Wrestling Heritage

Quite what was so fascinating about this match up of two pros who had already been around for a good while and didn’t even try to show us anything at all new is rather hard to identify.  Maybe it simply included so many aspects of the weekly televised wrestling shows that we loved to see repeated time and again, making us feel in the know, aware, vindicated in our appreciation of the unfathomable spectacle that was professional wrestling.

Marty Jones  was very well known to grappling fans.  If truth be told, he was horribly over-exposed throughout the Crabtrees’ reign as promoters-in-chief.  We had seen him rise through the ranks reliably, well-deservedly, and here he was, the successor to Mike Marino, defending his world championship belt.  Jones had gone from undercarder to skilful  main eventer facing the likes of Mark Rocco and Skull Murphy, through uncomfortable associations with Big Daddy as tag partner, and now, here he was, the guardian of eighties ethics, defining professional wrestling by his very performance.

Johhnny Kincaid had had a few incarnations of his own after a humble start on sixties independent bills.  The blond Barbadian of the early seventies, the wronged youthful tag partner alongside veteran Johnny Kwango, had his potential identified after a few years of regular Dale Martin work, and headed for the independents where Jackie Pallo amongst others helped him fulfil his charismatic destiny, Kincaid even facing Kendo Nagasaki in 1975 for the World Heavyweight title.  Well, a.  Back with Joint promotions by the end of the decade and he formed an explosive and controversial tag team alliance with Butcher Bond, the Caribbean Sunshine Boys.  Some of the boos that greeted him on his way to the ring today were no doubt attributable to those spoiling, provocative years.

Kent Walton was up to his usual tricks, over-ruling the caption that he himself had probably been responsible for compiling.  Years earlier he had told us that the Barbadian was in fact from London.  Now billed as the tattooed mine host from sunny, sultry Milton Keynes, the commentator repeatedly insisted on telling us that Kincaid was from Barbados.  Such details never fail to distract and even entertain the wrestling fan, and Kent could always be relied upon to deliver.

A poignant bout, too.  Here we had Johnny Kincaid wrestling his final bout, shortly to be whisked off to the mercy of the surgeon’s knife for a hip operation, back to his roots in twin senses, both wrestling clean and also without the blond dye.  Mind you, he would have had every reason to lose his cool, Jones vaulting from above the corner post to deliver a full-on drop-kick right to the face, a move which met with the disapproval of the referee, whose very Steve Grey-like stance and mannerisms provided yet another this time genetic level of viewing fascination.  A shame, because that drop-kick was the highlight of the bout by far, but Kent was once again there to announce somewhat ridiculously but with deadpan authority that could wash by as it brainwashed, that Kincaid would forgive Jones this spectacular high-flying high-risk manoeuvre because it was “unintentional”.

As we wondered officially what would happen if crock Kincaid were to lever the belt from Jones, this being his final bout to-boot, we were never really in any doubt as to the outcome, and we could see that this cosy affair, in which the boys managed like clockwork to do the standard 23 minutes even in an excitingly billed 15-rounder, was the pro game’s generous way of saying goodbye to one of its stalwarts, who always gave 101%, and who today ended up beltless but bouqueted.  A shame that the brief tribute from the emcee-we-love-to-hate once again seemed more worded and delivered to be a tribute to the man in white rather than the intended recipient, but JK seemed genuinely to have a tear in his eye …. and genuinely seemed to be suffering with those hips.

A rare sight this.  Most wrestlers just abruptly disappeared with no sign of a farewell, no reports.  Albert Wall’s disappearance whilst holding a couple of key honours saw him never to be mentioned again, and we never saw the going of Les Kellett, Adrian Street and countless others.  But here we had a final appearance, heralded in its own dignified way, and perhaps it was this unusual recognition that elevated this encounter to a classic of its kind.

The wrestling?  Oh, standard fare, a homely 2-1 title defence, we wouldn’t have it any other way, would we?