape that @Britwresdvds sold me back in 2002ish. (assuming @Britwresdvds is who I think he is, namely Adam Mumford.)

[dawho5]

That Finlay vs. Zyrno match was great.  I jumped back into my Best of British Wrestling stuff and hit that 1981 Jon Cortez vs. Steve Grey match again.  Every bit as good as every time I've ever watched it.   After trying all the modern stuff for about a month that was a really nice return to wrestling I actually like.  I'm probably going to start mining this thread for good European/British stuff.  And that there French Catch thread.  That combined with what I have and the Puerto Rican stuff (how is it I love Puerto Rico and WoS style wrestling?) should be good.  With some other old stuff I have that is worldwide, it will make for a good cross-section of good wrestling from across the world.