Wrestling Heritage welcomes memories, further information and corrections.
In the first half of the 1960s a skilled South African wrestler made a good impression on Paul Lincoln wrestling programmes. Heritage member Tom Hawes was impressed when he watched Benny Van Den Berg against wrestlers such as Peter Rann and Iron Jaw Joe Murphy. “He was skilled and clearly an experienced wrestler,” Tom told us.
Although not always the case with wrestlers biographies his South African heritage was genuine, though he had lived in Britain for almost a decade when he made his professional wrestling debut. Born in Durban in 1933 Benny was orphaned soon after birth and brought up in an orphanage before being sent to Manchester to be brought up by an aunt.
It was a rough area and Benny was in frequent scrapes with other youngsters. He learnt to survive and this led to a futile attempt to enter the professional boxing ring. Although this didn’t lead to fame and fortune his boxing background led to a meeting with Micky Kiely and regular work on Micky’s fairground boxing booth.
He became friends with a Manchester wrestler John Bates, who was a main eventer around the country under the guise of the Ghoul. John Bates taught Benny enough about wrestling for him to go return to South Africa in 1955 and return with a claim to be the welterweight champion.
Around 1960 he moved to Bedford and wrestled for independent promoters, most notably Paul Lincoln Management. Reports of his matches against the likes of Pat Kloke, Linde Caulder and Peter Rann are of a very skilled wrestler.
With the merger of Lincoln into Joint Promotions he decided he did not want to pursue his career with the cartel. He continued to work for other opposition promoters for a few years but towards the end of the decade decided to retire from wrestling and became manager of the Riverboat Night Club in Salford. Management of one club led to management of many, until Benny retired and settled into a quieter life.
Benny Van Den Burg died in July, 2016, aged 83.
11512
Wrestling Heritage 