Ron Historyo Delves Into The Archives
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Belle Vue 1936
1936 was open again after the Circus in Mid February. The climax of the 1935 season was to see Belle Vue’s British champ George Gregory lose to Rik de Groot, the man from Flanders, who came into the 1936 season as Champion of Europe still.
But the bills show the story that Kath Look now wanted George Boganski to be champion of Europe. So it is clear that Boganski takes it and Gregory gives Garnon a chance of the British title. Gregory retains it and gets his shot at Boganski. Would have been a good contest because both men would not have been big heavyweights, their skill was on the top level. Boganski retains.
Garnon gets another crack at Gregory and, as promised, there would always be title matches on at Belle Vue. They give a big push still to Kola Klito and also to Olympian turned pro Robert Cook.
In April Boganski gives De Groot another shot, but he fails again. The advertising was good, some of the captions are of poor quality, but I am salvaging history here. Robert Cook is getting a push, but looks to me in reality that if Boganski is putting up a purse to beat him inside a time limit then no way was is he going to beat Boganski in a proper match.
May has an injection and in comes Jack Sherry. It’s well set up for him as World Champ to fight Boganski as Euro Champ. Of course it leads to a return with Sherry who did an in-between match with Reggie Meen. Consequently they had to push Reggie Meen as a boxing champ, to make him look a good threat.
The European Light Heavy Title is also introduced with Pocopopolis brought in as Champion. Young Milo as he was known had not been around all that long and it looks to me as though he was launched here at Belle Vue with the Champion title out of the blue. Yet more colour to the story.
Grudge matches, challenge matches, return matches and international wrestlers, every marketing trick in the book was used.
One thing that bothers me in this research is that there was no announcement of opening show or last show of season. Some bills have been hard to find, results even harder. All I can do is present what I have found and state that this must be most of what went on.
I am however a bit perplexed in that there was an early season and a late season. That had been established by Miss Look in 1935 and that year it was easy to follow.
In summer 1936, just when wrestling was usually at rest, possibly because of the holiday season, I found three bills. What is more, I don’t see any press reports from Miss Look.
And there is a change in that the bills are starring Max Krauser.
There is one clue though, in that by late August he was being billed at Belle Vue as The World Champion.
Why would Kath Look do that when she had Jack Sherry?
Joe Branski, Krauser’s manager was calling him only Heavyweight Champion of Europe. And probably Kayfabe, he was chasing every big name for a match and the title.
But I will say this, he was The Real McCoy. Other visitors like Pojello, Modrich and Boganski were in the later stages. This powerful guy was ready to conquer all he could and had age on his side.
And if July was a grand re-opening of wrestling as shown, going to the end of August, fortnightly as far as I could see, then why would September see Sensational Re-Opening? This time Kath Look puts her name to it.
I can’t give an answer to that. It looks possible that another promoter had been allowed in for the Krauser shows.
I could speculate, but the answer is that I don’t know. But I can report it as history in the time line that I am showing.
For September and October two big things are going on. Miss Look has George Boganski as her European Champion still and he does the headlining and defends his title.
The other thing is Sergie Kalmikoff, he is in a world title eliminator with Gaby Cyr, to wrestle who, we don’t know, and then suddenly that is swept under the carpet and he gets a European tilt with Boganski instead after also winning a European eliminator.
What happened to a match with Sherry or Krauser ???? Where was Sherry for the rest of the Belle Vue season.
Keep saying it, this is wrestling, just enjoy the bills and the trip back in time. It often does not make sense.
No Sherry, so Kath Look throws the dice again and comes up with building it all round Boganski, getting in Pojello and the use of Kalmikoff, reported to be 24 stones, what a monster. Garnon is in the mix with a grudge with Kalmikoff as well. Note when Boganski fights Pojello there is a spurious claim that not only was he the European Champ, but also The British Champ. An advertising mistake, I would have thought.
Pojello fails to make the last show of the year so Boganski v Kalmikoff saves the day.
There had been a shift here generally from title matches to challenge matches. Very clear that in Miss Look’s estimation Lightweights and Middleweights did not come into her picture.
There has to be a suspicion also that the Headline Wrestlers would have been on massively different money to the mid carders.
Of note, this was a year when alternative British Champion Doug Clark was away in Australia, on a nice little earner, Mitchell Gill too.
And yet again Jack Pye is not in the picture, illustrating his great fame at Belle Vue was to come much later than this period. Pye was getting round the country from Portsmouth to Edinburgh, a regular, and looks like he was becoming famous in Liverpool before he captured the hearts of the Kings Hall fans.
In another dimension Bert Assirati was portrayed as champion of Britain down in the South, especially prolific in Kent in this year.
George Clark was becoming a big star, but can be found more in his native Scotland in this year, and before it ended, he was off to North America where he became known as “The Dazzler”.
Belle Vue was big and big in ideas, I think doing well. But it was only one venue.
Stars were coming in and out like Krauser, Sherry, Pojello, Boganski.
Maybe they could not afford them all at the same time, or to have ownership of one of them.I think there was perhaps a lack of continuity going on, covered each show, by clever switches.
I am not so sure that it had been managed as good as the 1935 year, for me that had been stand out.
But there it is, I can only share the bills that I have found. Would like to think I got most of them.
Thanks for reading.
Ron Historyo Time Cop, 2024
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