Wild Angus v Mal Kirk
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A match involving two rule-bending super-heavyweights promised much way back in 1981 and promises just as much today as we review it with fresh eyes 30 years later. With the pair being Heritage favourites, our expectations were and remain high. What we actually witnessed throws up a number of very strange circumstances which we will now, with the dual benefits of hindsight and the rewind button, proceed to dissect for Heritage Members.
By 1981, each of these protagonists had settled into regular top-of-the-bill roles either alongside Giant Haystacks in tag, or opposing Big Daddy. This certainly limited their chances of showing us their wrestling skills, and we wondered what type of havoc they would conjure up together.
Although the commentator told us Kirk was four stones heavier, the pair seemed very evenly matched, Kirk’s girth compensated for by the several inches of height advantage enjoyed by Angus. And so it was through the bout, the exchanges distributed pretty much equally and a fall apiece ensuring the final honours were duly shared. Let’s start this review for a change by describing the two scores. Kirk hoisted the 6’6” giant for a spectacular body slam and followed down to claim a straightforward fall. Just a couple of minutes later in the final round, Kirk exited the ring over the top rope, it was a bit muddled, and as he stood on the ring apron Angus positioned him for a mighty re-entry via a suplex and follow-down shoulder press.
So far, so good. But what was so strange about the bout?
Although this was precisely the type of matching of villains fans relished, the crowd at Preston were non-plussed. They watched in near silence, seemingly not knowing which of the two giants to root for. One lone soul piped up very audibly amidst the hush “Go on Kirk!” but that was the extent of any hysteria we might have hoped for.
Commentator Kent Walton distanced himself from most of the action and reflected the crowd’s ambivalence by having very little to tell us about Mal Kirk and absolutely nothing about Wild Angus. Angus was a veteran now of 13 years on-and-off televised action. He had taken North America by storm and had gained a reputation around the halls of Britain and Europe as a devil-may-care hell-raiser. We were told Kirk had played rugby league but no mention was made of his success in the German Heavyweight wrestling tournaments.
In fact the only time Walton did make any effort to hype up this appetizing pairing, he disappeared in his own hyperbole. “There’s over five hundredweight of wrestler in that ring.” With the wrestlers’ combined weight nudging perhaps 43 stones, Walton had just about doubled the truth.
Less trivial was Walton’s influence on the duration of the bout. Before the bell rang for the end of the first round, Kirk and Angus had agreed to this double-finger-interlock. They strung it out entertainingly and neither showed any inclination to release when the bell sounded, with the result that referee Dave Rees got in between them to try to separate them. By the time the bell rang again the three were all still entangled.
The break at the end of the second round saw a similar reluctance to separate. When the bell for the restart went, and the time-keeper correctly announced Round Three, the commentator delivered his classic line “Round Four, three to go.” Thinking this was a slip, we awaited a correction, only to hear at the start of the next round that the time-keeper had been swallowed up by Walton’s version and they both announced Round Five. There is no way this could have been a mere mistake. The time-keeper was perfectly precise and would of course have been diligently so, for a televised show. Something or someone persuaded him to agree to eliminate a whole round of action.
One theory here is that the commentator had decided that six full rounds of these two lugubrious leviathans would have been too much for a Saturday afternoon; maybe he was influenced by the subdued audience reaction. He had therefore decided, fully mindful that the plot was for each to score in the final two rounds, that only the second half of the bout would ever be useful and that he wouldn’t be wasting his vocal energy on action that would end up on the cutting room floor.
In fact this bout wasn’t even screened until five months after it had taken place. It had been kept as a reserve, and confirmed a slight suspicion that Wild Angus was not one of the commentator’s favourite wrestlers. Possible reason for this: well, as Wild Angus Campbell in the mid-sixties, Angus had directly “borrowed” much of the name and fame of Walton’s favoured co-commentating Scottish heavyweight, Wild Ian Campbell.
Did Walton deliberately butcher this bout, were his cuts premeditated or made spontaneously based on the first 10 minutes of wrestling? In short, was he guilty of manslaughter or murder? The counsel for the prosecution hereby calls upon Heritage Members who were noting down events in March 1982 at the time of this bout’s first screening to let us know in which round the action was joined. We’ll add any appropriate findings to this review. But be careful – the leading listings show inaccurately that this bout ended as a No Contest, underlining that even recent history gets mangled in professional wrestling.
We share none of the crowd’s apathy, nor the commentator’s psychopathic instinct. We enjoyed this bout for what it was and marvelled at the completely unpredicted spectacle of two giants giving their all to wrestle all the way to the final round.
Kirk was now at his bull-necked peak and took three throws including an arm-roll shown in the opening round. He scowled and sweated equally profusely. He also applied some mischievous humour when grabbing the referee to put him in Angus’s path as the bearded one came rebounding off the ropes. The referee went sprawling to the canvas and eventually awarded a public warning to the guilty party after some confusion.
Wild Angus was never young. But those wrinkled eyes and rambling eyebrows could dream up all manner of evil. True he was on best televised behaviour, his flowing hair magnificently shampooed, but he also displayed a sufficient array of techniques and strategies to keep the bout moving. As the action hotted up in the later rounds, Kirk hurled him towards the corner post and he went up and over to take the long drop to the floor. We glimpsed him between the referee’s legs as he tried to regain his composure.
The pair worked majestically with the two postings, Angus flinging his opponent with all his might, and Kirk positively leaping into the turnbuckle. The second posting satisfactorily returned the ring to its original position.
We are left with a feeling of misjudgement on the promoters’ and producers’ parts. Lacklustre introductions and commentary contaminated the fans minds and risked contaminating those of the viewers, too. Objectively, it is hard to know what more could have been expected from these two big veterans over nearly twenty minutes of action and they remain firm Heritage favourites, not in spite of, but specifically on account of this match.
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