Paul the Butcher Vachon.

I lost a good friend very recently, as Paul Vachon died. Many years ago, on realising that he had spent time in both Australia and the U.K., I sent him an email, thinking he may get a chuckle from reading that as a keen wrestling fan, I hadn’t yet emigrated to Aus, when he wrestled there (as well as promoted) and was in Australia when he wrestled in the U.K. I was blown away when, a few weeks later I received a package in the mail, from Paul, containing the three books he had written and had published, abouthis life and wrestling travels around the World. (He also had a lengthy spell in India and toured Japan, among other countries). He had written a different message in each book and I was his ‘Aussie mate’ as he always referred to me from then on. Somewhere on an old computer or external hard-drive, I have a picture of Paul and his wife Dee wearing the Aboriginal motive ‘t’ shirts I sent them, as a thank you gift. I lost

contact with them, when they moved into a home, something I only just learned of. Had I known he had a Facebook presence, I would have re-conected. Such is life!

Heritage in its A-Z, has correctly pointed out, that in his two year stay, Paul was disqualified multiple times and also kayoed on many occassions, however I would like to point to his successes in the U.K. All the following are what I have located and should have the words ‘at least’ before the numbers :

Late 1964 to late November 1966 = 293 matches, I counted 69 different opponents. He was disqualified 43 times against 25 different opponents.

Some of those d’q. losses opponents included : Georg Gordienko, Billy Robinson, Billy Joyce, Peter Maivia, Joe Cornelius x 2, John Da Silva x 2, Albert Wall, Gwyn Davies x 5!, Ian Campbell, Gordon Nelson x2, Tibor Sakacs x 3, Saed, Saf Shah x2, so there, are some of the cream of 1960s wrestling, who had their hand raised, but not in the way their fans would have wished. Vachon also had three DDQs, one against Jim Hussey who also beat Paul on three other occassions on by dq. Those matches must have been ding-dongs!

Regular opponents included : Maivia 22 times, Kiwi Kingston 16, Steve Viedor 15, Sakacs 14, Da Silver and Gordon Nelson 13 and Cornelius, Gwyn Davies and Prince Kumuli 10 times each.

His best results (only in my opinion) : A win and a draw against Billy Joyce, 2 wins & 2 draws Maivia, 2 wins Kumuli, 2 wins Cornelius, 2 wins Nelson, 3 wins Viedor, 5 wins Kingston and single wins over Davies, Portz, Wall, Geoghan and Bill Verna.

He had kayo wins over Cornelius x 2, Nelson x 2 and also Zaranoff, Geoghan, Kingston and Lees.

We seem to be missing almost all his 1966 action, as I could only see 15 matches in January, then 1 each in May, June, July and November.