The times they are a changing

So last time out we had a rather wordy account of what happened in the UK scene throughout the decades. This column looks at one specific sea change in direction. As mentioned last time the British scene went into upheaval in 1986. The TV contract that had been the bread and butter for Joint Promotions suddenly was up for grabs and ended up falling three ways. Joint received a share, but also the WWF and the upstart All Star promotions. The WWF was putting out a show specifically aimed at a British audience, but the difference was staggering. Mean Gene himself giving us matches from Madison Square Garden featuring Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage and of course the British Bulldogs. All Star Promotions couldn’t surely be that different from Joint right? Well in comparison to the WWF, it wouldn’t be that different, but as for booking and content, that was like night and day. Take this example. Mark “Rollerball” Rocco versus Fuji Yamada (Jushin “Thunder” Liger), for the Heavy Middleweight Champion ship and belt, the commentator as always; Kent Walton.


 


All Star where branching out from their north western roots and where deep in Joint territory here in Lewisham. The title had been dropped to Yamada some time earlier, truly a case of opportunism as Yamada was on one of his short seasoning trips from New Japan. Even before the bell we have typical Rocco fair of intimidating his opponent before the match starts, so far so normal. The match kicks off at a hell of a pace, with a hot crowd it would be churlish not to, but the thing is that pace doesn’t let up. Knowing what we know now as to how these two careers panned out, it feels like a big fight and looks like a big fight. This is a battle for supremacy in Junior Heavyweight wrestling. The old guard versus the up and comer, a story as old as wrestling itself, however the pacing and psychology of this match doesn’t really come from British wrestling. It’s like someone put Budakon Hall in Lewisham for one night. Remembering back in time to when I watched this as young fan was the build up Mark Rocco received in the run up to this TV debut for All Star. Having been in Max Crabtree’s bad books once to often for being over aggressive on TV he upped and left with the world title, it proved a shrewd move. Brian Dixon’s economic and freewheeling booking style gave him the leeway he wanted artistically to have the matches he wanted. Unsurprisingly it was a hit at the box office to. His more realistic approach looked light years ahead of Joint and it showed in matches like this. The other helpful issue is that the referee is somewhat lenient in applying the rules which for British wrestling is an advantage as they are so restrictive. Whilst Rocco was away he had also improved immeasurably as a wrestler, his move set, already all action, had benefited by development from years spent in New Japan watching and wrestling the greatest era of Junior Heavyweights ever. People including myself rave about Tiger Mask and Dynamite, but really looking elsewhere in the division, Tatsumi Fujinami, Bret Hart, Davey Boy Smith, The Cobra; it was an all time world class field and all in the same place at the same time. They wrestled each other a lot. Here he borrows a move from Bret Hart; the hammer lock drop sending your opponent out of the ring. It is also not only a one man show, as we now know 28 years later Fuji is still the main draw of the NJPW Junior Heavy division and still looks exactly like this, except under a black suit and I would say quite rightly considered to be the greatest pure Junior Heavyweight wrestler of all time.

As they both hit hold and counter holds, this style is certainly something different to what we had been used to. A kind of mix of British Wrestling and Japanese Strong style that transcended boundaries as far as race where concerned. As mentioned in a previous episode Dave Finlay would often be singled out as heel by just being Irish, in his Steve Wright’s only World title match on British soil he got over purely by pretending to be a German heel. Xenophobia was never that far away in British rings, but for some reason Japanese boys from the time of Saturo Sayama, everyone got over fine, especially if they where young boys like Fuji here. What was even more interesting is what Mark Rocco comes out with verbally. Mark hits a abdominal stretch at the 9:10 mark in this clip and starts calling out Antonio Inoki whilst chastising Kent Walton for not knowing the correct name of the move. He does this later in the bout while applying a Scorpion Deathlock and calling out Chosu Ricki. This mild insider message was no doubt lost on anyone in the hall who would have no idea who either of these people where lost in our insular British wrestling worlds. We had only just found out about Hulk Hogan how where we supposed out know about Inoki and Ricki?






