Wrestling Heritage

By David Mantell

Wrestling Heritage welcomes memories, further information and corrections.

For WWF fans in the UK, 1991 was the year of the British Bulldog. For fans of old school British Wrestling, it was very much the year of the other British Bulldog. Twenty three years after he came to Canada, former double crown British and European Welterweight Champion The Dynmite Kid finally came home to the territory from which he first sprung – and cartwheeled – onto the wrestling World. ​

As a legend in Japan and a former WWF Superstar and World Tag Team Champion in America, Dynamite found himself hot property when he was picked up by both All Star and Orig Williams’s BWF. On a pay deal of £130 a night, Dynamite was finally in the same superstar pay band that Big Daddy, Kendo Nagasaki, Giant Haystacks and other such household names had been in when he was first lured away from our shores. Quickly he found himself plugged into the main event scene, typically battling such opponents as Dave Fit Finlay and Skull Murphy. The Kid’s return to the UK scene however did rub up a number of people the wrong way, first and foremost his former partner Davey Boy Smith who, along with his wife Diana Hart Smith, had fallen out badly with Dynamite in recent months. Back in the British Bulldogs’ WWF prime, Davey Boy had wisely invested in the copyright of the British Bulldogs tag team. Now he was no longer friends with his cousin Tom, he was quite keen to deny him his share of the pie (and probably Vince McMahon also egged him on to help squish any success Dixon and Williams might be having.)
 
The trouble was that Dynamite was being billed as “BRUTISH BULLDOG Dynamite Kid” with the former two words in much bigger lettering than the latter two. Forget the fact that even in the banged-up state that he was in by 1991, Dynamite Kid was still a vastly superior performer than Davey Boy could ever hope to be and that his matches with Finlay and Murphy were tear-down-the-house main events that were more than anyone’s money’s worth. As far as Davey, Diana and the WWI’s lawyers – and the more pernickety edge of UK “Wild American Wrestling” fandom – were concerned, putting Dynamite Kid on as the British Bulldog was a rip off plain and simple. Legal pestilence from Davey and Vince’s people, however, was nothing as compared to the attentions of a gang of Catholic street thugs at a show in Belfast who took exception to Dynamite’s Union Jack ring attire and besieged the venue, looking to spill some serious red white and blue blood! The entire All Star crew had to fight their way out to get away from the Republican street crew. Ultimately all the hassle proved to be a bit too much for Brian and Orig as they tried to knock down Dynamite’s pay from £130 to £100. Initially Dynamite quit both promotions (in Orig’s case also marooning his opponent Murphy and leaving the BWF totally without a headline match that night) but in the end the payouts from occasional shows in Japan were not enough and Dynamite accepted the lower offer, carrying on working and using up the last of his back and knees during the early and mid 1990s until he was finally wheelchair bound in 1997.
 
Another person who must have wondered what was happening all of a sudden with all the fuss over Dynamite was All Star’s resident queen bee of this era, Kendo Nagasaki. The outbreak of his feud against Rocco in 1988 had been the start of a wave of violent heel vs heel encounters in which Naggers was engaged in the late 80s and early 90s – Finlay, Murphy, the Mongolian Mauler. 1991 was the year in which he would face the biggest heel of them all – Giant Haystacks. Stax was older heavier and slower than he had been during the mid 70s Kendo vs Stax & Daddy feud, but he was still known as the most fearsome man on the UK scene and the ultimate challenge for Kendo Nagasaki to face. They had quite a number of encounters this year but the most famous of all took place in Croydon on October 1st when, in front of a BBC film crew, Nagasaki and Haystacks faced each other for what was billed as the CWA World Heavyweight title (although actual CWA champion Luc “Rambo” Poirier, who beat Leon “Bull Power” White, the future Vader, for the belt earlier that year, might have had something to say about that!) Even before the bell rang, there was controversy when Lloyd Ryan refused to accept Pat Roach as the special referee because he was too big an enemy of Kendo’s and could be biased. Roach pointed out reasonably that he was also involved at the time in a feud with Haystacks over the European Heavyweight title (which Stax had challenged Roach for after a tag match on Reslo the previous year and then won in February only to lose the title back to Roach later in the year. More about this feud in 1992)
 
But Lloyd was adamant and so a substitute referee was found in the shape of Steve Grey, now once again European Lightweight champion having regained the title most recently from Jim Breaks. Roach meanwhile remained as an out-of-the-ring enforcer. After several minutes of what felt like a slower more brutal version of their January 1977 Bradford TV match, Grey was knocked out and Roach dived back in to help out as chief referee again. Kendo tried to bloody Stax and it seemed that perhaps the Giant might go down the same way as he did in Bradford, in a case of history repeating itself. However the contest was brought to a halt when Kendo suffered a legitimate injury – cracked ribs – and needed to stop the bout. The improvised finish saw Stax pull off Nagasaki’s mask and Kendo dash for the locker room, not to be seen again. Roach ruled that Kendo’s failure to return to the ring meant that the title would be awarded to Haystacks – clearly not the result All Star would have booked for the TV cameras there to film a documentary about Nagasaki (about which more next year!) and Haystacks followed up with chants of “YELLOW! YELLOW! YELLOW!” According to Simon Garfield’s book, the result of the match was ultimately disputed – Peter Blake (who ultimately ended up in possession of the mask from the night) later claimed that an announcement had been made disqualifying Haystacks for the illegal unmasking, but Stax himself denied this to Garfield. Either way, this version of the World Heavyweight title was never heard of again.
 
