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

Dear Colleagues This question is obviously inspired by the recent topic entitled "Spiros Arion". I didn't want this conversation to possibly get lost in that topic so I thought it might be cool to establish this thread to get contributors' opinions. In one of his books, Adrian Street stated that Max Crabtree booked Spiros Arion to play the role of the world heavyweight champion in England in 1979. Street explained that Crabtree paid for the manufacture of Arion's belt and installed Spiros as the world heavyweight champion. We now know that the title had no lineage and, as such, Arion had no claim to being recognised as the world heavyweight champion in 1979. If not Arion had not accepted the booking in 1979 then who would you suggest as the wrestler to be installed as the world heavyweight champion in Britain? Cheers! Ed

G'day All, Does anyone have an opinion of Dave Morgan that they'd like to share? The little I've seen of Morgan on YouTube indicates to me that he was a quite a good wrestler. I'm aware that Dave was born in Wales, raised in England and that following a promising career in the 1960s in Great Britain he wrestled in Europe, America, and Mexico before settling in Germany. A good profile on Morgan can be found in the A-Z listings at https://www.wrestlingheritage.co.uk/mmorgan.htm Considering that Dave won the World Light Heavyweight Championship, the Americas Tag Team Title and the United States Junior Heavyweight Championship during his career, I'm a bit surprised that I haven't more about Morgan. Was his career in Britain not long enough for him to be well remembered or not noteworthy enough for him to be lauded? Any comments would be very much appreciated. Cheers! Ed

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