For his part Fuji opens round four with a handspring elbow snap brain buster and an elbow off the top rope. Kent as always oblivious to any move invented after 1956 does not call it correctly getting confused with the Power Lock of Andy Robbins and Marty Jones, which both start the same way but end up more like a figure four. Though it is somewhat sloppily applied it is better than the Rocks. What hadn’t changed was Rocco’s ability to bait a crowd. His highly effective pantomime of grabbing the title was a heat getter in Lewisham, but they where on the edge of the seats already, did they know they where watching two of the greatest ever? Probably not, context is everything and nothing. Rocco’s rather vicious looking neck breaker also makes a debut in this match, again unnamed by Walton who by this point was somewhat losing the plot when it came to the state of the art matches. He certainly didn’t know what to call the German Suplex that gets the first fall. What is more remarkable is that it is won Japanese style in pin fall; go till you knock the guy out. As we move on into round six the classic Rocco gambit of uncovering the ring post comes into play. In all the years I saw him do this I think Rocco came out on top about 50% of the time.





Subtle things make this match different as well, Rocco’s insistence of hooking the leg during a pin fall goes against the British tradition of pinning the shoulders only and hoping after a knock out move. So we are all tied up at round seven and things are going to have to heat up, even if they have not already. This match has so far been a logical progression of speed and intensity that only two great performers can give, so why was it on free TV? World title matches on TV up until this point had been few and far between. Understandably Joint felt they where giving away the golden goose. But Brian Dixon’s point was get them into the halls, show the best stuff we can and deliver it again live then we can all make money. Once again calling his own moves, an innovative approach, Rocco gets on top with a grovit, another Lancastrian classic. A pescado from Fuji brings him back on top; this match was bringing out all the moves and really created something special as a title match should be. Finishing up with the pile driver Rocco takes the title back. So what do we have here? We have an independent promotion taking established veterans and using them to get over younger talent developing, an ultra stiff style and an episodic TV presentation. Remind you of anyone? Well the influence clearly came from Bill Watt’s Mid South promotion, and was the basis for ECW some years later. I even remember Taz cutting promos on Ric Flair and Hulk Hogan during title matches. Though routed in the British style and environment, it had elements and aspirations in different places. Still do not believe me? Next time we shall look at another match from the Brian Dixon’s boys. Have a good time till next time.

A brief bit of history

British wrestling history is a tale of three halves. Pre World War II, Post World War II and Post network TV. As the entertainment we know and love today the Pre WWII wrestling establishment bore little relation to what would come to pass after it. The matches could be wild to say the least and came from the folk styles of wrestling that occurred in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. What occurred after the war set up the way things went for quite some time.

After World War II Britain had become a social melting pot, an NHS, better education, more jobs; the world was still in austerity but things where getting better. Working class folk had more money to spend on entertainments. They now had many more places to entertain themselves to; specifically what was to become the Club Circuit. With national service still in full swing Services Men’s clubs cropped up all over the UK. With unions not only strong but still based in industry, working men’s clubs also popped up on estates in small towns. Club Land as it was to become known was the place to play in entertainment, just as Music Hall had been before that. The key link between those two eras of British entertainment was variety. A club could not put on a comedian seven nights a week, so new ways of entertaining people had to be found. Boxing and other sports that could be put on in a confined space became popular. Another beneficiary was wrestling.

