Marty Jones

[Grimmas]

Discuss here.

[cheapshot]

I am a big Marty Jones fan I am strongly considering him for a top 100 place. I will concede that there are better overall workers than Marty, however where Marty's strengths lie is in his ability to get a good match out of almost anybody. Also his dropkick is awesome.

[ohtani's jacket]

I think you can argue that from '76 to '84 Jones was one of the best workers in the world. He has a strong case for being the best guy in the UK during that period as well. Grey and Breaks were consistently better television appearance to television appearance but Jones had the most high end matches. I can think of at least five Jones matches that would be contenders for the ten best WoS bouts on tape.

[DR Ackermann]

I've seen very little Marty Jones, but if that Terry Rudge match on YouTube is a good representation of his work and there's enough footage then he could do very well on my list.

[ohtani's jacket]

Marty Jones is the kind of wrestler that people around here are geared towards liking. I have no doubt that Regal and Finlay would tip their hat and call Jones the Daddy. He had the kind of psychology that people like from those sort of workers.

 

Here's my list of recommended matches:

 

Mark Rocco vs. Marty Jones (6/30/76)

Terry Rudge vs. Marty Jones (11/30/76)

Mark Rocco vs. Marty Jones (7/26/78)

Marty Jones vs. Tony St. Clair (9/26/78)

Marty Jones vs. Johnny South (10/7/81)

Marty Jones vs. Dynamite Kid (1/19/83)

Marty Jones vs. Dave Finlay (4/4/84)

Marty Jones vs. Dave Finlay (11/23/84)

Marty Jones vs. Bull Blitzer (Steve Wright) (4/23/86)

Once you get deeper into the Marty Jones catalogue there are the inevitable disappointments and his form wavered as he gained weight in '85, but even late in the television run he's one of the more consistent workers and tries to carry the flag with a series of title match defences. They just clip the shit out of his matches, that's all.

[Jimmy Redman]

OJ basically makes the argument for Jones. In that 75-85 decade he was great, and overall probably has the best body of work of any WoS guy. His best stuff is great, and he is also good at getting something watchable out of just about anyone.

 

He'll be on my list and above everyone from WoS besides Breaks. MAYBE Rocco.

[ohtani's jacket]

I don't think Marty will do as well on the final list as he should, but that's where we're at in 2016. Glad you enjoyed him, though, Jimmy.

[Dylan Waco]

I have been avoiding writing a longish piece on Marty like I've done with a lot of the other WoS guys because I'm not really sure where to go with it He's a very confusing wrestler to me because I used to absolutely love him, and I don't much disagree with the idea that he's probably got as many good matches as anyone from the Brit scene in the 70s and 80s. Having said that rewatching things over the last couple of months his star has really faded with me.

 

It's not that he's bad. He's clearly a good worker. He has good highspots, he always brings effort, he has strong technique, and I think he is effectively working underneath. That said he does not jump off the page at all. Watching a litany of his matches in recent weeks I can count maybe three occasions where I thought he was better than or equal to his opponent, and 2 of those were against the erratic Rocco. I do think he worked really well v. Pete Roberts and was kind of stunned to see OJ wasn't terribly high on those matches as they were the only Jones matches I saw where Jones really came across like a world class worker to me.

 

Maybe it's just my preference for the type of wrestlers they are, but I was shocked at how much I preferred the performances of Rudge and Finlay to Jones. While I wouldn't use the term carry job, almost everything interesting in the Rudge match I would argue was due to Terry. Perhaps even more shockingly I thought St. Clair was better than Marty in their head to head which I never would have guessed coming in. Maybe it was Jones getting him to rise to that level, but it was still somewhat shocking.

 

I think what hurts Jones most to me is that the Brit style is one I often associate (fairly or not) with subtitles, nuances, and tactical approaches. I never really get that from Jones. Maybe I'm just overlooking it, because OJ is calling him a psychologists of the Finlay/Regal sort. I just haven't seen that, or it doesn't pop off the screen.

 

On volume he has a case, but I really want someone to pitch him to me with more particulars about what he was actually great at. I'm happy to be shown the way here.

[Jetlag]

I think Jones is a wrestling genius. It baffles me that Dylan mentions his lack of subtitles, nuances and tactical approaches, because that seems to be his trump card for me. He's being touted as a forebear to the Regals and Finlays but those guys are far more erratic. Jones is a stone faced technician and doesn't do any of that posturing or grimacing at all. I may be seriously overinterpreting things but the way he carries himself, how he will dissect a body part or calmly set up a move off of the top and how he excels both at fighting heavyweights and lighter types in methodical/fast paced bouts makes me think of him as "the man" of british wrestling akin to a Misawa type. When he gets fired up at a heel its barely a change from his usual demeanour and yet he oozes intensity.

 

I would add him vs. Alan Woods to the list of recommended matches. Not a perfect bout, but I love it for Woods' performance and how Jones fuels his mania. Jones also shows some real commitment there taking reckless bumps to the floor. The match also has some nice symmetries for you psyche-fans to spot.

 

Jones/Rudge is epic. And Jones does so much in it. One thing I love about him is that he knows exactly how much offense to give and take, when to hit his spots etc. A 30 minute technical match is a perfect example of this, but he never loses his sight even in these rippingly fast paced go here-go there lightweight style bouts.

