I have just come across Goldbelt Maxine's early 1972 bout against the Wonder Boy. This year just about marks Maxine's peak, in my opionion.
Maybe we have overlooked his very special achievement in the early seventies. And I don't mean that he held the two British titles at the same time.
This was the one undercarder of the mid-to-late sixties who had the skill and creativity and, of course, work ethic, to penetrate that glass ceiling and rise up to the level of bill topper alongside the five ageing veterans: Masambula, Logan, Kellett, Pallo and McManus.
So many other contemporaries did not achieve this: P Szakacs, J Cortez, C Thomson, Syd, P Rann, McMichael, Iron Jaw, Peter Preston, Dennison, Leon Fortuna, Tony Skarlo, Kirkwood, Czeslaw, Penzy, Young Robby, Zollie. And many many others.
Clayton Thomson was very critical of Maxine's ringcraft. And judging by his show in this 1972 bout
any of those on my list could claim to have superior and more varied technique than Brian Maxine.
So I'm wondering just what got Maxine to this pinnacle? He wore a crown, and, in retrospect, he actually merited it, having risen to this unprecedented prominence so fast. A feat achieved by no other single wrestler at the time.
In the Wright bout, I do enjoy Maxine's selling of the youth's offence. Satisfyingly bewildered by speed and agility, taking any number of throws, creating heat through constant whingeing to the referee, relying largely on the forearm smash as an offensive, and, of course, coming back from the brink of defeat to claim a fortuitous victory. A delightful touch was offering his own portait card to the vanquished loser as he writhed in pain on the canvas. And all the while with that familiar and albeit slight supercilious grin. I still wince 51 years on as he lands painfully on the base of his spine every time.
This Chosen One of the promoters was deemed so special that he was the one wrestler Ricki Starr, receiving lumps of weight, did not defeat at the Royal Albert Hall - where even Pallo and McManus had succumbed. The undeniably skilled Thomson had even been required to give up his British Middleweight title that he had defended successfully against Pallo, McManus and many other very big names. And we can now confirm, decades later, that the promoters were of course right, as Maxine went on to wrestle reliably and professionally for many many years in the guise that he had sculpted, or that had been sculpted for him (?) as the sixties came to a close, thereby justifying their investment in him.
We have to dig deep to uncover and describe faithfully the skills of Goldbelt Maxine that allowed him to have achieved all these accolades in the early seventies. But skills in and out of the ring he most certainly did have, even though they may not immediately be obvious. I have listed some. Can anyone else add others?
Incidentally, I am fully aware that Barnes and Street can be classified as near equivalent contemporaries who did top the bill in tag. But, as singles wrestlers in 1972, they were not headlining bills in their own right, on the whole.
I remember Brian Maxine as a balding respectable journeyman welterweight in the early to mid 1960's. I was absent from the scene for a time thereafter but on regaining my interest in the early 1970's was surprised to find him billed as British Welterweight AND Middleweight Champion and wearing a toupee. He had also transformed into a villain of the ring.
Why was Maxine the chosen one as opposed to other worthy and contemporary welterweights?
To be fair, he was one of those who kept wrestling interesting before the late 1970's decline.
Coming in regarding the "King of the Ring" persona, I think it's beginnings may have been rather earlier than has been suggested.
I recall watching him come to the ring on a midweek TV broadcast with a large sign proclaiming "Maxine King of the Ring": it was affixed to a pole and was sat inside one of the corner posts. He was, at one point, catapulted into the sign to the amusement of the capacity crowd. What I can say with some certainty is that this was around 1966: my Mother was in hospital and my Father worked back shift with the GPO, so I was looked after by a neighbour.
I saw him live as well as on t.v. of course and I have to say, his work was a bit pedestrian and repetitive. However he was a competent worker, what he did he did well, but it was his persona that rubbed fans the wrong way. Having said that, I must also add that his match against the younger Wright was a cracker and I've revisted it on a couple of occasions over the years. The youngster was outstanding, but Maxine shone like I'd not seen him, dishing it out, but also taking bump after bump, before eventually winning, while giving his opponent a big 'bump' to his career in the ring. The lad took his opportunity with both hands, but couldn't have done so without Maxine's help.
p.s. I believe I posted something similar, maybe a decade ago. (Proof that what goes around, comes around).
The 2003 version was very different.......
