There was a podcast interview with Mal Mason which was recorded just before his sad death. In one part he went into quite a lot of detail about being involved in running the camp shows with Brian - probably during the late 1970s from the references. Apparently at that time there were three teams running camp shows in different parts of the country - one headed up by Mal, one by Brian Dixon and one by Roy Bull Davis. Each team would run the camp shows - 2 or 3 on most days - as well as evening shows in nearby seaside town resorts. At the end of the week on Friday they all met up at Liverpool Stadium for a debrief and to be given the money to pay the wrestlers expense and wages for the following week. Presumably none of the camps had wrestling shows on Friday night as it was the campers last night before going home on the Saturday.
Mal Mason apparently had a caravan which he would drive down to a site somewhere in the South West and would stay there as his base for the whole 10 week summer season.
Many wrestlers today who went on the camps circuit in their early days said that there was no better training as it was the only context in which you would get to work at least three matches a day every day for 10 weeks. Brian Danielson/Daniel Bryan writes in his book that if Brian Dixon had paid enough he would quite gladly have stayed in the UK and worked on the camps for the rest of his career as it was the most fun he had every had in the wrestling business
I have posted this before, so …Encore! In the eighties in Devon, I think it was a Pontins, my son and I arrived a good hour or more early, for an afternoon show. I can’t recall whether it was Greg Valentine or Chic Cullen, but ‘he’ was lying on the mat, in a headlock applied by an aging and balding little guy. Greg or Chic, was obviously being schooled. The lessons went on for quite sometime. Eventually, a crowd of holiday makers turned up and battle commenced. I have no recall of who wrestled that day, except on announcing the Main Event, which was a tag, we were informed that Greg, or Chic had been delayed, motorway traffic etc, so they needed a fill-in. A very nervous, red faced, pudgy looking Pontins Blue Coat was pushed forward, I do remember that I thought at the time, as the match progressed, that Senior members of the Blue Coat brigade had probably encouraged the guy, with possibly clenched fists or worse, to be the patsy, as he was pushed, pulled, whacked and walloped from ring post to ring post, as well as being humiliated along the way. So I assumed he was not popular amongst his fellow Blue Slaves.
Guess what, twenty minutes in and Greg, or Chic arrives and saves the day, winning for his team. Who’d a thunk it! Everyone went back to their chalets happy and contented. Except my son and I, who expected a bit more for our free entry. Oh and the battered, de-trousered Blue Coat was probably a tad miffed!
many years ago i was invited down to butlins at skegness by a chap who was referee for the event. all together cheers. while there i met mel "ace" mason who was a mine of information. was treated to the sight of our brian running selling large sponge hands of a yellow colour and 2 foot hulk hogan dolls. this was not the sort of conduct one would ever see jack dale doing or frankie blake. would not but it past brian crabtree.
many years ago i was invited down to butlins at skegness by a chap who was referee for the event. all together cheers. while there i met mel "ace" mason who was a mine of information. was treated to the sight of our brian running selling large sponge hands of a yellow colour and 2 foot hulk hogan dolls. this was not the sort of conduct one would ever see jack dale doing or frankie blake. would not but it past brian crabtree.
was interesting see the wrestlers spraying each other with fake tan. tried to imagine mr mcmanus and mr logan doing this before a tag match at wembley town hall. it was very nice to watch the wrestler in the ring before the show praticing their moves while audience watch. all very professional.
one of butlin redcoats decided to be MC and running commentary, it would have been more fun if mel mason had played newtons balls with his testicles.
the wrestling was to rehearsed and the lads had to do another show that evening somewhere else. thought strange everybody got paid after show as nobody seemed to trust brian. was told brian got well paid by butlins but lads did not get a decent share
A good mate of mine told me whilst staying at a holiday camp in the late 80's he accepted a challenge placed to the audience to step into the ring with one of the wrestlers appearing (don't know the wrestlers name unfortunately). Now my mate wasn't a little bloke around 6' 2 and between 15/16 stones, but said the grappler was bigger than him, and quietly reassured him he'd be o.k.
