Tuesdays with Daddy: Week 7: vs. The Mississippi Mauler Jim Harris

Week 7

Big Daddy vs. “The Mississippi Mauler” Jim Harris 3/13/82

MD: This is probably not the best use of one of my 15 matches but it’s Kamala! We’ve seen him in Germany in the start of the 80s as Big Jim Harris and against the right opponent he really did have a lot to offer. He could have had an entire career never becoming Kamala and he still would have probably done pretty well for himself. 

This is interesting because it was set up as best two-out-of-three arm wrestling with a match to follow. I had picked this, in part, due to the length of the clip (just under ten minutes), but I realize now more than half of it will be the arm wrestling. That’s okay though, because you clearly can learn something from such things. You learn a ton about a wrestler from how they participate in the side bits, be it a worked weightlifting angle or boxing or this. It’s all about how they work it. 

And here Daddy worked it just like he works everything else. He let Harris take over to start, building up that sense of vulnerability and then thudded him down to a big pop. This was two-out-of-three. It made sense that Harris would do something cheap to win in the second right? But that bit of vulnerability Daddy always showed in one way or another never got to the point of real true heat and danger. It was always safe. Always reassuring. I could make some sort of parallel that the declined empire Brits wanted just a tiny bit of terror, a little bit of that (ultimately safe and sanitized) Doctor Who “hide behind the couch” sensation and then to have their fears reassured in the most definitive way possible. But that seems a bit too much for this project. 

Still…

Well, anyway, that bit of peril that Daddy experienced in the first would be the whole of it. For the second (which Harris decided he wanted to be on the other side of the table on which was a good bit of heeling, making excuses), he pressed Harris’ hand down quickly, only for Harris to pull away and stand up at the last second, complaining on the mic for all the ills of the world and how they were Daddy’s fault.

The match itself was just a few minutes and yes, a bit of peril up front with Harris putting on a headlock. The whips would soon start, back and forth and back again, the big boom stuff that was made possible by the smaller ring (I assume it’s smaller. It may just be that Daddy’s bigger, but it’s really just a few steps from corner to corner with the way these guys moved). There was a moment of Harris missing the hand at one point which didn’t quite make things seem more organic in a way a slip like that might. The waterwheel back drop pancake looked pretty exceptional however, and Harris (selling quite well with spasms and attempts to move) couldn’t beat the count after that. The crowd, of course, was elated. 

The criticism is, as always so far, that if Daddy gave just a little more, then things would have seemed more gripping in his victory, but perhaps they would have felt less safe and even, on some level, less triumphant and monumental, less larger than life. Which again, gives things that short Goldberg or JYD feel. That is, of course, not to say that he didn’t show vulnerability at all. He just did it in a very measured, and I think given the patterns, self-conscious way. Was it because he was afraid to be more vulnerable or because it worked and appealed to his audience? That I’m not sure of, but to say that he didn’t give at all would be a mistake. Overall, this was worth including because it showed that the act could transfer into connected elements like arm-wrestling while still being incredibly consistent and undeniably effective, if, perhaps, too hesitant and conservative.

ER: Look at The Mississippi Mauler in his beautiful red and white poncho, a look so strong that I can see a world where he's a major star even without playing a godless savage. There's just something about a cool black guy wearing a poncho like he's in an Italian western. It's like the first time I saw Bounty Hunter Brian Keith making his way to the ring in a poncho, how much aura he had...before I saw him wrestle. Mauler has his sick poncho, he didn't need a cheap tactic such as letting a deathly ill girl accompany him to the ring, like Daddy. This girl's dying wish was to accompany Daddy to the ring and well...okay that's very sweet and I love that it happened. 

I love a good arm wrestling angle and Mauler is great at what makes arm wrestling angles so good: The Bullshit. My favorite is him refusing to sit in the chair closest to him, rightly suspecting there's some foul play and insisting on sitting in Daddy's seat. When he loses the first (of 3!) arm wrestling falls, that's when he demands to switch seats back. Perfect. Pulling away from a loss, kicking the table away, logging off PSN just as you're about to lose a game, that's the behavior I want to see when there's arm wrestling in a wrestling ring. Mauler gets on the mic and talks about how arm wrestling isn't what he was here to do, pro wrestling is how he plies his trade. It's so great to demand certain rules, and the second you're about to lose under those rules, gaslight the people into thinking nobody was even here to DO arm wrestling. We're here to wrestle, I don't even know what this tiny table is doing here, we're supposed to be PRO wrestling. 

I loved their deeply sunk collar and elbow tie ups. I'm not sure I've seen someone go after Daddy so directly. We've all seen the shoulderblocks and the belly bumps but a direct collar and elbow, strength to strength, is rare. This is a good one, with Mauler widening his base, forcing Daddy to widen his own, both men in a heavy lean so you can really see Daddy's big belly sagging down between his legs. Daddy shoves off each time, with Mauler pounding his chest like King Kong, leaping and stomping and hopping, as much to intimidate as to celebrate that he locked up with Daddy and is still standing tall. 

Big Daddy's Irish whips remain among the strongest looking I've seen. Mauler is huge but I can't say I've ever seen Kamala run so fast as when Daddy whips him back and forth into the buckles. And boy do we get to see him whipped into the buckles. Is it just because Kamala is so young here? We have the German footage where he's even younger, but Germany didn't really have a lot of "running" in their heavyweight ring style. It was a lot slower, a lot more walking. Mauler should be thanking the turnbuckles, because they were the only thing stopping him here. He was whipped so hard, that the ropes went slack and ringside technicians were required to hold the whole rigging into place as the Mauler kept hitting the buckles. 

