TAKE PWTORCH
WITH YOU! Get our iPhone App (FREE!): Click Here Or enter "PWTorch.com" on your Blackberry or other Smart Phone browser for mobile-version of PWTorch.
The Specialists
UK WORLD: Rene Dupree, Pierre Oullett, and a look back at the UK scene five years ago Sep 23, 2008 - 11:40:33 AM
Good day all! We have been punting around in the past, let's come a little more up to date. Let's go back five years, which, strangely, is when I returned to wrestling after a 20 year hiatus.
I came back to wrestling, and, purely by chance, found the one hall in the country that reflected wrestling as I had left it.
So lets go to Worthing, September 4, 2003.
Barry Cooper defeated Mark Sloan 2-1
Mal Sanders/ defeated Kris Kay/
Steve Grey defeated Mel Stuart 2-1
Baxter Burridge defeated Charles Rhys 2-1
Battle Royal defeated Mel Stuart
Barry Cooper. This man is the ultimate jobber. He never works more than 20 miles from Brighton, where he lives. He has been around since the early-'90's and works '70s style. Perfect for Premier Promotions, but no-one else would touch him. Because he always turns up, he is given occasional wins. And this is one.
Mark Sloan. One of the founders of the FWA, Mark broke away to form the Academy, a training school based in Portsmouth. Mark is a good worker, primarily heel. He gives whatever is needed to make a match work. He carried Cooper to a reasonable match.
Mal Sanders and Steve Grey. Both reviewed in earlier columns, and both still working. At this point I thought I had fallen through a time slip. Mal is revered at Worthing, where he plays the face. So, an all face, old timer team.
Kris Kay and Mel Stuart. I remember Mel Stuart from the old days too. Bald, moustache and totally heel. Kris was a revelation. Young, tall and well built, he was a perfect heel, and great foil to Mel.
A very good tag match. Heels punching their way through, Sanders posing every which way, and Steve Grey looking exactly as I remembered him, complete with drop kicks (and he is in his late 40s). No surprise for the result.
Baxter Burridge. At this point in his career, Darren "Baxter" is playing the Adrian Street role of slightly gay. He plays it as a comedy match and is very successful. Charles Rhys is a first season rookie. Baxter carries a very enjoyable match.
The Battle Royal was all of the guys on the card, plus Raj Ghosh. As these things are, it was something of a mish-mash of a match. It came down finally to Mel Stuart and Steve Grey, and, against all the odds, a win For Mel. A heel winning a Battle Royal... that's a first.
Current news. Chad Collyer, Rene Dupree, and Pierre Oullett are over and working for All Star.
Otherwise it's lots of people you have never heard of, fighting each other in inconsequential matches.
So, who have you heard of?
Most probably Doug Williams, Jonny Storm, and Robbie Brookside are the only Brits that have even touched the USA radar. And Brookside has never worked there (well, there was about 3 weeks with WCW in the mid-'90s). Burchill was the best we had at the time, and we all know what has happened to him.
Next week we go in search of Jackie Pallo, and why he was a star...
Send feedback on this article to pwtorch@gmail.com and we'll regularly publish reader feedback in the "Torch Feedback" category on the Main Listing.
INCREDIBLE BENEFITS! Over 50 full-length audio updates per month (iPod compatible)... New weekly award-winning Pro Wrestling Torch Newsletter (text and printable pdf versions) with latest exclusive insider news, new Torch Talks, great columns, Keller's cover story, much more... Hundreds of full-length back issues of PWTorch Newsletter from late-'80s to today... Ad-free access to PWTorch.com's Main Listing... VIP Forum with interaction with other subscribers and Torch staff... Torch Talk Library with text and audio of hundreds of interview installments from last 20 years... Great layout... Deepest archives on pro wrestling history anywhere... Keller's PWTorch Today PDF Bulletins with email alerts... VIP Email reports on major PPVs and TV shows... Staff Roundtable Reviews (text and audio) followiing major events... The best staff of writers and world class reporting since 1987... We'd love for you to join us and experience the most entertaining, authoritative, experienced staff of professional reporters and commentators in the business...
Compare the value of four or five months of PWTorch VIP content to the price of just one PPV. Can you cut 25 cents a day from your budget to make room for PWTorch VIP?
AND NEW FOR 2009! Monthly "Vintage Audio Torch Talks." We are releasing for the first time ever audio versions of our text Torch Talk updates, the historical first series of insider interviews ever. Wade Keller's newsmaking in-depth interviews with wrestling's biggest names are now being made available exclusively to VIP members. But you must be a member each month, as these are not archived, so they are replaced with a new one each month! This debuted in January 2009 with a 68 minute interview with the late "British Bulldog" Davey Boy Smith. Who's next? Hulk Hogan? Eric Bischoff? The Rock? Goldberg? Jeff Hardy?
