Kendo/Peter held a question and Answer session yesterday (5th February 2023) in the Fab Cafe, Portland Street, central Manchester.
He posed for individual photos wearing his mask and then appeared unmasked and talked for around two hours, answering questions and telling stories of his days as a wrestler, and what led up to him entering the wrestling business.
Although a small stage with a microphone was set up, Peter couldn't be persuaded to use these, and instead preferred to walk around amongst the 40 - 50 fans as he talked. This meant that some people mainly saw the back of his head but most of us got to see him close up. He was clearly enjoying being amongst people and several times referred to the audience as his family.
I would say that there were no startling revelations, or anything that we haven't read of in his book but it was fascinating to hear Kendo telling the stories in person.
He talked at some length about Billy Riley's gymnasium in Wigan and his experiences there.
Afterwards Kendo was available to sign autographs but I needed to leave to catch the train home.
A very worthwhile event and at a reasonable price compared to similar events with wrestlers coming over from the USA.
Kendo is due to make an appearance at a TNT Extreme Wrestling event in Liverpool in May the evening before the Eurovision Song Contest
Glad you were there and enjoyed it too, nightlight.
Maybe Kendo/Peter will do another session.
I did have a few questions up my sleeve but didn't manage to attract his attention at the right moment!
I would have asked him about some of the opponents he regularly worked with in the 1960s and 1970s and also how it was working in Joint Promotions when the individual promoters had their quite different ways of operating. I know we have heard a bit about his experiences with Dale Martin, Relwyskow & Green and his comments about Norman Morrell but I would like to have learned more about Arthur Wright and Wryton Promotions and how Kendo found them to work for.
I attended the event as well, and as 1978 Kid says it was great to hear Peter tell those stories in person, not least because he's a natural raconteur! I especially loved the tale about George's "Isadora Duncan moment" in the car park at Croydon. He could easily have done a couple more hours and still kept us all enthralled!