We know that Bert Assirati promoted during the late 50’s but out all the posters and programmes that the collectors on here have generously shared with the rest of us I don’t think there has been one from any of Bert’s shows. Are these very, very rare? The other conundrum. Night And The City is the favourite wrestling film for many members. It was based on a novel by Gerald Kersh and I have heard that he had wrestling career before the war but have not been able to find more detail. Anything known? HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE.

I recently watched the Channel 5 doc, '48 How Britain Saved The Olympics. (You can find it on catch up). There was a short piece on the wrestling but the footage shown was not Olympic wrestling at all but pro. Dodgy bit of editing on someones part but I wonder if this was a canny promotor piggybacking on The Games and can anyone identify the wrestlers.

Bit obscure but this might interest some members. https://www.academia.edu/5365515/Wrestling_and_Cinema_1892_1911?email_work_card=view-paper

Joint, and their house journalist Charles Mascell, used to go on and on about the Mountevans style and how it was completly different to anything else. The implication was always that the independants and perhaps Paul Lincoln especialy, were offering something inferior and not realy legitimate and certainly I don't remember any Lincoln publicity using the word Mountevans. So does anyone remember how The Wrestler and other Joint propaganda reported the "The Merger" and the welcoming into the fold of Dr Death, Quasimodo, Wild Man of Bornio and the rest? How did they square that circle?

Real life experience only ( not something on the telly ) but it could have been in one of those smoky halls or perhaps meeting one of our heroes in the local shop. For me it's no contest. I had read and heard so much about Bert Assirati and when he walked to the ring and climbed through the ropes just a few feet away I had to pinch myself. The sheer presence of the man. Of course in reality what I was seeing was a fat old bloke right at the end of his career but nothing will ever take away the sense of awe that I felt all those years ago.

Wrestling has never had a very good press so I was surprised to see a sympathetic piece in, of all things, the quite posh London Review of Books. You can read it online here. https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n24/tom-crewe/diary

For a long time it was a given that pro wrestling was based on a Lancashire style of submission catch as catch can that was later exported to the USA and further refined by the "carni" wrestlers with their repertoire of hooks. Here in UK the style was preserved in pit-top wrestling matches until emerging in it's theatrical form in 1930. The pure form of catch was preserved in the Wigan Snake Pit and the likes of Bert Assirati and Karl Gotch beat a path to the door to learn the secrets. It's a version of history that has really done the rounds. Billy Robinson talks about it in his Scientific Wrestling videos, it's the central theme of the excellent "Catch.The hold not taken" film and has been written about time without number. Why, I have to admit to writing about Lancashire submission catch myself and telling students about it back in the day when I was teaching martial arts. Repeat a story often enough....... But is there any truth in any of this? Did submission holds only make an appearance here with the arrival of Japanese jujitsu masters in the 19th century? Was submission catch just another sting in the wonderful smoke and mirrors world of wrestling? Come on guys. You must have given this some thought.

The tribute in this weeks newsletter to JoeD'Orazio mentioned his taking over from Charles Mascall in the Dale Martin set up and that got me thinking again about a question that I asked on here some years ago. Who was Charles Mascall? Back in the 50's young fans like myself learned just about everything we knew about wrestling history from this man's writing. But he remains a bit of a mystery. Where did he come from? How did he come to be involved with Dale Martin? Was he an ex wrestler? He just seems to have appeared as a fully formed wrestling expert in the post-war years. Someone must know something.

One for rusian. George Kidd's World Champion Belt has just been on Antiques Roadshow on BBC 1. The belt was brought to the show by the great man's son. Well worth a look.