On This Day In History

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

I was doing some spring cleaning today and I came across some old wrestling merch. It was given to me by my mate Jason whose dad was a big wrestling fan and he had actually worked on the ticket office at the Lincoln Central Market Hall at the time. 

One of the posters and programmes is today's date so it got me thinking that I'd share them with you all as the dates come around, and if anyone else has date specific merch then it might be a good place to share them if you wanted. Might die on its arse but let's see. 

First off the poster

Bruno Elrington is a name I vaguely remember from WoS days perhaps other folks might be able to fill that in. Also is John Foley the same guy Dynamite Kid talks about in his book from Stampede? 

The Programme front. 

Billy looks thrilled to be getting a razor. Perhaps he is thinking that his son can use it to shave his head in the future. 

Some of the future programmes have notes written by Jason's dad. I'll show them when we get to them. 

I should add this is from 1962. 

Edited March 28, 2025 by Lion_of_the_Midlands
Chronological clarity

[BomberPat]

John Foley is indeed JR Foley in Stampede, who comes across as an unhinged sociopath even in comparison to Dynamite Kid, and who was in a team called the British Bulldogs back in the '70s.

Clayton Thomson was fantastic, would have liked to have seen more of him in his prime.

 

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

I don't know anything about Clayton Thomson Pat but having just looked him up I wish I did. Sounds like a superb wrestler and it sounds like he mixed it with all the names at his weight. This from the Wrestling Heritage site sounds crazy, but it is Kellet so no surprise 

"The match against Kellett was particularly explosive and witnessed by two Heritage members. David Franklin told us, “It was a very rare violent bloody TV match that looked incredibly ‘real’ to me at the time.” Matey Dave was convinced the altercation was genuine, “The amount of blood flying about was real. Something clicked during match and it looked like there was a problem. With the amount of damage done to Les it had to stop. The look on Les’s face was mad and it took a lot to get him out of the ring. It was interesting that once Clay saw how bad it was he did not try to make it worse and kept backing off.”

[davertfnewman]

Geoff Portz is the dad of Garfield/Gary "Scott McGhee" Portz.

I was also thinking that Ted Beresford from the picture with Billy Two River trained the Dynamite Kid, but that's Ted Betley. Turns out Beresford and his wife produced American territorial manager Sir Steve/Dudley Clements, who predeceased his dad.

Edited March 30, 2025 by davertfnewman

[Magnum Milano]

It's probably a decade plus since I did a heavy WOS watch, but I think Clay Thompson has something like just four matches on tape (not including his stuff as The Exorcist). From what I remember, the matches against Majid Ackra, Reg Trood and, especially, Alan Sarjeant are well worth checking out (all are on YouTube). There seems to be a host of British guys from that early to mid-to-late 70s period who look to be fantastic wrestlers but where there is only a handful of matches (if that) on tape for them. Sarjeant is another who falls into that category.

Edited March 31, 2025 by Magnum Milano

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

I've decided to create a bluesky account basically just for this. Take some pressure of the photo hosting. 

Today's programme has Felix Lamban on the front, not someone I'm familiar with. You will see on the back that Masambula won. That is someone I have heard of, along with Billy Joyce and Albert Wall. Joyce obviously is regarded as one of the greats, Wall I have heard of, but the rest not so much. If anyone has any ideas?

 

[BomberPat]

I hadn't heard of Felix Lamban either; an interesting one to make the cover, as he doesn't seem to have made much of an impression in the UK, mostly worked in Europe and later the US.

Josef Zaranoff is a rare thing in professional wrestling, especially for the era, as he seems to have been a genuine Russian, rather than just a bloke with a beard gimmicked up as one. 

Steve Logan and Tony Charles are both pretty big names; Logan is best known as Mick McManus' tag partner, while Charles was a proper old-fashioned world traveller - one of the first group of Brits to wrestle in Japan and Mexico, and pretty influential in bringing the British lightweight style to Japan and the US. There's a specific sequence that used to be very common, that you'd hear some wrestlers call as a "Tony Charles".

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

Thank you Pat. I thought I'd heard the name Steve Logan as a wrestler from the 80s/90s. They certainly weren't using the forerunner of the NXT name generator. 

[davertfnewman]

Might be worth adding that there are two Steve Logans, the one from the Mick McManus era from the London area, face like a bulldog chewing a wasp, and a late eighties-into-nineties one from the Birmingham area with blonde hair who in recent years was a trainer.

 

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

Sorry I am slightly late with this one. 

even back in the day the spirit of Teddy Long was booking 6 man tags. I think I know most of the guys on the card, barring The Mask who could have been anyone. I don't know Jean Morandi from the front of the programme. 

Thanks to @BomberPat from the last updates I've been watching Tony Charles and Clay Thompson matches.

 

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

 

Now then. A few names I don't know here. Dennis Mitchell, Dave Armstrong, Alf Cadman, Julien Maurice and Al Nicol so if anyone could let me know anything that would be great. We all know Max Crabtree, but I dont really know if he was any good in the ring? So if anyone can help me out on that I would appreciate it. 

Don't know the guy off the front of the programme either. Georges Gordienko, so again any help would be welcome. 

Edited May 9, 2025 by Lion_of_the_Midlands
Steve Perryman.

[BomberPat]

Gordienko is a really fascinating figure - he was Canadian, and was reckoned to be one of the best wrestlers in the world by guys like Lou Thesz that are normally pretty stingy with the compliments. 

He started wrestling not long after World War 2, and at one point he was probably in line to be the NWA Champion, but because he was a member of the Communist Party, he got blacklisted at the height of McCarthyism, and was eventually deported from the US altogether, so he spent the rest of his career - well into the 1970s - travelling the world and wrestling everywhere but America, including a few stints in the UK as a headline act.

His career ended when Roland Bock broke his ankle in a match in Germany, apparently having been put up to the job by the promoter. 

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

Thank you Pat, as always you provide an insight that I can follow up on.