Wrestling Enterprises, Brian Dixon
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Brian Dixon changed the face of British wrestling. In October, 1970 this young man who had until recently run the A-Z Wrestling Fan Club, left his job as a second at Liverpool Stadium and promoted himself to owner of Wrestling Enterprises of Birkenhead.
He immediately attracted a number of main event performers, Count Bartelli and Syed Saif Shah amongst them. The concept seemed simple; put on an attractive show and then put on an even more attractive one the following month.
Dixon built up an enviable reputation during the 1970s presenting quality tournaments on a shoestring budget. He organised the lot. He booked the halls and the wrestlers, wrote the programmes, published his own magazine and refereed on his own shows. He was probably the first promoter to learn (and many of the day never did) that ticket sales alone were insufficient to make a good profit, and sold various accessories at his tournaments.
Wrestling Enterprises, later to become All Star, grew to become the largest and most enduring of wrestling promotions. During the 1970s and 1980s All Star Promotions began to attract just about every big name in British wrestling, a situation that could only have speeded up the demise of Joint Promotions. The reward for Brian Dixon’s determination was that he eventually attained what seemed to be the unattainable. He was the David that overcame Goliath. He succeeded where Paul Lincoln and Jackie Pallo had failed. Hard work, courage, ability and good fortune led to All Star finally breaking Joint Promotions stranglehold on television wrestling.
All Star Promotions also achieved another first when they overcame the ban on female wrestling in London and presented a tournament featuring Mitzi Mueller at the Royal Albert Hall. Unlike previous attempts to present women’s wrestling the contest went ahead unchallenged.
In the 1990s when wrestling attendances steeply declined and most promotional businesses folded it was Brian Dixon that endured, evolved and grew to maintain his position as Britain’s top promoter.
Here at Wrestling Heritage we’ve said many times “It’s all about the memories,” and what memories arise from this photo on the left. It was taken in 1984 by photographer Mal Seddon in the All Star office in Fountain Street, Birkenhead.
Heritage member Rodney Challis (1) sent us the photo and wrote: “A distant memory of the slightly crumpled poster on the wall tells me Brian was very proud as it had been given to him by Mark Rocco. Brian excitedly drew my attention to this souvenir of a recent storming campaign across Japan by Rocco as Black Tiger -v- Tiger Mask. Brian excitedly pointed to the mask on the right hand side of the poster.”
Over more than fifty years Brian Dixon demonstrated the ability to adapt the wrestling product to satisfy the paying public. It would be hard to over-estimate his influence on British wrestling. Brian Dixon was born in 1947 and died on 27th May, 2023.
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(1) Rodney Challis devised and researched the BBC Radio 4 documentary, “Not a Night for the Squeamish” in 1984. The programme was recorded at live wrestling shows in Sale and Liverpool, both of them Brixon Dixon Wrestling Enterprises shows featuring Ray Crawley, Monty Swann, Steve Peacock and Klondyke Kate.
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