The newly minted Mountevans committee determined a set of rules that got away from the pre war free for all and helped promote a lively but wholesome sport for the whole family to enjoy or promoters to exploit, depending on how you looked at it. One of the quick developments was the linking of promoters nationwide. Having seen how the NWA had managed to sooth tensions in the USA to the point where everyone made money. British promoters pulled the same trick and called it Joint Promotions. In reality much like in the US it was a closed shop. No one could run in anyone else’s territory. As TV contracts became more lucrative this was an important issue but back in the late forties and early fifties it left two lasting marks. One; The town halls and exhibition centres of the UK would run the big companies from Joint Promotions such as Dale Martin in London or Best promotions in Liverpool. Two; there had to be other places to wrestle specifically in the North. Wrestling in the North, thanks to the pre war era, was a shooters heartland. So as clubs began to run weekly wrestling shows (a different night in each club) it provided an independent circuit for smaller promoters and wrestlers to earn a living. As Johnny Saint recently pointed out in his Art of Wrestling Podcast with Colt Cabana; he could work shows all around Manchester all week long and earn more than he could in his day job. As he worked his way through the club scene he got noticed by Joint Promotions and went to wrestle for them and then on and up to be one of their champions. Colt likened it to being an indie star now that goes on to being picked up by the WWE. These rival promotions would sometimes get a “little to big for their boots” and take on the major promotions, as Paul Lincoln did to Dale Martin promotions in the 1950s, but overall everyone kept the peace because everyone was making money.

Of course with a closed shop that meant wrestlers got what they got and not a lot more and that was pretty much that. Once you got to a good spot on the card you where earning a lot more than you would be working the Club’s and a lot more than working a day job, and doing something you loved for twenty minutes a night wasn’t really work. The independents though had their moments. The British Wrestling Federation was a promotion running out of the North West of the country and featured the British Heavyweight Champion Bert Assirati, who for want of a better word, had blackballed himself out of Joint Promotions for being his own man. As Joe Cornelius explained in his book “Thumbs up Boy” he would get called to go wrestle somewhere in the world at short notice and would find Bert waiting for him in the dressing room when he got there. The reason; Bert had probably hurt someone in his attempt to get over and no one would wrestle him so they would call Joe. By the late fifties however Bert was taking fewer and fewer matches and the Crabtree’s (for it was them who owned the BWF) started to promote Shirley Crabtree (a much more trustworthy champion, who also happened to be one of the brothers), Shirley retired not long after being given the belt, partly to do with the money, being an outsider, and partly because the belt had been given to him while Assirati had been out of town and Bert wanted a say in getting it back, the hard way if necessary. Bert was not afraid of an open challenge or two, once turning up at the Royal Albert Hall to challenge Lou Thesz. As Joint where a loose NWA affiliate, that never occurred. Knowing what we know now about Lou and what we know about Bert it would have been somewhat of a boring shoot match, but it would have made money.

That is really what did for Joint Promotions in the end, a lack of vision. As the seventies arrived the Joint banner was flying high, as they continued the flags began to dip. They had the TV money which was secure, but as the promoters and bookers all reached retirement age, there was only one man left to turn to. Max Crabtree who became the chief booker for Joint Promotions. While Crabtree once again turned to his brother to become Big Daddy, somebody else was looking at making things work in a different way.

Brian Dixon began his wrestling career by running the Jim Breaks fan club, he moved on to promotion as an independent in the late seventies. When he got there he set about changing the wrestling industry in the UK. His first major signing from Joint was John Quinn who had recently headlined a Wembley against Big Daddy. He then signed World Heavyweight Champion Wayne Bridges, and so it went on. Every year Dixon would sign a major star. But it is what he did with them that counted. His shows worked on an episodic format like Southern wrestling. No weekly TV shows though, just a weekly live show in the same venue. The result was live money cash which pulled them in every week. There where also benefits to having the stars. Marc Rocco liked wrestling the Dynamite Kid, so when Tommy came home he did not have to go far to find a match to fill a spare night. Marc also had friends in the front offices of NJPW so when they needed to season a kid they had found, Fuji Yamada or Jushin “Thunder” Liger, ended up in All Star promotions and produced similar box office and response as Akira Maeda and Satoru Sayama had done for Joint years before. When All Star got a share of the TV contract  in late 1986 they used it to their advantage booking storylines just as they had done on there weekly live events. Joint looked 30 years older in comparison. When TV was pulled in 1988 Joint went into terminal decline eking out a living for the few loyal performers left. Everyone else of note went to All Star and took their titles with them. The major money feuds that ended the TV run of All Star, Wayne Bridges and Marc Rocco versus Kendo Nagasaki and whomever they could find to get beat up, made money for All Star long after TV coverage finished. Of course free from the constraints of Joint, Marty Jones could go one last time with Marc Rocco and Dave Finlay, the money was till there for a while before decline truly set in the wake of the WWF take over.

