[1984-03-05-Joint Promotions] Keith Haward vs Chic Cullen

[GSR]

This is a more aggressive match than the one Haward had with Clive Myers and is all ground based. They get so much out of the simple things such as arm and wrist levers here. The third round sees Cullen start to focus his attention to Haward's left leg and we see some really nice selling from Haward, nothing too over the top, just believable. Cullen continues to concentrate on the left leg in to the fourth, however as both wrestlers are on their feet and he has hold of it, Haward leaps up over the top of Cullen and rolls him up from behind for the pin. Haward gets fired up after Cullen stamps on his hands in the next round following a knucklelock posting him hard into the turnbuckles, so hard in fact that referee Ken Joyce loses his footing. A second posting from Haward, but Cullen comes out and catches him in a small package to tie things up. The aggression continues into the third fall predominantly from Haward, and when Cullen has him in a side headlock Haward belly to back suplexes him over the top rope to the floor. Unfortunately, Haward then proceeds to throw himself over the top rope to the floor and Ken Joyce informs us that both wrestlers are injured and the bout is stopped and ruled a draw.

 

Despite the shitty finish (primarily the bump from Haward, as if they'd just had Cullen take the fall from the belly to back and announced he was injured and couldn't continue it would have been far more plausible. They could even have then done that Haward didn't want to take the win that way, and still declared it a draw) this was a solid match. Very different to the one with Myers as it is less high impact, but if you enjoy matwork, isolating a body part, selling, you'll enjoy this. Just prepare for yourself for the terrible ending!