John’s Hungarian Register of Imports

Wasn’t the great Gideon Gidea Hungarian?

Thanks again sbaranyi. Are you Stephen?

This is quite a story so far but I think there's more. Is Lorant Baranyi the same Lorant Baranyi competing in the Skyrac Athletic Club certainly as late as 2018. If so, tell us more.

Lorant Baranyi is now added to the listings:

• 1950's Greats

• The Father of Wrestling

• Living Greats in Age Order

Thank you, S. Lorant is therefore a contemporary of Tibor Szakacs. Probably the Hungarian with most tv matches (as Zoltan only transitioned to the tv promoter in 1966). Did Lorant know or work with Tibor?

Hack: please edit Lorant into the main list.

Thank you so much, S, also for the photo. Sounds like Lorant had a great routine going with Shirley Crabtree.

Please share very best wishes with Lorant from all us fans of sixties wrestling at Wrestling Heritage. Tell him we are thoroughly enjoying his memories that you are sharing with us, and we shall continue to lap up whatever else he can recall.

If you are able, do share his date or at least month of birth for our charts.

Yes my father still lives in Yorkshire. He came to the UK just after the Hungarian revolution in 1956 and had previously done amateur wrestling, freestyle and Greco-Roman in Hungary since 12 yrs old. He was in the army in Hungary for 2 yrs and was army champion. When he arrived in the UK he trained mostly with the Crabtree brothers at a gym in Halifax

Yes Lorant is my father and he said he only wrestled professional for about 4 years because when he got married his wife didn't like him doing all the travelling all the time up and down the country. He only went under the name Lorant Baranyi. It was quite a short career but he's got some great memories from his time in the ring

Geof Portz was another formidable opponent

Stefan Bolla appears on one of the "Todmorden" bills that Ron has posted. Billed from Hungary.

So now we see Lorant sharing the dressing room with Kwango, Billy Joyce, Garfield, Portz, McManus, Breaks, Churchill and a whole host of top northerners. Clearly a very competent worker, would be good to understand his style.

Tell us if he is still alive, S Baranyi, and he can probably be included in our lists of living greats.

Thanks for joining us sbaranyi and sharing those posts, and Ron's additions too. As Anglo has said, please do share more information to give Lorant Baranyi his place in our Wrestling Heritage. Is he still with us?

S Baranyi - you have topped us all! Welcome and thank you for your sharing of those programmes. Yes, Lorant wrestled Shirley Crabtree before his Big Daddy days - when he was actually a more formidable opponent.

I am not in the family tree tracing class of our Ron, but do I detect you happen to share the same surname with Lorant?

We'll all keep chasing you for more information now, and a photo of Lorant will allow inclusion in the prestigious wrestling A to Z.

So please do tell us more about Lorant: which promoters employed him? Which wrestlers he was friendly with? Who trained him? Why his career was quite short - because in spite of your share today we just haven't seen him on other bills.

This is just the sort of find we all love on here. We hope we can also share with you, but on the subject of Lorant Baranyi it's going to be a tall task.

Googling Lorant Baranyi brings nothing, so can you kindly tell us more about this wrestler. Maybe he used another ring name? Most Big Daddy bouts are very well documented so you set us a head-scratcher to work out just who Lorant Baanyi was.

Lorant Baranyi was another Hungarian professional wrestler in England in the 1960's/70's. He had a background in Greco-Roman and Freestyle wrestling and took up pro Wrestling when he moved to England. He often wrestled top of the bill against the likes of Shirley Crabtree who was the British and European Champion and went on to become known as 'Big Daddy'

Sandor Demeter is one i've since seen on both Independent and Joint bills.

Brendl wrestled in Vienna Austria 1947 and 48 under his real name Mihaly Orgovany.

That's great thanks MM, always neat to see an Oakeley show. Hard to find much from Earl's Court but it was a major venue at the time.

World Class Marketing

Great Stuff MM , I see that great big Ghoul is on this one.

Am I right in saying this one is 1937

If you google Mike Brendel , he became a film star.

If you google Mike Brendel , you will see he became a film star.