As the question of Mr. Maxine's musical ambitions has come up:
Having just viewed his 1972 match versus Reg Trood I would add Trood to the list of better wrestlers not given a full push
Rollerball Mark Rocco said in an interview, that he’d had a heated bout with Goldbelt Brian Maxine. So much so, that the punters were literally going mad by the end of the bout! With Maxine caught hanging trapped in the ropes! Both wrestlers fantastic at generating the heat.
He got heat from the crowd, did something different, self-publicist and was a good fit for TV. If I had the choice, I would rather watch Clay Thomson but each to their own.
Equally important must be the question of where in the country did the Goldbelt persona start. Was it with a single Joint promoter or planned at the monthly Leeds meeting?
Here's what I found out about those Albert Hall appearances:
12th December 1969: Brian Maxine badly cut in a "bloodbath" v Colbeck "needed stitches."
27th May 1970: this narrows it all down.
- "Colbeck didn't even bother to bring his belt to the ring." Did such a belt exist?
- "hardly the most classy championship match"
- "....his now customary entrance handing out pictures and parading around the ring in his belt."
- Maxine dq'd for a punch.
Pooor, pooor, poooor work. The belt on show was not the one on the line. Ugh!
Anyway, it seems that he remained Brian Maxine pure and simple until December 1969 at least; and then some time over the following four months developed the King of the Ring persona. I suppose I am just trying to track the first time and place he had the nerve to display his wacky routine. But early 1970 it must be, because by May it was "customary."
I was told soon after my debut how to measure how good you are,not past amatuer experience ,RAH appearances, belts or TV exposure and I think it fits here. The measure was how far your last bout was from the seafront at Blackpool and it fits the discussion here.No prizes for guessing who told me and the surprising town he was from.
Thanks Ron, for your bills below.
I'm very surpised at the gap from 30.9.69 through to Guy Fawkes 1970. I want to research what Maxine was up to in those 13 months. As usual, your contributions just throw up more mysteries.
With Maxine being from Ellesmere Port, how could they bill him against the Northern Champion? This just confirms to me that Ellesmere Port is somewhere in sarf east London, near Brixton. Anyone from there ends up as an out and out suvvener.
And Maxine's push clearly had Dale Martin propulsion, probably Mick's. In fact, we can see that Woodhouse, lurking fuzzily on the fringe of Joint Promotions, was not convinced of the new phenomenon, and billed him under the main event. And Ted kept him in a support bout, just like Sargeant.
The more I look at this, the more I commend McManus for building for the future. And he wasn't wrong, with Goldbelt still British champion into the/his(!) nineties.
Next time I have a conversation with Goldbelt, I'll try to extract comments from him about McManus.
Extending this, I detect a pattern. Dale Martins (Mick) gave Albert an equivalent push, in parallel, at the same time. Maybe throw in Street, too. But where those two burnt out/strayed or whatever, one or two years after their pushes, Maxine had several decades of gratefulness to give.
Interesting one to ponder.
Was Maxine being lined up as a replacement for McManus, but McManus decided he wasn't ready to retire, in the early 70's?
Brian Maxine gets no mention at all in the "Mick McManus book of Wrestling", in 1971, despite being a wrestler since the early 60's, and holding the British Welterweight title at the time of the book being written, so did McManus have editing rights and keep him out of the book?
Was he seen as a McManus type, but who would travel anywhere, when Mick himself was starting to want to be home early on a Saturday night? All the results that I have seen of Brian Maxine, show that he had no issues wrestling in far flung places like Torquay, Bristol, Ipswich, and others, where he would probably have had no chance of making it back home to bed, so perhaps someone who didn't mind staying in endless cheap digs, as long as he had the belt and the glory?
He really did record music LP's, so did he see Wrestling as a way to promote the thing he really wanted to do, to be a country singer?
As already mentioned, Steve (William) Regal has told the story of how when WWF (I think it was WWF, not WCW), were touring the UK, and asked him to come and try out for them, he faced off against Brian Maxine, and Maxine let Regal thrown him all over the place, and took a few heavy landings, to help make Regal look good.
This is a great opening post by Anglo Italian who, as he so often does, reaches to the depths of what professional wrestling was all about. I was surprised when I initially read negative comments about him as my memories are purely of the love to hate type. Maybe partly because I stopped going to the wrestling around 1977 and so didn't see him go on and on and on.
