Promoters would do anything to save a few quid, years ago there was always a masked man on the show and there was a very good reason for this. The promoter could use a masked man twice on the same show, the first bout he would use him to wrestle as himself and then put him on last with the mask on.  The wrestler would try and change his wrestling style for the different matches and although the masked man was booked twice, he would not get double wages, he would only get a few quid extra.  The one who made the money was the promoter, he would save on another wrestler plus his expenses, including hotel bills.  Even today things have not changed, I went along to a wrestling show last year to see some of my old mates and there were two masked men on the show that were working twice. I think the whole bill only involved six wrestlers. The promoters are still up to their old tricks.  Bless them.

Updated: 10th June 2007.

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Jack Atherton was a crafty old promoter, he was wrestling since after the war, but after he finished wrestling, he turned to promoting.  Jack would do anything to save a few quid.  He ran shows as far north as Dumfries but usually around the Manchester and Yorkshire areas.  When Jack paid you it was usually in 50p pieces, the takings from the show that night.  Years ago punters would throw money into the ring after a good bout, so one night two wrestlers had a cracking bout and when the match finished, the money that had been picked up by the referee would be split between them. Jack had seen this, so as he is about the pay the lads their wages, he asked them how much they had collected. 'We got £5 each' they proudly announced, 'That's very good' said Jack, here is the rest of your wages and hands them £5 each. They asked why they only got £5 and Jack said that they had got £5 from the punters and £5 from him which was their £10 wages for the night.  They argued that the money from the punters was nothing to do with their wages but Jack told them to stop moaning as that was their agreed pay for the night and they got what they asked for. There was no point getting upset as it might go against them getting more work.  If the lads had got £15, Jack would probably have taken £5 off them anyway.  However, you had to admire him for getting away with it, after all, thats what promoters do, it must be born into them. No wonder there are a few called 'Tricky' , 'Dodgy' and 'The Bandit.

Dated: 26th May 2006.

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Joint Promotions had the TV rights for World of Sport, and so they had all the top men.  If you worked for Joint , you could not work for any other promoter.  If you did, and they found out, you would be sacked.  However, a lot of other promoters would bill the top stars, knowing that they would not appear, but the public would not know.  Once they turned up to watch the show, it would be announced that they were not going to show up and quite rightly, they felt conned by the promoter.  This was one reason the wrestling game started to go down hill .

Any masked wrestler who worked for Joint Promotions was a prime target, with a mask on, no one could tell if they were seeing the real thing or not.  Wrestlers like, The Outlaw, The Masked Executioner, Kendo, Zebra Kid, and myself, The Amazing Kung Fu, who had 3 or 4 impersonators, including Alan Miquet, Mike Jordan & Ian Gilmour.  Although very annoyed at this, I would say that Alan was the best of them all and made me look great. (pictured here v Jim Breaks). 

To get more bums on seats, they would play on words.  A wrestling poster would have in big bold print, Kellett, but in small print, they would write Len not Les or Mark Mc Manus, Harry Stacks and Brett Royal.  The punters would only read the big bold names and would think they were going to see the stars.  A lot of them would ask for their money back, but there was always enough left in the hall to make a good profit for the promoter.

Another trick they would play was to put all the top stars on the bill, this time with their proper names, but in very small print on the top it said, 'these wrestlers have been invited to appear'.  The promoter had already sent letters to all the wrestlers asking them to appear on the bill, knowing full well that they would not work for them.  However, the public didn't know this, all they saw was names, like all of us, we don't read the small print.  When the show started to a packed hall, the MC would announce that the wrestlers who were invited to appear, did not turn up, making it look as if the top stars were letting people down.  The MC would say 'But, we do have a full wrestling show for you tonight'. Of course, there was no big names, but after pulling this stroke around the country, people were starting to wise up.  It didn't however do the reputation of wrestling any good.

There was a lot of rivalry between promoters, they had their own little patch which they promoted and did not take too kindly if another promoter tried to work in their areas.  One promoter who went into another's patch, stuck his posters all over the town advertising the matches.  When it came the night of the show, there was only about two dozen people who turned up, they couldn't work understand why only a handful of people attended, until they were told that someone had 'show cancelled' stickers made and stuck them all of their wrestling posters.  We all knew who had done  it, it was one way of saying not to come back or there would be no show again.

Another promoter knew about the 'show cancelled' stickers, so he made sure that the posters were checked daily and if any cancellation stickers had been used, he would paste another poster over them.  Of course, the show was a sell out, but half way through the first bout, the Police would come into the hall and declare that the whole building was to be evacuated as they had a call to say that a bomb had been planted.  It was two hours before everyone was allowed back in, but of course it killed the show stone dead.  No other promoter went into that area again.

I wasn't in the business that long, and one of my jobs was being the ring crew, as well as wrestling, I drove the van to the hall of a rival promoter (which I didn't know about), and started to take the ring into the hall.  I had to do about 3 trips back and forth with parts of the ring.  When I got it all in, I noticed the rival promoter had stolen a corner post to stop the show.  I thought if I didn't do something the show would be cancelled and all the lads would lose their wages.  I asked around where I could find a boxing club.  I got the address and headed off to find it.  I got to the club and met one of the members, told him the story, and he agreed to loan me one corner post, which I would return after the show with a few quid for the club as a thank you.  Anyway, I managed to sort the ring out although I had to tell the lads not to bounce off the ropes as the post was held on with only rope.  The ring held, and the show was a success, I returned the corner post to the boxing club, and when I got back to the hall, the missing post was outside the hall with a note saying, ' You got away with it this time, but next time, the whole ring will go missing'.  Needless to say, we didn't go back to that hall again.

The lastest one going round was a tribute show to The Rock, Legend of Doom etc etc.  They were in fact all British wrestlers who dresses up to look like the real thing and although they were top class wrestlers, they were not the real thing.  However, at least this time, the public got a first class show of wrestling.  This tribute show went all over the country to packed houses, until Vince Mc Mann, the American wrestling promoter, stepped in and threatened to sue the promoters for impersonating his wrestlers.  I think this was the end of the tribute shows.

Although Jackie Pallo ran his own shows and did very well out of them, he shared booking the wrestlers with his son JJ.  I lost count of how many times I would turn up to wrestle, only to find that there were double the amount of wrestlers in the dressing room than was actually needed.  Both Jackie and JJ had booked us, but hadn't told each other and there were too many of us there.  Fair play to them, they always paid us even if we didn't wrestle.  However, there were the occasions when they both thought each other had made the bookings only to find that no wrestlers turned up that night.

Dated:  30th October 2005.

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