Australian wrestler Norman Lowndes has passed away in Florida at the age of 83. Lowndes had lived in the USA for many years. Lowndes began his ring career as Murphy the Surfie on the Sydney club circuit. He graduated to Jim Barnett‘s World Championship Wrestling promotion where he became known as Murphy the Magnificent and was managed by American worker Playboy Gary Hart. Norman wrestled in Britain as Maurice LaRue and Wild Red Berry. Lowndes gained much success in North America as Norman Frederick Charles III teaming with fellow Aussie Lord Jonathan Boyd in the tag team of the Royal Kangaroos. I will post again when I return from a wrestling tour (as a tour manager, ring announcer and commentator) in Outback Queensland. RIP Norman

I have found the "Kendo Nagasaki New Book" topic to be very interesting. SaxonWolf (who is one of my favourite posters) noted that Nagasaki claimed that he "came up with the ladder match and hypnosis ideas!" Not having read the book, I would like to ask whether Kendo actually took credit for creating the ladder match and the hypnosis angle? Whilst Nagasaki may have introduced the ladder match and the hypnosis angle to British wrestling, he certainly did not invent either of these questionable additions to professional wrestling. Canadian wrestler Dan Kroffat was the innovator of the ladder match. The first such match that I can locate took place on Tuesday 3 October 1972 in Red Deer, Alberta, Canada for the Stampede promotion. In that first ladder match Dan Kroffat defeated Tor Kamata. On the undercard Kendo Nagasaki beat Super Hawk. Other interesting names on that event were George Gordienko and Lennie Hurst. I'm sure that my mate, Ron Historyo, has acknowledged that Nagasaki borrowed the ladder match concept from Kroffat. I believe that Kendo introduced the ladder match to British wrestling in 1976 - around 4 years after he saw the original occurrence in Canada during his 1972 tour. The angle of Nagasaki hypnotising Robbie Brookside was, I believe, played out in 1988 in England. In Australia in 1969, American manager Playboy Gary Hart used this angle (in a more subtle fashion) to turn babyface Mario Milano into a heel. I'm sure that hypnosis angle would have been used in America way before 1969. Cheers! Ed