Royal Albert Hall Tournament

Hack, you're wasting everyone's time by cluttering this important thread with your trivial chauvinism. You are the only one uttering negative comments. We even have enthusiam from Sydney. (Not Sydney Who, Sydney Australia.)

Yet you call it an irrelevance?

More like a bag of chips now on your shoulder.

So come on. Add some substance to your grumbling.

If the Royal Albert Hall Tournament Trophy wasn't the biggest annual knockout tournament in the 20th century in the UK - WHAT WAS?

If you have no answer - don't answer. Then leave this thread to us purists.

Opinion is obviously divided. Readers of the thread will have noted my acceptance that this was the most prestigious of Dale Martin tournaments, yet an irrelevance to those outside Dale Martin land, but this does not seem to be enough for some.

I can't see anyone other than Anglo Italian having a problem with this point of view. After more than a week no one has rushed in to support him.

Let's call it a draw on this one Anglo.

Kurt Wenzl, Wolfgang Starck, Scarface Laval, Yves Amor, Gideon Gida, that unspellable Pole, - all proper foreigners - as well as lots of exotic northerners that wouldn't often be seen in Dale Martin rings, including the first winner.

This was truly international, truly prestigious. Very exciting.

Looking at the finalists apart from 3 or 4 it does seem to be a way of just showing off Dale Martin favourites. If it was made up mostly of the usual DM wrestlers, and that's how I remember it, then that was hardly anything special. Not much prestige in beating the same men you were beating at other times. Were the foreigners brought in special or already here?

"They really were taking their customers for a ride."

Of course - the duty of every wrestling promoter.

"the vast majority of fans................For most fans it was an irrelevance."

For our accurate recording of history, dear Hack, and with the best kind will in the world, please speak for yourself. You are in a minority of one here. I can let you know how to edit a post if you wish.

"Most would never have the opportunity to attend either because of the distance"

Fundamental geography, dear Hack. I slaver over the wonderful stories shared by our valued Novocastrian Members of the lively wrestling scene at the other end of the country from where I was, but I do not make churlish criticisms or let any envy devlop.

Chris is quite right to be interested in the "prestige" of this showcase tournament; clearly one of the finest creations of heyday Joint Promotions. If we don't enjoy it and record its history here, what's the point of it all? I suggest Chris note your very personal disgruntlement; but do not try to choke his enthusiasm in investigating what the vast majority of true fans are interested in in. What else would you like to know, Chris?

The very fact some fans could not attend makes it interesting. Gee, the RAH capacity was 5,000, it wasn't a TARDIS. There were millions of fans nationwide. Personally I loved and still love exploring and learning and wondering precisely about events and wrestlers I did NOT attend or see. Even Eric Turner.

MATSGA.

Certainly no criticism from me for Ron, Anglo Italian, no need for you to worry in that respect. Quite right, as Ron says, it was the flagship of Dale Martin tournaments. But then that was a pretty low benchmark. Nevertheless, good points made by Ron. Had The Wrestler magazine not given such a disproportionate amount of coverage to this event the vast majority of fans would have been oblivious to it, and none the worse for that.

For Dale Martin it did have the economic advantage of putting on seven matches in front of 5,000 fans and paying only eight wrestlers, plus a couple of supports, along with associated reduced travelling expenses. A nice little earner.

And thank-you Anglo-Italian for the amusement you bring to this topic. Titles changing waists all the time between 1953 and 1963. Really? Clearly the lightweight decade of Johnny Stead and Mel Riss, Jack Dempsey at welterweight, Jack Beaumont and Tommy Mann at middleweight, Eric Taylor at Heavy Middleweight, Ernie Riley at Light Heavyweight, Norman Walsh and Dennis Mitchell at Mid Heavyweight, admittedly five at Heavyweight. I'm pretty sure these weren't too many changes to keep up with.

Nah, these champions meant nothing to Dale and Martin! As Long as they had that Kent title. Kent? They really were taking their customers for a ride. Don't be so quick to dismiss Dale and McManus's liking for a title or two - Jack Dale a champion for 16 years, and Mick was in no hurry to give up his European title for the best part of ten years, not to mention that mythical southern area welterweight belt.

But like all good comedians the best laugh was left to the end. MATSGA - Yes it did make me smile. So Mick engineered wrestling onto WoS, plundered the titles, and out-manoeuvred northern promoters - all that whilst he was solving the Suez crisis, planning Her Majesty's Coronation and negotiating Britain's entry to the Common Market no doubt. Yes Mick wielded his pen and his power in his corner of the world, but let's not get carried away.

Apologies Chris, for my friend's comments distracting from your genuine question about the prestige of this tournament and what it meant for the winners. I will address this for you.

