Ron Historyo Delves Into The Archives
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Belle Vue 1937
1937 opens quite late but thankfully the bill does confirm that it is a grand Opening and it’s a Coronation Tournament. It’s quite a schedule.
Belle Vue has quite a lot of extra attractions on due to the Coronation celebrations and it causes a big change to the wrestling schedule.
The first season is a series to decide the number one contender to fight Jack Sherry for The World Title.
My first observation is six bouts per show and cost implications. Bonnie Muir is there as British Empire Champ. Somehow Fazel the Flower is British Champ, which is another one that can be added to that list of 1930’s champs that have little lineage whatsoever. Tiger Daula, Boganski and Pojello must have cost money. Things must be good to be able to pay these guys.
Maybe Rik De Groot’s stock is down now although he remains about until the war. Peltonin was here full time, so maybe not considered an import. Not sure if Danno Davey did anything as he is only listed on the opener. Mike Brendel looks a big one, think he went on to work in films.
The weeks on the first three bills are numbered and you can see that I have collected the weekly bills. Always nice to know I am on the right track.
Did they invent Boratti as a take on Assirati who would not come and work here? I never have found out who he was.
They throw in a British Lightweight Title match between Jack Alker and Babe Saxon, who had previously defended his Featherweight title in week two. Babe Saxon the son of Pop Charnock I believe.
You can see Miss Look filling the card up, and, after all it had previously been a fairly elite bunch and I would guess that some wrestlers would have come for the opportunity of the big show at the big stadium.
The usual stuff though, Garnon Welsh Champ, Mansfield Northern Champ, Peltonin Finnish Champ, Eddie Jackson Newfoundland Champ, Francis Gregory Cornish Champ, Black Arrow West Indies Champ, De Groot Flanders Champ, Cyr French Canadian Champ, the possibilities are endless, and nobody did it better than Belle Vue.
After Friday the 12th March, suddenly there had to be five nights of wrestling the next week to get this Tournament over with. As best as I can see Belle Vue had a lot on it’s plate with Coronation Celebrations.
It’s kind of sensational to go to the wrestling on a Friday night and find it is on every night next week. I wonder how many fans dug deep into their wages to go? I don’t think I had ever seen anything done like this before in England and we are talking 1930’s here.
Without these bills I could not have put these names into a pecking order, and have always said that the results only indicate the standing in the Industry of the Wrestler with his ability to excite the fans, from the promoters view point.
But the beauty of the tournament for me is that I know I have hunted down all the bills. Nothing missing, and without the results you can see most of the progress.
Follow it through, they are doing 3rd and 4th and even 5th and 6th, all the way to 7th and 8th to keep the interest. Who is being paid the most?
Pojello and Tiger Daula, do the final. I don’t believe Garnon and Mansfield would be on the same wages as them and they support with 3rd and 4th. So Fazel the Flower who I have heard of in the history books, was he not so big an item getting eliminated sooner that I expected. Aussie the Butcher making up the numbers?
Alker and Babe Saxon brought back a second time to add something very different. Great to see the early days of the lightweights.
Yes this magnificent Tournament had been compressed to this terrific week for a reason. The Kings Hall had been needed, in some way for the Coronation Events. It was scheduled to be six months before the late season, but there was an exception in the middle of summer.
Of course with Kathleen Look putting the show on it had to be Stupendous. What a great adjective. Curious what her connection was with this club.
Grove Lane Lads Club was in Cheetham Manchester and was a sports club for Jewish Boys. I know the original Belle Vue owners were said to have been of Jewish origins. Must have been great to have had Belle Vue batting for you. Bet that event did well. Tiger Daula, the man who had beaten Pojello in March to be the contender for a shot at Jack Sherry for the World Title, was top of the bill. You could get in for 9d (nine old pence) in those days.
17th September 1937, I catch the re-opening for the run towards the end of the year. Boganski is back and perhaps the first sighting of two new names, Reginski and Kola Kwariani.
Great to see light weights Alker and Ginger Burke trading the British Title and finally they get Harold Angus in, now up to welterweight.
Robert Cook is European Light heavyweight holder as well.
Tons of champions as usual. Every bit of imagination eked out in creativity.
Bonnie Muir takes much of the strain in October as Empire champ while each bodyweight gets expanded, to show us there are a wide selection of good wrestlers at every level. Maybe a realisation that the lighter weights have something to offer. So fast moving compared to the giants like Kwariani.
Notice the bill in October 1937 with a certain Dick the Dormouse here for the first time. In a handful of years all this would belong to him and his wife Jessie for more than a decade and a half. I have never found out who his opponent Boratti was.
What about that match Kalmikoff versus Lefebvre both over twenty stones? You had to give it to Belle Vue and Miss Look, Belle Vue shows by now had everything you could contemplate.
It was a variable array of talent, ahead of probably all other stadiums.
But, the burning observation, this did not give them the right to claim all of the champions. Champions were never really decided in wrestling on a proper linear basis and in the 1930’s it was even more so. However a trip back to the times is magic.
As we close the final weeks of the year before the Circus, Billy Riley is on as Middleweight Champion.
The early season Winner, Daula gets his shot with Sherry and also Bonnie Muir goes in with Sherry.
Do we assume Sherry was very expensive to hire? He comes in at the pinnacle after all the heat that has been generated to make as many men as possible look almost unbeatable.
I think we know that “Creative Advisor” Oakeley has probably written the script so that Sherry was never beaten.
One thing that does not quite fit here is that without a story line, for one night only, 12thNovember 1937 there is a one off appearance of Ed Strangler Lewis against Bert Mansfield. Strange choice of opponent, Mansfield gives away a shed load of weight against him. NO chance of him squaring off with Jack Sherry, but why not one of the big Internationals?
A strange state of affairs with little press coverage.
But cast your eyes carefully over the bills, enjoy them, because as a collection I don’t think they have ever been captured all together before for scrutiny.. Wrestlers catch the eye like Carl Von Wurden who moves into central Manchester to live and work. He goes on to put a long shift in as an entertainer in wrestling. One of many who made this hall their home.
In a parallel world Doug Clark chose to spend a second summer in Australia, concentrating on Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane
Ron Historyo Time Cop, 2024
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