And also the one we all missed Mike Brendel. Real name Mihaly Orgovanyi

Janos Nemeth, worked for Paul Lincoln.

Have talked to Áron on twitter, he seems an enthusiastic chap. Hope his project works out well.

Thesz was born in the United States with Hungarian parents. Aron has asked for his UK visit to be included.

If Lou Thesz was Hungarian, as mentioned in the last post, he needs to go to the top of your list Hack.

A lot of Heritage research goes on behind the scenes away from the website. We have received this email. If you have information and believe you can help please email us and we will put you in touch with Aron.

Good day!

My name is Áron Kiss and I’m a professional wrestler in Hungary and also one of the re-founders of pro-wrestling in my country.

I hope the whole crew of Wrestling Heritage are doing well.

I really need your help since your Knowledge is really huge in wrestling.

I’m in a big research mission for years of old school hungarian wrestlers (Tibor Szakacs, Zoltan Boscik, Sandor Szabo, Lou Thez etc) because I’d like to collect everyrhing about them to publish a book and a documentary later about them and their stories. Sadly my country barely knows anything about them and that’s a shame. I feel that it’s a responsibilty of mine to taking care of their names.

I already collected amazing footages, and renovated more than 100 posters so I’m on my way but far from complete.

I’d like to ask your help and basically anything you know about them.

Also I’m looking for wrestlers still alive or relatives.

Regards,

Áron Kiss

At present this is the list of Hungarian wrestlers we are working on.

Hungarian Wrestlers in the UK

Visitors

1930s

Stanislaw Karolyi (1934-1937, 1950-51)

1930s/40s

Stefan Novotny (1934,1946) Steve Szalay (1935-39, 1947-48)

1950s/60s

Josef Kovacs (1958 - 1968)

Gideo Gidea (1954, 1956 - 65)

1960s

Baron Von Heczy 1961-2 (Ray has an odd one in June 1951)

1960s/70s

Josef Molnar (1960 - 72)

Mihalyi Kuti (1950, 1952, 1953, 1960-65, 1971-2)

1970s

Arpi Weber (1971)

UK Based

1950s

Janos Horvath (1958)

1950s/60s/70s

Peter Szakacs (1958 - 78)

Tibor Szakacs (1957-78)

Lazlo Bajko (1957-71)

1950s/60s/70s/80s

Zoltan Boscik (1959-1988)

1960s

Janos Toth (1966-67)

Andreas Veitcheck (1961 – 1 match independents)

Vince Gyungyi (Venzyl Gyguyi) Gyguyi (1968-9)

Stan Karoly (1968-79)

Janos Nemeth (1962-3)

1960s/70s

Andreas Svajic (1960-74)

Sandor Rosza (1965-78)

Kalman Gaston (1961-73)

Josef Szabo (1962-70)

stephan novotny was here in 1946. Would like to see a photo of him

Looks like while I was adding the ones above, you were uploading more posts from 2018 which included a few of the same names, sorry Hack!

Ed (or Eddie) Virag

Stanley (or Stan) Karolyi

Michael Nador, sometimes written as Micha Nador

Gedeon Gida, sometimes written as Gideon Gida

Stan karoly. Another one to add to your list John.

Lajko Nandor

The A-Z notes that he was a "Hungarian light heavyweight (who) visited during the winter of 1951-'52, meeting the likes of Tony Mancelli, Milo Popocopolis, light heavyweight champion Sonny Wallis and inevitably losing to Bert Assirati."

I haven't found much as yet. Bit of a tongue twister if not actually Hungarian:

February 24th, 1969 – Bradford, England

Venzil Gyguyi b Tiger Lombardo

November 12th, 1969 – Newton, England

Venzil Gyguyi b Luis Lombardo

December 8th, 1969 – Altrincham, England

Venzil Gyguyi b Luis Lombardo

Gideon Gida

Bernard mentioned Gyungi a few years back. Only saw him on one bill. Do you know anything about him? I had doubted he was Hungarian.

Mihalyi Kuti aka Micha Nador

Venzil "Vince" Gyguyi