Never saw her wrestle, but she can't have been that old?, sad news, RIP Rusty Blair.

I agree, Ron, we still had Rocco, Jones, Finlay, Murphy, Saint, Grey, St. Clair, etc.

John Shelvey is echoing what I was driving at, that people all over the world would have discovered these things. I can give a modern version of what I am talking about, which might explain it better than I have tried to earlier. I am a Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do, a Korean style of Karate. The TKD world is basically split into two camps, WTF (World Tae Kwon Do Federation) and ITF (International Tae Kwon Do Federation). WTF is old-school, full contact fighting, in which you learn how to punch, kick, defend yourself. ITF is mainly the sport style of TKD, known as semi-contact, which is what you see in the Olympic Games. A game of point scoring with no intention to hurt or knock out your opponent, just like Olympic Judo being nothing like the original style. All of my fights were under WTF rules, but I could have (if I wanted to) put my name forward to fight in an ITF tournament and just toned it down and gone for light kicks to score points. So it is not impossible to learn a certain style, in a gym, with your team mates, and fight another (sporting) style, in the outside world. So based on the above, could it have been that certain gyms still taught the old "Lancashire Fighting" method, alongside the sporting "Catch-As_Catch-Can" style. The wrestlers would have known all moves needed, to hurt someone, but just toned it down when in a sporting contest. On the subject of Wrestlers knowing submission type moves, before knowing about Judo or Ju-Jitsu, I'll leave that to Ruslan himself, from his research (thank you Ruslan!). "...Its very interesting, but In 1855 at Bellevue a match between Peter Lord of Oldham and Greenhalgh of Pendleton was won by Lord 2-0, no falls. It was two “submissions.” A strangle hold (a favourite hold of Oldhamers) which made Greenhalgh hold his hand up twice in succession. Of course most of the matches were regular back falls, but that incident shows that even in the 1850's the boundaries between two styles were quite vague..."

If ever a TV Channel was made for people like us, it's Talking Pictures TV, I love it!

Ruslan, just to be clear, I have read all of your contributions and articles on this site, about Adam Ridings and pub landlords, The Snipe Inn, up and down fighting, Flemish weavers and all the rest, and thoroughly enjoyed all of it. I have not read your book yet, but that is because I still have around 15 other books (e-books), to read first, on a variety of subjects, including history, electronics, business and films/film stars. My point wasn't to say that Catch wrestling matches, held of village greens or behind pubs, on May Day or some fair or festival featured submissions, I was simply saying that wrestling or grappling would have evolved (in a real, unarmed combat way) to include brutal moves, which some people would have still taught, that would never have been used on a Sunday afternoon outside a pub in Ashton, in a sporting event.

I think we are getting off track here, somewhat. I don't think for one minute that wrestling styles evolved in the UK (or anywhere for that matter) that didn't include a self-defence element. It would be absurd to think that only the Japanese thought it would be a good idea to put someone in a choke hold, when they had them in an advantageous position. A watered down version of the above would becomes a sport (or in our case, a "worked" sport), but the original version would have included a self-defence variant. Most Judo clubs these days, teach a watered down version of Judo, which is basically an Olympic sport now. The original version of Judo (which was taken from the original Ju-Jitsu) included chokes and locks that, if taken to their extreme, could result in death. That original version was taken around the world (including to the UK), and to Brazil where it became Brazilian Ju-Jitsu. When UWW (used to be called FILA, the governing body of Freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling) described the history of Olympic Wrestling, they said "...Catch-as-catch-can was included in the 1904 Olympic Games and continued through the 1936 Games; it had new rules and weight categories introduced similar to other amateur wrestling styles, and dangerous moves - including all submission holds - were banned. New rules and regulations were later developed and codified by FILA and amateur catch wrestling became known as freestyle wrestling..." If there were no submissions in Catch wrestling in the North West, then where did the "Grovit", (sometimes called the Grobbit), come from? Dynamite Kid said, in his book, that he learned submission stuff in Wigan (and didn't like it, because it hurt too much), and mentioned the Grovit as an old-time Wigan move.

Lou Thesz was involved with the organization as they wanted to promote a realistic, "shoot style" of wrestling, which would look convincing to the audience. He loaned them his original NWA belt, which they used for Championship matches. Thesz also helped out occasionally in training wrestlers in real submission wrestling (Billy Robinson was head trainer, with Thesz and Danny Hodge helping from time to time). Channel 4 used to show the UWFi shows, under the name "Bushido", they were very clever, worked, matches, that looked very real because the wrestlers worked stiff, especially with kicks. As most of the wrestlers had learned real submission (catch) wrestling from Billy Robinson, and had learned kick boxing and other martial arts, some of the wrestlers went on to compete in MMA.

