Wellington Wilkins Jr.

[Grimmas]

Ma Stump Puller: 

The self-described "Mr Squeeze" for his many showcases of just completely running over rookies and making them tap out endlessly, Wilkins starts off on the surface as a unimportant and immensely disliked American jobber and UWF undercard guy before getting thrown into very early Michinoku Pro and bizarrely blowing it out of the park most of the time. He's like Finlay, only if he did lucha sequences alongside stiff strikes and old-school catch.

Also like Finlay he's harmed by mostly not being a top billing guy, but the man has some pretty great showings otherwise alongside a consistent stream of entertaining work with green talent and Great Sasuke trainees: on top of arguably pioneering the future Western/DDT hardcore divisions with his infamous feud with Yone Genjin, where the pair would go everywhere and anywhere in the arena and beyond to do all kinds of nonsense with whatever they could find. Massively underrated worker. 

Vs. Minoru Suzuki (UWF 16.01.1990)

Vs. Naoki Sano (SWS 07.12.1990)

Vs. Fujiwara (PWFG 16.05.1991)

Vs. Lightning Kid (PWA 16.06.1991)

Vs. Kazuhiko Matsuzaki (Oriental Pro 14.09.1992)

Vs. Naohiro Hoshikawa: 1993 series (Michinoku Pro 24.07/24.08/21.10.1993)

Vs. Yone Genjin (Michinoku Pro 29.04.1994)

Vs. Masato Yakushiji (Michinoku Pro 30.10.1994)

W/Naohiro Hoshiawa Vs. Masato Yakushiji & Yoshito Sugamoto (Michinoku Pro 14.01.1997)

[Jetlag]

He's really good, but I wish he had more than a couple good undercard matches and that Lightning Kid match. Surely he has to have had more matches in the style of the Waltman match in the US? I want to dive more into his Michinoku Pro stuff but I will gladly skip all Yone Genjin matches.

[Ma Stump Puller]

6 hours ago, Jetlag said:

He's really good, but I wish he had more than a couple good undercard matches and that Lightning Kid match. Surely he has to have had more matches in the style of the Waltman match in the US? I want to dive more into his Michinoku Pro stuff but I will gladly skip all Yone Genjin matches.

He mostly gets stuck into the role of gatekeeper and reliable act who can work with the new guys, so nothing as extended as the Kid match sadly. His series with Naohiro Hoshikawa is as close as possible to that given the dynamics of their matches together, with the second showing in particular being a really good example of that. He on occasion will have fun outings with future stars like Hi69 or Ryuji Hijikata in shortish stints, as well as having a long standing thing with Sugamoto where he just grinds the guy down every time they meet. That said footage from that time is still pretty varied so it is rather tricky to find much at all.

 

 

 

 

[CheapPop1999]

Starting to work through these tonight.

Suzuki match was really interesting, Wilkins definitely seems like the old man tomato can fighter against the young upstarts, but the cagey veteran is always a character I have a soft spot for. He was great on the ground at trying to rip Suzuki's arm off and had a decent amount of charm to his very simple offense and look. I am intrigued.

Sano match felt like more of the same formula, although this time pro-style, so we get to see a little bit more bluster from Wilkins. He has a little bit of Boss Man in him in terms of how well he gets over his bewilderment at big flippy offense, and he also visually looks a little dumpier here, which kind of adds to everything that's great about him so far.

Fujiwara match obviously ruled. It's two old burly boys throwing it down old-school style. Fujiwara does a lot more to make the match great than Wilkins does, but he's a more than worthy adversary as someone who can get mean and throw some stiff pot shots to make Fujiwara get really riled up and come back even harder.

Pretty impressed so far. I'll start with the Lightning Kid match tomorrow.

[CheapPop1999]

Pretty impressed by the Lightning Kid match on first viewing, but again, it seems to be far more about Waltman than Wilkins. Now, that being said, it was fun to see Wilkins work as basically Lesnar against the scrawny but electric beanpole that is Waltman. I was surprised by how focused it was and how relatively high-concept it is; it's not afraid of itself as a clear face/heel match and also as a clear power/speed match, and in fact, it relishes in both of those ideas. I would've liked to see a little bit more bomb-throwing or highspots from Waltman down the stretch, even out of desperation, but Wilkins attempting to wrench Waltman's limbs off of his body was a pretty decent substitution. The first Wilkins match deserving of GREAT status.