Unfortunatley my mate took no notice and decided to have a pop at the wrestler. Bad move on my mate's part, he ended up dazed, and outside of the ring!
Not quite a holiday camp tale but my local Working Men's Club decided to book an evening of wrestling for their first and only time in the mid 80's. I didn't recognise any of the names on the bill so never bothered attending, but one of the poor competitors suffered a heart attack during his bout! That WMC would later become Trimdon Labour Club, the invented local of Tony Blair.
Some of the key points:Brian Dixon says Butlins was the key to his success. Not because they made much money, but because he could combine them with regular venue shows to make enough work to hire wrestlers full-time (including from abroad.)Generally there'd be a mix of styles with a combination of pure comedy bouts and more traditional hero vs villains. The comedy matches often had "camp specialists" such as Johnny Riley, Joe Critchley, Dave George and Kurt Heinz. Usually it was the comedy to start and the "cowboy/indian" to finish, but you might reverse that for a late night show where people had been drinking and you'd have the more traditional "action first, then send them home happy" from regular venues.The size of the card would vary. Small camp chains would often have just two matches. Butlins would normally have six or eight wrestlers doing a three match show (three singles or two singles and a tag.) The mid-range camps like Pontins would normally have a crew of four doing a three match show, usually with two singles matches with some sort of disputed finish/revenge that led to the same wrestlers doing a tag to finish.Some venues had permanent rings but that wasn't always good -- one at Ayr wasn't well maintained and was missing a board so you had to avoid bumps in one corner.Some venues would have a Redcoat (or equivalent) act as MC and even do live commentary. Some were good while others got in the way. The live commentary could be annoying but did act as a bit of a clue if you were trying to tell a story in the ring that was too complicated or subtle and you realised the MC didn't understand it, so the crowd wouldn't either.In the 80s, All Star did a series of late night shows that would have "big names" from TV wrestling like Rocco doing matches as part of a cabaret/variety show with TV singers and comedians. Dixon says surprisingly the TV wrestlers sometimes got less reaction than the camp specialists who had more experience performing for a non-wrestling crowd.The production at Butlins improved dramatically in the 90s and today it's now much more like a big arena show with music and lighting and video screens than the old "four guys and a ring."
Good afternoon Phil. It was a little later than 1963-64, more like 1973-74. Always a great double act though, and when Liverpool Stadium went over to the independents in the mid 70s, they worked there together too. Strangely, Andy, as I later knew him, kept the Sandor Roza name for a three match series they had culminating in a clash for Ian's "European Title". Regards
Ron HistoryO. I saw two wrestlers announced as champions at a holiday camp, Pontins in Ainsdale on the Lancashire Coast. Ian St John & His mate, Andreas Sawjiks(perm any spelling from seven) but on this occasion, he was working as Sandor Roza.. They were announced as Scottish & Hungarian champion respectively!
We were at a caravan park with the boys in the early 1990s, 4 wrestlers 3 bouts finishing with a tag and I ended up refereeing as the ref hadn't turned up, I think one of the wrestlers was Corporal Punishment who I thought was Spinner McKenzie, fastest ring take down I ever saw afterwards, they told me that they had two more shows that day. Not the greatest wrestling I ever saw but considering they put the ring up and took down three times a day I didn't blame them for not busting a gut in the ring.
Well if you saw him then I guess you did. Got any wrestling bills of Mark the hat Adrian? £500 to a charity of your choice if you (or anyone else) can show me one!
My first experiences of holiday camp wrestling was at Pontins in Ainsdale, an independent promotion by Bobby Baron from Blackpool. Just the two contests, Bobby wrestled on the bill himself as I recall, but there was a third "contest" between two camp "Bluecoats" who supposedly didn't get on and decided to settle their differences in the ring!
Mark Rocco being billed as Mark the hat wrestling the holiday camps for a bit of extra cash????
