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Wilbur Snyder


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Here we go!

 

Wilbur Snyder vs. Angelo Poffo (Chicago)

 

Angelo is more Lanny than Randy though you can see a little Randy in him with his evasive tactics. The subtext here is fairly obvious with the All-American crew cut against the effeminate Poffo, but they really don't play it up to any great degree possibly because it was for TV and possibly because Snyder didn't work that sort of match. I don't know, that's what this exploration is all about. At one point Snyder puts on a leg submission that wouldn't look out of place in a lucha match. See, most wresting styles are more unlike they they are different. I enjoy these simpler times when a dropkick into the turnbuckle can finish a man off. And why not? It was a dropkick into the turnbuckle. Not a whole lot to write home about in this bout aside from Poffo's jacket which sparkled in black and white.

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Wilbur Snyder vs. Warren Bockwinkel (Los Angeles)

 

Awesome, awesome match. Warren Bockwinkel looks exactly how you'd imagine Nick Bockwinkel's dad to look and wrestles exactly how you'd imagine Nick Bockwinkel's dad to wrestle. He makes the most amazing old man wrestling noises throughout. I'm sure I've heard other wrestlers make similar noises, but I can't remember who off the top of my head. The only person I could think of was Fujiwara with his customary "fuck!" but I'm sure there are better examples. There were definite shades of Bockwinkel vs. Hennig in this. The match just ruled. Snyder has this and the Schmidt match so far and is doing very well in my estimation.

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Wibur Snyder vs. The Mighty Atlas (Chicago,1/27/56)

 

Someone, somewhere, recently said the Mighty Atlas was a good worker. He's not a good worker by any standards I pertain to and this was below the standards set by the Poffo match. That's not to say it was bad, but it was unremarkable in the grand scheme of a Microscope thread. The match was notable for being Snyder's Chicago debut if I'm remembering right but that's about all.

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Wilbur Snyder vs. Jack McDonald (Los Angeles)

 

This Los Angeles stuff is good! The commentator mentioned that Snyder had made his debut just a few months earlier. If that's the case then Snyder has to be in contention for best rookie ever. You wouldn't think he was only a few months into his career from the performance he gives here. Jack "Sockeye" McDonald was a dastardly journeyman who knew all the tricks of the trade -- fishhooks, rabbit punches, inside moves, kicks to the head, stomps to the face, scalp massages, you name it. He had a hairy chest, black full length tights and the face of a prizefighter. Snyder, on the other hand, was a good looking boy and the more athletic of the two. McDonald spent a long time trying to disfigure Snyder's mug and Snyder responded with a mix of strength and fury. At one point, McDonald suggested to shake hands and Snyder crushed the bones in Sockeye's hand with his vice like grip. At other times it was the dropkick that punished McDonald. The heel of the hand got some liberal use as well. McDonald had some neat moves too like a back breaker and a sweet little hip roll, but his job was to put over the wrestling's new young sensation and the finish was a cool shoulder tackle and splash. Snyder's leglock work is so cool. That's been my main takeaway so far. They should have kept working the mat like that in the 70s.

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Wilbur Snyder vs. Verne Gagne (Chicago)

 

Solid match. These guys fought numerous times and I'm guessing this wasn't one of their more memorable bouts as it went to a double count out. Russ Davis was as sombre as I've ever heard him and barely cracked a joke, but he actually gave some pretty good insight into the bout for a change. The story behind the bout was that there was no love lost between Snyder and Gagne, two ultra-competitors, both of whom were champions in their own right. After a long, competitive stalemate, Snyder began targeting Gagne's injured elbow, which Verne didn't much appreciate, and that spilled over into a heated finish and the double count out. Prior to that there more of that cool leglock work and the quality grappling you'd expect from two exponents of the mat game. Both men avoided each other's signature holds and the frustration was palpable. Gagne's personality can be a tough nut to crack at times, but he was a world class wrestler, no doubt about that.

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I'm really enjoying these. I really love a lot of the 50s and 60 pro wrestling I have seen. Great to read about- and get your take on - some more of that good stuff.

 

My understanding is that Snyder had a reputation as a crazy bumper (by 50s standards) going over the top rope, taking bumps on the floor, and so on. Has his bumping stood out to you at all in your viewing?

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Hey, long time no see. I haven't noticed anything special about his bumping so far, but the footage I've been watching is mostly from his first year as a pro. He did take a bump to the outside with Gagne in their fight. It was such a stock standard finish to a pro-wrestling bout that I didn't think twice about it, but I'm not sure how common it was in the 1950s.

