German catch

[David Mantell]

At least, a clean scientific match after all these American monster heels coming to the CWA to take on big Otto.  Bearcat Wright has switched back to being plain Bernie and grown his hair out. In long thunderbolt tights and curly hair, he resembles Brian Adidas in World Class around this time.  Back home he takes on opposition like Marty Jones, Ray Robinson, Steve Casey (McHoy) and a maturing Ian McGregor. In Germany he does the same with Rolo Brasil, a far more agile and imaginative wrestler than the old ball generation of Dieter, Chall etc. 

Rolo and Bernie reverse each others writers nearly with Rolo showing he can go over from cross buttocks throws. on double hand spring ups to get upright just as well as Wright can!  Rolo legspreads Bernie but Wright cartwheels out of being knocked down The round ends with the ref having to untangle an Indian Deathlock. Rolo gets in behind and uses his head and a shoulder to take down Wright for a leglock. Rolo has a look of puzzled innocence at times, no doubt some people might mistake  for being a comedy worker.

Start of round 4:  Rolo puts on an interesting reverse surfboard backbreaker but it doesn't work. Another good move is a backbreaker draping Wright behind him over his shoulders by the knees. It weakens Bernie that once dropped he has to take most of a knockout count.  Next up is a cal clutch. Then a full nelson, Wright really selling his back. Round 5 and Wright gets in some back weakness of his own and goes for a folding press but only gets a  two count.  Wright still selling his back.  They end up going over the ropes onto the timekeeper's table for a double TKO.

Probably my favourite German match so far. Nice to see the VDB fans appreciating the skilll and sportsmanship. Some people round here won't like the finish but c'est la vie.  I would have liked to see these two have a 1-1 Broadway but it was a busy tournament and they had a   lot to fit in that day.

 

[David Mantell]

YAY! Another good scientific match. And this time between two actual Germans/Austrians rather than it taking a Brit to get things going on the technical front. From VdB's brief dabble with good broadcast-quality TV/Video production in January 1998 in Berlin in a nice hotel dining room.

Franz Schumann is already a familiar figure, Karsten Kretschner an unfamiliar face.  Although like the old generation of Chall, Dieter senior etc they work and sell holds over longer periods, these guys do know their escapes, especially very British inspired ones like rollout from wrist levers ( both KK and Franz who goes over on his head like Owen Hart.).  When Franz falls out of the ring, KK sportingly holds the ropes open for him to get back in.  Franz uses a neat trip into Gotch toehold at the start of Round 2, developing it into a surfboard.  He nearly gets a pin with a double underhook suplex and cross press.  KK gets a DDT but due to the no follow down rule has to stand back for a knockout count, Franz is up at 8. KK reapplies the initial front facelock of the DDT but Franz turns himself round so it becomes a standing chin lock. He then reverse snapmares himself behind KK, comes off the ropes, leaps into a crucifix and takes down KK in a further nelson for the one required pinfall.  

A real tonic this match and an antidote to Otto. Bull Power and CG/Neu.

[David Mantell]

13 hours ago, David Mantell said:

Starts off with one of those Parades of Gladiators they always went in for with German Catch

Still a part of EWP shows in 2011

 

[David Mantell]

A couple more EWP 2011 snippets from the same YouTube channel:

Fit Finlay Vs Big Van Walter, now Gunther in WWE.

 

 The UK Hooligans (Roy and Zak Knight, sons of Ricky Knight and Saraya Senior, brothers of Saraya/Paige) Vs two German babyfaces whose names I can't catch.

 

[ohtani's jacket]

Bull Power vs. John Quinn II (Wien, Summer '87)

It's a shame we don't have this in full as it looked like a great brawl, especially when they were fighting on the outside. Vader beat Quinn pretty bad here. 

[Matt D]

On 9/8/2024 at 3:02 PM, HowtobeaMark said:

Ok I am sold! How do I see this match?

You have to reach out to Richard Land, primarily through twitter @maskedwrestlers over there. 

He's @landy1987 here, I think, but not active so that's your best bet. 

[David Mantell]

2 hours ago, ohtani's jacket said:

Bull Power vs. John Quinn II (Wien, Summer '87)

It's a shame we don't have this in full as it looked like a great brawl, especially when they were fighting on the outside. Vader beat Quinn pretty bad here. 

What did you reckon to Quinn as a Babyface?

