The late 1970s early 80s saw Max Crabtree at his peak as a promoter importing many foreign stars one of these imports was The Sheik formerly Billy White Wolf. Arriving at the latter end of 1979 both The Sheik and Spiros Arion's television exposure was halted by the near 3 month ITV television strike. Subsequently The Sheik was only seen once by the British television wrestling fans against Lenny Hurst. In Tony Earnshaw's latest book "we shall not be moved" Tony states that The Sheik was unreliable and only fulfilled half of his appearances during his brief tour during which on one occasion he was defeated 2-1 by The Dynamite Kid. He looked a powerful heavyweight which is why i can't understand why he was pitted on occasion against much lighter smaller opponents such as Mal Sanders and the like, which at least on paper would seem a mismatch. Anyway enjoy the articles.
"The Wrestler" January 1970.
Again "The Wrestler"
From "The Wrestler" all the way back in May 1964;
I recently discovered that Adnan defeated Andre The Giant in Baghdad during a tour in 1978!
Saddam supposedly held him prisoner for 5 years, in the sense that he wasn't allowed to leave iraq after visiting family.
He was the lead babyface in the state run Iraqi wrestling territory,.run by Saddam himself.
He ended up dropping Sheik from his name , and just went by Adan Al-Kaissie
His match with Lenny Hurst is one of my all time favourites. I never saw him as White Wolf but did see him as General Adnan with turncoat Sgt. Slaughter when WWE came over here at the start of the century. A top rate performer!
Saw him as Billy White Wolf at Morecambe against John Cox, who made a very unconvincing villain.
Good stuff.He was actually a very good wrestler.Big Shirl would have lasted about 39 seconds IMO
Thanks, as always, interesting stuff.
"TVStars Wrestling Annual" 1979/80
"Wrestling Scene" No.11 1979