The Privileges of Mick McManus

What? .... What?...

A proposal that McManus kept headlining in the 70s?

By then he was well past his sell by date and would have discredited the business he had given so much to if he had carried on. He had the grace and sense to bow out, arguably a few years too late, but no more than most. Let's give him credit for that. I will.

As for suppressing the heavies. Well, in the seventies they were well and truly suppressed. The big names on the block were mostly lighter men, Anglo Italian doesn't need me to name names and dismiss this nonsense.

"Heavyweights were expensive, capricious, slow on the small screen". There you have a statement worthy of discussion in a thread of its own. Personally I wouldn't cheapen the comment by insulting a couple of our heavyweight greats.

Since we are discussing wrestling's FA Cup this week and wondering why it fizzled out early seventies, when it could have been a long-term televised bonanza on tv, rather like the football cottoned on to, I propose a wild but, in this context, regrettably possible theory:

McManus suppressed the heavyweights as he had started to do 10 years earlier, keeping headlining and tv and the spondulicks for himself and his lighter trusties.

Heavyweights were "expensive, capricious, slow on the small screen, and disrespected their own titles through Robinson and, soon, Wall." Maybe Rocky's writing was indeed already on the Wall mid-72.

Thanks John, DJ Mask,

So out of his 100+ (was it 173?) tv bouts, we can find one on a midweek show.

Not that we need it after all the examples in this thread, but this is the clearest evidence possible of how McManus prioritised his own personal prestige over the good of the business and other wrestlers.

He appears to have been reasonably well-liked by the Dale Martin wrestlers, certainly respected for his work. But our collective approach and the benefit of the internet give us insight advantages "the lads" didn't have 50+ years ago.

A case could easily be put that he ran Dale Martin Promotions as a one-man ego trip.

Plenty of entrepreneurs and business owners share this approach. They might argue that it is their right. But what mystifies me about McManus is that he was not openly the owner of Dale Martins. How on earth did he manage to maintain this Putinesque position of absolute power for 15+ years? Maybe he seized the opportunity by snitching but that can hardly explain the sheer scale of his reign.

According to the ITV wrestling site Mick Mcmanus did indeed contest a Wednesday night wrestling bout on the 16th of December 1970 against Dave Barrie. Interestingly the same wrestlers also fought on a Friday which was on New Years Day 1971.

(Can't see a direct reply button, but this is to Anglo Italian.) I had a quick look through the listings from the era of midweek shows and McManus was almost exclusively on a Saturday.

Something has come up today.

Did Mick ever wrestle on the mid-week tv shows?

Or were Saturday afternoon prime-time slots the only ones he deemed fit for himself?

It's easy for us on the outside, to judge someone still hanging around when it appears to be obvious he should go. However, if you have been working at the same career for so long as McManus had, I would guess, that unless he disliked what he did and could afford to retire, then to give it up, would be difficult. How do you go about it, do you take yourself off the tele, start to lose matches here and there? Wouldn't that lower your value to the game and thus to the promoters? Wouldn't people comment 'McManus hasn't been on t.v. for a while, well he is getting on' or 'McManus is on, but he's lost on t.v. the last couple of times and then again when I saw him at the Hall a few weeks ago, so I won't bother going'

In all entertainment as well as many sports, there are those who just don't want to go and won't be pushed out either. Sometimes it appears that getting into showbiz/sports is much harder than staying in, until a crippling disease or death finishes the performer off. Mick would have been proud of what he achieved and hung around as long as he could, as did Max Bygraves, Sinatra, Jackie Pallo and a multitude of others in the entertainment business. (In the mid-seventies a girlfriend laughed at me for being a Shirley Bassey fan, saying she was over the hill. Yeah, I wonder what became of Shirl)? Most people at the top of their game, will accept any 'privileges' that they feel entitled to. Most of us can just look on in envy. Mick didn't travel in luxury chauffeur driven cars, nor fly around the country in jets, live in a palatial home or, book himself to win the Heavyweight Title, he just took what he could and what was given to him. I don't think we can begrudge him that, can we?

Thanks for that John. I too heard the same rumour some years back. It was from a wrestler, but he admitted himself that he didn't know if there was any truth in it. Sounds like there may well have been.

I made a post on this forum topic on 1st July to say that I had once read (on the old 1 Stop Wrestling website, I think) that Mick McManus had been given the job of matchmaker at Dale Martin's and all his special privileges had started after he had grassed on some wrestlers (Mike Marino, Judo Al Hayes etc) who were planning to move to Paul Lincoln promotions. I did say, at the time, that it was only something that I had read many years earlier on a forum posting by somebody else, so I could not vouch for the truth of this rumour.

