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105-422: Although the masked British version portrayed by Peter Thornley remains a household name in his home country, most American and Japanese wrestling fans primarily associate the name "Kendo Nagasaki" and related imagery with the face-painted version portrayed by Kazuo Sakurada . The success of both Thornley and Sakurada has spawned an assortment of other wrestlers with characters inspired by, or simply impersonating.

210-842: A cliffhanger and consequently, All Star underwent a box office boom as hardcore fans turned up to live shows to see what happened next, and kept coming for several years due to careful use of show-to-show storylines. Headline matches frequently pitted Nagasaki in violent heel vs heel battles against the likes of Rocco, Dave 'Fit' Finlay , Skull Murphy (Peter Northey) and even Giant Haystacks , or at smaller venues teaming with regular partner "Blondie" Bob Barrett to usually defeat blue-eye opposition. Many British wrestlers also continued to appear on television, alongside French, German and other talent, via France's TV show New Catch which originally debuted on French terrestrial channel TF1 in 1988 before being transplanted to satellite channel Eurosport upon its early 1989 launch, where it would continue into

315-420: A ceremony at Hanley 's Victoria Hall. This began a "Millennium Comeback" campaign for Nagasaki as a month later he returned to the venue teamed with Vic Powers to face Darren Walsh and Marty Jones who had objected (kayfabe) to Nagasaki winning the award. Over the next eighteen months he would appear on various All Star shows, sometimes teamed with Drew McDonald . In March 2001 he again partnered Vic Powers in

420-645: A charity tag ladder match against James Mason and Walsh. This run ended in December 2001 with a formal retirement match, a Four Corners bout, again at the Victoria Hall, in which he faced and defeated Mason, Doug Williams and Dean Allmark . Since then, he was said to be looking for a young wrestler to pass his "powers" on to. In June 2007, he signed a deal with London-based LDN wrestling. In November 2007 he appeared at LDN "Legends Showdown" in Broxbourne. He represented

525-471: A consortium of independent promoters under the British Wrestling Federation (BWF) whose name was used for a rival championship, built around Heavyweight champion Bert Assirati who split away from Joint Promotions in 1958 while still champion. Although Joint Promotions considered the title vacant and held a tournament for a new champion (won by Billy Joyce), Assirati continued to claim it within

630-587: A credible claim to the world title, cemented in 1905 with a win over American Heavyweight Champion Tom Jenkins in the United States . Hackenschmidt took a series of bookings in Manchester for a then impressive £150 a week. Noting Hackenschmidt's legitimately dominant style of wrestling threatened to kill crowd interest, Cochran persuaded Hackenschmidt to learn showmanship from Cannon and wrestle many of his matches for entertainment rather than sport; this displayed

735-478: A crowd of around 80,000. Following the demise of Joint Promotions and the slowdown at All Star, several of British wrestling's old mainstay attractions chose to retire, while many younger stars such as Steve Regal and Dave Taylor as well as veterans like Finlay and Haystacks emigrated to the United States to continue their careers. Nevertheless, several Independent promoters attempted to capture what remained of

840-577: A direct revival of the old slot on the World Of Sport programme) was filmed at the Fairfield Halls , Croydon in 2013, however it was not picked up by ITV. Another attempt was given an airing by ITV on New Year's Eve 2016. A follow-up series of 10 episodes was due to be filmed at Preston Guild Hall in May 2017 but this was postponed until a year later. Around this time, WWE also took an active interest in

945-495: A disqualification, "knockouts" (countouts) and disqualifications counting as automatic two falls in best of three falls matches (which were predominant), and no follow-up moves allowed on a grounded opponent. Similar rule systems were adopted by most major promotions in mainland Western Europe (although French wrestling abandoned rounds early on.) The existence of the committee was readily acknowledged by promoters who used its existence to counter any accusations of wrongdoings within

1050-566: A fresh battle of the Kendos. This storyline was soon aborted when Nagasaki retired once more to concentrate on his role in commerce . Over the next few years, Ryan continued to manage King Kendo (with Dale Preston taking over the role from Clarke who had also retired in 1993) in feuds with various old enemies of the real Nagasaki. He returned in May 2000 to accept the Wrestler of the Millennium trophy in

1155-687: A handpicked LDN Wrestler named Gregory Cortez in a Triple Tag Team match to take on Powers, Brookside and Hakan, who replaced Yorghos who he refused to wrestle. He then began feuding with Yorghos. Barratt wrestled against Yorghos and Hakan in a Ladder match in Hanley in September 2008. Then in October he was scheduled to wrestle Yorghos in a singles match in Wolverhampton, but refused to face him again, instead teaming with Blondie Barratt to defeat Hakan and Travis to win

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1260-551: A larger-than-life fan favourite of children and pensioners alike. That he was no longer a bodybuilder youth, rather an overweight man in his forties, did not seem to be an obstacle as every major heel in the country was defeated by Daddy. This was usually in short order with Daddy gaining quick wins in his few singles matches and cleaning up quickly when tagged into his more frequent tag matches. Disgruntled contemporaries such as Adrian Street have attributed this to Shirley's lack of conditioning, although Max in response insisted that this