I wonder if Max Crabtree ever tried to lure Leon White to Britain to be fed to Big Daddy?

[ohtani's jacket]

6 hours ago, David Mantell said:

What did you reckon to Quinn as a Babyface?

I wonder if Max Crabtree ever tried to lure Leon White to Britain to be fed to Big Daddy?

He wasn't much of a babyface. Just another victim of the Bull Power drive-by. 

Vader vs. Big Daddy sounds like a very bad idea for Big Daddy's health. 

[David Mantell]

1 hour ago, ohtani's jacket said:

He wasn't much of a babyface. Just another victim of the Bull Power drive-by. 

Vader vs. Big Daddy sounds like a very bad idea for Big Daddy's health. 

It's weird to hear the German fans chant JOHNNY JOHNNY for him.

Vader had the same attitude and demeanor as Bert Assirati but unlike him was not a top Wigan Snakepit hooker/Ripper or indeed a shooter at all.   Big Daddy would have been deep in the scheiss against a shooter who wasn't prepared to do biz but if it came to a straight up scrap, he could probably handle himself.

Shirley and Eunice Crabtree's working honeymoon in c.1970 (during his semi retired period between leaving the Paul Lincoln BWF in 1966 and joining Joint in 1972) was a wrestling tour of Germany/Austria. Apparently they had to do a 5am bunk out of a window of one Vienna hotel due to being unable to pay the bill.

[PeteF3]

Fatigue makes you un-tough in a hurry. I think a legitimate Vader-Daddy scrap would come down to who tired out first and for such a big guy, I've never heard of Leon ever having any problems with his cardio despite working a high-impact, high-energy style. Daddy, on the other hand...

The other issue for Daddy is that Vader was as likely to hurt you by accident as he was on purpose.

Kind of a moot point, I think, because I don't think either one would have allowed themselves to be put into a position to, respectively, play the doofus who does nothing but bounce off a belly or face off against an outsider who took their reputation as a monster a little too seriously.

[David Mantell]

16 minutes ago, PeteF3 said:

Fatigue makes you un-tough in a hurry. I think a legitimate Vader-Daddy scrap would come down to who tired out first and for such a big guy, I've never heard of Leon ever having any problems with his cardio despite working a high-impact, high-energy style. Daddy, on the other hand...

The other issue for Daddy is that Vader was as likely to hurt you by accident as he was on purpose.

Kind of a moot point, I think, because I don't think either one would have allowed themselves to be put into a position to, respectively, play the doofus who does nothing but bounce off a belly or face off against an outsider who took their reputation as a monster a little too seriously.

The only comments I've ever heard about Daddy's cardio are cynical asides rather than sober assessments. He trained and worked out regularly. He was a non-smoking teetotaler whereas Vader had real problems with the sauce later on. He lived four years longer than Vader and wrestled his last bout at the same age as Vader was when he died (63 years 1 month.) Most Brits worked relatively stiff anyway so Shirley could take more than a few bangs.

[PeteF3]

Big Daddy revisionism. Incredible.

 

[David Mantell]

2 hours ago, PeteF3 said:

Big Daddy revisionism. Incredible.

This really belongs on the British thread, but when it comes to Big Daddy's overall fitness I think you have to differentiate between what aggrieved wrestlers bitched about him and the hard evidence of how he kept himself in shape.

I could post some scans of images from the 1983 Big Daddy Annual of him working out in the weights room and the swimming pool at Crystal Palace National Sports Centre (which, incidentally I lived near to as a teenager and went training there myself when I was into such things) I could also post testimony from fellow wrestlers like Dave Bond who witnessed Daddy work out (in Bond's case at the NSC). There is also TV footage (from news coverage of Mal Kirk 's death) of him working out with an Olympic wrestling dummy in his home gym. Physically he took a lot better care of himself than, say, Vader did.

He WAS a big Endomorph and that does have a vast negative impact on health and conditioning but as 350+ pound Endomorphs come and go, he was one of the better-kept ones. Certainly much better than Vader even when Vader was a much younger age.

Big Daddy's real weakness in the ring was how underdeveloped he was as a shooter in what way very much a shooter's territory. In that respect he was in the same boat as legendary "Tankers" such as Wayne Munn. Gus Sonnenburg, Danno O'Mahoney, Buddy Rogers, Superstar Graham and the entire generation of steroid freaks that came in Graham's wake. However since Vader had no legitimate Catch Wrestling skill whatsoever, even worse than Daddy, that is not an issue in their case.

