samkydd

One childhood TV routine was to watch the wrestling on ITV's World of Sport, and no matter which relative's house your parents dragged you round to on a Saturday tea time, they always seemed to have the wrestling on! An uncle even took me to see a live bout once, and top of the bill was the head butting Afro-Caribbean Johnny Kwango, and all these old women kept trying to bash him with their handbags and poke him with umbrellas.

Some of the big names I can remember were:

Mr TV Jackie Pallo (always wore stripy trunks, and I dread to think what the "TV" bit meant)

Mick McManus (looked like the grumpy scary bloke in the pub)

Billy Two Rivers (genuine North American Indian)

Adrian Street (pretty boy with long blonde hair). He used to team up with someone called, I think, Bobby Bennett and their tag team name was The Hell's Angels

Kendo Nagasaki (reputed to be on the run from the law so he always wore a mask)

Les Kellett (looked like a little old man)

Kung Fu (another mystery man in all the oriental clobber)

Big Daddy (he came a bit later when the matches got really silly)

Giant Haystacks (most failed trying to needle him)

Everyone reckoned it was all fixed but having seen it live I don't know. The rolls, forearm smashes, scissor presses etc were standard well practiced moves but I don't think the outcome was rigged, what would be the point?

I remember a documentary in the 1970s and wrestling commentator Kent Walton was featured. He ran a film company which made loads of soft porn features for the UK market.

One of his studio employees had the enviable task of feeling the naked breasts of girls signing up to appear in these films to make sure they were genuine flesh! I remember thinking at the time that if he ever got made redundant what the hell job could he possibly do after that eh? He'd never come close to anything like it in terms of job satisfaction! Perhaps he had to settle for a job in a bakery! Kneads must I suppose!

A neighbour of mine is a semi-retired gynachologist, he works a couple of days a week now just to keep his hand in!

"...the chairman of Littlewoods stores made a Keynote speech!"

Steve Crook

The results might well have been fixed for routine matches. But at least they weren't completely scripted like the American wrestling.

Steve

Freddy

The Royal brothers Bert Royal and Vic Faulkner (?????)

Catweazle:great kids tv series

The Provost brothers tag team

Ricki Starr a ballet dancer

Abe Ginsberg

Jackie Pallo's son also wrestled

Two wrestlers turned actors were "Bomber Roach" who became Pat Roach and Leon Arras who was Brian Glover. Both now sadly dead.

I was fortunate enough to see most at the Liverpool Stadium sadly now gone. Went to the Cross Keys pub after. Great memories. Thanks Sam

Freddy

The world wags on.

smudge

Mark 'Rollerball' Rocco....

It was IIRC Wrestling first (A 'shut up' from Pa !)

Then Classified Results ('Shut Up' number two - this time, from Ma !)

Eventually, we were allowed to breathe and speak again and I have vague memories of running into CANDID CAMERA, right after Dickie Davies...

SMUDGE

Welcome to my house. Enter freely, and of your own will...

summerisle

Iron Fist Clive Myers
Fit Finlay
Jim Breaks
Cyanide Syd Cooper
Bobby Barnes
Steve Grey
Zoltan Boscik
The Dynamite Kid
Johnny Saint

Bobj

How can we forget the marvellous
Tibor Szakacs (think his brother Peter also wrestled)
Steve Logan (formed tag team with Mick McManus)
Steve Veidor

Happy days!

clearview

Watching wrestling on the TV on a Saturday afternoon was the highlight of my week. Then several years later when it had been taken off air, I saw a live match in Aldershot which featured some of the 'stars' of the small screen.

I was actually a steward employed by the venue and we were told exactly what time the 'interval' was to be. The promoter (Big Daddys brother whose name I think was Brian Crabtree?) wanted to make sure all the stewards were ready by the ringside to escort the wrestlers back to the 'dressing room'. The particular bout finished almost exactly at five minutes to nine. How could this be if it was not a scripted and fixed match?

For all that, it was wonderful escapism and provided fairly harmless entertainment for millions of people.

Bob M.

I have on VHS a recording of the very last Saturday afternoon wrestling on t.v.
Kent Walton narrates as they look back on the years they did the show and the "stars" that appeared. Interesting...

"How about dat, a? How about dat?

716Jones

Anyone looking at TV wrestling should remember Brian Glover who used to wrestle under the name of Leon Arras. If I remember rightly he had a catchphrase - "I know the bloody rules, ref"

Aenima

In the days of Dicky Davis, World of Sport and the Big Daddy Splash, a Saturdays afternoon was always "The Pink Panther Show" for me on BBC1 . Wrestling briefly got my attention in the mid 70s when I became interested in all things Kung Fu. As has been mentioned, there was a wrestler called Kung Fu and I fell for his marketing trick. I think secretly I didn't want to believe Bruce Lee was dead. Perhaps he had taken the option of making a living in the tough world of pro. wrestling on ITV as the masked "Kung Fu". Putting his skills to full use in the "unstaged and unpredictable” bouts with much bigger men, a la "Game of Death". I soon woke up to the reality that he wasn't Bruce Lee. He didn't even use Kung Fu. So it was back to "The Pink Panther" for me.

Cheers,
A

I'll 'av 'arf

daisyhall1

You may be interested in Kendo Nagasakis new book which covers many of those favourites and tells you what the are doing now

Iain1962

Hi there.

I don't know if anyone's mentioned this but Kent Walton was also a movie producer in the 1970s. I think his partner was ex-Crossroads producer Hazel Adair and amongst their output was the Oliver Reed vehicle Blue Blood and Game for Vultures starring Richard Roundtree and Richard Harris That last one was made for Lew Grade's ITC. They usually made soft core British sex comedies none of whome I can remember the titles for. Are Walton and Adair still alive?

Cheers.

Iain

Steve Crook

He's not credited on the IMDb for either of those (you can add them to his filmography if you're sure). But it does credit him as an actor in Small Town Story (1953) and as producer of such gems as Virgin Witch (1972) with Anne & Vicki Michelle.

Kent died in August 2003.

Steve

samkydd

Vicki Michelle was a hitch hiker in The Likely Lads movie I watched yesterday.

"...the chairman of Littlewoods stores made a Keynote speech!"

smudge

A role she'd reprised from ALFIE DARLING.

Topless at the start of that IIRC....
SMUDGE

Welcome to my house. Enter freely, and of your own will...