Kendo’s long standing tag partner Blondie Barrett however had rather more luck with titles as he won the British Welterweight title from Doc Dean this year. Dean’s Liverpool Lads partner Robbie Brookside however had some more positive luck when he won the World Heavy Middleweight title in a tournament defeating Danny Collins. Brooskide has since said that for him, this was a career coming of age moment when he received real recognition by winning a major title. The vacany had arisen though the sudden retirement of Rollerball Rocco this year, having been taken ill while doing two shows in one night. One of his last TV defences of his belt had been on Eurosport’s New Catch in which he had defeated Collins by technical knockout in front of Collins’ loyal Paris, France fans. Rocco for this match had been accompanied by a valet, his very own “Sensation Second”, a scantily clad bunny girl who ended the night getting carried off over Rocco’s shoulder and probably making Ann Rocco a bit jealous back home in the Canary Islands. Perhaps it was the hot second who caused the heart condition – she certainly had an effect on commentator Orig Williams,: “SHE IS BLONDE AND SHE IS BEAUTIFUL!!!” Anyway, Rocco’s retirement was a definite blow for All Star who lost a top star but a career break for Brookside.
 
Collins also bounced back to become a World champion himself later in the year in Bath when he defeated Owen Hart to win the World Middleweight Championship last claimed in this country by Adrian Street in 1981 (or by Mal Sanders and Keith Haward in a naughty piece of apartheid-appeasing in Sun City the next year) As with the Heavyweight title match in Croydon, there was already a perfectly good version of the title in Germany (the CWA ran a World Middleweight title from 1984 to 2000) but the real story was the match quality. Caught on camcorder, the bout has received gushing praise from all manner of sources as a world-class classic. Even the infamously British Wrestling hating PowerSlam magazine (whose predecessor Superstars Of Wrestling was launched as a poster mag this year) would go on to praise the Danny/Owen match in their obituary for Owen in 1999. Writing on Twitter, Steve (William) Regal, who took a pasting from Haystacks that same night, posted a YouTube video of the 22 year old camcording to his account with the recommendation “A hidden treasure that I was fortunately there to witness. Two brilliant pros.” (Somewhat forgotten in all this was Kendo, who was busy wrestling Skull Murphy on the Bath show in a match that was as violent as the Collins/Hart match was balletic.)​

Another promising youngster hitting the gold this year was Tony Stewart, student of Dave Finlay senior, who took the British Lightweight title from Jimmy Ocean not long after Ocean had nabbed the belt from Steve Grey. It was not Ocean’s only title loss this year – earlier in the year, Ocean and his partner Ricky Knight aka The Superflies lost the British Tag Team title which they had won from the Boothmans in 1990 to Liverpool Lads Doc Dean and Robbie Brookside. Mr Big Dave Taylor took the British Heavyweight title from Stewart’s trainer’s son Fit Finlay in King’s Lynn in April.
 
So what of the opposition to All Star in this year. Joint Promotions, the former dominant force in British Wrestling was this year renamed Ring Wrestling Stars. It wasn’t really very much change however, with Big Daddy still on top and facing such opponents as the Wild Jocks (Drew McDonald and Ian McGregor, the latter now a heel). Older foes such as Count Von Zuppi from the Grampian TV taping were still after him and even Haystacks managed to squeeze in the odd bout for old times sake. The Superflies also had the odd shot at Daddy, partnered by one Young Benny. Other Daddy partners included Grey and another youngster Boz Berry. An assortment of new masked tag teams – Masked Assassins, Masked Destroyers etc also all came after Daddy. No news, but it made a dwindling number of kids and grandparents happy.
 
However RWS next year would come up with one last big TV project, a video release which later made it on to DVD. And speaking of TV, ITV were gradually backing down from their cancellation of TV wrestling, filling its spot with bang up to date WCW. As the WWF held its Davey boy Smith fronted WWF UK Rampage tour, so WCW had their Roar Power tour which allowed us Brits to finally see Sting and Lex Luger in person. One UK star who definitely benefited from this was Steve Regal, initially added to the Kensington Olympia shows as cheap local squash fodder. By night 3 of 3 he was scoring the upset over American veteran Terry Taylor and later in the night being interviewed by top heel manager Paul E Dangerously (Paul “ECW” Hayman) and getting bashed over the head with Dangerously infamous 1st gen “brick” mobile phone. This was a first step towards Regals eventual permanent career in WCW, which in time lead to other British Wrestlers getting WCW exposure and a major historic American title getting defended at Croydon and Hanley.
 
But if you were a masked legend like Kendo Nagasaki, you didn’t have to go to America to get TV exposure. The TV documentary for which the Croydon match with Haystacks was filmed was aired the next year. In the year in which the WWF took over Wembley stadium, Nagasaki would take over BBC2 and become a pop art icon in his own right.