1971 KENDO -TV

[exotic adrian]

anyone seen the 1971 origin on you tube Kendo NAgasaki, mask gets removed , V BILL HOWES, not a good quality moving image, but intresting anyway ....

[Boston Crab]

Yes interesting http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HsuRbj3mS4

[Hack]

Thanks exotic one. Yes the quality is dire but interesting to see once again. Even more interesting was that kendo should have lost his mask on his first tv appearance. Having been starved of masked men since the departure of the Outlaw it seems very strange that the next invincible one was exposed as not quite so invincible on his first tv showing.

[Anglo Italian]

Thanks for that link, I for one hadn't seen it and have just enjoyed it all again enormously.  Great to see sixties-style Nagasaki again in his prime.

However, Hack, the age is acreeping up on you.  This was not Nagasaki's first tv bout at all, regardless of what various tv listings and even the Nagasaki site might say.

I recall very vividly this very Cup Final Day, 8th May 1971, as the cameras joined his first bout mid-way through and Nagasaki scored a fairly quiet victory over Wayne Bridges.

There were then tv bouts with Roy St Clair, Judo Pete Roberts and a couple of Howes bouts.  Nagasaki became a tv regular in dramatic contrast with his seven years of earlier exclusion.

I'm not 100% sure whether this unmasking was in the first or second Howes bout, therefore can't quite place the Roberts bout in sequence.

There were then lots more Howes encounters including a third 1971 tv clash in November.

BTW what a great Pete Roberts bout too.  We get to see the sword ceremony in some detail, and what a great aeroplane spin to finish.

I think the Bridges debut is recorded on another site you may care to look at:  www.wrestlingheritage.co.uk in the Shining Stars section under  Unravelling The Strings of the Mask.

[Hack]

Thank you Mr Anglo Italian, helpful as always. Gggrhh, mumble, mumble.