Wrestling Heritage

By Graeme Cameron

A British History of Australian Wrestling
By Graeme Cameron

Part 9 :
THE LITTLE SCOTSMAN WHO COULD…………AND DID!

At the beginning of the Heritage era in Australia, pro wrestling was booming. New names, new venues and more matches than ever before to go and see. All that will be covered in future parts of this series, but this part will be devoted to one man whose career spanned five decades.

When Jim Deakin arrived from Scotland in 1930, even he could have had no idea of the influence that he would come to have as a wrestler, trainer and referee, or that five decades later, he would still be in the industry.  A middleweight from Glasgow with ten years amateur and professional experience, Deakin was initially billed as Scottish middleweight champion. 

He settled in the Sydney suburb of Waverley (not far from Bondi Beach) and quickly became part of the local community. The Deakins became members of the parent’s committee at their daughters’ school with Jim becoming secretary. He joined an amateur dramatics society, where he co-wrote a play that won third prize in a new writers’ competition.

Jim Deakin’s career as a wrestler in Australia was brief, lasting only three years (1931-33). The first record of him is in February 1931 at Sydney Stadium. He lost 2-1 to French-Canadian Jack Hamon in a match billed as being for the Australian Middleweight title, with Hamon billed as champion. In a rematch a week later, Deakin was down one fall when Hamon injured his ribs and was forced to retire. The title was awarded to Deakin who defended it successfully until his retirement. The only other record for 1931 is in August, defeating Greek Con Grivas in a title match at Sydney’s Daceyville Stadium. No records survive for 1932. In 1933 title matches in Sydney, Deakin defeated another Greek, Jim Bonos but was held to a draw by Reg Cox at Bronte Stadium.

That same year, another wrestler, Dick Cameron (no relation) began claiming the Australian Middleweight title, often billed as champion in matches billed as being for the title. Newspapers published a letter from Deakin stating that he was the true champion and had never lost a title match or to Cameron (they’d never wrestled). He issued a challenge which was accepted, and the match was set for Leichhardt Stadium on December 30. It never happened. Cameron withdrew at the last minute and Deakin instead defeated Joe Keatos from Malta by disqualification after Keatos punched the referee. Now, here’s where things get somewhat suspicious. Just three days before, Keatos had challenged and lost to Cameron for his claim. Keatos was employed by Jim Deakin as a trainer at his gym. The whole thing appears to have been engineered by Deakin to allow him to retire undefeated as champion and pass the title to Cameron, but we’ll never know for sure. In any case, Deakin had a new project, and his name was Jack Knight.

Around the time Jim Deakin started wrestling in Australia, he also started a business, the Olympiad Training Rooms located in George Street, the main street of Sydney’s CBD. One could be trained in amateur or pro wrestling or boxing, weightlifting and, for the ladies, physical culture. His clients were businessmen, judges, lawyer, politicians and city workers. His most famous client was cricket legend Donald Bradman. Bradman was an all-around athlete who liked to try other sports. A photo exists on-line of Deakin instructing Bradman (1)

Deakin was also an outstanding amateur wrestling coach. His squad of wrestlers won numerous state titles and medals at the Australian Championships. For about five years, the preliminary rounds of the New South Wales Championships were held at the Olympiad Training Rooms, with the finals held at Sydney Stadium. Deakin’s star student was Jack Knight, a police officer from the southern Sydney suburb of Kogarah.  A heavyweight, Knight dominated the division, winning several national titles. He won the gold medal at the 1934 British Empire Games in London and repeated that performance four years later in his hometown of Sydney. In the Forties, Knight had a short but successful career in pro wrestling, achieving main event status. Also a Deakin student, featherweight Roy Purchase from Sydney similarly won national titles and was also gold medalist at the 1938 Games.

