The Beginner's Guide To British Wrestling

[ohtani's jacket]

How many millionaire British wrestling fans do we know?

[ButchReedMark]

Well Brian Dixons one.

[ohtani's jacket]

Discovery of the day -- I may have previously mentioned in this thread that ITV had a load of reels of film of 1960s shows that is sat gathering dust because they charge a large sum just to play it and see what's on it, then another large sum to get a copy (which comes with no reproduction/distribution rights.)

 

Turns out it's actually just short of 450 reels of the midweek broadcasts. If one reel=one show, that's the best part of the decade covered.

 

Do you know if the 16mm prints of Rocco/Jones and Masambula vs. Leon Arras ever converted to DVD?

[ohtani's jacket]

Giant Haystacks vs. Johnny & Peter Wilson (4/23/85)

 

This was supposed to be a handicap match for Haystacks, but having Peter Wilson in there made it more of a handicap for Johnny than Stax. The Wilson brothers went after Haystacks with the fiercest body blows they could muster, but were no chance against a ballooning Stax.

 

Big Daddy/Drew McDonald vs. Giant Haystacks/Fit Finlay (5/2/84)

 

So here we go, Daddy vs. Haystacks. I've been putting off watching these matches for years. On one hand, this was a shitty main event for a Cup Final Day. On the other hand, it wasn't the worst professional wrestling I've seen. Finlay, who was growing his hair out here and had a bit of an odd look, was the pinball for Daddy and was pretty decent. The thing you always hear about these matches is that Daddy stayed on the apron while his smaller, more talented partner did all the work, but I think that's a bit of a fallacy. Finlay vs. McDonald made up the bulk of the match, but Daddy tagged in more than he's given credit for during the HOF voting season. Most of the time, Haystacks avoiding facing Daddy, which was the way they built heat for their singles match(es), but on this occasion they squared off, and it's hard not to get a kick out of two extremely fat men colliding with one another. The problem with the bouts is the shitty finishes. The DQ was their out every single time. The payoff was meant to be that Daddy would get Haystacks one-on-one in a fight to the finish, but you had to be there I suppose.

 

Big Daddy/Alan Kilby vs. Giant Haystacks/Wild Angus (4/29/81)

 

We got to see the entire Big Daddy entrance here -- kissing babies, pushing a kid in a wheelchair, showing respect to the elderly. The whole bit. Shit was faker than the in-ring action and best avoided, unless you want to go around whistling "We Shall Not Be Moved" for the rest of the day. This was Cup Final Day once more, and they took advantage of the larger than usual TV audience to promote the Wembley Arena showdown between Haystacks and Daddy by basically having the heels re-injure poor Al Kilby (who had cartilage damage) and leave Daddy fuming. Match was a non-event, but a decent promotional tool.

[ohtani's jacket]

Ian Gilmour/Jeff Kaye vs. Johnny Saint/Steve Best (aired 12/2/72)

 

This was the best British tag match I can remember seeing. British tag wrestling had this strange convention where the teams had nicknames (in this case the Barons and the Elite, and not the "Elites" as Walton nitpicked over when the onscreen graphic appeared), but there were no tag belts or anything of consequence to the bouts. This was a spectacle, but it had a narrative to it as well. The match turned on a crisscross spot where Gilmour and Best were running the ropes, Best dropped to the canvas in a press-up position and Gilmour did a Giant Haystacks style splash onto Best's back, injuring him in the process. Gilmour went for the pinfall, but Best caught him in a body scissors and was able to pry Gilmour off him. That has to be one of the coolest defensive spots I've seen in a wrestling match. After that, Best's back was a weakness and Saint had to do a lot of wrestling for his side. The action went back and forth and there were a tremendous number of nearfalls and exciting pinfall attempts. Saint and Kaye in particular shone, as you'd expect from wrestlers of their calibre. Really exciting match.

 

Big Daddy/Mal Sanders vs. Giant Haystacks/Mark Rocco (11/13/79)

 

Rocco and Haystacks were a great combination. You can just imagine them backstage hatching their plans to take down Daddy. Much of the action here was centred around champion vs. champion with Rocco being the British Heavy-Middleweight champ and Sanders being the European Middleweight champion at the time, but it wasn't long before Rocco was bumping like a maniac for Daddy taking high back body drops and bouncing around the ring. Sanders was also a brave man, taking the full weight of Haystacks' splash right across his mid-section. That was Sanders done for the night, and Rocco followed shortly after with a disqualification leaving Haystacks and Daddy alone together. Daddy began shunting Haystacks around like he was a freight car, so Haystacks bailed and the public would once again have to wait. It's a shame we didn't get to see more of Haystacks and Rocco as I really liked the spot they did where Rocco whipped Sanders into the corner and Haystacks clobbered him with a giant forearm. Haystacks then pleaded with the ref over the public warning while Rocco beat the crap out of Sanders illegally. Beautiful stuff.

