It's his birthday today. Happy birthday. One of those wrestlers who, had things turned out differently, we could have been watching on our television screens until well into this century. We would welcome more memories to add to our celebration of Keith Haward, one of today's seven additions to Wrestling Heritage.
https://www.wrestlingheritage.co.uk/keith-haward
False advertising was another big factor in driving down crowds. Fans became very fed up with not getting what was on the bill
Around the time of this show Brian's posters often bore little resemblance to the show actually presented. Just a thought with it being in Yate, might it have been man of many aliases Rick Wiseman? At the time I used him he was working mainly for Bill Clarke as an Italian, Ace Ricardo. I also used him as, amongst other aliases, punk wrestler Johnny Vicious and Rick Clarke (brother of Bill). The false name may have allowed him to work for both Dixon and Crabtree without Crabtree knowing.
Undoubtedly a good wrestler. Well, a great wrestler if we are talking proper wrestling. He did lack a bit of spark. But if there had been a bit of time invested in developing wrestlers like Keith this site wouldn't need the word Heritage in it's title.
Hurricane Keith Haward, had some fine clashes with Chic Cullen over the years. Fantastic wrestler.
I recall seeing several Bushido shows on that ill-fated channel whose name has escaped me but I think that Kelvin Mc.Kenzie and Janet Street-Porter were quite heavily involved. It also bought up a whole load of LPWA shows featuring the likes of Susan Sexton, Misty Blue Simmes and kat Le.Roux. And also showed some British wrestling which I believe the promoter presented for free in order to get the exposure. A sad end to Mick Mc.Manus' TV career saw him as a commissioner who really didn't seem to understand the decisions he was giving and featured such wrestlers as Johnny Storm. Jody Fleisch and The Pitbulls. I also recall this channel giving us The News Bunny and Topless Darts.
Back to Bushido however. My main reason for contributing is that the shows featured one of my all time favourites, the great Bob Backlund.
Of course, one should never confuse Bushido with Bukkake which is quite a different pastime.
Most of the matches shown on Bushido are now on the net
UWFi was shown on Channel 4, under the name, "Bushido". I thought it was great, they made it very serious and very real looking.
it was indeed an exhibition but wrestling in Japan could be very hard hitting so it wasn't to much of a jump to expand to the UWF style.
Yes it was an exhibition.
were the results pre-arranged then ?
I just watched a match with Haward from Japan against Super Tiger - UWF promotion ? Was this MMA and for real does anyone know - it certainly looks like it !?
I agree Haward was brilliant both as a straight wrestler and when he went villain. His matches with Cortez and Mal Sanders were great. As we've said on here before, Joint missed a trick with some of their latter day championships - never having a British Mid Heavy weight champ after Mike Marino, when there were an immense array of contenders and with Marty Jones being World champ. And as you say a middleweight division that stagnated due to Maxine not having too many title bouts. Or did he and they were never televised ?
Far more credible as European Middleweight Champion than the apparently undefeated Maxine
Happy birthday Hurricane. I thought he was a good wrestler but lacked the charisma. I'm not sure he would have stayed the course and wrestled for another thirty years. To me he seemed to serious about wrestling to stay as a professional.
Potentially best match of the night at the bottom of the poster
Here's HURRICANE HAWARD at BEDWORTH Taking-On TALLY-HO
KAYE!!
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