The Heavyweight tournament was the most prestigious heavyweight tournament as a result of it receiving coverage in the Wrestler magazine. It combined half a dozen of the heavies you could see any night of the week and one or two visitors. For most fans it was an irrelevance. Most would never have the opportunity to attend either because of the distance from their home or the cost. You may have noticed in the Jack Martin thread that Anglo mentions (in 1973) that getting into a regular show was 40p or 50p - the programme at the RAH was 15p, one-third the cost of admission paid by fans in most halls. In conclusion, a collection of good wrestlers brought together to create a bit of interest for one night, no more than that. As for what it meant for the winner. As far as I can see, nothing at all. Other than, on some posters, the wrestler would be noted as RAH winner.

Or maybe we are overlooking the whole point of the RAH Trophy. A vehicle to promote the multi-occasion winner, Tibor Szakacs, a purist wrestler with little charisma and no title.

As for Ron's question (or was it a comment?) about whether this was the RAH was a pure Dale Martin event. It was always billed as such, but there are a couple of caveats. Norman Morrell was a shareholder in Dale Martin Promotions, Morrell received a percentage from the RAH profits. In 1963 Dale Martin Promotions had been sold to Hurst Park syndicate, so the Dales, Leslie Martin, Mick McManus and the rest were employees.

In fairness to Chris I really would like another fan to come along and tell me that they disagree with my assessment (No, not you Anglo!). Where are you?

That's an interesting point, Ron, that sets me thinking.

It's always dangerous in our research that we apply too much benefit of hindsight. Here we are in 2025 all very clever with our records and listings, but I really wonder how important British titles were to fans 1953 to 1963.

Titles seemed to be changing waists all the time and the posters and programmes couldn't keep up with the "facts". Maybe Southern fans had seen a few of those dour Wigan champions as well as the even dourer Colbeck and Baldwin, maybe they all blurred into one, maybe fans realised they preferred Pallo's pigtail to any shiny belt (apologies to Ruslan for the sacrilege.) ITV producers seemed to come to that conclusion.

The whole Pallo v McManus feud, let's not forget, started out with a challenge for the delightfully insignificant Southern Area welterweight title.

I could imagine Dale & McManus saying to each other: "These Wiganites are fixated with British titles; giv'em to 'em. We can throw in a splattering of regional (Kent), European and World titles and nobody will notice; and we can take other concessions in exchange for those national titles."

Then McManus wangled wrestling into World of Sport in 1963 and if the northern promoters wanted tv inclusion, they would have to start dancing to Mick's tune, such as regarding British titles. By about 1969 the British champions were Boscik, Maxine, Clayton, Marino, Southerners all (even if all billed from elsewhere). Plus an absentee Robinson and a naughtily inactive Billy Joyce. Not an active Wiganite in sight.

McManus's mission was MATSGA - make the South great again.

I have some sympathy for Dale Martin and clearly the Northern Promoters had virtually a Strangle Hold on main titles , so they had to have something to portray to the public that was the Ultimate in top line wrestling. Where I think they were more equal was the quality of imports into britain in the Golden years,

Aside from their trophy night , they certainly put plenty of shows on as well.

Don't be harsh on Ron's comment, Hack. Ron clearly stated it was a flagship for Dale Martin and that is what you are also agreeing.

That grumpy anti-London chip seems to be bubbling on your shoulder. Whether you want to use other terminology than "flagship" is up to you. What, in my very humble opinion, is indisputable is that the RAH trophy was the leading one-night tournament in the UK over 15 years. True, there weren't many others, but it was by a long chalk the most prestigious and most widely reported.

It was set up as an annual affair and the details of the shows were widely reported and one final televised.

The Wrestler magazine was a Joint Promotions publication, not a Dale Martin one as you state, it featured a page on wrestling in the north and lots of northern news. I believe it was widely distributed and enjoyed in the north. Northerners got to see northern news and northern photos on beautiful glossy paper printed on the South coast.

If there were no equivalently prestigious annual international tournaments with royal patronage and no equivalent publications in the north, you can hardly go blaming the poor Southerners.

Brilliant story and I can confirm it’s a sunny day in Sydney today!

Repeating a post from way back, I was there on the night of Stevie boys hat-trick of wins. The MC announced they had a very special person, to hand the prize to the victor. Taking an age to reach the ring from behind the curtain, came a face and frail figure I knew so well, however my brain could just not get to grips with the name on my lips. The MC then proclaimed loud and clear “ Lou Marco”! Well that couldn’t be right, because the little fella was DEAD!

Well, of course Lou wasn’t brown bread. About six years before that night, a school mate, serving on the cruise ship the Canberra, had dropped anchor at Sydney and my mum and dad put him up for his one night in Sydney. Quizzing him on all things wrestling (he was a regular attendee at the Fairfield Halls), I asked him if Lou, among other geriatric wrestling identities were still working the halls. I don’t recall if he hesitated or not, but he told me ‘no, he died of a heart attack’.

So that was nice.