 

Big Daddy/Giant Haystacks vs. Steve Veidor/Tibor Szakacs (4/6/76)

 

This was these teams' first match from Croydon, which was Veidor's hometown. I think Daddy missed his true calling as he was a natural prick and should have stayed a heel. Perhaps in the 80s when business began to struggle they could have turned Daddy heel to shake things up. This was another fun bout. I liked the return match more because of how fired up Veidor and Szakacs were, but this was the catalyst for that performance. There wasn't much in the way of wrestling, but Veidor hit the most gorgeous dropkicks. He really was some athlete.

 

Big Daddy/Gary Wensor vs. Giant Haystacks/Big Bruno Elrington (9/26/78)

 

Daddy carrying a toddler to ringside was slimier than the slimiest politician, and he looked just as crooked during the ring intros. Brian was beaming too, in case you had any doubt that the Crabtrees had taken over. Poor Gary Wensor had the ignominy of being Daddy's worst ever partner here. He was replacing Dave Armstrong, who failed to make it to the building, and was instantly a whipping boy for Big Bruno Elrington. Haystacks managed to distract Daddy and the ref with a faked walk out and then Elrington finished off the meek Wensor. Haystacks then took over, and since the babyfaces never broke up the pinfall attempts in WoS, the unthinkable happened and the heels actually got a victory over Daddy. Apparently, this was the last time that Daddy lost on television, which is ridiculous given the amount of tags he worked.

[ohtani's jacket]

All right, time to wrap up this Big Daddy/Haystacks feud:

 

Big Daddy/Alan Kilby/Pat Patton vs. Giant Haystacks/Scrubber Daly/Lucky Gordon (11/1/83)

 

This was just the pits. Fuck knows what Al Kilby or Pat Patton were thinking. Up until the Wembley bout there was at least some novelty to Daddy vs. Haystacks, but in '83 it was time to move on. Haystacks managed to scrounge Scrubber Daly and Lucky Gordon up from somewhere and looked to have an advantage over Daddy when Patton was unable to continue, but Daddy was in such bad shape that there wasn't even a FIP segment on Kilby. I've never seen a match where the faces are in such dire straits and there's no heat segment. This was a "fall out of bed" kind of match and they couldn't do it. Just awful.

 

Giant Haystacks/Bully Boy Muir vs. Big Daddy/Tony St. Clair (4/19/78)

 

Haystacks was rocking an amazing afro in this match. That's about all he was rocking though as he was disqualified straight away for attacking Tony St. Clair before the bell. That left Big Daddy one-on-one with Muir while St. Clair was laid out on the apron doing his best impersonation of an All Japan tag match. Muir got a decent cheap shot in on St. Clair when he was whipped into the corner and stuck a leg through the ropes, but this was one way traffic and God knows what the public thought of it as Cup Final Day fare. The finish was an absolute mess with nobody but the ref realising that one fall and one disqualification was enough to end the match. Hell, even Walton didn't know it was over and thought Muir had decided to quit. It's staggering how poorly executed a lot of these main events were.

 

Big Daddy/Tony St. Clair vs. Giant Haystacks/Albert Hillbilly Hell-On (1/25/78)

 

This was weird. Albert Hillbilly Hell-On was billed as being from Tennessee and literally all he did was look confused and eat the pinfalls. St. Clair shouldered the load here and had rope burn and a bloody nose to show for it. St. Clair was one of the lighter heavyweights at the time, but he looked like a twig next to Haysacks. Daddy looked remarkably thin by his standards and even had a specialty move (a kind of back body drop thing with a pin.) It was early days with his face turn and he was still fleshing things out. Dunno who Albert Hillbilly Hell-On was. It was all a bit baffling really.

 

Big Daddy/Ritchie Brooks/Roy Regal vs. Giant Haystacks/Sid Cooper/Charlie McGhee (11/13/86)

 

What can a person say? Daddy had a full on marching band here. At one point, I was a bit worried about one of the kid's drums with all these fat men flying around, but thank heavens no instruments were harmed. Regal and Brooks must have thought they'd made it making it onto ITV television. In the halls, they could have probably tore the place down. Sid Cooper was still plowing away in '86 and tried his best to work some decent exchanges with Brooks. I can't recall too much else about this other than Daddy inexplicably got a pinfall over Haystacks, and he had a marching band.

 

Big Daddy/Jim Moser vs. Giant Haystacks/Big Bill Bromley (10/11/82)

 

I've liked Moser in other stuff he's done, but Moser vs. Bromley was never going to be enough to hold my interest in this one. They teased a battle royal spot in this match where both Haystacks and Daddy looked like they might fall onto Walton's commentary desk, which quite frankly would have been brilliant, and it was amazing how gassed Daddy was after trying to lift Haystacks. He was hunched over in his corner and I was worried about his ticker for a second. Moser was taken out like so many before him and again there was no heat segment on Daddy. He even scored another pinfall over Haystacks. Is there no stopping this man? Apparently not when he's running into people.