Looking at the business now, as it all bad for British wrestlers? In the WWE there are two major British talents Wade Barret and Mason Ryan. Steve Regal is important to the WWE as a talent trainer, commentator and occasional in ring competitor and is still working 24 years after his TV debut. TNA has Doug Williams, Magnus and Rob Terry along with a very strong UK fan base. Dragon Gate has PAC. Ring of Honor has used many British talents in the past, most notably former champion Nigel McGuiness, still commentating for them now. Dave Finlay to after a successful career in WCW, WWE and now back on the indie circuit to scratch his itchy feet is working shows for Ring of Honor. Back home there are over twenty regular promotions doing strong enough business to survive and even thrive. Let us not forget to one person who links all of these eras together. Former World’s Heavyweight Champion Daniel Bryan, not only trained by Steven Regal and Robby Brookside, but also a very proud alumnus of All Star Promotions.                  

I would like to acknowledge this article in the writing of this piece; http://houseofdeception.com/British_Wrestling_History.html

Six of the Best

Back in 2002, Paul Heyman was given the book for Smackdown while managing Brock Lesnar. A relationship that continues to this day, but it was slightly, and only slightly, further down the card that what made Smackdown the must see brand for that year. The Smackdown Six as they became known; Los Guerreros (Eddie and Chavo), the full on face team of Edge and Rey Mysterio  and the tweeners of Chris Benoit and Kurt Angle thrown together by Stephanie Mcmahon in the story line despite feuding as singles wrestlers. Heyman had a gift for hiding the negatives of each performer in his heyday as the ECW svengali, but in this situation he really did not have any negatives to hide. Six superlative workers and a seemingly endless series of combinations. It worked very well indeed, revitalised the tag team division making the belts seem something more and elevated five of the six to future world title runs.

Having a strong wrestling base in your main event had worked well before, elsewhere. There are some striking parallels with what was happening in the UK in the late seventies to early eighties as match quality rose thanks to a small pool of workers in the Heavy Middleweight, Light Heavyweight and Mid Heavyweight divisions. Thanks to the long term nature of title booking in the UK it would have an effect world wide. The six involved would go on to redefine pro wrestling over the next forty years and build stellar reputations that would take them to Budakon Hall, Madison Square Garden and Wrestlemania. The six where Marty Jones, Mark "Rollerball" Rocco, The Dynamite Kid Tommy Billington, Dave "Fit/Belfast Bruiser" Finlay and Skull Murphy and Davey Boy Smith.

Like most wrestling around the world the heavyweights where the key draw in the UK and always had been. From Bert Assarati to Giant Haystacks they filled the halls, but to a young impressionable fan it was these six that determined my viewer-ship every week. They easily had the best matches, the stiffest moves certainly, and while I loved watching the lighter guys move at incredible speed, their hard hitting style gave it that extra sense of realism. There was also that mix of attitudes that the Smackdown Six enjoyed. Jones and Smith where the only two true faces, Finlay and Murphy where real heels throughout their UK careers and Dynamite though a good guy in the early part of his UK run sensibly wrestled as a heel to help the match whenever facing Jones. Rollerball was Rollerball, the fans hated him but always respected his skill so when he went off to All Star promotions in the late 80's taking the World Heavy Middle Weight title with him and turned face on Kendo Nagasaki the fans adored him with more fervour still.