The Royal Albert Hall heavyweight tournament was only a flagship show for the minority of the fans who had the money and lived within travelling distance of the Royal Albert Hall. For the 90+% of the rest of the country it was irrelevant. The only way in which anyone could call it a flagship was that it received immense coverage in the mouthpiece of Dale Martin Promotions, The Wrestler magazine. Put this show on in Newcastle, Liverpool, Aberdeen or anywhere outside Dale Martin land and it would have received no publicity at all. The evidence is there in the Belle Vue Trophy. Never heard of it? Point made.

Thank you so much for your replies.

Did any tournaments ever get televised?

Jein, Ron. It had been the flagship show in the 50s when the heavyweights were the flagship wrestelrs. After Pallo v McManus I, the lighter weights nudged the heavies from top of the bill and the trophy bill became the penultimate presentation of the Kensington season, prior to the end of season spectacular. The only link was in 1963 with HRH Prince Philip witnessing the deferred final on the end of season spectacular bill. At times, the trophy had its own importance: so the winner in 1969 was to be the end-of-season opponent a month later for visiting giant Jean Ferre. It was always my opinion, completely unvalidated, that Dale Martin quickly developed this into a vehicle for the classical stylist Tibor, who was thoroughly legit and rendered the business plausible, but who was not British Heavyweight Championship material (for reasons that could be discussed elsewhere).

Inclusion in and exclusion from the list of entrants was always fascinating. Mike Marino's semi-final loss to Mal Kirk remains one of wrestling's greatest surprises and an absolute accolade for Mucky Mal. And the German victory the greatest sign of nepotism we had ever seen (at that time!!!)

It beggars belief that anyone with half a wrestling brain could have decided that this tournament should mutate into a small tag-team tournament for welterweight undercarders. True, the Borg Brothers (as they were unspectacularly billed, almost to deny that they were twins) were a very big deal indeed in 1972 and tag needed a title. But this could and should have been arranged in addition to and separately from the RAH Trophy, rather than replacing it.

Unless anyone wants to correct me , I would say Dale Martins pretty well ran this as their Flag Ship Show. It was not just special occasions but shows were on there regularly.

The reason there was no tournament held in 1957 or 1967 is that the RAH Wrestling season began after summer each year and concluded as summer began the following year. The 1956 tournament and second 1966 tournament took place during the 1957 & 1967 wrestling "seasons" respectively.

Hi Chris, I think that was a listing I posted elsewhere. I managed to add a few more details. Here you go: ROYAL ALBERT HALL TROPHY

YEAR             WINNER                                            DEFEATED

1956               DENNIS MITCHELL [GBR]            Jose Olivera              29th Feb

1957               no tournament held

1958               TIBOR SZAKACS [HUN]                Bill Verna                   21st May

1959               TIBOR SZAKACS [HUN]                John Da Silva           27th May

1960               TIBOR SZAKACS [HUN]    Ray Hunter or Ray Apollon 18th May

1961               BILLY ROBINSON [GBR]               Joe Cornelius           24th May

1962               TIBOR SZAKACS [HUN]                Bruno Elrington        10/20 Jun

1963               JOHN DA SILVA [NZL]                   Josef Zaranoff          17th April

1964               GORDON NELSON [CAN]             Steve Veidor             17th June

1965               STEVE VEIDOR [GBR]                  Bruno Elrington        9th June

1966               STEVE VEIDOR [GBR]                  Ian Campbell            13th April

1966 (Dec)    TIBOR SZAKACS [HUN]                Bruno Elrington        14th Dec

1967               no tournament held

1968               WOLFGANG STARCK [GER]       Jim Hussey               17th April

1969               BRUNO ELRINGTON [GBR]         Tibor Szakacs           2nd April

1970               GEORGE GORDIENKO [CAN]     Bruno Elrington        22nd April

1971               STEVE VEIDOR [GBR]                  Mal Kirk                      28th April

HRH PRINCE PHILLIP TROPHY aka INTERNATIONAL WRESTLING TOURNAMENT TROPHY

1963               TIBOR SZAKACS [HUN]                John Da Silva           22nd May

VIEWSPORT TROPHY

1972               STEVE VEIDOR [GBR]                  Tibor Szakacs           26th April

WORLD OF SPORT TAG TEAM TROPHY

1972               IGNATIUS BORG & TONY BORG           Zoltan Boscik & Peter Szakacs                                                                                                     26th April

Other KO tournaments:

1954 also an 8-man tournament on April 28th with BERT ROYAL defeating STEVE LOGAN in the final (middleweights?)

1969 also a 4-man tournament on Dec 10th, with SEAN REGAN defeating BRUNO ELRINGTON in the final

1978 also a 6-man tournament on January 18th, with LEE BRONSON defeating JOHN WILSON in the final

1981 also a 4-man tournament on April 22nd, with MARK ROCCO defeating MARTY JONES in the final (1 fall)