 

Big Daddy vs. Giant Haystacks (6/18/81)

And finally here it is, Wembley Arena 1981. The Wrestlemania III of British wrestling. A no rounds, no falls, fight to the finish that could only be won on a knock out. Two referees, the Reverend Michael Brooks in Big Daddy's corner and Anaconda and Banger Tony Walsh in Haystacks' corner. Two minutes and fifty seconds of the most amazing wrestling you'll ever see. Two giants going at it hammer and tongs. Each showing the other no mercy. Haystacks came agonisingly close on the splash, but by some miracle Daddy rolled out of the way. On and on they battled with no end in sight until finally the fates intervened. A little sweat on the canvas? We'll never know, but Haystacks slid, then stumbled, and fell... fell over the top rope and down into the bowels of the earth. Unable to mobilise his gigantic frame, this lionheart was counted out. And to be bloody fair, it's not easy to move an ass that big in only 10 seconds. For a match that was four years in the making you'd think they might have actually teased Daddy losing, but at least it wasn't boring.

[ohtani's jacket]

Some rare 70s footage:

 

Peter Rann vs, Bert Royal (aired 6/28/72)

 

Rann was one of the biggest rule-benders in the middleweight division, but he wasn't at all flamboyant. Aside from his mop of grey hair, he was indistinguishable from the blue eyes he fought against, and this in the era of the Streets and the Maxines. A talented grappler, he'd usually spend the first round working a clean bout then start his tricks from round two. One of his favourite tricks was sitting on his opponent's chest while pretending to adjust his trunks. While the ref checked the shoulders, Rann would reach behind his trunks and punch his man in the stomach. Royal got royally fired up at this; disproportionately so it seemed. That led to a ton of niggle and any chance of a wrestling match got thrown out the window. Royal seemed just as guilty to me, but part of Rann's schtick was that he'd get himself DQ'ed in the stupidest of fashions. Here it was after he'd taken the opening fall. He picked Royal off the canvas and punched him in the face, after the bell and right in front of the ref. That was an automatic disqualification and a rather premature end to the bout. To be honest, I would have rather seen them wrestle as Rann wasn't domineering enough to work the sort of match where a blue eye gets roughed up by the heel and Royal took too much of the bout.

 

Peter Rann vs. Alan Colbeck (6/27/73)

 

I've only ever seen Colbeck as a ref. He was an excellent technical worker, though perhaps a little dry. His work had a real Ken Joyce feel it though. That classic British maestro feel. I loved the way he'd push down on the head when he executed a back breaker. Little details like that really make it seem like they've trapped their opponent. Rann again wrestled a straight bout before getting into his usual tricks. Another trick he did was untie his opponent's bootlaces. It wasn't clear why he did this, but he loved that spot. This followed along similar lines as the Royal bout, though Colbeck wasn't anywhere near as fazed as Bert was. Rann got himself DQ'ed again with a punch right in front of the referee, and it really seemed as though he needed help for this problem. Some kind of clinical psychiatrist or behavioural . Poor sod. I liked this better than the Royal match as when they wrestled it was high calibre stuff.

 

Ray Steele vs. Ali Shan (3/29/77)

 

Excellent heavyweight contest between Steele and a Pakistani wrestler that Walton tried to bill from the Kashmir, but who probably wasn't. Shan was carrying some sort of finger injury, which seemed legit, but Steele being the sportsman that he was didn't take advantage of it. He did get a bit fired up when he couldn't put the Pakistani away, but went after the leg and not the fingers. Good action in this one, as you'd expect from Steele, and in the end a quality draw. Another very good British heavyweight contest.

[JNLister]

"Big Daddy/Ritchie Brooks/Roy Regal vs. Giant Haystacks/Sid Cooper/Charlie McGhee (11/13/86)"

 

Fair bit of significance to this one, even if it's via hindsight. It was the last match aired by Joint while they still had exclusive coverage. The following week you had All Star's debut with Liger, the returns of Rocco & Nagasaki to TV, and the lunacy of the disco ladder match. Two weeks after that you had the first WWF show with Hogan-Savage from MSG. In both cases viewers must have seen a major contrast.

 

It's also the match that convinced Regal to become one of the few to jump from Joint to All Star, reasoning he'd never improve while working with Daddy & Co.

[ohtani's jacket]

Tiger Dalibar Singh vs. Skull Murphy (3/5/87)

 

I thought I'd watch a bunch of matches from a guy I've never really given a fair shake to, and that's Skull Murphy, but after watching this I'm not so sure I should. This has to be one of the most dull, flat and boring WoS bouts I've seen. Murphy is a brawler and a quasi Alan Dennison style strongman, but he puts nothing into his strikes not even a grunt or a groan or a pantomime "grrrr." The length wasn't an issue here as they got plenty of time for a 1987 bout; it was just such a shitty caricature of a heel vs. face bout. It wasn't all Murphy's fault, as Singh, whom I like, was about as thrilling as stepping in dog turd. He wasn't about to take Murphy places he wouldn't ordinarily go, hence the mediocrity. I should probably eject now on this little mini-project, but I'll give it a few more matches to see if Murphy surprises me.

