Back in 2018, Heritage recognised John Lees as a competent worker, who never quite excited us, to the degree of other heavyweights such as Garfield, Cornelius, Campbell and Robinson. Riot Squad suggested we should try to raise his profile. When John passed in 2021, there were fond reminiscences of the big guy from Heritage members.
A couple of days ago I was idling in neutral, looking at a Spanish wrestler's history, when amongst his opponents I noticed the name John Lees. His, was the only English name among the Spaniard’s opponents, who I was pretty sure had never had wrestled in the U.K. I therefore surmised the two must have met in an overseas tournament. Changing up through the gears, I found I was correct, which puzzled me, as I had never seen mention of John overseas. It's
probable there are those at Heritage, who were aware of John's travels, it's just that there is nothing in J.L's A-Z of this fact. Some Good Samaritan, had actually put up a nice tribute to him on Wikipedia, but I thought I'd 'flesh out' a few facts for some of those Heritage members, who maybe in the dark of the travels of John Lees.
In 1958, (wiki has him starting in '59, Ron has found him in '57), John took part in a tournament in NUREMBERG, GERMANY. W'Data, has him appearing there from the first of August to the sixteenth of that month. In those sixteen days, John wrestled thirteen times! Wrestling three times, in the first four days, he then wrestled five days straight, had a day/night off, then hit the ring another five days in succession. He won five of his matches, drew two and lost six matches, two to John Da Silva, and one each to James Brown, Herman Iffland, Peter Kaiser and George Gordienko, (Brown, Iffland and Kaiser could be said to be home favourites). I reckon that makes John's first International experience a solid one.
1959 and John is back in GERMANY, this time REGENSBURG from the twenty second of July to the thirtieth of July.
In that tournament he took part in nine matches, winning four, drawing two, the lineup being similar to the first tournament. On the thirty first, John appears a little over a hundred kilometers away in NUREMBERG, drawing with James Brown, then proceeded to to have another thirteen matches in August, at the same venue, winning five and drawing another two. John finished the month off, almost five hundred kilometers away, meeting Gordienko in KREFELD. Continuing in the same city, John appeared sixteen times, between the fourth of September and the tenty first of the same month. Four days later and John had up-sticks, again almost four hundred k’s away, to KARLSRUHE, where he was undefeated in six straight matches, in six days. Still in Karlsruhe, John extended his winning streak over another four matches in four days of October, before bending the knee to Micha Nador on the sixth of that month. Another eight matches followed that month with John remaining unbeaten in seven, that included wins over Nador, Rudi Schumacher, Horst Hoffman and Frank Orlik. To be continued.
John Lees in Germany: