Dave Reviews British Wrestling

There’s a channel on YouTube that’s run by either Harry or Georgia Smith (or both) that I may have to dip into at some point in the future that acts as an archive of their late father’s (Davey Boy Smith) matches. I’m going to do a quickie review of this one, which is a workout video put out in the late nineties seemingly before the Bulldog jumped to WCW given how he looks. Co-hosting it is his wife, Diana. A list of the exercises for the musclehead readers, some commentary for the Bulldog fans.

In part tribute to deceased All Star Promotions promoter Brian Dixon, I thought I’d review a few British wrestling matches I’ve been thinking about recently. Apologies if there are any repeats from a few years ago, but think it’s mostly fresh material.

If Mike Fitzgerald can drop a Big Jim Harris picture and video in a daily update here’s some from me and a bit more, with some North American wrestlers on tour in the UK and Europe, all courtesy of UK legend John Lister.

It’s “aloha” today, which means both hello and farewell for now, as my interest in the activities of the gaijin in New Japan is waning a bit and the weirdness of some of the nineties death matches is stronger, so this will be a bigger than usual review as I look at a New Japan event held at Aloha Stadium in Honolulu, Hawaii, on August 3rd, 1985. In the next day or two I’ll be returning to the bathhouse for more hot and steamy action courtesy of Big Japan!

I think I may be winding down a little bit with New Japan after the Aloha Stadium review I have coming up next week, but luckily the likes of FMW and Big Japan and IWA have piqued my interest, so still some stuff to come. This week, some logical followups to the Mall Brawl review.

This week I’m looking at some of the legendary rule breakers of the vintage era of the WWF plying their trade on tours of Japan.

A little break from New Japan this week, as I happened across a video I’ve not seen in about twenty-three years, BJW Mall Brawl! Growing up in the UK, the only access I had to Japanese wrestling was through Fin Martin’s Power Slam magazine, and while tape trading was offered in the back pages I didn’t have the income or catalogue to enter this, but a friend of mine did and he ordered the King of the Deathmatch tournament tape, which was a terrible disappointment to me when I saw that Leatherface was using a chainsaw without a chain (!), and another tape featuring this match, which entered into our comedy lore as one of the wildest and weirdest things we’d ever seen. Let’s see if it holds up.

This week I’m looking at the Ayatollah of Rock ‘n’ Rolla, none other than Chris Jericho, a guy who I’ve always thought his character was far better than his ability and generally was a guy considered in the highly-held league of the Benoits and Malenkos and Guerreros, but was a big step below and pretty clunky and awkward. Let’s see how he is his international exploits.

More of the nWo in New Japan, and remember that as last week proved I can be a little creative/loose (delete as applicable) with what I include, so watch out for some interesting selections.

The following review is brought to you by members of the New World Order.

This week I return, in a way, to someone I reviewed a lot of matches of when he died last year, the late, great Rollerball Rocco. I got into wrestling as a fan at the time he was retiring and have very vague memories of seeing him in the later days of wrestling still being on ITV. A holiday in the seaside town saw me going to some matches at a theatre in Rhyl where Rocco’s retirement due to heart issues was covered in an article in the programme. Later looks at his career via the Wrestling Channel and YouTube confirm how great he was. Not a big guy and not physically imposing, but he looked tough and dangerous and was one hell of a wrestler and a great talker and creative mind. Here I’m looking at some of his matches in Japan under the mask of Tiger Mask’s nemesis Black Tiger.

A little later than originally planned, but made up for with extra content than usual.

Thanks to suggestions, upcoming reviews will feature Mark Rocco, Steven Regal, Owen Hart, Scott Norton, Chris Jericho and Jeff Farmer – YIP!

(Above: He’s already plastered!)

(Note: This is going up a day early so I can work on an Onita in New Japan review for some time this week.)

This week’s column focuses on appearances in Japan of members of one of my favourite stables of all time, the Dangerous Alliance! No Bobby Eaton, but matches featuring the other four.

My look last week at Hulk Hogan teaming up with the Great Muta against the Hellraisers prompted me to look this week at the team of Hawk and Power Warrior, better known as Kensuke Sasaki, who had always impressed me with his look and ferocity when he ventured over to the US to wrestle for WCW in 1992/93 and I wished he’d come across more. Obviously he had a short run in 1995 as the US champion, but that was so low on the scale that it hardly merits mentioning.

The Hellraisers were born of Hawk leaving the WWF after Summerslam 1992 and leaving Animal effectively high and dry, potentially giving us Animal and Crush as the Legion of Doom, before a back injury and insurance policy put him on the disabled list for three years. Hawk worked for ECW, SMW and New Japan in that time, as a singles wrestler but also with his new partner Sasaki donning the spiky shoulder pads and green and black warpaint, leading to hear between the former Road Warriors for a time. The Hellraisers didn’t last long but they stayed around long enough to raise a little hell while they were there.

Concluding part of a look at the Hulkster in Japan, now after the glory days in the WWF have ended but before his resurgence in WCW, plus a guest appearance from his bionic buddy, brother!

Based off a suggestion in a previous column, this week I’ll be looking at some NJPW matches featuring Hulk Hogan in the eighties and next week I’ll look at his return in the nineties. I’ve always liked the Hulkster going back to when I was a kid, but even then I could recognise that he had a formula and was only going to do what he always did except for on big occasions like against the Ultimate Warrior, so it was hard to argue with the point of him being limited. However, there was a legend of “Hulk wrestles a lot more in Japan, he does drop toe holds and everything!”, so those matches always had that mythical aura, even if him doing a lot was still a lot less than his peers did. Let’s have a look and see.

This week I’m looking at matches from New Japan featuring the Bad Man from Borger, Texas, Stan “The Lariat” Hansen, with a match recommended by Patrick McDaniel and Manjiimortal up first and then some other eye-opening after that!

Continuing to look at the history of gaijin in New Japan with a man who based his character off foreign origins and had massive success in Japan for decades, the Madman from the Sudan, Abdullah the Butcher. Abby, or Larry to his friends, even married a Japanese lady, the daughter of a promoter, and brought her back to the States with him, where they opened up Abdullah the Butcher’s House of Ribs and Chinese Food, with head chef Harry Fujiwara… OK, maybe not.

Three of the big things I’ve enjoyed in my life are wrestling, cartoons and toy collecting, and it’s nice when the three interconnect. Recently I received Super7’s new figure of Andre the Giant, representing his tour of Japan in 1971. Japanese wrestling has never been something I paid a lot of attention to, so I decided to sign up for a membership to New Japan World to see some of his big matches over there.

This will be an ongoing column where I predominantly focus on the gaijin like Andre who wrestled in NJPW during the seventies, eighties and nineties, maybe even reaching into the new millennium. My rating system will be ICHIBAN! or BUST!, with the former being a pass and the latter being a fail.

Just thought I’d share this, a collection of pre-match promos from the World of Sport era.

British wrestlers – great wrestlers? Yes. Great talkers? Not so much…

Thankfully Mighty John Quinn, Gorgeous George and Giant Haystacks hold it together well, but among the worst are Neil Sands, Kid McCoy and Ray Steele.