Another notable Deakin student was welterweight Jack Murray. Murray once entered two weight divisions at the state amateur championships on the same day and won them both. He later became better known as rally driver “Gelignite” Jack Murray.  He earned that nickname when, during a race, he used the explosive to blow up a shed. When asked why he did this, he replied, “It was in the way”. Other members of Deakin’s amateur squad who later became pro wrestlers were Todd Hardwick, Reg Piermont and Neil Whittaker, who all appeared regularly as preliminary wrestlers at Sydney and Leichhardt Stadiums. The Olympiad Training Rooms closed at the start of World War II, probably due to the decline in clients who had gone off to fight for their country. A newspaper in 1941 featured an article on two former Deakin students who were opening their own training school “in the spirit of the Olympiad Training Rooms” 

In July 1936 Jim Deakin started a new job as the resident referee at Leichhardt Stadium, replacing “Big” Jim McMaster (father of Bob McMaster) who had been travelling down from Queensland. He was more than likely the third man in the ring when Douglas Clark and Mitchell Gill appeared there. Now, generally a good referee is one who stays in the background. Not Jim Deakin. He made himself very much part of the show.

It was not unknown when a contest was getting out of hand for Deakin to simply jump out of the ring and walk back to the dressing room, leaving two befuddled wrestlers in the ring. A message would be sent back saying that he was not going to tolerate such behaviour and declaring the match a no contest. Jim Deakin must have also set a record for the most disqualifications by one referee. When a match finished in a tie, Deakin would award the match to one wrestler “on points”. He would also award “penalty falls”.  All of these things would raise the ire of wrestlers, leading to another possible record, the most assaulted referee in history. He would be attacked by disgruntled wrestlers unhappy with his decisions regularly and more than once ended up in the third row after being thrown out of the ring by an angry wrestler. Among others, Tommy Nilan and George Pencheff punched Deakin and Emil Koroshchenko threw him out of the ring after being disqualified. Jim Deakin remained resident referee at Leichhardt Stadium until its closure at the end of 1960.

When Leichhardt Stadium closed, Deakin found himself without a job. For the next few years, Deakin picked up referee work wherever he could in independent promotions. Then in 1963, former wrestler Hal Morgan bought the “Club Wrestling” promotion. He renamed it “Top Pro Wrestling” and hired Jim Deakin as both as his chief referee and as a trainer at the accompanying training school that Morgan also opened. Deakin trained many wrestlers at this school but the most well-known to Heritage readers would be Maurice LaRue, known in Australia as Murphy the Surfie. Other Deakin graduates who worked in the UK were Mark Anthony and Ron Fury 

The promotion itself at its height was presenting cards five nights a week and at one point briefly had its own TV show. The first broadcast featured Murphy the Surfie in the tag team main event with Jim Deakin as referee.  More than 150 wrestlers appeared on these cards over a period of nine years, about 10% of whom went on to international success in various degrees. British wrestlers who appeared were Spike Robson, Arthur Openshaw Bobby Burns, Guy Mitchell, Ray Pennington and Rex Casey (we will meet the last two later). In all, seventeen wrestlers who appeared in the UK also worked in this promotion. Jim Deakin would have been the referee for most of their matches.

In 1969, a group of wrestlers broke away to form their own promotion using the old “Club Wrestling” name after Hal Morgan refused their demands for an increase in pay. The promotion continued, albeit with a much weaker roster. In 1971, Hal Morgan was diagnosed with a heart condition and Jim Deakin took over the running of it. The two promotions made peace and reunited.  The combined promotion continued until 1973.  It’s not known whether Jim Deakin was involved

It’s also unknown exactly when Jim Deakin retired. It is known that he continued to train wrestlers after retiring from refereeing. His passing was not noted in the press.  

Only one man could say he trained Don Bradman, two British Empire Games gold medalists and Maurice LaRue. His name was Jim Deakin  

Opponents: Jack Hamon, Con Grivas, Jim Bonos, Reg Cox, Joe Keatos

(1) https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/223670465

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