4 part question
1 Who did he beat to become British Heavy weight Champion?
2 Who did he lose it to
3 Did he ever wrestle as a blue eye
4 Was he pleasant to wrestling fans if anyone recognised him away from the wrestling ring
Hope these questions are not too trivial. Many thanks to all who reply to my posts. i dont have half the knowledge of some of the members on this siite
Face to face he came across better than some of the clean wrestlers
One of the best gimmicks ever for me was the sight of his wife berating him when he lost a fall. That she was all got up as a squaw was neither here nor there. She was a magnificent battleaxe and, whilst not petrified of her, he was never seen to answer back. Now she really looked like someone you wouldn't want to cross.
I remember seeing Dave Fit Finlay, versus Danny Collins. It was a great bout, Finlay’s father also a great wrestler in his time.
4. He was by all accounts a reasonable chap unless you (1) gave him excessive heat away from the job (2) called wrestling a fake to his face. In which case he would break your thumb.
3. He wrestled clean in his first couple of TV bouts but he had previously been a heel for Brian Dixon and some of the audience in his classic title eliminator against Davey Boy Smith in 1982 clearly recognise him from his heel past. Steve/William Regal has recently said in a video podcast on Finlay that quite often Max Crabtree would ask heels to wrestle cleanly for the night. Rocky Moran and Drew McDonald also made their debuts as blue-eyes before turning nasty.
Thought off subject you might like a snapshot of him in his early days. The Dave Finlay here is his father and he is Young Apollo.
As far as I know, he defeated Tony St. Clair for the All-Star British Heavyweight Title.
He lost it to Dave Taylor.
Working from memory, so I could be wrong, but I seem to recall him being a hard-hitting, but clean wrestler, in his very early UK bouts.
Never met him, so can't comment, but feel sure I have read he was a nice guy, although a no-nonsense character.