By David Mantell
Wrestling Heritage welcomes memories, further information and corrections.
Flush from the success of their Wolverhampton Xmas tag match, Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks (and quite often British Heavyweight Champion Tony StClair too) spent 1978 repeating the formula all over the country. The idea was simple enough – Haystacks was a merciless monster but there was one man who could conceivably beat him and that was his former tag partner/mentor now turned good. This was one confrontation that Stax quietly wanted to avoid and that Daddy desperately wanted to get on. A tag match allowed the Giant the luxury of being able to, in theory, claim to be wrestling Daddy but in practice avoid him. From a promoter’s point of view, it kept Daddy supreme but maintained Haystacks as strong as a heel (at least on television, as Haystacks frequently got body checked and pinned when the cameras were well away, safe in the knowledge that only a few hundred people were seeing him “finally” floored.)
Daddy and usually StClair were battling Haystacks and any number of rent-a-heels ranging from the sublime (Bruno Elrington) to the ridiculous (alleged American Albert “Hillbilly” Hell-On). This still being early days, on one occasion Haystacks even got the win, teaming with Bruno Elrington to put the kibosh on Daddy’s partner Gary Wensor. (This was never allowed on TV again, but the scenario of the senior heel KOing Daddy’s tag partner for a 2-1 win for the baddies did occur two or three times more in the 1980s – all of them well away from the cameras.) One of the odder matches from this series was the 1978 FA Cup Final TV show match pitting Daddy and StClair against Stax and Ian “Bruiser” Muir which actually lasted a mere 1 min 25 seconds with Haystacks being disqualified at the outset for a pre-bell attack on St Clair’s legs, leaving the score 1-0 from the actual outset of the match, a score pushed up to two straight falls 85 seconds later when Daddy pinned Muir, while StClair crouched down in pain in the corner all the way through.
One unusual figure in this feud was that of seeming double agent Colin Joynson whose allegiances flitted back and forth as per the promoter’s whim.
The former Dangermen thug heel could one night be Daddy’s blue-eye tag partner, another night Haystacks’ heel sidekick, yet another night wrestling a clean sportsmanly match against Daddy (as John Elijah had also done the previous October on TV). In one TV match, Joynson even scored a pin on Daddy, putting him in a small elite with Count Bartelli and Kendo Nagasaki as the only other people to do this on TV.
Talking of Kendo, it was a new life for the now unmasked samurai sworbearer. Having been cheered for actually going through with the unmasking ceremony, for a while in the first half of the year Kendo seemed to be a reformed character. In his first TV match without the hood he very much wrestled cleanly while opponent Roger Bronco Wells heeled it up before going down in defeat to the new Kendo. On one occasion Kendo even came to the rescue of fellow ex masked man Eddie Kung Fu Hammill whose previous unmasker, Mick McManus was getting too much into a postmatch beatdown on the martial artist from Ireland. It was never shown on TV, but Kendo and Kung Fu teamed up quite a number of times in the spring of this year after the incident.
Kendo reverted back to his old ways however after a match against one time tag partner (and himself a future masked Samurai) Rex Strong in Preston where Strong attacked Nagasaki in the eyes. Ten years before the Robbie Brookside incident in Bedworth, Kendo hypnotised Strong to stay still and just take a flying tackle to set up a pin attempt. The next time Kendo appeared before the cameras, he was very much back to his old ways. Facing Pete Roberts, a regular TV opponent since 1971, Nagasaki behaved himself until going a fall down in round two and then went berserk, using the ring and any other foul tactic he could to crush Roberts in a way that the IBA would rarely allow Kendo to get away with on TV (although reportedly a staple of his non TV bouts). After Kendo suddenly got a win with a KO in round 4, the crowd were so enraged that even after he had got back to the locker room, the result had to be reversed to prevent angry fans from storming the wrestlers’ sanctuary. (Sadly the screening order of these two matched was reversed, thus messing up the on-TV storyline. Ah well …)
Kendo’s next opponent on TV was the aforementioned Joynson whom Kendo, using almost as rough tactics as against Roberts, handily beaten in a one fall bout.
After the match, George Gillette issued a title challenge on Kendo’s behalf to Tony St Clair. StClair in street clothes counter challenged, claiming to be calling Kendo and George’s bluff and wanting them to “put up or shut up.” George was more than happy to accept. “You are on, StClair, you are most definitely on! There will be a title match and there will be a new champion.” Except that there was no StClair-Nagasaki title match (at least not for another decade) as the former masked man abruptly retired due to inner ear injuries from which he had suffered since a match against StClair’s predecessor Gwyn Davies. And while StClair might be feeling smug, the smile was soon wiped off his face when there was indeed a new champion in the shape of Haystacks himself who did another number on Tony’s legs – this time legitimately in the course of a match on 22nd November that year at the Royal Albert Hall. The title change gave the Daddy and StClair vs Haystacks and whoever feud a whole new twist, but in the new year with the arrival of a certain Canadian, things would get twistier still.
Talking of Canada, one man headed off there for the long term was Dynamite Kid, the British and European Welterweight champion being forced by Max Crabtree to vacate both his belts before he headed off to a life in Stampede. One former double crown champion headed the other way, if only briefly. Billy Robinson briefly popped over that summer and even made a TV appearance, easily handling Lee Bronson 2-0 to the point where even Kent Walton started to feel like big Billy was being a bit too harsh. This match was also unusual for a rare mention on World Of Sport of the AWA when Robinson, billed (quite correctly) as residing in Minneapolis, Minnesota, was mentioned as being “the top contender for the World Heavyweight title.” Not the one Lou Thesz brought to these shores in the late 1950s, nor the one Brits saw Bruno Sammartino defend against Stan Hansen on closed circuit in 1976 as a warm-up for Ali-Inoki, nor less the one that Spiros Arion would bring to these shores the following years. No, this was a very different World Heavyweight title Billy was in the gunning for.
Further down the weights, the promising young story of 1978 was Mike Marino’s student Superstar Mal Sanders. Sanders pulled off something of an upset when he beat Mick McManus for the European Middleweight title, ending a seven year run. Two other hot prospects this year, Marty Jones and Rollerball Rocco, were trading titles back and forth. Jones was champion at Light Heavyweight, Rocco a weight division lower, when Jones beat Rocco in a title vs title match. Jones however vacated his new title to concentrate on his existing higher weight division belt and Rollerball easily got his belt back, beating Chris Adams in a tournament final. While Dynamite was headed off to a new career overseas, his trainer Ted Betley had another new prospect coming through – Dynamite’s cousin Davey Boy Smith aka Young David.
John added:
McManus and Kung Fu wrestled each other on TV in April 1978. Two years earlier McManus had unmasked Kung Fu on TV.
Suffolkpunch24 added:
In a double title match Marty Jones wins BOTH the British Heavy Middleweight Championship and the British Light Heavyweight Championship against Rollerball Rocco.He relinquishes the former. A tournament is held and Mark Rocco defeats Chris Adams in the final.Also that year Mal Sanders defeats Mick McManus for the European Middleweight Title.
Ohtani’s Jacket added:
Marty Jones vs. Rocco feud was prominent.
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