When I was very young wrestling fan I did not like Peter 'Tally-Ho' Kaye because he wrestled as a villain and I always cheered for the 'good guys'. But then I saw him on the 1980 BBC TV show The Big Time, with Esther Rantzen, when he trained Rip Rawlinson for his Royal Albert Hall debut bout and he came across as a really likeable person. When I watch old World of Sport bouts now I can see what a great act Peter Kaye put on as a villain and he is one of my favourite wrestlers to watch. His bouts are always entertaining and I love watching him to see how he wound up the crowd. I am really pleased to hear that he is still with us and I hope that my best wishes could be passed on to him by Dana.

One name possibly missing from this list is Judd Harris?

I think that he was one of Britain's greatest ever wrestlers. I always enjoy watching his old bouts as he really knew how to wind up the crowd and his bouts were always entertaining. His weakening of his opponents wrist and his follow-up submission hold was so convincing to me as a young fan and it still looks realistic to me when I watch it now! R.I.P Jim.

I read once in a wrestling fanzine, that had some results from Ray Plunkett, that Tony St Clair won this title bout at Wolverhampton by a stoppage. I don't know what happened, maybe Mal Kirk was cut?

Hello Anglo Italian, I do not know who first came up with the idea of Brian Maxine's cocky, arrogant act (wearing a crown, throwing photos of himself to the crowd and being billed as Goldbelt), Brian Maxine himself or the promoters, but the idea worked. I think that this act did really wind up the crowd and they all wanted to see Brian Maxine get beaten (just like they wanted to see Mick McManus get beaten) but they rarely did. The promoters were clever enough to see that Brian Maxine's act worked and the crowds reacted to him and if he was on the bill crowds would probably be higher. As soon as the promoters realised they were making extra money because of Brian Maxine's image as Goldbelt Maxine they kept it going. Maybe Clayton Thompson was a more skilled technical wrestler but it was Maxine who made more money for the promoters so it was Maxine who the promototers wanted as champion.

I think that it was Brian Maxine's act of being really cocky and arrogant (wearing a crown and throwing pictures of himself to the crowd etc) that wound up the crowds and made them hate him so much that they even cheered Mick McManus when they wrestled each other, that kept him at the top. The promotors would have loved this sort of reaction from a crowd. I loved watching Brian Maxine and his cocky act always makes me laugh when I see it, even now after seeing it so many times. Steve Regal mentioned Maxine in his autobiography and praised him but did say that he was known as a genuinely tough guy in the dressing room.

Hi alanapaily, thank you for letting us know about this. I have just watched both the Tony St.Clair and Marty Jones podcasts and they were very interesting.

I think that Bert was one of the best British wrestlers ever. I used to love watching his bouts. He gave a lot of entertainment to many people over the years and he came across a genuinely nice guy. RIP Bert.

I think that Brian Maxine vs Mick McMichael could be a candidate for one of the most frequent bouts. They seemed to fight each other on TV quite regularly.

I have read this book, Dynamite & Davey and I thought that it was an excellent book. The Dynmaite Kid was my favourite wrestler when I was a young fan. I thought that the author was fair in his praise and criticism of both wrestlers and it was very well written. I recommend it highly to other Heritage members.

I used to buy a wrestling fanzine that printed some old results from Ray Plunkett and I still have some of these and I notice that in these it says that on 14th January 1968, in Halifax, Kendo Nagasaki beat The Zebra Kid 2-1, which should have resulted in an unmasking. I do not have the result of the 15th February 1968 bout, mentioned earlier in this discussion, from Nottingham but I would guess that the result would have been the same?

I think that Jim Breaks trick of slapping his arm against his own 'sweaty' side while twisting his opponents wrist was one of the best and most deceptive moves in wrestling. It sounded just like his opponents wrist had broken or dislocated or something similar. It was so convincing and had me completely fooled as a kid watching it. When followed by his arm submission Breaks special it was just brilliant and is why I earlier voted this as my favourite finishing move.

For me the best finishing move was definitely Jim Breaks arm submission special. Other impressive fininishing moves were the Big Daddy double elbow, Marty Jones powerlock (Andy Robin was before my time as a fan), Zoltan Boscik's 3 in 1 grapevine, Mark Rocco's piledriver and pinfall and Brian Maxine's rolling leg-lock (when somebody had been trying to post him).

I have just watched the tag bout again on youtube and you can see Bobby waving his right hand to indicate he was hurt, as Lee said in his above post, after the elbow drop at 3.30 of the bout. Bobby was brave to continue and finish the bout. I don't blame him for refusing to do any more tags with Big Daddy after this one.

Thank you leerylands1982 for confirming the rumour that I had heard about that tag match in 1979 was true and explaining things to us. I thought that your dad was a very good wrestler but he probably did make the correct decision to concentrate on his sales career. We have all heard stories about the poor physical state some wrestlers bodies ended up in, after a long career as a wrestler. Very best wishes to Bobby, yourself and all your family.

Further to my above posting earlier today I just thought that I would add that Bobby Ryan's sister posted an entry on this forum in December last year, in a forum topic discussing their father Stan Rylands. She asked if anyone had any wrestling memorabilia about Bobby's wrestling career. I did send her a couple of articles that I had. She said thank you and said that Bobby also said thank you for what I had sent and that he was well. I believe that he is retired and living with his family, still somewhere in the Stoke area, where he grew up.

Hi Peter, I will bow to your greater knowledge on this. He was though definitely working for All Star Promotions in 1987 and I had read that he was sacked in 1980 by Joint Promotions. Maybe another forum reader could inform me of the full story and where I am wrong? I also agree with you Peter about how time flies. I hear songs on the radio that were out in the mid 1980's and it only seems a few years ago when I first heard them.

Bobby Ryan was the son of Stan Rylands, who had refereed the famous Kendo Nagsaki vs Count Bartelli unmasking match in 1966. I thought that Bobby Ryan was a very good wrestler and I was a big fan of him when I started watching wrestling in 1977. He had a good run as European Lightweight Champion between 1975 and 1977 and I was upset when I heard that he had lost his title to Jim Breaks. He had been a regular tag partner to Big Daddy between early 1977 to early 1979 but I have heard that after taking quite a beating in a March 1979 tag against Mal 'King Kong' Kirk and Judd Harris he refused to do any more tags with Big Daddy. After making this decision he carried on as a wrestler but his TV appearances became much fewer and he was never a title holder again (maybe Max Crabtree was punishing him for refusing to tag with Big Daddy anymore?). His father died in 1982 and Bobby Ryan retired soon afterwards in his early 30's and concentrated on his soft drinks business. I had read in several wrestling magazine articles that he was a very keen motor cyclist as a youngster and nearly took this up as a career instead of wrestling.

I thought that John Harris was a very good MC. I don't think that he was ever a professional wrestler himself but I understand that he had been an amateur wrestler and was a good trainer of wrestlers. I believe that he trained Bobby Barnes, Jon Cortez, Leon Fortuna and Dick Conlon amongst others. After working as an MC for Joint Promotions through the 1960's and 1970's, I understand that he was sacked in 1980. I don't know why he was sacked, maybe other forum readers know more about this than me. He was then taken on as an MC by Brian Dixon and appeared on ITV again in 1987 when Brian Dixon's All Star Promotions started being shown on TV.

Hi alanapaily, thank you for posting all of these, they have been an interesting read. I was a big fan of Kent Walton and I am very happy to have been able to listen to his interesting commentaries again on youtube etc. I think his commenting style helped wrestling to be much more popular than it would have been otherwise.