And my god does Daddy's waterwheel absolutely CRUSH Mauler. I watched it back several times and it looks like Daddy lands full weight on Mauler's face, and Mauler starts sputtering and convulsing, lying there looking like Keith David after taking Roddy Piper's worst. I've more often seen Daddy roll it off to the side, but here he just flattens the Mauler's face and even with fight in him, no man was meant to stand up from that. 

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Tuesdays with Daddy: Week 6: vs. The Mighty Quinn

Week 6 

Big Daddy vs. John Quinn 6/27/79

MD: I mentioned cheats last time and this feels a little like a cheat. The match goes 1:30 or so, but it’s worth seeing because of all of the pomp and circumstance. We rarely get to see Daddy in front of a huge crowd like this in a singles match. This was at Wembley Arena, and to watch him come down to the ring surrounded by a mass of people is pretty amazing. Again, I have no connection to this guy but I do have connection to beloved babyfaces and he sure was one. Some kid leaned over as he was passing by to kiss him on his cheek, either to pass him some luck or get some luck. 

While it’s obvious he knew what he was doing and what would get an effect and he leveraged his size and charisma and the SYMBOLIC weight of what he did, there’s also a sense that he’s some guy who wished in a well to be the biggest star in England and everyone just kind of got swept up by the magic. Maybe that WAS part of the magic, that there was something unreal about him, like a… cereal mascot. Like Captain Crunch. Or Popeye the Sailor Man. Again, the world is accessible. Door’s open. Come on in. He’s not going to look down on you. You can leave your worries behind and join this strange, wholesome fantasy. He reminds me here of a Jimmy Valiant, not the sort of guy society is supposed to root for but an absolute folk hero, larger than life yet on paper much “smaller” than what society’s ideal person is supposed to be. 

Quinn was billed from North America, though he was mighty. We’re ROBBED of his Mighty Quinn entrance that we’ve gotten in Germany. He seems a bit smaller here a year or two earlier but maybe that’s because he’s not towering over Bob “UFO” Della Serra. Haystacks, cool as can be in his giant leather jacket, gets on the mic and berates Daddy and the fans are irate. This was a great way to stall the two of them facing, or to break it up, to have Haystacks as “mentor” to an invading Quinn. Daddy was announced as “Accepting the Challenge with Great Joy!” which was a nice touch.

This is pretty fascinating to start because instead of leaning into the shoulder blocks like usual, Daddy just takes them. This feels intentional. It makes it seem like Quinn is stronger and bigger than he is. Usually, Daddy is able to lean in and shove back and here, Quinn hits him even. In all the shoulder blocks I’ve seen Daddy do (and it’s a big part of the act!) in the last five matches before this spanning multiple years, he didn’t just take it like he does here. And it’s not that he’d be taking a night off in front of the huge crowd in Wembley Arena. I’ve seen him enough to think it’s intentional and it was to add in a bit of doubt (Walton was wondering as the bell rang if he could do it). It meant the crowd popped all the more when Quinn whipped him (and again, he moved well) and Daddy crashed through him. 

Quinn responded with a leaping forearm that staggered Daddy, and then a few more for good measure. That drew Daddy’s brother, Brian Crabtree, a fancy-clad off duty referee, to the apron and Quinn rushed over to clock him too. Everyone in the crowd knew what a bad idea that was. Daddy looked out to them and the mood completely changed. Quinn had crossed a line. It was one thing to forearm Daddy in the face, another to attack a bystander, especially a beloved one. Three big vaulting body slams followed (variation: I’ve not seen him really toss someone like this before either). 

This was a ten count death match of sorts. No rounds. No time limit. Quinn beat the count but then got hefted over for the waterwheel backdrop (not the cleanest but that’s ok when Daddy is still landing on the guy). Even Walton lost his cool when the count reached 8, as he got elated with everyone else at what was about to happen. The place erupted. 

I think this would have been unquestionably better if Quinn kept it up for another minute or two even, just a minute or two, a few more forearms, maybe getting Daddy to his knees, maybe having Haystacks tripping him and him going down for a few seconds. Then they could have done the bit with Crabtree, right? But on the other hand, that was completely unnecessary and I’m not sure if the extra heat would have made the end pop better than this sort of justified almost religious instant comeuppance of a bully was. Crabtree took the damage and Daddy meted out the justice. At this stage of the act, in 79, in front of this crowd, maybe that was exactly as vulnerable as he should have been. Just like in the last match with the Emperor (what if the Emperor DID get that sleeper on Daddy instead of his partner McMichael?), what if Quinn didn’t lose focus? What if he didn’t cross such a line and kept it more sporting? Maybe that was enough for people’s imaginations. Clearly it was not just for 79, but for years to come. 

So this is funny, but now it reminds me of Will Ospreay a bit. One big issue with his matches is that it’s impossible to believe that he’s beatable in any way because he’s such a physical specimen and bounces back from everything. The solution has been to have him sell, sell, sell, though he drops it while on offense because he’s just too much, too all-encompassing, too unbeatable. I’ve said it before, but the actual solution is probably to lean into it, steamroll people when it makes sense to, and have him be vulnerable in other ways. That’s very much what they did here with Daddy. Maybe Will Ospreay could learn a thing or two from Big Daddy.

ER: This is the best Big Daddy entrance of the matches we've covered. No comparison We've never gotten such full color crowd level shots of Daddy being swarmed by old British housewives before. It changes everything when you see it. Filming him through the crowd was essential, it captured a fanbase that doesn't exist in any way any longer, which might make all this "who could like Big Daddy?" talk irrelevant. It was them, people you don't know who haven't thought about wrestling in decades, but might still think about Big Daddy. Look at the working class men who can't wait to get a hand on Daddy, to help lift him up onto the ring apron, eight different men all fighting for a chance to get a palm on part of Daddy's belly and ass. Those people are believers. Daddy is in full sequins, an old couple is with him and they are decked to the nines too, and I'm sure the Wembley Arena crowd recognized them. 