[ohtani's jacket]

Skull Murphy vs. Jim Moser (1/26/88)

 

Here's another reason why wrestling lost television: too many veterans. While it was great to see Moser back on television and everything, he was a guy who had been kicking round since the early 60s. When you compare that to the Killer Bees, or whatever random WWF was airing, British wrestling looked outdated and obsolete and it was hard to imagine it surviving in this format as the pensioners began to drop. You could get away with it in the 70s because there were so many television stars, but ASW really diluted the talent pool and it says a lot that Joint Promotions were booking guys like Moser. The match was marginally better than the Singh bout, at least when Moser was on offence, but it was heavily clipped and had a shitty finish where Murphy won two straight with his gator submission without bothering to tease a Moser comeback.

[ohtani's jacket]

Dave Finlay/Skull Murphy vs. Alan Kilby/Steve Logan (11/9/82)

Dave Finlay/Skull Murphy vs. Johnny Wilson/Peter Wilson (11/9/82)

 

Man, it's night and day between Murphy's late 80s work and his work here as one half of the Riot Squad. This Murphy is awesome. Anyone who's seen Finlay's early work knows he had a mean streak, and Murphy complemented that perfectly as his hoodlum partner. It was toned down for TV, but in the halls it must have been nasty. Murphy was leaner here and much quicker. He took more bumps, but it was his offence that impressed me. Like Finlay it was based around elbows and knee drops (w/ the occasional punch thrown in), and it was all so well timed and tight looking. If you'd asked me what to expect, I would've said Murphy will drag things down, but he made the bouts better. The psychology wasn't the greatest as in both tags the Riot Squad managed to isolate one of their opponents and take their falls rather methodically, but the work was excellent. I wish they'd gone with a proper big match main event for the tournament final, but these are shortcomings with the booking. At least they put a weight limit on the tag teams so that the fatties couldn't participate. 1982 Skull Murphy was a nice revelation, now I want to see if he was this good all the time or if it was Finlay rubbing off on him.

[JNLister]

Believe it or not, I saw Murphy wrestle last year. Obviously very limited, but to be fair he did a good job of disguising the fact that he wasn't leaving his feet.

[JerryvonKramer]

Just heard a cool story I'd never heard before about how Alfred Hayes became "Lord" Alfred Hayes and got his move to America. They were wrestling at the Royal Albert Hall, where apparently the Duke of Edinburgh used to be a regular and one time him or another Duke got into the ring and shook hands with all the wrestlers. Hayes managed to get hold of a photo of the Duke shaking his hand and then sent the picture to promotions round the world which got him booked. Love that story, everything about it says "pro wrestling".

[ohtani's jacket]

Kid McCoy/Greg Valentine vs. Skull Murphy/Dr. Death (1985)

 

Now here's something. I'm sure you've all read comments on YouTube from fetishists, but did you know there was a 1985 fancam focusing on Kid McCoy's butt? In between close-ups of the Kid's ass, we get bits and pieces of a match from the halls w/ the Valentine parts edited out as this is evidently a Kid McCoy video. It even omits the opening fall since the Kid didn't score it. Instead, it focuses on the beating McCoy receives at the hands of Murphy and a guy who I'm not even sure is the Paul Lincoln Dr.Death. McCoy's selling was excellent. I'm not sure if it was because the camera was focused on him, or if it was because of the sustained FIP segment, but it was different from how they'd work on television and closer to US style tag wrestling. Still no hot tag, but the beatdown was there. The other difference from television was that after the bout Brian Crabtree encouraged the youngsters to get their heat back with a bit of retaliation -- double teaming the doctor and removing his mask. That's a far cry from "a hand for the losers," and a reminder that the halls were where you had chain matches and bloody brawls.

[Lee]

Just heard a cool story I'd never heard before about how Alfred Hayes became "Lord" Alfred Hayes and got his move to America. They were wrestling at the Royal Albert Hall, where apparently the Duke of Edinburgh used to be a regular and one time him or another Duke got into the ring and shook hands with all the wrestlers. Hayes managed to get hold of a photo of the Duke shaking his hand and then sent the picture to promotions round the world which got him booked. Love that story, everything about it says "pro wrestling".

 

 

I'm sure I've heard a follow-up story where Hayes is challenged on his authenticity by a radio show host who decides to call the British embassy or something like that to confirm it, and the phone just so happens to be picked up by a wrestling fan who realises immediately what's going on and decides to play along, insisting that "Lord Alfred" is a widely-revered nobleman in his homeland.