1365-488: A lighter wrestler named Kendo Nagasaki II (played by Nick Heywood) briefly wrestled for Joint Promotions . Also in the late 1970s, wrestler "Big" Bill Clarke (also one half of the Lincolnshire Poachers tag team with "brother" Ron) appeared on shows by UK independent promoter Sandor Kovaks as a version of Kendo Nagasaki modelled directly on Thornley's character. Following considerable legal action by Thornley, Clarke

1470-547: A new generation of professional wrestlers such as Will Ospreay , Zack Sabre Jr. and Pete Dunne to rise to prominence internationally. For many centuries, there have been wrestling tournaments (for example in Cornish wrestling or Scottish Backhold ) throughout the British Isles where individual prizes have been comparable to yearly salaries and where monarchs and lords have been in the audiences or indeed participated. At

1575-487: A promotional business did not return to Britain until the beginning of the 1930s when the success of the more worked aspects of professional wrestling in America, like gimmickry and showmanship, were introduced to British wrestling. It was with this revival that the more submission -based Catch As Catch Can wrestling style, which had already replaced Greco Roman wrestling as the dominant style of professional wrestling in

1680-499: A public company whose staff had little experience of the unique business. Finally, promotions were left in the hands of Max Crabtree , the brother of Shirley , who was headhunted by Joint as the most experienced booker still in the business. Crabtree produced the next boom in British wrestling by creating the legend of Big Daddy , the alter ego of Shirley, who had been unemployed for the best part of 6 years before joining Joint in 1972 as

1785-416: A representative. The character's voice was never heard in public. His identity as the man behind Kendo Nagasaki was first revealed publicly by a plumber who visited his house in the 1970s. His identity became more widely known after a 2002 court case over a land dispute with his neighbour. Thornley never spoke publicly about being Kendo Nagasaki until the publication of his autobiography in 2018. Away from

1890-540: A second period of major success continuing even after the end of wrestling on ITV until Nagasaki retired again in 1993. Since that time, he has made further comebacks with All Star Wrestling in 2000-2001 and LDN Wrestling in 2008. On July 22nd 2012, Thornley reprised the character in a special appearance for New Generation Wrestling at the Bonus Arena in Kingston upon Hull . A Japanese wrestler named Kazuo Sakurada also used

1995-521: A series of loser-lose-mask matches which saw Clarke defeated and unmasked night after night. In December 1986, Thornley made his masked return to the ring at the London Hippodrome in a ladder match with Clive Myers transmitted on ITV shortly after the New Year as the main event of the first ever edition of ITV wrestling taped at an All Star Wrestling show, and by September 1987 he went on to become

2100-469: A storyline falling out over Nagasaki's rough tactics in the ring. During the late 1960s, Nagasaki would feud with Billy Robinson and also with a young Jean Ferre . In 1968, Thornley toured Japan where he was billed under the alternative name Mr Guillotine (but still with the same visual image). Kendo Nagasaki made his ITV debut in May 1971 on the FA Cup Final special edition of World of Sport with

2205-529: A strong foothold in British Wrestling, dominated by Orig Williams from the mid/late 1960s onward up to the 21st century. Williams' British Wrestling Federation produced Welsh-language television wrestling programmes for the bilingual S4C channel in the 1980s and 1990s under the title Reslo . One compilation from the early 1990s was released on VHS (in English) as Wrestling Madness . As with old ITV footage on

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2310-516: A substitute under the mask). In the early 1990s, Jim Cornette 's Smokey Mountain Wrestling featured a masked samurai character named Kendo the Samurai managed by Daryl Van Horne . This was initially portrayed by Tim Horner but was later played by other wrestlers including Scott Antol and Brian Logan. In 1996, Japanese wrestler Tokimitsu Ishizawa became the masked Kendo Kashin while wrestling for

2415-439: A team in a match against a team represented by his former manager Lloyd Ryan who had again (kayfabe) fallen out with his charge, this time over Ryan's son, young wrestler Damian Ryan. This event kicked off a storyline which saw him return to wrestling. Working exclusively for LDN Wrestling he feuded with Robbie Brookside over The Sword of Excellence. In May 2008 his old tag team partner Blondie Barratt teamed with him, along with

2520-719: A variation of the gimmick in the United States during the early 1980s. Before adopting the gimmick, Sakurada, like Thornley, had wrestled for Stampede and held the North American title there. This version of Nagasaki would wrestle in the American Wrestling Association , Florida Championship Wrestling (where he was managed by J. J. Dillon ),. World Wrestling Council in Puerto Rico and Continental Wrestling Federation and in Japan for New Japan Pro-Wrestling , where he formed

2625-443: A victory over Wayne Bridges . During July 1971, in what was said to be a sensational TV contest with Billy Howes, his mask came off in the heat of the battle. Howes spent a great deal of effort in pounding Nagasaki's head and dragging his tight-fitting mask up, almost covering Nagasaki's eyes, and tried to untie the straps holding it on, before under his relentless efforts it came loose. Howes showed little sign of actually wrestling in

2730-491: Is most likely a Japanese student of Sayama's. Peter Thornley Peter William Thornley (born 19 October 1941) is an English retired professional wrestler who was best known for the ring character Kendo Nagasaki . The character of Nagasaki was a Japanese samurai with a mysterious past and reputed powers of healing and hypnosis . He was one of the biggest draws of all time in British wrestling , especially in

