Kitione Lave

Kitione Lave was more famous as a boxer but did wrestle, as we have discussed before.

A couple of his boxing belts were restored on The Repair Shop on Wednesday 1st May on BBC1.

Born in 1934, Kitione Lave, the Tongan Terror or Tongan Torpedo, was certainly one of the finest boxers to enter the wrestling ranks. Lave outstrips even the important George Nuttall, the original Black Mask, in having defeated British favourite Nosher Powell. Nuttall had been unable to overcome Powell in their Royal Albert Hall encounter. Kitione Lave was only outpointed by the great Brian London and had actually put away British Champion Don Cockell in the second round of their encounter (below) - and Cockell had gone 9 rounds with the undefeated Rocky Marciano.

The famous fifties Queen of Tonga followed Lave’s career closely and also employed him at her palace.

Famous wrestling venue St James’s Hall Newcastle was the 1960 scene of a controversial boxing match where the referee stopped the fight deeming that both Lave and his Ghanaian opponent were “not giving of their best”.

At 72 in the Heritage countdown of the finest wrestling posters, see Kitione Lave billed against Dwight J Ingleburgh in 1965, just a year after he had retired from boxing as the undefeated Pacific Heavyweight Champion. (Though he had already been wrestling in Singapore a couple of years before that alongside Prince Kumali for promoter and noted super heavyweight, Emil “King Kong” Czaja.)

Due to Lave’s passion for casinos, during his decade in Britain, Lave didn’t wrestle far from his main business interest in Sheffield, and could easily slip under the radar of less than attentive British wrestling historians. Kitione served in the RAF, ran a gym at the base, a nightclub in Sheffield and even played a few games for Doncaster’s rugby league team. He returned to New Zealand in 1972 with his English wife, Patricia, who he had married in 1957.

Kitione Lave died in 2006.