But it wasn't just Daddy, it was also Haystacks. Have you seen how incredible Haystacks looked, seconding Quinn? He's mammoth, but wearing clothes like a man. Look how good he looks in his gigantic perfectly fitted fringe jacket and boot cut black Wranchers. That is a look I would sport right this second, without a chance of competing with Haystacks' aura. I blame the 400 or so pounds he has on me, and the fact that I couldn't grab a mic and draw nuclear heat by yelling, "THERE'S STILL TIME TO GO HOME, DADDY!" People saw this as a threat, and it made The Mighty Quinn feel like a real threat. John Quinn is someone Matt and I have written more about than anyone, by virtue of nobody writing about John Quinn. We saw the undervalued asset and Moneyballed the hell out of early 80s Germany that nobody else had interest in. This is before that, and I was shocked by how differently Daddy worked Quinn than anyone else. The way Daddy works Quinn, in a match that barely goes 100 seconds, made nearly 10,000 people believe the impossible may happen. 

Quinn starts the match hitting three shoulderblocks that Daddy absorbs, and doesn't knock back Quinn at all. The next exchange - even though it ends with Quinn pinballed across the ring by a Daddy shoulderblock - doesn't come until Quinn successfully shot Daddy into the ropes. That was huge for me, because I think that's the first time I've seen anyone complete any kind of whip into the ropes without Daddy reversing. Daddy is not someone who gets shot into the ropes off a side headlock, he's a guy who stands firm, widens his base, and cranks the headlock in more snug. When Quinn actually started pounding Daddy with elbows I actually yelped. These were square to the jaw, the first one delivered with a leap, the others hard enough to force Daddy into a deep lean on the ropes. I have watched many Big Daddy matches and you just do not see someone start slugging him while landing several in a row. In many matches he takes no offense at all, so multiple straight elbows to the jaw that send him leaning in the ropes felt like Quinn was landing a combination on Tyson. 

Daddy's brother gets the worst elbow, a running shot across the ring that sent him flying off the apron. When Daddy starts unloading full release bodyslams (throwing Quinn out rather than slamming him down) and crushes him with his waterwheel, the crowd explodes to their feet and actually surges toward the ring. When it was clear Quinn wasn't answering the count, the rush of crowd had an energy that made it feel like the result MAY have been in doubt, which sounds ludicrous in hindsight. Did they actually believe Quinn could beat Daddy? Their reactions in every second of this video seem to say "Yes". 

I wonder if there was any crossover audience who saw both Big Daddy and any of the late 70s Ramones European tours. There has to be someone. On any given night the Ramones would perform at least 10 songs with a runtime similar to this match. Art boiled down to the essentials, one appealing to dead enders and punks, the other appealing to pensioners and the working class. Two mediums, the quickest and most economic delivery system possible, two very different societies. 

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Tuesdays with Daddy: Week 5: w/McMichael vs. Emperor/Cooper

Week 5

Big Daddy/Mick McMichael vs. Masked Emperor/”Cyanide” Sid Cooper 5/4/85

MD: Best as I can tell, this was another one from 85. Again, there are some trends here. His opponents are often a small guy and a big guy. The big guy here was the mysterious Masked Emperor who was billed at 6’7” but was tall and not wide, sort of a Tinieblas body type? One interesting wrinkle here is that they were building to a future televised tag match against “The Rockers” who were at ringside and jawed with Daddy at one point. So Daddy could walk and chew bubblegum, perhaps not that large a feat but you don’t actually see it all that much on UK TV.

You’re probably looking for a few things in here by this point. How well does Daddy’s partner do? McMichael does pretty good to start, knocking Cooper all over with headbutts. He survives getting too close to the heel corner and Emperor whacking him only to get sidestepped throat first into the top rope. He also wins the last fall with a nice falling powerslam after Emperor gets run off (more on that in a minute). 

You’re looking for the overall sense of peril. In this case it was because Emperor made McMichael submit quickly with a sleeper (headlock strangle) and afterwards, McMichael sold the throat for the rest of the match. They did leave that on the bone for future matches; what if he could get it on Daddy? Daddy was quick to check on Mick and give him some of the water; I’d never actually seen anyone swallow instead of spitting before but McMichael did.

Then he made for the sort of hot tag you’d want in the second fall. McMichael crawled to him, no real need to twist things up and invert them, just straight forward stiff upper lip valiant crawling through a nervehold. Daddy came in a house afire. You’re looking for the variation, the different stuff and the familiar, and he had that great whip from one corner to the next bit that would be more difficult if the ring was bigger. This time though, as Emperor went in face first and started to back up, he nailed him with a lariat of sorts. Big meaty shot. I hadn’t seen him do that in the footage yet and it set up the splash. 

The familiar was there, people bouncing off of him (though he leans in like always), even just how he took his hat off and got the fans going or started the match by controlling the center of the ring and stomping. The engagement is always there and he always seems quite alive, never really phoning in that connection with the crowd. When they cut to a kid with a Big Daddy scarf, you believe how excited he was, because Daddy was speaking right to him and caring in the same way he did; he was just a much bigger presence doing it. 

The match ended with him doling out justice, tossing Emperor into the corner and Cooper and then pulling the mask right off. The Emperor rushed out without revealing his face leaving Cooper to his fate. Five matches in, I’m seeing little tweaks and differences, just enough variation in the mix, both in what Daddy does and in his partners and opponents. Yes, I’m not getting a sense of week to week from this, but we’re many years into the run at this point and those kids were still excited. I’m arguing that they were excited for a reason and that reason was tied directly to what Daddy was bringing to the table in these matches. 

