| | 
 Love him or hate him, Max Crabtree was a genius at giving the people exactly what they wanted……………a great night of entertainment. He would build wrestlers’ careers and make them into household names, there was no one who could beat him and many tried. He is also a bit of a trickster and would wind up new or visiting wrestlers from other countries and they always fell for it. I remember when 2 wrestlers coming to the UK approached Max and asked to be on some of his shows and he billed them at Digbeth. With a wink of his eye to the rest of us, he split them up and sent them to different dressing rooms, speaking to each separately, he told them both to get a fall in the 4th round. When their match started, we all ran out to the back of the hall to watch and sure enough, when it came to round four, they were both blocking each others moves determined to get a fall. They were really laying into each other with frustration and were knackered by the end. It was one of the funniest things I ever witnessed and when they came back to the dressing rooms they realised they had been had. Max also set up a punter who thought he could be a wrestler, unknown to him, Max had said to Count Bartelli, ‘Geoff, there is a guy who is going to jump the ring and set a challenge to you, just smack him on the nose’. He then went to the guy and said that it had all been discussed and he was to jump the ring at the end of the match and challenge Bartelli and he would arrange a match for them. Again we all stood in the hall to watch, as Geoff got the winning fall, sure enough, the guy ran down the aisle and jumped the ring and shouted Geoff’s name, he turned round, knew this was the wannabee, and punched the guy square on the nose. As he hit the deck, I bet he heard birds twittering and saw stars. I don’t think he ever came back to the wrestling after that. Max had a great saying, ‘Kid, we want quality, not quantity. I don’t care if you do four rounds as long as it is action start to finish’. I think he meant better a short bout, than half an hour of boredom.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 I would like to point out, although the story above mentioned setting up a punter to get smacked, it was a taboo thing to do. Sometimes a lot of them would get worked up and be so engrossed in what was going on, that they thought they could join in. However, sometimes the wrestlers did get injured by people ringside. Bruno Erlington had a big hat pin stuck in him by an old lady in the front row and had to go to hospital, I have seen many incidents over the years and I will say that some of the wrestlers didn’t care and did actually fight back. However, none of them would ever hit or push a woman, but one wrestler didn’t have to do that in order to get his own back on them. If they were being hit by a handbag, many of them would grab them and open them up and spill the contents in the ring, which understandably women wouldn’t like but Gordon Corbett aka The Executioner had it perfected, if he found himself outside the ring and a woman attacked him, he would put his arms round her legs and lift her up, as he did this, her skirt lifted up to above her waist. That was embarrassment enough and she would flee the hall and never return. After seeing that happen, the ladies never went near him again.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Updated: December 18th, 2006.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 I remember being told by Mike Judd that I was to go to a meeting at Joint Promotions head office as the boss wanted to see me. The other wrestlers I was staying with were very envious that I was being picked up in a big Mercedes and being taken to a place none of them had been. As I got into the car, I thought how nice it would be to have a life like this, being in a fabulous car and chauffeur driven at that, through the streets of London. I waited nervously in an outer office and was finally called in. Many people thought that Promoter Max Crabtree owned the company, but in fact, he only ran it for them at that time. Walking into this room, I was impressed by the grandeur of it all and sitting behind the desk was the head man, Jarvis Astaire. He asked me to sit down and then told me he had heard that I was working for the Independent Promoters in North Wales and that as he had built my career up and gave me lots of work, including TV jobs and doing a wrestling match v Clive Myers in a video for the group Manhattan Transfer for their latest hit record at the time, he was very disappointed that I could be so disloyal. He informed me that should he hear I was working for them again, he would have no hesitation in sacking me for Joint Promotions and then I would be free to work for whomever I pleased. I was quite shocked by all of this as it was a one – off match at my local venue but obviously someone had decided to pass the information on. I ensured him it wouldn’t happen again and I left the office and was driven back to the digs. Of course all the lads were waiting to find out exactly what had happened and when I told them, they couldn’t believe it, but had taken note and realised if they did it, they would be given their pink slips (cancellations) and have to find work elsewhere.