[PeteF3]

I exaggerate a little (okay, a lot) but I think comparing the relative health of Big Daddy as compared to Vader is like comparing the relative health of died-at-34 Layne Staley as compared to died-at-21 Sid Vicious. Like, "died at 67" isn't exactly the biggest flex in history.

[David Mantell]

I think in 1987, 56 year old Big Daddy could reasonably keep up with 32 year old Bull Power.

Bear in mind White was still quite green in 1987, he'd had one significant push in the AWA as a nice kid NFL alumnus who posed a comparable threat to Stan Hansen's World title to fellow ex gridironer Lex Luger's threat in 1986 Florida to Ric Flair's NWA World title until co-opted into the Four Horsemen. White had instead beaten visiting ex AWA champion Otto Wanz for his CWA title in March 1987 and earned himself a trip to Europe to job the title back. Having done the job in July, he was free to accept offers and would have been checked out by any number of Joint Promotions stars working the '87 summer season who would have passed the message back to Max Crabtree about this new big American monster. Had things worked out with Jim Hellwig to become Vader as per plan A and White not been approached, he might have taken any number of next steps and Britain, as a scary North American monster following in the footsteps of John Quinn and  Jim Harris, to be built up for a showdown with Daddy, might have been one option.

[PeteF3]

I don't think there's any truth to the Hellwig-as-Vader story and I'm not sure where it originated. Hellwig flatly shot it down himself, IIRC. 

A freak athlete like Vader was going to be in-demand in both Japan and the U.S. sooner than later. As we discussed in another thread, that's where the money was. Whether or not he had credentials as a shooter (and he had at least enough phony credentials as one that UWFI despite trying to differentiate itself from "fake" wrestling threw huge money at him), no one of his size in wrestling had ever been capable of taking bumps, throwing dropkicks, and executing perfect sunset flips the way Vader did. And that's the Leon of 1987-89, years before he was adding the moonsault and diving splashes to his arsenal.

[David Mantell]

13 minutes ago, PeteF3 said:

in-demand in both Japan and the U.S. sooner than later. As we discussed in another thread, that's where the money was.

He nonetheless came back to the CWA 1989-1991 and had two more reigns as World Champion before WCW, having tried him out in 1990, brought him back in early 1992 to replace a disillusioned Lex Luger in the combined roles of heel World champion, Sith apprentice to Harley Race and archenemy of Sting.

[ohtani's jacket]

This Wien version of Bull Power wouldn't have been allowed on TV. I honestly think Vader would have been a better fit for All-Star since they had a wilder product. Regardless of whether Vader could take Big Daddy in a shoot, he would have made him work and I don't think the big guy would have liked that. Whatever people think of Wanz, he didn't shy away from trading blows with Vader. 

[David Mantell]

14 minutes ago, ohtani's jacket said:

Regardless of whether Vader could take Big Daddy in a shoot, he would have made him work and I don't think the big guy would have liked that.

I think the problem was more Max Crabtree not wanting Daddy to be seen as anything less than an indestructible force of nature, so making Shirley take "working strong" to insane paranoid levels. Wanz was more of a Dusty character, struggling on blood and sweat to a hard fought victory.

I'll agree it could have been All Star just as easily by 1987, particularly as Quinn was one of Dixon's top stars. One thing is certain, Naggers - ex Riley's Gym, ex regular training partner of Billy Robinson - could DEFINITELY handle Vader in a shoot!

[ohtani's jacket]

Rambo vs. Otto Wanz (Wien, Summer '87)

This was mislabeled as Rambo vs. Bull Power. The CWA Rambo is really lame compared to the lucha Rambo. Otto sleep walks through this bout. My interest in Otto  definitely depends on his opponent. The crowd was annoying here. The horns were so loud that I had to mute the video. I guess this was he main event on the last night of the tournament. Afterwards there was a trophy ceremony where the wrestlers received flowers and awards. Indio Guajaro and some of the other lads wore suits. Billy Samson looked pretty fly. Leon looked like he couldn't afford a decent suit at this point. I was hoping that he'd attack Otto and destroy the trophy but instead he gave him a dirty look.

[David Mantell]

22 hours ago, ohtani's jacket said:

The crowd was annoying here. The horns were so loud that I had to mute the video. I . I was hoping that he'd attack Otto and destroy the trophy but instead he gave him a dirty look.