One other thought at this point is in the strength of brevity. These aren’t twenty+ minute technical matches. There can be exchanges but it’s all pretty quick moving. It reminds me of the variance we see in some of, let’s say, the Junkyard Dog vs Nick Bockwinkel matches, which compared to almost all of Bock’s other matches, tend to go relatively short. Dog got in and out and gave the fans what they wanted. I see some parallels there. Maybe it’s a bit of a cheat since he’s able to be such a contrast to the longer matches, but there’s always been all sorts of different acts in the circus, and these are incredibly accessible. 

ER: I dig how Daddy doesn't bullshit around about Emperor not wanting to start the match with him. I was excited to see the two big men start things off, but Emperor wants no part. Daddy tries coaxing him (EASY! EASY!) and when it doesn't work Daddy just shrugs and tells McMichael, "Alright, you get in." I like the implication that he was game to start the match, but only against the tougher opponent, so send in McMichael rather than steamroll Cyanide Sid. That said, while we knew McMichael would likely be starting the match, I was surprised to hear him announced in ring after Big Daddy. Maybe I'm so used to the hierarchical order of announcements in All Japan/NOAH, where they would build to announcing the biggest stars last, but the crowd erupting for Daddy and then being hit with "also this guy!" is like a band getting stuck with the closer-opener slot after Danzig. It doesn't really matter, as McMichael gets thrown groin first into the turnbuckle and tags Daddy right in, without Emperor seeing it. We got to the same point we would have, but adding in a couple twists before arrival makes it mean something. When McMichael gets choked out for the 1st fall, I liked how Daddy flat out asked him before the 2nd if he was alright, imploring him to just tag out. 

My big takeaway from Daddy in this one - aside from him winning the 2nd fall with the worst standing splash we've ever seen - is that his pulling power is on full screen display here. I think his use of reverse whips in this tag is the best out of the matches we've talked about so far. It feels weird to say that Daddy is one of the best reverse Irish whip artists we have, but the case is sound. This match was much more about Daddy utilizing Irish whips than wielding his belly. His Irish whip reversals are excellent. The way he waits until the peak of his momentum - like that big Viking ship at the county fair reaching its apex before swinging back the opposite way - to plant and throw his reverse, always getting full extension on the whip, always looking like his opponent is running due to the strength of the whip and not because the spot simply demands it. Big Daddy looks like he has Andre level pulling power, and I can't think of many better comps than Andre when it comes to pulling strength. It's his go to physicality that shows he might have been better on the offense than playing brick wall.  

Now let's talk about Sid, because Cyanide Sid Cooper looks and wrestles like a Guy I Like. He looks like a British Bushwhacker and has a punch and bump style that works nicely with his black one strap singlet. As the smaller man in the tag, you expect him to pinball for Daddy's belly. Daddy flung that belly at his face and sent him bouncing back to his corner multiple times, and he flies through the ropes to the floor like Finlay for a McMichael uppercut (with The Rockers on the floor helping with his landing, love their jackets btw). But I liked his scrappy dirty offense even more than his bumping. Like when Emperor distracted McMichael from the apron and Sid blasts McMichael in the back of the neck with an elbow, pitching McMichael forward into the ropes, or how he sidesteps McMichael while running ropes and shoves him neck first into the top rope. Sidestepping someone and sending them running neck first into a rope shouldn't look like a finish, but they made it look that way. 

I also loved how Cooper, this dangerous looking scumbag, takes and uses his Public Warnings, almost completely wasting them but using them to get people engaged. With Daddy's team down a fall, that's the precise time to use up your PW's, make the crowd think the impossible may happen, that you might be able to cut McMichael off and make Daddy a non-factor. It doesn't quite work out that way, and the best part of Cooper using them is how quickly he regrets using them, when McMichael starts crawling towards Daddy and all Cooper can do is scream frantically from the apron, before getting wiped out when Daddy tags in and whips Emperor into him. And, since Daddy and Emperor have to start the 3rd together, Daddy starts the round by whipping Emperor into Cooper one more time.  

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Tuesdays with Daddy: Week 4: w/Kwick Kick Lee (Maeda) vs. Walsh/Brannigan (5/11/82)

Week 4

Big Daddy/Kwick Kick Lee (Maeda) vs. Tony "Banger" Walsh/Crusher Brannigan 5/11/82

MD: Okay, I'm starting to see some patterns and starting to find my way through this four matches in. First up, Kwik Kick Lee was positioned as Sammy Lee (Sayama)'s brother and is, of course, Maeda, who has size to stand out here (and some good offense; he hit a great jumping knee). Brannigan is big and a sub for Skull Murphy. Walsh looks like a mustached character actor stooge. This is tied to the F.A Cup and the crowd is loud. 

Here's the deal. And people will hate this, but it's true. Big Daddy is Goldberg. Short matches. Super engaged. High energy in his own way. That's the thing. He leans into everything. People don't just bounce off of him, he leans forward. He really tosses himself into every whip, not a ton, maybe but enough. He puts oomph into everything even when he doesn't have to. And there's a ton of energy to the ping ponging off of him where he moves someone in and out of the corner, in and off the ropes. They're creating a lot of the motion, but he's acting as a catalyst to it, doing more than people remember or would imagine, I think. It's tangible. That's what registers with the crowd. He's quite often engaged, quite often showing he cares. He's excited when Lee scores a pinfall on his own (off a suplex), after coming back on his own, slapping him on his back and giving him a high five. 

And He's frustrated when Brannigan pulls back the corner pad. Here, there was a sense of danger. Lee lost a fall to Brannigan's spinebuster stampede into the corner followed by a running spinebuster slam, so when the turnbuckle pad came off, there was a real chance Maeda was going to lose. He had enough reach to get a tag on a second charge though and Daddy tossed Branigan in, hit a back body drop, and scored the win. Post match he hit his crushing waterwheel backdrop onto Walsh, and it's really a spectacular move. The other person does a lot of the work, but it's something ritualistic that people would want to see over and over. I want to see it over and over.

