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Maybe we were just naive. No we weren’t, we were wrestling fans, and the promoters of the day benefited from our generous nature by knowing that when we watched one of our home grown boys with a name similar to a famous American we might just think we were watching the real thing.
Well, Paul Lincoln’s Anglo-Italian Antonio Rocca had only a couple of letters difference from the American Antonino Rocca, but we were ready to believe. Deep down we knew it wasn’t true. But our own Antonio Rocca was good, and he was a very popular light heavyweight of the 1960s. We were told, and it may be true, that he was born in Foggia, Italy, that he came to the UK in 1956 and found his way into wrestling after working in promoter Paul Lincoln’s café. Okay, the last bit is definitely believable.
Antonio Rocca turned professional in 1961 as one of the Lincoln boys, regularly tussling with other Lincoln youngsters Ray McGuire, Bob Anthony and the Cortez brothers.
His fast, skilful style made him popular with television fans throughout the country and particularly in the south where he mainly worked. Surprisingly, his first television exposure was not on the ITV Saturday afternoon programme, but one of two BBC presentations, wrestling Earl McCready in Eastbourne in 1965.
With Paul Lincoln Management becoming part of Dale Martin Promotions in January 1966 Rocca began appearing on Dale Martin shows. This brought the opportunity for appearances on ITV wrestling, on which he was featured around a dozen times between 1966 and 1971. During those five years television viewers witnessed his maturity from those early matches against Steve Haggetty and Al Fontayne to a final outing in which he drew with the great fully-blown heavyweight Tibor Szakacs.
With most well known wrestlers working the rings for anything up to forty years it was a surprise to us when we realised for just how short a time Antonio Rocca was in our sight. Rocca seemed to disappear from our rings towards the end of 1971. Ed Lock told us that he wrestled in Australia, along with Arthur Openshaw, in 1970, often partnering Prince Curtis Iaukea or Spiros Arion.
Paul Mitchell confirmed that the Antonio was injured on a show at Wryton Stadium and did little wrestling following that. We found an isolated advertising of the name in 1982.
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