ohtani's jacket

I found an obituary for Henry William Abbey that supports my idea: "After the war ended, he returned to Prudential until 1950, when he joined the new family business, Dale Martin Promotions, where he was known as ‘Billy Dale’. Dale Martin Promotions held an exclusive wrestling contract with ITV from 1955 to 1985, which had its best years when shown on World of Sport between 1965 and 1985, and they were closely involved in World Championship Boxing in the 1960s and 70s. Henry became a chartered secretary, merged Dale Martin Promotions with Hurst Park Syndicate and floated the new company in 1964. He was a director and company secretary of this company until it was taken over by the William Hill Organisation in 1971. He became a director and subsequently Deputy Managing Director of William Hill, and was also a director of numerous other sporting, leisure and finance companies within the same group. He travelled widely on business in Europe and the USA before retiring from William Hill in 1988, when it merged with Mecca."

There's something iffy about that timeline. The Hurst Park Syndicate were managers of the Hurst Park Racecourse through to 1962 when they were forced to close the race course and the land was sold for a housing estate. The Syndicate was then taken over by a firm called Elysian investments who bought into Terry Downes and Sam Burns' betting shops the following year. Astaire was Downes' manager at the time I believe and had some sort of stake in the business. The Syndicate allowed Downes and Burns to keep operating the shops and sold out to William Hill in 1971. At the time Hurst Park still owned Dale Martin along with the betting business. William Hill kept Burns on, so if Astaire was involved with the wrestling (as it seems he was), it would appear it was during the time that Hurst Park and William Hill were owners. Kung Fu has an anecdote about being called into Astaire's office, which was well after Crabtree had become the promoter. Lincoln was supposed to have sold out in '65 or so, which suggests to me that Hurst Park bought up the promotions prior to selling up.

1. Invader 1 -- classic brawler. The type you associate with Memphis, lucha, or indeed Puerto Rico. All the tools -- blood, punches, limited but effective offence -- but more importantly the timing. Blood, sweat and tears, staggered selling, great scope even to his studio bouts. 2. Marty Jones -- the comp I got of him recently reminded me that along with Breaks and Grey he was the best in a WoS ring. Was apparently a bit of an asshole who didn't like very many people and would swallow guys alive if he didn't think they were good enough, but man could he go. Tremendously talented offensive wrestler. Probably one of the best ever. And as Regal pointed out, created the style that Dynamite Kid and Sayama are always credited for along with Mark Rocco. 3. Bobby Barnes -- my look at 1981 WoS reminded me of what a great worker Barnes was. His submissions in the match I watched are amongst the best pro-style stuff I've ever seen. He simply stretches limbs in a way that looks like a Picasso painting. Great heel work too, arguably better than his classic exotico run where he was more deliberately aloof. 4. Shiryu -- absolutely my favourite of the MPro guys. Togo and TAKA were better workers, but Shiryu is the most 'lucha' of them are does the best mat sequences and dives. His topes are nuts. 5. Mano Negra -- after he unmasked, freed his mullet and grew a moustache, he became the Mexican Dave Finlay. So much fun to watch. So much so that his masked stuff is a major disappointment.

There were three Faulkner/Breaks matches which aired on television in 1977. Only one of those re-aired on The Wrestling Channel. The other two are in the ITV vaults somewhere.

My understanding was that when the Hurst Park syndicate bought everyone out in the 60s that the syndicate essentially was Joint Promotions and that they owned Dale Martin and the other promotions. I thought Joint was only an NWA style body from 1952 to 1964.

FYI, the 1/15 trios is on Mexico #394 and the 1/22 title match is on Mexico #401. The trios title match is the one that was pimped at the time.

There was a lot to like about this one as at times it more closely reassembled a lucha trios than anything I've seen from MPro, but it lost its shape a bit after the initial round of exchanges and the second half felt uneven. Good finishing stretch, though. Shiryu's dives were mental.

I'm a big fan of Martin so I'll be following this one with interest.