 

Wilbur Snyder & Sandor Szabo vs. Joe Pazandak & Jack McDonald (Los Angeles, 1st fall only)

Wilbur Snyder & Sandor Szabo vs. Jack "Sockeye" McDonald and "Dangerous" Danny Savich (Los Angeles)

 

Tag wrestling in Los Angeles was contested under "Australian Rules" -- four 15 minute rounds, best two out of three falls, with a 3 minute rest period between rounds. It's a different beast from your typical Southern style tag. The heels cheat from time to time, but they don't cut the ring off and work the face over. There's no clear face-in-peril segments. Nobody's playing Ricky Morton, and as for the hot tag, it's tepid at best. Despite the length of the bouts, you don't get the double FIP segments you'd see in Don Owen's Portland territory. Instead, it's closer to French catch from the 1960s albeit slightly less rowdy as the Parisian crowds seemed to have had a few more drinks. Other territories in the 50s may have had smoother, more cohesive tag matches, but these Los Angeles bouts (or rather the second one, the first one appears to have been the victim of some copyright claim along the way) are almost like three self-contained falls that add up to give you a two out of three fall score.

 

Snyder wrestles exactly the way he would in a singles bout instead of being the young sensation in peril or even a "blowjob" babyface to the extent that such a role existed in the 1950s. It may have been that Snyder was green, which I discovered Steve Yohe was quite adamant about when he damned the McDonald singles match I enjoyed so much. In any event, the bout was solid, but a little bit formless for those of you who like to sink your teeth into match structure. Szabo was a Hungarian wrestler and a former world champion in the 1940. I was hoping he'd be my next Tibor Szacaks, but it wasn't to be. He wasn't bad as such, but he wrestled a lot softer than I was hoping for. McDonald didn't reach the heights of his singles match with Snyder and both of his partners veered toward the solid more than the spectacular. Snyder kept doing his thing with shoulder tackles and leg work, but whether it's the influence of Yohe or not, his limitations did begin to appear. More so in character work than mechanics. But I think the majority of this Los Angles stuff is from the same month (May, 1954), so it's not really fair to judge him on such a small and compressed sample from his rookie year.

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Verne Gagne & Wilbur Snyder vs. Dick The Bruiser & Karl Karlsson (Chicago, 7/17/59)

 

This was a wilder, more chaotic affair than the Los Angeles tags. The faces gave the heels an absolute pasting. If you think heels-in-peril was a new thing in 80s WWF you should see this. What interested me was how animated Gagne was. He leapt about throwing himself into everything. Definitely seemed like he was trying to put on a spectacle. Differentiating the tag gimmick from the more serious minded singles fare.

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Reggie & Stan Lisowski vs. Verne Gagne & Wilbur Snyder (Chicago)

 

Now this was a fun bout. The Lisowski brothers, Reggie and Stan, resembled a classic heel team more closely than any pairing I've seen from the 1950s. They were still no match for the super team of Gagne and Snyder, who were too strong for any mortal tag team, but they way they bumped and stooged and worked together to cut the ring off was tonic for the lack of an identifiable face-in-peril structure. The bout was full of "instances" -- small moments that moved from event to the next. They were connected on a moment-to-moment basis, but there was no over-arching structure, no through line to tie all of the events together. There were examples of mini-FIP segments where Snyder would take a battering and tag out, but they weren't drawn out segments, there was no real peril to speak of, and for as sprightly and animated as Gagne was in these tag bouts, he wasn't exactly a house on fire when he tagged in. These roles didn't seem to exist in 1950s tag wrestling at least not as a well-worn convention. I'd be interested in learning how they were popularised.

 

Even without that structure to fall back on, the bout was still engaging. The Crusher was a great over-the-top wrestling character and his kayfabe brother Stan was the perfect partner for him; a really solid heel worker who bumped and stooged exceptionally well without drawing any of the heat away from The Crusher. I loved their celebration after the first fall where they flexed their muscles and posed for the crowd and their reaction to the finish was priceless. The finish itself was extremely clever. Stan Lisowski had Gagne in the same airplane spin he'd won the first fall with and thought he had him pinned, but missed Verne tagging out mid-flight. Snyder hit a pair of dropkicks and took the bout with a body press, and The Crusher was livid. He tried ripping the top rope out and fell arse over backwards. It was beautiful to watch. It was even better than it sounds as the top rope had come undone again in a Gagne/Snyder bout and the ring crew had scrambled to fix it during the second fall and here was The Crusher trying to rip it out again as if that would somehow make the result null and void. The Crusher really was great fun. I'd watch the Lisowski brothers again in a flash.

 

Snyder was obviously the more junior member of the super team, but it was notable how much of a backseat he took to an almost carny-eque Verne Gagne. Gagne cheated like a motherfucker in this bout. It was all in the spirit of retaliation and giving the heels a taste of their own medicine, but it was still bloody cheating. You wouldn't think this was the same Verne Gagne from those long bouts with the likes of Thesz whereas Snyder was clearly still the not quite rookie sensation. There doesn't seem to be any 60s Snyder on YouTube. It jumps the 50s to the 70s and that's quite the missing link when it comes to appraising a guy who's very prime may have been in the 1960s. But there's still a few matches to go until we come to that gaping hole.

