80s Europe #11

 

Keith Haward vs. Chic Cullen, 3/5/1984

These two are kind of plain and non descript, but they were surprisingly able to create a bit of spark and tension by stubbornly trying to snap each others limbs. Lots of excellent arm and leg attack stuff, especially from Cullen. He looked like punky teenage boy with his tattoos and hair, but he sure could take a leg part. Dug all the toe holds, stepping into the kneecap etc. There were even some Fuchi-ish half crabs and a great Stretch Muffler. Haward is as stoic as they come but he gave Cullen a mean iceman glare at the right moment and went for the arm with abandon. All finishes were smart. Crazy ending. This was a borderline excellent bout.

Pete Roberts vs. Indio Guajaro (11/13/85)

This was all about the wild act of Indio Guajaro. It was nice to see him do his thing in front of an excitable British crowd. Very a-typical WoS match as it was almost constant action and attacking from Indio with Roberts retaliating. Roberts was one of those typically British faces, i.e. he was basically just a bloke who could wrestle, but he had no problem keeping up the pace and the crowd loved him. Guajaro took some big bumps and kept yanking the mic away from the MC to yell things in Spanish. Really heated, no downtime, doesn‘t overstay it‘s welcome, this was a great piece of TV.

Little Prince vs. Keith Haward (12/11/85)

This was really good. At first glance it was typical WoS stuff with two stoic grapplers trading holds, but they had really good intensity and kept building it until things got heated. Little Prince was a Pakistani wrestler. Stocky guy, but he could really go. He would slap Haward when he was down and he also threw one hell of a suplex. The match had the kind of ultra tight, detailed holds and awesome throws that I like. Haward is notorious for not having much personality but he showed enough fire when Prince started to slap the shit out of him. Good shit. 

 

80s Euro Master List

80s Europe #9

 

Marty Jones vs. Dynamite Kid, WoS 1/19/1983

Kid sure has got on the good stuff while abroad. Even Walton couldn‘t help but point it out. This match had some nice wrestling, but they soon got to business: Kid deciding he doesn‘t give a damn about the british rules anymore and just deciding to beat the shit out of Jones. It just turns into a super heated slugfest with both guys dropping bombs and stiffing each other. Jones going berserk at the sight of his own blood was great and Kids turnbuckle bumps shocked the audience. Dug all the brutal looking knee drop. They may have gotten a bit carried away bending the rules but what the hell, it was a great match.

Terry Rudge vs. Pete Roberts (WoS 3/21/83)

Nifty bout that was worked without rounds and just 2/3 falls. Rudge fucking rules sneaking in headbutts and working the cravate. His selling of the little things, like putting a random arm whip over by having his shoulder go limb and stumbling over in pain is so good. This had a nice mix of wrestling and niggle. Rudge never unleashed his full ass kicking tendencies, but they worked a breathless pace. Roberts looked good. The match had two cool finishes and some really nice nearfalls in the 3rd. Good shit.

Steve Grey vs. Steve Speed (1/25/84)

Here‘s the rarest creature in the world: A World of Sport sprint. You know it‘s gonna be good when a guy named Steve Speed is in it. Speed was really lean and could go hard. Chock full of great exchanges, and I loved how competitive they made this. Most workers would just go from one spot to another, but they took the time to work the holds and pins. Speed gets a nosebleed and as soon as Grey notices he elbows him in the fucking nose and stomps on his face. Grey could be a right prick when he wanted. Speed went hard hitting surprise dropkicks but in the end the champ was too much. Pretty great under 10 minute match.

 

80s Euro Master List

80s Europe #2

Jim Breaks vs. Young David (Davey Boy Smith), 2/23/1980

  This was a great piece of pro wrestling. Breaks in his bumblebee trunks just carrying a barely in puberty Davey Boy like it's nothing. To be fair, David looked good in parts here, doing a decent job struggling out of Breaks holds and taking a big unexpected bump in the last round, but it  was plainly obvious that he could only do a handful of things. Most of his comebacks are just him bodyslamming Breaks over and over. He did however do a great job palm striking his way out of a submission and bloodying Breaks nose. Breaks was great here at first playing a more subtle version of his usual character before turning it up to 11. His submissions were just ridiculous, trying to sprain Davids ankle at first and then zoning in on the arm and bending it as far as humanly possible. This just lead out in a great way. Fun post match too with Davids mentor Alan Dennison coming in to smash things over Breaks head. 

Pat Roach vs. Pete Roberts, 2/13/1980

Pat Roach always looks like the hardest man on the planet to me. This was a pretty excellent contest with some nifty heavyweight grappling. Roachs judo throws rule, as well as his overhead arm suplex. Roach was playing nice early on, and Roberts was doing a really neat Fujiwara-ish performance trying to crack the giant. Once Roach was outsmarted, he just went beast mode and ragdolled Roberts about the ring. In the 3rd fall, Roberts made excellent use of ring positioning to chop Roach down. I liked the finish more than OJ as Roach was limping and in trouble only to launch an overzealous Roberts over the top rope, taking an insane bump on the outside. The smart player Pete Roberts being outsmarted himself was neat.  

