Imagine a quiet walking Holiday in North Wales , somewhere nice and quiet with access to Snowdonia.
It's been a nice day and you've earned Fish and Chips for tea , and your sat in the pub nearby , two pints in and you pick up the local paper.
Advert jumps out at you.
It starts in about an hour and you are in Llanfairfechan. It's a pound and seems irresistible value.
Would you be disappointed. Is one of the wrestlers an imposter.
Or does it look on the face of it a damn good show.
Would you have gone
So the answer is in the time line. Just a hint of a clue and I don't know , But I get the feeling that Nagasaki , if it was Thornley would have Gillette mentioned in the billing. So I lean to the side of Bill Clarke here. But this of course is wrestling and anything is possible.
"King Kendo Nagasaki" - was that Peter Thornley? It may explain why Thornley was never on Reslo although Bill "King Kendo" Clarke was (two bouts on the same one episode).
Some late additions to this thread here. Five more towns almost as soon as you cross the River Dee going into North Wales add to the colour of wrestling on the North Wales Coastline.
Is this lazy matchmaking or desperation. Either way, it's dire and would not build up any local following. Rhyl isn't a huge town but there are good links to the rest of North Wales and with interesting matchmaking and a greater variety of wrestlers could have had a better chance at building up a local loyal following - but not with these shows.
RON HISTORYO....Time Cop, 15h ยท Edited:15h
Since the thread on North Wales I came across some more. Looking at 1981 Llandudno and I guess the holiday season , they could really get away with a saga of 4matches. I would think it was run as a grudge but you never know.
Tony was very busy and I think the Roster pretty small. Maybe The might Chang matches were spaced out a bit better. Bella Ogunlana was pretty busy too.
Peter 23h
In 2022 with events announced on the internet weeks in advance the experience of arriving somewhere and discovering that there is wrestling that night has by and large gone.In the days when posters spread around town were the means most fans knew the date and time it was legit exciting to discover an event. Tenby in South Wales is one place were posters appear everywhere and holiday makers still only get details of a show from the posters alone
Following on about Webber , the answer lies in a bill of the same year from Llandudno that I picked up.
Notice on this bill the Promoters are Rogers and Webber.
Yes Dick and Jessie Rogers who ran Belle Vue had a finger in the Pye in North Wales.
Good Old Dick the Dormouse.
Beckley , the man who trained Dynamite Kid.
Jack Fay pupil of Billy Riley, it was actually his son Ernie.
Enjoy another Gallery
https://www.wrestlingheritage.co.uk/apps/photos/album?albumid=16234503
Back in the Summer I was lucky enough to get all those North Wales bills.
In particular I was able to look back at Rhyl where I had seven years of holidays as a kid.
The Pavillion , Queens Theatre , Gaiety Theatre , Dixieland and even Rhyl FC. But now I am able to go back to 1950 and find the Alhambra Sports Complex on the West Parade. As you walk down the prom from the town centre , you get to it before the Pleasure Beach. The complex had a huge cafe.
The promoter A.R Webber in pre Joint days would have needed help off a matchmaker , probably from Lancashire.
Billy Joyce 13 stones 8lbs in those days if you believe the billing.
Final TV match was August 1988.Must have meet in the ring dozens of times in the intervening sixteen years
I would agree Peter , that date is there to be beaten. It is very early. I saw them at Belle Vue early , just checked it was 15th July 1972 and a 1-1 draw. Even that early it was a top quality battle.
Possibly one of the first ring meetings between Rocco/Jones?
The Paquets and Al Matquette , Cor Bilmey even Marti Jones
Guessing the misspellings on these bills is like doing a cryptic crossword. Pigger surely Digger, but I agree with Powerlock that Pigger has a certain fascination to it.
Steve hoggetty makes me think the matchmaker was a pig farmer.
Boss Gerarde for Butts Giraud is one of the most distant spellings.
But they had some great bills in Rhyl in 1972/3. Surprised to see Nagasaki v Roach billed as catchweight!
See bill for Colwyn Bay. Pigger Rowell ??
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Off with your head - by the Executioner of Bรฉthune!
Hi Anglo ,my apologies to you & others but i realy sure they were one and the same person. Hope i can be forgivenAll the best to everyone.Ian
Well the whole thing was Wryton run and I think Bartelli and maybe Hussey enjoyed similar status with Wryton to McManus with Dales.
No wonder Bartelli could always keep the run going.
Some Yorkshire men like Kellett , Wall , Davies , Dennison , you could be forgiven for thinking they actually worked for Wryton Main Roster. The North promoters must have enjoyed a great co-operation.
Great to see Johnny Saint working with his mentors. (pre Joint)
Yes , I had forgotten Jaquarez was Ducrez , but never thought he was Kendo.
And a glimpse of Pete Roberts actually with joint very early. Wonder why he left for a good while , but managed to get back.
Hi Ian
Jacquerez was Jacques Ducrez who was later Le Bourreau de Bรฉthune.
In fact, now I think, didn't we discover Jacquerez wrestling in UK as early as 1952? So it wouldn't have been a training session ten years later. But something was going on - all the way to North Wales...?
It's interesting that the wrestler should have had two guises. We know a lot about LBdB but nothing about Jacquerez, though we do have photos.
Hi Anglo. Ihave thought that JACQUEREZ was NAGASAGI having prelim. bouts before becoming NAGASAKI. The timing seems about right. Ihave an old Wryton programme with a photo of JACQUREZ & had a stance plus about same hight & weight as NAGGERS , i thought i was the only one who had the same idea as yourself.
Lets see if anyone else has our thoughts.
Kind regards. Ian.
Thanks Ron, I made about 40 comments in your Galleries regarding the southern coast of the Irish Sea. Spotted that Nagasakye.
Ref Jacquerez my comment was how coincidental he should be billed with another career masked man. Makes you wonder whether he came over on a training mission prior to launching his main masked guise.
Regarding the travel aspect, I noted that plenty of Londoners went to North Wales: Pallo, Rann, Mancelli, Tibor, Czeslaw, Marino, Viedor, Maxine, Logan. Even in the fifties. A long trip for sure, but even in the fifties McManus seemed able to opt out: was he ever sighted there?
If it is indeed as it seems, this indicates he had power in the office earlier than we had previously known.
The very high frequency of appearances by Howes, Bartelli and Hussey just underscores what a hunky dory relationship they had, a clique into which Nagasaki seems to have been born, from 1964.
It's also clear that Bartelli didn't need to travel; he had all the work he wanted on his doorstep. He easily had 40 nearby locations with weekly bills where he could appear fortnightly. He was merely a commuter.