Rising To The Top
Shortly after becoming a newsagent, Priestley won the 1991 Embassy World Championship, after beating Eric Bristow 6-0 in the final. He had defeated defending champion Taylor in his quarter-finals and 1988 champion Bob Anderson in his semi-final. He won the 1992 Winmau World Masters and also picked up many BDO Open events between 1991 and 1993.
Priestley was a founder member of the World Darts Council (WDC) which split from the British Darts Organisation in 1993, see main article: Split in darts. As a consequence, Priestley was precluded from assuming the role of England captain which he had been awarded shortly beforehand.
Priestley won the inaugural WDC World Darts Championship in 1994. This high point was surrounded by several wins on the WDC's new professional circuit (including the Skol Matchplay, UK Matchplay, Antwerp Open, and Samson Darts Classic) in 1993 and 1994. Since then, he has been a PDC World Championship runner-up four times, in 1996, 1997, 1998 and 2000, losing to Taylor on all four occasions. Priestley has also been a three-times World Matchplay runner-up, losing to American Larry Butler in 1994, Taylor in 1995 and Peter Evison in 1996.
Between 1991 and 1994 Priestley was the only player to win more than one grand slam/major title (he won 3), while he also claimed more top professional events on either circuit than any other player and attained the number-one ranking.
Priestley's ascendancy was forcefully ended by Taylor's World Championship and World Matchplay triumphs in 1995. He did, however, notch up a further major televised title later that year - the inaugural PDC World Team Championship partnering Bristow.
His 1996 World Championship Final with Taylor is often seen as one of the best matches in the history of the PDC. Although Priestley hit 15 180s and averaged 102 in the match, he was edged out 4-6 by the ruthless brilliance of Taylor. Priestley struck 14 180s and a 10-dart leg in the following year's final. Again, however, it was to no avail as Taylor won 6-3. Perhaps for matches such as these, Taylor stated in his autobiography that Priestley is the "best player ever faced". Taylor makes a similar reference to Priestley on the biography section of his website.
Read more about this topic: Dennis Priestley
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