If like me your Live Wrestling Experiences started in the mid '60's-it's easy to think of and remember Great Wrestlers as they appeared and looked THEN!!
But by 1966-some of these Guys had started over 15!! Years before and were well into their Wrestling Careers!
One such and one of my own Favourites was ALAN COLBECK-the WELTERWEIGHT KING
who had also been BRITISH LIGHTWEIGHT CHAMPION in the Beginning!
We have him Defending the latter BELT against JOHNNY STEAD-a Wrestler watched Live
by BERNARD- on TUESDAY 29TH AUGUST 1950 at the ROLLERHOME SKATING RINK
in WAKEFIELD!- And then he looked quite a bit different as to my first sighting of him many
years later!It's easy to forget They were Young once with many Wrestlers starting at the age
of 16!-Photos to follow!
MAIN MASK
1949/50:
Alan Colbeck sure had a lot of belts.
Never seen photo of Alex McKenzie with the title belt.
I don't know what belt this is. Looks very similar design to Alex McKenzie's Scottish Lightweight title.
Like Bernard stated he was a bit four, nevertheless even as a young un I always looked forward to watching him, he made it look so easy, I would call him a clever wrestler, doing what he had to do to satisfy punters and promoters and no more, that why he was able to wrestle for so long and at such a consistent high standard for so long, he didn't burn himself out, he looked after himself.
Dear Main Mask, thanks so much for sharing photo materials, much appreciated. Bills and Programmes do speak...but Photos speak loud.
The photo on the left is similar to the weight that I first saw Alan Colbeck at. He did win the J P version of British lightweight title, at one time within a couple of years he was a welterweight.
If Alan Colbeck is still alive, which is still unknown he will be 93 now.
This is what Bernard told us back in 2015,
"I remember seeing Alan Colbeck in the late 1940's. He was a lightweight then. A dour hard Yorkshireman who showed much more ringcraft than some have given him credit for. Even then he was able to give George Kidd and Johnny Stead good opposition. Readers of this page will know how highly I rate those two wrestlers. At times he held the Lightweight title. In the early 1950's he moved up to Welterweight and held titles at that level also. He gave nothing away and even heavier men knew that they had a fight on their hands against him."
(See we do take notice Bernard. Sometimes).
Alan Colbeck was one of those that I couldn't imagine ever looking old. Then Main Mask comes along with this piece to prove that he was youthful at one time.
I saw Alan Colbeck quite a bit in his earlier days. As we have discussed before on here,he was a good, hard wrestler, but we agreed that if his demeanour had been better , he probably would have gone further in his career.
Any images of Colbeck with his 1950 belt would be highly appreciated. Thanks.