So yes, it's not apples to apples, but there's a real Goldberg appeal here. It's a different sort of intensity and anger and focus. It's a different sort of attraction with a different body shape. And I think there's more savvy to how Daddy connected to the crowd, more foresight, whereas with Goldberg it was primarily instinct, but some of this is scratching a similar primal itch with the crowd.

We will keep watching!

ER: Maybe our weakest actual match but a cool way to continue fleshing out our story. Daddy teaming with the babyface Japanese rookie, catching him up on customs mid-match, even tousling his hair like his partner is some hard kicking little rascal. Maeda is, that, and he also looks like the hands down handsomest man in the UK. This might be our most odd pairing of wrestling legends I've ever seen. Find me a weirder team of Style Legends whose represented styles and eras couldn't be further apart. The shootstyle god of controversy and the man as synonymous with British wrestling as Kleenex is to tissue. Find me the team of Hijo del Santo and Tiger Jeet Singh! 

I am wholly unfamiliar with Crusher Brannigan and Tony Walsh and their awful, awful gear. Tony "Banger" Walsh is in there looking like a non-wrestler, like David Manning was forced to team with a von Erich and is wearing a singlet over a polo shirt, on his Hamburglar shit. He throws strikes like a non-wrestler too, but I don't necessarily mean that as a pejorative. I kind of liked his forearms that were thrown off to the side like a glancing European uppercut; his elbowdrop is the same form as Regal's, it's just missing 80 lb of weight behind it. He looks like someone I'd like to see Daddy flatten in a real fight. 

Brannigan is one of those messy brawlers who looks like he belongs on the early 80s Germany footage Matt and I have been exposing to a dozen people. Same messy big guy body, just a looser uglier version of their heavyweight style. Crusher had some of the weakest headlock punches I've seen, and he wins the 2nd fall by kind of hitting Lee with a spinebuster, that's more him picking up a bearhug and falling on Lee, then holding him down. It's beautiful, because his messy spinebuster flop sets up an excellent 3rd fall. Brannigan undoes the turnbuckle pads before running Lee into them with that bearhug, missing a tag to Daddy. When Brannigan squishes Lee and turns around directly into his own messy body getting squished, that shitty singlet where the straps are joined by the horizontal jobber strap, you know why he's there. He's there to be bodied by a Daddy avalanche, then another, a messy body hitting the loosest ropes in town. He's there to be knocked backwards over the top by a closing speed Daddy belly bump. He's there to make sloppy contact. 

Daddy doesn't do a Jackhammer, but that waterwheel body splash feels like the 1982 British equivalent. I watched his waterwheel on Walsh a half dozen times, just watching the physics of it. The fall and impact is so satisfying, a roller coaster hitting the highest peak and beginning the descent. Big Daddy puts this guy through the mat. 

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Tuesdays with Daddy: Week 3: w/McDonald vs. Haystacks/Finlay (5/19/84)

Week 3

Big Daddy/Drew McDonald vs. Giant Haystacks/Fit Finlay 5/19/84

MD: Decided we needed to move ahead a bit as all 79 matches weren't fair. Here we have Finlay (with Princess Paula) and Haystacks and a fairly big Scot in McDonald. Interesting to note that Daddy was more interested in McDonald than he was Turpin. Paula slaps him before the match and Daddy's quick to comfort and calm him down. Likewise, after getting splashed off the top rope by Finlay and eating a regular big splash from Haystacks to lose the first fall, Daddy was quick to check on him. 

Otherwise, it's a little harder to gauge him here, because the best part of this was Finlay and McDonald. Headbutts from McDonald. Forearms and uppercuts from Finlay. Some great Finlay escapes, a headstand out of a headlock, and moving one leg over the other to escape a different hold. I'd say that Fit made more of the motion for Daddy too, crashing into the corner groin first, and bouncing off and eating back body drops and a toss over the top, which should have been a DQ but the ref just looked past it as not intentional. Fit was great on the apron too, getting up on the bottom rope and peering over, making himself more of a presence in a match with far larger wrestlers.

That said, on the one big Haystacks vs Daddy exchange, Daddy took a whip and really did run the ropes at full speed (surprising speed for him I'd say) only to crash into him. Even though Walton noted that Daddy couldn't do his "big boom stuff" against Haystacks, he still won the exchange as Haystacks was quick to retreat. Finish of the second fall was weird (and noted as "curious and unusual" by Walton) as Daddy came in hot after a tag and crash into Haystacks in the corner, knocking him into Finlay and out of the match. Then he made short work of Finlay too and both were counted out ending the match on a "Knockout," despite it really just evening up the falls. 

He moved a bit more gingerly here than in 79, but when it came time to burst against the ropes, he did. I think maybe there was a little less pomp and circumstances, a little less build to the exchanges here too. I'm not sure if that's because Finlay took up more of the air in the match or not though. Something for us to keep looking at as we continue on. I'm not sure if he was just in there with more larger than life, actualized characters and it was less his show because of that. I'm also not sure if that's not a testament to him that he didn't hog all the spotlight even if he won soundly, if weirdly, in the end.

ER: I guess I should have known that this would be a total Finlay Match that built to a couple Daddy/Haystacks interactions, and young David Finlay turned a humongous one match performance into a great four man showing. Finlay is incredible. What a wrestler. Every new Finlay match I've ever seen only assures his place among the greats. He does everything so well, and I loved every exchange he had with everybody here, including the lovely slapper (because she slaps people, I assume that's what all the YouTube comments about here mean as well) Princess Paula. The crowd of course wants to see Daddy and Haystacks, but Finlay is the one who knows how to fill the 90% of the match that is not that, and it's wonderful. His sequences with Daddy are some of my favorite Daddy sequences I've seen. His full contact shoulderblocks to Daddy and the large-in-any-other-match Drew McDonald are fearless and rugged. He slams into Daddy and doesn't budge him, and when he does it again he's knocked flat and fast to his back like Benoit bumping to give himself CTE. He hits so hard that I squealed with glee when he kipped up, floating to his feet like Mark Rocco, leading directly to Daddy throwing him far over the ropes to the floor, Finlay spilling up and out and over like Jerry Estrada. 