However, I have just read Adrian Street's book 'So Many Ways To Hurt You' and was surprised to read him tell this exact same story about Mick McManus, on page 191 of this book. Adrian Street says that Mick 'was invited to join their exodus and was sworn to secrecy but instead walked into Les Martin's office and blew the whistle on the renegades plot before it was fully hatched'. Street say that 'Les Martin gave Mick the job of matchmaker and from that point on he didn't lose a match'.

So this story does appear to be true and may well explain Anglo Italian's question of why Mick had all his special privileges.

I suppose one very early privilege was to appear on BBC TV versus Al Lipman 26 May 1947.

If you look at the main promoters could it be that within these Mick was the most powerful younger interloper , a threat and a source of envy.

We know Conroy , even Bartelli held sway at Wryton , I should imagine maybe Jim Hussey , Francis Gregory and more. But they were in the background.

Morrell had his men , champs who could shoot if needed , but they knew their place.

Dale Martins were allowing this guy to call the shots.

Like I say , was he the biggest or the first to get this privilege.

So those comments remind me of a couple of other privileges:

• he was always on in the second bout on any Dale Martin bill, for a quick getway. I'd imagine he wasn't accorded this treatment when working outside DMs?

• As Dave says there just reminds us how often Mick wrestled Alan Colbeck. His favoured opponent for sure, without them ever creating any spark natiionwide. I might have suspected this was a treat accorded to him on Dale Martin bills, but it is clear that even in Newcastle he could name his opponent. Colbeck must have been glad of Mick. At least Newcastle saw a nice little feud with Colbeck finally gaining the "surprise" victory (though he beat Mick plenty of times). All we got was McManus v Colbeck ad infinitum without feud.

I suppose I started this thread also with an eye to others' reactions to McManus's privileges. It was only just over a year after that Colbeck feud in Newcastle that Colbeck's tag partner double-crossed McManus on tv. We have often discussed that double-cross but perhaps not the motivation for it. Maybe the privileges we list here account for why Peter Preston did what he did.

I remember watching Mick McManus, being half throttled by the great Tony St. Clair in a televised bout. St. Clair was mad with Mick’s devious tactics and proceeded to throttle McManus with a towel, or so it seemed....

children, it is worth noting considering the position mick McManus held. he would have done work in office as matchmaker and other responsibilities plus working an evening shift. it is bit like holding down a day job and working behind a bar at. how many hours do you think he put in a week. as years rolled on his body would be getting knackered so he would have started taking it easy. also being a king pin within organisation he would have been entitled to some perks to relieve the pressure. so he got lifts which meant he could relax or sleep. also meant by not travelling by public transport he would not get approached by fans etc getting home fairly relaxed. don't envy him with hours and work he did having the so called perks. end of the day mick McManus was a professional

I have Mick McManus appearing on three occasions at St James’ Hall, Newcastle in 1965 (thanks again to Ray) each time against Alan Colbeck:-

29th May 1-1

3rd July 2-1 McManus

18th September 2-1 Colbeck

Oddly enough I can only remember the first encounter which is surprising as each night would have provided a bumper payday for us lads!

On the first one as it was 1-1 at the end of eight rounds, following an acrimonious exchange in the ring, it was decided to add one more round. At the end of this the score was still the same and the match declared a draw. I had nipped upstairs to get more stock of something for the last twenty minutes and emerging from the office I encountered Mick on his way to the dressing rooms/shower complaining that “they’ll have you working all bloody night up here” for the benefit of nobody else except for Jock who looked after the baths and me.

mr Hayes had a flash yankee car at the time

Hello Matey Dave, as I said earlier, this rumour that McManus had grassed to the promoters on the wrestlers who were planning to leave to go to Paul Lincoln is just something I read on a wrestling forum (perhaps the 1 Stop Wrestling forum) years ago, so I do not know if it is definitely true.

Do you know when he become godfather to one of Judo Al Hayes children. If it was after the Paul Lincoln split, it does bring into doubt the rumour I had heard. However, it might still be true as they might have made up later?

this talk of snitching on wrestlers leaving and going with Paul Lincoln sounds interesting. if true, why was mcmanus godfather to one of Judo Al Hayes kids

McManus was on TV (or at least billed in the TV Times) pretty consistently in the second half of 1965, so he may have been picking his schedule carefully to lighten the load but maintain his public standing. I have always wondered who decided what matches would be on TV in that era. In theory it would just have been the local promoter putting on a (six-match) bill, and you had some obvious variation based on the region of the country, but surely Joint Promotions as a whole must have worked together to decide which wrestlers needed the exposure.

If we want to piece together Mick's missing period (otherwise he wrestled 250 nights a year) I need to tighten up my vague memory that I mentioned above.

So I have fished out details sent to me by dear departed Ray in May 2005.

