The Beginner's Guide To British Wrestling

[David Mantell]

9 hours ago, PeteF3 said:

Am I listening to The Clash wrong because I didn't grow up in the Winter of Discontent? Is it cultural appropriation for me to listen to Ladysmith Black Mambazo?

It would be more an issue if you were criticizing them based on cultural expectations that did not relate to the original context. If you are enjoying them, go ahead and enjoy it.

I did A Level Spanish at school and studied Golden Age Spanish literature as part of the course. We did Pedro Calderon De La Barca's La Vida Es Sueno from the 1600s.  Our teacher forbade us from reading ahead of him because we had all studied Shakespeare in English classes but Spanish theatre of that same period was based on very different principles (a strong emphasis on poetic justice for example) and he did not want us mistakenly applying Shakespeare's rules to Calderon.

Or more to the point he did not want us thinking Calderon was  a rubbish playwright whose plays didn't make sense and who should have taken some tips from a "REAL" writer like Shakespeare.

[David Mantell]

8 hours ago, WingedEagle said:

Those not the only two approaches to British wrestling, other European territories, or any wrestling. Nor are those the only two approaches to any consumable culture, for that matter. But I am sorry if you're unable to recognize any other ways to tackle such material.

It seems to be the problem with fans brought up on American Wrestling that they will condemn British matches for reasons that do not apply and would have been alien to the original British audiences. The insinuation seems to be that the whole of the British and indeed the European business was somehow "getting it wrong" - to which I have to ask why is the American way of doing wrestling just assumed to be the correct definitive way?

[WingedEagle]

Can you remind me where I or anyone here recently said British or any wrestling was inherently "wrong?" Unless my memory is fading I asked (in another thread, no less) for some help approaching French Catch other than consuming the entire available library. Unclear how that sort of inquiry would be taken as an attack or praise of the content itself but you're certainly free to make that interpretation.

[David Mantell]

On 12/29/2015 at 11:54 PM, ohtani's jacket said:

 

Doc Dean vs. Danny Boy Collins (Caernarfon, taped 2/27/95)

What was with Orig Williams and dancing gimmicks? First it was Dave Taylor then Drew McDonald and now Doc Dean. At least he got a pair of dancing girls, but a disco gimmick in 1995? Maybe they still had discos in Wales. Pretty good bout. Dean was a good worker. By this stage, the UK style had become homogeneous with wrestling from the US and Japan and lacked the idiosyncrasies that I find so appealing about it, but these guys could work.

 

Dealing with dancing first - in Dave Taylor and Alex Wright's case it was a German idea that white meat babyfaces should be dancing pretty boys rather like the spare members of a boy and. Blame it on the cultural impact of Take That and Boyzone. Here, I think Orig was trying to do his own version of Flesh Gordon 's skimpily dressed dolly birds in late 80s/early 90s France. There was a lot of cultural interest in the 90s running into the 00s in fab N groovy seventies kitsch, from clubs like Plastic Palace People to the Flares nightclub chain to movies like the Austin Powers series. It even found its way to WCW with Mike Awesome's "That 70s Guy" character.  What's slightly more odd is giving him the Des Moines name and billing him from Canada - most fans in Britain knew exactly who he was!

Danny seems to be a bit of a hybrid here - he turned heel on Doc and Robbie iBrookside in Croydon nearly a year earlier and has his Dirty Dan leotard on but is introduced as Danny Boy and not doing very much in the way of heeling - he gets a mixed reception from fans, some of whom knows what he's been doing lately, most of them just know him of old and cheer him although Disco/Doc is clearly the favourite.  (Dean had his own heel past - teaming with Jimmy Ocean in France on New Catch- ironically against Danny!). Danny doesn't really do anything illegal here, in fact at the end he and Dean shake hands like good sportsmen, so I would have to conclude that Danny has reverted back into blue eye mode for this bout.  There are a few bits of good technical wrestling - a Doc Dean folding press which Danny smartly crawls out of, Danny reversing a Doc figure four headscissors into a Frank Gotch figure four toehold and then switching to a facelock,  now if only he'd kept hold of the toehold and made it an STF!!! - and some nice aerial bits such as one powerful dropkick from each man and Doc's winning flying bodypress at the end.  Mostly it's a battle of power as the now bulkier Collins (who over the next year or so will relinquish the World Middleweight and British Heavyweight Middleweight titles and unseat Alan Kilby for the British Light Heavyweight Championship) pounds away of Dean like he was Ax or Smash of Demolition and Dean gamely returns fire.

