The Beginner's Guide To British Wrestling

[David Mantell]

On 5/26/2015 at 5:35 AM, ohtani's jacket said:

Dave Finlay & Skull Murphy vs. Boston Blackie & Gary Clwyd (Caernarfon, taped 4/6/90)

Really fun bout. Finlay was back to his early 80s best for this Riot Squad tag bumping and stooging his ass off. Murphy wasn't quite as good as he had been in the 80s, but the magic was still there in terms of the Riot Squad. Such an underrated tag team. The fact that people are oblivious to this facet of Finlay's career is something that ought to be rectified as he ought to have a better reputation as a tag wrestler than he does (which is presuming that he doesn't have any reputation as a tag wrestler, unless people thought he was good in TV tags in the WWE). Even Regal kind of has a rep with the Blue Bloods and he Riot Squad fucking annihilate the Blue Bloods; I mean, who are Boston Blackie and Gary Clwyd? I saw Clwyd the other day in a boy's bout, but here they looked like a badass babyface tag team. Do you know how hard that is to do in British wrestling -- to look badass as babyface tag team? The Riot Squad deserve more attention.

In Britain, Finlay and Murphy were certainly NOT under-rated, they were a respected heel team and this whole reunion run was a big deal. ( Regarding the Blue Bloods, I think you're confusing having a rep with having had an American career.)

Finlay took Tony StClair's British Heavyweight title around this time and Blackie was being touted as a hot challenger. Clwyd as we've discussed got an extended push as a promising young Welsh lad and TV star in Wales and Southern ROI through Reslo. He clocked up some 14 Reslo appearances, often as a lighter partner in peril to the stars - Blackie here, Orig The Promoter, Flesh Gordon, possibly even Pat Roach. Had Big Daddy done more than the one Reslo bout (and not brought his own in house tag partner Scot Valentine and in house heels Dr Death and Count Von Zuppi).

The Squad get the 2-1 win here. I'm reminded how Kent Walton said tag matches could be either a great technical match or a great fight.  This was one of the latter.  Murphy gets a gator hold for a submission but otherwise it's the villains beating down on Clwyd and occasionally get hit back by Blackie. One of the lightweight plastic crowd barriers becomes a weapon of retaliation by Blackie and I don't blame the referee for not responding, it ranks alongside Big Daddy wielding a plastic bucket for an ineffective comedy weapon and the bucket was light relief.

I believe Finlay and Murphy went on to have a heel Vs heel match with Kendo Nagasaki and Blondie Barrett which sounds fun.

[ohtani's jacket]

Unfortunately, everything I wrote nearly a decade ago is still true today. 

[David Mantell]

7 hours ago, ohtani's jacket said:

Unfortunately, everything I wrote nearly a decade ago is still true today. 

I'd caution against confusing "having a rep" with having an American career. Boston Blackie and Geraint Clwyd each had reps in early 90s Wales and Southern ROI where the S4C signal could be received and Orig followed in with shows. They also would both have been familiar figures to regular attendees of the then booming All Star shows across the UK.

Finlay and Murphy clearly had a rep in early 80s Britain and there was enough rep in the tank for their early 90s reunion to be a big draw for both Dixon and Orig. Finlay was incumbent British Heavyweight Champion at this time and Murphy would go on to take the British Light Heavyweight title for a spell in 1995 from Alan Kilby.

Very few of the millions of ITV (and S4C)  viewers who knew and hated Murphy were even remotely aware of the original Canadian Joseph "Skull" Murphy who teamed with Brute Bernard (a few like myself saw a photo in Graeme Kent's book and wondered how he could be that old if indeed he was the same man.)

[David Mantell]

After thought on having a rep: The following had negligible or NO rep whatsoever in Britain - Dory Funk Junior, Terry Funk, Bruno Sammartino, Harley Race, Dusty Rhodes, Verne Gagne, Nick Bockwinkel.

My grandad 1902-1988 was a lifelong wrestling fan. His brother in law my Great Uncle Jack was a shooter in the gyms of the East End of London prior to WW1. I can safely say that he went to his grave never having heard of ANY of the above except just possibly Bruno whose 1976 Shea Stadium match with Stan Hansen (inexplicably billed as German heel Hors Hoffman) was shown as an appetiser at UK closed circuit broadcasts of Ali/Inoki but not in the ITV coverage and who was listed as World Heavyweight Champion in a sidebar to a 1977 TVTimes interview with George Kidd.