[ohtani's jacket]

Tony St. Clair vs. Bob Abbott (3/14/73)

 

This was a fine sporting contest without a lot of heat. Abbott was making his television debut but despite Walton's best efforts to question why the promoters hadn't put him on television before, and put him over as a local Nottingham boy, he didn't have quite the charisma or confidence of his opponent. A couple of Walton's pet peeves were on display here, one being the director getting Abbott's name wrong (listing him as "Bud" Abbott of Abbott and Costello), the other being a plead for people to not write in correcting him over where St. Clair was billed from. The on screen text may have been a rib; the letters I can imagine ITV received dozens per week correcting Walton over something. What did surprise me was that Walton referred to a St. Clair vs. Steele match from a few weeks earlier that he called one of the best matches he'd ever seen. I was aware of which wrestlers Walton rated, but I'd never heard him talk about a match that way. This was good and Abbott had some nice counters, but he needed to be less reserved as St. Clair looked more natural getting toweled off in the corner than Abbott did all match long.

 

Steve Veidor vs. Bob Abbott (3/27/74)

 

A year later and Walton was still pushing for Abbott to be on television more. I've often wondered what the politics of that sort of thing were. And was Walton shooting from the hip or was it just commentator-speak? As it was, Abbott had a half dozen appearances or so over three years and was never seen again. Not a bad wrestler, but like a lot of guys he was missing that spark that separated a guy like Veidor from the rest of the pack. Britain was full of heavyweights in this era, but Veidor was head and shoulders above most as a master stylist and a hugely charismatic individual. But even he could never pry the title from either Albert "Rocky" Wall or Gwynn Davies, as interesting Joint Promotions preferred to have a heel on top. Some lovely wrestling here from both men and Abbott again contributed a lot of nice holds, but the kind of match for a lazy summer's afternoon and not the kind of barn burner Veidor usually had against heels. I could watch him any time, though. Such a beautiful stylist.

[ohtani's jacket]

Tibor Szakacs vs. Big Bruno Elrington (12/4/74)

 

This was a surprisingly good match. Bruno Elrington was this really big cumbersome guy who couldn't even making his clubbing strikes look good, but Szakacs worked a fantastic match from underneath and there was a huge amount of tension around whether he could beat the larger man. He had a bit of trouble applying his usual leg scissor holds against Elrington and so he changed his strategy towards leg locks and grounding Bruno. Bruno got frustrated with this and began bending the rules, which upset the grandma brigade. At one stage, Elrington and Szakacs were tangled up in the ropes and a woman at ringside began slapping Elrington. As you can imagine, the heat was tremendous, and when Szakacs finally landed his back handed chop both Walton and the crowd exploded. After so much work on his leg, Elrington was beginning to limp and looked slightly gassed. The crowd was on edge over whether Szakacs could beat him and that sort of tension was rare during television bouts. If Bruno had been a marginally better worker I would have listed this for sure.

 

Tibor Szakacs vs.Gargantua (5/8/74)

 

This was a real come down after the last match. Gargantua was Big Jim Moran, who sometimes went by the alias of Man Mountain Moran, so this was another match with Szakacs vs. a big man, but was largely shtick looking to a DQ.

 

Les Kellett vs. Tug Holton (2/13/75)

 

Not the best Kellett match available in large part because his opponent didn't offer much, but there were a couple of funny moments involving Kellett standing on Max Ward's foot and the usual antics of Kellett pretending not to hear the bell. And again, he looked like the hardest bastard in all of professional wrestling.

 

Steve Veidor vs. Gordon Corbett (11/16/76)

 

I was excited to see a nice face on the small screen only to discover that Corbett only appeared once (at least as himself; he appeared a couple of times under a mask doing a heel exorcist gimmick.) Veidor worked this one as though Corbett was a handful and did this really cool extended arm leveler attack. Good bout.

[ohtani's jacket]

Dynamite Kid vs. Tally Ho Kaye (1/12/77)

 

No matter what people think of the Dynamite Kid these days, there's no denying he was a talented teenage wrestler. Dynamite's biggest strength was his execution -- an attribute he was already showing at age 17. He just had so much more poise than other workers his own age, and I wonder what might have become of him had he stayed in England and spent his career there. If you've ever seen Tally Ho Kaye, you'll know his matches had a paucity of wrestling, but he was a heat magnet and like Breaks vs. a youngster it gave Dynamite the chance to really get the crowd behind him. I'm not sure how good Dynamite was at mat wrestling at this stage, but his throws were outstanding and Kaye milked the heat opportunities for all they were worth. Not a great bout from a technical standpoint, but an entertaining enough excursion.

 

Dick Conlon vs. Jackie Pallo Jr (3/14/74)

 

Pallo Jr was better than I would have expected, though wasn't as talkative or lippy as his old man. Conlon was how you would imagine a jobber to the stars if they had a slight heel push (in this case a Mexican bandito moustache.) All told it was a decent bout, but what surprised me was that Walton gave a kayfabe reason for the Pallos starting their own promotion and more or less said they wouldn't be on television anymore. Afterwards, Pallo leaned down to ask Walton if his performance had been alright. Walton congratulated him and the pair shook hands. Not sure if that was a goodbye or if Walton was just tight with the Pallos, but it was against the norm. This was wrestled at Gravesend and that little old lady who was always in the same front row seat sure loved her "Jack." She was incredibly vocal the whole match long to the point where the crowd teased her about it, but you should hear her give Max Ward an earful. Classic stuff.

