Your first time

Winter Gardens, Weston Super Mare mid eighties. I remember the wrestlers on the bill were, Steve Grey versus Mal Sanders, Grey won with a surfboard submission. Danny Boy Collins versus Dave Fit Finlay. Finlay won by securing a pin fall over Collins by pulling the trunks. Also, Princess Paula versus Teenage Tracy. A walk in the park, for the seasoned Pro that was Princess Paula.

I think the Masked Executioner was the same person as the Masked Exorcist ie. Gordon Corbett with his wife as manager (ess)

My first of many!!!!!

As a result of watching Saturday afternoon wrestling, and persistent nagging of my parents, I ended up going to my first live show in February, 1965, as my eleventh birthday treat. The show, at Preston Public Hall, started at 7.45, but as we hadn’t booked in advance we had to arrive an hour or so before that to find a queue of considerable length. We waited patiently until just after seven when the doors opened and we began to shuffle forward.

Tickets were 7/6, 5/- and 3/6. We went in the 5/- seats, which bought us a place in the balcony. Whilst waiting in the queue my dad gave me his generally unwelcome opinion that these wrestlers of today knew nothing. He had been a regular at Belle Vue, Manchester, in the 1940s and 1950s , and told me he had watched real wrestlers like Bert Assirati and Jack Pye.

  Sitting in our seats looking down at the ring below my senses were dominated by the smell and sight of cigarette fumes in the air. When the ring lights were switched on just before a quarter to eight the swirling smoke was illuminated above the ring. The house lights went down. I’d never imagined that wrestling took place in a darkened hall with a single bright light illuminating the wrestlers in action.

At the Public Hall in those days we saw few of the big television names and certainly none contracted to the television promoters at that time. That was not to say that the shows were any less exciting, or wrestlers any less capable. We enjoyed a mixture of those slightly past their best before dates, such as Dai Sullivan and Jack Dempsey, those in their peak, but out of favour with the television promoters, such as Mike Marino, and those who were destined for greatness, such as Johnny Saint and Wild Angus.  

The Preston Public Hall shows were organised by a reliable independent outfit, Cape Promotions. They put on shows throughout the country. All fans tended to favour either the Joint Promotions or independent camp. I was a fan of the independents because their wrestlers were more colourful, their shows were more exciting, and seats were a shilling cheaper than the Joint Promotions shows at Saul Street Baths.  

There were four contests on that night in February, 1965. There were usually four, only occasionally did promoters treat us to a fifth. As was usual the show started with a couple of good straight wrestlers, Dennis Tracey and Ray Charles. They did the sort of fast, skilful moves that led members of the audience to comment, “These wrestlers are very fit,” and “They say some of it’s fixed. But you’re not telling me these two weren’t really wrestling.”  

It wasn’t until the third contest that things began to really heat up. Unusual that, because the promoters liked to put on a bad guy in the second contest to get the crowd going. Two genuine stars faced each other in the main event, Golden Boy Mike Marino and the American Crusher Verdu.

Even in 1965 Marino had been around too long to deserve the Golden Boy tag, but he was, and remained for many years, one of the post war greats. Marino had previously been one of the big names in the Joint Promotions camp, and so was something of a crowd puller. His opponent, Crusher Oscar Verdu, was a 20 stone giant, a genuine overseas star in those days when independent posters were liberally splattered with contestants allegedly from far flung corners of the world, but more likely to be from Blackpool or Manchester. Marino won when the big man was disqualified.  

The final contest was a tag team bout. On one side were the unlikely pairing of Lord Bertie Topham and the Wildman from Borneo. The promoters claimed Topham was a “real live aristocrat,” but somehow even at the age of eleven I had my doubts. The Wildman walked slowly towards the ring, peering to see his way through the long hair that entirely covered his face. The omens did not seem good for this pair, one of whom didn’t seem to like getting his hands dirty, and the other whose restricted vision resulted in him attacking his own partner. The result was a win for their opponents, Martin Robson and Dave Larsen, who was later to become a television favourite, and then put on a mask, called himself Batman and move to France.  

By 9.45 as the final bell rang I was hoarse, and bitten by the wrestling bug.

Liverpool Stadium - 24th Feb 1978: Pete Curry beat Hans Streiger to gain the European heavyweight Title. Kevin Conneely beat Bobby Barron in a bit of a blood bath. Jim moser beat the Masked Executioner by DQ. Harry Palin beat Terry Jowett