2835-519: Is now called Nagasaki " which he had contacted while in "a trance state" during meditation. In November 1964 Thornley had his first professional contest against "Jumping" Jim Hussey at Willenhall Baths. Nagasaki's most notable achievement during the 1960s was in March 1966 when he defeated and unmasked Count Bartelli (Geoff Condliffe) at the Victoria Hall in Hanley , Stoke-on-Trent. Bartelli had been Nagasaki's mentor and tag team partner until they had

2940-465: Is now in a new relationship with a man, his longtime personal assistant Lawrence Stevens. Thornley is a believer in Zen Buddhism . At his private estate, Moor Court Hall, near Cheadle, Staffordshire he established Lee Rigby House as a retreat for families coping with bereavement. The house was named in honour of Lee Rigby, who was murdered by Jihadists in 2013, with Lee's mother Lyn helping to run

3045-514: The CWA in Germany and Austria . He would later take the gimmick back home to Japan where he has achieved considerable success, including various championships, as the character. In 2008, the original Tiger Mask , Satoru Sayama , introduced to his Real Japan Pro Wrestling promotion a wrestler named Kendo Nakazaki . Nakazaki's real name is unknown; he wears a mask and a Union Jack flag on his chest, but

3150-531: The United Kingdom spans over one hundred years. After a brief spell of popularity for Greco Roman professional wrestling during the Edwardian era , the first catch-as-catch-can based scene began in the 1930s, when it was popularised under the concept of " All-in Wrestling ", which emphasised an "anything goes" style and presentation. Following World War II, the style and presentation of professional wrestling in

3255-664: The WWE Championship and in 2022, McIntyre headlined WWE Clash at the Castle , which took place in front of 62,296 paid attendees in Cardiff, Wales. The next year saw All Elite Wrestling hold AEW All In 2023 in Wembley Stadium , London, England before 72,265 paid attendees. Excluding SummerSlam 1992, these were the largest professional wrestling events to ever be held in the UK. Wales had

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3360-638: The "Ninja Express" team alongside Mr. Pogo , before going on to wrestle on WCW television, changing his ring name to The Dragonmaster and joining the J-Tex Corporation stable . Like Thornley, Sakurada wore a Kendo men to the ring. Unlike the British original, Sakurada wore face paint instead of a mask and carried a kendo stick rather than a sword. Sakurada also used Asian mist as part of his repertoire. Sakurada died in Chiba , Japan on 12 January 2020. A year after Thornley's original retirement in 1978,

3465-652: The "southern Area" titles actually being fought for. The Empire/Commonwealth titles were a "long stop" title, being used by promotions outside of the Joint monopoly, for the most part. But while titles had some success, it was television that took British wrestling to the next level. The first show aired on ABC and ATV (the weekend franchise holders on ITV ) on 9 November 1955, featuring Francis St Clair Gregory (9 times Cornish wrestling heavyweight title holder and father of Tony St Clair ) versus Mike Marino and Cliff Beaumont versus Bert Royal live from West Ham baths. The show

3570-453: The 'Golden Boys' tag team of Robbie Brookside and Steve Regal when the masked man hypnotised ( kayfabe ) Brookside to attack Regal. This too would lead to a long running storyline with Nagasaki regularly using his 'powers' to turn Brookside over to his side at live shows. In January 1989, George Gillette died of AIDS and Lloyd Ryan officially became Kendo's new manager. In October 1991, he feuded with Giant Haystacks , and at one point

3675-552: The 1960s, World Lightweight champion George Kidd was a successful television broadcaster, hosting his own chat show in Scotland's ITV regions. The dominant promoter in Northern Ireland in the 1960s/1970s was former Irish national Olympic coach David "Fit" Finlay Senior who promoted wrestling on both sides of the border and trained such stars as his son Dave Finlay , Eddie Hammill and Sean "Rasputin" Doyle. Due to The Troubles , in

3780-519: The 1970s and 1980s these wrestlers and others would migrate to mainland Britain and find success there (in Hamill's case, under a mask, billed as Kung Fu.) The younger Finlay would become a multiple champion and later succeed in America. Although RTÉ never had a wrestling show of its own, in the mid-1980s, a major championship match between Mighty John Quinn and Haystacks in Claremorris was publicised with

3885-459: The 26 stone 9 pounds (169 kg) "The Battling Guardsman" Shirley Crabtree later known as 'Big Daddy', up on to his shoulders, then calmly walked to a corner carrying him and finished the bout with his famous Kamikaze Crash, walking out the ring as Crabtree was being counted out. In December 1975, again facing Big Daddy (as he was by then only named) on television, Nagasaki was successfully unmasked (although he nonetheless went on to win

3990-496: The American variant. Features such as timed rounds and multiple falls were dropped in favour of American "one fall to a finish" matches. Conditions in the British scene would remain at a low ebb (with some smaller promoters resorting to "WWF tribute " shows ) until the early-2000s, when a new generation of domestic stars would emerge, amongst them Doug Williams and Nigel McGuinness , who would split their time between performing in

