Comprehensive list of great European matches

[ohtani's jacket]

Watched --

Johnny Saint vs. Jackie Robinson (9/11/78)
Johnny Saint vs. Jackie Robinson (Reslo)

I gotta admit, my interest in Johnny Saint is fading fast. The first match was JIP like many of the original WoS broadcasts. Didn't really matter since it was a nothing bout. The Reslo bout was slightly better but Reslo stuff was never as good as the ITV stuff and Saint was old hat by the mid-80s.

Johnny Saint vs. Peter La Paque (9/28/88)

This was Saint's last appearance on ITV and possibly on British television. The match was OK, but there wasn't enough time to have a proper bout after the various programming changes. This was filmed differently from most WoS I've seen. I guess they were trying to repackage it a bit.

Terry Rudge vs. Dalibar Singh (7/12/78)

Solid grappling, but the crowd was dead for the most part. I read a theory the other day about how the Crabtrees didn't want their heavyweight workers getting over at the expense of Big Daddy and Haystacks, hence the slower paced bouts. Definitely wasn't a charismatic bout.

[ohtani's jacket]

Added -- Terry Rudge vs. Dalibar Singh (10/11/83)

Watched this again and decided it was pretty awesome on a sliding 80s scale. Two guys beating the shit out of each other and needling one another till the ref starts issuing public warnings left, right and centre. Rudge has awesome looking strikes and looks great smashing the shit out of the thick set Dalibar Singh.

Watched -- Skull Murphy vs. Alan Kilby (11/20/84)

This was a good match. I liked this a hell of a lot more than the other Murphy/Kilby match I watched. It was closer to a traditional pro-wrestling bout than the "British style," with Murphy using his brute strength to wear Kilby down and Kilby making fired up babyface comebacks. Kilby was close to his best here and had a great celebration with his cornerman after getting the equaliser. I also dug the finish, which went to a ref's decision.

[ohtani's jacket]

Watched -- Pat Roach vs. Ray Steele (10/30/79)

This was okay, but I expect more from the big fella than "okay." The heavyweights could really dog it when they felt like it, largely because of the way Dale Martin ran things with Big Daddy on top. I kinda supported Big Daddy for the WON in a peripherial sort of way (since it has nothing to do with me), but I won't next year. It's the same misguided crap as the Rocco push. Anyway, Ray Steele could blow hot or cold, and Pat Roach was the sort of guy who could get him fired up, but it hasn't happened yet and possibly never did.

[ohtani's jacket]

Here's a new feature for the next couple of days. It's called:

YOUR TONY ST. CLAIR MATCH OF THE DAY

The New Japan panel think Tony St. Clair sucks. I think Tony St. Clair sucks. Dean Rasmussen challenged Rob to find a passable Tony St .Clair match. I already found one in the form of Pat Roach schtick, but let's see what else there is.

Tony St. Clair vs. Johnny Kincaid (2/6/78)

If you've never seen Tony St. Clair before, the first thing you'll notice is that despite being incredibly soft with his holds and locking up like a girl, he was inexplicably popular with the crowd.

This was taped a few weeks before the Caribbean Sunshine Boys broke up, so the crowd hated Kincaid's guts. The match was the usual sort of needling that I've seen a million times over, but you'd have to say the combined heat from the two of them being so over made for a passable match.

Kincaid was a bit of super worker at this point. He didn't do any of the cool shit he did in that Caribbean Sunshine Boys tag, instead he worked this like a Memphis style studio match. According to Mick McManus, the TV authorities took a hardline approach to content back in the day, which is why you hardly see any blood or violent brawling on WoS, but this was about as heated as it gets for a niggly heavyweight contest.

Tony St. Clair won of course and got a standing ovation. You don't see that too often. Another example of his inexplicable popularity. I will say that while he couldn't wrestle for shit, he copied some of the better spots that workers were doing around this time, which made him carriable against a good heel. His comebacks won't thrill anyone who thinks he's a pussy and he never went to the Terry Rudge school of forearm smashes, but heat does good things for average workers and I declare this a second passable Tony St. Clair match.