A slight, but only slight, contrary opinion is that I didn't see him as rising above Street or Saint (until Steet left Joint) but felt he should have been given a bigger push to replace McManus. Maybe that's because the Morrell bills often didn't have a clear main event.
But the question was, why Brian? We have heard from others that Dale Martin weren't keen on forking out. Possibly Brian paying for his own publicity cards and leaflets and creating his own publicity that cost promoters nothing was enough for them to give him a chance. We don't know who had the idea but I reckon he sold them the Goldbelt idea, they gave him the chance and he seized it to develop the persona. He had the charisma to make it all work, and enough ability to make it all believable.
Hello Anglo Italian, I do not know who first came up with the idea of Brian Maxine's cocky, arrogant act (wearing a crown, throwing photos of himself to the crowd and being billed as Goldbelt), Brian Maxine himself or the promoters, but the idea worked. I think that this act did really wind up the crowd and they all wanted to see Brian Maxine get beaten (just like they wanted to see Mick McManus get beaten) but they rarely did. The promoters were clever enough to see that Brian Maxine's act worked and the crowds reacted to him and if he was on the bill crowds would probably be higher. As soon as the promoters realised they were making extra money because of Brian Maxine's image as Goldbelt Maxine they kept it going. Maybe Clayton Thompson was a more skilled technical wrestler but it was Maxine who made more money for the promoters so it was Maxine who the promototers wanted as champion.
Thanks for addressing the question, John.
I am finding this absolutely fascinating. Goldbelt Maxine enjoyed the biggest push ever - and yet most comments below about his work are unfavourable.
So, John, you think his gimmick got him ahead. I wonder whose idea it was - his, or a promoter's?
It would be interesting to see how it was all planned out. He became Welterweight champion on 30th September 1969. He was already billed to defend the title against Kalmen Gaston on 31st October in Coventry. (I don't think we've ever uncovered a title defence being billed before the new champion had won the title - but the planning must have been in place.)
When was the first sighting of the word "Goldbelt." When did he first wear his crown?
Dale Martins had nabbed the Welterweight title from the northerners - and then wasted it, with Sargeant still limited, by and large, to opening bouts.
Maybe, just for once, we can believe every word written by Russell Plummer here:
In The Wrestler November 1969 edition, where Maxine's title victory is reported, he is still not referred to as Goldbelt, though the insistent use of the expression Gold Belt makes me think something was in the pipeline.
I have spoken to Brian Maxine about all this. Unfortunately, he didn't speak back very forthcomingly at all. All I could extract was how he chose his ring name of Maxine.
Such an almighty push is worth delving into, in my opinion.
And of course with this being wrestling - do we really think there was any gold in his belt?
I think that it was Brian Maxine's act of being really cocky and arrogant (wearing a crown and throwing pictures of himself to the crowd etc) that wound up the crowds and made them hate him so much that they even cheered Mick McManus when they wrestled each other, that kept him at the top. The promotors would have loved this sort of reaction from a crowd.
I loved watching Brian Maxine and his cocky act always makes me laugh when I see it, even now after seeing it so many times.
Steve Regal mentioned Maxine in his autobiography and praised him but did say that he was known as a genuinely tough guy in the dressing room.
The throat saw was what bumped him up the card. It was loathed. He had two bangers of fights with Ivan Penzecoff in Northampton. The return topped the bill. We all wanted to see him against McManus. McManus would have been cheered.
possibly this should be in light workers.Brian needed light workers. was shown bout in his sixties not much change . Brian stance was that of a boxer,not much mobility even when I his prime.The sawing move wasn't received well by the punters and the workers.Brian oversold moves,his sawing was used four times In one bout the fourth I was reversed he left it alone then it was patently innocuous. Brian was a great self publicist,his faux anomysity towards Mike judd was well played and he got away with pushing Kent whereas as Garfield and Ginsberg got restrictions. Brian had total self belief and was good at using the media available ,even returning from smooth .cranium to full head of hair he used to his advantage and rode the fellow workers jokes ,yeah they all talking bout my Irish,just proves you don't have to be good you just need to tell em your good.
Thanks Ron.
As usual I have to push to get to the depths of analysis that interest me.
He irritated you. Powerlock couldn't stand him.
And yet he had more success than most wrestlers could dream of.
My question has to be WHY did he have this success?
Why was he The Chosen One?