Jumbo vs. Brisco from '76 was a boring match. Jumbo controlled way too much of the bout and very little of what he did was interesting. Brisco ended up working heel, but there was no real hook there either. The best thing he did was walk up to Jumbo after making him submit and point in his face. The third fall should have been testier after that, but neither guy brought the edge that the bout required. Brisco didn't look great playing heel. There appears to be a gap between his selling ability and acting talent.

All right, it's just what you've described doesn't sound very much like a title match.

Are you sure you've got the right match here? They had a lead-in trios bout on 1/15 then a title match on 1/22.

Watched a few minutes of Brisco vs. Johnny Valentine on some DVD that Mike Graham released. Brisco was the World champ at the time and Valentine the US champion. More great selling from Brisco. If somebody had told me a few days ago that Brisco was one of the best sellers in wrestling history it would have flown right over my head. This has been quite a revelation.

Brisco/Inoki was another good match. Brisco is an excellent worker. His selling is fantastic and I love the way he mixes in those knee drops with his mat work. As predicted, I liked the shoot elements and Inoki is generally a lot more tolerable to me than he is you. I'm curious how you would compare Brisco to Robinson since Brisco doesn't really have the suplexes you love.

The Baba rematch was also good. I liked how they worked a different sort of match only a few days apart. Match two felt like more of a fight. I liked the psychology behind the matwork and they did an excellent job of returning to their feet and working in their high spots. There seemed to be a nice working chemistry between the two. The first bout was the more well rounded of the two and I preferred it slightly more, but the second bout was a nice continuation of what they'd done in bout one.

Alan Kilby vs. King Ben (10/7/81) This was absolutely incredible. I would have no hesitation in calling this one of the best WoS bouts ever. It was a title bout for the vacant British Heavy-Middleweight title, made vacant when Rocco won the World Heavy-Middleweight belt, and began with Brian Crabtree asking everyone to rise for the national anthem. At first, I thought there was much less fanfare for the Heavy-Middleweight belt than there had been for the World Heavyweight Championship bout between Bridges and Quinn, but from that point on the bout was phenomenal. The intensity was like nothing I've seen in WoS. Ben didn't smile once. Here was a guy who would lie in a hold and grin, but there were no jokes, no smirks, no tricks, no shtick, just sheer, bloody-minded determination. Both men wanted the title bad and they put on a hell of a wrestling bout. Imagine for a moment all of the stuff you find gimmicky or exhibition-y about WoS, then imagine if they took it deadly serious. Whatever image you have, it doesn't begin to approach the level of intensity here. On an older British wrestling message board there was a suggestion that these two had heat in real life. Whether they did or not, the match was wrestled on a razor's edge. I don't want to give away the finish, but it was so special that Brian Crabtree treated the post-match like a tennis final interviewing both men in the ring and mixing commiserations with congratulations. A really special moment in the annals of WoS. Top 10 WoS match for the 80s minimum.

Blackjack Mulligan vs. Kid Chocolate (9/29/81) Mal Sanders vs. John Naylor (9/29/81) Jan Curtis vs. Sid Cooper (9/29/81) John England vs. Pat Patton (9/29/81) Sid Cooper vs. Kid Chocolate (9/29/81) Mal Sanders vs. Pat Patton (9/29/81) Here we have the heats and semi-finals of the knockout tournament for the Mike Marino memorial shield; five minute one fall bouts, which in WoS parlance were commonly refereed to as "eliminators." In the case of a draw, the referee decided the winner based on skill and aggression. You may remember from the thread I made about him in The Microscope that Sanders, whom Marino brought into the business and was with him when he died, won the shield after defeating Cooper in the final. Marino's death was referred to rather nonchalantly by today's standards with Walton basically saying "in case you haven't heard, I hate to say it but Mike Marino died a few weeks ago." Walton's commentary seemed a bit off throughout to be honest. They were action packed five minute bouts because of the time limit and the skill and aggression factor, but Walton spent a lot of time questioning the wrestler's tactics instead of calling the action. At one point, he said Cooper wouldn't get anywhere with weakeners on Kid Chocolate and then he scored an immediate submission. None of the bouts were outstanding, but they were all enjoyable and the booking mixed things up with a few points decision, an injury finish, a flash pin and a submission victory. The only new guy for me was Jan Curtis, who was a former amateur wrestler wearing an amateur style singlet. Five minutes isn't a long time to judge someone, but he looked okay. Not a machine like Haward or Kurt Angle, but seeing him in a proper match would be interesting.