[ohtani's jacket]

YOUR TONY ST. CLAIR MATCH OF THE DAY:

Roy/Tony St. Clair vs. Bert Royal/Vic Faulkner (11/29/71)

It's the Saints vs. the Royals, brothers vs. brothers... This had the potential to be cringe worthy, but it actually ended up being one of the better WoS tag matches. It was worked in the technical, Bert Royal/Vic Faulkner style with a bunch of tricky reversals, and instead of having too many hot tags, they worked a bunch of one-on-one match-ups. Tony St. Clair was the least of the four workers, and I need to watch his brother's matches to determine whether he was in fact better, but notch this up as another passable Tony St. Clair match.

[ohtani's jacket]

YOUR TONY ST. CLAIR MATCH OF THE DAY:

Mick McManus vs. Tony St. Clair (3/14/74)

This was an excellent performance from McManus. Pretty much a masterclass. In fact, I think it may be the best Mick McManus performance I've seen. Tony St. Clair had a huge height and weight advantage which kind of translated to some awkward looking lock-ups in terms of him having to bend over, but to St. Clair's credit he was full of fire here and sold well.

The match was basically about McManus' cheating and St. Clair's retaliation (like all McManus matches), but St. Clair was pretty damn good at his part. Max Ward was on his case the entire match and there was awesome part where Walton started saying "Is he gone? I think he might be gone" in regards to whether it was a DQ or public warning. The last couple of falls were really good since St. Clair was battling for an equalising fall via submission.

Not only was this passable, but I'm actually going to list this since it was a genuinely exciting match and a great Mick McManus bout. St. Clair is 4/4 in passable bouts so far, and while I wouldn't call him a good worker, it seems like his opponents liked the heat they got against him because everyone stepped up their game when they faced Tony St. Clair.

[ohtani's jacket]

YOUR TONY ST. CLAIR MATCH OF THE DAY:

Tony St. Clair vs. Bob Kirkwood (8/21/75)

This was one of those technical, face vs. face bouts where they try to act all sporting. Tony St. Clair had a stupid grin on his face, and there wasn't any heat apart from polite applause. Some good holds, but this isn't something anybody would ever wanna see. 4/5 then for passable bouts.

[ohtani's jacket]

YOUR TONY ST. CLAIR MATCH OF THE DAY:

Tony St.Clair/Kung Fu vs. Colin Joynson/Romany Riley (5/11/77)

This was taped for Cup final day. Quite a memorable Cup final actually as Manchester United prevented Liverpool from winning the Treble. It was kind of tame for a Cup final match especially compared to the awesome McManus/Grey match from the same show. St. Clair was a substitute for Pete Roberts and managed to be a fairly annoying babyface partner for Kung Fu. There was one awful spot where Kung Fu bodyslammed the great fatboy worker Colin Joynson. St. Clair urged Kung Fu on with such pleas as "c'mon, you can do it!" and "use all your strength." Now I can understand why some of the UK guys are embarrassed by WoS at times.

Ku Fung pretty much smoked St. Clair in the offence stakes, which isn't a good reflection on St. Clair since Kung Fu is about as bad as his gimmick suggests. Man did St. Clair throw girlish uppercuts. Joynson and Riley had this look about them like they were going to job. Not something you need to see.

[(Wrestling KO) Mike]

Ohtani's Jacket, who are the 10 best European wrestlers and would you rank any of them up there with the all-time greats?

[ohtani's jacket]

Haven't seen enough yet, but I'd rate Marty Jones, Tibor Szakacs, Alan Sarjeant, Mick McManus, Jim Breaks and Steve Grey above the rest. Marino, Pallo and Kellett in their primes were probably up their too, and Adrian Street if there were more footage. Myers, Roberts, Roach, Baron, Cortez, Singh and Rudge could all be good value too.

I don't see why they wouldn't rate alongside the all-time greats. Jones in particular.

[RagingNoodles]

OJ, you don't rate Saint as one of the better workers in WoS? Or in the second tier of workers with good value?

[ohtani's jacket]

Hard to say. There's not that much Saint available and all of his top end stuff is against the workers I mentioned. His most impressive performance was that '87 match against Robbie Brookside, but we'll never know whether he was capable of similar performances. Objectively, you'd have to say that Saint and Rocco were capable of quality matches, but Rocco wasn't much of a mat worker and Saint's style wears thin after a while. Two things that hurt them in my eyes are the jump to All-Star and their lack of catchweight contests.