I am less familiar with McDonald, but loved all of Finlay's work with him. More tough, unflinching shoulderblocks, everything they do is rock solid. Finlay does a weightless headstand escape out of a tight side headlock and hits McDonald with one of the most brutal elbow strikes I've ever seen; an elbow held close to his body, smashed into the side of McDonald's head and jaw. Finlay executes everything perfectly, swiftly, and violently. He can grab an arm and wrench a very large McDonald around, and he leaps into McDonald's face with his entire forearm. Finlay does a cartwheel escape out of a headlock push off that would have looked like one of the more athletic things on a 90s Michinoku Pro show. When he's back to being knocked around by Daddy, he flies into the turnbuckles for Irish whips so hard that it's a miracle he didn't wind up like Tom Billington. One of the whips sends him in crotch first to the corner so hard that it knocks the turnbuckle pad off. But Finlay is smart about treating Irish whips from Daddy differently from others: later, when McDonald shoots him in, Finlay leaps into and off them into a flying elbow smash, like the most violent fighting move in a West Side Story number.

Big Daddy is clearly the worker of the two big men, but at Haystacks' size I'm just fascinated seeing him move around. I'm a fan of the rules where the same men who finish one fall have to start the next, seeing McDonald get squished to completion by a Haystacks standing splash (that was more just Haystacks falling forward onto him) then forced to compete with the man who did the squishing. Haystacks had these great big clubbing fists thrown laterally up and across McDonald's chest. Andre had a big arm strike to the chest like that and would do it the same way, toward the camera, making it look even larger than life. But while *I* surely wanted to see Finlay drilling large men with elbows and taking bumps larger than the era's biggest bumping juniors, the thrill is seeing the heavies collide. I loved the way Daddy and Haystacks threw each other off balance, the way they teetered into the ropes which felt equal parts theatrical and "large man trying desperately to keep his footing". While I could have predicted Finlay getting pitched high into the air with a back body drop (what kind of tough fool would charge screaming at Big Daddy!?), I 100% did not expected Haystacks getting bumped over the top to the floor. I didn't thin it was possible! It wasn't fast, it shouldn't and couldn't have been fast, but Daddy smashes into him and shoves him over backwards into a real impressive fall where...frankly I don't know how Haystacks' legs supported him. At his size it looks incredibly dangerous to hit concrete feet first at downward increasing speed, and of course that man's not getting back into the ring after that fall. 

Just another excellent Finlay match? Definitely, of course. But a Finlay match that expands on the work of three larger and larger and larger men, filled with constant intrigue because of the build.  

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Tuesdays with Daddy: Week 2: w/Jackie Turpin vs. Blackjack Mulligan/The Bulk (10/24/79)

Week 2 

Big Daddy/Jackie Turpin vs. Blackjack Mulligan/The Bulk 10/24/79 

MD: First look at a tag. Still in 79. This was untelevised and a couple of months before the other. We have a lot more tags than singles. Bulk was massive. At one point he was on the apron just using the ropes to carry the weight of his belly while he was standing there. 

I'm looking to see how he handles things on the apron, what he chooses to do in the ring, how much he has his partner do, etc. He got the fans cheering and chanting to start like the last match. Mulligan who was a bit like a hillbilly rasputin, more than the cowboy we know and love, shoved Turpin to start, so Daddy grabbed him and tossed him right into Bulk in the corner, a crowd pleasing spot. He kept things moving after that with a shoulder block and back body drop off the ropes. 

Turpin came in with dropkicks and really had answers for everything Mulligan did, right until he didn't and Mulligan started in with inside shots and choking him on the ropes. Daddy came right on in and tried to protect, including aggressively, but it just allowed for more cheapshots. He seemed more upset at the cheating than at the danger his partner was in, and he did seem to make it about himself, but I don't think that necessarily hurt the match since it rallied the fans. He came in again when Bulk got a cheapshot in from the outside and once again, though it was futile, after Mulligan hit a nice chancery suplex and Bulk finally got the tag in. Bulk made short work of Turpin with a corner avalanche and bearhug.

Second fall had Turpin roll right into the corner so Daddy could come in. Fans popped and for good reason. Bulk threw a bit of a fit and Daddy put his arms out to hype things up. They crashed into each other and Daddy showed some concern that he couldn't move Bulk. Again, this matters. It's a bit of selling you might not expect out of him and that you might not care about, but the fans cared and it made him overcoming things matter. Another crash before he hit the ropes and finally got Bulk down. Bulk was furious. Daddy stood in the corner in sumo position, dodged the impending charge, and hit a splash for the pin. Fans loved it. Bulk escaped the ring and things broke down with Turpin getting a quick pin on Mulligan to win the match. 

So yes, he did do a good job of making things about himself, but not necessarily in a way that hurt the match. Instead it built anticipation and helped keep the crowd in it. Why wouldn't Daddy be upset by the proceedings? If he cared, they cared, even if they cared more about the heels getting theirs than Turpin surviving maybe? He was responding well to what was happening at the start, making Mulligan pay for bullying Turpin, and at the end, really engaging with Bulk. Again, we'll have to see how this alters over time, but I'm still seeing a pretty savvy and talented wrestler here, whether that made for great matches or just ones that clearly satisfied the crowd. 