 

Barry Douglas vs. Johnny Peters (2/25/76)

 

I discovered in this match that there were moves which were banned in Sheffield by the local watch committee. These included the back elbow, the arm leveler over the shoulder joint and the headbutt. I asked the folks over at Wrestling Heritage whether these regulations were enforced or not and apparently it was serious business. The local council would send people to the hall and if any of the moves were performed they had the authority to shut the place down. This was a lot more interesting than the match, which was technically okay but had no heat whatsoever and Walton brought up Douglas' connections to the local promoters too much which gave it a kind of nepotistic feel that it probably didn't deserve. One thing is for sure, he wasn't the Southern Terry Rudge as his Wrestling Heritage profile used to claim.

 

Young David (Davey Boy Smith) vs. Bernie Wright (8/2/78)

 

This was billed as a special "teenage match." You can imagine the response I'd get if I posted it on YouTube. Davey Boy was 15 here and Wright 17. It was possibly the skinniest pro-wrestling match I've ever seen. It's weird seeing Davey Boy as a skinny 15 year old without a hint of a single anabolic steroid. You wonder what was going through his mind at the time. Also knowing the type of person he became, you begin to wonder whether the child was father to the man. At any rate, neither kid knew many holds so this was largely bumping and throwing. Bernie Wright had a neat little stomach throw that Walton was fascinated with. No real surprises here.

 

Chris Adams vs. Ringo Rigby (11/9/78)

 

I was curious to see this as Ringo and Adams went off to North America together. The footage didn't capture all of it, but it didn't really matter as it was a shitty tournament bout with this stupid rule that after the first fall they would both put on their gi and have a special judo throws challenge. Pretty crappy.

[ohtani's jacket]

Colin Bennett vs. Tony Caine (11/7/74)

 

This was Tony Caine's television debut for Joint Promotions. He was doing a Hell's Angels knockoff with the peroxide blonde hair and effeminate mannerisms, but didn't have the flamboyance to go all the way with it. I don't know why they bothered giving him this gimmick as he was tattooed and nowhere near as pretty as Barnes or Street. In fact, he was so committed to either his amateur club or pro-wrestling tuition that he had a tattoo of two wrestlers grappling inked on his chest. Anyway, after some weak Hell's Angels shtick he got himself DQ'ed. Not an auspicious debut, but perhaps not deserving of the panning Walton gave it. Caine appears to have never wrestled on television again while Bennett would take his fireman background to ridiculous extremes with a gimmick straight out of Postman Pat.

 

Bobby Graham vs. Bob Abbott (11/7/74)

Walton was still on the Bob Abbott bandwagon here, but what an odd match. It was largely dominated by the heel Bobby Graham with a few brief flurries from Abbott. It's rare that you see a heel initiate the action the whole way through, and with Walton trying to paint Graham out to be a wrestler better suited to tags it was baffling when that dominance turned into an easy one fall victory. So much for Abbott and his potential.

Ivan Penzekoff vs. John Cox (11/7/74)

This was the main event of a pretty crappy Leamington Spa taping. John Cox was a real lump of a man and Walton didn't give Penzekoff much of a chance by going up a weight to face him. Penzekoff started off with a bit of light comedy, but then took over the bout to the point where Walton was complaining about how Cox was wrestling. Cox was pretty awkward looking, but he did hit some nice body checks and a headbutt during his comeback. Walton didn't like this bout at all and even called it slow. It ended with Penzekoff getting himself disqualified Peter Rann style. The second disqualification of the taping. The fans walked out as soon as it was over. I wonder if they put Penzekoff on last because there was a bar tab in Leamington like there was in Bristol and Croydon.

[ohtani's jacket]

Pete Roberts vs. Dave Bond (5/2/84)

 

This was a nice bout between two guys I really like, but unfortunately it only lasted two and a half rounds. Since it was a one fall bout that's a realistic amount of time for one wrestler to score a fall, but I would have liked at four rounds. What we did get was enjoyable with Bond shelving the heel tactics and bringing his working boots. The body checks were solid, that's for sure.

 

Pat Roach vs. Magnificent Maurice (3/21/83)

 

This aired in full on The Wrestling Channel but my man send me the original broadcast version. I can't say I'm in any great hurry to rectify that, but this wasn't too bad. Maurice was basically doing his Colonel Brody shtick under his old exotico name. Brody wasn't the best wrestler around and Roach had plenty of better matches, but it was solid. The narrative was a fairly common one in that Maurice gave Brody more trouble than he was expecting (Walton loved to play on this riff), and the big man finally prevailed while getting his latest movie plugged.