Had my grandad lived a few weeks longer he would have seen Harley Race's UK TV debut on ITV's 4th American Special of 6, dressed in a silly King getup (just like that Brian Maxine) and being steamrolled by the Ultimate Warrior. He would not have been impressed. Certainly not to the point of giving Harley Race a rep over here.

[David Mantell]

On 9/14/2014 at 11:35 AM, ohtani's jacket said:

Alan Dennison vs. Tally Ho Kaye (11/26/80)

 

This was the other semi-final of the 25th Anniversary Trophy tournament I was talking about the other day. On paper it was either going to be surprising good or complete horse shit. Thankfully, they worked like two old carnies and Kaye in particular took it seriously. He outshone Dennison with his antics and his one liners were awesome, accusing strongman Dennison of not being strong enough and claiming he was fighting a man now. I also loved the way he'd scream at the ref that Dennison's shoulders were down when they were nowhere near the canvas. Late in the man, it looked like he legitimately broke a finger (or dislocated it), but he worked it into his shtick and continued with the match. Very entertaining bout that instantly became one of my favourite Kaye bouts.

Pious Alan Dennison. Bear in mind most older British fans say they vastly prefer Dennison as he was in bouts like the 1972 Kwango bout and regard this version as a let down.

As a technician Dennison is, if not inventive, then at least a smooth operator, elegantly sliding into holds.  I love the double arm submission he used to get both his scores and his neat roll outs on the mat (not as good as Billington's but nothing to be sneezed at either as their 1976 bout showed.) The trouble is when he gets into righteous anger against a fouling heel. As I recall from childhood he came across like a smarmy self righteous school teacher and I felt sympathy for his cheeky schoolboy rival Jim Breaks. Kent Walton says that Dennison has an angry face on that viewers can't see (how he can tell, sat on the same side of the ring as the hard cam, is anyone's guess.) It gets to the point where this saintly man does a serious foul at the end of Round 3 and only gets a private warning due to retaliation.

To squash one myth in passing, THK is not doing an aristocratic gimmick. He is a huntsman and in rural areas a lot of common folk would join the hunt (still do with drag hunts.) To further prove he's not a toff, he speaks with a Yorkshire accent just like Leon Arras. He has a similar bragging personality to Arras which is why I don't count Arras as a comedy performer, I see him as an arrogant heel who so happens to speak broad Yorkshire, same as Kaye.

After winning this match, Dennison went on to lose a clean final to Alan Kirby.  I was watching this week in 1980 aged 6, I don't recall this semifinal but I do remember after Kilby's tournament win Alan made a speech about being glad that the deaf and dumb Kilby won. Talk about patronising the physically challenged.

[ohtani's jacket]

I'm not really concerned about how Finlay or Murphy were viewed by viewers in 1984. I was talking about internet wrestling circles in 2015. Specifically, the circles that this site was part of. 

Kaye was portraying a member of the upper crust. The accent was part of the gimmick -- a way for the fans to poke holes in the façade. 

It's been a while since I've seen Arras work, but from memory he talked to the crowd a lot and I'm fairly sure he worked comedy into his act. 

[David Mantell]

Quote

Dave Finlay & Skull Murphy vs. Marty Jones & Clive Myers (6/13/83) Dave Finlay & Skull Murphy vs. Marty Jones & Clive Myers (8/23/83

Good fast paced tag match. The Riot Squad in their first Flush  Despite how Dickie Davies put it, ITV Top Tag Team was not a formal title, just a trophy pair of belts that the Squad had won the previous year and Jones and Myers were now challenging them to. Some great near falls with double underhook suplexes (both sides) and side folding presses and an opener with a neat forwards folding press.

Not sure what @ohtani's jacket would make of the finish.  Double knockout outside the ring but according to Kent Walton the opening fall makes it a 2-1 win for Jones and Myers (the tape cuts off before this is confirmed.) Fans at the time would have been just happy to see the good guys bag the belts.