Terry Rudge always looked like he could handle himself.

We covered this one back in March 2020, Anglo, it was a Paul Lincoln wrestler, called Antonio Rocca who met Ricki Starr in the USA and arranged for him to come and work for Paul Lincoln Promotions.

I think Dai Sullivan was mid 30's in 1955 and Tony Mancelli would have been older, to answer Ruslan's question about their age. Not sure exactly how old Tony Mancelli would have been in 1955, but even if he started wrestling at 16 year of age (around 1931), that would make him at least 40 by the mid 1950's.

While it's not exactly a double-cross, Jackie Pallo said in his book that the Belshaw's would go off script, just because they could, and one of them (Cliff, I think) gave Jackie a tough time, one night, tying him up in knots and slapping on submission holds, only to let Jackie take the win, as planned.

RIP.

I assume that is some sort of in-joke with the spelling of the surname of Milo Popocopolis in the programme! Baptiste Benoy (Jean-Baptiste Benoy) seems to have wrestled exclusively for Belle Vue in the 1950's.

"...did Peter Preston have other Dale Martin bookings even before January 1967?..." Peter Preston was on a Dale Martin show at Hemel Hempstead in 1966, which was broadcast on TV. There were probably others, but as we all know, it is hard to find dates sometimes. "...what use did the other JP promoters make of P. Preston in 1967 and 1968? Did any of them boycott him?..." I can see him working for Norman Morrell, Morrell and Beresford, Relwyskow and Green, Billy Best, Devereaux Promotions. He is back in the Dale Martin fold in 1970 and especially in the second half of the year, lots of Dale Martin dates. He could have worked for Dale Martin prior to 1970, but we would need someone with extensive results to find that out.

Maybe the rivalry between the two camps only stretched as far as competitive, amateur type matches, and not worked (paid) matches?

"...Fascinating, a shame we shall never really know..." Agreed, Anglo! Looks like Orford, Portz and Marino all got draws, the rest were won by Thesz. Thesz would have only been 41 in 1957, so I don't think he would have been overly worried by taking on riskier young wrestlers (if he was as good at defending himself from any double cross as people claim).

I would imagine that was part of the deal, when booking the Thesz tour; we will pay you "X" and you can win all the bouts, but we need a draw for this lad, etc.?

I've probably asked this before, but how well-known would Lou Thesz have been, to the average Wrestling fan over here?, I assume that he was well known to be booked on so many shows, but this would have relied on lots and lots of people reading Wrestling magazines, I guess?

Many of us have been talking to each other on this site, and the old 1Stop Wrestling site, before that, for about 20 years! When I first stumbled across the old 1Stop Wrestling site, it was to find out more information about what had happened to the Wrestlers of my youth, a sort of "where are they now?", that you see about pop groups and actors. I always wanted to believe that the Wrestlers we grew up liking (and hating, of course!) had been well paid and had all retired to a comfortable life. It was buying, and reading, "The Wrestling" that changed a lot of that thinking. It told of Mick McManus in a nice apartment filled with antiques, Jackie Pallo in a bungalow with various old Saab's outside. Kendo Nagasaki in a large country house. Adrian Street living in Florida. So some people had done well, but what about the rest?, I found out that Iron Man Steve Logan ended up working on the sea front, in the North West, Johnny Czeslaw, was in an old person's home, blind, Dynamite Kid was in a wheelchair. Then other questions popped into my head; why did the likes of Mike Marino, Brian Maxine and Count Bartelli hold belts and titles for decades?, did they own the belts?, if so, why did the promoters play along with the fictitious titles that these wrestlers (at least in Bartelli's case) bestow upon themselves? As for results, the interesting thing became "why" did someone go on a long winning streak, or lose to an unlikely opponent. What happened if someone gave you a hard time in the ring (like Cliff Belshaw with Jackie Pallo, in Pallo's book), did the promotor have words with them after? My favourite part of the business, as those who have read things that I put on here will know, was about the international travel, which back in the 60's and 70's, must have been fantastic. Finding results online about the Hell's Angels in Spain, or Judo Chris Adams in Mexico, Ringo Rigby in Los Angeles. Travelling the world at someone else's expense, and working for around 20 minutes a night.

He held the French version of the European Heavyweight Title in the mid 1950's.