Can't see him doing that and cant see the holiday camp missing a chance to have Mark Rocco on the bill. Mark was a successful business man by then, he wouldn't have needed the little bit of cash from a holiday camp gig and certainly wouldnt have played the fool as Mark the hat whos gimmick was a freakin baseball cap!
I wrestled in a lunchtime show at Butlin's, Skegness in April 1993. It was cold and wet outside so everyone showed up for the wrestling as it was part of the package anyway. The main difference for me was that the ring was on the stage as opposed to the middle of the hall. Dale 'The Model' Preston gave me a pasting but I won by DQ.
I saw wrestling at the Seashore Holiday Village in Great Yarmouth in the 1970s. A wrestler named Robin Hood is the only name I can remember, he played the heel. But the promoter was Brian Trevors who I had seen wrestle at Ilford Baths years before. I spoke briefly to him after the show.
I remember taking my kids to a wrestling show at Butlins in Minehead round about 1988 or so and although I didn't know most of the fighters, I immediately recognised Mark Rocco who came to the ring wearing a huge baseball cap that almost covered his face. He was introduced as Mark the Hat!
The fights weren't particularly good but having no storylines leading up to the event didn't help. Afterwards I saw him in the bar drinking alone and spoke to him about wrestling at the camps. He admitted that wrestlers weren't that well paid unless they were on TV (I didn't ask the difference) and that he was there for extras money. But we had an interesting chat. I told him how much I always enjoyed his bouts with Marty Jones. He said they weren't close socially but always enjoyed fighting each other. I also mentioned him fighting in Japan as Tiger Mask and he said he enjoyed that but it was slightly spoiled because there were other Tiger Masks impersonating him!
He was a really nice guy and much more entertaining than the three bout show was...!!!
There was a podcast interview with Mal Mason which was recorded just before his sad death. In one part he went into quite a lot of detail about being involved in running the camp shows with Brian - probably during the late 1970s from the references. Apparently at that time there were three teams running camp shows in different parts of the country - one headed up by Mal, one by Brian Dixon and one by Roy Bull Davis. Each team would run the camp shows - 2 or 3 on most days - as well as evening shows in nearby seaside town resorts. At the end of the week on Friday they all met up at Liverpool Stadium for a debrief and to be given the money to pay the wrestlers expense and wages for the following week. Presumably none of the camps had wrestling shows on Friday night as it was the campers last night before going home on the Saturday.
Mal Mason apparently had a caravan which he would drive down to a site somewhere in the South West and would stay there as his base for the whole 10 week summer season.
Many wrestlers today who went on the camps circuit in their early days said that there was no better training as it was the only context in which you would get to work at least three matches a day every day for 10 weeks. Brian Danielson/Daniel Bryan writes in his book that if Brian Dixon had paid enough he would quite gladly have stayed in the UK and worked on the camps for the rest of his career as it was the most fun he had every had in the wrestling business
I have posted this before, so …Encore! In the eighties in Devon, I think it was a Pontins, my son and I arrived a good hour or more early, for an afternoon show. I can’t recall whether it was Greg Valentine or Chic Cullen, but ‘he’ was lying on the mat, in a headlock applied by an aging and balding little guy. Greg or Chic, was obviously being schooled. The lessons went on for quite sometime. Eventually, a crowd of holiday makers turned up and battle commenced. I have no recall of who wrestled that day, except on announcing the Main Event, which was a tag, we were informed that Greg, or Chic had been delayed, motorway traffic etc, so they needed a fill-in. A very nervous, red faced, pudgy looking Pontins Blue Coat was pushed forward, I do remember that I thought at the time, as the match progressed, that Senior members of the Blue Coat brigade had probably encouraged the guy, with possibly clenched fists or worse, to be the patsy, as he was pushed, pulled, whacked and walloped from ring post to ring post, as well as being humiliated along the way. So I assumed he was not popular amongst his fellow Blue Slaves.