(Footnote about Jarvis Astaire) As a manager, he guided the careers of British and Commonwealth featherweight champion Evan Armstrong, British and European lightweight champion Billy Thompson, British and European welterweight champion Peter Waterman, world middleweight champion Terry Downes and was part of Frank Bruno's promotional team. Astaire was instrumental in bringing Muhammad Ali to England to defend his world heavyweight title against British legend Henry Cooper on May 21, 1966. On September 10, 1966 he brought Ali to Frankfurt, Germany to defend his title against Karl Mildenberger. He is also the visionary behind the closed circuit company Viewsport Ltd, which brought telecasts of worldwide significant boxing matches to theater screens throughout England. The influential Astaire has also found success in number of business endeavors including banking and property investment. He is respected for his acumen in the world of sports, particularly horse racing, golf driving ranges, and wrestling. Astaire, who has served as deputy chairman of Wembley Stadium, was awarded by the Queen of England an OBE (Officer of British Empire) in 2003.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 While watching one of my favourite TV shows, The Real Hustle', I remember 'The Colonel' Brody (aka Magnificent Maurice') show me many tricks that he had been doing for years. It was a good way of getting free drinks in pubs and he was very good at it. Most of these have now been shown on the programme including one where a £10 note would 'mysteriously' find its way into the till and how he would bet with a local man on 'heads or tails' and always win when he flicked the coin and placed it on the back of his hand. He wasn't the only one who did this sort of thing, Norman Cross was another one. Norman started as a ref but when he got older, he switched to being the MC at the shows and he would pass the time doing some magic tricks. He had a great one which involved a 10p and a 2p which fooled us all. Unfortunately, when he was in Blackpool, he put the 10p coin into the slot when he was making a phone call. He had to ask the Manager to empty the box so he could retrieve it. It wasnt so easy to pick it out from the rest by sight so he had to get a tile so he could drop them one by one on it until he found his.
We would always play tricks on each other when we were out of the dressing room and Norman would often bring his camera to the shows to take photos of action shots or just some of the wrestlers. One night at Denbeigh when he was in the ring, I noticed he had left his camera and for a laugh, I took a photo of my bare ass and then put the camera back in its case and left it for Norman to take home. A couple of weeks later, he came into the dressing room and gave us all a telling off. When he had taken the camera film to Boots the Chemist to get developed, the Manager was called over by an assisstant and he had a quiet word with Norman. He was told that Boots dont normally develop photos 'like that' but on this occasion, would, but said he preferred not to have any more brought in. Norman didnt know what he was talking about until he looked at the photo and was raging mad. However, he never did find out it was me who had done it.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Updated: November 19th, 2006.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Probably the worst part of the Wrestling business is the travelling to and from venues. A few years ago it was a constant five and six nights a week - 52 weeks of the year - from one end of the country to the other. I remember going south as far as Falmouth in Cornwall and by the end of the following week we were in Wick in the north of Scotland having worked our way up. At least if you were going to Scotland or Cornwall for a week you would stay over every night, but that has it's disadvantages as well. It can be a very long and boring day if the next stop is only an hour away. At times like that you tend to spend a lot of time sleeping. When you arrive at the next town there is very little else to do only go to bed - especially if it's the middle of winter and the digs are cold. That is unless it's the last day of the tour and you are going home after the show that night. Then, you have nowhere to go during the day - only hang around the hall. I remember a two week tour of Ireland many years ago and on the last day it was lashing rain. We were heading to Belfast for the ferry after the show but we were lucky to find a very comfortable and welcoming pub in the town called 'Fiddlers Green'. It was what is known as a 'singing pub' - with fiddles and banjos and the like hanging on the wall just waiting for the opportunity to have a 'session'. There was a big roaring fire burning with logs the size of elephants feet and with the drink flowing freely it wasn't long before the singing started. Giant Haystacks parked himself on the biggest chair by the fire and although at times he could be very moody, on this occasion he was in his element and was all ready to enjoy the 'craic' - and he even put his hand in his pocket a few times during the afternoon. Orig's partner, Davey Stalford, had to leave the company early to organise the putting out of the chairs at the hall but we stayed on and continued the partying all afternoon and completely forgot why we were there in the first place. The festivities came to a sudden end at 7.25pm when what could only be described as a dripping wet street urchin came into the bar and said "The man down at the hall says if you're not back there in two minutes you're all sacked" With only five minutes to start time the pub emptied in a flash and the show went on as usual.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Back in the day before Vince McMahon announced to the World that Professional Wrestling wasn't for real, wrestlers would never ever admit to anyone that the business was bent - or as newspapers liked to call it 'fake' or 'fixed'. Even today, some of the oldtime wrestlers at the reunions will tell some of the new guys "it was straight in my day". If somebody did ask you if it was fixed you always said something like "I wish it was". You would never be seen talking to your opponent before or after your match and 'queens' were never allowed inside the changing area. People suspected that it wasn't all as it seemed but then they would see a good blue eye versus villain match some night, maybe with a little blood, and say "well there's no way that was fixed". While people weren't sure, the business thrived. One night in Northern Ireland, Jimmy Breaks went to the bar in his hotel after the show and was enjoying a quiet drink when a punter came up to Jim and told him what a great match he had had that night. He bought Jim a drink and continued to talk about the show. He bought Jim another drink and another. Being a wrestler, Jim was happy to talk as long as the punter was buying drinks. This guy was a big wrestling fan and thought he knew it all. But you always know when the big question is coming and Jimmy was ready. "Just between the two of us, it won't go any further than this room. It's really all rehearsed before hand isn't it?" Jimmy said "Yes, every move, every hold, every throw is all rehearsed before hand". The punter said "It can't be".
