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; Bus Man's Holiday

So we have established that the Six where worthy main eventers in the UK, so what made them so special not just to us but fans around the world? Well, their ability to change styles as time demanded, their unique characters, but their base instincts for adapting to a wrestler and adapting to an audience. They where all incredibly gifted workers, and they could make matches with anyone but when they had the right opponent, they could change wrestling history. One man was the equal to three of the six and bested them more often than not in his homeland Japan. This episode looks at three of the Six and three of their matches with Satoru Sayama. It has to start of course in New Japan. Well Madison Square Garden in 1982. This was a rare Stateside defence of the WWF Jnr. Heavyweight title, the most prestigious Junior Heavyweight title in the world at the time so without further ado, Howard away you go.





This is not their best match, but in a feud that lasted three years its hard to pick just one. This one had the most effect though, the audience was not NJPW regulars, it was the biggest audience in the world in the worlds most exposed wrestling market. Perhaps most importantly it was the audience of one, Vince MacMahon Jr., that was most impressed, telling Dynamite later that it was the “greatest match he had ever seen”. This was at the height of their feud and they knew each other so well they could put together a five star classic in seven minutes. The near miss kick out from Dynamite tells the story in itself, they where both that close. Dynamite doesn't really come off as the viscous heel he portrayed in Japan, there are elements of it there though. Having watched so much of his British stuff lately, you get the feeling it was just his style, never, ever back down. Not really breaking the rules as trying to run right over them. Sayama of course is Sayama, his aerial style honed in Mexico, his mat work honed in England, his striking honed in Japan, NJPW spent a lot of time perfecting him as wrestler and it shows. The WWF Jnr. Title would be his for the taking once Tatsumi Fujinami moved up to heavyweight, and as that was he who Dynamite had been chasing in his early NJPW forays he took the chase to Tiger Mask. The result was genius and brought together the perfect mix of styles, Dynamites submission versus Tiger Masks strikes and their more or less equal aerial majesty. The effect was breathtaking. It single handedly gave Jnr. Heavyweights a voice outside of the UK for the first time since Danny Hodge was NWA Light-heavyweight champion, and more importantly attracted the top stars from around the world to the hottest Jnr. Division on the planet. Including . . .


 


Mark Rocco did not have the same Japan connection that Dynamite did, Rocco came by way of the Crabtree's, eager to get shot of him after he had unfortunately split somebody open the hard way and caused a ruction with ITV. Meanwhile NJPW where expanding the Tiger Mask Universe. The original Tiger Mask was an Animé character. A masked Japanese Pro who wrestles as a heel in the US, but turns face at the bequest of his son in Japan. His arch nemesis was Black Tiger, so if it worked once in cartoon form . . . All we need is a guy who can work a similar style and go just as hard as Dynamite. . . hello is that Lancashire? Rocco had a very successful run as Black Tiger, which culminated in a WWF Jnr. Title reign in a tournament title for the vacated belt. We shall get to that in a second. As Dynamite spent a lot of time tending to Calgary and had some injury worries, Black Tiger filled the hole of top heel in the division. His heel-ish ways transferring well in what is more or less a direct transfer of his match style. What made things better for him there was no Mount -Evans rules to hold him back. This was Rocco with the breaks off. The flipside of that is though that as a heel if half the heel-ish things you do are now legal you have to up the volume elsewhere to get the heat, add in the mask which hide his facial expressions and therefore half his charm and it could have been real trouble. Much like Chris Jericho found out a few years later when NJPW tried to introduce Super Liger. Rocco though proved his worth, enough that when Sayama and even Dynamite moved on he become the chosen one.


 


So how did Mark become the chosen one? Surely with two class acts like Dynamite and Tiger Mask, the two hottest properties in town you don't let them go do you? Oh yes you can. Thanks to this kick, Akira Maeda was out of a job. What he did next was form a company that not only changed wrestling but the whole aspect of martial arts world wide. They formed a seed that would become MMA as we know it, as well as having a long lasting effect on the wrestling business. Maeda's issues in New Japan stemmed from a reluctance to put new men at the top of the card by then booker Ricki Chosu, he was also not fond of the NJPW Strong Style that was the companies mainstay. What Maeda wanted to do was to work an environment that supported a more realistic mat game, something stiffer and more like wrestling used to be in its original incarnation, this shoot style would become the original Universal Wrestling Promotion of Japan. His wrestling masters at NJPW would not allow such a thing to happen so with perhaps the most direct resignation letter in history (a kick to the face on national TV) he was let go and he took several young NJPW regulars with him, including Sayama. This left Dynamite as the top dog (if you will pardon the pun) and he went on to win the vacated title. Sayama for his part actually tried to persuade Dynamite to go with him, but Dynamite saw the risk and staid where he was until someone came calling. That someone would be Giant Baba, with a briefcase full of money and a guaranteed tour fee. Dynamite seeing how strong All Japan had become, seeing his greatest opponent leave and realising his high impact style maybe better suited to All Japan and its regular income decided to up ship and move taking Davey Boy with him. This left the new UWF in a hole, Dynamite was Tiger Mask's, now for contractual reasons Super Tiger, best money making opponent. But who could excel at a more mat based style with, no aerials and no pin falls, who could take a lot of punishment and make others look great while getting himself over? Hello is that Lancashire again? We seem to need a Mid-heavyweight shooter with a string track record of mat wrestling. Marty Jones? That will do nicely.





Marty actually doesn’t have to change his style that much, aside from not having to run the ropes, it is pretty much what you would expect to see him do in Croydon. Les Kellet never hit this hard though. Sayama is clearly trying to kick through brick walls, but the match itself is a good set piece of give and take one-upmanship the kind that Jones excelled at with Mark Rocco and Dave Finlay. He even tries the power lock but has to settle for an Indian death lock, but notice how the crowd turn to him through the match, only ever a face, he had no bother in getting the crowd on his side with one well placed stiff slap and his clear submissions advantage.



Of course with Tiger and Dynamite gone it left an even bigger hole for NJPW. It was filled by, you've guessed it, Mark Rocco who won the vacated title and began a series with the Cobra that continued the momentum that Dynamite and Tiger Mask had started. These matches sum up what could be achieved by British wrestling at the time, the ability to adapt had come from many different catch weight contests from international competitors in different towns all over the country. Put them in a mask, change the rules, give them the biggest audience in the world and they could prove they where the best.

Have a good time till next time grapple fans.