I wanted to post a good scientific Doc Dean match as an antidote to the bout with John Kenny on the German thread. This has its momeybut it's not quite what I was after.  How about ...

[David Mantell]

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

Robbie Brookside vs. Doc Dean (Pontardawe, taped 4/4/89)

 

OK, now this was something. These two were long time partners on the British indy circuit as The Liverpool Lads with their struggles as independent wrestlers being captured in Robbie Brookside's Video Diaries documentary for the BBC. I think they ended up getting a gig with NJPW through Finlay's connections and later becoming jobbers for WCW, but at this stage they were like the Bryan Danielsons of their day. This was a really beautiful old-school style bout with some fucking great wrestling. It actually blew me away as I was expecting to be plenty cynical about it. It would be easy to say it was a ROH syle deliberae homage to old-school WoS and therefore not authentic, but fuck it... It was great WoS wrestling and up there with Brookside vs. Saint and the better of the two Brookside/Regal handhelds.

Yes, this is more like it!

Doc and Robbie were not yet the  Liverpool Lads in 1988 although they had tagged up together as teenagers on the holiday camp circuit in 1984-1985. Doc made his one ITV appearance around this time while Robbie was immersed in the Golden Boys tag team with Regal. (Referee is another Liverpool lad, All Star boss Brian Dixon). They still have a fine match here with Dean realty rolling out from Robbie throws, from a side chancery and a whip.  Robbie rolls to untwist armbars but Doc keeps his grip and develops the lever into an armscissors and and armhank.    Doc even keeps control through a Brookside monkey climb, scissoring the wrist for good measure and using the arm force cross buttock and pin attempt.  He even regains the arm after withstanding a leapfrog into snapmares, a reverse scoot through the legs , a fireman's carry, repeated headlock attempts. Brookside takes over with an ankle lock. developed into a leglock while Doc tries to regain the arm. After they get up for some running action, Robbie drop toehold trips Doc into a figure four toehold with cross face (again, almost an STF) then a Boston Crab.  Doc reaches the ropes and It's back to running action as Robbie scores two bodychecks and Doc a Great Muta reverse shoulder lock. Robbie waistlocks Doc Dean into a folding press for a 2 count and inner forearms him (clothesline was a new word in 1988) for another pin which Doc bridges out of. Doc rears out of Robbie's full nelson and sunset flips him for a 2 count of his own and then two more tries with a leapfrog into double leg takedown folder and another held by the legs from which which Robbie crawls free. Robbie goes from headlock to upper armlock working on the shoulder then back to headlock then into a further nelson pin attempt which Doc bridges out of  beautifully (despite the recently worked-on shoulder).  Doc nearly gets a KO with a backdrop,  Robbie flying bodyscissor throws Doc and hooks the legs but Doc "bascules" (as French commentators called it) Robbie straight into the corner pad - talk about Running Out Of Mat.  Doc tries another cross buttock and press pin with the arm from earlier, Robbie tries a backslide, both only get 2, Doc rolling off the backslide nicely.  Doc misses another cross buttock and Brookside flying tackles him for another couple of 2 counts.  Robbie drop toeholds into another figure 4 toehold and goes for the facelock - almost that STF but doc resists, keeping flat on the mat.  Robbie tries for a KO with a Rude Awakening and a pin with a Russian Leg sweep, Doc bridges out. Doc drops Robbie backwards. Robbie doubles up Doc with a knees and then German suplexes him finishing it off with a bridge to get the three for the win.

