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Man Mountain
Man Mountain Bill Benny. There’s a name that brings back memories and arouses emotions. A bearded bruiser who was more than capable of creating mayhem and a bit of crowd violence.
The reddish brown beard and the girth made Benny a fearsome sight. He would stand centre ring, taunt the audience, roar at his opponent and then dart across the ring to seize his luckless opponent. If a smaller object, such as a referee, was to get in the way then that was just unfortunate. The fans were incensed but always went home feeling that it had been a good night out. If this gives the impression that Benny had little to offer in terms of wrestling skill then that is far from the truth. The man was a villain of the first order, but he was respected by his compatriots and we remember Accrington’s Jack Taylor reminiscing longingly about the contribution that Benny made to wrestling.
Widely known as a Mancunian William Benny was surprisingly born in Cornwall in 1918. Just when he moved northwards we don’t know but from his earliest wrestling outings, which we find in 1939, most of his matches were in northern England. None of which prevented the ever creative wrestling promoters billing him from all over the place including America, Australia and Mexico.
Benny was active during the Second World War and ready to emerge as one of the star names of the post war years, villain enough to arouse emotions without upsetting the sensibilities of the post war promoters who were striving to establish the business as a legitimate sport.
Belle Vue in Manchester was Benny’s local venue and he encountered fellow villains like Jack Pye and Black Butcher Johnson on his local turf. In the north west of England during the 1950s 1960s a common nickname for oversized men was “Man Mountain Benny,” an indication of the man’s social presence.
There are no championship matches to report, no career milestones, that was not the role of this giant (in more ways than one) of 1950s wrestling. In 1952 and 1953 he did spend a short run as a masked man, The Vampire. But that seemed to serve little purpose as reported by wrestling enthusiast Bernard Hughes, “On the 8th August 1953, I saw The Vampire unmasked by The Ghoul. It turned out to be Bill Benny. I had never seen Bill Benny wrestle as Benny and the night of the unmasking was the only time that The Vampire had been to Newcastle. Surely the normal thing would to have built up a big reputation for The Vampire at Newcastle to make this big top of the bill an attraction for all of the fans. Perhaps with a drawn match between the two in a build up to the big night, It was big enough to be a series. But it came and went without any fanfare. You would think that this bout would be a standout in my memory, but to tell the truth it isn’t.”
By the mid 1950s Bill was branching out and was propietor of the Stork Club in Manchester. Always on the look-out for publicity, at which he was very good, Bill made the papers in 1955 when dancers had to make way for his latest entertainment – fellow wrestler Carl Dane was invited to bring his performing pony to drink beer out of a pint pot!
In 1956 a Daily Mirror article contrasted the mixed fortunes of London clubs with the money making Manchester clubs, citing Bill Benny’s Northern Sporting Club, packed with 500 drinkers. In November, 1958 he announced he was to take over the Levenshulme Skating Rink and turn it into the Levenshulme Sporting Club.
In 1960 he bought the Hulme Hippodrome for £35,000, a theatre built as a music hall in 1901. At the time it was said he already owned four clubs in Manchester. Bill owned the theatre for two years until he sold it and it was turned into a bingo hall. Other clubs owned by Bill were The Cabaret Club on Oxford Road, and the Devonshire Club. Common to all of them was a night’s entertainment that included wrestling, bingo and variety. Apart from promoting wrestling in his Manchester clubs Bill promoted in larger halls including the Free Trades Hall in partnership with Paul Lincoln.
Bill was highly respected as an impresario and his death at the early age of forty-four was reported in the American entertainment magazine, Billboard. Even at the time of his death his colourful persona endured. Newspapers reported he died of a heart attack at home. Unofficially rumours abound that having suffered his heart attack the girl beneath him had to phone the police to remove his twenty stone girth. It may just be another wrestling myth. Maybe it would be a myth to make him smile.
Bill Benny, born 1918, died 29th September, 1963.
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