Was doing some new research and came across this: In 1876 a troupe of French wrestlers wrestled in London. One of them was L'Homme Masque (The Masked Man). I haven't seen any earlier mentions of masked wrestlers, so this may be the very first masked wrestler in British wrestling history. And of course this L'Homme Masque was surely inspired by the original L'Homme Masque, who caused a great sensation in Paris in 1867.

These have recently popped up on YouTube and I thought I'd share them here. First up we have Giant Haystacks taking on top local star Jan Wilkens in South Africa at some point in the 1980s. And then we have Drew McDonald taking on the masked South African Tornado (Danie Brits). That YouTube channel has recently uploaded a bunch of other matches from South African TV as well.

I just randomly found this online while searching for something else, and I thought I'd share it here. Apparently, Jack Dale's travels saw him go all the way to Turkey in 1952. Here's a poster for a series of pro wrestling shows in Istanbul, Turkey, in December 1952. He's billed as the English champion. The five shows were to be held at the Istanbul Sports and Exhibition Hall, which had a seating capacity of 7,000.

For the past several months I've been researching the history of pro wrestling in Barcelona, Spain. Since 1946 every summer in Barcelona there would be regular wrestling events held at Plaza de toros de las Arenas (capacity: 14,893) and Plaza de toros Monumental (capacity: 19,582). Throughout the years a number of British stars wrestled there, including Butcher Johnson, Bert Royal, Tommy Mann, Johnny Kwango, Jackie Pallo, etc. I'm up to 1960 in my research and that year saw more Brits work the big Barcelona bullring shows than usual. Here are some photos from the 1960 Barcelona press. I thought you guys might enjoy these. Ian Campbell, Chic Purvey & Clayton Thomson: George Gordienko, Al Hayes & John Foley: Billy Robinson: Bob Anthony: If that sort of thing interests you, you can follow my Barcelona research over on WrestlingClassics as I post it. http://wrestlingclassics.com/.ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=10;t=005222