Also known as The White Angel
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Few wrestlers are deemed worthy of an obituary in the national press, in this case The Guardian. Even fewer, a unique obituary written by a Wrestling Heritage member, James Morton.
The ever youthful Judo Al Hayes was one wrestler who enjoyed a textbook career made up of a series of successful phases.
He was said to be the nation’s youngest ever judo black belt who learned to wrestler under the tutelage of Atholl Oakeley, working for Oakeley until 1953 when his early success against the likes of Frank Mantovitch and Rudy Redvern was rewarded with a signing by the newly formed Joint Promotions at the beginning of 1953. Oakeley even rewarded him with a short tenure as British heavyweight champion.
Within six months he was billed as Southern Heavyweight Champion, and was occupying main event spots on a regular basis from the start. One of those early Joint Promotion opponents was a young Australian named Paul Lincoln, a man with whom his career became entwined for more than a decade. By the end of 1953 he had appeared at the Royal Albert Hall on no fewer than eight occasions.
Regular Royal Albert Hall appearances were to remain part of his wrestling pattern for the rest of the decade, often in the role of opponent to international visitors. In May 1959 Al defeated Alex Wenzl and Tibor Szakacs in one night before losing later in the evening to John Da Silva to finish runner-up of the Royal Albert Hall Heavyweight Tournament. The following year it was Tibor that turned the tables and eliminated Al in the Royal Albert Hall Tournament on his way to winning the event.
In the Spring of 1961, with more than a decade of success behind him the name Judo Al Hayes suddenly disappeared from Joint Promotion rings and televised wrestling. Al, of course, hadn’t gone anywhere, other than to work for his old friend, Paul Lincoln, who had by then started promoting his own shows in opposition to Joint Promotions. Al was a welcome addition to Lincoln’s small roster, playing the blue-eyed lead against Lincoln’s colourful stable of international villains.
Al had a fun run as the English version of the famed Spaniard, the White Angel, culminating in a famous 1962 unmasking at the Granada Tooting at the hands of Doctor Death. During his Lincoln years, Hayes wrestled with great regularity in France, both with and without the mask. He also partnered Lincoln in the management side of the business, and quite a few wrestlers have told us of how much they looked forward to their Sunday night phone calls from their boss they fondly called Alfie.
When the two promotions finally merged at the start of 1966 it was Judo Al who led the Lincoln wrestlers’ televised ring invasion and took the mike in an open challenge to their Dale Martin counterparts. Immediately embraced back into the Joint Promotions fold, Hayes featured in the victorious London team in the Capital Cities Trophy series against Paris at the Royal Albert Hall the following year.
Billed now as the wrestling councillor (Con.) from Westminster, Hayes won an open tournament to become the Southern England Heavyweight Champion, defeating Wayne Bridges and Bruno Elrington along the way.
In time-honoured fashion he relinquished his sash to Elrington just prior to his departure for the USA in 1971. In the States, now elevated to a Lord, Al continued his wrestling career, before moving into television commentating.
Heritage member Callsignmag told us:
“As a young wrestling fan and friend of his fan club’s president I used to wash Judo Al Hayes red sports car in return for an admission ticket to London’s Hackney Empire. Over the two years or so that I did it I got to know him reasonably well – at least on first name terms – but not once did I ever question him about winning or losing because I think he’d have ‘sacked’ me the moment I did. He always spoke as though he was in for a tough fight that night, or if I saw him after (depending where it was parked I’d sometimes watch the car until he came out as it was a convertible and Hackney was a bit dodgy back then), he’d always sound as though he’d been in a real fight. I don’t know if he knew I knew but it didn’t matter because I had always been entertained.
After he went to the USA to finally become Lord Alfred Hayes with the WWF I never heard from him again. BUT… when he died, I was contacted by the-then WWF Magazine and asked about cleaning his car in London and I wrote around two sentences back to them (no email back then, all via the post). So he must have told someone, but I was astonished when it was published and other than the cleaning part at Hackney, I was amazed when I read the issue to see what I had also done in addition to washing the car! I apparently also cleaned his car when he parked it outside the House of Lords, used to carry his bags and referred to him as Your Lordship! It was a lot of dangly bits but to all my friends that went wrestling and who read the mag, I was a hero even though that hero worship only lasted around a month!!!
As I said, it’s more entertainment than sport even though it’s probably tougher than most sports…”
Alfred George James Hayes, born 8th August, 1928; died 21st July, 2005
Reviewed 07/07/2022
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