Given that Professional Wrestling was one great work, with its innermost secrets closely guarded, it is hardly surprising that a whole series of downright lies emerged, possibly off the cuff, and found themselves cemented in wrestling folklore, or even factual history.
Wild Ian Campbell was a qualified vet.
Masambula and Johnny Kwango were Africans.
Alan Garfield grew whiskers to wrestle as Yukon Eric.
Judd Harris wrestled as a German; Joe D'Orazio as a Japanese.
Or as John Shelvey definitively describes in this week's Newsletter, Leon Arras was not a French wrestler and Brian Glover did not steal his ring-name from any such wrestler. (We are none the wiser as to where the name came from, but that hardly matters right now. The truth was probably quite mundane.)
Considering the wrestlers and promoters were endeavouring to pull the wool over the punters' eyes by portraying legitimately competitive bouts, they entitled themselves to take all sorts of liberties.
One of the greatest Wrestling Heritage reveals of 2020 has been that Mick McManus grew a moustache and turned orange to ham it up as a non-existent Mexican who dropped his non-existent world title to George Kidd in 1949.
These stories had to be kept absolutely secret. One slip in this case, for instance, and Kidd's whole career would have become questionable. It's probable Brian Glover had some very good reason for not revealing the source of his ring-name.
I have long interpreted it that the "lads" saw putting one of these tall stories over as a badge of courage, enshrining their names in the inner sanctums of wrestling dressing rooms.
It just makes me want to question everything, especially details that the promoters, assisted by Kent Walton, forced on us.
What other outrageous or blatant wrestling lies have you come across?
The one lie that was repeated over and over by many of the Americans, was the line 'Ive wrestled all over the WORLD'! 'Ive broken every bone in my body ' was on repeat and always the sort of reply when an interviewer asked 'have you ever been hurt wrestling' or 'any injuries'? Lastly, that wasn't really Rasputin in our rings, was it? I'm Sparticus, no I'm Sparticus', that's doubtful too!