Oh when the Saint . . .

So it’s been a while; this partly due to my commitments at Bomcast, and partly due to my diligence in watching lots of lovely DVD’s from the fine people at Rudo Reels and Smart Mark Video. These things of course feed into one another. So when I left you all hanging I was going to break down how All Star became dominant and left Joint in its wake. My watching of Smart Mark DVD’s has led me into re-watching a lot of Johnny Saint. His performance at Chikara’s Chikarasaurus Rex last year (at the age of 71 I may add) was incredible. This was partly down to a red hot crowd in Reading, Pennsylvania who adored his match with Johnny Kidd, but also the incredibly knowledgeable and respectful fans of South Philly. They always loved their wrestling. They just liked their blood and guts as well. And so it was that in a place where Dean Malenko, Eddie Guerrero, Chris Jericho and Rey Misterio broke the US market wide open for pure wrestlers Johnny Saint and Johnny Kidd reinvigorated their somewhat dormant careers, with the help of Mike Quakenbush and Colt Cobana . So where does this fit in with how All Star broke the Saturday afternoon mould? Take a look at this.



This is late eighties and classic All Star presentation; a catch weight contest between two of the top drawing cards in the country. Something Joint would never have done. Brian Dixon ensured that the TV was there to support the live gate not replace it. He built feuds in the arenas from feuds he had going for him on TV. The episodic cliff hanger format that was pioneered by Bill Watts presented with an original twist. The pre-match interview favoured Dave Finlay, always ahead of his time. The subtle and down played reply by Johnny Saint belies an incredible voice that if you listen to his Art of Wrestling Podcast is both insightful, funny and warm. What really paid of though is what happens between the ropes. The short format three minute rounds, championship style, kind of cuts into the flow, but the bell goes and we have the classic roles of heel and face played out. Dave’s stall and taunt tactics give a nice pace to the match, his minimalist style goes against the grain of Johnny’s all action outings. The Sandman (a technical wizard if ever there was one) once recounted how Dave, then working as a road agent for WWE, didn’t like a match because someone had taken to many bumps. He then proceeded to have a one bump match to prove his point. Everything makes sense.



And of course with Dave being full on heel, Johnny can relax and go on being viciously effective full on face, something the Philly fans did not see. Note the torque on the whip at 1:26. Of course Dave has not really evolved his style much in the ring over the years. He has just got more vicious. His chilling promo for his Ring of Honor match with Roderick Strong at Border Wars attests to which basically boiled down to “Finlay’s coming” attests to that. Paula of course always attracted white hot heat from the crowd, but its Dave who seals the deal in the ring; the bemused heel chasing ghosts and of course when you get frustrated resort to punches. Punching was so looked down up on and was almost an instant DQ in the British ring because rules still mattered. Throwing a punch was enough to get major heat and Dave’s perfect hidden deliveries. So the story goes on; the heel gets mad so the face gets even madder. This is Johnny’s downfall as he slips into the Celtic Cross.



Round four brings us back to action Johnny sells the Celtic Cross very believably, as with much of everything he did; his usual matches against smaller opponents where usually affairs of escape and defence, he had plenty of chances to seal the submissions and pin falls so when he really got hit with something big he looked perfect. Moderation is the key after all. The escape and release style resurfaces as Johnny hits his second wind. Simplicity is the key as Johnny takes down Dave Finlay with a School boy. As Kent Walton rightly says “all done with speed”, in fact the only thing missing from Chikarasaurous Rex was Kent Walton’s commentary; however he was mentioned in passing. I would have dearly loved to have heard him commentate on the singles match. The other issue of this time was camera presentation. The low camera shot from the side of the ring was something new, but it also helped impact of each moved to be presented in a much more hard hitting way. What is also amazing is that the one big bump of the match happens so late. These two men had the crowd oohing and ahhing without leaving their feet that often. This says a lot for their ability. Doing the most with minimal effort, this had an impact on their careers in that both are wrestling to a very high level twenty five years later. There is a somewhat anti climatic ending to the bout which manages to achieve a lot and could only happen in a British ring. Dave keeps his heat as a heel and his dominance as a larger man; Johnny retains his heat as a face by losing in less than perfect circumstances. Everyone’s a winner. Certainly All Star fans where. Joint fan’s not so much. They had to deal with this.



Which would you rather watch? I shall at this point give a shameless plug to those folks at Rudo Reels, not for any other reason other than they are supportive of wrestling, offer great value and give incredible service. I strongly recommend their download service which can build your collection cheaply and effectively. A word of warning though it’s addictive. I’d start with their excellent Luche Libre sampler which has some mid nineties classics and shows the growth of AAA, EMLL and the careers of Rey Misterio, Psycosis and La Parka and is free. Have a good week, till next week.

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

FA Cup Final Day

Welcome back to the blog that's had well 16 hits so far. Well gotta start somewhere.

