Having looked at Inverness where Joint promotions had decided that it was worth a shot, I now go a little further North. Today you could travel along a lot of coast to the tip of Scotland along the A9, but in the 1960's there were no bridges to get across the Moray Firth , Cromarty Firth and The Dornoch Firth. The big question , “ Was it worth going further than Inverness.” As you get to Dingwall you are now in Roth Shire which today is joined with Cromarty. The first bill I come across is 1963. The Town Hall , if you put a ring in it could probably get 350 people in. I think two hundred plus was what was achieved in reality. 1965 North West Promotions had a go. Jefferson , probably one of the most tricky promoters to advertise a fair bill with genuine known wrestlers. He was always up to something. He got the girls up there very early on. I wonder what Johnny Saint thought of it all. It looks like they must have done at least break even. 1966 saw Continental Matchmakers of Manchester having a go. There is a bit of experience in there , Saint still working for the opposition and early Wild Angus , what a great career he had. I am not entirely sure who was behind this company. A little nearer Inverness I found a lone bill , unique in it's own way in The Muir of Ord. I presume in the middle of summer the Curling frozen outdoor rink or arena would not be in use. Is this even a New Type of Venue for that thread. A strange mixture of wrestlers and hard to say who was behind it. Why there??? More towns to follow.

I guess it's a case of being old enough , but Brian London was a massive name in British boxing. Battled with Our Henry Cooper and even fought Muhammed Ali. So he is at Belle Vue on a Monday night in 1961 , big fight with Billy Hunter of USA. A brutal contest with Hunter stopped in the 8th round , bludgeoned to bits. So what does a famous boxer do afterwards. He has a night out in Hulme's Russell club. How would he know about it. Maybe from Jack Pye who also lived in Blackpool. He gets a thanks from the Russel club on the Thursday , overshadowing the Evenings Wrestling Bill. But also look at the bottom of the Belle Vue advert and you could get tickets from two other Wrestling venues. Princess Theatre Club in Chorlton and The Russels Club's rival , The Luxor Club.

Talked about Bertie before and his colourful career. I would have thought he would have had a Jeeves. Perhaps his most famous helper was his valet Ponsonby. But the mind boggles when you think a valet is helping him do the dirty sneaky stuff. For a while he came up with the persona of a gamekeeper which was much more sinister. Mellors. ( can't be Clark Mellor can it) But some of the old English names like Fothergill and Willoughby were also used. Could not quite understand the choice of Mahoney for a valet , but maybe that's just me. Have I covered it , was there just the five employees from his vast country Estate or were there more. Who played them. I seem to remember one was a member on here at one time. Was there more than one long serving Ponsonby. Can you believe it.

Not long ago I found Bartelli beating Kendo in a return match in 1966 and supplied the evidence. Well back in 1951 and a long way from Wryton Land in Aberdeen Bartelli lost to Mike Marino. No chance of the news traveling very far south.

Not sure if you have covered this one Graham. But do tell. Go on , who was your Outlaw.

Thought I would share this with you and not in my copy of Ray's Index. Ray does list this as probably the first show. 1931 January 24th NEWCASTLE Henri Irslinger 2-1 Bert Assirati .... Douglas Clark 1-1 Owen Duffy .... Andy Powers 1-0 Carl Dodge .... Half Nelson Keyes 2-1 Billy Harrison The 2nd show and the next one with the actual advert. We have so little from early 1931 and these bouts really are pretty much a duplicate of what was put on round the country in the early months of 31.

Recently I brought to our attention the Potteries Night Club La Boom Boom and we went on via Anglo to talk about types of venues. More and more night clubs come to light and I have just found one called Bunny's Place. The mind boggles , but actually Bunny was an ex Trawler Skipper called Bunny Newton. Here is some wrestling. Click and open for bigger image in new screen. Plenty about the club if you trawl the web (Pardon the pun) https://www.pressreader.com/uk/grimsby-telegraph/20180810/282389810308777 https://www.grimbarians.com/grimbarians-through-time/bernard-newton Also recently we talked of the Acker Bilk connection to Wrestling , even a competition for his Golden Bowler. Well by 1978 Acker was still connected.