 

Pat Roach vs. Tarzan Johnny Wilson (3/5/84)

 

Johnny Wilson is a guy I've really come to appreciate. He was a bit of a nondescript guy -- just a great body and a pair of leopard skin trunks -- but like John Elijah he was always reliable and everything I watch him I end up thinking: "yeah, that was a good bout." This was a no rounds, 20 minute time limit bout that ended up getting pretty chippy. Roach was like a bear with a sore head when he couldn't put Wilson away. The only thing I disliked about it was Roach couldn't lift Wilson properly for the Brumagen Bump and it seemed like the match was teetering towards a draw then Wilson tried an attack off the ropes and was countered for a pinfall with four seconds remaining. That tells you a bit about Johnny Wilson's station in life.

 

Bobby Ryan vs. Steve Grey (1/13/81)

 

This was a tournament match so it was always going to be short, but three and a half minutes? Wildly disappointing.

 

Marty Jones vs. Bernie Wright (8/19/87)

 

This was all right, I suppose. There was something wrong with the top rope in the opening round and they had to stop the bout for a while. Jones was either legitimately hurt or tried covering for the mishap by working an injury; either way he favoured his side for the remainder of the bout. He was slightly past his prime here and was beginning to pack on a few extra pounds. Bernie Wright has always been a guy who's missing something, but I'll be damned if I know what it is. They actually called off the first round here, which I thought was odd.

 

Marty Jones vs. Black Jack Mulligan (6/28/84)

 

Man, Blackjack Mulligan was a jobber to the stars here. I was surprised by how much of a squash this was. Jones looked sensational as he was still one of the best in the world here, but it's rare that a guy will dominate like this even in a catch weight contest. Walton likened it to a cat playing with a mouse, but I've got to say Mulligan earned my respect for doing the job like that. I think they were trying to build Jones back up for a rematch with Finlay. Walton was amusingly biased towards Jones. Jones gave Blackjack a forearm after the bell and Walton was making up all sorts of excuses like the bell being difficult to hear. Ventura would have had a field day with those sort of comments.

 

Marty Jones vs. Caswell Martin (10/28/87)

 

Marty Jones' World Mid-Heavyweight title defence streak became a minor deal in the latter years of wrestling on ITV and they'd try to add all this pomp and circumstance to the defences on the terribly revamped stand alone show. It was really depressing and small time compared to the natural buzz around a title match in the 70s and even the early 80s. More annoying for us, they strung together only bits and pieces of what was an 8 round match between two of the best wrestlers still on television for Joint Promotions. Even TWC didn't seem to obtain the full bout. Frustrating.

[Sidebottom]

 

Discovery of the day -- I may have previously mentioned in this thread that ITV had a load of reels of film of 1960s shows that is sat gathering dust because they charge a large sum just to play it and see what's on it, then another large sum to get a copy (which comes with no reproduction/distribution rights.)

 

Turns out it's actually just short of 450 reels of the midweek broadcasts. If one reel=one show, that's the best part of the decade covered.

 

Do you know if the 16mm prints of Rocco/Jones and Masambula vs. Leon Arras ever converted to DVD?

 

Wasn't even aware there were any 16mm prints of British footage post 1960's...

[JNLister]

IIRC, what Otani'sjacket is talking about here is a couple of prints that were produced by ITV and sent to a foreign network (or may even have been for use as inflight entertainment somewhere) and wound up on eBay. Not sure what became of them.

[ohtani's jacket]

The Rocco/Jones bout I think we may already have. The Masambula bout is from '72 and would be a nice addition to the footage that's out there as he was one of the biggest TV stars of the day and we only have one singles bout of his.

 

Alan Kilby vs. Johnny Wilson (12/7/81)

This would be a main event any night of the week as far as I'm concerned. Love these guys and was pleased to see this. World of Sport joined it late, but it was every bit as good as an Al Kilby/Johnny Wilson match possibly could be. There was never going to be a winner in this one as it didn't serve either guy to lose, but unfortunately they went the injury route with a no contest. Kilby did sell his wrist tremendously well. What a fantastic worker he was. I can't think of anyone better who debut in the 80s. That decade would be sorely lacking if he'd never taken up the sport.

Alan Kilby vs. Black Jack Mulligan (3/17/1981)

This was supposed to be a return bout between Kilby and Mike Marino, but Marino was injured and Mulligan was the stand by. Unfortunately for Mulligan that meant another squash. I swear I remember Mulligan getting treated better than this at some point.

Pat Roach vs. Dave Bond (4/23/86)

This wasn't too bad for a match so late in the piece. It was actually on the same episode as the great Marty Jones vs. Bull Blitzer (Steve Wright) bout, which is arguably the last truly great WoS bout. They cut out an entire fall which truncated it a bit, but what was shown was good. The size difference was interesting. I generally think of Bond as a pretty big guy at least when he's in the ring with lighter men, but Roach made him look small. It's easy to forget just how big Roach was at times especially because of how agile he was. Interesting finish here as Roach knocked Bond out with a big boot, which wouldn't ordinarily knock someone out you'd think, but was a cool finish here with a nice sell from the soul man Bond.

