It was still there when I happened to walk past in 2021.

Some of the common points that came up in wrestlers I talked to: With independents, you had more freedom about which dates to take where and what payoff you negotiated for a particular appearance. The downsides were that you didn't have as much certainty about how much work you'd get (making it harder to cut back hours or leave your day job) and that you'd often get offers from multiple promoters for the same date. That could be tricky deciding who to keep sweet, particularly if you made a commitment for one show and had to decide whether to break that commitment for a later offer from a promoter who'd give you more dates in the long run. With Joint, you could get more regular dates per month, didn't have to worry about scheduling (though you might have to do some insane travel), and had a more reliable income as you negotiated a fixed fee per match, regardless of the venue. (The exceptions being the Royal Albert Hall, where you got a bonus, and televised matches, which theoretically had a standard fee for everyone.) The downsides were that you had less control over your schedule and, while in theory you could accept or reject any proposed dates as you wished, in practice you had to take the offered schedule or face getting a seriously reduced schedule the next month as the promoters made a point about their power. Others have also discussed here that, while individual Joint promoters varied their style and preferences, generally you had more scope for outlandish/violent/unconventional performances on the independents.

Here's how he told the story to me: Not everything went to plan however, with one incident showing just how vital Daddy had become to Joint’s promotional strategy. “At Croydon, Pat Patton got in the ring at the start, I think against me and Lucky Gordon. Shirley was still on the outside because the kids used to group round him as he came out. We got hold of Pat and knocked him about a bit and chucked him out the ring. Shirley had got his arm on the side of the ring and Pat landed on his arm and broke it. He still wrestled on that night and the next night Max had got him out and he were wrestling with it in a plaster.” He also made the point that one of the reasons Daddy always did tag matches (and was in the ring for a lower share of the match) was to reduce the risk of him being injured to the point of missing shows, which would have been a major problem with him being the main focus.

A couple of notes to add to AngloItalian and David's info: 1) What makes catch wrestling unique is that it's a legitimate contest but allows both pins (usually for a three count rather than amateur's one) and submissions. That sounds like it makes no sense as they are such different targets, but in reality going for a pin will often force the opponent to bridge/push out, exposing a limb that can then be snatched in a submission. 2) Kev Lloyd from the video David posted also works as a pro wrestler and has done training seminars on adapting competitive catch wrestling for "performance" pro wrestling. 3) I interviewed Kendo Nagasaki a few years back (sadly after I'd done the book) and he talked quite a bit about his catch background: The book also reveals Thornley’s extensive time training in catch wrestling at the infamous Snake Pit in Wigan. He notes to FSM that “One only uses [submission] wrestling when you want to put somebody in their places you might say. You only use what you would call submission wrestling if somebody decides they're going to be awkward with you.” Such skills did prove useful at the start of his career when promoters wanted to push the masked character to a far greater degree than your typical rookie, including overcoming veterans. “My biggest problem was with the old guys. I’m only 22, 23 and if I had gone in as Peter Thornley and I gone on with Jim Hussey... Well, I probably wouldn't go on with Jim Hussey in my first few matches to start with and if I did, Jim Hussey will probably be beating me as a newcomer in this business. “So I was in a unique position. I came in with a mask and unknown from the public's point of view, but some of the wrestlers knew I was this 22 year old who was green as grass as far as show wrestling was concerned, but they got a rumour that I've been to Wigan and that buzz went round. A lot of the old timers thought ‘Well, we'll try him’ and a lot of that went on but I turned out to be a lot better than they thought I was. “My early career was based on fighting my way up the ladder and making sure that I even got a bit of the show because these old timers would steal a bit of the show off like you wouldn't believe. Geoff Portz and Dennis Mitchell, people like that  were show-nickers: if you went in and you weren't prepared to force your hand a little bit, you wouldn't get anything. You'd come out of there and you'd done nothing except got your hand up at the end perhaps if you were lucky. “So for the first year and a half of my career I was sort of building up a reputation and Jack Atherton used to feed me occasionally with lads that he thought we weren't going anywhere and let me loose on them so that I could establish myself as you might say. And he used to give me extra few quid if I had a bit of blood flowing. “So then I got over this first year and a half when I was not really in with the top lads so much. They kept me away from them and then I got entered into tag matches with Count Bartelli to quiet me down because I got a bit of a reputation of being dangerous to be honest. Geoff’s job was to sort of drag me out of there if I was getting a bit too ambitious and that worked well because that gave me a bit of an inroad into the show business [side] where the top lads like Steve Viedor and people like that were starting to trust me and I could get in with them and they didn't not to expect me to do anything silly.” “Then I got calmed down a bit and I realized that, you know, you've got to earn a living out of this business, you can't go on like I was. So I calmed down a bit and then sort of got introduced into more and more of the top guys. And then as time goes on with Kendo Nagasaki, of course it becomes a 100 percent show. When I came back the second time (in 1986), we used all the gimmicks you can think of, throwing salt and talking to ancestors and doing all these things. That was total gimmick, wasn't it?” Thornley notes that even as his in-ring style evolved, his reputation still preceded him, causing some wariness that may not have been justified. “Those reputations last, they don't die. You're not as capable when you're 36, 40 years as you were when you were 26. You’re not but your reputation still is there and people are still a bit wary – ‘Is he as good as he was?’ and some might try you out but a lot don’t. You can't keep that edge. I don't care who you are or how good you were you. If you're going to be what you might call [real] wrestling fit, you can't be on the road traveling up and down the country and keep that edge. You can have the skill and the knowledge, but if you get somebody younger with that same skill and knowledge, you've not got a cat in hell's chance.”

