The history of professional wrestling in 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,"All In was introduced to Britain in 1930 by Atholl Oakeley, a professional wrestler turned promoter" The Wrestling, Simon Garfield, Faber & Faber 1996 edition page 16 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 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, on Saturday afternoons and then also in a late-night midweek slot. Domestically produced professional wrestling 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 the market in the late 1980s, contributed to a decline in support for domestic British wrestling and stars. In 1985, World of Sport ended,"WORLD OF SPORT Notes Series broadcast on Saturday by ITV, featuring matches, sport reports, results and scores. GB. ITV Sport production, Tx LWT: 1965/01/02 - 1985/09/28" British Film Archive online catalogue, retrieved 28 January 2024Slam Wrestling revewi of "Have A Good Week" by John Lister, Bradley Craig, Oct 4, 2021 retried January 28 2024 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 the traditional British style of wrestling,Fighting Spirit Magazine issue 109 June 2014 Brian Dixon interview by John Lister 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 a new generation of professional wrestlers such as Will Ospreay, Zack Sabre Jr. and Pete Dunne to rise to prominence internationally.
History Folk-wrestling roots and Greco Roman wrestling boom For many centuries, there have been wrestling tournaments (for example in Cornish wrestling, Lancashire 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. Evelyn, John: Memoirs Illustrative of the Life and Writings of John Evelyn, William Bray, 1818 The Moderate Intelligencer, May 1 1654Morris, Charles: Historical Tales, the Romance of Reality, JB Lippincott Company (Philadelphia) 1895, p212. Sewell, Elizabeth Missing: Popular History of France, Longmans Green and Co (London) 1876, p302.Jennings, LA: Mixed Martial Arts: A History from Ancient Fighting Sports, Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group 2021, p52-53.
At 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 Wrestling Challenge - A wrestling challenge to whom it may concern, West Briton, 30 November 1886. Wrestler Jack Carkeek, The Sunday Leader, Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania, 21 December 1890, p7. Corvion, Tom: Pioneers of Professional Wrestling: 1860–1899, Archway Publishing (Bloomington) 2014, p37-38.), who would challenge audience members to last ten minutes with him in the ring.
The development of wrestling within 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 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 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.
1930s: All-in wrestling
While various styles of amateur wrestling continued as legitimate sports, grappling as 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 the United States back in the 1890s, became the new dominant style in Britain. With Lancashire style 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 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 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 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."BEWARE: Too Much Showmanship Could Ruin Wrestling, Kent Walton 1979 World of Sport Annual
1940s: Mountevans' committee
After the war, attempts to re-launch the business in 1947 failed to catch on with journalists, who condemned the gimmickry of professional wrestling as "fake". The revelation of this, and 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 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 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 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 the name of Joint Promotions.
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 Relwyskow in Scotland, with Arthur Green the secretary of 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 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, was a founder and was quoted, "We're the pirates".