Dave Bond vs. Ray Steele (1/19/1983)

Okay bout. Joined too late to really get a feel for it.

[ohtani's jacket]

Young David vs. Black Jack Mulligan (11/8/80)

 

Not enough of this survives to really form an opinion, but considering that even Davey Boy Smith took two straight from Jack Mulligan, this notion I had that Mulligan was something more than enhancement talent has been well and truly put to bed.

 

Alan Kilby vs. Chris Adams (12/17/80)

 

For about a month from the end of November 1980 to just before Christmas, Joint Promotions ran a tournament to commemorate 25 years of wrestling on television (a bizarre mix of heats, injury withdrawals, quarterfinals decided by throws, and even a walk over when Breaks walked out on a match and refused to continue.) The prize was the coveted 25th Anniversary Trophy, which would look good on any wrestler's mantelpiece. Kilby and Adams made the semis, but drew and were forced to have this rematch on the night of the final. Rematches being what they were, the promoters decided to make it the first to 10 throws. Not really a match as such, but they milked it for all it was worth and the crowd were into it. A glitch in the VHS tape saw the match jump from the beginning to the end, but Kilby made it through 10-9.

 

Alan Dennison vs. Alan Kilby (12/17/80)

 

With the boss of World of Sport in attendance to present the trophy, both wrestlers took this fairly seriously. I was surprised by the lack of shtick from Dennison, who was usually a very talkative wrestler. He did start to pipe up deep in the match when the trophy was really on the line, but for the most part this was a pretty straight up bout from Dennison. I was rooting for Kilby despite the trophy not being very important and it being a 33 year old result just because I like the guy, but his victory was genuinely exciting and he seemed legitimately thrilled. He did this random back flip bump and his second rushed into the ring to hug him. They even brought out his wife and kids to share the moment with him. The WoS bigwig presented the trophy and Dennison got on the stick to remind everyone that what we had to remember was that this man was both deaf and dumb, as though we could somehow forget with the number of times Walton mentioned it, but that little bit of awkwardness couldn't spoil what was a great moment for a great wrestler.

 

Clive Myers vs. Johnny Kidd (11/13/84)

 

This was from the original broadcast and therefore was joined in progress. What was shown was decent action, but Myers won in straight falls and I was surprised that he didn't do more to put Kidd over as he was usually the type of worker to do that.

 

Pat Patton vs. Johnny England (11/18/81)

 

When I saw that this went the full six rounds, I struggled to think how they would fill in 30 minutes. Patton was basically a Kung Fu knockoff with an ugly green gi, and England was this mini-Adonis who was a body building brat. It was literally the type of match I would overlook every single time I flicked through the match listings, but this not only surprised me, it ended up being just about the best bout you could get from two no-name workers in a television setting. The match went for a long time without any score with England dictating terms through his strength holds and Patton looking dangerous with his quick counters until England finally scored a submission. He tried to sit on his lead and got the crowd up in arms over his time wasting while Patton did everything he could to get back into the bout. Very exciting finish to a bout I had zero expectations for.

[ohtani's jacket]

Pat Roach vs. Tony St. Clair (8/5/80)

 

This was a re-watch of a bout I saw many years ago. Back then I was young and stupid and thought Tony St. Clair wasn't very good and Roach was carrying him. Nowadays, I realise that Tony St. Clair was a fine wrestler and that this was a meeting of equals. Really fun bout that was held back only by the booking, which was never going to let one guy go over the other cleanly. Roach was transitioning from a heel into a blue eye here and that in itself was an interesting metamorphosis.

 

John Quinn vs. Johnny Wilson (3/12/80)

Digbeth was such an interesting venue. It was like this mini amphitheater where the wrestlers almost seemed encaged. Whatever you think of the way John Quinn was ultimately used by Joint, you can't deny that the lead-up to his headline matches was extremely well done. Of course, Johnny Wilson being Johnny Wilson, he gave him a fight and together they produced some pretty damn good TV. Wayne Bridges came to ringside after the bout for what looked to be a contract signing, but the tape cut out before we saw what happened.

Ringo Rigby vs. Steve Peacock (3/12/80)

I don't think Rigby was ever better than in 1980, but Peacock was no Barnes or Street. Not much to write about here.

Keith Haward vs. Kurt Heinz (3/25/80)

Heinz was this tattooed, shaven head guy who was quite an interesting looking fella for 1980 World of Sport. He lasted about 30 seconds into the second round of his television debut before being squashed like a bug. Walton cracked me up by saying he hoped to see more of Heinz because he's great~!

John Naylor vs. Jackie Robinson (5/13/80)

World of Sport only aired the scoring action from this, but what was shown looked really good and I say that as someone who's in no way fond of Naylor. Jackie Robinson was a great worker though and sadly underrepresented on tape. I'll give Naylor a lot of credit for this though as he looked in sharp form.

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.