STRANGE RING NAMES!-WHO WERE THEY!

Great additions Ost.

Count Royle was a name used by George Goldie of Hanley. He would have come in the car with Jose Santos (Jack Sambrooks). I think we might have Baron Nedgo solved. George Goldie and Jack Sambrooks travelled and often worked with another wrestler called Bill Ogden. Rearrange Ogden and we have Nedgo.

Big Train may well be named after a 1950s American, but had any Brits heard of the original?

A cast of thousands.

While there's plenty here we know (Sean O'Shea, Cyril Knowles-Peters), there are several we don't.

All seemed to existed in autograph form:

Here's your Big Train Clements. Surely the palest fellow from Antigua.

I think Baron Nedgo deserves to go here, along with his tag team partner, Count Royale. I came across a photo of Big Train Clements a couple of days ago, so will post that too.

Here's one.

Ronto the Bull

Great name!

Ron Moore from Heanor, a small town in Derbyshire. Well known in the local community Ron Moore used the wrestling name Ronto the Bull he was a good friend of Jack Taylor and worked for the independent promoters around the Midlands in the 1950s and 1960s.

Ron also taught wrestling at the Heanor Football Club, where he and Jack Taylor ran the Heanor Health and Strength Club two nights a week. One of Ron's proteges was Vince Apollo, known on television as Tubby Hodkinson.

Ron also promoted his own small scale shows at Heanor Town Hall, where he wrestled and refereed.

Bullwhip Griffin appeared in the summer of 1967 and disappeared three months later. I can only find him working in Newcastle, Edinburgh and Bradford.

Presumably a ludicrous name based on the character Bullwhip Griffin in the film The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin released in March, 1967. In the film Bullwhip punched and laid out Mountain Ox, played by Mike Mazurki. Bullwhip was played by Roddy McDowall.

Bullwhip Griffin the wrestler seems no more memorable than the film.

Can't help with Aidan Barlow though the name sounds familiar. I think.

What about Lupo the Wolf? Or Killer John Dillinger? The Guardsmen? I saw them all once. Never heard of before or since.

That's interesting Main Mask. Although I haven't first hand experience of Lincoln shows he doesn't seem to be a promoter with "one off" showings. Any other independent promoter, including respectable ones like Cape, Taylor, Robinson I wouldn't be surprised to see a name conjured up out of the blue and then disappear again, but that didn't seem a Lincoln trait. I'm still veering towards a mischievous Johnny Abbey being a nod at Dale Martin.

Here's another of your names Johnny Rainbow. He was around quite a bit between August 1967 and February 1969. All his matches were in the North East (Tyneside, Teeside) and Scotland. Opponents included Alan Simpson (quite a few times), Mick McMichael (lost 2-0), Mir Zaffer Ealam, Tony Elsden, Ray Clarke and Dave Barrie.

Hans Hitler is a name Main Mask has brought up before. Johnny Abbey is an interesting one. Was this a Paul Lincoln show Main Mask? If so Johnny Abbey could be a name bestowed on a wrestler as a bit of a mischievous fun of Paul Lincoln's directed at his rivals Dale Martin Promotions.

Big Train Clements is a name I've seen on the independents in the 1960s but no idea who he was. There was a Big Train Clements in Texas in the 1950s but very unlikely it was him. Ted Beech was a heavyweight from St Helens at this time. He used a variety of names but I don't associate Big Train with him.

I can help with a couple of these from this programme Main Mask, both in the A-Z and certainly not transient.

Ronto the Bull the was Ron Moore from Heanor. Started learning to wrestle after the war whilst serving in Malaysia and Singapore. Worked for the independents mainly in the midlands, often with Jack Taylor.

https://www.wrestlingheritage.co.uk/rronto.htm

Wallace J. Odie was better known. He was trained by Ronto and later became famous as Vince Apollo and Tubby Hodgkinson

https://www.wrestlingheritage.co.uk/vince-apollo