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Hey, long time no see. I haven't noticed anything special about his bumping so far, but the footage I've been watching is mostly from his first year as a pro. He did take a bump to the outside with Gagne in their fight. It was such a stock standard finish to a pro-wrestling bout that I didn't think twice about it, but I'm not sure how common it was in the 1950s.

 

 

 

 

Yeah, that's kind of what I was imagining. A bump that blew the crowd away in the 50s might not seem like any big deal to those of us who have seen so much insanity from guys like Misawa, Adrian Adonis, Buzz Sawyer, Bobby Eaton, Dynamite Kid, Great Sasuke, Mick Foley, Necro Butcher...

 

But who knows, maybe later in Snyder's career...?

 

(And yeah, I haven't been online so much recently. It's nice to be able to talk wrestling with you and Jerome and the rest again)!

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Are you still going to shows?

 

Dick the Bruiser & the Lisowski Brothers vs Verne Gagne, Wilbur Snyder & Argentina Rocca (Chicago)

 

Six man action time. This was worked corner to corner. When a face was in the heel corner he took a pummeling an when a heel was in the face corner he received his just deserts. The rest of the time was spent fighting in and out of the neutral corners. The faces were animated and worked an even faster pace than in tags and the Lisowski Brothers bumped and stooged with aplomb, but I wasn't as into it as the previous tag. Dick the Bruiser has barely registered a blip with his ring work thus far, and despite some nice snap to his holds, I prefer Snyder in singles action.

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Wilbur Snyder vs. Mr. Moto (Los Angeles)

 

Mr. Moto came to the ring wearing a gorgeous hakama complete with tabi (divided-toe socks) and wooden geta shoes. He had these round-rimmed spectacles and fu manchu beard that made him look like something out of the Meiji Period after Japan had reopened its borders to the West, but to Californian audiences no doubt looked like something out of a 1930s pulp mag. He also had with him a little servant named Fuji who helped undress his robes and wrap them carefully in a gorgeous silk cloth. Beneath his robes was his garish ring attire: scarlet red trunks and canary yellow tights. We were told he was a master of jiu jitsu, sumo and catch-as-can, which I naively thought for a second meant we'd see some cool holds until he tried going through the pre-match sumo ritual and was interrupted by the crowd. From there it was clear that he was a typical Japanese heel: sly, cunning and devious. Snyder monstered him in the ring and it was notable how short Moto's legs were whenever the pair locked up. America and Japan weren't far enough removed from the war for the commentator to not make cracks about it. He joked that Moto wanted a peace treaty after he begged off.

 

The first fall saw Moto working Snyder over with inside moves before taking the fall with the sleeper, which we were told was a topic of much debate at the time. Snyder spent the entire second fall working Moto over in a side headlock and it became clear that this was going to be the sort of bout where they strap on a hold and work it to death. The third followed suit, and there were probably three or four holds used in the entire bout. Despite the commentator trying to put over the strength it took to keep those holds applied, it was the most dull of the early Snyder bouts. To my great surprise he coughed up the deciding fall and suffered his first loss in Los Angeles. I guess that means that Moto was a heel of some note. It's too bad he didn't have a couple of Fujiwara-like holds to go with his sneaky Pearl Habour attacks. I did like his judo chop counter that felled Snyder. He caught Snyder coming off the ropes with his running football tackle and split him in half. Possibly the only good thing he did.

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Are you still going to shows?

 

 

 

Don't wanna hijack your thread, but...

 

Not nearly as often since Osaka Pro moved to Umeda then basically shut down. I still go drinking with Kuuga and Ebessan from time to time. I go to a couple of Doutonbori Pro shows a year. Now that my friend Yuji has moved back into this general area I may hit a couple of AJPW shows again. I really miss going to Move On Arena, where we saw that Osaka Pro show. That was pretty much perfect for me.

 

Also, we've got two kids now, so free time and spending money are in slightly shorter supply...

 

Have you been to a show recently?

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Man, Snyder's 70s work is disappointing. I was expecting him to be either a hard-nosed veteran or a wrestling maestro. Instead, he was sluggish and out of shape. He worked the holds from his youth but with none of the athleticism. There was a match against Robinson where he looked inspired however the rest of his stuff was pretty bad. His matches from his WWA territory were particularly bad. To make matters worse, he was billed as "The World's Most Scientific Wrestler." :( I actually read up on why he was so bad in the 1970s and the consensus seems to be that he was more interested in his family and business interests than in breaking his neck wrestling each night. That's fair enough, but it makes him a difficult wrestler to place. We have these matches of his where he looks like a great young wrestler but nothing from his prime and none of his really important matches. Then we have these 70s matches where he's pudgy and smoking two packs a day, allegedly. It seems Snyder is a bit of a mystery. Unless some more Chicago footage is unearthed we may never know how truly good he was.

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