4095-670: The BBC Arena programme, Masters of the Canvas in January 1992. In December 2012, Kendo Nagasaki appeared in the BBC documentary "Timeshift — When Wrestling Was Golden: Grapples, Grunts and Grannies". He remained silent, and the programme also featured clips of him wrestling and the famous "unmasking" ceremony in Wolverhampton, 1977. The programme was repeated on BBC Four on 15 July 2013 and 10 June 2015. Thornley's autobiography Kendo Nagasaki and

4200-516: The BWF. The group later built itself around a new champion in Shirley Crabtree , a young bodybuilder who won the title after it was vacated by Assirati while injured in 1960. The BWF faded away in the late 1960s after a campaign by a disgruntled Assirati (vastly superior as a shooter to Crabtree) in the form of unsolicited appearances and challenges to his successor at BWF shows, eventually resulting in

4305-594: The Crabtrees received another blow when World of Sport was taken off the air. Wrestling instead got its own show, but the time slot changed from week to week, slowly driving away the regular audience. Far worse for Joint Promotions, however, was that with their contract up for renewal at the start of 1987, they were forced to share the TV rights as part of a rotation system with All Star Wrestling and America's World Wrestling Federation (WWF). The introduction of American wrestling to

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4410-556: The FWA commonly featured a mixture of British and American performers, beginning a trend that would continue for the decades to come. By the early 2010s, wrestling stars such as PAC , Britani Knight , and Martin Stone continued to gravitate towards immigrating to the United States, however not before having spent several years performing in the UK first. Digital TV channel The Wrestling Channel , later rebranded The Fight Network, ran for five years in

4515-681: The Joint Promotions and soon looked elsewhere for exposure mainly outside the UK as a whole. As a result, there was a rise in New Japan Pro-Wrestling and Stampede Wrestling 's junior-heavyweight divisions, both of which had their roots in British wrestling of the time. One English promoter that benefited from the backlash against the Crabtrees was Merseyside promoter Brian Dixon, operator of All Star Wrestling which began capitalizing on this disaffection by taking many of Joint Promotions' top stars and running shows head to head with them on

4620-605: The LDN British Tag Team Championship. Following this match, Nagasaki left LDN and the Sword of Excellence storyline was concluded without him. He did not wrestle again until November 2024 in Croydon when, aged 83 he teamed with the tag team Dead Gorgeous to defeat LDN promoter Sanjay Bagga and the tag team Filthy in a six man tag match. This was following a (kayfabe) war of words on social media and at shows regarding

4725-672: The Man Behind the Mask was published in 2018, in which he discussed for the first time publicly about being the person behind the Kendo Nagasaki persona. His identity had previously been publicly revealed during a 2002 court case over a land dispute with his neighbour. In his autobiography, Thornley says that he is bisexual, and he has spoken in related interviews about the issues faced by gay and bisexual sportsmen of his era. He married, and his wife Yvette died in 1990. In his autobiography he says he

4830-464: The Nagasaki character is "in fact, a spirit guide and sensei ... who appears by being channelled through an otherwise ordinary man" i.e. Thornley/Yogensha At the height of his career, Thornley discussed the relationship with his character in an interview for TVTimes in 1976 in which he claimed that the Nagasaki character was "the spirit of a samurai warrior who, 300 years ago, lived in the place that

4935-507: The Sword of Excellence which had remained in Bagga's possession since the above 2007 storyline. Nagasaki appeared with Lyn Rigby (see below) at several of All Star's wrestling events in 2018 to promote his autobiography. At these shows he performed a reenactment of the 1977 unmasking ceremony with Rigby in Gillette's role. Following each unmasking Nagasaki would revert to being Thornley for the rest of

5040-401: The UK and Japan, helping to develop their prominence in both countries. As the American professional wrestling market became more competitive following the creation of All Elite Wrestling in 2019, this resulted in American companies taking a renewed interest in directly securing the British market. In 2020, at WrestleMania 36 , Scotland's Drew McIntyre became the first British wrestler to win

5145-429: The UK and the eventual axing in 1988 by Greg Dyke of Wrestling shows on terrestrial TV saw the eclipse of Joint Promotions from its dominant position in the British wrestling scene. The promotion, renamed Ring Wrestling Stars (RWS) in 1991, continued to tour the old venues with Big Daddy in the headline slot until his retirement in December 1993 after suffering a stroke. Even then, Max Crabtree continued to tour, using

5250-593: The UK brought legitimate Greco-Roman grappler Georg Hackenschmidt who was born in the Russian Empire to the country, where he would quickly associate himself with promoter and entrepreneur Charles B. Cochran . Cochran took Hackenschmidt under his wing and booked him into a match in which Hackenschmidt defeated another top British wrestler, Tom Cannon , for the European Greco-Roman Heavyweight Championship . This win gave Hackenschmidt

5355-507: The UK underwent a dramatic shift, as the Admiral-Lord Mountevans rules were introduced to make British professional wrestling appear much closer to a legitimate sport. Professional wrestling entered the mainstream British culture when the newly-formed independent television network ITV began broadcasting it in 1955, firstly on Saturday afternoons and then also in a late-night midweek slot. Domestically produced professional wrestling

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5460-451: The US, likewise, this period saw the increasing use of American stars on British shows. There was also an increasing degree of crossover between the traditional "Old School" and Americanised "New School" promotions after one of the latter, Frontier Wrestling Alliance featured an invasion storyline featuring traditional veterans from the former faction. New promotions such as One Pro Wrestling and