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Stories courtesy of Peter Mc Nulty).
Updated: October 22nd, 2206.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wrestling managers have been part and parcel of this business for many years. Of course they didn't actually manage the wrestler - their role was always one of interference. They would distract the referee while the villain roughed up the blue-eye and if they got the chance they would hit the opponent themselves behind the ref's back. On other occasions the manager would don the tights for the odd tag match. One such manager - who was egg shaped (a big egg) - was booked to appear at a show at the Thameside Theatre in Ashton -under-Lyne as the villains manager in a tag match against the local boy and his partner. During the match the manager was to climb onto the ring and grab hold of the local boy while the villains went to town on him. But when the spot was called, the manager couldn't get onto the ring. He tried several times but failed. He had to go backstage to get a chair before he could get onto the ring. Another of those memorable occasions - not just for the managers failure to get onto the ring, but also for the blue eye's spot being ruined in front of friends and family. It couldn't happen to a nicer chap!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Over the years wrestler's digs while on tour very often have been no better than flea pits. Promoters never liked spending money on digs and would always find the cheapest possible run-down dumps to put us up. Always freezing cold with damp beds and very little bed clothes on them. (I'm happy to say that most of them have now been closed down by the health authority and tourist board). At one time Tina Starr and Rusty Blair used to bring sleeping bags to get into before getting into the bed. We stayed in one such hotel in the west of Ireland one time. Not only were the beds damp, there was also condensation running down the walls. I had asked for more blankets but I never got them. But what I didn't know was the extra blankets had come up when I wasn't there and Boston Blackie who I was sharing with, took the blankets for himself. But he got his comeuppance the next morning when he tried to get out of the room. There was no lock on the door but we didn't need one because the door was jammed shut and just wouldn't open. He pulled and pulled at the door handle until it suddenly flew open and smacked him across the eyebrow. He dropped onto the bed clutching his head and swearing like a trooper. That night going into the ring he had a beautiful shiner. The punters probably thought he had been in a tough match the night before. Little did they know he had got it wrestling with a hotel door.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Stories courtesy of Peter Mc Nulty).
Updated: September 24th, 2006.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 I was having a look through some posts on 1stop website and read with great interest all the comments made about Kent Walton. I remember how he used to come into the dressing rooms when we were doing TV shows and have a chat with the boys to find out things that he could pass on. If there were any wrestlers who wore a mask in the ring, we had a rule that you would have it on at all times in the dressing room incase someone walked in. We had it pulled up to our foreheads and if anyone came in we didnt know, we would quickly pull it down to cover our faces. Kent was a regular in the dressing rooms so I never bothered hiding my identity. He would come in and say 'Hi Eddie, how are you doing and what have you been up to'? We would have a chat while I got ready and it would always make me laugh if I managed to see any of the matches on TV as he would say that he didnt know who I was or what I looked like. He would exaggerate about the combat sports I took part in or where I was trained and I would then be put on the spot if anyone was to ask me about them as I didnt know half of what he was saying on TV.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 When the wrestlers stayed in London, it was at a B&B in Brixton which was also a café. In the early 1970s it was only £1.30 a night and that included a full English breakfast, if you were working out of London and it was a long drive back, many of us used to have a lie in until after 12. There were two reasons for this, one is that we were obviously quite tired and the other was if you spent another 30p, you could have a great 3 course lunch instead of the breakfast. The building was rumoured to be haunted and none of us liked to stay there over night on our own because we had told so many stories to the other guys that we couldn’t remember if we had started them, so ended up frightening ourselves. I remember one night I was staying on my own and had got a Chinese takeaway as the café had closed by the time I got back. Half way through the meal, gym weights that had been left for the guys to use, started to clink together and move along the floor. I put it down to the fact that the building was old and that any heavy traffic outside would rattle the foundations, but I still got a chill as I watched them. We used to play tricks on each other and if someone had got there earlier than the others, we would switch on an old Hoover that would screech like a ghost and they would be petrified. I got back one night and started to settle down only to be frightened out of my skin by Mark Rocco opening the big window and walking in on me, I had no idea he was there and he had been sitting out on the fire escape cooling down. Even Haystacks who was a big man wouldn’t stay there on his own and would insist on sharing a room with whoever was down. I was told by some of the guys that one night they got back to find Honey Boy Zimba sitting outside on a little wall in his underpants. With conversations about voodoo, the mystics and Ouija boards, he had been scared so much that he went outside to wait on the others coming back. Much as it was made a bit of a joke of at the time, we all knew exactly how he felt.