Jeff Kaye vs. Tony "Banger" Walsh, 1/28/1980

This was a battle between two great looking wrestlers. Walsh is pasty with a bowlcut and Kaye has kind of medieval mid length hair and is dumpy looking. Kaye is super fired up here cartwheeling around and Banger Walsh was looking to give it to him, throwing shots and grinding Kaye down  with basic moves.  Walsh has really good basic stomps and clubs. If you are familiar with these type of European give and give back face/heel matches you won't be surprised by the structure here but they worked in so many high end exchanges that it stayed entertaining. Unique finish too. Really really fun sprint. 

Fit Finlay/Ian Gilmour vs Guy Mercier/Alan Mitchells 9/25/80

2/3 Falls match over about 25 minutes. Browsing through hundreds of French matches, and just out of nowhere a 22 year old Dave Finlay pops up in what is maybe his first ever televised match working like a seasoned veteran heel. Pretty cool. The saying about European tag wrestling is that they didn‘t quite know how to do it, but this match had pretty much the kind of structure you want: Fun babyface shine segment, followed by a heel beatdown before a series of cut offs before a comeback succeeds and then a finish. They fool you a bit here by doing a really long shine with the heels making several attempts at starting the beatdown and being cut off, but in the end the structure is there and even the 2/3 Falls formula is integrated well. This was a bit more holds and takedowns based and less about armdrags and ranas, similiar to what we know from British wrestling, but don‘t be fooled the pace in this match was lightning fast. These guys really do an absurd amount of stuff even in a long match, but everything is executed effortlessly. Guy Mercier is a former European champion and legit Greco roman wrestler with a look and aura that just screams tough old man, and while there wasn‘t a ton of extended wrestling in this match he looked like a classy worker. It speaks for the creativity of these old workers just how much they could do with moves like a body slam or hip throw. Finlay also did this cool thing where he misses a big splash in about the first minute of the bout and spends the next few minutes scurrying away while the faces twisted up his leg and launched him into the ropes. It didn‘t pay off in the long run, but it was a fun bit of selling to make the opening minutes more interesting. Once the heels got something going after what felt like 15 minutes of highly entertaining bumping and stooging, they basically focussed on getting the faces to the corner and stomping the crap out of them. Really simple and effective stuff that made me wish modern workers paid more attention to making simple things like a stomp look good, because Finlay had damn great looking stomps here. Another layer to the match was Michel Saulnier, who was grey and a referee by now. The match had some heel ref antics and comical amounts of babyface retaliation against Saulnier, while that is something that can ruin a lot of these Euro matches it was actually executed in a really fun manner here. The thing I loved most how delighted the fans were at the trick the heels used to get a pin here. No hard feelings, it‘s all good fun in France.

1980s EURO COMPENDIUM
 

80s Europe #1

 

Ken Joyce vs. Tony Costas, 1/9/1980

Ken Joyce was this British maestro who had a knack for cool submissions in reversal without getting all too jokey. Costas was this gentleman wrestler from Cypris with a mustache. How many wrestlers from Cypris do you know? This is why you gotta love European wrestling. Match was full of tricked out technical works. Lots of holds and pin attempt worked in a way you haven‘t seen them before. Joyce seemed to be in control but Costas got a fall on him. I liked how Joyce just palmed striked Costas when he did something he didn‘t like. Very good technical bout.

Jon Cortez vs. Jeff Kaye, 2/5/1980

Jon Cortez was a wrestling machine, always putting on top notch TV performances. All his holds he worked with a certain intensity. This was a technical bout with some pretty great scrambles. It was a friendly match but things got pretty intense for a minute when Cortez was down a fall. Kayes acrobatic moves, such as walking on his hands across the ring or cartwheeling out of holds were impressive for a tubby aging guy. 3Rd fall was super short but intense as Cortez sensed a weakness and just went for the kill with backbreaking holds on Kaye.

Mark Rocco vs. Pete Roberts (5/28/80)

Battle of the goofy bodysuits. Marc Rocco is infamous for innovating a much faster paced, more thumpy wrestling style than what you usually saw in the British rings, or anywhere else really. Personally, I don‘t like him as much as other British heels, but this was one of his better bouts. Starts with a cool opening round of slick matwork before the hothead Rocco antics kick in and he starts kicking the hell out of Roberts. Rocco started kicking the tar out of Roberts leg and Roberts looked good sprawling on his takedown attempts. Roberts also took a big bump to the outside. The problem with the match was Rocco got two public warnings and just kept on cheating even though he should‘ve been DQ‘d. It got good heat though. Roberts was also slow to follow up on the finishing pinfall. It felt like both guys got a bit carried away after working abroad. It stuck out because in old British wrestling mistakes are few and far between and usually well covered.

Assorted World of Sport

 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 1^st 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.