Mike Bennett vs. Dan Collins, England 2/12/1985
This was really freaking great, honestly blows my mind nobody except OJ talks this match up much because it was a borderline 30 minute old school masterpiece worked at a relentless pace. Most of that was due to Mike Bennett, who looked like an old time grappling master doing a vicious heel act, in the same vein as Terry Rudge or Jim Breaks but with a bit more of a stone faced psycho vibe to him. You could write a book on how to wrestle just by observing what Bennet was doing here. He was tearing up young Dan Collins like no other in this bout. Loved the constant nelsons, shoulder stretches, the mean grovits, the facelocks and constantly pressuring Collins throat with his elbow or knee. At one point he did a jiu jitsu like guard sweep into an armbar which he used to strangle Collins with his foot on his throat. That is some truely next level stuff. It was the kind of stretching that was up there with the best of Fuchi or Jim Breaks and it was awe inspiring. Also, the way Bennett initially wouldn‘t give Collins much, denying his basic reversal attempts and gradually building the match towards bigger and bigger comebacks from Collins was nothing short of masterful. Bennett also kept escalating the violence in interesting ways, for example by topping off their first strike exchange by viciously kneeing a downed Collins in the face. Collins did pretty good for a 17 year old kid in this bout, he mostly stuck to retaliating against Bennetts tactics and never got lost which is very commendable. Still, safe to say Bennett was touched by the wrestling gods that night and running the show. When Bennett had enough and just busted up Collins nose and then kept hitting him in his bleeding face I felt this was Top 10 all time level. It build to great last two rounds with some real fireworks bumping from Bennett and a number of false finishes that would trick almost anyone watching. True to many European bouts, the actual ending underdelivers slightly, but everything up to that point was a honest to god wrestling masterclass.
Jim Breaks vs. Dan Collins, England 4/26/1984.
This was the more loud, boisterous version of the Bennett match. I preferred Bennetts performance but this was a near classic in it‘s own right. The workmanship of a guy like Breaks, who could‘ve just coasted doing his bread and butter stuff in a match against a kid but instead decided to up the ante and work some neat details fascinates me. Here we got some nice Breaks grappling, the usual Breaks heat seeking and joing dislocating arm work, and then something entirely new as Breaks started to wrench the hell out of Collins face and busted him up. The face stuff was nasty as hell, although Breaks didn‘t build to Collins getting some kind of epic payback. Instead we got a unique moment where Collins bursted out of Breaks hold headbutting him in the jaw, which Breaks sold in amazing fashion. Really, all the dangerous bumps and canadian destroyers in the world can‘t measure up to how Breaks sold that jaw headbutt. Collins got nowhere near as much offense as in the Bennett match, but he got that headbutt, plus he busted Breaks eye open with a nasty elbow. That eye thing may have been an accident but the way the camera cut away made me think Breaks actually bladed his brow there, fucker sure was crazy enough to do that. The finish was another fluke but at least it was a straight pin. I‘ll leave it to you to decide which was better, although I prefer the more overarching brilliance of the Bennett match. Both these matches are good as hell in their own right, that is for sure.
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