ER: I do not know who this Blackjack Mulligan is, but he is certainly not the man who did time in a federal prison with his son for counterfeiting. This Blackjack Mulligan looks nothing like that big cowboy, and everything like the Deadhead, Hoyt, who's worked at my town record store for my lifetime. Dale Martin's Mulligan is the guy who works at a pick 'n' pull, who doesn't care if your friends hit that one Buick with a bat. Most of this match is Mulligan and Turpin, two men I am unfamiliar with. Turpin is a boxer from a famous boxing family who doesn't do any kind of punch based offense. He has a precise dropkick to Mulligan's face, a stiff axe handle to the stomach that I've never seen look so good, and he looks like a small dancer, like dirtbag mustache Dynamite without so many person traumas. 

A lot of this is Turpin being cut off from Daddy. Mulligan throws kicks and punches like no other wrestler. Mulligan drops Turpin on the side of his head with a front choke suplex. Fatty Thomas has a stomach that literally rests on the middle rope as he's on the apron. His listed weight is something preposterous, like over 40 stone, and after seeing it on the middle rope I suppose it's possible he's actually 45 stone and his stomach was just hung up on the towel rack when he was on the scale. He doesn't seem like a wrestler, he just seems like the biggest fat guy they could find. ALL wrestling promoters should find new wrestlers by looking for the biggest fat guy they can find. When Fatty tags in, he instantly squishes Turpin in the corner and gets a quick tap with a smothering bearhug. With his mustache he looks like Oliver Hardy drawn out to absurd proportions. 

It all builds to the 2nd round inevitable showdown between Daddy and The Bulk, and when they run their bellies into each other I could have seen them do it a dozen times until one of them went down. That's not how Daddy works, Daddy. Daddy makes the most of poses before their first collision, and of course he knocks Fatty to his back. I didn't expect this whale of a man to get knocked to his back, but I expected it to look better. It was too safe. Daddy's splash to take the fall is merely the suggestion of what a standing splash may look like. I found it interesting how they mostly kept the skinny little guys away from the big fat guys. Mulligan got run into both Daddy and Bulk's bellies, Bulk submitted Turpin, but I would have expected one of the slender guys to get crushed. The fallout after the match felt like real drama that could have built to some kind of Fatty vs. Daddy blowoff. We wouldn't have been able to properly handle it.  

Week 1: Introduction - vs. Mr. X (12/22/79)

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Tuesdays with Daddy: Week 1: Introduction - vs. Mr. X (12/22/79)

Introduction

MD: So just what are we trying to do here? Just what do I, an uncultured American, have to do with Big Daddy? Not a lot actually. I don’t have any core memories of him. I probably never heard of him until some time into my late 20s or 30s. I haven’t seen a lot of matches. I have a lot more to say about Otto Wanz and a lot more of a personal connection, even after the fact, to Jerry Blackwell. Honestly, the one Klondike Bill (UK) match we got from the French Footage probably moved me more than any thought I’ve ever had about Big Daddy. But I know he was a star. I know he was beloved. I know a lot about the behind the scenes reasons for that.

And I know no one’s ever seriously looked at his ringwork to see why and how he connected to crowds.

I have to think that he did. We’ve evaluated Hogan and Dusty, Backlund and Inoki. Even Cena and Reigns. Jackie Sato too! We’ve taken a look at stars and aces, lead babyfaces, and we’ve tried to distill what they did specifically that moved the fans. It’s not just presentation. It’s not just being booked to win. Plenty of wrestlers have been booked to win and weren’t national sensations. I believe, above all else, that details matter when it comes to pro wrestling. What the wrestlers do in the ring matter. 

I want to see up close and first hand what Daddy did and what he didn’t do. Even if he didn’t have conventionally great matches, that doesn’t mean he might not have been a great wrestler. Maybe great matches weren’t going to serve the purpose of what he was trying to do. Even if he wasn’t athletic or didn’t have a great workrate, that doesn’t mean he didn’t do other things well when it came to crowd control and engagement, in working to his opponents’ and partners’ strengths and working them into his act.

Or maybe he didn’t do any of this? Maybe the rep is true. Maybe conventional wisdom is right. Maybe we reevaluate and find that there isn’t much laudable there and the promotion and the framing was everything. That’ll be interesting too. 

But don’t you want to know? Wouldn’t any wrestler or wrestling fan want to know what, in a wrestler’s ring work, helped to make him a cultural sensation? I sure do. Maybe we can figure this out together. The goal isn’t necessarily to push back against this or that or even get him into the WON HOF. The point is that I don’t know, I haven’t seen for myself, and we’re willing to put in the legwork and write about it.

So we’re going to watch around ten matches picked completely at random, just what’s available and I can easily date. Singles where I can find them. Tags. We’ll look at him a little younger and a little older and in the middle. We’re not trying to be comprehensive in how the act changed over time, but we’ll point out things as we go. Feel free to play along and comment along. We’ll take firsthand accounts and extra bits of context if anyone wants to share, but for the sake of this project, the footage’s the thing.

Week 1: Big Daddy vs Mr. X 12/22/79 

MD: We're still early into this, and I'm trying to make sense of just what he does well. Why is he over? What does he do that connects with the crowd? It's not just "he's big." It's not just "he's pushed." The presentation is part of it, but there have to be performative elements, good or bad. Details have to matter. That's the world I want us to live in and quite frankly, when it comes to pro wrestling, that's the world that I witness no matter the place or era. 

So let's break this down. Daddy comes out with his hat and jacket. When he takes them off, the fans are happy to see the girth and he starts a celebratory chant with them, engaging immediately. He's got a white singlet with black "Big Daddy" letters on them. It is certainly memorable. Mr. X is a masked hairy bloke. 

