Tamworth Wrestling

Excellent detective work Hack!

Tremendous knowledge, Hack. Gets the thumbs up from me 👍

Of course we don't know if it's the same person (or whether Mike Eagers was his actual name but a Michael Eagers is listed currently as a trustee of the LONDON SIGN LANGUAGE WEST CONGREGATION OF JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES.

The People! Ok, might be true. But might equally be a way of selling a good yarn for a few hundred quid.

Is this the sort of thing people do when they genuinely find religion: run to exploit the fact financially and shout about their benevolence to the nation....?

Mike Eagers was in the People in August 1969 announcing his retirement .

As a Jehovah's Witness he had found God and was going to teach the deaf and dumb. His intention was to scrape a living as a Joiner to help fund the teaching .

Looks like a case of Never say Never.

I would tend to think this was indeed Ct Bartelli in November 1968. He had been slighted six months earlier at the RAH and now embarked upon his wilderness years.

We have all gone along with the Mike Eagers story that he retired to become a Jehovah's Witness. But we were fed this story by promoters he was no longer working for, we know not why.

Wrestlers on these independent bills had no mouthpiece to contradict whatever Joint Promotions wrote about them.

Looks a great venue.

So many subtle details conceived to mislead subconsciously: Vic (Cocky) Wall; Hells Angels.

The place has been totally refurbished, looks great now. According to Management/Council last promoter [from Rotherham area ??] pre refurbishment [2019] "lost money as crowd was low". .

Were these bouts on Joint cards or independent, there fairly spread out? I wonder if he travelled on his religious works and occasionally did a bit of moonlighting

Powerlock 18h ago

interesting to note that Mike Eagers is on a bill a few years after he walked away from Wrestling for Joint

I did wonder if this really was him, but one of the three matches I've found was a tag match with his old partner Danny Heagan.

I found

24th September, 1973 NORWICH with Regan v Karl Kramer/Hans Himler

12th October, 1973. WHITWICK v Cassidy Junior

24th January, 1974. ILKESTON v Tony Cortez

Part of the reason that they could well have made money or at least covered costs is that Jack Taylor paid out so little money. He was reluctant to send a couple of girls over to me for a show i was doing in Nantwich in the mid 70s because he was nervous they would talk to the other wrestlers on the bill, find out how much they were getting paid, and then pester him for more. He ended up doing the worst of all worlds by accepting the booking then not sending the wrestlers and not informing me leaving me with a good house awaiting the top of the bill attraction of lady wrestlers and not knowing Taylor had not informed them of the booking. By the interval I realised they were not going to appear and it was Lee Sharron who saved the day by suggesting that when I broke the news of the girls not showing that I announced that I was putting their wages up for grabs and inviting back into the ring all the wrestlers on the bill that night to fight it out for said wages in an over the top rope battle royal. This was several years before Crabtree introduced such spectacles to the British public. It saved the day as far as the audience were concerned but lost me the hall as the lady in charge of the bookings regarded me as a dubious character trying to pull a fast one and cancelled my provisional future bookings.

I sealed the deal with Taylor for these girls over a pot of tea at his house. We had not had the 50 pence piece long (people originally referred to them as dustbin lids) and I remember Taylor proudly holding one up. He had a show a few nights hence and he had billed an "added attraction" of a schoolboy exhibition bout. 50p was the amount he was paying each lad.

Does this do anything for wrestling , maybe it was to pull the kids in, Batman and Robin. Were the names Kade and Bell meant to lure people into expecting someone else. A colourful time , lots of wrestling in a relative backwater without competition from Joint. To go on so long it must have made money.

Great find Ron! I see Dempsey v Sherry so far down the bill, they’re almost off it?!

I wonder if it was a one off, definitely worth looking for more. I would think they would be local and fairly low key.

Congratulations Ron. First time I've seen a good reason for visiting Tamworth.

These look like Jack Taylor shows, with all his regulars.

Then when we get to 1968 it says Lew Phillips presnets. There is a connection. Phillips was a boxing promoter. He turned to wrestling, remembered mostly for his shows at Digbeth in Birmingham. He called in Jack Taylor as his matchmaker and helper in the beginning but I don't know if that lasted for long or not.

From 1968 on Taylor, Raymond, Caroline, Ladaire, Jenkins, Dalby, Ricardo have gone, so maybe Phillips had taken over where Taylor had left off.

I see Pete Smith there in June, 1966. We heard from him a few weeks back and are still waitinga reply. Where have you gone Pete? I guess he was also Whipper Smith.

Junior Cassidy in 1974. Jack's son?

Well spotted Mike Eagers Powerlock, I'd missed that one. Was this really him? By then he was supposed to have religion.

Another wrestling mystery.

interesting to note that Mike Eagers is on a bill a few years after he walked away from Wrestling for Joint.

Used for Pro Wrestling as recently as 2015 and packed to the doors