McManus seems to have been inactive from June to December 1965.

A further thought is that this was the period when he was changing his name by deed-poll, but I wouldn't have thought this would have stopped him wrestling. Maybe he was romancing.

None of this fits in at all with the car crash comments above.

Muddier still..

Need a lot more input from others, please.

That sure does muddy the waters, Ian.

So the crash was 30.11.1964. 14 stitches. But he's wrestling three weeks later.

But 19 months later, the leg's giving him gip again.

All very confusing, it doesn't fit. We are clearly missing elements. Maybe more than one crash - it wouldn't be surprising with the miles he drove.

What a gent Mick was to go and turn up. Kudos.

Hi Anglo,just to confuse the issue with Micks car crash injuries. On Thursday July 21st. 1966 There was a great show at Middlesbrough Football ground. Top of the bill was Mcmanus V Alan Dennison. Mick turned up but announced over the P.A. system he could not wrestle tonight because of his leg injuries due to his car crash. He stated it was only right to turn up to prove to the fans that he just not could be bothered to travel all that distance.By the way it was a NORMAN MORRELL bil.Great bill it was too. THE MITCHELLS V MASAM. & KWANGO ,ROBINSON V MARINO , PORTZ V HOWES , DENNISON V JOWETT.

Regards to all and keep safe.

Thank you DJ, great research. That starts to fill a long-standing gap in my knowledge, something I had suspected. I don't get the dates though: very surprising Mick would have been out of the ring for just three weeks with that kind of injury. I definitely recall he was out of action for many months at that time.

A Waltonism had confused me as even into the mid-seventies Kent used to harp on about Mick's "recent" accident.

I wonder who the driver was? And if it was Mick, maybe this scared him off driving for life?

What's more, it's a fair bet that he was given the matchmaker role while he was convalescing.

According to newspaper reports Mick Mcmanus and Eddie Capelli were involved in a car crash on Nov 30th 1964 in Hillingdon. Capelli required 16 stitches in a head wound and Mcmanus had a leg injury which required 14 stitches and kept him out of the ring until just before Xmas.

Very minor clarification on the St Clair title decision: After moving back from South Africa, St Clair went to the meeting to discuss his return to Dale Martin/Joint and was looking for a better position on the bills. McManus spoke up in favour of him being in the championship picture. Max Crabtree then surprised everyone by suggesting that he "move up" the divisions to get a run with the heavyweight title, the thinking being to deliberately have him be smaller than his rivals for the title and create natural sympathy with the crowd.

Hi Anglo Italian, I was not even born in the early 60's when these events happened, so I can only go on things that I have read. However, Mick McManus had lost the British Welterweight title to Jack Dempsey in 1958 and he was then definitely not the most famous wrestler in the country but in the early 60's his career received a big boost, when he was made matchmaker at Dale Martin's and then had his series of bouts with Jackie Pallo. From then on Mick probably was the most famous wrestler in the country.

I don't know how much truth there is in the rumour that I once read on a forum that Mick had been rewarded by the promoters after telling them about the wrestlers who were leaving for Paul Lincoln in 1961 but Mick's career does definitely seem to have received a sudden boost in the early 60's.

Credit is due to Mick though as he made the most of his opportunities.

Interesting point, John, about McManus being on the slide until his feud with Pallo started. So hard to know with Pallo's memories because he liked to claim credit for everything. But true, if he hadn't had that angle, who knows how McManus's career might have developed. Similar to Logan's is a fair guess.

Also, planning is one thing, but let's not imagine that McManus and Pallo could have imagined in the spring of 1962 quite how their feud would develop.

We talk about Marino becoming the booker, but it's not as if Mick was demoted. He created time to do those other jobs, like the tv role, became a director and was nevertheless Marino's boss in that respect. I would imagine that he still had great input on major bills and titles (as Saxonwolf says regarding Tony St Clair); and especially on each and every venue and opponent he was selected for.

In fact it begs the question: just how much was Mike in fact Mick's lackey?

McManus had a substantial period of inactivity in about 1964 (I noticed it 15 years ago) and we have never unearthed the reason, though a car crash has been mentioned on various occasions. About 8 months from memory.

According to my research, Marino and Crabtree were the bookers when Mick started doing jobs on TV and putting over the younger talent. That seems to suggest that Mick was part of the problem regarding the product turning stale in the mid-70s.

Jackie and Mick both seemed to work a lot of dates. They didn't seem to get hurt much either.

Mick McManus debuted in 1946 and in the 1950's he was twice the British Welterweight Champion. However, Jackie Pallo, in his autobiography 'You Grunt, I'll Groan' says that in the early 1960's 'his (Mick's) image seemed to be on the wane'. Jackie Pallo goes on to say that it was the series of bouts with him that made Mick a star again.

