Controversy was at the very heart of professional wrestling and in the good old days we were skilfully manipulated by the promoters into being outraged by injustices.
One of the big ongoing controversies in the early seventies was whether Nagasaki should be allowed to challenge for the British Heavyweight Championship. It went on and on with talk of him having to remove his mask, being willing or unwilling to unmask, and George E. Gillette making endless rants about the unfairness of it all. All good ongoing stuff, but of course masked wrestlers didn't need titles, though a dash of controversy sure helped their cause.
Kent Walton was central to controversies because he told us what we should be thinking. So we watched in amazement as the Black Diamonds were allowed to wear protective helmets. He assured us they were "perfectly legal" and "sanctioned by the board of control", but then he sided with their opponents when they complained about them. Single-mouthedly he managed to confuse us and make us outraged.
Which other wrestling controversies did Members buy into?
A match at Liverpool Stadium in the 1970s, mask V mask, between Kung Fu, who we later learned was Eddie Hamill & The Exorcist, who was rumoured to be Clayton Thomson at the time. A main event,which unusually at the time was a one fall decider. Eddie duly took the win, and we waited with bated breath to see if the rumours of The Exorcist being Clayton were true. The MC, Stan Rylands, said that the rules stipulated that as it was a one fall contest, the "loser" wasn't required to unmask. This didn't stop The Exorcist snatching Kung Fus mask off during the uproar! Eddie had to cover his head with a towel and bolted for the dressing room.. Always struck me as an arrangement of convenience.. As it was the first time I had seen a main event decided by one fall.