5565-584: The United Kingdom and appearing for American promotions such as Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA). For example, TNA's "2004 X Cup" featured All Star Wrestling wrestlers James Mason, Dean Allmark , Robbie Dynamite and Frankie Sloan as Team Britain while McGuinness would become highly prominent in Ring of Honor (ROH), first as their ROH Pure Champion in 2005 before becoming their ROH World Champion in 2007. In addition to British stars increasingly performing in

5670-747: The United Kingdom combining worldwide wrestling programming with coverage of selected current British promotions as well as extensive rescreenings of vintage 1970s/1980s ITV footage (branded as World of Sport after the segment's parent show), exposing the history of British wrestling to a new younger audience. After the channel's 2008 closure, the repeats continued on other stations such as Men and Movies . Much of this footage, as well as original ITV broadcasts of matches, has since been uploaded to YouTube, further expanding classic British wrestling's outreach to international wrestling fandom The mid 2010s saw an increasing drive to return British Wrestling to ITV. A pilot for World of Sport Wrestling (branding itself as

5775-510: The United States back in the 1890s, became the new dominant style in Britain. With Lancashire catch-as-catch-can already a major amateur sport particularly in Northern England, there existed a ready-made source of potential recruits to professional wrestling. Amateur wrestler, Sir Atholl Oakeley got together with fellow grappler Henry Irslinger to launch one of the first promotions to employ

5880-550: The WWA World Heavyweight Champion after defeating Wayne Bridges . He also formed a tag team with Mark 'Rollerball' Rocco but this fell apart after a televised match in early 1988 resulting in a lengthy and violent feud between the two which would rage on at live shows during the first few years after the end of British Wrestling on TV. Another tag team with Blondie Barrett would run for several years. During his final ITV appearance, Nagasaki and Barrett defeated

5985-525: The World and British titles had some credibility (particularly as they were often placed on the more legitimate wrestlers), the addition of European, Empire/Commonwealth, Scottish, Welsh, and area championships got out of hand, and at one point there were conceivably 70 different titleholders to keep track of within Joint Promotions alone. In practice, the British, European and World titles were given most prominence. The "regional" titles were mainly honorific, with only

6090-616: The Wrestling Channel and elsewhere, copious old Reslo footage has also been repeated on S4C Digidol and uploaded to Youtube. Since Williams' death in November 2009, he was succeeded by Alan Ravenhill, who operates Welsh Wrestling. Other promotions in Wales include Attack! Pro Wrestling , Britannia Pro Wrestling (BWP), FUSION Pro Wrestling, Slammasters Wrestling, Basix, Pro Wrestling Karnage, Exist, Exposure Wrestling, and Creation Pro. Scotland

6195-418: The abrupt retirement of Crabtree in 1966. Lincoln's own promotion was bought out and amalgamated into Joint Promotions at the end of the 1960s. By 1975, the stranglehold of Joint Promotions had almost crumbled, with many of its founding members retiring and the company being bought out several times, leading to the wrestling industry being run as a private subsidiary of state-run bookmakers William Hill PLC ,

6300-463: The belt. Grey went on to pin NIWA to successfully defend the title and was presented with the belt by Nagasaki. The artist Peter Blake was once asked by a magazine what he would have liked to have been had he not been an artist, and he answered a wrestler, and more specifically Kendo Nagasaki (Thornley in turn expressed a wish to have been Richard Branson . Thornley agreed to sit for a Blake portrait for

6405-690: The bout), starting a violent feud between the two. The unmasking occurred two years before he had an official ceremonial unmasking ceremony at the Civic Hall, Wolverhampton in what was one of the most anticipated and most viewed moments in ITV 's World of Sport . In April the following year (1978), he appeared as an unmasked wrestler for the first time; in a contest at Croydon against Bronco Wells. Following an August 1978 Nagasaki win on television over Colin Joynson, British Heavyweight champion Tony St. Clair entered

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6510-424: The business. It was the promoters themselves, however, who revolutionized the business. During this time, under the guise of an alliance of promoters attempting to regulate the sport and uphold the committee's ideas, the promoters created a cartel based on America's National Wrestling Alliance territory system that was designed to carve up control of the business among a handful of promoters—which it did in 1952 under

6615-701: The character for the Norwich -based World Association of Wrestling (WAW) in which he was for some time a major heel. Preston as King Kendo also won the RQW Tag Team Championship as half of the tag team 4K with Karl Kramer in December 2013. By the late 2010s, Preston's Kendo had evolved into a blue eye character due to his mentoring of young protegé "Kid Kendo". King Kendo also held the WAW World Heavyweight championship before curiously losing it to his own alter ego Dale Broughton in 2018 (possibly with

6720-555: The committee was to create seven formal weight divisions, calling for champions to be crowned at each weight. These weight divisions included lightweight (154-pound limit), welterweight (165), middleweight (176), heavy middleweight (187), light heavyweight (198), mid heavyweight (209), and heavyweight . Many of these rules diverged heavily from those used in American Wrestling – five-minute rounds (three minutes for title matches), two public warnings for rule breaking before