Off the top of my head I don't recall mask v mask matches in the 1930's and I am wondering if Bartelli with Wryton was actually the pioneer of them. He certainly did plenty to build himself up. I would not take much notice of the 7 year undefeated streak , I think at this stage after the war the Count had done less than 2 years with a mask after being Jess Condor before the war. This example is the earliest I have found of Bartelli doing mask v mask. Shame there have been so many masked marvels. A wonderfully descriptive Report.

If you never saw an unmasking , I think this one sits pretty good in terms of a piece of history.

Good write up in the A-Z on Lou Thesz's visit to Britain and it did cover this bill at Hull. However A-Z does ask for any souvenir memorabila from any of the shows. NIce write up of his night with jack Pye.

The Zebra Kid was here throughout 1960. As the sixties went on I know he unmasked for quite a few of our wrestlers. Exactly when that started , I have never looked into. I can't find any other examples. Can anyone explain to me why on this night he should wrestle under his own name and I assume unmasked.

I always thought after Kendo unmasked Bartelli in 1966 that Bartelli tried in vain to get his revenge. At this stage neither man ever went on TV. So this went under the radar. Enjoy the moment folks.

Just thought I wold share this very special newspaper bill with you all.

It's difficult to get bills or posters with Adrian Street from when he was Kid Tarzan Jonathan. Started in the summer of 1957 , but hard to find his early days. At last I think I have got one. Has anyone else got an example. I think this is him.

BY 1980 I had stopped going to wrestling , a journey shared I think by Anglo and Hack. TV persisted until 1988 and many of us thought wrestling had more or less died a death then. Only in the Heritage years did I understand the Crabtree Joint/Dixon split and exactly which wrestlers had carried on keeping the game alive. Some very familiar names here and some I have heard of since and seen on Youtube , but even some I have never come across. Of course it is Dixon who operated on the Wirral and I share with you some great examples of what he was up to and how wrestling was still alive long after TV. If anyone can give us memories of some of the obscure names here then much appreciated.

Love finding these types of tours. You don't find many but nice when you do. Frazerburgh to Stonehaven 60 miles and Stonehaven to Whitburn 120 miles. They swapped it round a bit but for the most part these guys were obviously spending a few nights together. The six men listed on the 9th all wrestled on 10th and 11th.

Never really looked at this before , but came across this bill for a 1968 Zebra Kidd. This seems very late and I had not realised George Bolas went on this long. On checking I think it must be him as I can find bouts into the summer of 1967. Collectively can we shout up on what occasions he was unmasked in Britain , by who etc. Did he put the mask back on next time. Do we know if he had other matches with Nagasaki and really what was the outcome.

Some areas as well as being conquered by Joint Promotions also had their own distinct feel over the years. So much so , in the case of Ayr that they have their very own wrestlers reunion that our own Hack attends. I am not going back to the very start as I am not sure when it all started , but well over 50 years ago now the regular venue was The Ice Rink in Ayr. I think the capacity was something like 4000. Wonder if they filled it when Joint Promotions aided by the TV Boom was at the peak of it's powers. Here are a few bills. Some very big names got to travel up there regular by the looks of it and they worked with Scotland's best.

