David Mantell

Have just been put in mind of Jim Cornette saying how old time fans would protect the business so as to force the promoters' hands to also take it seriously and continue to provide them with good quality matches. I expect there was an element of this at work with Kent Walton - as a professional fan and as a sports journalist - also.

Rock N Wrestling Connection

Stuff I missed earlier: The actual word Kent Walton used was "swazzy". I'm sure Princess Paula had her fans but apart from odd bits of flamboyance like her Native American headdress, she did not really do the whole glamour thing like American valets/ manageresses (such as Elizabeth, Sherri, Missy Hyatt, Precious, Sunshine, Dark Journey) did, nor did any other female sidekicks (the only two I know of were Jeannie Clark, the future Lady Blosson, as then-boyfriend Chris Adams' second one time on TV in 1979 and Sharkey Ward having a similarly "ethnic" "princess" in his corner for a 1980 Big Daddy tag) until Monika came along. To some extent she paved the way for Saraya (senior) in 1992 on Reslo with her vamp/ganster's moll image. Monika Markwart was Drew McDonald's life partner and common law wife until his death from cancer in 2015. She reportedly still lives in his hometown of Perth & Kinross in Scotland. I asked Drew about her on his website messageboard in 2002 and he said that she was "living in England and still a heel in real life." Bless <3 For this first match, Monika wore a rather dodgy looking female military uniform in black and white, ucomfortably close to SS female uniform! For subesequent appearances she wore a black dress and a red summer hat. A shot of her slapping Big Daddy on his behind while he was sat in the ring corner was incorporated into the title sequence for the wrestling during the final year 1988. Bill Clarke as King Kendo was getting quite a lot of Daddy tags around late '87 - he was King Kong Kirk's tag partner the night Kirk died in the ring in August 1987 at the Great Yarmouth Hippodrome (also the site of the filming of the Pallo's 1981 video, some of the matches from which Ohtani has reviewed.) This was basically Max Crabtree's response to the real Kendo Nagasaki becoming Brian Dixon's flagship at a time when All Star were not only now on ITV but actually on the point of overtaking Joint as dominant promotion. Having Big Daddy squash King Kendo like he could never squash Kendo Nagasaki was Max C's equivalent of Vince doing the whole Huckster vs Nacho Man thing in early '96.

Okay, eight pages later I'm finally up to date with everything I wanted to post. Hope this has all been some use, giving the native perspective of someone whose ground floor thinking on pro wrestling was shaped by this territory. Thanks for reading, look forward to any feedback.

Okay, I seem to have caught up with myself on page 19 now. Just to polish this off, here are some promised favourite examples of the Great British Clean match alive and well in the 2010s and 2020s All Star typically puts a clean bout on as bout number 4 of a 5 bout bill. Here is a typical example from Oct 2013. One drawback to the lack of rounds is that in order to pace themselves, the wrestlers have to have clapping breaks to lead the fans in cheering. Being the C21st versions of the good sportsmanly tehcnical blue eyes, Dean Allmark and Tony Spitfire encourage the fans to cheer each other. An even better example here from the same months (the same day according to an error Dean input into his Youtube account.) Notice James Mason appears to be a little riled about this - usually if it was somewhere like Rhyl or a holiday camp, he would turn heel by the end of the match, setting up a grudge rematch with little technical wrestling. Possibly that was being saved for the rounds match proposed at the end which never occurred. This should have been the World Of Sport The Next Generation match at that second TWC Skydome show instead of that ridiculous comedy wth Colt Cabana: John Freemantle's Premier Promotions adheres stricly to full blown Mountevans Rules. Naturally they have plenty of clean matches such as this from 2017: Also Rumble Promotions, Steve Barkers old 1990s company was revived after the pandemic and reactivated the British Lightweight Championship, won by Nino Bryant. He is still defending the title on Rumble shows in 2023, but here is his 2021 title win.

The full tape of the broadcast exists Kinescope print actually, 16mm black & white. Tapes were expensive and got reused at that point.

The seconds with the corner bucket were a familiar sight in the old days, usually aspiring wrestlers although Jeannie Clarke did some for her man Chris Adams including one TV bout. One old boy called Arthur was still seconding at Croydon for All Star into the late '90s Currently Rumble Promotions uses female seconds ("corner girls") for Nino Bryant's British Lightweight title defences.

The dancing was a German thing - they thought that a good way to get a babyface over was to make him dance like one of the spare members of a boyband. Alex Wright eventually took it to the States and seriously freaked out the Americans. I don't think the UK style was lost then or now - there are plenty of other clean matches from the modern era that I'm saving for the end but now seems to be a good time to post Johnny Saint vs Naohiro Hoshikawa from 1996 as an example of the UK style spreading around the world:

Something you neglected to mention - the face to face promo at the start where Brody recalls the legit incident where teenage Regal challenged him at Bobby Barron's booth at the Blackpool Horseshoe Showbar (as mentioned in Regal's book). "He had a big mouth at the beginning of his career, but tonight his career is finished."

