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Billy Robinson / World of Sport


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Just randomly watching Billy Robinson vs. Lee Bronson from WoS 1978 on youtube in prep for the Bock match on the All Japan set I'm going to start watching soon.

 

But bloody hell! He's amazing!

 

Not only that, I'm intrigued by the presentation. It's fascinating (and a little bit amusing) to see this very straight-laced, stiff upper-lip late 70s ITV broadcast. This might be the purest presentation of wrestling as a legit sport that I've seen.

 

What can you good people tell me about WoS and Billy Robinson? How much stuff is out there? And how much is worth tracking down? What are the best matches? Just generally use this thread to talk about Robinson and WoS.

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Now that's just mean!

 

In seriousness, there's plenty of random WoS available on Youtube. Mark "Rollerball" Rocco, Johnny Saint, and Jim Breaks are three good names to start with. There's also some pre-fame work with random dudes like Tiger Mask and Liger which is interesting for curio purposes, and Finlay shows up sometimes as well.

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Sadly, that's the only Billy Robinson match that The Wrestling Channel guys found in the ITV faults. It's a very good match with a lot of great Greco-Roman stuff, but it's not very representative of WoS as a whole. The purest representation of wrestling as a legit sport was shoot-style.

 

Here are my recommended WoS matches from Wrestling KO. Most of these are on youtube:

 

Jim Breaks vs. Adrian Street (2/12/72)

Jack Fallon vs. Tibor Szakacs (aired 4/19/72)

Les Kellett vs. Johnny Czeslaw (11/16/72)

Clay Thomson vs. Reg Trood (12/30/72 TV)

Jim Breaks vs Johnny Saint (3/14/73)

Pete Roberts vs. Caswell Martin (4/4/73)

Jim Breaks vs Johnny Saint (5/3/73)

Jackie Pallo vs. Johnny Kwango (5/3/73)

Alan Sarjeant vs. Clay Thomson (6/6/73)

Alan Sarjeant vs. Eddie Capelli (12/13/73)

Robby Baron vs. Peter Szacaks (3/14/74)

Mick McManus vs. Tony St. Clair (3/14/74)

Alan Sarjeant vs. Mick McManus (11/20/74)

Johnny Czeslaw vs. Romany Riley (12/4/74)

Sid Cooper vs. Clive Myers (1/23/75)

Tibor Szakacs vs. Prince Kumali (2/13/75)

Robby Baron vs. Alan Sarjeant (4/17/75)

Steve Grey vs. Ken Joyce (7/31/75)

Clive Myers vs. Steve Grey (10/8/75)

Clive Myers vs. Steve Grey (11/20/75)

Johnny Saint vs. Mick McManus (11/20/75)

Kung Fu vs. Mick McManus (4/21/76)

Mark Rocco vs. Marty Jones (6/30/76)

Terry Rudge vs. Marty Jones (11/30/76)

Zoltan Boscik vs. Alan Sarjeant (12/29/76)

Clive Myers vs. Alan Sarjeant (2/21/77)

Steve Grey vs. Mick McManus (5/21/77) [Cup Final Day]

Jim Breaks vs. Vic Faulkner (7/5/77)

Kung Fu/Pete Roberts vs. Johnny Kincaid/Dave Bond (10/4/77)

Clive Myers vs. Steve Grey (12/6/77)

Tony St. Clair vs. Dave Bond (12/6/77)

Mark Rocco vs. Marty Jones (7/26/78)

Bobby Barnes vs. Steve Grey (7/26/78)

Steve Grey vs. Mark Rocco (10/11/78)

Jim Breaks vs. Young David (Davey Boy Smith) (12/3/79)

 

Jon Cortez vs. Pete Lapaque (1/28/80)

Johnny Saint vs Steve Grey (1/28/80) [Walton rant match]

John Cortez vs. Jeff Kaye (2/5/80)

Pete Roberts vs. Pat Roach (2/13/80)

Jim Breaks vs. Young David (Davey Boy Smith) (2/13/80)

Pat Roach vs. Gil Singh (4/21/80)

Mark Rocco vs. Pete Roberts (5/28/80)

Johnny South vs. Ringo Rigby (8/5/80)

Jim Breaks vs. Jon Cortez (2/2/81)

Johnny Saint vs. Steve Grey (2/11/81)

Jon Cortez vs. Bobby Barnes (3/31/81)

Steve Grey vs. Jim Breaks (5/12/81)

Marty Jones vs. Johnny South (10/7/81)

Johnny Saint vs. Vic Faulkner (11/18/81)

Ken Joyce vs. Johnny Kidd (JIP Rd 4, 1/27/82)

Fit Finlay vs Young David (Davey Boy Smith) (3/9/82)

Marty Jones vs. Dynamite Kid (1/19/83)

Fit Finlay vs. Alan Kilby (3/23/83)

Terry Rudge vs. Dalibar Singh (10/11/83)

Marty Jones vs. Dave Finlay (4/4/84)

Marty Jones vs Bull Blitzer (Steve Wright) (4/23/86)

Johnny Saint vs. Robbie Brookside (4/28/87)

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Clive Myers vs. Steve Grey (11/20/75)

The best WOS match I have ever seen. Mind you, it is the only WOS match I have seen, but it is like Misawa-Kawada good to me. Do any other WOS matches compete with this one?
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Clive Myers vs. Steve Grey (11/20/75)

The best WOS match I have ever seen. Mind you, it is the only WOS match I have seen, but it is like Misawa-Kawada good to me. Do any other WOS matches compete with this one?

 

I don't really know the answer to this question, but I liked Myers/Grey so much I wanted to see everything else World of Sport had to offer. Suffice to say, I haven't been disappointed. Grey, in particular, was fantastic and in my opinion one of the all-time great babyfaces in professional wrestling. Myers was also a great worker but ended up working a bullshit Bruce Lee type gimmick that ruled everything that was cool about him in the early to mid-70s.

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  • 1 year later...

Was pleasantly surprised to see earlier that the UK digital channel Men and Motors have picked up old runs of World of Sport.

 

Watched Sammy Lee (aka Tiger Mask) vs. Sid Cooper. Pretty entertaining.

 

Then there was the obligatory Giant Haystacks vs Big Daddy match but my wife walked in and we turned over.

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Johnny Saint v Steve Grey

Johnny Saint v Jim Breaks

Johnny Saint v Fit Finaly

 

 

I am a huge Johnny Saint fan.

 

Big Daddy is like the Hulk Hogan of world of sport not great but a spectacle and nothing wrong with it in the context of he was the one getting everyone in their seats to see some of the great wresting action

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  • 10 years later...

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