Here are a couple of newspaper clippings from January 1970 on the pay strike within British wrestling.
Was this common knowledge amongst the fans? What about fans outside of the London area? I'm interested to learn what the fans did and didn't know (or cared to know).
As it was in the Daily Mirror then anybody that read the Mirror would know about the strike. It looks to me like it was wrestlers from the south involved.
Yes you never did learn much from Programmes and indeed it was very hard to learn anything about the inner workings of wrestling. Now and again you might meet a fan who knew a wrestler , even went to school with one. Even they probably believed it was real , so well kayfabe it was.
These sort of fans knew how tough the workers were so even they did not see it as an arrangement.
I very much doubt if Billy Robinson said to his old school mates that it was not for real.
It was a world with little news , little written info and the strike slipped by me.
Never bought a programme.Had a look at one my pal bought(only one he ever got),and it was a heap of garbage
I think we miss out something here. Most people went to watch wrestling but never talked to other fans at the halls or perhaps at work or in the pub.
They might pick up a paper but wrestling was probably not their priority.
For the most part I did talk to the odd fan at the back of Kings Hall , but even I , as keen as I was did not mix much so inside knowledge of the game was almost nil.
I certainly don't remember industrial action and in those days , if you asked me who the promoters were , I could not have told you.
Not so sure how many people bought programs , let alone people who kept them.
Another indication of the importance of wrestlers at the time that this was given prominence
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I am sure I read that Adrian preferred working in the North as he found it more rewarding financially
Did not realize Adrian Street was called "Nature Boy"
as the shows were no longer every week at Newcastle city hall this may well have sneaked passes us. I can't remember if it affected the tv broadcast
Yes, but wasn't there similar industrial action at the start of the sixties, led by Joe D'Orazio? Maybe I am blurring the two.
What I do recall was the scandal that emerged of wrestlers having Equity cards.
I would have said this was common knowledge. News of it got to the far north of Lancashire. Here it is in the Daily Mirror a national newspaper with a huge circulation at the time. I think it was also mentioned on ITV news.
Certainly passed over my head; I assume it was a quickly resolved storm in a teacup.
The second photo is a fascinating identity parade. A shame only the easiest ones are tagged.
Just wondering whether this was the end for any of these guys: certainly Kwango and Fortuna and Thomson and Conlon carried on unaffected. But this was just about the end for Dave Phillips and Pasquale Salvo; maybe they were too bolshy?
I see the Fitzmaurice Brothers and I think Regan. Cool cigar for the Yellow Streak.
My doubts: Roy St Clair surely not in a southern grouping; Bobby Barnes or Stefan Milla? And if that is Gomez, what's he doing there in 1970???
Great find, thank you.