This was a part of the long running Jones/Finlay feud which started in 1982  as Kent says  with Jones refusing to present the British Light Heavyweight title to Finlay and which hit its peak with Finlay 's World Mid Heavyweight Championship run circa 1984. Ironic that Finlay would be the man to turn Jones bad in 1992 when they were forced to team and turned into a well oiled dirty wrestling unit, an experience which transformed Jones from a mild mannered sportsman into an arrogant self-proclaimed "World's Number One."

 

[David Mantell]

41 minutes ago, ohtani's jacket said:

Kaye was portraying a member of the upper crust. The accent was part of the gimmick -- a way for the fans to poke holes in the façade. 

Not really. The toffs organise the hunt (drag hunts these days) but the hunt itself comes from across the rural social spectrum. Kaye hunted down his opponent like a foxhound and when he caught him he blowed the bugle as was done at hunts when the fox was caught.

41 minutes ago, ohtani's jacket said:

I'm not really concerned about how Finlay or Murphy were viewed by viewers in 1984. I was talking about internet wrestling circles in 2015. Specifically, the circles that this site was part of. 

If you could get a lift back in time and materialise back in that hall in the early 80s would you tell all those people to their faces that they were a bunch of idiots who were getting it all wrong? 

I say styles of wrestling can only be judged by the standards of the wrestling cultures and social cultures that produced them. Not by some gold standard that traverses time and space.

41 minutes ago, ohtani's jacket said:

It's been a while since I've seen Arras work, but from memory he talked to the crowd a lot and I'm fairly sure he worked comedy into his act. 

He was an arrogant character who came undone and he had a broad Yorkshire accent and dialect. In other words, the same as THK.

How he came undone. especially against the likes of Kellet, could be a source of humour I suppose.  If Kellet had worked with heel Curt Hennig in his prime and had spent a match cutting Mr Perfect down to size, that might have made Hennig a comedy wrestler.

[David Mantell]

On 1/17/2016 at 1:41 PM, ohtani's jacket said:

Kamikaze vs. Tally Ho Kaye (5/11/82)

Kamikaze has got to be one of the worst characters to grace the small screen. This was over in a flash and was still pretty awful.

 

Well I liked Kamikaze when I watched this bout when I was eight. I especially loved the grinning slanty eyed mask - we had a can of rust repellent in the garage with a similar scary grinning face on it.

Kamikaze was Ian Gilmour repackaged as an update on Kung Fu Eddie Hamill.  (Clive Myers also started Iron Fist as a martial arts masked good guy- not on TV though.) The Jim .Breaks match (with him in his dark green top from his "Scotsmen" stint with Finlay on French TV 1980) is probably a better vehicle for the character. He gets his couple of minutes then Kaye gets a TKO and like a real good old villain accepts it. I liked as a kid how Kaye got scared of the scary mask!

[ohtani's jacket]

1 hour ago, David Mantell said:

Not really. The toffs organise the hunt (drag hunts these days) but the hunt itself comes from across the rural social spectrum. Kaye hunted down his opponent like a foxhound and when he caught him he blowed the bugle as was done at hunts when the fox was caught.

If you could get a lift back in time and materialise back in that hall in the early 80s would you tell all those people to their faces that they were a bunch of idiots who were getting it all wrong? 

I say styles of wrestling can only be judged by the standards of the wrestling cultures and social cultures that produced them. Not by some gold standard that traverses time and space.

He was an arrogant character who came undone and he had a broad Yorkshire accent and dialect. In other words, the same as THK.

How he came undone. especially against the likes of Kellet, could be a source of humour I suppose.  If Kellet had worked with heel Curt Hennig in his prime and had spent a match cutting Mr Perfect down to size, that might have made Hennig a comedy wrestler.

Kaye blew the bugle while the MC was announcing his opponent. it was pure and utter shtick. His gimmick was initially based on his supposedly legit showjumping background. Nothing about that screams rural type to me, and honestly I don't see how it would work as a heel gimmick if he was meant to be playing one. 

I think you're missing the point of what I was saying about FInlay and Murphy. 

There's only a handful of Arras matches on tape, so it's hard to tell if he was a straight comedy worker or a guy who used comedy in his matches like Jim Breaks. 

[David Mantell]

20 hours ago, ohtani's jacket said:

Nothing about that screams rural type to me

LOL I think you may need to do some reading up about foxhunting in the UK, but never mind.