A fine classic technical match to remind us how much better the late Ian Doc Dean could be than that Germany throwaway with John Kenny and also that later period  Reslo was not just about cages. chains, razzmatazz and other such imported Americana, there was a solid backbone of classic s identification British wrestling there.

 

[David Mantell]

1 hour ago, WingedEagle said:

Can you remind me where I or anyone here recently said British or any wrestling was inherently "wrong?" Unless my memory is fading I asked (in another thread, no less) for some help approaching French Catch other than consuming the entire available library. Unclear how that sort of inquiry would be taken as an attack or praise of the content itself but you're certainly free to make that interpretation.

Okay.how about this from page 1:

On 3/31/2012 at 5:33 AM, ohtani's jacket said:

So what is it that people don't like about British wrestling? The sudden injections of comedy? The rounds system? The awful finishes? The cooperative looking holds? Perhaps people don't like how wrestlers falling out of the ring is sold like death or perhaps they don't like how guys do massive flips off finger locks. Or perhaps it's as simple as the general repetitiveness.

Emphasis on that line because OJ and myself go into a more detailed debate about this on this thread here:

 

It's not particularly you, it's more a general disagreement I have with fans brought up on American wrestling, even Brits brought up on WWE.  Although yes OJ and myself have gone hammer and tongs about it.

The  whole eye of the beholder thing is why I felt inclined to warn against lists of top matches but there is one on that page 1 for you.

 

[PeteF3]

4 hours ago, David Mantell said:

It would be more an issue if you were criticizing them based on cultural expectations that did not relate to the original context. If you are enjoying them, go ahead and enjoy it.

Got it. Cut the Crap is the greatest album of the 1980s. Any criticisms of the dumbed-down songwriting, patchwork band lineup, and horrible production is purely based on cultural expectations that don't relate to the original context.

[David Mantell]

3 hours ago, PeteF3 said:

Got it. Cut the Crap is the greatest album of the 1980s. Any criticisms of the dumbed-down songwriting, patchwork band lineup, and horrible production is purely based on cultural expectations that don't relate to the original context.

If a long haired Led Zeppelin fan were criticizing it for the lack of virtuoso guitar pyrotechnics and the songs only being 3:minutes long then yeah that would be unreasonable.

Calling CTC a poor reheat of the Clash's first album without the spirit or chemistry of the original (less still the original 1977 UK Vinyl tracklisting before Epic watered it down for Americans by chopping out Deny, Cheat, Protex Blue, 48 Hours and the original White Riot) is however a fair cop.

[David Mantell]

 

 

See, this was one of my favourite bouts ever, but would you write it off on account of the No Contest (Refused TKO) finish?

[WingedEagle]

6 hours ago, David Mantell said:

Okay.how about this from page 1:

Emphasis on that line because OJ and myself go into a more detailed debate about this on this thread here:

 

It's not particularly you, it's more a general disagreement I have with fans brought up on American wrestling, even Brits brought up on WWE.  Although yes OJ and myself have gone hammer and tongs about it.

The  whole eye of the beholder thing is why I felt inclined to warn against lists of top matches but there is one on that page 1 for you.

 

Got it. Watch it all so that you can appreciate it all. And if you don't appreciate it all, dumb American. Or something along those lines. I'm all for knocking most Americans these days -- we deserve it! (I know, I know, PWO) but failure to appreciate a particular style of wrestling or following a rigid, gatekeeping approach to evaluating said style seems awfully rich. Nonetheless, duly noted.

[David Mantell]

1 hour ago, WingedEagle said:

And if you don't appreciate it all, dumb American. Or something along those lines.