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Updated: August 26th, 2006.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 When I was in hospital last year after my heart attack, I got chatting to a young lad in the bed facing me. He was great fun and kept us all laughing with the things he said and did, he was always going downstairs for 'exercise', but it was really for a cigarette. He said he was missing his favourite sport on TV, which was American wrestling. I never mentioned to him that I was a wrestler, besides he was too young to have remembered me anyway. So, as I was being discharged from hospital, I wished him luck and gave him one of my pens with my website address on it. I told him to have a look at the site once he got out of hospital and as he read the pen, he said 'The Amazing Kung Fu, so you are a magician'. I had to laugh, talk about deflating your ego.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 When I first starting wrestling in Ireland, I was billed as Mike ' Judo' Hamill and then later changed that to my own name of Ed, when I started getting regular work. In the early days I wore my judo jacket and wrestling boots, it was only later when I was then 'Kung Fu' that I started going bare foot. In Ireland all those years back, you could only buy boxing boots which came to just above the ankle and you had to take them to a specialist who would sew on extra inches of leather to bring them up to calf level. These boots were pretty plain looking and I decided one night to spray paint them silver, and they looked great. Unfortunately for my opponent, Johnny South, they didn't stay that way, with the heat from my body and the ring lights over head, Johnny was covered in the silver paint by the end of the match. I had to go back to the plain boots again until I came over to the U.K. where wrestling boots were readily available in any colour or style you could want. When I decided to start wearing the mask and full judo suits, I then ditched the boots totally and became one of the very few wrestlers who were barefooted.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Updated: July 22nd, 2006.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 While watching one of my favourite films - Topkapi - on TV recently, it reminded me of my wrestling trips to Turkey and I recognised so many of the sights including the sand pits we wrestled in. On one of these trips for Brian Dixon, his wife Mitzi Mueller came along with us. All the local women wore traditional clothes with only their eyes uncovered, so when Mitzi walked along the road, she brought a lot of attention. With her long blonde hair, t-shirt and shorts, she certainly took the mens breath away. As we walked through the markets, our gaze followed a man who could not take his eyes off her. We watched him for several seconds until he literally fell from our view. Along the road, we had dodged a very large and deep hole in the ground, and yes, you guessed it, he fell down it. We laughed for hours when we thought back to it and I am still smiling as I write this now. And yes, Mitzi, that guy really did fall for you.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Anyone reading this site will know that I love nature and all kinds of animals. On my tours abroad, I always liked to get away from the tourist things and go into the mountains and deserts where you saw all sorts of creatures that you wouldn't in the U.K. I remember when I saw a pair of very large tortoises and I picked them up and asked one of the lads to take a photo of this. By the time it was taken, my arms had been scratched to pieces by their claws. They obviously didn't like the way I had held them or that they had been disturbed. However, I will always remember one animal who actually did frighten me at the end of the day, and it was when I was on a tour of Scotland. Andy Robins was on the bill and he invited us all back to his house. I really wanted to go because at the time he had his big bear Hercules and it would be the first time I would be so close to a real one. We were all nervous but Andy assured us that everything would be OK and that the bear was a gentle giant. We watched as Hercules walked the grounds of the house, swimming in the very large pool and wandered around the kitchen where Andy and his wife Maggie would feed him handfuls of prawns. He asked if we would like to have our photo taken with the bear and I said I would, but only if he put him into his cage. Not that I had been particularly scared of him up until then, but everytime I looked at him, he was watching me out the corner of his eye, which totally unnerved me. Obviously in the wild, they don't make eye contact as this would appear as aggression. I have this photo somewhere and will post it here when I have found it, but here is a publicity shot of Andy and Hercules together.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Updated: June 25th, 2006.