6825-476: The domestic market. Some, such as All Star, Steve Barker's Rumble Wrestling (active 1984-2001 and 2019-present) John Freemantle's Premier Promotions (active 1987-present), and Scott Conway's The Wrestling Alliance (TWA, active 1989-2003), continued to preserve the traditional British wrestling style while many newly created promotions rejected the Mountevans rules and technical style of wrestling entirely in favour of

6930-465: The early 1990s. All Star's post-television boom wore off after 1993 when Nagasaki retired for a second time. However, the promotion kept afloat on live shows at certain established venues and particularly on the holiday camp circuit and remains active right up to the present. Meanwhile, the WWF continued on Sky television , while its chief rival back home in America, World Championship Wrestling (WCW) made

7035-422: The end stages, and was solely intent on removing the mask, which he finally did and Nagasaki quickly left the ring covering his face. In December 1971, he appeared for the first time with manager "Gorgeous" George Gillette at Dumfries . He then went on to tour Canada and the United States during 1972 working for wrestling legend Stu Hart . Nagasaki was renowned for his strength; in one televised match he lifted

7140-529: The evening. On 16 October 2022, Nagasaki, fully masked and in character, attended an All Star show at the Floral Pavilion Theatre , New Brighton and was a ringside judge at Oliver Grey 's defence of his All Star British Heavyweight Championship (which Nagasaki himself had held in 1988) against former champion NIWA. During the match, NIWA attempted to grab the title belt to use as a weapon but Nagasaki used his "powers" to make NIWA keep his hands off

7245-418: The final episode of NXT UK aired, with WWE folding the entire NXT UK project. The 2010s were also characterised by increasing cooperation between British promotions such as Progress Wrestling and RevPro with Japanese promotions such as New Japan Pro Wrestling . Through these partnerships, professional wrestlers such as Zack Sabre Jr and Will Ospreay were able to split their time between performing in

7350-420: The future elements of " sports entertainment ". Numerous big-name stars came and went during the early inception of wrestling within the UK, with many, like Hackenschmidt, leaving for the US. The resulting loss of big-name stars sent the business into decline before the outbreak of World War I in 1914 halted it completely. While various styles of amateur wrestling continued as legitimate sports, grappling as

7455-468: The general chaos which had surrounded "All In" Wrestling prior to the War prompted Admiral Lord Mountevans , a fan of the sport, to collaborate with Commander Campbell (a member of the popular The Brains Trust radio panel show), member of parliament Maurice Webb and Olympic wrestler Norman Morell to create a committee to produce official rules for wrestling. These rules became known as Admiral-Lord Mountevans rules . The most notable action of

7560-430: The gimmick. The original and best-known use of the gimmick is by the British wrestler who made his name in ITV 's World of Sport . He started professional wrestling in November 1964, and became a household name in Britain after his television debut in 1971. He also toured Japan in 1968 (under the alternative ring name Mr Guillotine) and North America in 1972, wrestling for Stu Hart 's Stampede Wrestling where he held

7665-420: The group. By agreeing to rotate talent and block out rival promoters, Joint Promotions was soon running 40 shows a week, while leaving wrestlers with little bargaining power. The financial advantages of this arrangement helped the members survive the tough conditions caused by a post-war tax that took 25% of all entertainment revenue. Other promoters were not so successful. The closure of Harringay Arena in 1954

7770-416: The heel "Battling Guardsman" and then being rebranded as Big Daddy two years later. After an initial transition period as a heel / tweener in the mid-1970s (most notable for his tag team partnership with future arch-rival Giant Haystacks and a heel vs heel feud with legendary masked wrestler Kendo Nagasaki , whom Daddy unmasked during a 1975 televised bout), from the summer of 1977 onwards, Big Daddy became

7875-450: The jump from late-night ITV to British Wrestling's old Saturday afternoon ITV timeslot, where it stayed until moving to Super Channel at the end of 1995 and then Channel 5 on Friday evenings from mid-1999 until WCW's demise in 2001. Both major 1990s US promotions made several arena tours of the UK while the WWF held the pay-per-view event SummerSlam 1992 in London 's Wembley Stadium before

7980-512: The late 1980s. Tag wrestling , however, did prove to be popular, with televised tag matches happening a mere eight or so times a year to keep them special. The success of wrestling on television did however create a better opportunity for the independent groups. The opposition to Joint came from the Australian-born promoter, Paul Lincoln . Having promoted shows in the 1950s with himself in the main event as masked heel Doctor Death, Lincoln led

8085-406: The live event business as wrestling became part of mainstream culture. By the mid-1960s, Joint Promotions had doubled their live event schedule to somewhere in the region of 4,500 shows a year. Every town of note had a show at least once a month, and at some points more than 30 cities had a weekly date. The style of wrestling at the time was unique – not only in terms of the rule system, but also for

8190-578: The local UK wrestling circuit, organising a WWE United Kingdom Championship Tournament in Blackpool in January 2017, which crowned the inaugural WWE United Kingdom Champion . Several professional wrestling journalists reported that the WWE's renewed interest in the region was to prevent the World of Sport Wrestling programme from succeeding. The World Of Sport Wrestling TV revival resumed production in May 2018 and

8295-525: The main event at the Royal Albert Hall , making several appearances on television and frequently wrestling in tag matches against Big Daddy , including teaming with King Kong Kirk on the night Kirk died in the ring in 1987. Clarke and Thornley were scheduled to have a fresh feud in All Star Wrestling in 1993 with the authentic Nagasaki's manager Lloyd Ryan defecting to King Kendo's side, but this