Well to be fair I've come across plenty of Americans who accept and enjoy European, especially British wrestling and accept that it is a different beast. And I've met many fellow Brits who treat "old school" as some sort of  crime against Smartness on a par with Bob Backlund getting the WWWF title in 1978

4 hours ago, David Mantell said:

7 hours ago, PeteF3 said:

Got it. Cut the Crap is the greatest album of the 1980s. Any criticisms of the dumbed-down songwriting, patchwork band lineup, and horrible production is purely based on cultural expectations that don't relate to the original context

If a long haired Led Zeppelin fan were criticizing it for the lack of virtuoso guitar pyrotechnics and the songs only being 3:minutes long then yeah that would be unreasonable.

Calling CTC a poor reheat of the Clash's first album without the spirit or chemistry of the original (less still the original 1977 UK Vinyl tracklisting before Epic watered it down for Americans by chopping out Deny, Cheat, Protex Blue, 48 Hours and the original White Riot) is however a fair cop.

Better analogy - using Corporate, sorry, Combat Rock as stick to beat CTC is unreasonable since CTC was intended as a backlash against Combat Rock (Such was the intention of the horrible production, an attempt to do punk lo fi). However. using the original UK 1977 vinyl version of the first Clash album as a stick to beat CTC is fair game since CTC is a poor attempt at doing another punk album.

[ohtani's jacket]

I don't see the point in having an argument over an 8 minute Danny Boy Collins vs. Nipper Riley bout that was JIP. Ten years ago, I said it had some decent action but was nothing overly special.

The beginning of the thread lists many matches that I think are special or at the least worth watching. You do not have to be British to enjoy them. You do not have to have grown up watching British wrestling to enjoy them. You do not have to have to enjoy them for the same reasons that British fans enjoyed them. You do not have to understand or appreciate every cultural nuance. You do not have to buy into a narrative about every British fan having impeccable taste in wrestling or a developed palette (this is a crock.) Analyze and dissect them the same as you would with any other form of wrestling. Find the things you like and watch more of it. A lot of the reviews in this thread were extra stuff I watched after I'd burned through everything else. This thread doesn't contain a lot of reviews of the stuff I enjoyed the most. A lot of that was either posted on WKO or in the Microscope. 

[ohtani's jacket]

5 hours ago, David Mantell said:

 

 

See, this was one of my favourite bouts ever, but would you write it off on account of the No Contest (Refused TKO) finish?

That finish is disappointing, but you accept it and move on. Marty comes across as a classy competitor and the match is basically a draw. It's not the worst finish in the world, but it's hardly what you'd call a good finish. It's a creative way to ensure that never man loses face. To some fans, it probably took on more of a sporting context, but folks are here have seen far more wrestling than most and can see the strings being pulled. 

[David Mantell]

1 minute ago, ohtani's jacket said:

Analyze and dissect them the same as you would with any other form of wrestling.

This is the issue- I don't agree that there is a one size fits all approach to analysing and grading different pro wrestling styles from across the globe.

Re. "Pallette" my point there was that certain finishes that you dismiss as awful. (Knockout, DQ, No Contest) fans of those other wrestling cultures may regard as highly effective and therefore should not be condemned out of hand when they occur in those other styles of pro wrestling.

[David Mantell]

4 minutes ago, ohtani's jacket said:

folks are here have seen far more wrestling than most and can see the strings being pulled

Can they? Or are they just applying their own preconceptions to a style that doesn't fit them?

[David Mantell]

8 minutes ago, ohtani's jacket said:

the match is basically a draw

It's a way of curtailing what would otherwise be a 1-1 Broadway. But the "oh what a pity, it was all going so splendidly" aspect really meant something to these fans and would have them calling out for a rematch ASAP, whereas a straight up draw would just leave fans accepting them as equals, end of story.

[ohtani's jacket]

2 minutes ago, David Mantell said:

This is the issue- I don't agree that there is a one size fits all approach to analysing and grading different pro wrestling styles from across the globe.

Re. "Pallette" my point there was that certain finishes that you dismiss as awful. (Knockout, DQ, No Contest) fans of those other wrestling cultures may regard as highly effective and therefore should not be condemned out of hand when they occur in those other styles of pro wrestling.

