Also known as King Kendo
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William Arthur Clarke was born in 1938. An interest in weight training and judo pursued at the Boston Weight Training and Judo Club led to an interest in wrestling. Known professionally as Boston (or Big) Bill Clarke he made his professional debut in 1965 at the Boston Drill Hall against Adolf Dabrowski.
From almost the start of his career he was proudly proclaimed as Eastern Counties Heavyweight Champion banner. He was often partnered in tag matches by his “wrestling brother” Dick Harrison, who assumed the name Ron Clarke, as one half of the Lincolnshire Poachers tag team.
A couple of years after turning professional Bill and Les Lunne started promoting his own shows around East Anglia under the Starr Promotions banner. As a promoter he had considerable success and developed a loyal following in the Eastern counties as he provided regular work for local workers like John L Haggar, Bill Pye, Vince Apollo and Leno Larazzi. Star of the show was often Bill himself either in a single match or tag partnership.
Martin Campbell got to know Bill well as a journalist reporting on Starr shows at the Wisbech Town Hall, “Once the crowd had quietened down, and the wait was such that the hall had gone completely silent. Then … BANG!! Bill Clarke’s rifle blasted two shots before the Poachers made their way to the ring, and there was clearly nothing more guaranteed to get attention. I can still hear those shots! After 20 minutes of mayhem the Poachers were disqualified. Cue more chair throwing and attempts to get the crowd out and home before the Poachers could get back to the boot room.”
If that wasn’t colourful enough, or life wasn’t busy enoigh for this wrestler, promoter and daytime worker in the building trade, there was another side to Bill Clarke. Martin Campbell again. “Much maligned because of his future hooded activities, but in actual fact he was a fine wrestler with a great grasp of crowdpleasing … whether booing or cheering.”
Those hooded activities to which Martin alluded were a short chapter of Bill’s career when he pulled on a mask and wrestled as King Kendo. Frequently dismissed by fans of the original Kendo Nagasaki Bill Clarke capitalised on the Kendo name but was criticised by Nagasaki fans as a poor imitation of the real thing. But then who wouldn’t have been? His costume was a cut-price version of Nagasaki’s, with a shortened sword, mis-shapen visor and a simple red cape.
The masked impostor eventuallyengaged in a feud, both real and imaginary, with Nagasaki and was famously unmasked by the real Kendo on All Star Promotion bills in a series of loser to unmask contests in 1981. King Kendo only came to the fore in Joint Promotion rings when Nagasaki moved across to work for the independents in the mid 1980s. This brought King Kendo television exposure between 1986 and 1988, incuding the inevitable loss for partner Masked Spoiler and himself against Big Daddy and Andy Blair.
David Mantell told us that in 1982 Bill Clarke also wrestled as the Red Devil and was, said David, “Victim of perhaps the most humiliating unmasking ever – after the match Big Daddy grabbed him from behind in a headlock and practically ravished him out of the mask!” The truth is that Bill Clarke assumed numerous names in the 1980s, masked men Dr Blood and the Boston Strangler, and, just once, on an occasion recalled by promoter Graham Brooks: “My last show as a promoter was in 1987 at The Saddlers Football Club in Walsall. American football (and particularly “The Refrigerator” Perry) was big at the time so I hired an American football outfit from Jackie Carlton’s fancy dress shop in Manchester and Clarkee’s final appearance for me was as American footballer “Meat Cleaver” Kowalski.
Bill Clarke continued wrestling until the early 1990s, more than a quarter of a century devoted to the business, and we finally came across him in 1992.
William Arthur Clarke died on 10th October, 2018.
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