The name EWF smacks of being Orig's work, a development on BWF as he called his promotion Flesh had - and still has - Wrestling Stars, formerly the IWSF, together with Jacky Richard

Saw the end of this in a shop window while out shopping with my gran while staying at her house in Surrey. Barry Douglas moonlighting as a heel, see also Clay Thompson as the Exorcist. Lost a triple tag to Daddy, Vic Faulkner and John Savage a few weeks later but got away with the mask untouched.

Try this one with Bernie Wright in Morecambe from 1981 (Don't worry, Bernie isn't yet Bearcat despite the video title.)

I was definitely a fan too. He started out as a green kid getting a consolation fall over Jim Breaks and shocking him in his 1983 TV debut. A year later he suddenly had a winning streak over Breaks and clearly had his number, beating him in a tournament then in a challenge where Breaks would pay him £500 pounds for any fall/submission/KO he could get, then winning the British Welterweight title from Breaks at the Royal Albert Hall and holding onto it in the 90 day return match before beating Breaks in a second return bout to put him out of contention. Soon afterwards Steve Grey beat Collins for the belt and a tearful Collins handed it over sportingly nontheless and astonishingly Collins got the win in the return match to get the belt back. Come FA Cup Final Day, in a support bout to the Daddy tag he beat German Jorg "Baron Von" Chenok for the European title and then spent each summer defending the belt for Roger Delaporte in France and North Spain. Sadly no INA footage of this but it's clear that by 1990ish he was VERY over with the French fans. Some good moves including his cartwheel counter to an armbar and a scoot through the legs that was like a train flying under a bridge, it was so swift. There's a win he got on camcorder over Johnny Saint somewhere in the southwest that I wish was up on Youtube.

They have both died in the last few years and the pub last I heard was up for sale. The Red/White/Blue world title belt that Bridges was awarded for beating Jim Harris at Wembley '81, then lost to Kendo in '87 and regained on a DQ in '88 was on display at the pub til it closed. No word on its current wherabouts.

Prince was actually British Welterweight champion by this point, having ended Doc Dean's second reign in 1993. His claim was gradually forgotten about until in 2000 when Scott Conway's TWA set up a new version which Johnny Storm and Jodie Fleisch feuded over. Comedy heel best known for a loaded boot which refs were desperate to catch him and DQ him over, and also losing a hair match to Robbie Brookside. Later on became a ref and quite a good old school one for the early 2010s: Another nice bloke like Kramer who it was good to chat to about old times at shows.

European Heavyweight title, Pat had it (for Orig), Stax took it off him for a while.

Barcud Du was El Diablo Tony Francis. These two bouts plus Orig vs Barcud all made up one episode of Reslo in 1987 Bill "King Kendo" Clarke could be a passable worker, I quite like the draw with Romany Riley and I've heard good things said about his tag team with kayfabe brother Ron Clarke (Dick Harrisson) as the Lincolnshire Poachers in the 70s.

I refer you also to Rocco's "Sensational Second" for his 1991 Paris Eurosport match with Danny Collins.

The Iraq bouts are from 1971. Promotion booked by Saddam Hussein at gunpoint - Andre and Gordienko did the job to Al Qaisi after Saddam threatened to shoot them. Iraqi wreslting was one of two full blown territories in the Middle East along with Rafael Halperin's promotion in Israel in the 60s/70s Probably both deserve their own thread. Don't know if there's any Halperin promotion footage but at least we have some of Saddam's. Continued even after Adnan fled back to the West - PWI had a story about a Baghdad show with Bad News Brown on the bill in December 1990 on the eve of Gulf War I.

He still does announcing for All Star and also did some commenting for a few online Rumble Promotions shows earlier this year. Lee Bamber - then and now:

I like this one because instead of pressing his advantage as a heavyweight, Douglas uses the opportunity to show off his technical prowess with Saint., so you forget it's a catchweight match.

Part of a HEATED feud with Brooks leaning towards heel. Hit its climax in June that year when Collins fell out of the ring during a Croydon title match, hit his head and dazedly attacked the referee, getting himself DQ'd and losing the title to Brooks. Collins was very ashamed afterwards and felt like he'd let his fans down. He got the title back in the 90 days return match.

I think I might have already dealt with this, or at least talked about it. Classic NagasakiSouth London crowd riot (I've spoken to people who think the rioters were hired actors - I could actually have introduced you to some of the rioters personally, back in the day) Nagasaki and Roberts had some good moment at the start till Adonis came in with his forearm smash. I wouldn't say Naggers was old, he was an evergreen like Terry Funk.

Sadly, Karl died late last year in his 50s. A nice bloke who liked to chat to me about the old days.

The match where Kent Walton finally became a fan of Regal. Best bits are between Danny and Robbie. Pete finally found his level as heel Mr Vain Pete Collins in the late 90s/early 00s, including a brother vs brother feud with Danny who had just recently gone back to blue-eye.