Daddy moves around the ring fairly spry. He's fresh after all. He lets Mr. X get him in a couple of holds first to sort of invert expectations and get his points with the crowd in the escape. First he tosses him across the ring off the headlock to a big pop. Then he actually sells for a few long seconds in a top wristlock, grimacing, slapping Mr. X's back gingerly, before chucking him off with one hand. That matters. It creates a bit of dissonance, the hint of peril. It certainly got a pop because he drew people in.

Then he takes over and doesn't really look back over the rest of the round and the minute and a half or so of the next. He does have some varied offense though. There are corner whips which X takes face first. There are beales off the rope but he charges into them in a way that puts real impact behind it. He lets X bounce off him a couple of times, but when X throws a fit and jumps up and down, he's right there with a belly bump. 

Some things are more interactive with him engaging the crowd and giving them something to latch on to. He does a cross stranglehold and then goes for the mask, revealing that Mr. X has a beard. When he's done with that, he just chucks him to the mat. Mr. X is creating the motion, even running around the ringside area in frustration at one point, but Daddy more than helps him along. 

It gets a little repetitive at times, even in a short match, another headlock toss off, another set of whips. These don't have quite the same response with the fans, but as soon as that starts to happen, he brings things to a close, first with a thudding headlock takeover he rides X down with. Then at the end of Round 1 with a front chancery suplex. It doesn't look great but you get the point anyway and the fans liked it. Then in round two, with X beaten down and barely beating the count, he did a sort of hanging back body drop, almost a waterwheel drop, landing on him in a way that looked brutal. X didn't get up from that.

Not a bad first look, but the question, in part, is how much is going to be ritual and how much is going to be variance. He'll certainly have opponents of different types and there will be tags and other things. It's clear that he knew the sort of effect he could have on the crowd through something as simple as taking his hat off and something as complex as selling a top wristlock for a few seconds before dispatching X. He knew when it was time to wind things down too. It is telling, maybe, that he was in a tiny bit of danger of overstretching what he did have, but that was, in part because X really didn't pose a threat. Key bits of his offense looked honestly great in in 79 at least. Let's see how that progresses. You watch this and see a pretty talented wrestler who knew how to make use of both his skills and work around his limitations and really understood the crowd. But that's just a snapshot.

ER: Matt has been waiting so patiently for me to hop on this Big Daddy project, I don't know why I've been putting it off. Matt waited for me because he knows how much I love fat guy wrestling. Fat guys are what drew me to pro wrestling in the first place. Maybe it was because I had a fat dad, of the different kinds of dads we could have. He was shaped like Boss Man and maybe that's why I loved wrestlers shaped like Bam Bam Bigelow. I wanted to see fat guys even though I did not aspire myself to be fat. My neighbor friend Colin had a Vietnam vet electrician dad, so instead probably liked Jesse Ventura or Dutch Mantell. Sgt. Slaughter if he didn't know. Fat guys in wrestling make great shapes. WWF was nothing but great wrestling shapes. Big fat guys are the most pure, beautiful things Allowed by pro wrestling. Pro wrestling does this weird magic trick with the biggest and best fat guys: it makes them look more normal in their gear than in normal man clothes. Bam Bam Bigelow, John Tenta...I don't want to see them in jeans. Bam Bam found the perfect flame unitard to enhance the best features of his wrestling body. He looks perfect in his flame suits, literally every color, even though we all know the one with that rich blue is the best one. 

Big Daddy was a great shape. What a figure. Big Daddy's body is wrestling perfection. The British were right on this one. The Germans loved big fat Otto Wanz, Big Daddy discovered the perfect wrestling shape and the glowing white singlet to contain it, and the British rightly said "That's our guy." Imagine what that body would have looked like with American portions and American snack food aisles. Big Daddy grew this tremendous body on tinned mince and boiled potatoes. 

Big Daddy is a unique character, a dominant babyface who is literally never in trouble, never threatened, never on his heels. In control, at all times, effortlessly....but that shape. I gotta say, I get it. If you're going to be a dominant babyface, you have to bring a new way of executing offense, and Big Daddy is captivating to watch. 

Is this really just an Arthur "Buffalo" Bice project? Will this project, instead of being a Big Daddy love fest, turn into Matt and I discovering all the different no names who were incredible at getting run over by this sequined dump truck? Every week will it be something like "Did this just become a John "Bengal" Swynford project??" Here's Buffalo Bice pulling the Big Daddy Christmas match, which feels like a major deal. This program signs off with Christmas wishes for all, and Mr. X is tasked with taking two dozen dangerous bumps in the biggest match of his career. 

But this is no big bumping youngster pinballing for an old man, this is a man being forced to bump by an incredibly imposing megastar. Yes, Bice bumped big, but I don't know if he ever had a choice. Any time Daddy whipped or bieled X, X had no say in his landing. Daddy looked like he had the pulling power of Andre. Every time X got yanked full speed face first into the turnbuckles, it was like an ogre swinging a peasant into a tree. His biels are quick and violent and go farther faster than you'd think. His biels are a real satisfying motion, backing X into the ropes and letting him go at their most torqued, and just letting that man fly. This lad has no chance of stopping. His bumping was forced upon him by a double size Dick Murdoch with quick closing speed. By the time he escalates to his side headlock takeover or front chancery suplex, Bice is a corpse getting dummied. Bice makes it to the 2nd round, the last time any TV Daddy match went to the 2nd round. It may have been because the cat was enjoying the exercise, but it happened, and Bice weathered it. 

And God DAMN Fatty Thomas!! Did I hear 42 stone?? That's nearly 600 pounds! This is Daddy's next opponent? Ringing in the new year with Fatty "Bulk" Thomas? How great is it that he has a nickname that's a much nicer name than his first name. His name is true. His body no longer resembles the shape of a human man, his stomach bulging out low and farther than I've ever seen a belly bulge. Commentary is unsure he'll even be able to get into the ring. God what a business. Just find the fattest men you can and let 'em struggle to get into a ring without help. 

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