On This Day 24th December

One of wrestlings tragedies on this day.

Michael Martin Flack was the White Owl, and his untimely death occurred on 24th December, 1937. The inquest of his death was told he was a well educated man with a public school education and university degree. His last wrestling match had been over a week earlier, but “He was constantly getting hurt” his mother told the inquest at St Pancras. Medical witnesses described him as a muscular, well nourished man, killed by an absence from poison on an abscess to his loin, but were unable to say whether it might have been caused by blows during wrestling contests. An open verdict was returned on the 27 year old wrestler. No blame was placed on anyone involved in wrestling, but evidence provided of the wrestler's injuries during the previous six months illustrated just how hard was the life of an all-in wrestler.

White Owl had turned professional in 1932. Weighing around fourteen stones he wrestled many of the top men in the country with mixed results but a popular following. A few months before his death Micky Flack had appeared on BBC television, alongside Bob Gregory and King Curtis in demonstration of Ju-Jitsu entitled “Weaponless Self Defence.”

Bob Gregory, who had employed White Owl on some of his shows, said at the time of his death that he had advised the wrestler to give up wrestling due to his ill health.

We have occasional records of a White Owl appearing in 1939 and the early 1940s, but this was obviously not the original.