As is well known my Personal Greatest Ever Tag Team was HELLS ANGELS-Who were
very Successful as a Combo-but also in their own right as Individual Wrestlers!
Still in their Prime in 1973-Why were we Deprived of this Skilful Partnership far too soon??
The answer is Twofold!..........
Firstly when MAX CRABTREE arrived on the Scene- for some unknown reason he took a real dislike to BOBBY BARNES!!-Maybe it was mutual or they had a Bust-Up-but CRABTREE told ADRIAN STREET that he wanted to replace BOBBY in the HELLS ANGELS with....STEVE YOUNG-Who at the time had the same Blond Hair! STREET was Furious at this 'Plan' and flatly Refused to agree to it!
However MAX already had pre-booked Shows Billing HELLS ANGELS to include YOUNG
and Posters/Promotional Material had already been produced-whether ADRIAN liked it or not!
Well STREET DIDN'T like it!-And immediately instructed his Lawyer to Copywright the
HELLS ANGELS Name as a Wrestling Stage Title which ADRIAN then Owned!
Although STREET was 'obliged' by Contract to 'Honour' the pre-set Dates with YOUNG-
from then on He and He alone could Legally Nominate the Partner in the ANGELS..........
and that Partner was BOBBY BARNES!
CRABTREE initially ignored this and tried to use the Name using 'other' Wrestlers only
to find himself ending up in Court!!
Running parallel to all this going on- STREET was becoming more and more annoyed
about lack of Pay Increases to reflect his 'Status' as a Main Eventer and Popularity!
Sooner rather than later he decided to leave JOINT for better Pay elsewhere with the
Independents!-So a combination of these two Factors brought to a premature end the
Run of Britain's Top Tag Team and Deprived Us of many hundreds more ANGELS Bouts!
Tragic Shame in my view!.....
The 'Dislike' of BOBBY by CRABTREE could also explain why BARNES was never allowed
to Hold a Title!!
Below the Fantastic Pairing.......
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Some great points which have made me view things differently. Thanks Adrian, Ron & Leonard.
OK that's it! As usual I've overspent as Christmas and now thanks to the two Adrian's (Mr Street and Mr Pollard) this thread has wetted my appetite to the point where I'm now off to order Adrian's books!
The Misses is going to have my balls for ear rings!
Towards the end of the sixties when Britain had lost almost all it's overseas stars and also some of it's own like Bill Robinson , the industry was carried forwards for the best part of another decade by the likes of Adrian Street. Late sixties and early 1970's was possibly the peak of tag and Hell's Angels were very big. I did not go to Kings Hall if I thought the card was below what I wanted. I always went if Hell's Angels were on.
For me , Street , like Kendo was one who kept things at a good level. Unfortunately 1974 onwards , the rot really set in despite some fantastic young wrestlers.
I can see both sides of the argument , it would be interesting to compare the wages of the top guys in the early 1970's to judge what they thought of Street.
Great Pro who wrestled , North , South and Scotland.
Hi Adrian thanks for the reply. There’s obviously no love lost between Adrian Street and Max Crabtree (although he states that Max was the better wrestler of the 3 Crabtree brothers) I’m inclined to think that there are a few embellishments in Adrian’s tales though. If you listen to an interview by Johnny Kincaid on Youtube you’ll see what I mean, and you may think again about his gripes with the Crabtrees’ amongst others. For instance the Big Daddy/Chris Colt incident that Adrian released to The News of The World was a vast exaggeration. So might the occasion Spiros Arion “allowed” Wayne Bridges to become World Heavyweight champion. Gifted though Adrian certainly was he was never going to become the massive star of Joint Promotions during his era because of the likes of Nagasaki, Kellett, Marino etc already being headliners. Shirley’s popularity came years later so he can’t be blamed. Adrian did become a star on the Independent circuit though as both a wrestler and promoter. The only thing he didn’t achieve was television stardom which came a few years later on a much larger stage in America. This was obviously Adrian’s destiny. From hearing Adrian’s interviews and reading his comments you feel there is some bitterness there concerning the past. There isn’t any need for that bitterness as he became a wrestling superstar.
If Max Crabtree disliked Bobby Barnes so much it's strange how Barnes became one of Crabtree's reliable regulars! Unless Max had an epiphany!! As the "X-Files" slogan states 'The truth is out there'. I'll add, Somewhere.
Adrian always struck me as a man of integrity, he always stuck to his guns and wasnt afraid to speak his mind and tell it as it is. There was no way he was ever going to be a yes man to the likes of Crabtree neither was he ever going to play the fool for his wobble bott brother Daddy. He was a great wrestler as was Bobby and The Hells Angels couldnt ever be the same without either of them. The best tag team ever. Period. Crabtree was obviously too stupid to see this.
A Young BOBBY BARNES-Pre-HELLS ANGELS.......
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