Alan Dennison vs. Jim Breaks, 7/14/1980
1980 was a really fucking good year for European wrestling. This would be a slam dunk MOTY for WoS in most other years, hell for almost any promotion in any year. One thing here is that we get to see Breaks working a long form two out of three falls bout over 40 minutes, which he does a brilliant job at. The other unique thing is Breaks opponent. Alan Dennison is this strongman guy who really works like an old timey strongman. His thing is that he has absolutely inhuman strength. So Breaks is really good at breaking a guy down and bending them into weird positions, and Dennisons thing is that he powers out of all of Breaks holds from any angle. Like Breaks would take him down, try to step on his arm/shoulder and Dennison would slowly throw him off etc. There was a part where Dennison even challenged Breaks to put a leg hold on him just to immediately blow him away with a sweep of his leg. Another moment saw Dennison going into a neck bridge with Breaks trying to pull his head like a cartoon character. It was the biggest bullshit you’ll ever see, but it was absolutely brilliant bullshit. When Dennison gets fired up he has these crazy facial expressions, even shit talking Breaks to his face, he throws these stiff armed punches where it looks like even he himself can’t bend his arm anymore. He also has a thing where he grabs Breaks face or pectoral muscle as if he’s going to tear him apart with his freak strength. Truely awe-inspiring performance from Dennison. Breaks was freaking brilliant as usual. He’s a total master at cheapshotting someone between rounds, I loved how he started by “accidentally” scraping Dennisons face with his boot several times. He is just so in the moment and never ever misses a bit, like he will go out of his way to sell the most miniscule stuff in really over the tope ways, such as the spot where Dennison clapped his hands together to escape a hold. Breaks got more mileage out of his hurting fingers than a lot of wrestlers have ever gotten out of anything. Match also had the usual super intense Breaks armwork which saw him doing a bunch of vicious dropping Dennison shoulder first into the ropes. His vocal performance was also great, I loved him yelling “His arm is gone!” and urging the ref to stop the match after nailing a particularily nasty armbreaker. They also make brilliant use of the 2 out of 3 falls structure, and the story of the Breaks Special vs. Dennisons double armlock is so simply but brilliantly done. Very unique match and both guys looked like absolute masters going 40 minutes without slowing down or ever letting the match drag.
Alan Dennison vs. Jim Breaks, 8/30/1980
Didn’t
have the epic scope of the title match, but it was a very good match in its own right. Faster pace, plenty of cool wrestling, and lots of Breaks bitchslapping Dennison, garnering tremendous heat. An Dennison is just a crazy power machine. He punched Breaks in the face a lot in this. I am just amazed how much different stuff they did compared to the previous match. Granted, the basic themes of strength vs. grinding limbwork were there, but they built in a lot of different keypoints. The match was also a cool piece in the story of their feud, as this was a non title bout with Breaks looking to piss off Dennison.
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