Thanks Ken, Would loved to have seen that Jones/Bridges clash along with the Marino/Rudge contest. Wonder if this poster was around 1980 as Bridges is wearing the original World Heavyweight belt in the picture, and below describes him as the former champion.

Strangely enough there's also an Adam's .v. Colt bout on youtube.

An absolute HUMAN DYNAMO of a wrestler, loved to watch him.

Well deserved

Terrific wrestler and entertainer. The lyrics of Bob Hope's old signature tune says it all for me "Thanks For The Memories."

It will be a long time before he's forgotten. R.I.P

I have an old TVTimes schedule which has Mal Kirk billed from Canada! Possibly Mal had returned to Blighty from a tour of Canada so a misunderstanding emerged.

Here's the below enlarged;

2 From Ebay

Very sad news indeed. The following are few items from my collection. I do remember Mr.Yasu Fuji having a half dozen or so televised contests while working for Joint Promotions before leaving for the (non televised) Independent Circuit (probably for better pay). Commentator Kent Walton stated Mr.Fuji was ranked in the world top 10 during his stint with Joint. He was part of a successful tag team partnership with Canadian Mighty/Big John Quinn in the U.K and was Quinn's ring second during Quinn's challenge for the British version of the World Heavyweight Title. In a memorable televised contest against British Heavyweight Champion Tony St.Clair he thought he'd gained a 2-1 victory over the Champion only to have the fall disallowed for placing his feet on the ropes as leverage. Mr.Fuji then walked out of the contest. Another occasion Mr. Fuji delivered a chop to the head a restrained Big Daddy during a challenge by Big Daddy. Before each contest Mr.Fuji would go through the Sumo ceremony of stomping, bowing and salt throwing. Hope you find more mementos of your Dad. BELOW - Taken from The Sun Newspaper 1980. All below taken from RINGSPORT magazine.

A superheavyweight by the name of "The Great Antonio" billed at around 6' 5" and weighing about 30 stones toured Japan in 1977 and before being defeated by Antonio Inoki he regularly competed in 1 against 3, 4 even 5 matches. Heaven knows how entertaining these contests were but he wrestled stiff against Inoki and paid the price.

There is/was an interview with Bruno on Youtube which i have previously mentioned on another thread on "Heritage" where he stated that while wrestling in Japan against Antonio Inoki the Japanese star tried to shoot on him while wrestling in a bout for Giant Baba's promotion. Sammartino states he knew what Inoki was up to as Inoki was about to jump ship and form his own promotion with Karl Gotch. Bruno believed Inoki and Gotch had colluded to try and make him along with Baba's promotion look bad before leaving and forming their own organisation. This backfired as Sammartino realised what was happening in the ring and was too strong for Inoki. He states he never trusted Inoki or Gotch again.

Not sure i go along with that statement. Dynamite comes across as a bitter man to me. Great wrestler with little man syndrome.

You're welcome lads. Yes Ellen worked with many artists Jim Steinman put a girl group together in the late 1980's called Pandora's Box which included Ellen the album featured the song "It's All Coming Back To Me" several years before both Meatloaf and Celine Dion had hits with it. She also worked with Blue Oyster Cult.

The Kendo vs Brookes/Regal hypnotism tag was the straw that broke the camel's back for me, completely ludicrous. My interest had been waning for a while as the pool of wrestlers grew alarmingly smaller by the week. Shirley should have been allowed to retire in the early 1980s. Illness and age had taken it's toll on him by the mid 80s and he appeared smaller than men he had once dwarfed, and for all i have a soft spot for Shirls his tags were monotonous. Perhaps in theory an amalgamation of Joint and the Independents might have made the sport last a few more years but that was never going to happen in reality. Having read much about American wrestling in the U.S. magazines prior to it's initial broadcast over here i was disappointed with much of what i would later view. Count-outs, disqualifications, foreign objects, interference from outside the ring and endless gobshite-ing prior to a contest abounded without much actual wrestling taking place. Personally, i would have preferred to have watched the European tournaments and some of the Japanese promotions instead. Following this i just returned to reading my late Dad's old wrestling magazines and snippets.

I think he as billed as "The Gloucester Gladiator" and trained with the Collins brothers. Small lad with a bodybuilder physique, came unstuck in a battle of strength against Alan Dennison in a televised bout.

Sorry but the/your web service has ruined a great site. I particularly don't like the fact that only parts of a page can be accessed and not the entire page, heaven only knows who came up with that idea. Unfortunately i think my time for contributing and sharing has come to end while this new format is in place.

Oh dear, i preferred the previous format i'm afraid 😏

Part 2.