Pete Roberts vs. Caswell Martin (WoS 4/4/1973)
I thought this was a great match. It’s not for the faint of the heart though, being essentially 30 minutes of almost uninterrupted matwork. But these guys are great at what they do, and there is no more wrestling that feels like this, really. Really elegant hold for hold wrestling, and they really wrench in the holds so that you care when someone breaks out of them. They really torque in those basic wristlocks and hammerlocks, and they move into more elaborate spidery holds quite nicely. Roberts was doing a ton of cool shit in this match, at one point Caswell goes into a bridge and Roberts puts on a crucifix neck crank, there’s also some STF work that feels esoteric by the standards of european wrestling. Martin is such a supremely athletic wrestler that he can make stuff like flipping out of a leg grab look fantastic. Really dug all the nearfalls throughout the match. I would’ve liked the match to get a little more rowdy, Roberts was working over Martins shoulders pretty hard at one point and there was never really a serious heating up moment, but that’s not what they were going for. The crowd ate the match up, anyways.
Romany Riley vs. Lenny Hurst (2/13/1980)
Really good, heated little match. Riley is some tough looking barrel chested dude with prison tattoos, after some elegant escapes he catches Hurst with a thudding forearm and then turns to Walton as if to quip. Hurst promptly pins him to score a fall in the 1st round. That pisses Riley off and he goes to town on Hurst. I really dug the build to the explosion here, Riley is overzealous in trying to get a hold of Hurst, just grabbing holds before Hurst is back on his feet, until he decides he’s had enough of the niceties and just kicks the crap out of his opponent. The great thing about World of Sport matches is how riled up the crowd got for simple things like kicking a guy when he’s down. Riley kicks the hell out of Hurst and throws him to the outside, then he gets a warning and immediately does the same thing while Walton says he’s going berserk, really intense moment. The whole second half was really intense actually, with Riley throwing super stiff european uppercuts and Hurst coming back throwing punches and headbutts. Hurst looked like a really good babyface here, throwing some fantastic dropkicks. He also had some really good selling, at one moment he looked like he seriously had his bell rung, trying to keep it together and the crowd was willing him on to take it to Riley. Really simple, super effective entertaining match.
Steve Veidor vs. Gordon Corbett (11/16/1976)
Gordon Corbett was a boxer turned wrestler and this was his only TV match. Corbett looks like really only a wrestler on world of sport can look, dumpy, balding, totally non-athletic looking guy. But he knew the usual holds and all his stuff looked good, proving posture and well-drilled movements are key to being good at wrestling. He had some fun tricks in his bag here. The crowd was firmly on the side of Veidor, even though there were no foul tactics from Corbett, and you can tell why Veidor was so popular based on the way he wrestled here. Really graceful wrestler for a lanky guy. There was a a really cool extended armwork sequence, and Corbett one-upping Veidor at the end and getting nearfalls felt a bit like Momota trying to pin Liger. Fun match, here’s to you Gordon Corbett.
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