It's a very Euro thing. You get it on ITV too, especially a hotly contested title match in the late 80s such as Marty Jones's title defences or Kendo's title win over Wayne Bridges (also in 1987) There was a lot of it at Summerslam 92- Park, Park, Parp-parp-parp, Parp-parp-parp-parp, BULL-DOG!   Like a lot of UK and French fans chants (ea-SAY ea-SAY, allez Les Verts/blues/rouges, Anux Chiottes L'Arbitre) it originally came from the football stadiums.

It seems to annoy Americans a lot more, I guess we're more immunised to it over here.  Barry Darsow had one as Blacktop Bully in  the crowd on WCW Worldwide in 1994

Quote

Leon looked like he couldn't afford a decent suit at this point

Maybe Max Crabtree WAS in with a chance after all!

[ohtani's jacket]

Bull Power vs. Steve Wright & Eddy Steinblock (Wien, Summer '87)

This was a handicap match that starts getting fun when the CWA guys work over Vader's arm. The Vader vs. Wright exchanges were cool. It breaks down in the end, but you get a great view of the fired up fans at ringside and Wright and Steinblock are super over with the fans. 

[David Mantell]

How to do disqualifications well, as demonstrated in German Catch.

 

Wouldn't you know it it's the future PN News

And he gets Roy StClair's bro to do a whole lotta Juice

Til the referee decides that he just gotta stop 

So disqualifies him and he throws a BIG OL' STROP

yo baby yo baby yo

 

Match builds Grizzly nicely as the despicable disgraceful heel who just uses wrestling as an excuse to beat up on people and really earns his DQ.  Neu goes quite postal over it, almost as good as Sgt Slaughter at Survivor Series 1990 and the German MC seems to have fun taunting him over it.

 

[David Mantell]

Triple tag team time. Best of five falls   Brody and Taylor work well together., Taylor gets the first fall on him. When not tagged in, Brody gets very mouthy on the ring apron. N bombs are banned but  F bombs are fair game. Which is lucky as Boyd is black and we all know what Brody said about Billy Samson two years earlier in VDB. Boyd pins Polanski for the equaliser, I like Polanski he reminds me of a roided up Ole Anderson.  I hope I see more of him.   Hashimoto is a bit too tubby for the Kojima style martial artist role. Taylor scores a second one of Brody to make it 2-1 then Schumann gets the 3-1 winner on Hashimoto.  (I shall have to read up about him, I've heard the name but don't really know what the big deal is.)

Passable fun end of the night Triple Tag spiced up by some good technical work from the two Brits.

 

[David Mantell]

Quote

 

Fit Finlay vs. Mile Zrno (Eurosport circa 1990)

 

This was on YouTube already with German commentary. Some people say it's from the 12/22/89 Bremen show, but I can't really confirm that. What's more important is that it's really good. Easily one of the better Finlay matches of the era. He even does a significant amount of matwork, something he'd shred his act of during the Paula years. Zrno is a tre-mendous worker (you'll get the reference if you listen to Williams' commentary.) I really need to watch all the Zrno I can find. There's not enough pimping of Croatian wrestlers. Germany seems like the ticket back to respectability for Dave Finlay.

I've discussed this before on the French thread due to Orig's claim on the English commentary that Zrno's trainer was Charley Verhulst. Finlay had been pushed by Joint as a Bully heel partly to lead to his 1986 FA CAup Final tag confrontation with Big Daddy, partly to sow the seed  of one of his victims Dany Collins eventually taking a title from Finlay (in 1989, too late for ITV.

Yes there is plenty of mat wrestling although it's not chain sequences (check the 1982 Finlay Vs Davey Boy match for that), it's more horizontal top wristlocks down on the mat and Zrno bridging out. Finlay does get some nice legdives and well applied leglocks and toe holds from nowhere, as well as one rollout..  Finlay gets a double wristlock and Zrno lifts him in it into a fireman's carry takedown. Zrno topes and monkey climbs Finlay.  Paula as much of a heat machine in Germany as back home. Here on CWA Video as on Reslo she is able to do her husband slapping faux-botch (banned on ITV.) Like how Finlay strikes a pose as Paula fans him down with the towel Olympic style.

Finlay comes to the ring to Belfast by Boney M. Later during a round break Everything Counts by Depeche Mode is played.

End comes when Zrno misses a cross body off the top rope and Finlay gets a face first piledriver for the pin.