Dear Colleagues
This question is obviously inspired by the recent topic entitled "Spiros Arion".
I didn't want this conversation to possibly get lost in that topic so I thought it might be cool to establish this thread to get contributors' opinions.
In one of his books, Adrian Street stated that Max Crabtree booked Spiros Arion to play the role of the world heavyweight champion in England in 1979.
Street explained that Crabtree paid for the manufacture of Arion's belt and installed Spiros as the world heavyweight champion. We now know that the title had no lineage and, as such, Arion had no claim to being recognised as the world heavyweight champion in 1979.
If not Arion had not accepted the booking in 1979 then who would you suggest as the wrestler to be installed as the world heavyweight champion in Britain?
Cheers!
Ed
Who was considered among the best wrestlers on the Continent in the 70s? CWAssn had Otto Wanz...would he agree to work in Britain? Good question.
In the 1970's there were 3 major wrestling organizations in America: AWA of Gagne, WWWF and NWAlliance...I am not sure if British promoters would be happy to welcome any of the top men of those wrestling promotions.
In the early 1900's Jack Carkeek of USA was called King of Wrestlers in London and after winning 1904 Oxford Theatre open to the world catch wrestling tourney was generally accepted as the world heavyweight champion. He also was world champion (since 1899) of Britain based promotion run by famous Tom Cannon.
In the 1930's Jack Sherry of Alaska was world heavyweight champion wrestler in Britain. He was probably the most famous foreigner who held world title. Legitimate wrestler, with great shooting skills.
I recall Frank Sexton of Ohio who during his famous tour overseas was usually billed as world champion both on the Continent and in Britain. By that time his AWAssn of Boston world title became defunct and he dropped it to the young wrestler called Don Eagle. Since foundation of NWAlliance all other USA based world titles became considered regional. AWAssn title was transformed into the Eastern States title so Sexton decided to travel around the world.
The smart move would have been Big John Quinn, who arrived the same year in the UK. Big, strong wrestler, great on the microphone, had a natural ability to whip the crowd up.
Great post, thanks so much. Appreciate! Spiros was foreigner, which tells me that for some reason big boss wanted the champ not to be of British birth or at least not well known to the British wrestling communities, fans and etc. That is self-explanatory though, lack of info and knowledge makes it very easy to advertise, promote and call wrestler a champ. And yes of course you always can add something like in 1974 in Brazil he won a 40 best men in Americas elimination series which lasted 3 months and was crowned as new one and only world heavyweight champion wrestler and here's the gold diamond studded belt which makes this claim as solid...as this old.