The UKFF isolation thread

[UK Kat Von D]

Isolation Wrestling Federation. Basically people bored at home coming up with gimmicks and doing promo battles.

[BomberPat]

while myself and a mate have been doing streams of random wrestling footage a couple of nights a week, I'd say that in general my consumption of wrestling had completely dropped off while all this was going on. I'd watch the few matches I was putting in the stream, and that was about it. 

I figured I'd embark on a bit of a project yesterday, and start watching all the "WWE Old School" stuff on the Network - if you haven't seen it, it's things like the old Madison Square Garden shows dating back to the '70s.

 

I'm only two shows in so far, and the one from 1973 in particular is an absolute slog. I'm enjoying getting to see people I'd not seen at that stage of their career before, or that I only knew by name/reputation.

Chief Jay Strongbow surprised me - I realised when his match started on the '73 show that I'd actually never seen him wrestle, because I've always pictured him in my head as a Wahoo McDaniel type; a big bruiser, aided by the gimmick. But he has some really big showy bumps, and does a fun headscissors spot off the apron into the ring on Mr Fuji a few times. So I was impressed by him.

Edouard Carpentier absolutely blew me away on the first show from '75. He must have been in his 50s at this point, and he's someone I only knew from clips, and half-watched matches with Lou Thesz from the '60s. But he has some really fun acrobatic spots in this match, looks great, does a spot where he does a headstand off the middle turnbuckle for a prolonged period just to confuse his opponent - it's very similar to the hypnosis spot Ophidian used to do in CHIKARA - and I know it's a cliche, but I guarantee you that if somebody came along today and wrestled this exact match, the Jim Cornettes of the world would be calling for their head. But it was great then, and would be equally great now.

The other guy I loved was Tony Altamore. I knew the name, as Captain Lou Albano's former tag partner. Here, he's just a fat, knackered looking old bloke with massive mutton chops. The sort of build you'd never see near a WWE show today. But every single thing he does is gold, just absolute top tier shit-housing. Constantly arguing with the ref, complaining of his hair being pulled when it blatantly wasn't, bending every rule he could, and thoroughly entertaining with it.