Ruislip & Eastcote & Northwood Gazette
Getting to grips with Saturday’s heroes
THEY went by names like Giant Haystacks, Big Daddy and Kendo Nagasaki and were the darlings of wrestling. American singing star and actor Frank Sinatra once said: “I believe British wrestlers are the best entertainers in the whole world,” and British households would come together as one at four o’clock each Saturday afternoon during the mid-1970s to the late 1980s to cheer or boo the sporting stars of the wrestling ring.
ITV covered the bouts as part of its World Of Sport show, and by doing so brought wrestling to the masses.
The television coverage made household names of the likes of Mick McManus and Jackie Pallo, while ex-miner and Coldstream Guard Shirley Crabtree found fame as Big Daddy.
Londoner Martin Ruane was Giant Haystacks and weighed in at 48st, while red masked fighter Kendo Nagasaki turned out to be Peter Thornley and not a Japanese samurai when he was spectacularly unmasked by Big Daddy during a televised bout in 1975.
Brian Glover began his early career in the wrestling ring before making his name as an actor in films like Kes and Alien 3 and as the voice of the Tetley Tea commercials in the 1980s.
He was the son of a wrestler who worked under the name of the Red Devil and Brian himself was first known as
Erik Tanberg, the blond from Sweden, and later Leon Arras, the man from Paris.
Brian once said: “You play to your strengths in this game and my strength is as a bald, rough-looking Yorkshireman.”
Midlander Pat Roach also turned to acting after his wrestling career, appearing in TV series Auf Wiedersehen, Pet and the Indiana Jones movies. The 6ft 5ins tall wrestler fought under the name Bomber Roach and at one time held both the British and European Heavyweight
Wrestling Championship titles.
Yorkshireman and top showjumper Harvey
Smith – infamous for flicking the V sign during one competition – also turned to wrestling and was known to ride his opponents like a horse around the ring.
Gimmicks were a staple of the scene. Colin Willis wore ermine robes, Geoff Condliffe was known as Count Bartelli, Doncaster-born Gary Cooper took on the name and look of TV wizard Catweazle and Welsh professiona professional wrestler Adrian Street, the son of o a coal min miner, sported th the glam look. Jack Ernest G Gutteridge fought under the name of Jackie Pallo and had an 11-year grudge with fellow gr grappler Mick Mc McManus. Pal Pallo was respon responsible for developin developing moves such as the cross-shoulder backbreaker.
He wrote his memoir, You Grunt, I’ll Groan, after retiring in 1983. He also fitted in some acting work including getting knocked out by Honor Blackman in a fight scene on The Avengers.
Actor Julian Sands, who plays Tony “Sweet Cheeks” Smith in new movie Walk Like A Panther, which is inspired by the old wrestling stars, remembers: “My earliest memory of wrestling was sitting with my great aunties, Ethel and Gladys, in the semi-detached they shared in Meanwood, Leeds, in the mid 1960s.
“A regular Saturday afternoon date; the slightly fuzzy black and white images of the grappling Haystacks, McManus and Nagasaki, always accompanied by Fray Bentos steak and kidney pie and Ambrosia rice pudding and the constant refrain from both ladies, ‘What a fine figure of a man’ followed by Yorkshire ‘ooohs’ and ‘ahhhs.’ It was always cosy and fun.”
Actress Jill Halfpenny plays Laura “Liplock” Anderson in the movie, which sees a group of 1980s wrestlers persuaded to return to the ring one last time to save their local pub.
Jill says: “My memories of wrestling are the pure theatre of it all. The bits in between the moves where they were acting would crack me up. It seemed so over the top and Big Daddy reminded me of my grandad.”
Walk Like A Panther which is in cinemas on Friday, was written and directed by Dan Cadan.
He says: “My strongest memory of watching wrestling was not necessarily the wrestling itself – although I loved the characters, their ‘spectacular’ costumes and the mania – I was entranced by the strong familial bond that wrestling induced. My grandparents, biscuits and a brew. I needed nothing else. I was safe. I was entertained. I didn’t have a care in the world.
“That feeling resonates to this day. That was the reason I wanted to make Walk Like A Panther. To remind people of that time. Which, for most, was a glorious one.”
MARION McMULLEN LOOKS BACK TO THE DAYS OF HALF-NELSONS AND HEADLOCKS AS NEW BRITISH MOVIE WALK LIKE A PANTHER PAYS HOMAGE TO THE GOLDEN ERA OF WRESTLING