There is no group think on this topic. It's not American fans watching British wrestling matches. Its wrestling fans watching wrestling matches and discussing them. If people have differing opinions on the merits of certain tropes then open it up for debate. Honestly, "you're not British so you can't  understand why this finish is good" will turn people off from watching the matches. For years, people watched Japanese and Mexican wrestling without understanding the language, the culture or the people, liked the matches for different reason than the Japanese and Mexican fans did, and dismissed things that the audiences likely enjoyed, but you cannot control that type of thing once the match is out there. It's the equivalent of an artist who is upset because their work is being misinterpreted. 

[ohtani's jacket]

9 minutes ago, David Mantell said:

Can they? Or are they just applying their own preconceptions to a style that doesn't fit them?

You tell me why they booked that finish then. Do you think it's the perfect finish to the bout? Would you have booked it differently? You can have a test match that ends in a draw and folks still remember a sparkling century or an incredible bowling performance, so I don't think anyone would outright dismiss a Marty Jones vs. Caswell Martin match (and they shouldn't since those were two of the finest workers in the business at that time), but I cannot imagine anyone thinking "boy, I'm glad they booked the finish that way." 

[David Mantell]

5 minutes ago, ohtani's jacket said:

Honestly, "you're not British so you can't  understand why this finish is good" will turn people off from watching the matches

They don't have to be British, they just have to open their minds to how other fans have other definitions of good or bad.

[David Mantell]

3 minutes ago, ohtani's jacket said:

but I cannot imagine anyone thinking "boy, I'm glad they booked the finish that way." 

Like I said, the alternative would have been a 1-1 draw which possibly shut the door on a potential rematch.

To be honest though, I get so engrossed by the action in that bout that the finish doesn't feel that important to me. It's just how it was brought to a halt. 

[ohtani's jacket]

9 minutes ago, David Mantell said:

It's a way of curtailing what would otherwise be a 1-1 Broadway. But the "oh what a pity, it was all going so splendidly" aspect really meant something to these fans and would have them calling out for a rematch ASAP, whereas a straight up draw would just leave fans accepting them as equals, end of story.

That's a nice idea, but there were very few instances of this actually happening. Especially televised rematches. 

 

3 minutes ago, David Mantell said:

They don't have to be British, they just have to open their minds to how other fans have other definitions of good or bad.

Let people decide for themselves, I say. 

[David Mantell]

24 minutes ago, ohtani's jacket said:

That's a nice idea, but there were very few instances of this actually happening. Especially televised rematches. 

Let people decide for themselves, I say. 

Well I know of two Marty/Caswell rematches and my favourite Saint/Faulkner 1-1 draw was a rematch from an earlier NC.  Faulkner and Mick McMichael got about 8 bouts out of a variety of finishes.

I'm fine with that as long as they don't then turn round and say that for decades the combined UK (or even European) wrestling industry and its public were Getting It All Wrong.

[WingedEagle]

28 minutes ago, ohtani's jacket said:

That's a nice idea, but there were very few instances of this actually happening. Especially televised rematches. 

 

Let people decide for themselves, I say. 

Novel idea, but apparently inappropriate and wholly dismissive as is typical of Americans (if I recall you're not American ). I guess I'll have to fall back on watching wrestling regardless of my legal and cultural citizenship.

[ohtani's jacket]

36 minutes ago, WingedEagle said:

Novel idea, but apparently inappropriate and wholly dismissive as is typical of Americans (if I recall you're not American ). I guess I'll have to fall back on watching wrestling regardless of my legal and cultural citizenship.

Ha, I belong to the Commonwealth so technically I can say whatever I want. 

[WingedEagle]

53 minutes ago, ohtani's jacket said:

Ha, I belong to the Commonwealth so technically I can say whatever I want. 

Amen. That's how it works here as well. For now!