Dave Jons was brought to my attention by John Shelvey , over the years I had hardly noticed the name.
He is in the A-Z fairly straight forward. Born 5th Feb 1922 , turned pro after bodybuilding in 1947. Allegedly has won "Mr London" Wrestled into 1952 and then went to USA and did quite a lot over the next 4 years.
So why has he popped up.
To start with there are not many articles on him and Wrestlingdata.com have been unable to identify his real name.
Straight forwards enough as he even wrestled under it at times. He was Dave Jones. Birth registered as David A J Jones 1st Quarter 1922 in Southwark. So maybe that confirmation is a first for Heritage.
How do I know , well I found the documents of his migration to USA. 8th December 1952 , leaving 19 Oakmere Road in London for Southampton to travel by Cunard on Queen Elizabeth. Also the confirmation of his name and his occupation of WRESTLER.
But there are a few things gone un-noticed. One is that he had been a Southern area Heavyweight champion. We have discussed possible lineages for this title , and I don't think Dave ever got a mention.
The other thing I noticed is that The Wrestlingdata Site have him as age 101. Is there proof that this man is still alive , soon to be 102.
If so he is UK wrestlings oldest survivor , talked about on another thread.
What happened to Dave after 1956.
Another mystery for me.
Can anyone add.
At Wrestlingdata we have a nice internal feature where we can see when something was edited, and for him we set the birthdate more than 15 years ago. So we (in this case, me) just didn't want to just kill him off randomly. There will be a lot more cases like this. Or should we just kill off anyone over the age of 90? There will also be other cases. Like, I find a wrestler called James William Harrison, from Wigan, born in 1927 and he did emigrate to Canada in the mid 1950s. So I thought that had to be Bill Harrison. Well, I need to correct that quickly.
Also , I wonder if Dave Johns ended up on TV or in Films.
Here he is in Night and the City.
Dave Jons also wrestled in Europe. Here is a Belgium bill displayed years later by his opponent Ron Harrison.
A few days before Jons emigrated this must have been his last match in England. Not been spotted for months , so maybe the bill is correct ,,,,,Just back from Spain
Also a match in Vancouver
I agree with Ron, Dave should been in the forefront of any discussions about our top heavyweights. From '53 to '56 he toured the States and Canada, kicking off in New York where he wrestled all over, until March where he wrestled around Seattle and British Columbia, a huge area filled with multiple arenas, which kept him busy for many months, before moving into another hot-bed of rasslin' Oregon, where he finished out the year and started 1954, then it was back to B.C. and Washington, until landing in Chicago in August with many other dates in that State (Illinois). August saw him wrestling in Minnesota, Minneapolis and Indiana among other States. He closed out of 1954 wrestling in Tennessee, Arkansas and Oklahoma.
1955 and Dave travelled around South and North Carolina, and Virginia among others. By March he was appearing in Pennsylvania, Merryland, Washington , then back to the Carolinas and Virginia where he stayed until August where he had a few dates in New Jersey.
Dave finally hit the sunshine and glamour of Miami in late August, where he stayed for a couple of months. It seems however, that Dave could work his 'stuff' in the cold, cold, weather as he wrestled the year out in such snow clad places as Minnesota, Wisconsin, Manitoba and Ontario.
1956, Dave's last year in the States/Canada, he travelled back to Florida, staying for at least a couple of months, no doubt building up a good reputation for British Heavyweights as well as a deep tan! March and April Dave is back in Chicago where he keeps popping up, including Jun, July, August and September. The latter half of the year, he traveled extensively around Wisconsin, Indiana and Illinois.
Dave seems to have finished his USA / CANADA odyssey by late September'56. During the course of his journey, he appeared sometimes at the bottom of the card,sometimes the middle, often appeared in the semi and also worked in the main event. He was matched with wrestlers and workers such as, LOU THESZ, PAT O'CONNOR, WILBUR SNYDER, THE BRUISER, ANGELO POFFO, CARL ENGSTOM, PEPPER GOMEZ, LUTHER LINDSAY, RED BASTIEN, HANS SCHABEL, HANS SHMIDT, EDDIE GRAHAM, CHICK GARIBALDI, NICK BOCKWINKLE, MITSU ARAKAWA, KENJI SHIBUYA, LORD CARLTON, LOU KLEIN, DOC GALLAGHER, BILL LONGSON, BILLY DARNELL, DON ARNOLD, CRUSHER LISOWSKI, DON LEO JONATHAN,DON EAGLE DANNY McSHAIN, RAY ECKERT. Those few names include the genuine wrestlers, the showmen, the heels, the good guys, the champions, the drawcards, the legends, the young newcomers,the old timers and some who were at their peak, drawcards all. I should also add, Dave very often 'double dipped' as he frequently wrestled twice on a card, a singles match would be followed by a tag match or an appearance in a battle royal or similar.
Dave graced some of the famous arenas of their time, such as the Marigold and Rainbow arenas in Chicago, Turners Arena in Washington, Columbia, The Sunnyside Garden and Jamaica arena in New York City and St. Paul Armory in Minnesota.
During his stay Dave won the Mid-West. Heavyweight title, as well as a couple of tag titles. However it is his three tilts at a World Title, that stands out in his career. In 1953, his first year overseas he met Dangerous Danny McSHAIN for the Jnr. H'wt Crown in May, then in November, he lost to Carl Engstrom for the Light Heavyweight Title. However Dave's biggest match was the middle title shot, on Saturday July 25th. At the Victoria Memorial Arena, B.C. Canada, he faced LOU THESZ, for Lou's crown.
I spent a month or so looking for what little their is about Dave, there's a lot more for sure!
Thank you Ron for your valued input, and cheers to Ost, for his contribution.
Thanks Ron. By 1950 Mancelli was SA champ in the South. I guess Morrell hadn't recognised that yet. Or it just wasn't that important. I am interested to know what happpened to David Jns. He was a big deal when he first went to the US. Got a lot of publicity via WAYLI magazine & Jim Barnett.