8400-463: The market in the late 1980s, contributed to a decline in support for domestic British wrestling and stars. In 1985, World of Sport ended, and a subsequent stand-alone wrestling programme lasted until the end of 1988. Without mainstream television access, domestically produced professional wrestling would struggle in the United Kingdom. Nonetheless, the largely untelevised live circuit survived and at times thrived with some promotions featuring

8505-492: The match before tagging Daddy in for the finish. Basing a whole cartel around one performer, however, though good for television, produced mixed results for live events. While Big Daddy was a massive draw in terms of family audiences, in equal part he alienated much of the existing adult fanbase for wrestling. Many wrestlers shared the adult fans' dislike of the Big Daddy phenomenon. They were dissatisfied with their position within

8610-523: The mid-1970s and the turn of the 1980s – 1990s. Thornley wore a mask for most of his career, the one significant exception being several months following a December 1977 televised voluntary unmasking ceremony. He had originally retired in 1978 but returned to competition briefly in 1981 and then again from 1986 to 1993. Thereafter he made sporadic wrestling appearances. Thornley gave occasional interviews as Kendo Nagasaki, usually photographed fully masked or with his face hidden, and often speaking through

8715-721: The name of Joint Promotions . Joint Promotions was represented in London by the Dale Martin promotion, which had incorporated in 1948, and involved Les Martin, and the brothers Jack, Johnny and Billy Dale. Other promoters included Norman Morell and Ted Beresford in Yorkshire , Billy Best in Liverpool , Arthur Wright in Manchester and George de Relywyskow in Scotland , with Arthur Green the secretary of

8820-537: The new style of wrestling which was coined "All-in" wrestling. Though, like many wrestlers throughout the business, Oakeley would claim his wrestling was entirely legitimate, his claim was highly dubious. Under the British Wrestling Association banner, Oakeley's promotion took off with wrestlers such as Tommy Mann, Black Butcher Johnson, Jack Pye , Norman "the Butcher" Ansell, "College Boy", and Jack Sherry on

8925-474: The proceedings. Women wrestlers and mud-filled rings also became common place. In the late 1930s, the London County Council banned professional wrestling, leaving the business in rough shape just before World War II . After the war, attempts to relaunch the business in 1947 failed to catch on with journalists, who condemned the gimmickry of professional wrestling as "fake". The revelation of this, and

9030-626: The promotion's North American title, as well as Don Owen 's Pacific Northwest Wrestling and was being recruited by Verne Gagne 's AWA before having to return home due to a family bereavement. Back home in Britain, he achieved even greater fame due to his 1975–1977 feud with the tag team of future mutual arch enemies Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks , as well as his December 1977 televised voluntary unmasking ceremony. After retiring in 1978, he briefly came back in 1981 before returning more permanently in 1986 as lead heel of All Star Wrestling during their brief two years of ITV coverage. This triggered

9135-576: The retreat. However, Thornley later faced legal issues with the estate (relating to the above-mentioned land dispute) which threatened its forced sale, as a result of which he asked Lyn Rigby, who was a permanent resident in the House, either to buy or to rent the site. Unable to afford either option, Rigby and the charity moved out of the estate Joint Promotions Mid 20th Century 1970s and 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s and 2020s The history of professional wrestling in

9240-435: The ring and announced he was accepting a title challenge from the now unmasked and therefore eligible Nagasaki. However, before the match could take place, in September 1978 he retired on doctor's orders from the ring and began a new career in rock management. Nagasaki returned in 1981-1982 in a few appearances for Brian Dixon, in which the real Nagasaki feuded with notorious Nagasaki impersonator King Kendo (Bill Clarke) in

9345-459: The ring, Thornley has been a successful business entrepreneur and also had a career in rock management for around a decade from the late 1970s to the late 1980s, managing Cuddly Toys and Laura Pallas. Until the publication of his autobiography in 2018, Thornley and his close associates frowned on the use of his legal name, preferring that his out-of-character self be referred to as "Yogensha" (Japanese for seer). According to his official website,

9450-438: The roster, while Oakeley himself would win a series of matches to be crowned the first British Heavyweight Champion . The business was reaching one of its highest points at the time, with the best part of forty regular venues in London alone. The great demand for wrestling, however, meant there were not enough skilled amateurs to go around, and many promoters switched to more violent styles , with weapons and chairshots part of

9555-582: The same business model, with British-born former WWF star "British Bulldog" Davey Boy Smith replacing Daddy as the headlining household name, until Smith was lured back to the WWF in the summer of 1994. Thereafter, RWS went into decline and eventually ceased promoting in 1995. By contrast, All Star had used its two years of TV exposure to build up a returning Kendo Nagasaki as its lead heel and established such storylines as his tag team-cum-feud with Rollerball Rocco and his " hypnotism " of Robbie Brookside . The end of TV coverage left many of these storylines at

9660-418: The same night in the same town. Professional wrestling as a whole seemingly began to fall into disarray as the true nature of wrestling began to fall into question as many newspapers tried to expose the worked aspects of the sport. However, this trend did not ultimately harm the industries as the suspension of disbelief was all too easy to maintain for fans, even if they knew the truth. On 28 September 1985,