He was a heel because he wrestled dirty, often against lighter opponents and was an arrogant SOB

A bunch of Yorkshire farmworkers who had travelled into town for a show with their wives in Leeds, Halifax. Bradford etc might very well be members of the local Hunt themselves but they would still heel out for Kaye as a nasty piece of work.

There's nothing posh about Sid Kipper (from Norfolk. solid WAW/Knight family territory. #naarfukngood )

 

 

Quote

There's only a handful of Arras matches on tape, so it's hard to tell if he was a straight comedy worker or a guy who used comedy in his matches like Jim Breaks

Without someone overtly comic like Kellet to knock him down a peg, Arras simply became an Uppity Yorkshireman (yes that is a stereotype he was playing to) who liked to brag and did so in the local dialect - "Ah noah tha REWLES" " Ow's about that then?"- not that far removed from THK.

By way of comparison, Vic Faulkner was a straight wrestler who happened to be a legitimate cheeky chappy type.  He and Mick McMichael used mild comic banter to convey their friendship, sportsmanship and general bonhomie while wrestling each other in what were first and foremost clean technical bouts.

[ohtani's jacket]

Tally Ho Kaye has nothing to do with that Sid Kipper song. Go watch his introductions on YouTube where Crabtree keeps calling him a sportsman and a country gentleman and he wears the bowler hat and monocle. It's no different to the Marquis gimmicks over in France. It doesn't carry over into the ring as much because that's the joke. 

[David Mantell]

3 hours ago, ohtani's jacket said:

Go watch his introductions on YouTube where Crabtree keeps calling him a sportsman and a country gentleman

Still has nothing to do with his social class and everything to do with his preferred social activities.

The Hunt aren't by any means necessarily aristocrats. Tally Ho Kaye isn't an aristocrat any more than the Hunt characters in that song.  Country sporting boys yes. Gentlemen - well, they might hope  Aristocrats? Not especially.

Only one person in this video (one of the two old ladies) speaks with an aristocratic accent, the rest speak in a rural  working class Surrey accent, similar to the working class accents of Sussex and Kent.

(DISCLAIMER - I do NOT support hunting or any other such bloodsports, I am merely debunking the idea that hunt followers of the kind depicted by Peter Kaye's wrestling gimmick were/are particularly  aristocrats. Just in case anyone sees this and Gets The Wrong Idea.)

3 hours ago, ohtani's jacket said:

. It's no different to the Marquis gimmicks over in France.

A Marquis is an actual title (lower than a duke, higher than a lord.). The original Marquis Eduardo treats the rules as a petty concern beneath his rank (a VERY stereotypical way for France's surviving modern aristocracy to behave! They just pretend not to notice/understand you). Jacky Richard's version of the gimmick dresses in 1700s period costume complete with powdered wig, the archetype of the pre-Revolutionary Ancien Regime. Steve Regal used similar comedy period costume in WCW to invoke America's pre-independence rulers from the same historical period as Marquis Richard De Fumolo. Most huntsmen (and women) in Britain are simple farmhands who could in no way afford to have a butler like Paul Butard running round after them with a feather duster!

[David Mantell]

Anyway, speaking of aristocrats - in America he was a Lord, in France he (and his partner here) were Aussies but back home in Britain he was a humble Judoka. It's ...

On 6/15/2015 at 5:37 AM, ohtani's jacket said:

Wild Man of Borneo & Steve Haggerty vs. Ray Hunter & Al Hayes (Paul Lincoln Promotions 1960s)

 

This was a transfer of an old 8mm Walton Films print presumably from the mid-60s. Unfortunately, whoever did the transfer didn't match the frame rate and the playback is slow. Nevertheless, it's a valuable piece of footage that shows not only the Wild Man of Borneo on tape, but also a look at a young Alfred Hayes and a spry Max Ward. People who think Bárbaro Cavernario does a good job of playing a caveman really ought to check out the Wild Man as he's pretty much the Captain Caveman of caveman gimmick wrestlers. He was a lot smaller than I expected (probably a middleweight by the looks of it) and pretty quick. His offence was obviously designed to match his character, but I liked his rolling bumps. Part of his gimmick was that no-one had ever seen his face so he wrestled with his hair covering his eyes and every time he'd bump you'd get this tiny glimpse of his face, which was neat. Hayes didn't show a heck of a lot of fire as a blue eye, but the tag structure was fortunately better than a lot of the World of Sport stuff. Not as good as the catch matches from the same era, but much clearer tag psychology and a fun bout. There's a short silent version on YouTube, but I have a longer sound version.