I don't think anyone is expected to watch all of the nominees, just the ones they're interested in. Anyway, I'm not going to participate anymore but it anyone has any questions about WoS or anything else I can help them with just ask.

Don't worry, Parv, I understand most of your vernacular I actually watched the All Blacks vs. USA from Soldier's Field yesterday and the American commentary was awesome. A whole new way to describe rugby.

Smarkschoice was a Joshi board at the time and ended up doing a separate poll for the greatest women's wrestlers of all-time. It will be a shame if women wrestlers aren't well represented this time round as I don't think that's an accurate reflection of their skills or contribution to wrestling.

I wouldn't make that sort of judgement since I took place in the original poll without being particularly qualified. What I was trying to get at is that if you've identified your priorities (as some people have) then I hope they properly explore them as Parv has been doing, for example, or Matt. I realise not every one can participate to that extreme, but two hours over eighteen months is doable.

Well, that is fair enough. If people know well enough to trust their instincts I don't have a problem with that.

Is it? If you have an insane amount of wrestling to watch and you can only tackle a small, probably recommended, sampling if those initial matches gives a real poor impression then I wouldn't want them to waste time on those wrestlers. Would it be nice if they could get at least 7-10? Yep, but save that for wrestlers with some redeeming qualities otherwise I can't even imagine how many wrestlers will just have to be looked over. Bull Nakano and Jaguar Yokota have no redeeming qualities? The idea of judging a wrestler based on one match is preposterous. Can you imagine if people did that under normal circumstances? What happens if you choose a bad match to start with? Well, I think the point of this forum is to direct people to matches where that won't happen. The joshi thread ideally will have a link to one of the Bull vs. Aja matches as opposed to Bull vs. Madusa from Road Wild. But the pimped match is not always going to be the one that gets you hooked. Everyone has had the experience where a pimped match didn't live up to the hype or they couldn't get into a worker at first until they saw a certain match and then went back and revisited the stuff they were cold on. It happens all the time. The recommended matches now seem a bit counterproductive to me if they're supposed to be the clincher.

If someone pimps you 3 matches as someone's best work and you watch all 3 but don't see the big deal, how much deeper should you dig? To be honest, I don't see the point in watching three matches of this wrestler and three matches of that wrestler because at some point if you keep doing that you're going to end up with a top 100 where you ranked workers based on only three matches. If you don't like a certain style and you decide "okay, I'm gonna watch three matches of a worker from this style and if I'm not impressed then forget it," what's the point? You might as well not bother. To me that's almost confirmation bias. It's not an honest effort at getting into a style. I can't tell people how they should watch wrestling, but I would hope that they're more selective with the wrestlers they invest time into than some willy-nilly approach to writing people off.

Is it? If you have an insane amount of wrestling to watch and you can only tackle a small, probably recommended, sampling if those initial matches gives a real poor impression then I wouldn't want them to waste time on those wrestlers. Would it be nice if they could get at least 7-10? Yep, but save that for wrestlers with some redeeming qualities otherwise I can't even imagine how many wrestlers will just have to be looked over. Bull Nakano and Jaguar Yokota have no redeeming qualities? The idea of judging a wrestler based on one match is preposterous. Can you imagine if people did that under normal circumstances? What happens if you choose a bad match to start with?

The first Baba match was really good. Brisco did a nice job of grounding him and the legwork played into the bout throughout. Brisco's selling was excellent, which made Baba look weak by comparison. He sold the leg fine, but his expressions while putting Brisco in a hold and his celebrating at the end struck me as not as naturally charismatic as I like my wrestlers to be. I get that he had sound psychology, but I think he gets a bit of a pass on execution and other mechanics because he's such an awkwardly put together big man. I'm not really sure where I'd rank him among heavyweights of his era, but not too high.