British Hwt Championship Muddle of 1936

I will also add that Clark was a Cumberland and Westmorland champion and also familiar with Highland style. He had won much and on some occasions lost ,but it is my opinion that when he turned pro , he had a valid case of not losing to a man he could legitimately beat. He was strong enough and good enough to beat them all. The hip toss his best weapon , he looks pretty decent in footage as well. We don't have any 1930's footage of Assirati who had to come north to improve. Oakeley was just not big enough had it been for real. I am a little sorry that at times History in it's many versions does not enough , show that Clark was the champion for the entire 1930's when it came to Britain. As for world champ , well, that's a different matter. The Gerstman's stuff was contrived. Clark had a wonderful Australian tour.

Hack also wrote about this in some detail in the years of wrestling 1933.

https://www.wrestlingheritage.com/1933

Thanks so much for sharing Ron, appreciate.

I just would like to add a couple of minor things to what you just said. The style of the 1931 London pro wrestling tourney was catch-as-catch-can, which means that you either win on a fair back fall or if there was no falls within a certain time limit the victory was awarded on points. Six men entered that tourney and in the first round Clark beat Modrich on points, Robinson beat Harrison in 2 straight falls, Oakeley beat Franklin in 2 staright falls. There were no semi-finals played because Clark's opponent Robinson suffered a broken arm. Clark and Oakeley wrestled in the final, in that match no fair back falls were achieved and after 3 10min rounds and an extra time Clark was awarded a victory on points. Since that time Clark who was a back-hold champion wrestler claimed the British catch-as-catch-can pro championship.

Realistically, Clark was not trained in catch-as-catch-can wrestling, but he had weight and physical strength advantage over his opponents, and despite that obvious favor both his matches he won on points, he could not throw them a back fall.

Oakeley instead was an amateur catch-as-catch-can wrestler of the national significance, and team Great Britain member at European Amateur Catch-as-catch-can championships in Brussels in 1930, right before he turned pro. It looks like he joined the national team on the rights of the light-heavyweight (13st 9lb, or 87 kg) champion of England. Back then they had regional titles, national titles (England, Scotland, Wales, not sure about Ireland) and championship of Great Britain.

This was what I had to say about the catch-as-catch-can wrestling and etc. As for the all-in wrestling. It was a hybrid style, not a catch wrestling. All-in was a combination of British catch, French Greco-Roman and Japanese submission styles like jiu-jitsu/judo. Hence you could win on back fall, knock-out, or submission. In the mid 1930s some promoters started calling all-in wrestling by the name of the "XX century catch-as-catch-can" that people would not confuse it with actual, original historical catch wrestling.

That's about it. Thanks, R

Not a copy but following the press , Oakely lost to Clark at "Catch" , then went to America and saw "all In" so came back and declared himself All In Champ. The London people arranged a tournament of contenders without Oakeley and the winner was to fight Oakeley. Clark was asked to take part in the eliminations which was just a repeat of what he had already done , beating Oakeley. He did also beat Assirati.

So it was an insult and he refused. Relwyskow sent out challenges with sidestakes and Clark moved onto bigger and better things like his bouts with Gerstmans.

For me it's simple. Clark was champ at the new Wrestling that came 20 years after the decline of Music hall Wrestling. It was called all sorts. Catch , All In , Bear cat , American , Freestyle. It was a play on words. free style won over as a term to placate local councils. Can't find Clark losing to an Englishman in the 1930's , but then again he was a promoter and Relwyskow his manager and they had backers for venues such as Leeds and Huddersfield and even a donor for the belt he used to be World Champ.

I think for sure. The Ring was based in Blackfriars and a lot went on there to give Oakeley the title of champion and the choosing of opponents to make him look good. In those days London had so much going on and the other camp was Lanes London Club. They were based in Marylebone. They may have been rivals to a point , in terms of making money at their venues , but I don't think they had separate stables of wrestlers. Indeed " the International Wrestling Syndicate" wrote to Doug Clark to try and get him to defend his "Catch Title" at the London Club. I think the syndicate was just a collection of London people associated with Oakeley and used a Grand Name.

In reality without a central body Clark never fought down there for these people again and Bert Assirati never fought for Relwyskow senior at all. This changed when Rel died.

The Promotion pushing Assirati was Known as "The Ring" Based in London they tried to be a central body , but effectively they were a sort of early Dale Martins mainly operating in the old area of Wessex. Doug Clark would not wrestle for them as Oakeley cheated the creation of Champion for himself. The war finished them really and most wrestling in the South whilst most of the North kept going. Empires opening for Relwyskow and Morrell and a few more. Even Bankier came north and got much better wrestlers.

I have read that Assirati was trained by Oakley so maybe proclaiming Assirati as champion was Oakley's way of keeping control.

Hi Ruslan

I have also seen that Oakley vacated the title in 1935 and Bill Garnon holding it into 1936, then you had disputes on titles usually down to different promoters Douglas Clark was also billed as Champion in 1936. At that time it would be extremely rare for bills to be advertised or promoted outside the immediate area.

Promoters were not unknown to be economical with the truth on their advertising as we all know. Also some wrestlers would claim they still held titles when they had been stripped because of not turning up, vacating a title because of dispute with promoters, not handing over belt and no doubt many more reasons . I don't think this would be exclusive to the UK and if we search could no doubt find similar instances in other countries.