Guess what, twenty minutes in and Greg, or Chic arrives and saves the day, winning for his team. Who’d a thunk it! Everyone went back to their chalets happy and contented. Except my son and I, who expected a bit more for our free entry. Oh and the battered, de-trousered Blue Coat was probably a tad miffed!
many years ago i was invited down to butlins at skegness by a chap who was referee for the event. all together cheers. while there i met mel "ace" mason who was a mine of information. was treated to the sight of our brian running selling large sponge hands of a yellow colour and 2 foot hulk hogan dolls. this was not the sort of conduct one would ever see jack dale doing or frankie blake. would not but it past brian crabtree.
many years ago i was invited down to butlins at skegness by a chap who was referee for the event. all together cheers. while there i met mel "ace" mason who was a mine of information. was treated to the sight of our brian running selling large sponge hands of a yellow colour and 2 foot hulk hogan dolls. this was not the sort of conduct one would ever see jack dale doing or frankie blake. would not but it past brian crabtree.
was interesting see the wrestlers spraying each other with fake tan. tried to imagine mr mcmanus and mr logan doing this before a tag match at wembley town hall. it was very nice to watch the wrestler in the ring before the show praticing their moves while audience watch. all very professional.
one of butlin redcoats decided to be MC and running commentary, it would have been more fun if mel mason had played newtons balls with his testicles.
the wrestling was to rehearsed and the lads had to do another show that evening somewhere else. thought strange everybody got paid after show as nobody seemed to trust brian. was told brian got well paid by butlins but lads did not get a decent share
A good mate of mine told me whilst staying at a holiday camp in the late 80's he accepted a challenge placed to the audience to step into the ring with one of the wrestlers appearing (don't know the wrestlers name unfortunately). Now my mate wasn't a little bloke around 6' 2 and between 15/16 stones, but said the grappler was bigger than him, and quietly reassured him he'd be o.k.
Unfortunatley my mate took no notice and decided to have a pop at the wrestler. Bad move on my mate's part, he ended up dazed, and outside of the ring!
Not quite a holiday camp tale but my local Working Men's Club decided to book an evening of wrestling for their first and only time in the mid 80's. I didn't recognise any of the names on the bill so never bothered attending, but one of the poor competitors suffered a heart attack during his bout! That WMC would later become Trimdon Labour Club, the invented local of Tony Blair.
I wrote a long piece about the camps for FSM that's in my book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Have-Good-Week-Till-Next/dp/1983116246/
Some of the key points: Brian Dixon says Butlins was the key to his success. Not because they made much money, but because he could combine them with regular venue shows to make enough work to hire wrestlers full-time (including from abroad.) Generally there'd be a mix of styles with a combination of pure comedy bouts and more traditional hero vs villains. The comedy matches often had "camp specialists" such as Johnny Riley, Joe Critchley, Dave George and Kurt Heinz. Usually it was the comedy to start and the "cowboy/indian" to finish, but you might reverse that for a late night show where people had been drinking and you'd have the more traditional "action first, then send them home happy" from regular venues. The size of the card would vary. Small camp chains would often have just two matches. Butlins would normally have six or eight wrestlers doing a three match show (three singles or two singles and a tag.) The mid-range camps like Pontins would normally have a crew of four doing a three match show, usually with two singles matches with some sort of disputed finish/revenge that led to the same wrestlers doing a tag to finish. Some venues had permanent rings but that wasn't always good -- one at Ayr wasn't well maintained and was missing a board so you had to avoid bumps in one corner. Some venues would have a Redcoat (or equivalent) act as MC and even do live commentary. Some were good while others got in the way. The live commentary could be annoying but did act as a bit of a clue if you were trying to tell a story in the ring that was too complicated or subtle and you realised the MC didn't understand it, so the crowd wouldn't either. In the 80s, All Star did a series of late night shows that would have "big names" from TV wrestling like Rocco doing matches as part of a cabaret/variety show with TV singers and comedians. Dixon says surprisingly the TV wrestlers sometimes got less reaction than the camp specialists who had more experience performing for a non-wrestling crowd. The production at Butlins improved dramatically in the 90s and today it's now much more like a big arena show with music and lighting and video screens than the old "four guys and a ring."
