Pete Stewart vs. Tibor Szakacs, aired 3/25/1972
Tibor Szakacs was a Hungarian ex-army officer who fled to Britain and became a beloved wrestler. The man was built like a shaved chimpanzee, and his constant miserable gaze is up there with the likes of Kazuo Yamazaki. I love watching Szakacs wrestle as his slow movements are poetry in motion and that was felt strongly in this bout too, although this was about his young opponent Pete Stewart getting a rub by getting a fall over the veteran. Pete Stewart was later known as "Iron Duke" which is an all time great wrestler nickname, but he was basically just a young boy at this point. The technical stuff in the match is good and as soon as Stewart takes the 1:0 lead things get pretty intense with some vicious armwork and Szakacs busting out the dreaded chop. Extremely well executed with Szakacs throwing a suplex that I've never seen him do before. Well worth watching.
Peter Rann vs. Johnny Kincaid, 3/22/1972
Excellent long TV main event. Kincaid has a bleach blonde head and Rann
is almost fully grey and unassuming looking, so you know it's gonna
rule. Plenty of nifty grappling throughout. Rann worked some almost
jiu-jitsuesque transitions. I also loved his out of nowhere crowbar
dropkicks. Kincaid ended up taking a big bump over the rope and Rann
worked over his back and leg. Loved all the pin attempts. Rann got cute
attacking Kincaid with some subtle heel tactics and Kincaid retaliated
with headbutts and at one point threw a punch and did an almost Terry
Funk like footwork routine. The match settled down a bit with more good
wrestling. It was really the kind of bout where you could write a
textbook on all the little things they did. I loved the way Rann sold
Kincaids headbutts. There were a few points were Rann just grabbed an
armlock and forced Kincaid down hard which ruled. Rann started playing
dirty in the last round again which got the crowd pretty fired up again.
There was an awesome moment where Kincaid was looking for the boston
crab with the crowd being on fire, and then he catapulted Rann across
the ring with Rann bumping on his head.
Peter Rann also has this blog dedicated to him, featuring some amusing pictures of his aesthetic heyday:
http://peterrann.blogspot.com/
Adrian Street vs. Mick McMichael, 12/13/1973
What a matchup. Street is in his gown and makeup. McMichael is just the most regular looking bloke you can imagine. It's an amazing contrast and it produces a wildly entertaining TV match. McMichael tears up Streets gown and it's a furious match from the start. Street is actually super vicious here, clawing McMichaels cheek, always sneaking in blows, big leaping stomps that look violent as hell. When Streets starts wrestling he is just blindingly fast and smooth. But there is little wrestling here as it's basically a sprint brawl. Street does some prancing as he gets the advantage so McMichael does some prancing of his own and even steals some of Streets glitter which was extremely funny. The third fall was super simple and effective with Street trying to beat McMichael down hard and McMichael working over Streets stomach with headbutts and splashes. If you were hoping for more of Street being the wrestler we saw a year earlier in the Breaks match you'll be disappointed but as a match of it's own this was super entertaining, makes you wish more outrageous character wrestler were this good.
