Who had the greatest Break in History?

CJ Wiley

CJ Wiley

ESPN WORLD OPEN CHAMPION
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This is "Lil" David "The Giant Killer" Howard and me at the Dallas Open....David won the first professional tournament I played, in Toronto Ontario...it had Efren Reyes, Earl Strickland, "King James" Rempe and most of the top players of that era....still to this day I haven't seen anyone consistently hit the Break Shot as well as David did.....it sounded like the Cue Ball and the 1Ball were going to shatter when he Unleashed...it would make "Goliath" shudder ;-)
 
CJ how would you compare David Howard to Wade Crane? Wade broke better and harder than most.
 
If I remember correctly,Shannon the Canon,broke so hard ,at one of your
tournaments,that the 9 ball jumped off the table!
 
Craig said:
CJ how would you compare David Howard to Wade Crane? Wade broke better and harder than most.
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I agree, Billy Johnson could do it all day...it was just another shot for him.
...and you could bet on two things when he broke....
...whitey wouldn't hit a rail...and it was gonna hurt your ears.

Little David would be in my top ten breakers though....
...Shane may be second.
 
Craig said:
CJ how would you compare David Howard to Wade Crane? Wade broke better and harder than most.
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I would take Wade Crane over little David. David broke hard but he was always jumping the table, losing the cue ball, scratching. Wade Crane didn't do all that, he could dial in his break so he had control. Some days he broke harder then others but only to the point of diminishing returns. He didn't break hard just to break hard he had control. Tommy Kennedy has a very good break, in fact it is probably what keeps him competitive.
 
Wade Crane's CRUSH

macguy said:
I would take Wade Crane over little David. David broke hard but he was always jumping the table, losing the cue ball, scratching. Wade Crane didn't do all that, he could dial in his break so he had control. Some days he broke harder then others but only to the point of diminishing returns. He didn't break hard just to break hard he had control. Tommy Kennedy has a very good break, in fact it is probably what keeps him competitive.
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Wade had a dominating break on the old directional cloth....this new faster cloth never appealed to him....it demands a flatter stroke and he always "jumped" the cue ball into the one making it jump up in the air.....he broke for me playing David Matlock one time, 10 ahead for 10k....David ran 8 racks in a row on me and Wade looked at me and said "wait til I get my break working...we'll beat him 30 ahead".....we won the 10 ahead, but the backers didn't want to see it go to 30.....but it would have.....he would break, the cue ball jump up in the air and land in the middle of the table, so nothing would kiss it....I was playing 6 Ball from that point on with a shot on every ball on the table :eek:
 
I was always very impressed by the way that Francisco Bustamante broke. His stroke went completely out from his bridge fingers and then back thru with such power! It was bordering on violent! Yet he would squat the rock in the center of the table. Back in those days (80's), you had to break hard because of the felt and the rails. They're nothing like today when you can slow break and still get a good spread.
 
cjssecrets4u2 said:
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This is "Lil" David "The Giant Killer" Howard and me at the Dallas Open....David won the first professional tournament I played, in Toronto Ontario...it had Efren Reyes, Earl Strickland, "King James" Rempe and most of the top players of that era....still to this day I haven't seen anyone consistently hit the Break Shot as well as David did.....it sounded like the Cue Ball and the 1Ball were going to shatter when he Unleashed...it would make "Goliath" shudder ;-)
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I was at that tournament....David beat Nick Varner in the finals.
And I saw Efren get 3-fouled by Gerry Watson..:eek:
...Efren still won the match 11-3.
 
macguy said:
... David broke hard but he was always jumping the table, losing the cue ball, scratching.
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That's what I remember about David's break. In the old rules, the penalty for jumping the cue ball off the table was, opponent got the cue ball behind the line. So David didn't seem to mind losing the cue ball every now and then. But later in his career when the rules changed to ball-in-hand, he backed off on his break speed - it was just too dangerous to be losing the cue ball and having his opponents running out.
 
cjssecrets4u2 said:
Wade had a dominating break on the old directional cloth....this new faster cloth never appealed to him....it demands a flatter stroke and he always "jumped" the cue ball into the one making it jump up in the air.....he broke for me playing David Matlock one time, 10 ahead for 10k....David ran 8 racks in a row on me and Wade looked at me and said "wait til I get my break working...we'll beat him 30 ahead".....we won the 10 ahead, but the backers didn't want to see it go to 30.....but it would have.....he would break, the cue ball jump up in the air and land in the middle of the table, so nothing would kiss it....I was playing 6 Ball from that point on with a shot on every ball on the table :eek:
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I was there, and it was the first time I saw David loose for the cash on a barbox. One reason tables played tough back then was the slow nap cloth, and even on a valley you sure didn't have to make a ball on the break and Billy made it look easy. I have watched many people squat their cueball in the center and get kissed around time after time, and Billys break avoided those kisses.
 
Larry Nevel has an amazing break, but seems to have the occasional problems scratching.

Played him in a mini tournament a few weekends ago. He broke 3 times, and made 3 balls on two breaks, and 2 balls in the other. Also scratched once out of those 3 breaks too...
 
In my neck of the woods Tony Ellin's break is still talked about as being one of the best breaks. Unfortunately I never got to see him play in person.
 
evanandpeaches said:
In my neck of the woods Tony Ellin's break is still talked about as being one of the best breaks. Unfortunately I never got to see him play in person.
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A young Tony Ellin played in this tournament, and his break was awesome.
He and Bustamante were clocked at 33 mph (the old way)....
...but Billy Johnson had a SWEET hit...like a golfer who hits it a long way...
..but it's on the fairway.
 
I recall in the old days hearing about Dallas West winning an Iowa bar box tournament race to 13 with 10-11 nine balls on the break in the finals. I believe that was with the big cue ball.
 
I think the greatest break should not only be hard, but with control.

Some of the breakers mentioned have really hard breaks, but does not do a good job controlling the cue ball (at least from the videos i've seen over the years). An example I think would be Johnny Archer's break. Great spread, but the cue ball usually don't stay put.

One of the very best breaks now would be Chang Yu Long's. His form is effortless. It doesn't seem like he's trying to kill the cue ball. But he times it perfectly and smashes it hard. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnsYFAkVYn4). He's the guy who put down SVB in the finals at an event in Dubai a couple months back. A lot of people on this board don't know much about him, but I think he's currently one of the top 3~5 players in Taiwan at the moment.
 
Danny Medina had a break that many of the aforementioned Pros emulated. He was known to break lights on multiple occasions.

This is where the term " playing lights out" came from. No just kidding, but maybe. :)

Ray
 
SplicedPoints said:
One of the very best breaks now would be Chang Yu Long's. His form is effortless. It doesn't seem like he's trying to kill the cue ball. But he times it perfectly and smashes it hard. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnsYFAkVYn4). He's the guy who put down SVB in the finals at an event in Dubai a couple months back. A lot of people on this board don't know much about him, but I think he's currently one of the top 3~5 players in Taiwan at the moment.
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Boy, you aren't kidding.

People who haven't seen this video (of a 9 pack!) should do themselves a favor. He hits it so square, the CB hops straight back towards his tip about 18 inches and just dies. Three balls fly in and he's off to the races. It's sickening really. Just sort of stands up and does a very slight non-flashing kick at the end like he's using a toned down version of his break. But you can see from the speed of the balls flying away that this is no soft break.
 
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