Much Ado About Nothing

Steve Haggetty & Colin Joynson v Marty Jones & Dane Curtis

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Viewing World of Sport wrestling twenty and more years after the event allows us to re-assess our prejudices and conceptions of the time. Sometimes we feel uneasy with what we see whilst on other occasions we are reassured that our youth was spent wisely.

This 1972 tag contest goes back just long enough to satisfy us that as far as wrestling was concerned there was once a better world. Settling down to watch this twenty minutes of action from Wolverhampton’s Civic Hall provided the reassurance and comfort of putting on an old jacket. We knew we were about to see real wrestling as soon as the camera turned to the welcoming features of MC Martin Conroy. None of those glitzy waistcoats for Chopper Conroy, for him we always felt that a pair of grey socks with a red stripe would be the height of fashion. No, Martin was from the old school, and we were relieved to hear him introduce a referee from the same generation, Emile Poilve.

Martin’s style was to introduce us to contestants in a sort of relaxed, yet quite proper, way that seemed as if he was announcing a couple of old friends had just dropped by for Sunday tea. Just how comfortable we would have felt had this first pair turned up in our parlour we dare not think. Steve Haggetty and Colin Joynson were the Dangermen. This was the pair the fans had paid their money to boo and jeer, and just one look at the two of them was enough to remind us why.

Blond haired Haggetty stood motionless in a statuesque 1930s film Goddess pose with his arms clutched tightly across his chest. His head was tilted sharply back with nose raised almost vertically in the air. His partner, Colin Joynson, was more animated and had worked on the appearance of the man who had been sent to collect the rent arrears. The weight of his sideburns apparently prevented Joynson from raising his head too high. Their appearance clearly instructed fans their role was simply to boo and jeer; this nasty looking pair would do the rest.

The introduction of their opponents, Marty Jones and Dane Curtis, immediately told us that they were everything the Dangermen were not. They had the looks for starters; not to mention the jackets. White, glittering 1970s style jackets, adorned with sequined hornets on the back, the sort they would not dare wear on a dark night along the streets of Wolverhampton. The passage of time has not dealt kindly with the fashion conscious of the 1970s. Marty and Dane called themselves The Hornets. It ungenerously crossed our minds that this was not a carefully selected name like the Dangermen but one chosen because they had found the jackets going cheap at one of those car boot sales that were all the rage in car parks around Britain at the time.

The pre-match talk from the referee continued with Haggetty’s arms remaining firmly glued to his chest until the point the wrestlers were instructed to shake hands, at which point Haggetty and Joynson shook hands with each other. Admittedly this was an old trick frequently used to identify the villains but it was at this moment, shortly before the bell signalled the start of the bout, that the theme of the contest began to emerge.

Here were two men who we remembered as real rule breakers who we could now see had enraged the audience before they even had the chance of bending any rule.

As the bout developed it became abundantly clear that Steve Haggetty and Colin Joynson were a couple of villainous rule benders who didn’t actually need to break the rules at all. Their body language and contempt for everyone but themselves was more than enough to convince fans that they were a couple of rule breaking no-gooders.

The bout opened with cruel Mr Haggetty facing the very young looking Marty Jones, just seventeen years old according to the ever authorative Kent Walton.

This was no Goliath versus David epic, this was Goliath versus David’s kid brother. Haggetty snarled, Haggetty growled, Haggetty pointed menacingly at the youngster, but not once did he come anywhere near to breaking any rules.

After three minutes Haggetty was replaced by partner Joynson. He was even bigger. Two and a half stones heavier than the now disheartened Marty we were told by encyclopaedic Kent. Still the crowd booed and shouted at Joynson for, well just being Colin Joynson, because it wasn’t that he had broken any rules either.

In less than five minutes Haggetty and Joynson had established themselves as masters of this contest. Not masters of wrestling you understand. Goodness, no. They were masters of controlling the emotions of the fans. Their appearance and their body language convinced everyone inside the Wolverhampton Civic Hall that here were a right nasty pair of rogues, when all they were actually doing was looking the part.

A minute or so later Dane Curtis did one of those heroic stretches over the top rope and half way across the ring to just tag his young partner and save him from further punishment. Oh, how the fans cheered. They didn’t cheer a few seconds later when Joynson tagged Haggetty.

The fans waited with anticipation for Dane Curtis’ new speciality move that Kent explained was so complex that he had failed to understand exactly how it worked. We all understood Steve Haggetty’s specialities, which consisted of sneering at his opponents, vicious looking knee drops and over-exaggerated screams whenever one of the Hornets went on the offensive.

Six minutes or so into the contest the nice looking Marty Jones threatened nasty looking Steve Haggetty with his fist. The crowd urged him on as he repeatedly pulled back his arm ready to unleash the full power of his clenched fist on Haggetty and deliver him his just desserts. But just desserts for what? Now well into the contest Haggetty and Joynson controlled the fans enough to make them call for revenge for all that rule breaking that had still not taken place.

The first hint of skulduggery, and it was no more than a hint, came a few seconds later when Haggetty held a hold on Curtis for no more than a second too long after he had tagged with his partner. Colin Joynson threw Dane Curtis around the ring with apparent ease and it was only when he punched Curtis as he straggled on the ropes that the words of Lord Mountevans were brought into disrepute for the first time.

Joynson played to perfection the ring caricature he had created. We are sure we heard a voice from the back of the hall call, “Just pay him the rent,” but we might have been mistaken. Steve came in and continued to rough up his opponent, halted only by a head butt to his stomach followed by over-exaggerated pain and dash to the safety of his partner.

Joynson and Haggetty were by now well into their roles. Joynson walked over to the ring apron and punched Dane Curtis when he had a bit of spare time as he beat up Marty Jones. Then came the first submission, a backbreaker, after eleven minutes.

Taking the lead was the last straw for some, and an inoffensive looking lady came up to the ring and threatened Joynson with an offensive looking umbrella.

The bout resumed in much the same vain.

“Joynson is really mad now, surely he must get a public warning,” prophesised Kent, and seconds later MC Martin Conroy obliged with an announcement of a public warning to the Dangermen.

After fifteen minutes the inevitable happened. That ever so complex Dane Curtis special, which seemed to consist of twisting Haggetty’s leg in a fairly ordinary, yet painful, way, led to the equalising submission.

Joynson managed to acquire a second public warning by placing Marty Jones’ neck across the rope. Oddly enough, however, a few minutes later when Joynson’s arms caught in the ropes and he was suspended helplessly neither Kent Walton nor Emile Poilve seemed to notice Marty Jones twice hurtling across the ring at him.

When Steve Haggetty gained the winning fall over Dane Curtis it was the only credible ending possible to an enjoyable contest. We admire Marty Jones and Dane Curtis but the truth is that on this occasion they had the bit parts that could have been played by many others. The real stars were Steve Haggetty and Colin Joynson. A right pair of villains indeed, but when it comes to complaints about breaking the rules it was a case of Much Ado About Nothing.