"Mike" Haggerty is of course Steve Haggerty, years later the smarmy one out of the Dangermen with Colin Joynson in 1972, a hapless Les Kellet victim around the same time and three years earlier in France 1969 teaming with Inca Viracocha to take on Les Celts (no pun on Les Kellet intended). 

Regarding Borneo, I've wondered if he was the same guy as M'Boaba on French TV several years later. More the sort of monster heels gimmick you would associate with America at that time.

Hayes was Paul Lincoln's White Angel, a ripoff of L'Ange Blanc in France who like Hayes  feuded with a black-masked heel (over there Le Borreau de Bethune, back here Lincoln as Dr Death)

Mostly it's just highlights of the big spots so hard to pick up any continuity.  Nice folding press pins from both good guys.

*********************

Am tagging @JNLister as he may know more. Apparently this film was by Paul Lincoln Promotions and they had a deal on with Granada Cinemas where they would do live shows in movie theatres which would then be filmed and the prints bicycled around other cinemas in the Granada chain.  What more do we know about this and do we know what became of the stock of these films? 

If we had it.it would be like having a 1960s version of Reslo or Screensport or the Pallos' 1981 video, a real record of the major opposition promoters and a counterpoint to ITV's 1960s kinescope stock if we had access to all of that. (Ironically that is also controlled by Granada who own the film archive of ITC's Wrestling From Great Britain.). It would be like Germany in the 80s with the two very different video sources, the professionally shot multicam IBV/CWA videos and the cheaply single handheld camera VDB videos, giving a view of almost two different subscenes.

We do at least know the ITV footage is preserved albeit mostly under lock and key, but what of the survival of the Lincoln films? Have any attempts been made to track them down?

[ohtani's jacket]

The Wildman of Borneo was an Indian wrestler named Gunga Singh. N'Boa the Snakeman was Congolese wrestler Bob Elandon. He wrestles under his real name in one of the Catch bouts. 

[David Mantell]

15 minutes ago, ohtani's jacket said:

Quote

Regarding Borneo, I've wondered if he was the same guy as M'Boaba on French TV several years later. 

The Wildman of Borneo was an Indian wrestler named Gunga Singh. N'Boa the Snakeman was Congolese wrestler Bob Elandon. He wrestles under his real name in one of the Catch bouts. 

Thanks for that. It's hard to tell under all that hair.

[David Mantell]

On 10/17/2013 at 11:44 PM, ohtani's jacket said:

Mike Marino vs. Amet Chong (12/11/74)

 

Amet Chong was billed as a Peruvian Indochinese wrestler, which for all I know was probably true. He worked the "non-English speaking wrestler can't understand the rules schtick" before Marino KO'ed him with a chop. Walton was trying to sell it as Chong not understanding the ten count in English, but shit was terrible. One of the worst WoS matches I've seen.

 

 

Sadly Amet Chong was probably neither Abdul Khan nor Chang Li (possibly the thinner, taller Chang). from French TV 10 months earlier although he has the same gimmick to look at. He claims to be a native of Indo China (Malaysia in new money. I believe?) , resident of Peru.I  rrespective of those points, Kent says he mostly wrestled in the United States so for all practical purposes he is an American Wrestler just live Owen Hart was a British Wrestler in practice.

@ohtani's jacket if it's any consolation, this bout was not going to be Kent Walton's cup of tea and he knows it. All Kent's favourite pieces of damning with faint praise are out in force "it certainly will be different" "quite an unusual style" etc etc along with a long spiel about the lawlessness and brutality of American Wrestling which he labels as All In, a separate sport banned in Britain in the 30s (and replaced by Modern Freestyle) but still running rampant stateside. Ironically until the Elite came along in the late 2010s, no one in America had eve heard of such a thing asAll In Wrestling unless they were very clued up to British cultural references like Monty Python's All In Cricket sketch or Rod Stewart's line in D'Ya Think I'm Sexy about "Never Mind Sugar, We're gonna watch the All In Movie" What it really was was that in the late Thirties, SlamBang Western was OK for small town Britain but just too much for England.  So we got our own more civilised upscale form of the game.

