John Lees Abroad cont… with maybe a surprise?

In 1968, from the third of April, to the twelfth of May, John travelled throughout JAPAN, where he wrestled in fourteen matches, in eleven prefectures. Along with fellow Brits, Billy Robinson, Tony Charles, Colin Johnson and Barry Douglas, he appeared mostly in four and six man tag matches. As visitors, the various combinations of their teams went down to defeat to the locals, albeit that the men they faced, were among the cream of Japanese wrestling. On the twenty fourth of April John held Shozo Kobayashi to a draw, which would have impressed the Japanese fans. On the eleventh of May, John went down to Billy Robinson in a two out of three full match, for Bill’s European Heavyweight Title. I wonder if John ever challenged for that Title ever again, or had he done so before?

I worked out, that roughly, John would have travelled around 1,800 miles from the first to last of his matches in Japan.

1969. That is the year given on the video of John in IRAQ, in a losing effort to

(known in the U.K. as) Chief Billy White Wolf, but apparently born ADNAN bin ABDUL KAREEM Ahmed ALKAISSY EL FARTHIE. (I might re-visit that topic at a later date).

1970 sees John on familiar mats, back in VIENNA, AUSTRIA, where between the third of June and the twenty eighth of the month, he takes part in five single and five tag matches. His four singles wins, include one against future World Champion (AustrIan version) Otto Wanz. Working in July between the 1st and the twenty sixth, he wrestles in fourteen matches, made up of twelve tags and four singles. In one match he and his partner are disqualified. His partner for that match was King Kong. A.K.A. Jim Morgan! In one of his three singles, he beats King Kong aka etc,! In August, still in Vienna, he kicks off the month beating Ian Campbell (one of several wins for John over the big Scot, in his o’seas trips) and Ian’s partner Ivan Strogoff. John’s partner is one Mark Steadman(?) whose name then seems to vanish for the rest of the duration. The August shows ran from the fifth to the thirteenth.

1971 and John is back in HANNOVER, GERMANY, commencing on the thirteenth of September and concluding on the fourteenth of October. His record reads, twelve matches, for just three wins and seven losses, among those winning over the man from Staleybridge were, Charles Velhurst, Axel Dieter and Kiyomigawa. (In the other two matches, there was no result shown).

1972. Maybe some of the Heritage members knew of this, but I didn’t and I could only find the one mention of it, John Lees, on the twenty eighth of February, 1972 appeared in DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA. His opponent was known as VRYSTAAT. Was this just a one shot? I would have thought that there may have been another card utilizing the big man who had travelled that far?

NOTE.. On the same card, Terry O’Neil appeared against APPOLLO, a masked guy who seems to be a regular and who beat Wanz in 1977. I presume this is the same Terry O’Neil who popped up in June of ‘57, in Austria, meeting the likes of Al Hayes and Jack Laskin.

Most of the foregoing was hidden in plain sight, but I realise that some Heritage members do not have the time to research, but enjoy others efforts. The SOUTH AFRICAN find was for me, a pleasing one and we need to reach out to those who are familiar to the African wrestling scene, for more information.