 

I guess one criticism towards him is that he doesn't jump out the way some of the flashier technicians or outrageous characters of the era will do. On the other hand, he does enough nifty stuff like bust out a Santo-style tope or just slapping his man square in the face in the first round. Point is the main thing that keeps me glued to watching him wrestle is the stuff described above. Nuances and subtitles. Again maybe I'm just ranting, but in my eyes Jones beats the shit out of a loooooot of other guys nominated in this.

[ohtani's jacket]

When I think of Jones at his best, I'm thinking of the worker from '76-85 or so. In his early stuff he looks a bit green to me and when he starts gaining weight he's not quite the same. I'm not a huge fan of his World Mid-Heavyweight title defense streak in the late 80s, though that's partially due to Dale Martin's choice of opponents and the fact that the matches were hacked to bits when they aired. Jones was a surly bugger and came across as a hank of misery at times. He was a bit like Finlay in that if he didn't rate an opponent he'd eat them alive. If you asked me what was good at bout Jones from '76-85, I'd say he was the best version of Dynamite Kid imaginable in that his execution and his intensity were off the page compared to anyone else. He had two great rivals in Rocco and Finlay and he would have had a third in Kid if Dynamite had stayed in England, but he was head and shoulders above every one else in his weight class. We know how a few of his predecessors wrestled such as Marino, Royal and Logan. Pallo too. But we don't know what Billy Joyce or Norman Walsh were like. With the heavier men we know what the traditional European style was. With the lightweights we know it was all modeled after Kidd. But Jones feels like a trailblazer. Despite his Wigan training, he wasn't just another Billy Riley disciple. From the time he made a name for himself his approach seemed to be to do things harder, faster, stronger.

 

I've never thought of Jones as the lesser man in any contest. Instead, I see a better Rudge match than Terry's earliest work. Better Rocco matches than the best of Rocco's 70s output. A better technical display from St. Clair that anything he showed prior to being pushed to the British title. Better matches with Finlay than anything else during the Princess Paula transition. Better television tag matches than all but that Johnny Saint tag w/ Steve Best against Jeff Kaye and Ian Gilmour. Sometimes his matches fall short -- matches against Roberts, Cullen, Bond and Martin come to mind -- but only by a matter of inches either a finish or a round short of being great. He didn't work a classical British style (i.e. dressing and undressing holds), but I think that had a lot to do with his weight class and what guys in that division were trying to do in the late 70s. I don't think he lacked charisma, though he was a grumpy prick as far as faces go. I find that kind of endearing much like his lazy eye and those crazy bifocals he'd wear. All I can say is if you offered me the choice of the complete matchography of Jones, Breaks or Grey, I'd have to think twice. I'd probably take Breaks, but I'd be sorely tempted to choose Jones. I had a chance to get a Roach/Jones catchweight match from the late 70s, but it was incomplete so I passed it up. Still that's a kind of holy grail for WoS fans who've seen enough of the stuff. I genuinely wanna see all his matches from a ten year period, which is the highest compliment I can pay a worker.

[club]

I find Jones to be a great stoic counterpoint to the likes of Finlay and Rocco. He still has character - a hard quiet man who's nobody's fool - and he seems to have a strong emotional connection with the crowds. Aside from Jim Breaks I think he's the guy who has the most really great WoS matches. In addition to the matches already mentioned in the thread, I'd recommend:

vs Rocco (13/09/78)

 w. Myers v Skull Murphy & Finlay (not sure of the date, it's the rematch from their 83 FA Cup match)

Steve Logan (10/02/79)

 

Is there anything out there of Jones in New Japan?

[Ma Stump Puller]

 

On 6/27/2022 at 7:20 PM, club said:

I find Jones to be a great stoic counterpoint to the likes of Finlay and Rocco. He still has character - a hard quiet man who's nobody's fool - and he seems to have a strong emotional connection with the crowds. Aside from Jim Breaks I think he's the guy who has the most really great WoS matches. In addition to the matches already mentioned in the thread, I'd recommend:

vs Rocco (13/09/78)

 w. Myers v Skull Murphy & Finlay (not sure of the date, it's the rematch from their 83 FA Cup match)

Steve Logan (10/02/79)

 

Is there anything out there of Jones in New Japan?

Not NJPW-related but he has a pretty good match with Tiger Mask/Super Tiger in UWF 1.0. if that's your thing. One of the only things that was televised for his NJPW tours was also, interestingly enough, a match with Tiger Mask, albeit he seems to wrestle in the traditional "foreign heel" shtick so he's mostly doing a Black Tiger impression with lots of punching, some knees, lots of dirty work, not a lot of actual technical wrestling and there's a lot of miscommunication between the pair. I almost believe they couldn't get Black Tiger in for a date and just slotted Jones directly into the match instead, it's that identical bar one spot or two, even having him do a Black Tiger style piledriver bit for bit identical. 

 

 

[club]

Well that sounds mighty disappointing. The little I've seen of Jones in UWF was what piqued my interest in him in New Japan. The Super Tiger match could have been so great, and you see flashes of how well he could have meshed with the  UWF guys but it appears from the footage that showcasing Jones wasn't what he was there for.

[Microstatistics]

For heel Marty Jones, I'd recommend his tag match with Dave Finlay vs. Mile Zrno/Franz Schumann (CWA, 8/3/1990). A commanding performance that shows there were more elements to his game than the, albeit great, babyface technician routine.

Overall, Jones is a Top 3-5 British worker for me and should make it.