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 My old friend George Burgess who wrestled as the Jamaica Kid (even though he was from Barbados) is one of the nicest people ever to lace up a pair of wrestling boots. He is so laid - back it's unreal. Over the years I have never heard anybody say a bad word against him. He was a regular visitor to Ireland during the 80's. We shared a room quite a lot on those trips and we were always trying to think of ways of overcoming the boredom of travelling and being in towns early in the day with nothing to do until show time. In those days in small towns in Ireland, very few people had ever seen a real live black man before. People used to stop and stare as George walked past and some even looked a bit frightened. I can't remember who came up with the idea, but one day myself, George and Johnny 'Rasputin' Howard decided to go into shops and pretend that George was dumb. Our first port of call was a small drapers shop where we were looking for material for George to make some shirts. This was an old fashioned shop with rolls of material stacked on shelves from the floor to the ceiling. We explained to the small old man behind the counter what we wanted and George pointed to a roll of material on the top shelf. The shopkeeper had to get a ladder and climb up to bring the material down but George just felt it and shook his head. He then pointed to another roll on the top shelf so the man climbed the ladder again only for George to shake his head again. This was repeated again and again until the sweat was pumping out of this poor man and he was breathing like he had just done 10 rounds with Mark Rocco. We had to stop because I thought he was going to have a heart attack going up and down the ladder. We could hardly see the little man behind the counter at this stage for all the rolls of material stacked up in front of him. When we couldn't find any suitable material we thanked him for his help and left. Another day we went into a ladies shop and explained to the young assistant that George couldn't speak and he wanted to buy a bra for his wife. The young lady just turned a cherry red and ran to get the manageress. This lady was a more mature woman and couldn't do enough to help. She asked what size George's wife was but George shook his head and just cupped his hand to what he thought was her size. This didn't help, but the manageress wasn't giving up. She asked George if there was any women in the shop that looked to be a similar size. So George went around all the women in the shop staring at their chest. The women were terrified of this big black man staring at them and several of them ran out of the shop. But there was nobody that looked to be the same size so again we thanked her and left. It wasn't easy trying to keep a straight face as George examined each of the ladies.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 The late Cyril Roberts was a 'Jack of all trades' in the wrestling business. He was a driver, ring crew, merchandise seller, referee and MC, - in that order most nights. He worked harder than anyone else on the show and was probably on the lowest wages. There are so many funny stories to tell about Cyril. He was deaf but too proud to wear a hearing aid. A lot of the time he wouldn't catch everything you said and the parts he didn't hear he would just guess at. So very often his reply didn't have a lot to do with what you had just asked him. Before coming into the wrestling business, Cyril was a bingo caller. So when he was in the ring as MC, he tended to speak with his head down. One night while on tour in Ireland in the early 80's, we had what was then called a King Of The Ring match. This was very similar to today's Rumble - the difference being that everyone started in the ring at the same time and the last man standing was the winner. Ten wrestlers had come into the ring (including Giant Haystacks, Mighty Chang and Austrian star Franz Schuman). As Cyril was introducing the men, his teeth fell out and hit the microphone. He tried to shove them back in with the mic but this made so much noise that all the punters had sussed what had happened and started laughing. But not as loud as the ten men who were standing in the ring. On another occasion, again in Ireland, we were working at a big hotel down south. Most of us were there from lunchtime and went into the bar for lunch. One of the guys who was serving lunch seemed to be the village idiot. I think hotels and restaurants get a grant from the government for taking these people on. However it was this guy who took Cyril's order - including trifle for dessert. So Cyril had his lunch and waited for the trifle. And waited and waited and waited. Every time the waiter passed by, Cyril gave him a dirty look. He eventually called the waiter over and said "how is the trifle getting on?" To which the waiter replied "ah tis grand, tis grand" Cyril seemed to be the butt of everybodys jokes. While on tour in Scotland or Cornwall or Ireland it wasn't unusual for us to stay at one hotel for a few nights and commute to the venues. On these occasions most of the guys would travel in the wagon from the hotel to the hall. Haystacks always had the front passenger seat and he used to give Cyril a hard time. When Cyril would stop at traffic lights, 'Stacks would knock the wagon out of gear. The lights would change and Cyril would try to move off only for the wagon to stay where it was with the engine roaring as Cyril accellerated. If that wasn't enough, on the way 'Stacks would pretend to fall asleep and slowly lean over onto Cyril (who was 9 stone of skin and bone) squashing him up against his door while he tried to drive. Cyril was a one-off. We were all very fond of him. He could drive for hours and hours without a break. As long as he had his flask of tea and his fags he was happy. When he died last year, Eddie and I helped to carry his coffin. As we moved away from the church, I said "Well Cyril had the last laugh after all - he has the keys of the wagon in his pocket". I'm sure I heard Cyril laughing.