Chong goes wild gesticulates a lot like Les Mongolies in France.  Nice cross armed Scissor Chop Grovit. Not releasing on the ropes. Lots of closed fist punches get Chung a public warning. Marino starts round 2 with his signature move, escaping a side headlock with a corkscrew spin. Chong tries his scissor chop but it doesn't work. Uses the ropes and serial bushes to the head with a closed fist punch. Referee former British heavyweight champion Ernie Baldwin lets Chong off as Marino instead gets a closed fist punch of his own in for retaliation. More closed fist punches from Marino. Chong uses more closed fist punches and Marino again retaliates with a closed fist of his own. Marino comes out of nowhere for a forearm smash KO in round 3 to win.decisively if not scientifically. Chong was no stylist so he lost the same brutal way he fought.

Apart from that one spinning escape (already looking old in 1974 when guys were doing fantastic head standing escapes.) Not really exciting wrestling. Would have gotten over in a holiday camp, evil foreign unskilled wrestler gets vanquished by Golden Boy.  I wasn't expecting a technical classic but this wasn't my cup of tea either (I'm a coffee drinker anyway.) Nevertheless I shall persist with Chong and check out his 1980 German tournament appearance. Over to the German Catch thread ...

 

 

 

 

[David Mantell]

5 minutes ago, David Mantell said:

Sadly Amet Chong was probably neither Abdul Khan nor Chang Li (possibly the thinner, taller Chang). from French TV 10 months earlier although he has the same gimmick to look at.

Maybe I spoke too soon:

https://www.cagematch.net/?id=2&nr=10123&name=Amet+Chong

Quote

 

"Amet Chong

Also known as Chong Li Fu"

 

Who'da thunk it?

[PeteF3]

1 hour ago, David Mantell said:

 Ironically until the Elite came along in the late 2010s, no one in America had eve heard of such a thing asAll In Wrestling unless they were very clued up to British cultural references like Monty Python's All In Cricket sketch or Rod Stewart's line in D'Ya Think I'm Sexy about "Never Mind Sugar, We're gonna watch the All In Movie" 

"If it's All In, why wrestle?" --Mae West, supposedly.

[David Mantell]

3 hours ago, PeteF3 said:

If it's All In, why wrestle?" --Mae West, supposedly

Even if not just supposedly (and that's a big If already), whither context and provenance?  How did she hear the phrase? Atholl Oakley and Henry Irslinger coined the phrase (to mean no holds barred, not No Tactics Barred) in Britain so how did an American like her get to hear it?  Was she talking to a Brit and responding to them?

[PeteF3]

I have no idea. It was Stephen Fry's show-closing quote on an episode of QI and there was no further context (other than it was Mae West speaking about All In Wrestling.) QI is not 100% infallible but I trust Mr. Fry.

[David Mantell]

11 minutes ago, PeteF3 said:

I have no idea. It was Stephen Fry's show-closing quote on an episode of QI and there was no further context (other than it was Mae West speaking about All In Wrestling.) QI is not 100% infallible but I trust Mr. Fry.

Apparently she was commenting on a wrestling movie called Foxcatcher.  The only film I can find called Foxcatcher is this one which, Ironically is about Olympic wrestling.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxcatcher

There's nothing strange about Stephen Fry having heard of All In Wrestling. He is, after all. British. The buck - or rather the quid - stops with him.

If there was an earlier pro wrestling film called Foxcatcher, was it a British film?

Source: https://www.thetimes.com/article/baftas-2015-best-and-worst-moments-qfspg55q3mt so says Google but you have to get past a paywall to see the info

[David Mantell]

Anyway I stand by my point. It was never a term in America.

[PeteF3]

Of course, Fry has heard of everything, but I have no answers about Mae.

I don't know of any reference to Foxcatcher as it relates to wrestling amateur or pro, outside of John DuPont's Olympic team and the subsequent Steve Carell movie. Fry had to be referring to that movie if it's the 2015 BAFTAs. So it's clearly not what Mae West was referring to.

[David Mantell]

Possibly Fry was BSing without doing his homework.

Or the original Foxcatcher was a British film - perhaps in the style of the original "Night and the City" (which got remade as a film about unlicensed boxing.)