Just read in the A-Z
Jan Wilko (Also known as Jan Wilkens)
The Johnnesburg Giant was 22-year-old Jan Wilkens from South Africa who caused quite a stir when he arrived in Britain late in 1965. At 6'5" and 20 stones, this ex-policeman demolished French Canadian giant Paul Vachon in 8 minutes on his Royal Albert Hall début. Charles Mascall, the doyen of British wrestling journalists wrote in The Wrestler:
"Jan Wilko, a handsome young Boer of 22 who is certainly one of the most perfectly proportioned mammoth men ever to take up the sport of wrestling. In about 4 minutes of the first round Wilko snatched a Boston crab hold and won the first submission. In the following round he smashed the giant French-Canadian to the mat with four successive pile-driving body slams. The bout was over in under eight minutes - one of the quickest contests on record at the Royal Albert Hall."
Unusually invited back to the next bill, he was even quicker proving it had been no fluke, disposing of Big John Cox in just six minutes.
Back home in South Africa he welcomed and wrestled visiting British wrestlers down the years including Rocky Wall, Mal Kirk and, as late as 1981, Tiger Singh, in front of a national record crowd in excess of 20 thousand. We are told his final match was in Cape Town in 1987.
Definitely an international star we would have liked to have seen much more of.
In view of that I just thought I would add that it looks like I have found his debut here. Should have made a great bout too. Can anyone add.
I think however the Royal Albert Hall bout was the day before .
Sorry to bring the old post back. The Wanz-Wilkins Title chance haunts me for years. But bow I found a interesting puzzle piece in a bure newspaper. In a 1984 issue of this paper the had a Story about wilkins but there was one sentence which chance everything.....""Jan retained his world title, which he won against Johnathan, for two years. In 1977, he lost it to Austrian Otto Wanz, but regained it in 1978 against Canadian John Quinn, who had since defeated Wanz"....wtf...did anybody heard something about that? I know it didnt happen. Thanx