(Stories courtesy of Peter Mc Nulty).
Updated: May 26th, 2006.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 We used to do about three trips a year to wrestle on The British Army camps in Germany and Holland. It was a long drive from Rhyl to either Dover or Felixstowe and then from the other side to the first stop. If we went from Dover we only got a short break on the ferry but if we went from Felixstowe to the Hook of Holland it was an all night affair. We would have bunks and sleep through the night and arrive fresh for the drive the next day. Our first stop always seemed to be a small town just outside Munchengladbach. Our hotel was run like a prison camp and Maria, the landlady, was like a serjeant major. If we had girls on the trip we couldn't go near their room and they couldn't come near ours. Maria said it 'wasn't that sort of hotel'. However Maria was a likeable old dear and over the years she mellowed a bit - well quite a lot actually. After a couple of years she seemed to be game for anything and would sit on the lads knees and say things like 'you have big ding dong'. Unlike the Isle of Man, this was one trip that you managed to come home with some money in your pocket. We always made sure that we arrived at the camps around lunchtime. We were usually met at the gate by an officer who showed us where to bring the ring and very often arranged for a gang of squaddies to help us. But before we would put the ring up we would ask if there was anywhere we could get a cup of tea or a bowl of soup. Nine times out of ten we would be brought to the canteen for a full three course lunch which saved us a few bob. There was always a few crates of beer in the dressing room as well and usually when the show was finished we would be brought into the officer's mess for a drink or ten which also saved us some money. The soldiers could be hard punters at times but luckily their wives and families were also there so it was just like a normal hall show. At one camp a soldier who had had too much to drink jumped the ring on the Mighty Chang. Chang got hold of him and just held him waiting for someone to come and take him away. But nobody came. This guy was still trying to fight so Chang double-arm supplexed him about 50 feet over the top rope and into the audience. He landed on a table and it was just like in the movies with drinks and punters flying in all directions. We thought the guy was dead. He didn't move for about 30 seconds then he suddenly sat up, got to his feet, shook himself down and rushed back to the ring. This time he didn't manage to get into the ring before some MPs took him away. We were told later that the guy would probably get about 10 days in the guardhouse for his behavior.On another trip, after about five days on the road, a bad smell was noticed in the wagon and it seemed to get worse by the day. Eventually it became unbearable so when we got a chance we stripped the wagon in an effort to find out was was causing the smell. We found the carcass of a cooked chicken under the front seat that was walking with maggots. I bought the chicken in Rhyl to eat on the way to Dover, but when I was finished I just stuck it under the seat to dump when we got to the ferry. But I forgot all about it. Another night we ran out of diesel in the middle of the night on the way to Dover from an American camp in Belgium. A truck stopped to see if we needed help. Nickey Monroe who was with us claimed to be able to speak a little French so she was elected to go and speak to the truckers. We just needed a little diesel to get us to the nearest garage. We used the water container and the pipe going to the windscreen to siphon some diesel which got us to the nearest town but the garage there was closed until morning so we had to spend the night in the garage forecourt. We had two long benches with soft sponge cushions in the wagon (before the beds were installed) so Eddie and I and Nickey and Tina Starr and Billy Finlay covered ourselves with coats and slept until morning. The funny part of this story was Nickey speaking to the French truckers. She claimed to be able to speak a little French but I overheard some of the one sided conversation which went something like this. (speaking very slowly) "We - Englisha - we - needa - diesela - we - going - to - Dovera"
(Footnote: Nicky has been in touch since reading this story and would like to add the following comments).
Read the story of me trying to speak french to truckers very funny best part is I remember it vividly!!!!! I do think that I started the conversation with Par la vous Diesel si vous plas and then my french just went downhill from there on and I just added an O at the end of every word!!! Very funny though.
