Keith Haward

[Grimmas]

Discuss here.

[ohtani's jacket]

I love Keith Haward. I think he's a wrestling machine. He reminds me of a 1981 Ken Shamrock. The trouble is he was all business, no personality and that lack of charisma will cost him dearly, especially when there's so many larger than life TV personalities to be discovered.

[Lee Casebolt]

I've only seen Haward in one or two original UWF matches. I like what I've seen, but need more. What should I be looking for to get an idea of his broader career?

[GSR]

I've only seen Haward in one or two original UWF matches. I like what I've seen, but need more. What should I be looking for to get an idea of his broader career?

 

I watched two matches of his last night; one versus Clive Myers from 07.15.81 and the second against Chic Cullen from 03.05.84, both were really good (save one terrible finish) and completely different styles. I'll put up reviews later, but the Ken Shamrock analogy by OJ is a really good one. I've not seen any of his UWF stuff and I need to get a copy of his match against Jon Cortez as I think that could be something pretty special.

[GSR]

Keith Haward vs Clive Myers (07.15.81)

I think this might be quite early into Myers' transition to the karate fighter gimmick as Kent Walton is rather taken aback by Myers' snazzy and sharp yellow pants and headband! Sadly the second round was cut from the broadcast, but the first two televised rounds sees both wrestlers go back and forth exchanging holds and trying to gain the advantage. There is a super quick sequence of snap mares and wrist levers between the two in the first and the third there is a unique set of pin reversals that I haven't seen before. One man has the other covered, then the one on the bottom powers up and rolls over and this continues for four or five times eventually with Haward getting the advantage and at this time Myers has to bridge up to avoid being counted down. Haward tries to pull the back of Myers' head to flatten him out, but using his neck strength he holds the bridge and slowly slides towards the ropes forcing the break. The fourth round sees Myers bring out all sorts of big moves as he looked to gain the first fall, from a straight arm lift, to a double underhook suplex, hip toss cross press, some strikes before a second double underhook suplex finally scores the pin. Haward gets the equaliser in the next round following a beautiful tilt a whirl slam, before both men go all out in the final round to try and get the winning fall. Double leg nelson from Haward which Myers counters, a third double underhook suplex, Fireman's carry takedown countered in to a headscissors, a side surfboard by Haward before the bell rings signifying that the match is over and it's a one fall draw.

 

This was a really good bout, and the last round especially was great with both men going all out trying to get the win and them constantly countering and reversing each other. Plenty of high impact moves and a great showcase for both of them.

 

Keith Haward vs Chic Cullen (03.05.84)

This is a more aggressive match than the one Haward had with Myers and is all ground based. They get so much out of the simple things such as arm and wrist levers here. The third round sees Cullen start to focus his attention to Haward's left leg and we see some really nice selling from Haward, nothing too over the top, just believable. Cullen continues to concentrate on the left leg in to the fourth, however as both wrestlers are on their feet and he has hold of it, Haward leaps up over the top of Cullen and rolls him up from behind for the pin. Haward gets fired up after Cullen stamps on his hands in the next round following a knucklelock posting him hard into the turnbuckles, so hard in fact that referee Ken Joyce loses his footing. A second posting from Haward, but Cullen comes out and catches him in a small package to tie things up. The aggression continues into the third fall predominantly from Haward, and when Cullen has him in a side headlock Haward belly to back suplexes him over the top rope to the floor. Unfortunately, Haward then proceeds to throw himself over the top rope to the floor and Ken Joyce informs us that both wrestlers are injured and the bout is stopped and ruled a draw.

 

Despite the shitty finish (primarily the bump from Haward, as if they'd just had Cullen take the fall from the belly to back and announced he was injured and couldn't continue it would have been far more plausible. They could even have then done that Haward didn't want to take the win that way, and still declared it a draw) this was a solid match. Very different to the one with Myers as it is less high impact, but if you enjoy matwork, isolating a body part, selling, you'll enjoy this. Just prepare for yourself for the terrible ending! Two out of two with Haward and both different styles of match, with my preference being for the match with Myers purely down to such a rotten finish in the Cullen one.

[ohtani's jacket]

There are five Cortez/Haward matches on tape. I liked their 11/5/80 and 1/13/87 bouts the best. Tremendous cutting edge series. I actually didn't click about the UWF influence until now. I've never bothered to watch Haward's UWF stuff, but he brought back some of that to the UK.

[GSR]

I had no idea that there were that many Haward/Cortez matches on tape as what WOS I have, is stuff that was recorded off the Wrestling Channel and there is only one of their matches in the listings at itvwrestling.co.uk.

 

Steve Grey vs Keith Haward (02.05.85)

This was fought at catchweight and Haward, the bigger of the two, has the early advantage until Grey slowly starts to get back into things. One thing that I've noticed is what a great seller Haward is, everything it so understated, but at the same time looks so legit and as though he is hurting or trying to shake off a bit of pain. He demonstrates this again as Grey focuses his attention on Haward's leg and then when Grey tries to get him up for the surfboard, but with it being early in the bout Haward has the strength to fight the move off so Grey just jumps up and slams Haward's tied legs into the canvas. The first fall was actually a carbon copy of what happened in his match with Chic Cullen, as Grey grabbed the leg and in one move Haward leaped over him and rolled him up from behind. The next round sees a beautiful straight arm lift on Grey with great elevation, but he fights back to get the equalizing pin after a lovely set of reversals. Haward went for the same move as he got the first fall, however this time Grey counters and spins round sitting on top of him, Haward then hooks the arms bringing him back down to the canvas but Grey rolls through and gets a folding press for the pin. The action really heats up from here with Grey finally getting the surfboard on Haward in the centre of the ring but he manages to hold out, and Haward hitting a modified powerbomb before the time limit expires with the match tied at one fall apiece.

 

This was another good bout and similarly to the one with Myers, they seem to move things up another level when it's tied at one fall each. There is also something slightly heelish about Haward, that I can't put my finger on. He's not a flagrant rulebreaker in the Sid Cooper category, but give him an open hand slap, a forearm across the face and you can noticeably see the anger levels rise in him and I do think there is some sort of cold, charisma with him. I've got the European title match with Mal Sanders to watch next, in what I think is the first of three matches between the two that I have.

[Childs]

I've quite enjoyed Haward in my latest run through the British stuff. He's like Cortez in the sense his grappling had a hard edge to it. Little surprise those two matched up so often and so well. Also little surprise that he showed up in the original UWF. I need to watch a few of those matches. He probably doesn't have a large enough body of work for me to list him, but I like him better than guys I will list.

[ohtani's jacket]

He's in that cluster of really talented guys that debut in the early 80s, but he's hurt footage wise by jumping to All-Star sometime around the beginning of '86. He has a match with Chic Cullen in Reslo in '82 that's a nice addition to his ITV stuff. Watching the recent ALPRA uploads of early 60s catch, Haward seems like a throwback to a bygone era even in '81.

[Ma Stump Puller]

Since everyone here was talking about the UWF stuff, I'm glad to say that it doesn't really add much of anything to Haward's already solid resume. That's generally because UWF Original mostly treated their foreign talent as little more than stepping stones for their main guys, so Haward barely got any screen time and when he did, he was losing the match he was involved in. His best work is in the 05.12.1984 tag with Maeda and Kido alongside his singles match with Super Tiger. Outside of that.....not a whole lot, unless you want to see him job to Nobuhiko Takada in 5 minutes.