I’ve always rolled my eyes when a wrestler has just had a flaying, lying inert on the mat, close to death, when he reaches down and adjusts his knee bandage!

There are some good workers there, but I’m not keen on the match-ups!

Irony?

How many times has a wrestler had his picture on a poster, wearing a walking out or suit jacket. ?🫠

Spot on, OST.

Repeating a post from a few years back, I was watching an old episode of the Bill and was pleasantly surprised to see Brian pop up in a scene, playing a medic attending a stricken man in the street. He also had dialogue!

London to a brick, it’s ‘Bomber’

I think Bob has probably gone as far as he’s able to with this hold. I don’t see him laying on his back, with his opponent held suspended above him, ala George’s version.

There’s several (at least) on YouTube, from the States which look very legit, as the workers take no time in literally kicking them out of the ring (they do way more harm to the interloper than they do to their opponents). Live, in England, Australia and Japan I’m struggling to recall just one incident. Best I can do : Repeating a long ago told story, In 1964, a guy later known as the ‘Skull’ rushed from the back of the Sydney Stadium and slammed a chair over Killer Kowalski’s head as the Killer was making his way to the dressing sheds.Pretty unfazed, Walter grabbed the chair and whacked Skull with it. Decision, a draw! The Skull was supposedly banned for life, but returned within the year. Sometime later, the Skull became more widely known, as the number two, in the local Nazi party (I would imagine their numbers wouldn’t have made up a football team). He later tried to become a wrestler, under the auspices of one Roy Heffernan, but Roy quickly realised due in part, to the Skull’s very poor eyesight, he would be a danger to his fellow workers and gave him a job as crew man for Roy’s small wrestling promotion. I last saw the Skull at a couple of shows, probably over a decade ago, still noisy, but much more laid back!

Hi guys. With deference to all. Just my 2 cents worth. If I’m wrestling in a gym or similar, say 150 years ago and my opponent and I had agreed to keep wrestling until one of us says ‘enough’ and at some stage I have the guy’s arm up his back, or I find myself sitting over him with his shin and ankle tucked under my arm and I rear back and twist the knee sideways at the same time (unlike in pro wrestling, where the ‘single leg boston’ is applied by folding the leg in a straight and safe manner), or if I take his ankle and twist it violently and my opponent hollers ‘enough’, and I’ve never set foot in a faraway Asian country, then I’m going to think, I’m on to something. I might even set up a ‘lessons in self-defence’ school! Of course it is entirely possible, that someone fifty years before the above scenario, had stumbled on the same ‘submission’ holds. Maybe they expanded their repertoire, maybe they investigated counters to the holds they now believed they invented. Did they not know that ’everything new, is old’? I’ve struggled poorly over the years, trying to find topics that would spark discussion and now I’m not quite sure how the photo posted, started this particular debate?! As Jimmy Greaves loved saying ‘Wrestling’s a funny old game’.

Great stuff!

I can imagine George as a younger man, before the ‘here’s my hand, take a leg, try to get my foot, peek a boo’ gimmick, he could have been working in a style, later used for our great delight, by Johnny Saint.

Repeating a post from way back, I was there on the night of Stevie boys hat-trick of wins. The MC announced they had a very special person, to hand the prize to the victor. Taking an age to reach the ring from behind the curtain, came a face and frail figure I knew so well, however my brain could just not get to grips with the name on my lips. The MC then proclaimed loud and clear “ Lou Marco”! Well that couldn’t be right, because the little fella was DEAD! Well, of course Lou wasn’t brown bread. About six years before that night, a school mate, serving on the cruise ship the Canberra, had dropped anchor at Sydney and my mum and dad put him up for his one night in Sydney. Quizzing him on all things wrestling (he was a regular attendee at the Fairfield Halls), I asked him if Lou, among other geriatric wrestling identities were still working the halls. I don’t recall if he hesitated or not, but he told me ‘no, he died of a heart attack’. So that was nice.

Alan, ‘Tracing Garfield’ was a beautiful piece of detective work, that had me salivating for more. I tried twice to reach out to his restauranter daughter, but to no avail. Did anyone think to ask his nephew, who eventually supplied us with the overview of Alan, if he kept in touch with her and if not, does someone still have an email address for him???????? Anglo. He was a terrific worker the three times I saw him at the Brighton stadium, in the early 60’s. I can only imagine what he must have been like in the 50’s.

A bit of a mystery man. Libnan says he wrestled in Singapore and the States. Kirk Beatty would be the go to man, however I haven’t heard from him since he reported his computer had croaked. I’m only a ten minute car ride away and have recently felt I should pop over, but I don’t want to intrude, if he has decided not to communicate.

Before I’m told to write one hundred lines of “I must try to not write misleading titles” I shall in my defense point out, that over the years, here on Heritage, Mick’s claim has popped up every so often and I was hoping to put a stop to it. However, perhaps I could muddy the waters by asking, was it Mick who first presented the claim? (Poster and and handbill experts from around the country will be frantically perusing their collection to winkle out the dastardly promoter who may have propagated the lie).😎 Apologies to those who may have thought they were to be reading a list of Mick’s Down Under scuffles, based on my errant ‘thread title’

If it was in Glasgow, the Scots crowd went home happy that night!

Terrific research by all! Great stuff, although sometimes like wading through treacle !🤗🤔

The Guy Mitchell that Big John Marshall worked with was probably the “original Canadian Guy Mitchell” as initially quoted. This is a story I have posted before. For several weeks, commentator Sammy Menacker had informed the wrestling fans that Guy Mitchell would be arriving soon. Looking at the magazines at the time I was underwhelmed, as he seemed to be a mid-card worker. However one Friday evening at the Sydney Stadium, a sensational headliner from the States, turned up unannounced. The Destroyer was in town! Wow! Well, not wow. I was pretty certain after a few minutes, that this wasn’t Dick Beyer, aka The Destroyer. Different body shape, the nose through the mask different, it all just seemed off kilter. The clincher for me was that Guy Mitchell’s name was never mentioned again, they didn’t even bother making up a story as to why he wouldn’t be coming, it was ‘if we don’t mention him, they’ll forget all about it’. Despite his ordinary work, he was pushed to the hilt, made the World Champ and beat guys he shouldn’t have logically been put over, even superstar Bruno Sammartino left Australia without the belt (contrived finishes). In Sydney, Spiros Arion finally defeated ‘Guy’ in front of a packed stadium, sending every male Greek in the City, rushing ringside. The Destroyer certainly appeared to make a hasty exit (I reckon he was trying for another match, before unmasking) but the Greeks were not about to let him out of the ring. He may have given his name as John Hill (his real name) when he unmasked on another night, but not that one, furiously tearing off the hood and departing through the delirious, cheering, jeering throng. I imagine John/Guy met John Marshall in a match at one of the many working men’s clubs or sports clubs. The American imports did have spot shows here and there. I was at one, held ten minutes away from where I lived at a Civic centre, which had a cracking main event of Dominic DeNucci v Buddy Austin. (Those were the days my friend, we’d thought they’d never end, etc).

Here’s Rudi’s picture for the A-Z. Like Adrian, who was Caris, also Plumbley , was Jan, Piet? (Also no pic. of Malloy in the A-Z). Does Adrian have one in his ‘magic cabinet’?