Look forward to many more stories Luv Nicky Monroe XXX
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Wrestlers probably spend more time in their car than they do at home. When you are working three or four nights a week at venues that could be anywhere between Cornwall and the north of Scotland, the hours and the miles mount up. If you and your travelling partners are into music, then you need a regular change of tapes in the car. (We've now changed over to CDs). The place to get these tapes are in charity shops, car boot sales and market stalls. In Rhyl you could spend all of Saturday and Sunday mornings going from one market to another. You couldn't afford to buy new albums all the time so my pal Frankie Sloan and I always headed to the charity shops when we arrived in a town. Sometimes you could be lucky and pick up some good bargains for the journey home. One day in a town somewhere in the north of England we had just opened the door of Oxfam when a kid shouted from across the street - "hey Frankie". Frankie waved back and nearly fell over himself as he quickly closed the door and said "Jesus, I can't be seen going into charity shops". For the next few days he looked up and down the street several times before entering the shops. What a professional.
(Stories courtesy of Peter Mc Nulty.)
Updated: April 23rd, 2006.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Name: Robbie Brookside. Profession: International Wrestler. Who have you wrestled: Most of the top wrestlers from all over the world.
 But, I was a different Robbie Brookside when I first started wrestling. I had just started in the game and being young and not having a lot of experience, I usually had a lot of jokes played on me. The one that sticks out the most was when I was travelling up to Scotland for a weeks tour with John Kenny and Sandy Scott, two lads who had been in the business a long time. I sat in the back of the car enjoying the scenery, when John said to Sandy 'Have you got your licence with you on this trip'? to which Sandy replies 'Yes, I have, I always carry it with me, why'? John replied that that they would be picking up Johnny Saint during the week and as he is the union rep, he will want to see our licences. Now I am sitting there panicking as I knew nothing about any union or about a licence, no one ever told me that I needed one. However, I thought I had better go along with it and pretended I had one. Now, I was going to meet Johnny Saint, who was and still is my hero, what if he asks me for my licence, which I don't have. As the week went on I was starting to get very worried. We picked up Johnny Saint and headed off to another venue, just before we arrived, Johnny asked to check all licence numbers before we got there to which Sandy reeled off his number as does John Kenny. As Johnny asked me mine, my nerves were wrecked and I was sweating, so I blurted out that at I didn't have a number as I didn't have a licence. Johnny replied 'what Brian Dixon has not issued you with a licence and you have been wrestling all week without one, and I am travelling in a car with an unlicensed wrestler. Stop this car, Robbie has to get out'. The car pulled over to the side of the road and I got out. I couldn't believe it, here was my hero giving me a good telling off. I felt my wrestling days were over and I had only just started. Even John Kenny jumped out of the car and wanted to fight me on the side of the road. I felt I had let everyone down and my face must have said it all, because they all fell about laughing. They told me it was just a wind up which lasted a week, I should have been really angry, but I wasn't, I was just glad to know it was a joke and that I didn't need a licence to be a wrestler. I thought I would never be caught out like that again, but alas I was, but thats another story for another time. I am sure Jeremy Beadle got all his ideas from wrestlers.
(story courtesy of Robbie Brookside).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Mark Rocco, John Naylor and two other wrestlers were travelling together to a show in Mark's car which was a V.W. Beetle. In Beetle cars, the engine is air cooled instead of water cooled and the heating came through the vents at the bottom of each seat, which you could open and close depending on how hot or cold you wanted the car. Rocco had closed three of the vents but had left one open at John Naylor's feet. As the engine heats up, the air coming through the vent was very hot and John asked if Mark could turn down the heating. 'I cant, the heater is broken' said Mark, with John not knowing that all he had to do was close the vent. As the journey went on, John was getting hotter and hotter, in the end, he took his top off and tried lifting his feet up off the floor to get away from the heat. Of course everyone else in the car was cool because their vents were closed. When they arrived at the hall, John was bright red and sweating bucket loads. It was only when one of the lads at the venue told him about the vents that he knew what Rocco had done, and what he called him, I couldnt possibly print on this page.