In the UK scene from pretty much the second world war onwards there where really no blood feuds of long term significance. TV changed that because and issue could be publicised. In a certain hall there maybe a long running series of matches, but now with TV two wrestlers could have one inconclusive affair on TV and run the matches around the loop. As the elders of the group Rocco and Jones began their TV feud in the mid seventies. It would essentially go on for the next five years. The two middle weights where sharp well trained Lancashire amateurs. The Snake Pit still loomed heavy over Wigan and Billy Riley's shadow loomed even larger. The Lancashire great Billy Robinson was serving time as All-Japan PWF Heavyweight champ between runs as Verne Gagne's enforcer in the AWA. A heavy reputation to uphold for your county, but equally meant you had the best training.

A couple of matches on TV kicked things off;





As Kent states, the two had a previous match where Rocco had walked off in disgust at his inability to beat Jones. Here he shows the same traits sticking to the rules until his frustrations get the better of him. Rocco was a fourth generation wrestler his, father "Jumping" Jim Hussey. As Kent relates, Jim had the best drop kick in all of wrestling. Oh for the days when a drop kick was a finisher. Jones on the other hand came through the amateur ranks from the age of seven, but it was in the pros that he would have most effect. His run in this year culminated in winning the vacant British Light Heavyweight title that had been vacated by Snake Pit alumnus Billy Joyce.

This match was the start of the feud but the story told in it would be a recurring theme for both men. Rocco's frustration boiling over at a slow and steady pace with mat wrestling being the key device that linked everything together.





These matches where a precursor to other feuds that both had world wide. Their success in Europe was mirrored by success in Japan, and the two opponents all of the six had in common; Satoru Sayama the original Tiger Mask, and Keiichi Yamada the one and only Jushin "Thunder" Liger. We will look at those matches in future editions of Seconds away . .  but for now back to the match.

Jones is starting his comeback, never a clear cut issue in the UK style, everything is slow build. A style of wrestling Shinya Hashimoto would employ as IWGP champ. The rounds system also tended to cut into flow a little bit. The striking begins to get into harder and heavier hitting the knee lifts and forearm smashes harder each time. Max Crabtree, referee here and future Joint Promotions owner who really deserves a book by himself, complained that Rocco was to stiff on many occasions. "Mark's trouble was that he always wanted there to be a fight, so he'd split somebody open and we'd have to send him to Japan for a few weeks to get him off TV". What may have not been great for TV in the executives seventies and eighties was great for me as a fan. Heavyweight title bouts where few and far between. All Star had that title and it was rarely defended on TV. The lightweights where great for action but drama came much more realistically in between. Much later on in a one-more-time-for-old-times-sake kind of rematch in All Star promotions in the late eighties Jones gave one of the most heated promos I have ever heard and it still rings in my ears today "If I don't split you here, I'll split you in the car park" and demanded two more rounds after Rocco had been DQ'd with blood pouring down his face. Something Brian Dixon was not scared of showing on TV. In the mid seventies these two where just getting started and starting to collect title belts. The next year Rocco went on to his first run with the British Heavy Middle Weight title which would culminate in another Jones feud which we shall look at next time. So on to the finish Marty is wrestling one handed after a series of arm weakeners (there is a term you won't here very often any more);


 


Kent Walton's selling of the arm injury over commentary was helped by the fact he had a couple of minutes off between round time to explain things. The breaks could be used as an advantage but where horrible for fans at times, as the faces rallied and where cut off by the bell. Marty's comeback is complete with a two fall victory after coming back from impossible odds. This was match wasn't as stiff as later matches on TV but you can see already the fans where so far into it the eruption at the end after an afternoons polite clapping along to moves shows where these two guys could take and audience. So how do you top that?

Next on Seconds Away, Round One . . . Title belts start to mount up, two youngsters make their name, the southerner and the Irishman start to take over breaking rules along the way and Jones receives impossible task after impossible task.

Have good time, till the next time.