Hi Grapple Fans,
I’ve been wondering recently about moves from British wrestlings golden era that we no longer see in wrestling such as the arm leaver, toe and ankle hold or the folding press. As well as moves that had very British names that our American cousins never adopted such as the Double Leg Nelson.
What moves or names do we not hear anymore and how many were invented on the fly by Kent Walton.
I’d imagine many have origins on Lancashire wrestling.
Very rarely find the aeroplane spin used today or wrestlers with their head tied in the ropes
Has anyone mentioned the short arm scissors?
Didn't the Indian Deathlock become the Figure Four ?
I don't think there's anything racial behind the term "monkey climb," or "monkey flip" as it's known in the US. The latter term is still used.
"Indian deathlock" has generally become just a "deathlock," though the move itself isn't much in use anymore and when it is, it's usually combined with another hold like a front facelock or double underhook.
When Judy Martin did a rare (and still-unnamed in its modern form) power bomb in 1987 WWF, Lord Alfred Hayes on color commentary referred to it as a "drip-dry." Seems like an odd thing for him to make up so perhaps it's an old-timey term from his active UK wrestling days. What's now called the power bomb is a surprisingly old move in European wrestling, sometimes done in its modern form slamming the opponent to the mat, and other times being treated as a takedown/rollup-type move with Kent usually just calling it a folding press.
Interestingly headbutts are very rarely seen today and are banned from Ultimate Fighting on the grounds of brutality.Yet throughout the World of Sport years it was presented as a legit move and sometimes used without the hand shielding the impact
I have said this on a similar thread before. When a pin fall followed a forearm smash at Newcastle, Ernest Lofthouse described it as a pinfall following a sonnenburg.
Now now, Grapple Gazers.
grapple fans?! lol. another MMA bot I suppose.
Straight arm lift seems to have gone.Also wrestlers with their head tied in the ropes
A few I noticed from
after a match on YouTube yesterday:
Body Check - Shoulder tackle
Cross Press / Flying Tackle - Cross body block
Double Leg Nelson - Sunset Flip
Flying Mare - snap mare?
Steve Regal used the forearm smash which the yanks called the European uppercut
Kent invented the japenese stranglehold the previous name was a lancashire cravat it annoyed jack fallon when it given an oriental twist. the leg hank has disappeared completely.
There are plenty that we we don't see anymore.Anyone remember the Gwyn Davies suspension lift?Also,the swinging neck breaker performed by Julien Morice.Pallo's sit on back doublearm submission.Don't see the surf board very much either.I'm not saying there never performed but I haven't seen them in years.There are lots more I suppose.
We had a move called the sugar bag, which was modified in the U.S.A. and renamed the power bomb. Over here, the perpetrator's hands went on the backs of their opponent's thighs. The modification saw the perpetrator's arms wrapped around their opponent's torso. The sugar bag was more close-in, the power bomb more impactful, I suppose.
Sèan Regan!
Indian Death Lock ?
Some people will have deemed some of the colourful ones politically incorrect: monkey climb; semi-Jap-strangle. Same has happened in snooker with the very important term Chinese Snooker now being taboo even though central to the game and with no replacement term developed.
Chicken wing seemed never ever to be applied but Kent harped on about wrestlers trying to apply it.
Skull Murphy had a Gaitor. Odd word that foxed me. A google throws up Neck Gaitor which brings in Nagasaki's "The Rack", a name Kent did not embrace.
Geoff Portz's "short arm scissors" used to fascinate me, but it seemed to disappear when he did.
American wrestling seems more interested in developing a catchy name for a move these days rather than focusing on the move itself. I appreciated the sobriety of side-head-chancery and body check. Mind you, ahead of its time, the promoters were on the ball when publicising in English Quasimodo's speciality, the pendulum. That did fascinate.
And Kent was of course at pains to distinguish the forearm smash from the jab. Any such subtlety died with McManus and Logan.