I have also read years ago, perhaps on this forum, perhaps on the old 1 Stop Wrestling forum, a story that when several wrestlers (Mike Marino, Judo Al Hayes etc) were leaving Joint Promotions to wrestle for Paul Lincoln, Mick McManus heard about it and grassed on them to the promoters. The promotors then rewarded Mick by giving him the job of matchmaker at Dale Martins.

Perhaps if Mick had not been given the job of matchmaker and then had his series of bouts with Jackie Pallo, he would have dropped down the bill like many other wrestlers did and he would not have had all the privileges that we are talking about here?

Given what has been said about Mick's status, it surprises me that he and the Iron Man agreed to be Big Daddy fall guys for what turned out to be their last TV appearance. Obviously this was in period where Shirley seemed to be defeating every major heel, but it seems odd that two of the seemingly toughest wrestlers in the business agreed to get belly butted and splashed.

It was Mick McManus who called for Tony St. Clair to be made British Heavyweight Champion (according to Tony), during a JP meeting in Leeds.

One of the enduring mysteries, I guess, the reason for the rise of Mick McManus, both in the public eye and behind the scenes.

As any of us from the era of 60's into 70's will atest, he was literally a household name.

Not wishing to sidetrack this thread, but whilst looking for the elusive Dominic (See thread on Pye), I came across two results from Newcastle.

12/10/57 McManus beat Jim Lewis for British Welter Title.

19/10/57 McManus drew with Alan Colbeck for Euro Welter Title.

Too late for me I had moved away.

In fairness he must have been regarded as a loyal and hard worker. I recall seeing him at Wimbledon opening the bill in around 1955 and billed as 'Fiery ex champion from New Cross' so he must have paid his dues somewhere along the line.

Can't fault him.He drew crowds,he picked the correct tag partner in the Iron man.He kept the faith,and he could have a kip on the way home!

He put himself on the cover, and also in prime position inside, of The Covermen of Wrestling.

He gave himself the between-round TV commentary gig.

He gave himself the European Middleweight Championship - that was incredible.

He somehow got the wrestling column in The Sun to be headed with his name.

He always had top billing ever so slightly above Pallo.

And for many years prior to 1967 he never lost a bout on tv. Tracing his influence backwards, which was part of the challenge here, tells us he held some sway from 1955; and six years before as Ron pointed out.

Agreed re Rocco. Nobody on here admires Mark Rocco more than I do. Come to think of it nobody on here hated the Big Daddy crap more than me. I liked Mick, you can’t deny his bouts with Pallo did more for the sport than possibly any other. I do hear what you say tho.

The fact that he and others held on far too long meant that things were becoming far too stale by the mid to late seventies thus opening the door to the circus that was to follow.

If Rocco did have privileged status it was deserved because he continued to draw crowds long after ITV wrestling had ended

I wouldn’t compare what Mick did for wrestling to what Daddy did. Wasn’t Rocco enjoying the Same privileged status towards the end of his career?

I think there's definitely an argument that by losing so few matches on television, it made the couple that he did lose at the end much more effective in making St Clair and Sanders into bigger stars.

I know at least one wrestler I spoke to suggested McManus was very clever at spotting wrestlers who were genuinely helping draw crowds, booking himself on the same show as them, then taking credit for always being on shows that did well. Certainly very sneaky, but to pull it off you have to have your finger on the pulse of what's working at the box office, which is certainly a valuable skill for a matchmaker.

Wasn't McManus the booker when he beat Kung Fu?

He used his brains Bernard.Why have it hard when you can have it easy

I think that you will find that he had the privilege of a lift to all the matches that he was in.

Mick was far more credible than the Big Daddy circus

He had the privilege of working as often or as little as he wanted, at the halls he wanted and with whom he wanted. It would be difficult for anyone not to take advantage of the situation Mick had been placed in.

His biggest privilege was to ensure he "never lost" a match until he was ready to retire in 1982.This did as much harm to the credibility of wrestling as the dreaded Crabtree

Interesting , Anglo and I don't know if this is fact that we have covered before , but according to an article in 1962 , Mick came out of the forces in 1946 and started a three man Timber Haulage business out of the docks with his mate , wrestler Percy Pitman and they wrestled in the woods whilst clearing timber.

From there Mick was put in touch with Les Martin and then Jack Dale.

Debut was against Chopper Howlett and you mention privilege , well in 1949 they gave him the British Welterweight championship by beating Capelli.

He was also to become Southern Area Champ.

Seemingly he could do no wrong.

Apparently that British Championship was dropped to Jack Demsey but won back at RAH in 1953. Mick stated at this time (1962) that this was the highlight of his career.

Was all this real or kayfabe.