Updated: March 24th, 2006.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 We had been doing a tour of Ireland for promoter Orig Williams and one of the venues was in the social club of the Ulster Defence Association on the Shankill Rd in Belfast. I was wrestling Adrian Street and being the boy from Belfast, the crowd were 100% for me. Adrian did all his usual stuff, foul moves, mincing around the ring and getting the crowd really mad. When the bout finished, Adrian stepped out of the ring and as he did so, a woman walked up to him and slapped him across the face. Without thinking, Adrian slapped her back, at that, there was uproar in the hall, but 2 minders stepped in and took Adrian back to the dressing room. When I got back, the minder was trying to calm Adrian down, but Adrian was still screaming at him, until I diverted Adrian’s eyes to the guy’s jacket, where you could just see the butt of a gun sticking out. The show had finished, so we were told to get dressed as quickly as possible and leave. As we walked down the hallway there was a line of 8 men standing there, and at a given signal, they pulled out their guns and the sound of guns being cocked, echoed down the hallway. They escorted us into our cars and some of the guys stood at the corners keeping a lookout. Just before we moved off, one of them came up to our car and said ‘If anyone steps out in front of you, run them over’. We were down that road as fast as we could go. We found out later that the woman Adrian had slapped was in fact the wife of the top Commander in the unit and she had gone home to get him. Had he arrived, it might have been a bad outcome. It was one of my most scariest moments in wrestling.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 I arrived at the Civic Hall in Wolverhampton just as Jimmy Breaks was going in to the ring. As I started to get my gear out of my case, I noticed Jimmy’s clothes over a chair and could see that his trousers were the same as mine, only mine were a lot bigger and longer than Jimmy’s, so I decided to do a swap. I took his keys and wallet out and put them in my trousers and put them back over the chair. The rest of the lads had seen me do it so they were ready for a good laugh. Jimmy finished his bout and returned to the dressing room. After a shower, he started putting his clothes on, his shirt, socks and then his trousers. The rest of us are all looking the other way and deep in conversation, but having a sly look through the corners of our eyes. Jim pulled his trousers up and just stood there looking at them, the waist was too big and the legs were too long. He put his hand in his pocket and sure enough, there was his wallet and keys. He kept trying to pull them up, but they just wouldn’t fit. One of the lads looked across and said ‘You look like you have lost a bit of weight there Jimmy’. At that, all the lads started laughing and then he knew he had been set up.
Updated: February 26th, 2006.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Orig Williams has been a wrestling promoter for over 40 years - and he is still going strong. Not only has he promoted shows all over the UK and Ireland but also in such far flung places as India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Kenya and several of the middle eastern countries. In his wrestling days he was one of the best villains in the business and could make any young blue eye look good. But he had a mean streak. Deep down he really liked to hurt people. Even going back to his days as a professional footballer he was forever being shown the red card for his rough house tactics on the pitch. If you were on with him in the ring, you had to be very careful as you got up off the canvas, otherwise you would get a kick in the ribs. His foot-stomps to the chest were like being hit with a cement block. After the first one you had to grab his foot or you would get another one. But one night the tables were turned on him. He was on with Tony St Clair and using every dirty trick in the book. After a few rounds Tony was threatening to chin him. But Orig moved forward a little as Tony threw a punch and caught Orig full force on the nose. Orig went down like a ton of bricks. The expression on his face was priceless. It was one of surprise and shock. Another occasion when it was just impossible to keep a straight face.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Tony Stewart was just 16 years old when he came to live in Rhyl from his native Northern Ireland. Tony had an excellent amateur background having competed at every level with great success. He took to the pro style like a duck to water and in a few short years he became the British lightweight champion and regularly appeared in tag matches with Big Daddy. Because of his amateur record, Tony was accepted almost immediately as 'one of the boys'. But as a newcomer he still suffered at the hands of the pranksters. On one occasion at a sports hall in Northern Ireland, there was a trampoline set up at one end of the hall which had been used by a local school earlier in the day. Of course Tony had to have a go. And then he wanted to get strapped into the beginners harness which was hanging from the ceiling. So Dave Finlay and Danny Collins strapped him in and hauled him up - and up - and up and left him dangling about 30 feet in the air for over an hour. When he came to Scotland with us for the first time, we asked him if he had ever eaten haggis. He hadn't and what's more he didn't know what it was. He was told that it was a little furry animal that can only be found running around the fields of Scotland. As soon as we crossed the border everybody in the wagon was seeing haggis running around but Tony wasn't quick enough. That night after the show he went into the nearest chippie and asked for a breast of haggis. We had told him that there wasn't much meat on the leg.
(Stories courtesy of Peter Mc Nulty).
Updated: January 17th, 2006.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| |
