I may have mentioned this earlier in this thread (a few years ago!) but most of the wrestlers I spoke to about McManus were split into two main camps: 1) Those who felt he did protect himself but his box office appeal justified his position. 2) Those who felt he verged more on the manipulative side. One strongly believed (with a mix of annoyance and reluctant admiration) that McManus was very astute at spotting which wrestlers were picking up a following and drawing crowds and would book himself on the same shows and then claim the credit for the crowd size.

(Can't see a direct reply button, but this is to Anglo Italian.) I had a quick look through the listings from the era of midweek shows and McManus was almost exclusively on a Saturday.

Thanks for this, Ron. European wrestling historian Phil Lions believes the other match is "Joe Carroll vs. Peter Gotz from February 3rd 1908, which was the middleweight final of the National Sporting Club's catch-as-catch-can tournament in London at the Alhambra Theatre."

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.

This happened in 1989 and again in 1991 (Dave Taylor, Tony St. Clair, & Steve Regal defeated Drew McDonald, Chic Cullen, & Johnny South when Taylor pinned McDonald and The Brooklyn Brawler pinned Steve Casey) As noted, a dark match is one that happens before the televised matches. It's partly to warm up the crowd but mainly to check all the camera equipment is working, the lighting is correct and so on. The reason for having the Brits on these two tours was that at the time the Home Office treated pro wrestling as a sport for immigration purposes. That meant the biggest events of the tour, namely the televised ones, were treated as a sporting tournament. One of the conditions for giving working visas to the US was that that some British competitors had to be allowed to "enter the tournament". WWF used the wrestlers to both tick this bureaucratic box and serve the dark match role. They weren't treated very respectably and weren't allowed in the main dressing rooms. The Home Office then reclassified wrestling as entertainment, removing the need to use British talent on the shows. (Steve Regal vs Brian Maxine was the dark match in a late 1991 Royal Albert Hall TV show, though that was more of a tryout for Regal.)

If I have the right show: "CROYDON – 1/10/91. World Heavyweight Title :- Giant Haystacks v Kendo Nagasaki…Danny Collins v Texas Heartbreaker…Johnny Kidd v Steve Grey…KO Tournament…Skull Murphy/Steve Regal/Clive Myers/Buffalo Beaney." There's a few shows in 92-3 where Haystacks is listed as defending the title but it fizzled out after that. It's a bit confusing as I believe it was billed as the CWA (Catch Wrestling Association) World Heavyweight title, but that was still active in Europe at the time.

If it's just done because you don't want either man to lose, or because you want a happy result without the villain actually losing, it's a cop-out. It can be used to great effect though, as when Sammy Lee has his early TV matches and you had villains walking out because they "could't cope with his spectacular style." As with most things in wrestling, it's very effective when done rarely, but tiresome and less effective when it's overdone.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/393861654469?hash=item5bb3fbe7c5:g:9PoAAOSwaTRh3Ffp The screenshots and descriptions definitely show this is from an overseas sale. It has the ITC branding and is in black and white despite coming from 1972 when it would have been broadcast in colour (Casanova-Wilson is already on YouTube from the TV broadcast.) One interesting point is the three matches come from different tapings/broadcasts, suggesting ITC were selling them in a mix-and-match form.

Thanks for the various comments on here and by e-mail, which I've added to the page.

I recently added a page to my ITV Wrestling site that covers everything I could find on this topic: http://itvwrestling.co.uk/archive.html

Bit of a technicality (and not a welcome one), but Jimmy Savile.

I'd be a little sceptical about claims in this article given the suggestion of a 10,000 crowd at the Granby Halls in Leicester. All the photos I've seen of that venue would point to a capacity of a few thousand and most.

From the records I have, it was: W 14/7/76 (Hemel Hempstead, taped 25/5/76) Brian Maxine (F) v Ivan Penzecoff (0) Giant Haystacks (KO) v John Elijah