Today we head out to down to Walthamstow (and 1972) for a a double title day, one the FA Cup, but first the things that really matter. The British Light-Weight title and belt, to be fought over ten, five minute rounds, with two falls, submission, a knock-out or a disqualification to decide the winner. On your left in the blue corner, from Bradford a very young looking defending champion, Jimmy "Crybaby" Breaks. Interestingly never announced as such, his ring name was earned for his reputation of throwing a strop when things where not going his way. In the red corner from Manchester, the challenger Mr. Johnny Saint. Saint in his trademark terrible 70's hair cut which thankfully morphed into a short back and sides by his iconic 80's run. This matched the footballers who where to do battle later on in the day after this pre-taped title match aired.

Cup final day throughout the 1970's and into the '80's was without a doubt and event of epic televisual proportions. Cup final specials abounded, but it was important to wrestling; for one day of the year it would be bumped out of its usual 4pm slot, and secondly it would have the biggest possible audience. Quite frankly cause there was naff all else on. 3 Channels, two showing football, not only football but THE SAME GAME. Enough to make you heave, anything is light relief after or before that. So, over to Kent.


 

   
The fact this wasn't the main event blows my mind. As Walton points out later in the commentary Joint Promotions tended not to put title matches on TV, quite sensibly that would hurt the live gate. With closed circuit TV not available yet, no TV equipment of their own to film it (everything was brought in), and no way of disseminating the title matches to their audience in a fee paying manner they had to protect their best stuff. Of course that would also take investment, something British wrestling promoters wouldn't get the hang of for another 40 years.

There is the obligatory title defence hand shake (everyone did this face or heel) and we are off. Breaks does slowly build up to the whining, cheating and cry baby tactics but up till then its what the good people of Walthamstow had come to see a good classical contest. 

At 2.50 in this clip we start to see what Breaks was all about; arms submissions. The Crybaby character was all well and good for selling tickets but it couldn't work in the ring without something vicious to back it up. Jim wanted to win and he wanted to win with the Breaks special, a modified folding arm lever that looked supremely vicious. The only people who have seen tried copying it since are long time rivals in the well trod "stealing the finisher" gimmick of Saint himself later in this match and Steve Grey. Most recently Bryan Danielson attempted it on Johnny Saint at the King of Trios in 2009 yes folks 2009. Johnny Saint has been wrestling that long, and still is. At 72.

Anyways back to the match. Things are going swimmingly for Jim. He starts controlling before losing his grasp on the escapology specialist. The story of this match was quite similar throughout the seventies for a heel champion. He loses cleanly and in humiliating fashion to a well fancied challenger and so has to give up the title shot at some point. The championship advantage of course did not occur under Mount-Evans rules, the belt changed hands on DQ or CO, so it made draw finishes much more useful. Both guys where protected and future rematches would be down the line. But more on the finish later.

Jim Breaks was by this time into his third reign as British Lightweight Champ. As he held it a record ten times we can safely call it "his" belt. A quick flick through the title reigns shows an interesting trend; he always dropped it to wrestlers who where on their way up to different things. The two most notable names on that list being Johnny Saint, soon to be worlds lightweight champion on the retirement of George Kidd and The Dynamite Kid himself on his way to being arguably the greatest British wrestler of all time.




As a fan the one thing I couldn't stand about Breaks was his constant chatter with ringside fans. It drives you up the wall, just as it should of course. The stress in the commentary is the 2-0 win for Saint in the none title bout, this gave a real idea that he could knock off the champ, and the advantage of presenting wrestling as a real sport. Something Ring of Honor do better than anyone at the moment. The momentum then is with the challenger, at 5.35 the temper starts to fray and so we get the tantrum with a well placed handkerchief from a well meaning fan that couldn't have been more appreciated by Jim I'm sure.

From a title perspective Breaks' long and continuous reigns matched a slate of champions from the wrong side of the tracks each promoted differently so as to make sure they meant something different to each division. Breaks was the sneak thief heel who got away with it. By contrast the fans would at least respect Mark "Rollerball" Rocco even if they knew he cheated, but he could go with the best in a straight wrestling style to.All of the champions where top notch for match quality as Saint proves, at 9.45 even Breaks comes out of character with a wry smile to applaud the acrobatics.




Clip three brings the first and what turns out to be the only fall of the match. What happens next is what really stands out for a match of this era. Baring in mind this match was shown on a Saturday morning with the kids off from school, there is a fair amount of blood. First there is the vicious side of Breaks trying to exact revenge on the Saint nose. Then Saint's retaliation for the big pop as Breaks has his nose broken again and bleeds profusely before Breaks snaps and heads out to hurt Breaks with the big bump to the floor. What is remarkable is that both these bleeds appear to be blade jobs.  

The finish of course protects the champion and would lead to another title show down the line for the unfortunate Saint who was 1-0 up when there was a TKO. A nice shot though from the crowd at Jimmy's unprotected skull. The Mutoh Scale was not in effect back then but this wasn't to bad in comparison what my Dad called the "Billy Howes Effect" which was how much Billy Howes could make Kendo Nagasaki bleed on a National TV.
   
So there you have it grapple fans, the title picture in 1971, but Johnny Saint was going to move onto bigger and better things. If you can't have Great Britain why not go for the world?

Oh yeah Leeds United beat Arsenal 1-0. Given the Leeds (inventive but violent) and Arsenal (boring and violent) sides of the time it was safe to say this wouldn't be the only blood on a May Saturday afternoon.

Have a good time, till the next time.