9765-429: The start of the 20th century, wrestling was introduced to the public as part of a variety act to spice up the limited action involved in the bodybuilder strongman attractions. One of its earliest stars was a Cornish - American ex- miner named Jack Carkeek (world Cornish wrestling champion in 1886 ), who would challenge audience members to last ten minutes with him in the ring. The development of wrestling within

9870-526: The strong emphasis on clean technical wrestling. Heels made up a minority of the roster, with most shows containing an abnormally high proportion of clean sportsmanly matches between two "blue-eyes" (as faces were known backstage in the UK). This continued for several decades. Gimmick matches were a rarity, and midget wrestling failed to catch on, while women were banned by the Greater London Council until

9975-559: The traditional British style of wrestling, while others adopted the contemporary American independent style. In the 21st century, mirroring the growing strength of the Independent circuit in the United States, support for domestic professional wrestling once again began to grow, leading to the rise of several prominent and stable independent wrestling promotions throughout the United Kingdom. This, combined with strategic partnerships with Japanese professional wrestling promotions, allowed for

10080-613: Was "robbed" of a World title (said to be the CWA World Heavyweight Championship , actually held at the time by Rambo ) after Haystacks deliberately pulled off his mask "forcing" him to abandon the match. Footage from this match was featured in the BBC2 documentary on Nagasaki Arena : Masters of the Canvas . In 1993, Nagasaki and Ryan fell out ( kayfabe ) and were set to feud with Nagasaki now managed by his personal assistant Lawrence Stevens and Ryan recruiting King Kendo for

10185-401: Was a founder and was quoted, "We're the pirates". One of Joint Promotions' first moves was establishing (and controlling) the championships called for by the Mountevans' committee. At first, this proved a profitable venture, with title matches leading to raised ticket prices. However, perhaps inevitably, attempts to extend this success by bringing in additional titles led to overexposure. While

10290-570: Was abandoned when Thornley retired for the second time, with Clarke also retiring soon after. Clarke died on 10 October 2018. Following Clarke's retirement, another wrestler Dale Preston (real name Dale Broughton) took over the role of King Kendo, wearing Clarke's original costume and still managed by Ryan. During the mid-1990s, this version of King Kendo was frequently in the main event of All Star shows pitted in reenactments of successful feuds in which Thornley's Kendo had been involved, such as against Giant Haystacks . Since 2012, Preston has revived

10395-484: Was at its peak of popularity when the television show World of Sport was launched in the mid-1960s, making household names out of Adrian Street , Mick McManus , Giant Haystacks , Jackie Pallo , Big Daddy , Mark Rocco , Steve Veidor , Dynamite Kid , and Kendo Nagasaki . An upmarket rebrand of ITV's sports coverage, alongside the entry of the American World Wrestling Federation into

10500-420: Was broadcast on ITV between 28 July and 29 September 2018. In July 2018 WWE announced that they would be launching NXT UK , a new development promotion to be based directly in the UK. Ultimately, the attempted revival would flounder and in 2019 a frustrated ITV moved on from the project, opting instead to begin airing programming from the newly created American promotion All Elite Wrestling . On 1 September 2022

10605-551: Was later renamed as King Kendo, but retained the Kendo helmet, sword, cape and striped mask. In this guise, Clarke would later wrestle Thornley in a series of loser-lose-mask battles of the Kendos for Wrestling Enterprises of Birkenhead circa 1981 with Clarke unmasked, usually by Thornley personally, night after night. Still as King Kendo, Clarke would later join Joint Promotions as a journeyman heel, teaming with Giant Haystacks in

10710-520: Was represented as part of Joint Promotions by Relwyskow Promotions, run by the family of George de Relwyskow . Relwyskow Promotions was not included in the buyouts of Joint Promotions in the 1960s-1980s and remained under its original management while continuing to receive a proportion of Joint Promotions' TV coverage. It remained active until the retirement of Ann Relwyskow in 1994. In 1990 and again in 1993, television tapings were held in Scotland and matches screened on Grampian Television and STV . During

10815-459: Was successful, and wrestling became a featured attraction every Saturday afternoon from autumn to spring each year. In 1964, it went full-time as part of the World of Sport sports compilation programme. Televised wrestling allowed wrestlers to become household names and allowed personality to get a wrestler over just as much as size. The exposure of wrestling on television proved the ultimate boost to

10920-553: Was the last straw for Atholl Oakeley, and Joint Promotions were the only major player left to benefit when Chancellor Peter Thorneycroft abolished the entertainment tax in the 1957 budget. From a press report, some wrestlers decided to go on strike against the Joint Promotions cartel and formed the Wrestlers' Welfare Society for hardship relief but also to act as an employment agency. Bill Benny ('Man Mountain', 1918, Cornwall - 1963, Manchester) wrestler, promoter and nightclubs owner,

11025-455: Was what people wanted to see. Big Daddy became one of the best-known wrestler in British history and even had his own comic strip in Buster comic. Due to his popularity, Crabtree's run was extended by carefully positioning him in tag matches, allowing a host of young partners (which included Young David , Dynamite Kid , Chris Adams , Sammy Lee , Kwik Kick Lee and Steve Regal ) to carry

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