Good afternoon Phil. It was a little later than 1963-64, more like 1973-74. Always a great double act though, and when Liverpool Stadium went over to the independents in the mid 70s, they worked there together too. Strangely, Andy, as I later knew him, kept the Sandor Roza name for a three match series they had culminating in a clash for Ian's "European Title". Regards
They were excellent workers both of them Ron.
They were pretty good too so you had a treat , never saw any that good.
Ron HistoryO. I saw two wrestlers announced as champions at a holiday camp, Pontins in Ainsdale on the Lancashire Coast. Ian St John & His mate, Andreas Sawjiks(perm any spelling from seven) but on this occasion, he was working as Sandor Roza.. They were announced as Scottish & Hungarian champion respectively!
Always a tiny ring and one thing is for sure , they never tried to kid us that anyone was a champion.
No wrestling bills , just a black board in my experience , even an arrow ....Wrestling this way at 3.00p.m.
We were at a caravan park with the boys in the early 1990s, 4 wrestlers 3 bouts finishing with a tag and I ended up refereeing as the ref hadn't turned up, I think one of the wrestlers was Corporal Punishment who I thought was Spinner McKenzie, fastest ring take down I ever saw afterwards, they told me that they had two more shows that day. Not the greatest wrestling I ever saw but considering they put the ring up and took down three times a day I didn't blame them for not busting a gut in the ring.
Well if you saw him then I guess you did. Got any wrestling bills of Mark the hat Adrian? £500 to a charity of your choice if you (or anyone else) can show me one!
My first experiences of holiday camp wrestling was at Pontins in Ainsdale, an independent promotion by Bobby Baron from Blackpool. Just the two contests, Bobby wrestled on the bill himself as I recall, but there was a third "contest" between two camp "Bluecoats" who supposedly didn't get on and decided to settle their differences in the ring!
Mark Rocco being billed as Mark the hat wrestling the holiday camps for a bit of extra cash????
Can't see him doing that and cant see the holiday camp missing a chance to have Mark Rocco on the bill. Mark was a successful business man by then, he wouldn't have needed the little bit of cash from a holiday camp gig and certainly wouldnt have played the fool as Mark the hat whos gimmick was a freakin baseball cap!
Someone was having you on methinks...
I wrestled in a lunchtime show at Butlin's, Skegness in April 1993. It was cold and wet outside so everyone showed up for the wrestling as it was part of the package anyway. The main difference for me was that the ring was on the stage as opposed to the middle of the hall. Dale 'The Model' Preston gave me a pasting but I won by DQ.
I saw wrestling at the Seashore Holiday Village in Great Yarmouth in the 1970s. A wrestler named Robin Hood is the only name I can remember, he played the heel. But the promoter was Brian Trevors who I had seen wrestle at Ilford Baths years before. I spoke briefly to him after the show.
I remember taking my kids to a wrestling show at Butlins in Minehead round about 1988 or so and although I didn't know most of the fighters, I immediately recognised Mark Rocco who came to the ring wearing a huge baseball cap that almost covered his face. He was introduced as Mark the Hat!
The fights weren't particularly good but having no storylines leading up to the event didn't help. Afterwards I saw him in the bar drinking alone and spoke to him about wrestling at the camps. He admitted that wrestlers weren't that well paid unless they were on TV (I didn't ask the difference) and that he was there for extras money. But we had an interesting chat. I told him how much I always enjoyed his bouts with Marty Jones. He said they weren't close socially but always enjoyed fighting each other. I also mentioned him fighting in Japan as Tiger Mask and he said he enjoyed that but it was slightly spoiled because there were other Tiger Masks impersonating him!
He was a really nice guy and much more entertaining than the three bout show was...!!!