Crumbs! Jaffa Cake v Giant Haystacks
11 THINGS YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT ALL-IN WRESTLING
1 Wrestling is set to return to ITV on saturday afternoons after an absence of over 30 years. Competitors will include top names in the sport such as grado, sha ‘the east end Mauler’ samuels, el ligero, Magnus and ed ‘Former shadow Chancellor’ Balls. As yet, there has been no official announcement as to whether or not Mary Berry will be taking part.
2 TWO of the most popular wrestlers from yesteryear — giant Haystacks and Big Daddy — are sadly no longer with us. Critics have suggested that their modernday equivalents — Compact Haybale and Medium Father — somehow lack their stature.
3 GIANT Haystacks, right, was known for his massive bulk. At 6ft 11in tall and weighing 48st 13lb, he was forced to abandon his career as a jockey after going through six different horses at Doncaster races in 1966. He finally arrived at the finishing line under his own steam, with his last horse, Bonny Blue, on his shoulders.
4 THE only member of the British royal Family to have pursued a successful career as an allin wrestler is Princess Anne.
As Princess Pulveriser, also known as Her royal Fightness, Princess Anne took on all-comers.
Her trademark means of attack was to yell ‘Have you come far?’ at her opponents before holding them in a reverse chinlock, throwing them into a headlock takedown and finishing them off with an inverted stomp facebreaker.
‘it was only then that she would deliver the ultimate humiliation,’ recalls former heavyweight champ eric ‘the icepick’ Canavan. ‘she’d force grown men to curtsey. Believe me, it destroyed them.’
5 WRESTLING in the seventies always attracted a strong following of elderly ladies, who would sit in the front row of the ring, often bringing their knitting along.
‘You didn’t want to get on the wrong side of them,’ recalls boxing promoter ted ‘Bigboy’ Mulligan.
‘they once set upon the Dynamite Kid with their knitting needles. ooh, it was a horrible sight. From that moment on, the guy had to change his name to the Porcupine.’
6 THE true identity of masked wrestler Kendo nagasaki remained a closely guarded secret for much of his career. rumours abounded that he was great train robber ronnie Biggs, former chatshow host simon Dee, moustachioed aristocrat lord lucan or novelist J.D. salinger. When he was finally unmasked by opponent Big Daddy on primetime TV, it was widely agreed that he had a slight look of Carry on star Kenneth Williams.
7 VIEWERS of ITV’s World of sport in the sixties and seventies were often left wondering how much of the wrestling was genuine and how much was staged. ‘it was when i caught sight of giant Haystacks applying a dash of mascara between rounds that my suspicions were first aroused,’ recalls one former fan. ‘ But when he leaned over to Big Daddy and asked if he could kindly lend him his blusher, my world came crashing down.’
8 PLANS to incorporate Allin Wrestling with Antiques roadshow were abandoned after an Art Deco glass vase, an 1875 carriage clock by J. M. Badollet & Co of geneva, and two blown- glass decanters made by stevens and Williams of stourbridge were severely damaged during an altercation over provenance between expert Cedric WalterPerceval and tony ‘the smasher’ Hargreaves towards the beginning of episode one.
9 THE sport became known as ‘All- in’ Wrestling after one wrestler took the fatal decision to wear boxer shorts for a prime-time match. After complaints from shocked viewers, the sport’s costume rules were altered to make a more ‘All-in’ style of clothing compulsory.
10 THE most crushing of all defeats in the history of TV wrestling occurred when giant Haystacks took on Jaffa Cake. ‘the guy ate him alive,’ recalls one witness.
11 WHEN wrestling was taken off-air in 1985, many of the rising stars of the sport were forced to change profession. the only major wrestling star to transfer successfully to the world of politics was John ‘the Hammer’ Prescott, who was able to employ his skills with the Half-nelson Choke and the indian Deathlock against some of the world’s most brilliant environmentalists in the lead-up to the 2005 Kyoto Agreement.