Who was the best crowd pulling British wrestler who was never a champion?

According to the newspapers Ski Li Li had a number of personal issues. One of these was covered in the Daily Mirror in December 1973 under his real name. From online records it would appear he died in 1974.

As highlighted by Powerlock, Ski Hi Lee was a globetrotter.

Lee also wrestled in Australia in 1957. During that tour Lee unsuccessfully challenged Lou Thesz for the NWA World Heavyweight Title on 3 occasions.

i'm not sure if you'd say they were big crowd pullers but what about the Wildman of Borneo and Klondyke Bill? Both big names on the independents,

Did Kendo get any title chances during his unmasked period. After all, there had been such a fuss about him not being allowed to fight for a title in the early years.

While he did get a title towards the end of his career, in the TV years Kendo Nagasaki is the most obvious example I guess.

Who was the best crowd pulling British wrestler who was never a champion?

It is surprisingly difficult isn't it. Even the men we say didn't need titles (McManus, Pallo, Kellett, Logan) all had their reward at one time or another.

I was going to say Masambula or Kwango, but do either count as British?

Mick McMichael was on the bills for years, but hardly a crowd puller.

Dominic Pye, but then he didn't match his dad.

So if we discount Jack's feeble Northern Counties claim I'll go for Jack. If not, The Ghoul. Or Dominic.

Argh. I don't know.

There's always popular Mick McMichael.

(Ruslan will now show us that photo of Mick and Steve wearing belts, whatever they were).

Okay Peter Kaye.

Good question Romeo. That's good in the infuriating sense.

Southern Area Heavyweight title was a title that was won, lost and even defended. Whether there was an actual belt is another story. But it was a different title than the South Eastern one.

Northern Area was similar to Southern Area but used less often, Northern Counties is a different title that seemed to be confined to one or two promotional groups ,"Champion of Northern England" - well that looks like one of those 1930s billings where everyone was the champion or ex-champion of somewhere. So many wrestlers were billed as a nominal champion of some place. e.g. Trinidad, East Africa or Kent. Not trying to take anything away from Jack Pye. He was such a drawcard he didn't need a title.

Thanks for your post on Northern Counties titles Ruslan, But you didn't explain anything about the variations in weight.

I wonder if the original belt was for something like "Voted best wrestler" .

No way could Morrell and Allan both hold the same "Weight belt.

In the opening post, Romeo asked "did Pallo ever hold titles?"

I believe that Jackie Pallo won the British Heavy Middleweight Championship from Bert Royal on 21 April 1969 in Nottingham.

I have also read that the date of Mr TV's title victory was 12 April 1969 so perhaps an expert can confirm the correct date.

At any rate, it appears that Pallo dropped the championship back to Royal before the end of the month of April in 1969 so Jackie's title reign was quite a brief one.

Cheers!

Ed

On Paul Lincoln promotions Mike Marino was always introduced as the World Mid-Heavyweight champion but I don't remember seeing him with the belt or actually defending it...

Hi Ruslan, your post on Northern Counties champions was interesting.

I wonder at what weight class this belt was for.

There was a big difference in weights for instance-Norman Morrell to Johnny Allan was a few stones.

I'm not sure that if two good wrestlers really fought, the lighter one would be able to give this amount of weight away.

There definitely was a SE H/W belt because I saw it presented occasionally. Other times you had to use your imagination. How real it was is another matter as Paul Lincoln wasn't famous for his spending prowess...

So Les Kellett has it, then?

Good post Callsignmag. I used to believe, when I first went,because at one time all of the titles of note were held by Norman Morrell's men. As they were the only bills that I saw at first, so I believed that they were the best. Any promoter( incidentally I thought that all promoters told the truth then), could call his man "Champion of this or that " and few people had enough knowledge to contradict .

Anyway back to the original question, there are various reports that Jack was at one time British heavyweight AMATEUR champion(is that allowed?) and even holding the professional title for a short while.

How are people going to disprove it? Anyway if he was Northern counties heavyweight champion, isn't that a title?

This post is a little tongue in cheek, because I knew what you meant by titles.

Ok, Pye it is, I am making post on him, and my recent research.

Hmmm? This site has some brilliant contributions and I learn something I didn't know every time I log on. But championships? Yes, things have changed with the internet in that results are published but going back to Jack Pye's time and jumping forward right through to the 60s and 70s, surely titles were meaningless with different wrestlers being announced as "champions" even though they may have lost the title elsewhere or maybe never even having won one in the first place.

I well remember Al Hayes winning the South Eastern Heavyweight belt at the Hackney Empire under Paul Lincoln's stewardship, then fighting for it later that week at Leyton Baths after being announced as the challenger and failing to win, whilst the following weekend suddenly coming up with the belt after being introduced as having won the SE heavyweight champion the previous weekend! Later that week at the Granada Edmonton, Al was on the bill again but this time no mention of a title - although that night provided a first for me when the MC asked spectators if there was a doctor in the house after Dr Death had pummelled Rebel Ray Hunter into a bloody mess! It all helped to bring colour to a great night's entertainment but the belts really meant very little back then. Promoters couldn't get away with that now with so many "fans" going online "knowing everything!"

I've mentioned it here in passing before, but as a young fan in the early 60s I was thrilled to often help clean Al Hayes red MG and used to love speaking to him, but I learned quickly what type of questions were out of bounds and they included who held championship belts!!

Of course ,really It has to be Jack Pye, if he never won a title. But did he?

For me it has to be Jack Pye.

Cheers

The Ghoul. Big crowds always at Newcastle to see him and I don't remember a masked man in those days being allowed to fight for a title.

I was going to suggest Jack Pye, he fought for the title but was unsuccessful, Jack was a huge draw