Unlike many towns I have not been able to find any wrestling in Worthing during the 1930's and 1940's. In 1949 Dale Martins tried to negotiate any Hall with the Council but nothing could be found. Finally in the Autumn of 1950 Dales tried the Drill Hall. With patience they resumed after new year with some more shows. It was a very Dale Martins look , just a few imports and at that time very few overseas wrestlers. By the end of Spring Dales pulled out. You can see all the shows and study the regular Roster plus a few from the North. The truth is that wrestling was struggling in the 1950's despite recovery from the war years , new rules and in Joint Promotions , a consortium to better the standards. Dales stated in the papers that they were promoting in 50 towns and that support in Worthing had not been quite there. The Drill Hall had been found but only held about 500 people. It begs the question as to how in later years Independent Promoters could make a profit doing shows with only 200-300 spectators. Dales simply stated that they were not making money and after six months pulled out. The Pier Pavilion was found a few years later with a capacity of 1050. Just four more shows were tried through the Autumn of 54 into Spring 55. I thought the advertising was poor and in some cases I have added in the full show. They thought they were giving the fans champions and the best on offer , but in the main 800 was the regular attendance. Threats went in the papers about poor attendance , I question if that was a good strategy and as a Time Detective , I open up a window in time as to how different wresting was in 1955 to maybe 1963-1965. Take the November 1954 bill with Bert Royal and Mick McManus , it was not even advertised , can you imagine that by 1970. Fortunately it made the Write up in the local paper. But just how big was Mick in 1954. Well they had to bring from the north Bert Royal , son of a famous wrestler. Mick was thrown out of the ring three times , each on a count of nine. Finally Bert slapped him in an agonising Boston Crab for Mick to submit and be unable to continue. So Mick got his proverbial Kicked. The April 1955 bill had Jackie Pallo getting Knocked out by Pat Kloke. I read somewhere that Jackie said he never got a significant win in his early years. There you have it. And then February 1955 , just Jack Demsey mentioned on the advert for an 8 man Tourney. How poor was that. Reported in the paper that many of the bouts were a poor affair with wrestlers seen many times recently. Hall full of schoolboys booing at the boring fayre on offer. Well my little window offers that Ken Joyce beat Pat Kloke , Jim Lewis beat Peter Rann , Demsey beat Young Milo and Mick beat Ken Shaw. In the semis Mick beat Lewis and Dempsey beat Joyce. The final had Mick rising in prominence to beat Demsey. For this one they almost filled the Hall with 1000. But by that April bill 1955 which also had Norman Walsh knocking out Marino and Howes destroying Mangotich , the plug was pulled again with Dales still not happy. The truth is that it was going better in Brighton and even Bognor and Eastborne were doing better. Two failures but by 1962 there was a big change. Wrestling in the later 50's had gone on TV and there was an upsurge in popularity probably peaking in 1963. Yes Wrestling at Worthing came back for a third time. Both on the Pier and probably more popular at the Assembly Rooms. Just a little bit from the Historical one and Happy Christmas.

Very first wrestling in Newark was 1934. I don't have a bill for it but I can tell you that it was at Newark FC , outdoors and a crowd of almost 500. Jack Hickling of Mansfield was the Promoter. Never heard of some of the wrestlers but for me the standout for skill would have been a bout between Jack Alker and his great mate Scotty Ambrose. There was a follow up show then nothing until the war when some shows were done in the Ransome and Marles Canteen that I covered in another thread. After the war a few shows at the Corn Exchange were done before a long interval with no wrestling for many years. By 1958 wrestling was entering a boom again due to TV Coverage under the guise of Sports enterprises. Again the Corn exchange was to be the venue. But in 1960 Promoter Matt Lewis came along with another venue. A little bit of info on these two venues is to be significant. You see , the Corn Exchange held 1500 spectators and yet the Palace Theatre or Cinema only held 630 seats. It's a bit strange how things worked out. Corn Exchange below left and the small Cinema on the right. No sign of Jack Taylor on the 1950's bills but by 1960 he had for sure captured The Corn Exchange for a long run. Jack as a great Champion was star of his own shows. So 1961 Jack Taylor is established in the big Venue. Fascinating that Joint Promotions , Relwyskow and Green should challenge by going into the small venue known as the Palace. The March 4th bill even put Newark on the map as a TV Venue. And Look Mick McManus is there working for Relwyskow and Green. The people of Newark had a feast of wrestling with this choice.