Dixon also returned to the Apollo for a one-off show (headlined by the Bushwhackers) around 2002. I believe it was directly across the road from the site of the former Ardwick Stadium ("the Blood Tub") which was by then a carpet shop.

As far as I know, he only did one match in the UK, for FWA at the Coventry Skydome. He teamed with Paul Birchill and Paul Travell against Thunder (Tony Walsh's son), Drew McDonald and Raj Ghosh.

A couple of non-public shows: Colin Joynson and Tony St Clair did a match at a home for people with learning disabilities. Monty Swann did a match with a Greek waiter on mats in a small function hall in a hotel in front of the other staff. He'd been bigging up his supposed wrestling expertise to his colleagues and wanted to show off by doing a match so hired Swann plus John Kenny as ref. It soon became clear he was not the seasoned pro he'd implied.

LDN did a series of shows in Circus tents a few years back. They did a partnership with a touring circus where they'd run a show the night before the Circus started and share the publicity/ticket admin. They also did a "buy a wrestling ticket/get a circus ticket half price" promotion.

Not really in the scope of this forum, but there's a current US wrestler called John Hennigan (best known as John Morrison in WWE) who changes his name every match so it's Johnny and then a surname that fits the promotion or area (eg Johnny Impact or Johnny Downunder).

If anyone's interested, I put together a YouTube playlist of British wrestler appearances on French TV: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLq8CDItFqmRjFhYf7CFMhcw88AStF7s0J

The listing is for "Miner's Welfare Scheme", which would have been what provided social and support facilities for miners. I did find a mention of the Coalville scheme having a swimming baths that could be boarded over to use as a hall in winter, so that could well be the venue. https://www.dmm.org.uk/welfare/1929f-01.htm

Disqualification = one person breaks the rules to the point the referee ends the match and they lose. No contest = two main possibilities. One is that neither man has broken rules badly enough to be disqualified, but the referee has lost control and ends the match with no winner. The other is that one man is injured and can't continue. Normally in British wrestling the other man would be asked if he wanted to accept the win. The "sporting thing" would be to refuse, at which point the referee calls a no contest. (Jim Breaks was not always sporting.) Very rarely you'd have a no contest for another reason such as the referee being unable to continue. It's effectively any match that has to be stopped without a winner. Draw = the match has gone the scheduled number of rounds and either nobody has scored a fall or it's one fall each. The shift to more one-fall matches was partly increasing American influence and partly to allow for shorter matches on TV. The same happened with the switch from five minutes per rounds to three minutes (and many years earlier, from 10 to 5 at some venues.)

As I saw it, the wrestler doing the throw had his feet inside the mat. The action only has to stop once neither man has both "supporting parts" (ie feet or legs) inside the circle. The orange ring is a warning area that is part of the mat. https://cdn3.sportngin.com/attachments/document/0045/0583/Wrestling_Rules__Scoring___Photos.pdf has some good photos.

A little tidbit from when I interviewed Johnny Kincaid: Meanwhile Johnny Kincaid points to Marino breaking tradition as a matchmaker. "He came up with the Caribbean Sunshine Boys name, which certainly helped my career. But one thing I really remember is that before then if you started out at a particular weight, you often stayed billed at that weight for the rest of your career, even if it looked silly when you piled on a few pounds and clearly weren't a welterweight any more. When Mike was matchmaking he gave me the chance to move up divisions and wrestle some of the bigger guys."

Just popped up on the Talking Pictures TV site (which is free but you have to register): Runaround, kids TV show hosted by Mike Read, with a Haystacks vs Wilson match in the studio: https://t.co/Vc2hQitvFE

Here's a playlist I put together of all the French TV matches with British wrestlers: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLq8CDItFqmRjFhYf7CFMhcw88AStF7s0J

While I knew him through wrestling, he was also our neighbour for three years. John was unique and there was no mistaking which was his house, but he was always extremely kind and courteous to my family. As with David Franklin, I always enjoyed picking his mind as somebody who'd been watching wrestling since the sixties and was still a fan today, and would give honest opinions about the good and bad of every era. It was also greatly amusing after moving all my stuff to be able to point out to my wife that I had only the second biggest collection of memorabilia in our street.

His mother Lois worked as Mal Sander's valet/manager Loretta.

Alan Dennison proposed Len Ironside crop his hair, wear yellow makeup and portray a Chinaman. He rejected it partly on taste grounds and partly for fear of what happened when he sweated and the makeup ran!

There were a few shows from a holiday camp in Prestatyn in the mid-late 60s. They had some big matches/names that you wouldn't normally get on camp shows (eg Billy Robinson vs Gwyn Davies) but I seem to recall somebody saying they didn't get good crowds because it was changeover say so most camp guests were either leaving or arriving during the broadcast.